§ Lord Aucklandsaid, that this Bill came within the Standing Order relative to Bills concerning trade, and therefore he moved, that it be referred to a Select Committee.
Lord Ellenboroughconcurred in the Motion, and he was anxious to draw the attention of the House to a particular clause in this Bill, with regard to which he should feel it necessary to move an instruction to the Select Committee which the noble Lord was about to propose. It had been a long-established custom of that House to waive any inquiry respecting anything relating to the imposition of taxes in Bills that came from the other House of Parliament. That such a forbearance on the part of that House on all occasions, and under all circumstances, was for the public benefit, appeared to him to be rather doubtful, but at the same time he would admit, seeing how long the custom had existed, that it should not be proposed to their Lordships to depart from it, unless under very extreme circum-stances indeed. Cases, however, might occur in which it would be the bounden duty of their Lordships to interfere for the protection of the public interests, and the constitution of Parliament. Now, such an extreme case appeared to him to occur in this Bill. In this Bill the power of levying taxes was delegated to the King in Council, without any limitation whatever. The King in Council was empowered under this Bill to appoint officers at Can-ton, with powers that were not specified, to give them such salaries as he might choose, and those officers would have the power of levying what duties they pleased upon the goods of his Majesty's subjects trading to Canton. They would have the power of levying those duties in a foreign country—in China. He was not aware of any such instance of legislation on the part of the Parliament of this country, and with a view to discover whether there had been any similar instance of legislation, he would move that it be an instruction to the Committee to search for precedents for the purpose of ascertaining whether that House had ever passed a Bill delegating to the King in Council the power of levying duties on his Majesty's subjects. It would be found on looking at the probable amount of those duties that this was no trifling matter. The expense of the proposed Superintendents at Canton, with the Judge and the officers connected with his Court, would be likely to be about 27,000l. or from that to 30,000l. per annum. Now, 714 the trade between the port of Canton, India, and this country, would not for some time, at least, exceed 54,000 tons annually. This expenditure, therefore, would cause the imposition of a duty of 10s. a-ton on that trade—that was to say, as the vessels trading there generally averaged 300 tons, that his Majesty would be empowered to levy a duty of 150l. each on the vessels so employed. He could not avoid expressing his surprise that a clause of this kind should have been passed in the present House of Commons, the more especially as so many persons interested in the trade and commerce of the country had been by the Bill of last year introduced into that House. They had been told, that on account of the introduction of such persons, they might expect greater vigilance and attention in the present than in all former Parliaments to the rights of the people and the privileges of their Representatives; and it was, therefore, not a little extraordinary that in the first important measure that had been passed by the present House of Commons a power was given to the Crown, without any limitation whatever, which had never been given to it by any former Parliament—the power of levying taxes according to its discretion on the subjects of the Crown. Of this he was certain, that there was not one of the constituents of any of the members of the present House of Commons that ever intended that such a power should be delegated to the Crown.
§ Lord Aucklandsaid, that he was as much surprised as the noble Lord that the clause in question contained no limitations. In the clause as it stood in the Bill when originally introduced, the power proposed to be given by it was limited, and why that limitation had been afterwards omitted he did not know. In introducing those Superintendents as a substitute for officers that had through usage exercised similar powers at Canton for a long period of time, it was thought necessary, for the protection of the public interest, and the interest of trade, to give a very large discretionary power to the Government on the subject. In the Committee which he was about to propose, he should introduce a clause for limiting in some degree that power, and, therefore, it would be unnecessary for the noble Lord to persevere in his Motion for an instruction to the Committee to search for precedents, as no precedent of the kind could certainly be found.
§ Lord Aucklandremarked, that the noble Lord was correctly informed when he estimated the expense of those Superintendents at from 27,000l. to 30,000l. per annum, but he believed that a duty of 10s. upon every 100l. worth of goods would be sufficient to meet the expense.
§ Bill to be referred to a Select Committee.