Sitting of 9 December 1812

GOLD COIN BILL.
On the motion for going into a Committee on this Bill,
Lord Folkestonesaid, he wished it to be passed only for a few months, in order that the House might have time to give sufficient consideration to the measure. He was altogether against the renewal of this Bill, and thought what had passed in the debate last night sufficient to lead him to that opinion. Of all the speakers last night, the right hon. the Chancellor of the Exchequer was the only one who spoke in praise of the Bill. Whilst several who voted for it said that they did so not from any approbation of its principle, but under the influence of various temporary circumstances. He had many objections to the Bill, and said, that the legislature ought to pass laws for the prevention, not for the production and multiplication of crimes. This Bill increased the temptation to crime, drove all our gold and silver out of the market, and, by thus increasing their value as compared with Bank of England notes, promoted the buying and selling of guineas. The persons who had been punished under this Bill being mostly ignorant, and therefore unable to understand, or perhaps to read the act, had been seduced and entrapped. But why had not a late wholesale offender, the person who offered 27,000 guineas to the right hon. the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and who could not be ignorant of the provisions of the act, why had he not been brought to justice? It might be even said, that the right hon. the Chancellor of the Exchequer neglected his duty to the public (for gold was much wanted for the public service) in not accepting of the offer; for he had it in his power to pay for the sum in country bank notes, by which means he could have evaded the provisions of the Bill.
The House then resolved into the Committee, and the several clauses were agreed to.

DUTIES ON RICE.
The House having resolved into a committee upon the Duties on Rice,
The Chancellor of the Exchequerstated his object to be the proposition of a tax
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upon rice imported from any other quarter than the East Indies. He deprecated any objection to this proposition, upon the ground, that it applied to a necessary of life, for in point of fact the operation of the case would be to secure a supply of rice from our own territories, while, if circumstances should render the importation of the article desirable from America or elsewhere, it would not be raised inconveniently high to the consumer. The necessity of this arrangement, he illustrated by referring to an instance in which government had paid 5 or 600,000 l. in bounties on the importation of rice from the East Indies, which rice had never been used for human food, but devoted to poultry, in consequence of the importation from other places. Here, then, was a loss to the treasury and to the importers, without any relief to the public. To prevent the occurrence of such an event, he proposed to withdraw the bounty upon East Indian rice, while an additional tax was imposed upon rice imported from other quarters. The right hon. gentleman submitted a resolution, That an additional duty of ten shillings per cwt. be imposed upon all rice imported from any country not belonging to his Majesty, or not within the territories of the East India, Company.—The motion was agreed to.

CATHOLIC CLAIMS.
The Archbishop of Canterbury presented a Petition from the dean and chapter of Canterbury, against the Catholic Claims, which was ordered to lie on the table.
The Duke of Norfolkexpressed his regret at the hostility of the petitioners to those concessions to our Catholic fellow-subjects, which he considered essential to the safety and welfare of the state, coupled with an adequate security to the Protestant establishment, to which establishment no man was a warmer friend than himself. He was surprised also at the fear expressed in the Petition, that granting the claims of the Catholics would lead to the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts, and thereby remove the security of the Protestant establishment. It was well known that no ministry had ventured to enforce these acts; that they were hung up from year to year, and that no ministry, however intolerant, could venture to carry them into execution. He hoped that these Petitions were merely the over-zeal of individuals, and that they were not set on foot by any of his Majesty's ministers. He trusted, however, that as the discussion of the great question relative to the Catholic Claims was not to come on till after the holidays, that all the Petitions against those claims would be by that time before

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the House, in order that they might be the better enabled to take the whole subject into consideration.