§ Mr. Jamesbegged to direct the attention of the right hon. secretary, for a few moments, to the subject of the Austrian Loan. When the right hon. gentlemen laid on the table a copy of a convention entered into between the Emperor of Austria and his Britannic Majesty, respecting the settlement of the Austrian Loan, he fully expected that it was the intention of the right hon. gentleman merely to submit that document to the House for its sanction. But he had since ascertained, to his great surprise, that the agreement had actually been ratified by both the contracting parties. He wished the right hon. gentleman to answer this question—whether he did not think that he had acted illegally and unconstitutionally, in advising his majesty to agree to that convention without consulting the House? [A laugh]. That might, perhaps, appear to be a very radical view of the case; but he felt it his duty to state, that he conceived the right hon. secretary to have assumed a power which even Mr. Pitt, in the plenitude of his authority, had never dared to assume.
Mr. Secretary Canningsaid, he would give the hon. member the answer which he required. The hon. member had asked whether he (Mr. C.) did not think that he had acted illegally and unconstitutionally in regard to the convention, a copy of which had been laid upon the table. The answer was "decidedly not." If the hon. member thought otherwise he was of course at liberty to bring the subject before the House; but then he hoped that the hon. member would give notice of his 102 intention, and not proceed to discuss a matter connected with the privileges of the Crown, at a moment when the House was quite unprepared to entertain such a delicate question.
§ Mr. Jamessaid, that he was not compelled to give a notice, and as it was not likely that any business would come before the House that evening, he thought the matter might as well be discussed at that time. He repeated that he considered the conduct of the right hon. secretary illegal. If ministers had the right to give up the claim of the people of England to a large sum of money justly due to them, without consulting the House of Commons, then, pari ratione, they were entitled to levy taxes in like manner. It was stated, in one of the articles of the convention that his majesty was entitled to sue the emperor of Austria in his own court for the recovery of the debt. Had that been done? He supposed it was very unlikely that any thing further would be obtained from Austria, and he therefore hoped, that in justice to other bankrupts, the name of the emperor would appear in the Gazette.