241] on the State of the Circulating Medium, &c. FEB. 2, 1819. the notoriety of circumstances essentially affecting the question, the House, or rather the new parliament, might act on the consistency of those principles by which parliament was influenced in the last session, and defer the examination until a more favourable moment, when the course of events should bring about that era at which the legitimate standard of value might be restored without putting to hazard the safety and industry of the country. But while this was his original opinion, the communication made to the executive government by the Bank, must of necessity have changed its application, and have rendered that examination desirable which before he thought inexpedient. The conduct of the Bank (and of that conduct he could not speak but with the highest respect) altered the character of the proceeding, and made it the imperative and bounden duty of his majesty's government to adopt the course which his right hon. friend the chancellor of the exchequer now proposed. But he wished no false impression of the nature of that communication should either fix itself on the minds of gentlemen in that House, or be circulated in the country. The Bank did not state that they were not both able and ready to resume their payments in cash. Their "We are language was widely different. ready," said they, "to do so, provided we are suffered to conduct our business singly with reference to our interests as bankers; but in doing so, we must of necessity be compelled to throw into oblivion all the interests of the country, and to turn a deaf ear to the wants of the public." And here he must be allowed to advert to what had fallen relative to the pledges of the Bank in the last session, from an hon. gentleman who spoke last, a gentleman to every observation of whom he was most disposed to listen with feelings of respect and pleasure. "It was thus," said he, "the Bank were ready to fulfil their declarations of being ready to resume their payments. In this manner have the assurances of the chancellor of the exchequer been realized," as if the expectations or pledges given under other circumstances, were obligatory in a case of such important consideration, or that a regard to consistency alone should influence the views of public duty, and bind the judgment of parliament. In place of resting the question on the consistency of his right hon. friend, the chancellor of (VOL. XXXIX.) £242 the exchequer (and he was disposed to insinuations which such an objection implied. In fact, he never hoped to get a committee of that House appointed, without a difference of opinion as to mode. When, however, the committee was constituted; and, should the right hon. gentleman and himself be members, he was confident, as had often happened to him on other committees with gentlemen with whom he differed, they would both come out of it with a better opinion of the should avoid the course, and rather fashion | 1797, successfully exposed the calumnious himself on the example of that general good humour which was characteristic of the right hon. gentleman in his discussions in that House. What, he would ask, could be the object of secrecy, but to prevent any partial statements finding their way to the country before the whole question was fully and deliberately examined? The House of Commons by an act of authority, were about to do that which, in the case of any private merchant, would be considered a great hardship-committee and of each other. What he they were proceeding to force an investigation into the entire concerns of a public body-an investigation that could only be justified by the conviction that the public interest and safety required it. Was it not but justice to the Bank, that the House should protect them from the effects of any improper impressions which the publicity of partial statements might produce? It was impossible to refuse it-the proceeding was recommended both by principle and the precedents of parliament. Then, the committee being secret, the next question was in what manner was it to be appointed. Was it to be the appointment of the right hon. gentleman, or of his right hon. friend the chancellor of the exchequer, or was it to be appointed by the ordinary mode in which secret committees were chosen? [Hear, hear! from the Opposition]. The hon. gentlemen opposite were loud on their old topic, -the election by ballot was their main resource-when they were forced to that retreat, they had not a leg to stand ontheir last defensive position was the old question of ballot [Hear! hear!] Those members of the last parliament would recollect the use then made of that objection. For his part he was determined not to argue it again. If, however, the right hon. gentleman wished to have his recollection renewed, he would refer him to the 'speech made by an hon. friend, not a very constant supporter of ministers, and of course in the opinion of the right hon. gentleman, an independent man [a laugh], but undoubtedly he could not so soon forget the rebuke that on that point he received from that hon. gentleman, the member for Bramber (Mr. Wilberforce). If that, however, was not sufficient to convince, he would beg of him to review the speech of another hon. member (Mr. Bankes), who as far back as the year * See vol. 37, p. 202. was much more afraid of than any difference between them, save the legitimate difference on grounds of free discussion, was, the not meeting with the right hon. gentleman in his place in the committee. He owed it, as a mark of respect to the character of the last parliament, to say, that there never was a committee, in the reports of which the great majority of members on those committees, who differed generally with his majesty's ministers, did not concur in their reports. He challenged, indeed, one ground of reproach against the result of their labours. If, then, the right hon. gentleman, should be a member of the present committee, he sincerely trusted that the impediment, which prevented, in the last session, his attendance, would not again occur, He calculated favourably for his presence, as he was happy to see him look so well. At the same time he trusted, that though he might present himself once or twice at the meeting of the committee, he would not, as on the former committee, turn tail [a laugh], because his views of a principle at setting out were not acceded to. Should they, however, meet there, he pledged himself to join issue with him most sincerely and cordially in discussing with the most unbiassed and enlightened views of which he was capable, a question of the most momentous concern-a question on which, he conscientiously believed, depended, not alone the social existence of this country, but of the civilized world. To speak of it as a question alone applicable to the affairs of the Bank, was a sacrifice of its high importance. Important as such a consideration was, yet when compared with the mighty interests that depended on it, it was but as a fly upon the wheel. In their deliberations were involved the peace and happiness and industry of the empire. Whether * Parl. Hist. vol. 32, p. 1561. 245] on the State of the Circulating Medium, &c. FEB. 2, 1819.01 [246 the tranquillity Europe enjoyed, should any temporary pressure should induce be preserved, depending, as it did, on the him to forego the advantage that should arrangements which followed, or be again ever be kept in view, of again restoring replunged into those convulsions from that legitimate standard of value, a mewhich it had so providentially recovered tallic circulation, provided no greater [Hear, hear1]. He was ready also to danger to the security and credit of the join issue with the right hon. gentleman country was not involved in the result.in deprecating any thing like a system of And here he thought the House must paper currency, to be upheld without weigh the absolute necessity of sustaining necessity, and which might truly be de- the national credit. Surely the right signated a forced circulation; but what hon. gentleman could not be insensible to he charged the right hon. gentleman with, the calamitous consequences of any meawas, that he confounded that restriction sure calculated to incapacitate the country on the legitimate element of commerce, from sustaining the burthens which the which the necessities of the country ren- national faith had imposed. The hon. dered necessary, and which the events of member who preceded him condemned the times had justified, with those forced the Bank for the gradual resumption of systems of paper in other countries, which payments in cash. It was, however, to arose from different principles, and which be recollected, that whatever alteration could plead no such justification. The had since occurred, the exchanges with right hon. gentleman asserted, that this foreign nations were at that time favourwas the only country in Europe where able to this country. And he could not such a currency was in circulation. In but consider such issue as wise, as it went France the public bank made its issues of to fill at first the domestic circulation, paper. Nothing, indeed, could be more But what would have been the effect, had fatal to the interests of a great country, they continued when the rate of exchange than the fact of the whole of its property, altered, and a difference of price, to the more or less, being incapable of being re- amount of 7 per cent existed between the presented by nothing but metallic money, bullion and mint price of gold? Such an more or less. He was ready to accede effect revolved itself into a commercial to the right hon. gentleman, that as long question. Not a yard of cloth would as the restriction continued, our circula- have found its way to the continent, from tion was deranged; but what he appre- the factories of Yorkshire or of Mancheshended most strongly was, that conse- ter, so long as the dealers in bullion could quences more to be deprecated would force the Bank to pay their notes in cash. follow, if any attempt, under untoward It would have converted the Bank, in circumstances, were made to force a me- place of being the dépôt for the supply of too the internal circulation of the country, tallic one. Such an attempt was likely to destroy the principles of repro- into a shop for the brokers in bullion to duction. In doing so, we should do the supply themselves with the metallic greatest injury to the poor man-to that means of carrying on their negotiations class of men who, from their wants, be- with the various parts of the continent came the superior objects of legislative [Hear!]-The right hon. gentleman had concern. It was worse than idle to hold spoken of the corporation of the Bank as out the hope of the low prices that would actuated alone by their own interests; in follow, unless at the same time a remune- no such opinion should he ever acquiesce. rating price was secured to all the other He felt the value of the service which, in classes of the community who kept the the most critical periods, they had renlabouring men in employment [Hear, dered the country. Without their aid we hear!]. Any measure that would deprive should have in vain looked forward to the the employers of that remuneration, must triumph of those exertions which we were in a short time destroy the hope of low enabled to conclude with such gloryprices to the poor. The advantage would without their aid, indeed, we might have be temporary-distress and misery must expected to realize all those failures follow, and the result would be a delusion which, in the moment of operation, the on the country. When, however, it could right hon. gentleman was so unremitting be fairly shown from the state of the ex- in predicting. But why endeavour to changes with foreign countries, that the throw this odium on the Bank? Even if Bank might open its vaults, even at the they were gainers, were they not so with risk of a reasonable sacrifice, no fear of other bankers, and only in a degree pro try a great accumulation of capital-and in the countries of the continent to produce a correspondent exhaustion. This country was not, however, so ungenerous as not to accommodate the continental nations again with loans. When the House recollected, that the interest of money had become doubled, it would see the effect which had been produced by the removal of that great capital which British sub portioned to their capital?-But, revert- | effect of a war was, to hoard in this couning to the main question, it had, from the progress of public events, even since the discussion of the last session, assumed new features. All the grounds on which its propriety rested then continued, and had an increased effect. The very extending of the periods for the payment of the instalments in which the loans had originated, proved the difficulties of resuming cash payments to be greater-it showed, that all the foreign markets were ex-jects had carried along with them into hausted, and that it would require a foreign countries. For his own part, longer period to bring them to bear. But though he believed that one method of there were also at the present moment creating credit was to be found in the other causes leading to the same tendency opening of the Bank, still he must mainin operation. The governments of the tain, that it would require a proportional continent, sensibly alive to the evils of time to enable them to establish cash what might be truly called a forced paper payments. What he had principally to circulation, had been awakened to a dou- complain of was, that the right hon. gen. ble feeling of anxiety to correct them. tleman who opened the debate, was teachThere were few of them that were not ing the people to believe, that the time employed in executing the problem of was already arrived for commencing that obtaining a metallic circulation. In try resumption. He protested that he himing to execute it they were proceeding self was of a very different opinion, and on wide and, in his judgment, impracti- that his opinion arose from a thorough cable theories, to acquire it by forced conviction, that no feeling of private inmeans, and thus they operated unnatural- terest could induce the Bank to neglect ly and violently on the money markets of their general duty to themselves and the Europe. If the Bank were to open under country. He was certain, that they bean exposure to such an influence, strong lieved in their consciences that they could as he knew it to be in its means, it must perform their duty, even though they restill feel powerfully the inconvenience of sumed cash payments under unfavourable such a pressure. A loan of three mil- exchanges. And yet no person would lions only in Russia was powerfully felt in contend, that under such circumstances the money markets of France; and though it would be proper for them to do so. great the distance of St. Petersburgh from For these reasons, as well as for those Paris, yet from that cause the Bank of which he had previously mentioned, he the latter was nearly suspended in its bu- must oppose the motion of the right hon. siness, and rendered almost incapable of gentleman. He might be wrong in makfulfilling its engagements. It was not, ing that opposition; but if a committee therefore, the extraordinary loans in ope- were appointed, and if the right hon. genration, but the experiments going on with tleman and himself were selected to be of different governments that tended to con- that committee, he should enter upon the vulse the money markets of Europe, and duties and deliberations attending it, with rendered the resumption by the Bank of an anxious desire of receiving every posEngland at the moment almost impracti- sible information regarding the subjects cable. Parliament recollected the first to which its attention was to be turned. necessity for the restriction in 1797. He was not obstinately attached to his That such a necessity ever existed they own opinion; far from it he would had never ceased to lament, even when change it, and would avow that change, experiencing the mighty means it afforded not with shame, but with an honest and in the vicissitudes of the war. But, great manly pride, if reasons were produced as were the difficulties, and over-ruling as which should render such a change newas the necessity, let not the House fancy cessary. The right hon. gentleman had that they terminated with the war, or that called upon the new members in the prethere were not difficulties of a peculiar sent parliament to recollect the duty nature applicable to the return of peace, which they owed to their country, and though from their character such difficul- had advised them not to "blood themties were in their nature transient. The selves" in the service of administration. 249] on the State of the Circulating Medium, &c. He trusted that they would have the good sense not to mind this exhortation of the right hon. gentleman; he trusted that they were so far made of the same British materials with the last parliament as to support the measures which they had adopted; he trusted that the ridicule and opprobrium which had been so lavishly used that evening would only produce the same effect upon them as it had produced upon their predecessors: for he thought that he need not tell them, that the system on which the right hon. gentleman had acted during the evening was not a new kind of tactics, but one to which he had been accustomed. Under these circumstances, he did not think it requisite for him to intrude any longer on the notice of the House, except it were to say, that he looked forward with confidence to the result of a division, if the right hon. gentleman opposite thought fit to press for a division that night. Mr. R. B. Cooper said, that as every man ought to vote according to his sense of right who claimed to be independent, he should briefly state his opinion on the present important question. As a new member of the House, he could not help expressing his surprise, that the first point selected for a division should be a point on which they were all agreed. They were all agreed, that the Bank ought to pay in specie, whenever that payment could be made with security; they were all agreed that a previous inquiry was necessary before such a payment was commenced; and the point on which they differed appeared to be nothing more than a simple point of etiquette: that point, stripped of all extraneous matter, reduced itself to this-whether the motion now under discussion had originated with the right hon. gentleman opposite or with his majesty's chancellor of the exchequer. Now it had been confessed, that the present motion was only a prelude to an inquiry into the state of public credit; and if it were so, then it was a motion originating with his majesty's ministers, though it might indeed have been amplified and enlarged by the right hon. gentleman. If he were called upon to vote on this question, he should vote for the amendment of the chancellor of the exchequer; because he conceived it to be more precise, distinct, and comprehensive than the original motion. Mr. Maberly said, that he rose for the purpose of offering his opinion on this most important question, in consequence |