Commons Sitting of 18 July 1820

COURT OF CHANCERY.
Mr. Calcraftrose to make his promised motion relative to the disposal of brokerage paid for the stock transactions of the accountant-general of the court of Chancery. He observed, that the duties of the accountant-general were paid for not only by salary, but by a division of the brokerage (paid on stock transactions) with the broker usually employed by the court. Whether the sum thus received were great or small, he considered the practice an objectionable one. The accountant-general ought not to be remunerated in that mixed manner; he should be paid directly by salary.

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He should now move for an account of the emoluments received from this participation in the brokerage, to the production of which he could conceive no earthly objection. He then moved for "an Account of the Commission and Fees received by the broker employed by the High Court of Chancery, and the proportion divided between the said broker and the accountant-general; distinguishing the amount divided during the last ten years."
Mr. Courtenaydid not intend to make any opposition to a motion of this sort, which, so far as it could be complied with, was almost a motion of course; but he wished to show how utterly impossible it was to comply with the motion, in the terms in which it was now conceived. By the act of the 12th of George 1st, which created the office of accountant-general, that individual was directed to perform, from time to time, all those operations respecting the funds of the suitors of the court of Chancery that might be deemed necessary. It was unquestionably a part of his duty to make all sales that wore directed to be made by the court; and it was obvious that, in the exercise of that duty, he was obliged to observe the strictest accuracy and attention. It was necessary that lie should proceed with entire accuracy; for the east mistake might occasion the transfer or the payment of a considerable sum of money to a wrong person, by which great confusion would be created. These were the sort of duties that officer had to perform, and he received, in remuneration, a salary of 1,500 l. a-year. From the outset of the existence of this office, the accountant-general, in the performance of those duties, had, of course, been obliged to employ the agency of a broker; and it had been the practice of all successive accountants-general to pay the broker, not the full commission, but a portion of it, the rate of commission being precisely the same as was ordinarily charged; which, as the House would see, was paid by the individual who had the benefit of the transaction. An arrangement was usually made, by which the accountant-general paid to the broker a certain portion, instead of the whole amount of brokerage. The present accountant-general had been only six or eight months in office; and he would, therefore, find it very difficult to obey an order of the House founded on this motion It was certainly in his power to state all sums paid to him, and to give
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an account of such transactions as he had been engaged in; and to that extent, doubtless, a proper return would be made. But the present motion called for a return of all commission and fees received by the accountant-general for the last ten years. To whom could such an order be directed? or who could make a return to it? He knew that there was no official record or document in the office that could give the information required; and it should be observed, that the broker was not an officer of the court or of the public. He submitted, therefore, that there would be very great difficulty in procuring a return to a motion of this description. It was true the person who now acted as broker had performed that duty for many years; but he doubted whether the House would call on him individually to make a return, since he was not an officer of the court or of the country. It would, however, be for the House to decide on that point. The hon. gentleman said the accountant-general ought to be paid entirely by salary. Certainly the accountant-general could have no objection to be so paid; but the question was, would it be wise to adopt that mode? What would be the effect of the alteration? It would be, that from some public fund this officer must be paid a remuneration nearly equivalent to that which for many years he had been in the habit of receiving as a fee. By whom, if the system were altered, must this equivalent be paid? By the public—a great proportion of whom had nothing to do with the duties performed by the accountant-general; while, as the salary was now paid, no person was burdened in any degree, except those who were benefitted by the transaction. Thus, if he had a large sum of money in chancery, which was laid out by the accountant-general to his advantage, he paid the ordinary brokerage charged on such transactions. Nothing, in his opinion, could be so little burdensome to the individual or the public as the mode at present adopted. He had no objection to the motion, as far as the accountant-general could answer for himself; but, beyond that, he could not conceive how information was to be acquired on the subject.
Mr. Abercrombythought there could be no difficulty in procuring the return called for. The present accountant-general could make a return as far as his experience went; and, as the same broker had been employed for many years past,

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the accountant-general could find little difficulty in obtaining the preceding information from him. Whether it would be proper, hereafter, to pay the accountant-general entirely by way of salary, was a point for the consideration of the House. But he, in common with his learned friend, entertained great doubts as to the expediency of making the alteration. He was sure it was not intended, by bringing forward this motion, to cast the slightest imputation on the manner in which the duties of the office had been, or were at present, discharged. They were performed in a manner extremely service. able and convenient to the public.
Mr. Calcraftsaid, he founded his motion on information contained in the report relative to the office connected with the court of Chancery, and not on any private feeling. If he could not get such a return as that which he had moved for, he must, of course, be satisfied with whatever return the court was able to make. He was restrained, by motives of delicacy, from bringing forward this motion during the life of the late accountant-general, and he thought it was rather hard, when motives of that description had operated on his mind, to be told, as an answer to his motion, that the present accountant-general had been only six months in office.
The motion was agreed to.

BARRACK AGREEMENT BILL.
On the motion for the third reading of this bill,
Mr. Lockhartsaid, on the first introduction of this bill into the House, he was inclined to consider it favourably. But, comparing the calculations of the hon. member for London with the statements of the right hon. gentleman, and considering the expense of building a wall, including eight acres of land, as injuriously and unnecessarily enhancing the cost, he could not give the measure his support, but must strenuously oppose it. He had, however, various other reasons for opposing this bill. In the present dense state of the population, when the activity of the public mind was increased through the medium of the press, and when the extension of education had opened inlets to general knowledge, and the pressure of taxation had created discontent, he thought it was absolutely necessary for the safety of the metropolis, that an armed force of some kind should
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be kept on foot. He did not, however, consider the army as the force to which they ought exclusively to look up for protection. When he found that this contract was for a period of 30 years, and after that when it was stated that the barracks would be held in perpetuity, he inferred that the system was to be perpetual, and that it was to be continued to the exclusion of all other systems. There were, however, other systems more constitutional in their nature, and more accordant with the rights and privileges of the people, than the keeping up of a large military force. When he spoke of the army, let him not be understood as wishing to underrate their merits: he held their character in the highest estimation, and he thought they deserved the gratitude of the country. They had received high honours and rewards, and he was sure, constituted as they now were, they would never raise their arms against the constitution; but when the army was composed of different men, as it must be long before the expiration of this contract, when it was formed of individuals who could only have a recollection of the glories that had been conferred on, and the victories that had been achieved by, their predecessors, would it not be a question whether such an army might not be dangerous to the monarchy and the liberties of the people? When the army was composed in this manner, it would be fit to employ another force for the defence of the metropolis. Armed bands of the inhabitants of cities and towns, comprising persons of honour, character, and property, ought then to be formed for the general protection. Though on many occasions he had approved of the use of a military force, he did not think that they should be employed in all cases: they ought not to be called in but upon urgent occasions, on the principle of nisi dignus vindice nodus. For what purpose were these eight acres of ground to be enclosed? It evidently must be for the purpose of concealing their exercises from the public. He was no friend to such seclusions, for he had always remarked that persons who thus lived apart from society were more irritable in their temper than others who enjoyed a free intercourse with their fellow-citizens. Those who were in favour of the employment of soldiers in the metropolis lost sight of the principle adopted in almost all other cases: there was not a republic or a city

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abroad that had not its guard drawn from the inhabitants. He would not deal in the general invectives that had been levelled at the use of the military: he only objected to their exclusive employment. He would not, to show the danger of confiding too much in them, appeal to the experience of history; but he would call on the House to look to modern times, and they would see the destinies of one of the chief nations of Europe changed three times, either by the defection or active interference of the military. Kings could no more depend on them than the people: the whole of the recent revolution in Spain had been effected by the soldiery: and as the history of the past was the history of the future, they would do well to attend to it. Let not gentlemen suppose that the Moncks, La Fayettes, the Buonapartes, and Quirogas, of former days, were extinct in our own: they would see characters of the same description rise up again whenever circumstances of a similar nature occurred.
The House divided: Ayes, 80; Noes, 45. The bill was then read a third time and passed.

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN TRADE.
Mr. Wallacebrought up the report of the committee appointed to inquire into the state of our foreign trade. The hon. gentleman, in moving that the report be laid on the table, hoped the House would suffer him to make a few observations. He meant briefly to state the extent to which the committee had gone, and the objects to which they had chiefly directed their attention. Gentlemen would recollect that, in the former part of the session, many petitions were received from commercial districts, particularly one from a large and respectable body of merchants of the city of London, which had been presented by an hon. member (Mr. Baring), who usually sat on the other side of the House; and who, he was assured, would have been this day in his place, had he not been detained in the country by a very severe domestic calamity. Those petitions stated the general commercial distress which prevailed, without pointing out any immediate remedy for that distress. And, indeed, considering the state of our connexion with foreign countries, and the nature of the commercial system which had so long prevailed, it would be vain, he feared, to expect any immediate
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remedy. With respect to the soundness of the principle contained in those petitions—with respect to the necessity of throwing open the channels of trade as widely as possible—no doubt could be entertained. No person could deny that commerce ought to be rendered as free and unshackled as circumstances would allow; but he regretted that this principle could not, from various causes, be acted on to the extent which many individuals desired. The committee had not been able to enter so fully into the subject as they could have wished, in consequence of the late period of the session at which it was referred to them. They had, therefore, chiefly selected those points which appeared to them not the most important, but the most general in their application to this great principle—namely,that all restriction on trade, of whatsoever nature, was an evil, only to be justified by some great political expediency; and, where such expediency was not clear and manifest, that the restriction ought to be removed, as far as it could be done, consistently with the good faith of the country, pledged by treaties with foreign states, or by compacts with its own subjects, or with reference to the protection due to different branches of trade that might have grown up under the existing system, and which protection could not be suddenly withdrawn without great injustice. Gentlemen knew that what were usually called the Navigation Laws contained the regulations by which the commerce of this country was governed, both in respect to Europe and the rest of the world. With respect to Africa and America, all goods, the produce of those climes, must be brought here directly and exclusively in British ships. With respect to Europe, its commodities might be introduced either in British vessels or in the vessels of those states in which the article was produced, with the exception of Germany and the Netherlands—certain articles, the produce of those countries, not being allowed to be imported under any circumstances whatever. These restrictions did not, however, appear to the committee to be founded on any just principle of expediency or necessity. The sum, therefore, of their recommendation on this head was, that the Navigation Laws should be so far relaxed as to permit all articles to be imported from all parts of the world, provided such importation took place in British ships. The next point to which

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they turned their attention was the warehousing system. That system was at present limited to the admission of certain articles. If, however, this country were meant to be the great emporium and the great mart of the world, it was impossible, if such were the view of the legislature, that too wide an extent could be given to the system of warehousing. Their recommendation on this second head was, I that all goods, the produce of all countries, manufactured or unmanufactured, should be permitted to be freely imported and exported, except to our colonies, with as little inconvenience to the merchant as possible. There was, however, an exception of one article—he meant linen—which was so excepted from the general rule on account of a political rather than a commercial view of the subject. He would not now enter into the reasons that induced the committee to recommend those deviations from the existing system. When legislative measures, founded on the views of the question taken by the committee, were introduced, that would be the period to go into a minute detail, for the purpose of showing the reasons on which these recommendations are founded. One evil, which appeared to the committee to be of the greatest magnitude, and which required the serious attention of the House, was the extraordinary multiplication and complexity of the laws by which commerce was affected. Gentlemen would conceive the extent of this evil when he informed them, that he had seen it stated in a pamphlet published in 1815, that the number of laws relative to mercantile transactions amounted at that time to 1,500, of which 1,100 were in full and almost daily operation. To these, in the last five years, many additions had been made; and what the number was at present he could not take upon himself to say. When gentlemen considered that the slightest deviation from the law often subjected the ship and cargo to forfeiture, they would see the embarrassment which this evil created to the merchant, and the restraint under which it placed commercial enterprise. The committee were likewise of opinion, that the alterations which they had thought fit to suggest ought to be made gradually, with great caution, and a due regard to the interests which having grown up under the present system, were placed under the protection of the good faith of the country. It would be perhaps some time
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before the benefits of those alterations would be perceived; but that was the price which the country was to pay for adhering so long to the present bad and defective system. The recommendations which the committee had suggested might appear to some individuals not to have gone far enough, nor to have embraced as many points as they had previously expected; but he would beg those gentlemen to consider that the recommendations which they had already made were of no slight or unimportant nature. The importance of them would be considerably enhanced, if hon. gentlemen would look upon them as the first and most material step of this country to a departure from the course of restrictive policy which its legislature had hitherto pursued, and to the establishment of a more enlarged and liberal policy towards foreign states than any which had yet prevailed. It had long been a reproach to us among foreign nations, that our mercantile system was so full of restrictions against them, that they were compelled, in self-defence, to impose similar restrictions against us. He trusted, however, that would be so no more, and if we should be still compelled to continue any of our present restrictions, either from the pressure of taxation, our compacts with foreign nations or with our own countrymen, or from any other cause whatsoever, it would be understood that we did so from a principle of justice—that it was a sacrifice to our sense of duty, that it was a matter not of option but necessity, and not caused by any ideas on our part of promoting our own commercial interests by it; and whatever might be the exclusion or restrictions which foreign states might think it expedient to put upon trade, they would no longer have the opportunity of justifying themselves by saying, "Such is the example, and such the conduct, of England." The hon. member then moved that this report be laid upon the table, and sat down amid considerable cheerings from both sides of the House.
Ordered to lie on the table.

SIR WILLIAM MANNERS.
Mr. Tennysonrose to offer an humble petition from an individual who had recently fallen under the displeasure of the House, and had for some days been suffering the punishment which it had inflicted upon him. The petitioner was sir William Manners. The House would recollect, that on the 5th

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inst. it had ordered him to be taken into the custody of the serjeant at amis. On the 7th, that officer reported that sir William had quitted his residence in Leicestershire at six on the same evening on which the order was made; and on this report, the House after examining the messenger, thought fit to resolve that the petitioner had absconded in order to avoid being taken into custody pursuant to the order of the 5th instant. He (Mr. Tennyson) was not in the House when it came to this resolution, and he did not propose now to question or examine its propriety. It stood as a resolution of the House, and as such he should bow to its authority. But in consequence of this resolution, when on Monday se'nnight it appeared that sir William had surrendered himself to the serjeant at arms, the House ordered, that having so absconded, he should be committed to Newgate. Thus he had now lain a prisoner during eight days. He would have petitioned sooner, but feared that at an earlier period the House would not be disposed to listen to him, and he would not even now have presumed to approach it, if he had not understood that the House was about to separate for some time. He therefore threw himself upon that merciful indulgence which it had on similar occasions extended to others, and would now, he trusted, extend to him. The petitioner stated, that the moment he heard of the order, he came to London as expeditiously as his infirmities would permit, and surrendered himself into custody, giving notice to the Grantham Election committee that he was ready to give evidence if required, and the petitioner also expressed his extreme sorrow that he should have offended the House. He (Mr. Tennyson) deemed it right to inform the House, that after discharging his duty by moving that the petition should lie on the table, he should make no ulterior motion upon it, and would state his reasons. He understood, that when a person had been committed to Newgate for a breach of privilege, the precedented course was, that he should not be discharged without being first called to the bar and reprimanded. It therefore appeared to him, that in dealing with a case, such as the House had adjudged this to be, it might not deem it expedient to depart from that course, and in an ordinary case he should have felt that all he could have
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done for the petitioner, consistently with his duty to the House, would have been to move that sir W. Manners be brought to the bar at a future day, in order to be reprimanded and discharged; but he found the circumstances of this case were such, that he could not justify such a motion to himself or to the House. He was informed that the petitioner was in such a state of health in all respects, and his frame and powers so disordered, that it was more than probable that he could not support the shock of a reprimand delivered in the impressive manner in which they were accustomed to hear it from the chair without risking the most serious, lamentable, and immediate consequences to the petitioner. This, he believed, was known to several members of the House; and he understood that a medical gentleman was at hand to satisfy it on the subject, if it thought fit to pursue the inquiry. While, under these circumstances, he could not take upon himself the heavy responsibility of making the usual motion on this occasion [Hear!] yet he should not presume to invite the House to depart from its wonted course, not being aware how far it might be disposed to participate in his feelings, or indeed, inexperienced as he was, how far even if it did, it could or ought to act upon them If it could so act, he trusted it would be inclined to spare to this unhappy individual, prostrate as he now lay before the House, as well as to itself, a most painful exhibition; and instead of adopting the harsher alternative of leaving him, after preferring this humble petition, to languish in gaol for several months, when they were about to separate to their enjoyments in the country, some course would be devised by which the ends of mercy as well as of justice, and the end of maintaining the privileges, authority, and dignity of the House, might be equally and effectually answered.
The petition was then brought up and read. It stated, amongst other things, that the petitioner could not move from his bed or chair without the support of two or three persons, and that his health was still further endangered by his remaining in Newgate.
Mr. Tennyson,on moving that the petition should he on the table, stated, that he had a certificate in his hand from the medical gentleman in attendance, which he would read, that the House might be apprised of what was to be expected from

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his testimony. The hon. member then read the certificate, which corresponded with the evidence afterwards given.
The Marquis of Titchfieldthought the House would desire to hear the evidence of the medical gentleman alluded to, and therefore moved that Mr. William Hutchiuson Box, the surgeon of Newgate, be called in.
Mr. Box,surgeon of Newgate, was called in, and stated, that he had seen sir W. Manners this morning; that he was in a high state of mental irritation; that he had lost the use of his lower extremities, and of one of his arms, by a paralytic affection; and that he does not think he could be brought to the bar without great risk, on account of the general state of excitement and mental irritation under which he labours.
The Marquis of Titchfieldthought that after what had been stated to the House, it would not hesitate to take the only course which occurred to him as proper to adopt. He deemed it unnecessary to trouble the House by enlarging upon the grounds which had been so fully urged, persuaded that the feelings they must have excited were in unison with his own. He should, therefore, move that sir W. Manners be discharged from Newgate on paying his fees.
After a short conversation, the motion was agreed to.