opinion of this meeting, been in a certain degree occasioned by circumstances of a different nature, and far more extensive influence; and such as, this meeting trust, will, upon enquiry, be found to justify an expectation of relief from the assistance of parliament, under the sanction of the lords commissioners of his majesty's treasury. That the system of warehousing goods for re-exportation (without payment of duty) having been brought into complete operation by the construction of the West India and London Dock warehouses, and of similar receptacles for merchandize in the principal out-ports, the events which have occurred during the last two years have tended to make Great Britain the emporium of the trade, not only of the peninsula, but also of the Brazils, of the Spanish settlements in South America, St Domingo, the conquered colonies of Guadaloupe, Martinique, &c. but even of countries under the direct influence of the enemy, whose traders have been anxious to avail themselves of the protection of British laws and of the honour of British merchants. And thus it has, from these simultaneous and co-operating causes, happened, that in a short space of time, goods have been brought to this country, in amount beyond all precedent, and all calculation. That the power, wealth, and high character of the nation, have in fact contributed to produce a most alarming evil. And the measures of the enemy having been especially directed to the preventing the exportation of the immense quantities of merchandize of all descriptions thus accumulated, the consequences are, that the goods are become a burthen, and the advances to the owners on account, and the payment of freight and insurance, have become grievous, in such a degree, as to threaten the most solid and respectable houses with all the evils of insolvency. That it has been the effect of this combination of circumstances, to produce a general distrust and want of confidence, whereby the evil has been incalculably aggravated, and is daily extending; so that, unless some immediate and effectual remedy be provided, the consequences will, in the opinion of this meeting, certainly prove of a fatal description to the trade and manufactures of this city, and the kingdom at large, and every interest dependent upon them. That this meeting therefore consider it as incumbent on them, to submit these deeply interesting matters to the consideration of the lords commissioners of his majesty's treasury; humbly soliciting that relief may be afford. ed by a loan of exchequer bills, as was done in a similar case of commercial difficulty (but of a much less alarming extent) in the year 1793, for such period, and with such regulations, as, under all the circumstances herein set forth, shall appear to be just and expedient. That Messieurs Thomas Reid, J. J. Angerstein, John Tunno, John Inglis, and the deputies from Glasgow and Paisley, be requested to wait on the Chancellor of the Exchequer with ■ copy of these resolutions. Report on Petition of several Wea vers, &c. The commitee to whom the petition of several thousand manufacturers and artizans in the town of Manchester and neighbourhood; and also, the pe tition of several weavers and spinners of cotton, handicrafts, artists, and la bourers, resident in the town of Bolton, in the county of Lancaster, or its vinicity, were referred, to examine the matter thereof, and report the same, with their observations thereupon, to the house; and to whom the petitions of persons residing in the town of Paisley and suburbs thereof; and of heritors, manufacturers, merchants, mechanics, and labourers of all denominations, residing in Lancaster, Ayr, and Renfrew shires, and the manufacturing places adjacent ;-were referred ; Have carefully and maturely examined the various suggestions submitted to their consideration; all of which appear to your committee, to be exposed to insuperable objections; some, as being of a nature too important and too extensive to fall within the limits of enquiry, which the committee thought it their duty to prescribe to themselves; others, as calculated either to restrict the number of hands when manufactures are flourishing; to confine workmen to a trade in which, by a change of circumstances, they may be no longer able to find employ; to arrest the progress of improvement, and of facilities for abridging labour, on grounds which, at former periods, must have been equally strong against the introduction of the loom itself; and to infringe on personal liberty, in that most essential point, the free exercise of industry, of skill, and of talent and have especially considered the expedient suggested to them, of administering pecuniary aid out of the public revenue. "While your committee fully acknowledge, and most deeply lament the great distress of numbers of persons engaged in the cotton manufacture, in various trades connected with it, arising from circumstances which have caused the sale of cotton goods to decline, and consequently the demand for labour in these trades, and in that manufacture, to be reduced; they are of opinion, that no interference of the legislature with the freedom of trade, or with the perfect liberty of every individual to dispose of his time and of his labour, in the way and on terms which he may judge most con ducive to his own interest, can take place, without violating general principles of the first importance to the prosperity and happiness of the community; without establishing the most pernicious precedent, or even without aggravating, after a very short time, the pressure of the general distress, and imposing obstacles against that distress being ever removed; or, if the interference were extended to all trades and occupations, as it manifestly must be, when the system has been acted on in any, without producing great public mischief, and being destructive of the happiness and comfort of individuals. "But above all, your committee are most decidedly of opinion that grants of pecuniary aid, to any particular class of persons suffering under temporary distress, would be utterly inefficacious as to every good purpose, and most objectionable in all points of view; particularly as they could not fail of exciting expectations unbounded in extent, incapable of being realized, and most likely to destroy the eliquibrium of labour and of employment, in the various branches of manufacture, of commerce, and of agriculture." Report of Committee relative to the The Earl of Lauderdale, after observing that the information before the committee on this subject only extended to the comparative increase of business in the court of Chancery between the periods of ten years up to 1755, and ten years from 1800, moved for an account of the business before that court from 1755 to 1800, and the number of decrees from 1755 to 1810. The Earl of Liverpool had no objection to the motion, but could not consent to delay, till the information was produced, the measure in contem plation for the more speedy hearing of appeals in that house, which he thought it was of great importance should be passed before the session closed, in order that they might begin in the next session on the new arrangement.-The motion was agreed to. The order of the day was read for taking into consideration the report of the committee relative to the state of appeals in the House of Lords. The report was read by the clerk at the table as follows: Resolved, That it is the opinion of this committee, that it is indispensably necessary, and that it so appears to be from the great number of appeals and writs of error now depending in the house, amounting together to 338, of which 296 are appeals, and 42 writs of error, that a greater pro portion of the time of the House of Lords should be employed in hearing appeals, than has been hitherto allotted to this part of the business of the house; and that it will be expedient, therefore, that the house should determine to sit for this purpose at least three days in every week during the session, meeting at ten o'clock at latest on each day till the present arrear of causes shall have been considerably reduced, and subsequently two days in the week at least, meeting at the same hour. That as the above regulation will unavoidably take up a large portion of the time of the Lord Chancellor, which would have been employed in other judicial duties, as appears from the statement contained in the appendix, of the periods during which the Lord Chancellor usually sits in the court of Chancery, it is absolute ly necessary that some relief should be afforded to him in the discharge of such other judicial duties. "Resolved, That it is the opinion of this committee, not only that the judicial business of the House of Lords hath so increased as to require a greater portion of the Lord Chancellor's time than was heretofore necessary for the execution thereof, and therefore, to disable him from giving sufficient attendance in the court of Chancery, but that it also appears from the statements in the appendixes of the compa rative quantity of business in the court at different periods, its judicial establishments having continued the same, that there is a considerable increase thereof, taking together the whole of the different kinds of business transacted in the court; and that it is therefore expedient, in order to secure at the same time a sufficient attendance upon the House of Lords by the Lord Chancellor, and sufficient means for carrying on the business in the court of Chancery, that an additional judge in the court of Chancery should be appointed. "Resolved, That it appears to this committee to be expedient that such judge should hold his office during good behaviour, and that he should be of a rank correspondent with that of the Master of the Rolls. "Resolved, That it is the opinion of this committee, that it is expedient to revive the practice which formerly prevailed in the House of Lords of li miting the period in each session, after which appeals shall not be received in that session, "Resolved, That it is the opinion of this committee, that it is expedient to order all the parties in the appeals and writs of error, which may be depending at the close of the present session in the House of Lords, to lay the prints of their cases upon the table of the house, before the end of the first week in the next session of parliament, in order that the house may be enabled to form some judgement of the nature of the cases which have been brought before them; and that it should be an order of the house that the prints in all cases of appeals and writs of error should be hereafter laid upon the table of the house, within a time to be limited after such appeals and writs of error have been presented." The Earl of Liverpool, after an able and perspicuous commentary on the necessity of adopting measures for the more expeditious transaction of the judicial business of the house, and the beneficial tendency of adopting the resolutions, recommended by the committee, moved their lordships to agree to the first resolution. Earl Stanhope cordially agreed with the noble secretary, that every thing which tended to dispatch in such cases was desirable; but with the resolution as now proposed he could not agree. It proceeded on a principle that a number of cases should be left or kept untried. This, he thought was wrong, as they should proceed until the whole arrear should be wiped off, instead of "considerably reduced," as the resolution had it; and he should move to amend it accordingly. The Earl of Liverpool reminded the noble earl, that the resolution referred only to appeals and writs of error. The house had other judicial business to attend to, and which occupied a great portion of their lordships' time, as the cases of the Berkeley and the Banbury peerages this session amply evinced. There must always, from the nature of the thing, be some cases remaining untried, and he thought it would be preferable to leave the resolution as it stood, when the arrear should be considerably reduced, the house could decide on the most preferable mode of proceeding under the circumstances. Earl Grey approved of the amendment. He thought they should proeeed in the most expeditious way until the whole arrear was extinguished; and that it would be proper to introduce into that part of the resolution, instead of the present words, the following: "Until the then existing arrear of causes shall be extinguished." The Earl of Liverpool repeated his argument in favour of the resolution as it now stood; and thought it would be better to leave the point to the subsequent discretion of the house, according to circumstances, as they were now guided in several other points of a nature nearly similar. The question was then put on an amendment, as suggested by Earl Grey, which was negatived without a division. The Earl of Liverpool then moved the adoption of the second resolution. The Earl of Lauderdale recurred to his former argument, that the house had not sufficient information before them, as to the business of the court of Chancery, to warrant the adoption. The Lord Chancellor briefly observed upon the vast increase of the number of appeals in that house since the periods adverted to by the noble earl; it was tenfold. The Earl of Lauderdale, in reply, contended, that the information required was essentially necessary, to enable the house to form a judgement of the merits of the question. When Lord Loughborough presided in that house, there was only one year of appeals in arrear, and yet they had no information as to the state of the chancery business at that period. He meant not to speak either in praise or depreciation of the conduct of any noble lord while in that situation. He only wished they should be informed as to the matter of fact. Earl Grey, referring to the increase of ballances in the hands of the accomptant-general, observed, that it was no proof of the increase of the general business of the court of Chancery. Lord Liverpool's motion was adopted; as were the others founded on the several resolutions of the Committee, seriatim. FINANCE. Mr Horner's Resolutions. 1. "That the only money which san be legally tendered in Great Britain, for any sum above twelve-pence in the whole, is made either of gold or silver; and that the weight, standard, and denomination, at which any such money is authorized to pass current, is fixed, under his majesty's preroga tive, according to law. 2. "That since the 43d year of the reign of queen Elizabeth, the indentures of his majesty's mint have uniformly directed that all silver used for coin should consist of 110%. 2dwts. of fine silver, and 18dwts. of alloy in each pound Troy and that the said pound Troy should be divided into 62 shillings, or into other coins in that proportion. : 3. "That since the 15th year of the reign of King Charles the Second, the indentures of his majesty's mint have uniformly directed, that all gold used for coin, should consist of 110%. of pure gold and 10% of alloy in each pound Troy; and that the said pound Troy should be divided and coined into 44 guineas and one half-guinea, or into other coins in that proportion. 4. "That by a proclamation of the 4th year of the reign of King George the First, it was ordered and directed, that guineas and the several other gold coins therein named, should be current at the rates and values then set upon them; viz. the guineas at the rate of 21 shillings, and other gold coins in the same proportion; thereby establishing, that the gold and silver coins of the realm should be a legal tender in all money payments, and a standard measure for ascertaining the value of all contracts for the payment of money, in the relative proportion of 15,2 15% pounds weight of sterling silver to one pound of sterling gold. 5. "That by a statute of the 14th year of the reign of his present majesty, subsequently revived and made perpetual by a statute of the 39th year of his reign, it is enacted, that no tender in payment of money made in the sil ver coin of this realm, of any sum exceeding the sum of 25l. at any one time, shall be reputed in law, or allowed to be a legal tender, within Great Britain or Ireland, for more than according to its value by weight, after the rate of 5s. 2d. for each ounce of silver. 6. "That by a proclamation of the 16th year of the reign of his present majesty, confirmed by several subsequent proclamations, it was ordered and directed, that if the weight of any guinea shall be less than 5dwts. 8grs. such guinea shall cease to be a legal tender for the payment of any money within Great Britain or Ireland; and so in the same proportion for any other gold coin. 7. "That under these laws (which constitute the established policy of this realm in regard to money,) no contract or undertaking for the payment of money, stipulated to be paid in pounds sterling, or in good and lawful money of Great Britain, can be legally satisfied and discharged in gold coin, unless the coin tendered shall weigh in the proportion of parts of 5dwts. gers. standard gold for each pound sterling, specified in the said contract; nor in silver coin, for a sum exceeding 251. unless such coin shall weigh in the portion of of a pound Troy of standard silver for each pound sterling specified in the contract. pro 8. "That the promissory notes of the bank of England are stipulations to pay, on demand, the sum in pounds sterling respectively specified in each. of the said notes. |