HC Deb 03 February 1819 vol 39 cc280-2

The Chancellor of the Exchequer moved the order of the day for the House to proceed to ballot for a committee of secrecy, to inquire into She state of the Bank of England, with-reference to the expediency of the resumption of each payments.

Sir F. Burdett

suggested, whether it would not be better that ministers should hand in the list of names they had prepared, and so save the House much unnecessary trouble, and a round-about way of proceeding, which would only end in what he proposed.

Mr. Bennet

expressed himself of the same opinion. It was quite impossible for the House and the country not to see that the ministers had the naming of the committee.

Mr. Dent

said, that till he heard a better reason for departing from the usual practice, he should adhere to that practice.

The clerk then read over the names of the members, and lists of members for the proposed committee were thrown into the glass on the table. No member of the opposition put in a list. The chancellor of the exchequer next moved, that a committee be appointed to examine the lists, and to report what members had the majority of votes. The Speaker named Mr. Brogden, Mr. Calcraft, Mr. Serjeant Onslow, Mr. Lambton, Mr. M'Donald, and lord Binning.

Mr. Lambton

said, that since it was already perfectly well known and determined who were to be the committee, he would rather decline taking any part in picking up their names.

The Speaker

said, that he had to apologise to the hon. gentleman, if he had named him to an office which was unacceptable to him. No names for the committee in question had been handed to him, and he had, at the moment, fixed upon those who occurred to him as fit to discharge the duty.

Mr. Tierney

said, that there was no doubt that his hon. friend was fit for any duty which required impartiality; but there had been so little impartiality in the proceeding hitherto, that he should think it hard that the ministers, after having settled in private who should be the members of the committee, should show their impartiality by detaining for an hour or two a gentleman who had no interest in their proceedings. As they bad settled the list of the committee, they might as well name the scrutineers also.

A member observed, that be did not understand the remarks of the right hon. gentleman, as to ministers dictating the names on the lists. He had that morning found a list on his table, but be had not adhered to it; he had inserted in place of some of the names, other names, from the opposite bench, of practical gentlemen. He, therefore, felt indignant at the imputation of having given in a prescribed list.

Mr. Tierney

said, that he should be sorry to be supposed to have included in his charge all the members of the House. But he could tell the hon. gentleman, who was not, he believed, a member of the last parliament, that he had found, from uniform experience, that the same lists were found, by the same accident, on the table of a great number of other gentlemen, and, by the same uniform experience he had found that those who possessed the independence of the hon. member were in the minority, and the majority was composed of those who put the lists in the glass just in the same state as they had found them on their tables.

Mr. Waithman

said, that he had found no list on his table [a laugh.]

The Speaker then named another committee, retaining only Mr. Brogden and lord Binning of those formerly named. They immediately retired to examine the lists, and in the course of the evening, Mr. Brogden reported the names of the persons to be the secret committee, viz. lord Castlereagh, Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Tierney, Mr. Canning, Mr. Wellesley Pole, Mr. Lamb, Mr. F. Robinson, Mr. Grenfell, Mr. Huskisson, Mr. James Abercromby, Mr. Bankes, Sir James Mackintosh, Mr. Peel, Sir John Nicholl, Mr. Littleton, Mr. Wilson, Mr. Stuart Wortley, Mr. Manning, Mr. Frankland Lewis, Mr. Ashhurst, and Sir John Newport.