his canvass, unless he belonged to the place for which he offered himself as a representative? What distinction did the noble lord make with respect to parishes having 20,000 inhabitants, and other less populous parishes? How was the act intended to operate in conterminous parishes, in one of which a meeting should exceed a certain number? Were strangers to be warned off, as soon as the excess in point of numbers was perceived? Or suppose some hapless orator were to stand exactly in the boundary, and address two parishes, one having a greater number than the act allowed, would it not then appear that one part of his frame might be committing an illegal act, because although on one side he addressed himself to 10,000, on the other his auditors exceeded that number? Another ground why he and his hon. friends did not wish to press this question to a division was, that they had no information as to the facts alleged. There were many assertions, but not one had yet been proved. He would not now give any farther opinion upon this subject, but he trusted that, unless the House should get security for the truth of all the facts now brought forward as the ground and justification of these measures, and for their absolute necessity, they would object to them in toto. Even should those facts be substantiated, he would not now pledge himself to the vote which he might feel it his duty to give on any part of these measures. As to the liberty of the press, and the proposed restrictions on it, he would only say, that, admitting a certain degree of mischief to exist, and allowing that something should be done, yet one of his great objections was, that while the proposed measures tended to submit that great blessing to a kind of arbitrary authority, they did not tend to provide a remedy for the actual evil complained of. What that remedy should be he would not then pretend to say; but he pledged himself to oppose every restriction which did not, in his opinion, provide one; and at some future period to put the House in possession of his views on the subject.

Lord Rancliffe observed, that it had been his custom to express his sentiments merely by his vote; and he should not now have deviated from it, but that being convinced by the reasons of his hon. and learned friend, he would not press this matter to a division, and was therefore (VOL. XLI.)

desirous of declaring, that he regarded the whole of the proposed measures as highly unconstitutional.

Mr. George Lamb thought the time was now arrived when the House should show that it meant to deal even-handed justice to the people. He viewed with perfect horror the measures which had been proposed; but he wished to know whether there was to be a scintilla of justicesomething like a show of reparation-to the people for a right taken away? When the House was about to pass measures restrictive of their liberties, and to deprive them of some of their ancient privileges, it would be but fair to remove certain practices which they, on their part, had found to be oppressive. He would ask the attorney-general whether, when the right of traverse was under some circumstances to be taken away, and the party accused put immediately on his trial, it would not be just that he, the law-officer of the Crown, should be deprived of the power of suspending ex officio informations for any length of time, over the heads of his majesty's subjects.

Strangers were again ordered to withdraw, and the gallery was cleared, as. if for a division. None, however, took place: the bill was read a first time, and the second reading fixed for Thursday.

HOUSE OF LORDS.

Tuesday, November 30.

STATE OF THE COUNTRY.] The Marquis of Lansdowne rose, in pursuance of his notice, in furtherance of a duty, the importance of which he most seriously felt, to propose to their lordships to appoint a committee to inquire into the state of the country, and more particularly with reference to the distress of the manufacturing districts, and the execution of the laws. In doing this, he felt all the difficulty of the task he had undertaken, and was sensible how much reason he had to lay claim to their lordships' indulgence for the details into which he should find it necessary to enter in bringing this important subject under their consideration. He was aware, however, that he came before them at a time when there could be little difference of opinion as to the momentous nature of the subject on which he was addressing them. It had been common, and nothing was more natural on ordinary occasions, to impute to noble lords on that side of the House, (2 E)

a disposition to magnify the dangers of the country, and to accuse the noble lords on the other side of placing them in a point of view by which they were too much diminished. But, at the present moment, this difference of opinion did not prevail. Indeed, when he recollected what had taken place within these few years; when he considered that within the last month there had been added to an already large standing army, a force, or rather a new army, greater than that which a hundred years ago had been thought sufficient for internal defence, and external operations; when he found their lordships' table, and that of the other House, covered with measures for restraining the liberty of the subject; when he saw all this, joined to the great anxiety which every where prevailed respecting the state of the country -an anxiety which was greatly increased by the conduct of those in whose hands the government of the Prince Regent was placed-he was convinced that it would be a waste of their lordships' time to offer any argument on the extent of the existing danger. He felt this conviction the more, when he considered that their lordships were called upon by the Prince Regent's ministers to adopt measures check or avert the evil. It must from all these circumstances be admitted that a prima facie case was made out for requiring their lordships to consider the nature and cause of the danger, and the remedies which ought to be applied.

to

To perform this duty, it would be necessary for their lordships to take a large and comprehensive view of the situation of the country, in order that they might be enabled to make up their minds to the whole extent of the mischief, and to the means of cure; and, in particular to ascertain whether they had nothing more to do than to pass the bills which the noble secretary of state had recommended for their adoption, and then to return tranquilly to their duties or amusements in the country.

The variety of considerations that offered themselves, and the difficulty of making out particular cases, were the chief reasons which induced him to bring the subject in the shape he proposed before their lordships. He was confident that it would be a great mistake, were their lordships to content themselves with taking a partial view of the situation of the country. To look merely at partial danger would tend only to mislead, and produce a false conclusion. This kind of

error would be inevitable, if they founded their opinion on any single circumstance or transaction, without connecting it with the whole situation of the country, and bringing under their review not only the events which had taken place, but the causes of those events. No man could look at the events which had recently occurred, but must feel that violence was to be repressed by violence, and that sedition of every kind was to be put down by the law. But when the violence was repressed, and the sedition subdued, was not the evil which had led to that state of things to be explored? Were their lordships to stop at this point, and forget that it was their duty to look farther, and to consider how the causes of the evil could be removed? Their lordships must not be satisfied with finding a case made out with respect to the circulation of seditious publications; but must inquire into the cause which produced them, and obtained for them readers. It was not sufficient for them to know, that itinerant demagogues had travelled over the country, addressing seditious harangues to multitudes of people; they were bound to make themselves acquainted with the causes which had produced these extraordinary effects, and to ascertain why so many tongues were thus employed, and why they found so many ears disposed to listen to them. It would be in vain to attempt to discover these causes by any partial view or examination, as it would be absurd to account for them by their effects. From all that their lordships had seen, it appeared that there existed among the people a strong desire that something should be done to ameliorate their situation. Whatever desire there was of change, it appeared to be founded merely in a feeling of uneasiness, and exhibited a wish to embrace any scheme whatever, which might appear calculated to give them relief. Looking, then, at all the circumstances which had come to their lordships' knowledge, it appeared that one principal cause of this feeling, and one which unfortunately was founded in truth, was distress. He did not mean to say that there were not other causes which were calculated to excite great jealousy among the people-a jealousy even justified by the acts of that and the other House of Parliament; but it was evident that the spirit which, under the name of radicalism, had prevailed in different parts of the country, had always taken a deeper

root, and more vigorously flourished, in proportion to the extent of the distress of those to whom that fallacious and destructive doctrine was recommended. This would be evident, if their lordships took the trouble to compare the state of the agricultural and the manufacturing districts. The agricultural labourers, though not in that happy situation in which they had formerly stood, were much better off than the labourers or manufacturers. Accordingly, it would be found, that it was in the manufacturing districts only that the mischief which their lordships were called upon to correct had any existence. If he went farther, and inquired among what descriptions of manufacturers the poison was most widely diffused, he was again compelled to point to those who were suffering under the greatest degree of distress. Among the cotton-manufacturers, whose situation was worse than that of any other class, the spirit of radicalism had been carried to the greatest extent. It was important that their lordships should feel the truth of this view of the subject, in order that their attention might be fully directed to the state of the manufacturing districts, which formerly employed so great a part of the population of the country. From statements which he had before him on the table, he could prove to their lordships, that in all the great stations of the cotton-manufacture, such as Manchester in England, and Glasgow and Paisley in Scotland, the earnings of the manufacturers had, at an average, fallen more than one half. Even adding all that could be obtained by working additional hours, the average rate of payment did not exceed 5s. a week in the principal manufacturing districts. There were, however, other places where, from local circumstances, the master manufacturers could not afford to give even so much as 5s. a week. This was the case at Maybole, in Scotland, and some other parts, where, from the smallness of the capital of the master manufacturers, they had been compelled to reduce the rate of wages to half-a-crown per week. There were other places where the price varied to 4s. and 5s., and where some addition was supplied to the labourer from other sources.

He would not trouble their lordships by entering farther into the details which the papers before them afforded; these details were all ofthe same description, and proved to demonstration, that it was this

lamentable distress which afforded employment to the agents of sedition. It was the material on which they worked. It became their lordships to turn their attention to this distress, and to investigate its causes. Those causes appeared to be of no recent date, and their operation might be traced, through the last twenty years, to measures of political economy, connected with the political events of the times. It was one effect of great civilization to produce a great quantity of fixed capital; and the greater that capital was, the greater became the difficulty when any derangement of its usual course of employment took place, of throwing it into new and productive channels. That very division of labour, too, which was another consequence of social improvement and high civilization, formed on such occasions an additional evil; for the workman became a part of the same fixed capital, inasmuch as the talent and ingenuity he had acquired in his particular art or manufacture could not be otherwise employed. It was in every sense of the word, in his hands a fixed capital, which he could not remove to any other productive source of employment. When a great proportion of the population of a country was employed in manufactures, of which a diminished demand suddenly took place, the distress produced must be great. The mastermanufacturers lowered the rate of wages : this reduction induced the labourers to work a greater number of hours; and thus more goods were produced, which served only to add to the evil. During the late war it happened (for it was the effect of every war to throw capital into new channels), that various profitable branches of commerce were carried to a great extent. In the course of a contest which had continued longer than any other in which the country had been engaged, and which was connected with a monopoly of the carrying trade, the commercial advantages which presented themselves were necessarily great. The effect of the profitable employment of capital was, to raise up a vast population, supported by means which, from their very nature, could not be permanent. connected with this circumstance was the disproportion which naturally followed between the agricultural and manufacturing part of the population, the latter being to the former in the proportion of of 900,000 families to 700,000.

Intimately

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evil was greatly aggravated by some other circumstances in our domestic policy, by the state of the finances, the Poor-laws, and our paper currency.

Without troubling their lordships with all the details into which he might enter, to prove the pernicious influence resulting from such a state of things, it would be sufficient for him to remind them, that the poor laws, by making up to the labourer the deficiency of wages, had served as a bounty for an artificial speculation in manufactures. The paper currency also afforded another means of artificial speculation. Capital and labour having, in the manner he had described, been thrown into new channels, a great charge was imposed upon the public, when the cause which produced the impulse was with drawn. The population which had been raised by commercial speculations during the war, was thrown back upon the country, in a very different situation from that in which the population stood at the commencement of hostilities. They required aid, when the means which the country had of affording it was greatly diminished, This could not surprise their lordships, when they considered the effect of a revenue increased from sixteen to between fifty and sixty millions, and the burthen which such an increase necessarily imposed; when they considered that every individual in the country was subject to burthens equal to triple the amount of what had been paid before the war; and that, compared with the principal manufacturing countries of Europe, our charges were double, and considerably more than the double of those countries. These circumstances could not be left out of any view which their lordships were called upon to take of the internal situation of the country. When they reflected on the effects which must naturally result from such a state of things, could their lordships be surprised, that many among the unfortunate part of the population he had described, were disposed to listen to projects which might be suggested for better ing their condition, without examining the nature of those projects with sufficient discrimination: ? Having exhausted all their means in a struggle between life and misery, was it surprising if nothing was done to remove the cause, that they should proceed from poverty to crime, till society, grown weary of the load, wished to shake off the incumbrance? It was however, satisfactory, to their lord

ships to know, that, notwithstanding the industry of the agents of sedition in working on this distress, the poison had not extended to all the population of districts in which the misery prevailed; and that by far the greater portion was acknowledged to continue firm in their allegiance. Even at Manchester, where that unfortunate event had occurred of which he should speak more at large by and by, it appeared that there was no ground for supposing the majority of the distressed population disaffected. If their lordships referred to the papers on the table, they would find that Mr. Hay considered only a part of the mob that composed the meeting to be what he called reformers. Of whom, then, did the other part of the meeting consist? Certainly not of persons whose minds had been poisoned by seditious publications, or by the harangues of itinerant demagogues. Besides, what proof had ministers afforded of the dangerous spirit having spread beyond the distressed districts, or of any thing which could stamp the character of treason or disaffection on the population in general? Policy, as well as humanity, called upon their lordships to devote all their minds to the present situation of the country. If by any apparent want of attention, an opinion should prevail among the middling classes of society, that their interests were either not duly consulted, or sacrificed to other interests, it was impossible to calculate what might be the consequences of such an impression. Then vain would be levies of soldiers, and all enactments of severe laws. Then would the arm of the constitution be withered, and those institutions which had been the pride of the country, and the safeguards of liberty, and which depended entirely on the confidence of the people, would be annihilated. He thought the situation of the country in this respect truly alarming; for if the middling classes were to become disaffected to the institutions of their ancestors, it was impossible to say where the danger which their lordships were called upon to avert would end.

Having said thus much, with the view of impressing on their lordships the necessity of diligently investigating the causes of the existing discontents, he should now proceed to consider what means of cure might be in the power of the legislature-first, with reference to the causes of the distress; and secondly