LOTTERY BILL. (Hansard, 19 May 1817)

§ Mr. Lyttelton
said, that none of the objections to this bill had been removed. It was so bad in its principle, and so objectionable in all its branches, that the House must feel ashamed of it, and consider themselves bound in honour to reject it. He would therefore move that it be read a third time this day six months.

§ Mr. Wilberforce
could not allow that opportunity to pass without bearing his testimony against the bill. The bad principle and the injurious effects of lottery bills had been always perceived and denounced by the wise and good. The aversion to their continuance had of late made great progress. The higher classes reprobated them, and the lower were beginning to see their ruinous tendency. They were not productive of much benefit to the state, and were most injurious to the morals and industry of the people. He, therefore, hoped the hon. gentleman who had signalized himself by his opposition to these measures, would soon behold his wishes realized by the abandonment of lotteries as a source of revenue.

§ Mr. J. W. Ward
agreed, that lottery bills were most injurious to morals, and at the same time were not good financial measures; yet he thought the bill should pass at this time, for this reason, because none of the hon. gentlemen on the other side had pointed out any other mode of raising the money which the lottery supplied [a laugh]. Gentlemen might laugh, but he considered a deficiency in the revenue a great evil, and the deficiency created by rejecting this bill would be 500,000l.

§ Lord A. Hamilton
said, he had been fully convinced of the insufficiency and injurious effects of such bills by the arguments of the hon. gentleman who spoke last on a former occasion. Those arguments were forcible and unanswerable. They were that night to consider of a compensation to the Crown for sinecure offices. Why should not that compensation embrace the lottery bill? Surely it was more essentially necessary to protect the morals of the people than to give a compensation to the Crown for sinecure places.

§ Mr. Grenfell
affirmed, that as a source of revenue the lottery never produced one half the sum annually mentioned by the hon. member.

§ Mr. Tierney
said, that as the right hon. gentleman had already made so large an issue of exchequer bills, he did not see any real inconvenience that would result from raising the proposed sum by an extension of that system.

§ Mr. Grenfell
adverted to the clause in the lottery bill, by which the bank directors were entitled to a remuneration for the management of the money paid by the lottery contractors, He observed, that after repeated and ineffectual efforts to obtain the attention of government to the 688 nature of the public dealings with the bank, he was now compelled to take that subject up piecemeal, and to lose no opportunity of exposing its prodigality. When this subject was before the House on a former evening, the amount paid to the bank for managing the lottery money was stated to be 1,000l., he now found that it amounted to 3,000l. That sum might be considered trifling, compared with the many enormous sums taken by the bank from the public; but small as it comparatively was, it was still a striking link in the chain of bank rapacity and ministerial profusion. He thought the present a proper opportunity of expunging the clause from the bill by which that remuneration was granted, and concluded with a motion to that effect.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer
assured the hon. member that if he could propose during the next session, a more economical mode of managing the lottery than the manner at present pursued, he would attend to the suggestion. In that advanced stage of the bill, it was too late for any experiment.

§ Sir J. Newport
observed, that it was the principle of our ancestors not to allow revenue to stand in the way of public morals. The reverse was the practice of the present day; for in the estimation of the chancellor of the exchequer, the morals of the people went for nothing, when revenue was the object.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer
said, the act of king William adverted only to private lotteries.

Mr. B. Moreland
contended, that the words of the statute were private lotteries and all others. It went farther: it declared them to be common and public nuisances. That was the law even at the present hour, although it was evaded by these annual licences. Indeed, as the law now stood, all persons in any way concerned in planning and executing lotteries were declared to be common rogues.

§ Mr. Brougham
thought the chancellor 689 of the exchequer should introduce a clause exempting contractors and others from the penalties of the act mentioned. Experiments, dangerous to lottery contractors and speculators, might be tried under the statute of William, which was still in force. If the preamble taken from the statute would not suit, he suggested that it should be intituled "an act to raise money to his majesty, by encouraging vice and immorality among the lower orders."

List of the Minority.
Atherley, A.	Monck, sir C.
Brougham, H.	North, D.
Butterworth, Jos.	Newport, sir J.
Babington, T.	Ossulston, lord
Burroughs, sir Wm.	Osborne, lord J.
Brand, hon. T.	Parnell, sir H.
Calcraft, John	Phillimore, Dr.
Campbell, gen. D.	Rowley, sir W.
Calvert, Charles	Ridley, sir M. W.
Curwen, J. C.	Rashleigh, Wm.
Carter, John	Romilly, sir S.
Cavendish, lord G.	Rancliffe, lord
Fergusson, sir R.	Russell, lord Wm.
Gordon, R.	Smyth, J. H.
Grenfell, Pascoe	Smith, Wm.
Heron, sir R.	Sharp, R.
Howorth, H.	Sefton, lord
Hamilton, lord A.	Thompson, T.
Hornby, E.	Tierney, rt. hon. G.
Lamb, hon. W.	Waldegrave, hon. W.
Lambton, J. G.	Wilberforce, Wm.
Lockhart, J. Ingram	Williams, sir R.
Milton, visct.	TELLERS.
Martin, J.	Bennett, hon. G. H.
Mackintosh, sir J.	Lyttelton, hon. W.
Morland, S. B.