Mr. scroop Bernardpursuant to notice, moved, "That a committee be appointed to inquire how far the evils attending Lotteries have been remedied by the laws passed respecting the same, and to, report their observations thereon to the house, together with such further measures as may be necessary for remedying the same." The hon. gent. prefaced his motion by several observations, which, from the low tone in which they were delivered, we feel it impossible to detail. The general purport of them was, to show the loss sustained by the public from the present mode of contracting for Lotteries, and the artifices used to seduce the lower 1269 classes of the people to adventure in the same, to the great injury and impoverishment of their families. He quoted a passage from a statute, which stated Lotteries to be public nuisances, and agreed that the evil had of late risen to such a height, as to call for the interference of the legislature. The contractors, however, were not so much to blame; as, by purchasing the Lotteries, at a rate so much higher than the real value of the tickets, they were constrained to use the means they resorted to for the purpose of bringing themselves home again without injury; and if, from the report of the committee which he proposed should be appointed, it should be thought desirable that the present mode of carrying on Lotteries should be discontinued, he was of opinion that such persons as had embarked property in such speculations should be saved harmless.
The Chancellor of the Exchequerdid not mean to oppose the motion, though, at the same time, he was not prepared to say that if it was the object of the hon. gent. to abolish the present system of Lotteries, by which the public gained to the amount of 5 or 600,000l. annually, he should content to any such proposition. There had been many remedies provided by statute for evils arising from Lotteries, and as he could not say that others might not also be devised, he should agree to the motion of the hon. gent. for a committee to enquire. As to the statute which had been quoted by the hon. gent., he had only to observe, that it had been passed for abolishing unlicensed Lotteries, and did not at all apply to those Lotteries which were every year sanctioned by an act of the legislature, and the evils of which even had been aggravated, of late years, by the practice of granting private lotteries by act of parliament, much to the prejudice of the public lotteries. If the object of the hon. gent. was to reduce to price of tickets to the actual value, as that would interfere with the source of public profit upon Lotteries, he could not agree to his proposal, though he should be disposed to assent to any proposition, which would be calculated to diminish the evils arising from insurance, which had always been the source of the greatest mischief—The Committee was then appointed.