ments of so numerous a body of men, called for the most serious attention of the House. If the allegations contained in the petition, or any thing like them, could be substantiated in evidence, he was free to say, that the tax complained of ought immediately to be repealed; and if he was satisfied that there were just grounds for the complaints, he would himself be the first man to move for the repeal. He did not, however, think the tendency of the tax so ruinous as the petitioners apprehended it to be: before he took the liberty to propose it to parliament, he had consulted with some of the most eminent manufacturers in the cotton branch; and they were so far from thinking the tax destructive, that it was proposed with their full consent. It might be said, indeed, that these persons, of whom he was speaking, had not been authorized by the other manufacturers to give their assent to the tax: this he now believed to be the case; but he did not know that last year; but without knowing it, he would have thought himself justified in proposing a tax, to which a number of the most respectable and opulent manufacturers, acting as private individuals, and not as deputies, did not start any objection. Nor, indeed, did it appear from the petition, that the complaints were directed so much against the tax itself, as the mode of collecting it; and therefore a modification of the collection, should any alteration at all be thought necessary, might answer all the purposes of the petition. His objection did not go to the petition itself, but to the particular day on which the hon. member wished to have it taken into consideration. He wished the hon. gentleman would fix upon some other day rather than Monday.

Mr. Stanley rejoiced that the right hon. member had gone so far as to declare, that if the allegations could be substantiated, the tax ought not to be suffered to exist; for if his information was true, the allegations were, he was sorry to say it, but too well founded. The effects of the tax had been already found so ruinous, that the capital manufacturers were discharging their men as fast as the latter brought home their work. However, as the right hon. gentleman seemed to wish that a more distant day should be fixed upon, he felt himself disposed to gratify him, provided it were before the Easter recess.

Mr. Fox proposed Monday, and stated his reasons. He was of opinion that the House ought to declare its sentiments re

lative to the allegations of so immense a body of petitioners, before the Irish business was brought to a final determination; as gentlemen would be better able to pronounce upon the latter, when they should have thoroughly examined the former. The benefit of previous examination would be easily seen, on a reference to the fifth Irish proposition, which said, that when there was an internal duty on the manufacture of one country, a duty might be laid on the importation of that by the other to countervail the former. It was at this moment impossible for the House to ascertain whether the complaints of the petitioners arose from the tax itself, or from the manner of collecting it; if they arose merely from the mode of collecting, then the duty on Irish cottons imported must take place. But this difficulty could not be removed, without a thorough investigation.

Mr. Pitt still persevered in his opinion, that Monday would not be the properest day for taking the petition into consideration; at the same time he would consent that it should stand for that day, provided the hon. gentleman would consent to put it off afterwards to some other day, if the examinations relative to the Irish affairs should not be concluded before that day. He did not know that the House could come to any decision on the Irish propositions before the holidays: he was willing to give time for inquiry into the grouuds of the petitions that had been already presented in opposition to them, and for the presenting of others.

Mr. Stanley was of opinion, that the evils of which the petitioners complained were of so pressing a nature, that the House ought to inquire into the foundation of them without the least delay. As he had said before, the manufacturers, unwilling to submit any longer to the hardships arising from a burthensome tax, and from a still more burthensonie mode of collecting it, had resolved to discharge their workmen as they brought home their work: this had already been done to a great degree; and so numerous was the body of men thus thrown out of employ, that they were begging through the streets in crowds, living only on the bounty of their opulent fellow-citizens, who were thus obliged to tax themselves very high in order to prevent the manufacturers from emigrating to some other country in search of employment.

Mr. Dundas observed, that much greater

plan was in contemplation; but the great manufacturing towns believed that there was; and the minister would do well to remove such an impression.

inconvenience would arise from fixing the order of hearing evidence in support of this petition on Monday next than on a more distant day; for the parties concerned in it had not as yet brought their witnesses up to town. On the other hand, the persons concerned in the petitions against the Irish propositions were actually in town with their witnesses, and would be put to very considerable expense and inconvenience if they should be detained from their business till after the holidays.

Mr. Pitt said, he believed the hon. member who presented the petition must have been mis-informed, and the evil greatly exaggerated, when he was told that the manufacturers who had applied to the House for relief were, whilst their petition was pending, actually discharging their workmen. No one would suppose, that if the relief called for was to be granted, they would give up their business; and yet the discharging of their men would operate as a dereliction of that business, which had hitherto been, and which he hoped ever would continue to be, source of wealth to this country. It was certainly highly improbable, that men should discharge the hands by which they prospered, at least until such time as they should find that parliament would not redress the grievances of which they complained.

Mr. Eden said, that the petition was of a very serious nature, and called for the most solemn investigation: he begged, however it might be understood, that he, for one, would protest against the repeal of any subsisting tax, unless the most undeniable proof should be adduced that the tax would destroy the manufacture. It would, therefore, be for the petitioners to consider whether they were able to prove, either that the tax was absolutely ruinous to their manufacture, or that the manner in which it was collected was burthensome beyond their strength.

Lord Beauchamp said, that the introduction of excise officers into the houses of manufacturers, by the law for imposing a duty on cottons, &c. had spread a great alarm through the country: the chamber of commerce of Birmingham had caused circular letters to be sent to all the manufacturing towns in the neighbourhood, to invite them to withstand, what they conceived to be a fixed plan, to introduce the excise laws by degrees into all private houses. He would not say that any such

Mr. Rose was surprised that the late tax upon cottons should have spread an alarm, as if his right hon. friend meant to introduce the excise laws into the houses of all the manufacturers. His right hon. friend had found a tax already upon printed goods, &c. and he had only extended it. He was surprised, therefore, that a mere extension could be thought by any man an introduction on a principle.

Mr. Egerton said, that though the right hon. gentleman might think it strange that the manufacturers should dismiss their workmen, the fact was not the less true; and he could assure him, that if relief was not granted very speedily, above 40,000 men would be thrown out of employment in Lancashire.

Mr. Burke said, the consideration of the petition ought not to be deferred longer than Monday. Nothing was more dangerous to manufacturers and to morals, than to have large bodies of men, who were able to work, supported by public charity; alms begat idleness, idleness led to crimes, and crimes were the proofs of the destruction of morality. He was astonished to hear an hon. member express his surprise, that an extension could be thought by any means introductory of a principle.' Now, for his part, he was more alarmed at this mode of reasoning than the hon. gen tleman might expect; for it led to this→→ something as yet unprecedented must be done; and when once done, it became a precedent on which many others were founded; and upon the strength of this first introduction, the precedent was extended, step by step, and repeated so frequently, that the principle was at last worn out and forgotten: so that in argument it would be no longer said, the principle was good,' but it would be urged, that it was the common practice, and therefore nothing was to be apprehended from it. Thus, if the exciseman was once permitted to set one foot in a house, he was sure afterwards to drag in the other, and so at last introduce his whole body. He concluded with an expression of a man, who, from the place where he (Mr. Burke) was then speaking, had declared that the cyder tax ought to be repealed, because it established a dangerous precedent.' This expression, he said, would have weight with many

gentlemen, but particularly with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, when he should inform them that it had been used by the late earl of Chatham.

The Petition was ordered to be taken into consideration on Monday.

Debate in the Commons on the Offices Reform Bill.] March 8. On the motion for the third reading of the Bill," for appointing commissioners to inquire into the fees, gratuities, perquisites, and emoluments, which are, or have been lately, received in the several public offices therein mentioned; to examine into any abuses which may exist in the same, and to report such observations as shall occur to them for the better conducting and managing the business transacted in the said offices,"

Mr. Sheridan rose to make good his assertions of a former day relative to there being no necessity for any such bill, as the board of Treasury already possessed full powers to do every thing which the Bill avowed for its object. He said it was not the same Bill as that of a former session, since at least four-fifths of the former Bill were not in the present. He then stated the minute of the board of Treasury in lord Shelburne's administration, and reasoned upon it as a proof that an inquiry, similar to that proposed to be instituted by the Bill, had been gone into. He quoted the minute of the board of Treasury likewise in the duke of Portland's administration, to prove that they had also ordered a similar inquiry. He next examined the qualifications of two of the three commissioners named in the new Bill, and urged the absurdity of appointing Comptrollers of Army accounts to reform the Treasury, to the control of which they were themselves subject. He said he supposed the appointment of two such persons to the commission was for the sake of fair play, and that as the Treasury had some time since reformed the Comptrollers of Army accounts, they were now in their turn to be permitted to reform the Treasury. He went into a minute examination of the Bill, clause by clause. He charged the Chancellor of the Exchequer with having shewn himself remarkably inattentive to the drawing of public bills; and said, he expected he would soon bring in a sweeping bill, to amend and explain every one of the revenue acts of the last session. The loose, careless, and unintelligible manner, in which they were almost every one of them

drawn, had excited the contempt of the whole country. Accuracy of style, and intelligent expression, were, he said, as necessary parts of an act of parliament, as the soundness of its principle and the salutary effects of its operation. He pointed out the extravagant powers given to the commissioners by the clause that enabled them to send for persons, and examine them when and where they pleased. Under such unlimited authority, they might send for the right hon. gentleman opposite to him, or for the Speaker, to Brighthelmstone, or any other wateringplace, and order them to bring all their papers with them. He was aware that he was stating the case largely; but in considering a Bill of that nature, he had a right to shew to what an extent of absurdity, oppression, and injustice the letter of the Bill went. He was aware, that in answer to all he had urged, it might be said, the same powers were already given by an existing Act of parliament, the act instituting the Commissioners of the Public Accounts; but he begged leave to shew that the act appointing commissioners of accounts differed in some essential points from the present Bill. In the first place, the commission of accounts had been loudly called for from all parts of the kingdom; an extraordinary occasion made it indispensably necessary: 150 millions had been added to the national debt, and the people demanded an investigation into the expenditure of so enormous a sum of the public money. That investigation could not be gone on with so well in any other hands as in those of commissioners especially appointed for the purpose. Here, then, was a great necessity for appointing commissioners, and for entrusting them with powers of an extraordinary nature. In the present case, there was no such necessity. The object was of little consideration, and the board of Treasury fully equal to it. The Bill, in fact, had no great view worthy of the means it authorized; it was a rat-catching bill, instituted for the purpose of prying into vermin abuses. Again, the Commissioners of Accounts were men in no official situation, subject to the control of those into whose conduct they were to inquire. The new commissioners, he had already proved, were subject to the control of the Treasury. In the next place, the Commissioners of Accounts were from time to time to report their proceedings to parliament, who were by that means to watch over their con