PETITION OF THE MERCHANTS, BANKERS, TRADERS, &c. OF THE CITY OF LONDON. (Hansard, 15 June 1846)

LORD STANLEY
said: I hope it will not be looked upon as any violation of any previous understanding for proceeding with the Adjourned Debate at once, if I present to your Lordships a petition worthy of your most attentive consideration, bearing immediately on the question now under discussion. My Lords, this is a petition—and I consider it a high honour to be selected by such a body to bring under your notice such a document—signed by merchants, traders, and bankers of the city of London. I will not say that those petitioners request your Lordships to reject the Bill under consideration. I desire not, in the slightest degree, to exaggerate the importance of the petition I desire to lay before you. The petitioners are many of them largely embarked in enterprises connected with our commercial interests; and having to attend to their own private concerns they interfere with reluctance in any political matter whatever, and would be satisfied to leave a question such as this to the deliberate and impartial consideration of Parliament. They have not petitioned your Lordships on the subject of this Bill; nor would they now have done so, had it not been that a petition was presented by the noble President of the Board of Trade, purporting to be the petition of the bankers, merchants, and commercial men of the city of London, in which it was stated that, in their opinion, the passing of this measure was essential to the progressive prosperity of every class of the community. My Lords, if there be any class especially whose interest this Bill purports to be designed to serve, it is the mercantile and commercial class; and, no doubt, a considerable impression was produced on your Lordships' minds by a petition presented by one who held high official station, and which undertook to represent the general feeling of the commercial body. It was the presentation of that petition that brought from their private concerns many of those whose names are appended to the petition which I have now the honour to lay before your Lordships—the petition of the merchants and traders of London, in which they humbly state—and the list of signatures gives fully good evidence they are correct—that they represent the general opinions of that class to which they belong. They begin by saying that— Though desirous to leave so important a measure 442 to the deliberate wisdom of your Lordships, they think it right to state that the commercial and manufacturing interests having been for some time in a state of great activity and prosperity, they see no ground for asserting that this Bill is essential to their progressive prosperity. Your petitioners, on the contrary, regarding the vast extension of commercial enterprise for many years past, and which seems to be continually going forward, do not believe that the Bill in question is essential to the continuous activity of that commercial interest. Your petitioners numbly believe that this is an experiment on a vital branch of our national interests, involving consequences the magnitude of which it is impossible to foresee, and calling for your Lordships' deep and anxious consideration. I told your Lordships that they did not pray you to reject this Bill; but these parties come forward to protest against its being supposed to be the general feeling of the citizens of London, or of the mercantile and commercial classes there, that this Bill was essential or even necessary to the prosperity of the commercial interest. And they go further; not desiring to interfere with the deliberate exercise of your Lordships' judgment, they yet beg of you to bear in mind the immense and unforeseen consequences involved in this measure, and not hastily to adopt a great and hazardous experiment. I admit that the relative value of the two petitions depends on the signatures appended to each. I shall enumerate some of the names appended to this petitition. There is the chairman and deputy chairman of Lloyd's; the chairman and deputy chairman of the Dock Company; a considerable number of Bank Directors—six, I believe; there is a large number of bankers too; there are the names of Abel Smith and Co., of Curtis and Brown, of Spooner, Attwood, and Co.; of Bevan and Tritton, of Hanbury and Co., of Muspratt and Co.; of merchants there are Baring Brothers, and Huth and Co., without dispute the largest general merchants in the city; of shipowners there are the names of Tyndal and Somes, the largest in the trade; of shipbuilders there are Curling, Young, and Co.; there are thirteen of the principal names engaged in the corn trade, many of the principal houses engaged in the silk trade, several of the principal houses engaged in the iron trade, all the leading houses, without an exception, of those engaged in the Canadian and Australian trade, and many of the principal houses engaged in trade with the other Colonies. My Lords, such is the authority of the names appended to this petition (and they are open, of course, to your Lordships for inspection), who, not desiring to interfere with your deliberate 443 judgment, pray you not to believe that this Bill is universally called for by the mercantile and manufacturing classes of the city of London; and stating that the feelings and sentiments of those interests have been misrepresented to your Lordships in laying the petition on the Table. I have to express my earnest hope that you will adopt the advice they have tendered respectfully, and consider deliberately the vast experiment you are about to make; and that if you are determined (as I fear you are) to make an alteration in the existing law, you will not only accompany it with due deliberation in your counsels, but that this great experiment will be conducted with a due degree of caution in practically applying the principles of their legislation.

The EARL of DALHOUSIE
had the honour some time ago to present to their Lordships a petition from merchants, bankers, and traders of the city of London. He was not aware that his noble Friend (Lord Stanley) intended to present the petition he had now done, or he might have been prepared with an analysis, showing the amount of respectability, influence, and wealth, attachable to the petition he had presented, so as to form a set-off to the petition which his noble Friend had now brought forward. He had no intention to diminish in the slightest degree the authority, or to detract from the weight of that petition; and perhaps he would not have troubled their Lordships but for one or two expressions which had dropped from his noble Friend. One of these expressions was, that the petition which was formerly presented purported to represent the general sentiments of the city of London; and the other was, that those who signed the present petition objected to it as a misrepresentation of the sentiments of the mercantile community. Now, what he wished to press upon their Lordships' attention was, that the petition he presented did not profess to be anything but what it distinctly was; nor did the observations with which he had accompanied it state that it was more than the petition of merchants, bankers, and traders of the city of London. It did not profess to be the petition of the city of London, but of certain merchants, bankers, and traders in it. He would say, therefore, let the petitions be judged by their relative merits and numbers; but let it not be supposed that the first petition came before their Lordships under false appearances. He had had no opportunity of instituting a comparison be- 444 tween the two petitions; but since the noble Lord had drawn their attention to the signatures attached to his petition, he (the Earl of Dalhousie) begged to state, that to the petition which he had the honour to present, there were the signatures of twenty-four or twenty-six bankers, instead of six or seven, as in the case of the petition now brought forward by the noble Lord. There were attached the names of 267 merchants and others; but, as he said before, he was not in a condition to institute a comparison between the two. If, however, anything was to depend on this, he asked their Lordships to place them side by side; and he was not afraid of the comparison, whether with respect to wealth, knowledge, or respectability.

LORD STANLEY
had nothing further from his view than to impute to his noble Friend anything like misrepresentation. But it would be recollected that a few nights ago, when it was stated that the petition which the noble Earl had presented did not express the sentiments of the city of London, it was asked on the other side, why there was no counter petition. In these circumstances the present petition must have been deemed necessary. He accepted his noble Friend's challenge as to a comparison. He had been authorized to state to their Lordships, that if they compared the signatures of the two petitions, they would find that those attached to the one presented by him represented more than threefold the amount of business transacted by those who had signed the petition of his noble Friend.

§ EARL GREY
, upon examining the petition presented by the noble Lord (Lord Stanley), found that, as originally drawn up, it contained the following passage:—"So little ground is there in their view for saying that it is necessary these measures should be passed with the least possible delay." But it appeared this passage was thought too strong, and the pen had been drawn through it. On erasing these words, it was implied that the opinion of the petitioners was, that the measures ought to pass with the least possible delay. The petition did not venture to ask their Lordships to reject the Bill, but talked of it as an experiment which ought to be decided one way or other. This, which was represented as a counter petition to one, numerously signed, and praying their Lordships to pass the measure, had not asked them to reject the measure, 445 and its promoters had struck out a passage in which it was represented that there was no danger in delay.

§ LORD ASHBURTON
observed, that there could be no doubt, if their Lordships were prepared to pass this measure, they ought to do so without delay. Such was the whole meaning of the passage referred to by the noble Earl as having been expunged, and he thought so too.

LORD BROUGHAM
said, the whole object of the petitioners seemed to be to show their Lordships, that they did not agree with the sentiments contained in the petition presented by the noble Earl (Earl Dalhousie). They did not, however, ask their Lordships to reject the Bill, and all that could be drawn from it was, that there was no unanimity in the mercantile body of London on the subject. In the time of the Income Tax, in 1816, there was a public meeting at the Egyptian-hall, and that would, of course, speak the sense of the city; but that could not be said of either of these petitions. But, at all events, none of the petitioners were for unnecessary delay; they all felt, that if the Bill was to pass, the sooner it did so the better. Now, any Amendment that night in Committee would cause a delay of months. There could, moreover, be no greater mistake than to suppose that the mercantile interests were banded against the agricultural interests of the country; they might differ upon the Corn Laws, but generally speaking the former were for supporting the latter.