Commons Sitting of 10 May 1811

PETITION OF THE EAST INDIA COMPANY.
A Petition of the United Company of merchants of England trading to the East Indies, was presented and read; setting forth; "That, by an act of the 37th year of his present Majesty, to enable the said company to raise money by further increasing their capital stock, and to extend the provisions existing respecting the present stock of the Company to the said increased stock; after reciting, that the affairs of the petitioners required a permanent advance of a considerable sum of money beyond what the petitioners could raise under the powers then vested in them by law, they are authorised and empowered to raise money by enlarging their then capital stock or fund of 6,000,000 l, to any sum or sums not exceeding the further sum of 2,000,000 l. capital stock, so that their whole capital stock should not exceed the capital sum of 8,000,000 l; and that, by an act passed in the 47th year of his present Majesty, to enable the East, India Company to raise money upon bond instead of increasing their capital stock, after reciting the said act of the 37th year of his Majesty, and that the petitioners had not then enlarged their capital stock under and by virtue of the powers contained in the last-mentioned act, it is enacted that it should be lawful to and for the petitioners, by and with the approbation and consent of the board of commissioners for the affairs of India for the time being, at any time or times thereafter, to borrow upon bonds, to be issued under their common seal, any further sum or sums of money not exceeding, in the whole, the sum of 2,000,000 l. over and above such sum and sums as the petitioners could then lawfully raise on their bonds, and to apply the money so to be borrowed and raised for such purposes as under and by virtue of the said act of the 37th year of his, Majesty the money to be raised by enlarging the capital stock of the petitioners was

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applicable; and by the said act it is provided that when the petitioners should nave raised any part of the money which they were thereby authorised to raise by bond, then, so long as such further bond, debt, or any part thereof, should continue, all the money thereafter to be raised, by enlarging the capital stock of the petitioners under and by virtue of the act passed in the 37th year of his Majesty, should be applied towards the reduction of the bond debt of the petitioners until it should be reduced to the sum which the petitioners might then lawfully raise by bond; and in case the petitioners should enlarge their capital stock under and by virtue of the act passed in the 37th year of his Majesty before they should have increased their bond debt under the authority of the act now in recital, that then the sum which they were thereby empowered to raise on bond should be reduced by the sum of 200 l. sterling in respect of every 100 l. capital stock so enlarged, and so in proportion for a greater or less amount of the capital stock which should have been created; and that, since the passing of the last-mentioned act, the petitioners, with such approbation and consent as therein is mentioned, have borrowed upon bonds issued under their common seal such further sum of money as they were thereby empowered to borrow and raise; but they have not yet increased their capital stock under and by virtue of the said act of the 37th year of his Majesty; and that a very considerable sum, part of the debts secured by the engagements of the petitioners in the East Indies, and which was incurred by reason of territorial and political expenses in that country, has lately been discharged in India by means of bills drawn by the governments of the petitioners in the East Indies upon the court of directors of the petitioners in London, and thereby it has become necessary for the petitioners to provide in this country a much larger sum of money than in the ordinary course of their transactions can arise from the sales of their goods and the other ordinary receipts and means of the petitioners; and they would be able to raise the money so wanted upon their own credit, either upon their bonds or by increasing their capital stock under the authority of the said act of the 37th year of his Majesty, or partly in one way and partly in the other, as from time to time may appear most expedient; But they cannot increase their bond debt
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without the authority of parliament; and if they were to increase their capital stock, the money to be raised thereby would be applicable under the existing provisions of the last-mentioned act, to discharge the bond debt raised under the authority thereof; and that the petitioners are obliged by law to make out their accounts of sales of goods and other matters in this country to the 1st day of March in every year, and therefore were unable to make out their accounts and estimates so as to ascertain the probable amount of the money they would have occasion to raise in the current year till after the time limited by the. House for receiving petitions for private Bills was expired; and therefore praying the House to permit the petitioners to present a petition for leave to bring in a Bill to enable them to raise a further sum of money upon bond instead of increasing their capital stock, and to alter some of the provisions in an act passed in the 47th year of his present Majesty relative thereto."
Ordered, That Leave be given to present a Petition as desired. Then the Said Petition was presented and read; and ordered to be referred to a Committee of the whole House for Monday next.

DISTILLERIES.
The House having gone into a Committee of Ways and Means,
The Chancellor of the Exchequersaid, he supposed he had sufficiently explained in his notice of yesterday the object of his present motion, which was to provide a substitute for the duties in the Distillation Bill, that lately failed in the other House. He had to propose that a duty should be imposed on spirits distilled from grain, equal to the duty proposed to be imposed on spirits distilled from sugar. It appeared that spirits distilled from grain were in greater favour with the people of this country than those distilled from sugar. He meant, then, to propose that a duty of 4½d. per gallon should be laid on corn wash, which would yield probably a sum not less than 400,000 l. To protect our home spirits, he should also move, that an additional sum be imposed on imported spirits from abroad, with the exception of rum, which would still, however, leave the duty on rum higher than that on other spirits. There was still a more difficult question to be settled, and that was the countervailing duties on spirits between Great Britain and Ireland. The great difficulty was between Scotland and Ireland; for the counter-

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vailing duty between Great Britain and Ireland did not apply altogether to Scotland, which differed materially from England, and differed with itself in the Highlands and Low Country, so that what would be a proper countervailing duty in one district could not be so in another. The duty of 4½d. per gallon of wash or spirits in England, amounting to 1s. 11¾d. on the gallon of spirits, might be balanced by a countervailing duty of 1s. 11¾d. on spirits from Ireland; but the difference of manufacture in Scotland rendering a smaller duty necessary, and in the Highlands of Scotland still smaller, the duty of 1s. 11¾d. from Ireland to England would be more than a countervailing duty on spirits imported into Scotland. He did not know well how to meet the difficulty respecting Scotland, which had now so decided an advantage over Ireland, but so far from having any thing like the indisposition to attend to the concerns of the latter coun-
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try, with which he had been charged, he was willing to attend to every suggestion from both sides of the House, and to adopt whatever should be most agreeable to their wishes.
Upon the subject of the countervailing duties, some conversation, took place, in which sir John Newport, Mr. Hutchinson, Mr. Foster, and Mr. Western, severally stated their sentiments.
Sir John Newportthought that, in order to do away the difficulties that occurred as to drawbacks, there ought to be a Bill to make every person, who claimed drawbacks, shew that he paid as much duty as the drawbacks claimed amounted to.
Mr. Hutchinsonsuggested, that there should be a Bill to enable the Scotch distillers to warehouse spirits in the same way as in Ireland.
The several Resolutions were agreed to, and the Report was ordered to be received on Monday.