Page images
PDF
EPUB

grieved, might sue besides for special damages. On the motion that the petition be printed,

in Ireland. If that book were opened, let not the House believe that all the guilt

would be found on one side. That those

dreadful scenes of atrocity and bloodshed, to which the petitioner had referred, were deeply to be deplored, no one would deny; but every judicious man was anxious that they should, as much as possible, be for

Mr. Spring Rice put it to the hon. member, whether any good could arise from printing and circulating such a petition. It might produce much heat and irritation; and he trusted, therefore, that the hon. member would withdraw his mo-gotten. If, however, they were referred

tion.

Mr. Moore maintained, that the statements in the petition were incontrovertible. He wished them to be fairly placed before every hon. gentleman. He was not conscious of having pronounced the tirade which one hon. gentleman had imputed to him. He had merely asserted that which was as notorious as the sun at noon-day, that the Roman Catholic priesthood possessed the power described in the petition. He did not blame them for exercising that power. They had a spiritual duty to perform, and he gave them credit for performing it conscientiously. But that was the very state of things he complained of. The performance of such a supposed duty was calculated to occasion extensive mischief. He was surprised at the warmth with which the hon. colonel had made almost reproachful observations on what he had stated respecting securities; and he was satisfied that what he had advanced on that subject could not be controverted. If it were established that the Catholics could not give any securities for the proper exercise of whatever civil rights might be conceded to them, that, he presumed, would immediately determine the question. The necessity of securities had been maintained by all our wisest and greatest statesmen. He repeated his opinion that, situated as the Catholics were, a further concession of political power to them was dangerous to the state.

to, let it be for the purpose of taking such steps as might prevent their recurrence; and not for the purpose of giving a new stimulus to ancient animosities. The present petition was a firebrand; and he entreated the hon. member, as he valued the peace of his native country-as he valued his own estimation in that House, not to press his motion.

Mr. Goulburn thought the hon. gentleman who had just spoken, had taken a tone far beyond what the nature of the case required. Every one was aware that petitions were frequently presented, stating the opinions of individuals. In the propriety of which opinions, it was by no means necessary that the House should concur, before they allowed the petitions to be printed. Undoubtedly, he concurred with the hon. gentleman in thinking, that it would be much better, if the statements, on both sides, were calmly and dispassionately made, and that all parties would consult their true interest by such conduct. But, to select one petition for reprehension, on this ground, while petitions, equally objectionable, on the other side, were allowed to pass without observation, would not be much to the credit of those by whom it was done, nor make a very favourable impression on the public mind of the justice of their cause.

Mr. Abercromby said, that the right hon. gentleman had mistaken his hon. friend, who had merely urged the good Mr. S. Rice observed, that many of the sense and good feeling, under the circumburnings and massacres adverted to in the stances of the case, of not giving circulapetition were as unconnected with religious tion to the allegations of the petition, by considerations, as if they had taken place ordering it to be printed. His hon. friend's in this country. The petitioner charged first statement was, that the petition referthe Roman Catholic clergy with the most red to a subject which was about to unenormous vices; and prayed for the estab- dergo the investigation of committees, lishment of a new code of laws against before whom witnesses would be examined them. The House had the authority of upon oath. That being the case, and the the Attorney-general for Ireland, that the matter being one with which the House at clergy had not contributed to the excesses large could be but very little acquainted, which had taken place in that country. it was surely not too much to ask the What ground, therefore, could there be for House to withhold printing a petition, not the allegations of the petitioner ? He from a body, but from an individual, condeprecated the revival of old animosities taining statements calculated to make a

strong and premature impression. Let it be recollected, that the question about to be considered and determined was a novel, untouched, untried, question; and, there-it to the best of his ability; but until then

fore, that all possible pains should be taken to avert from it every thing tending to the creation of an undue and injurious prejudice. In the appeal, therefore, which his hon. friend had made to the hon. member by whom the petition had been introduced, he most sincerely concurred. He would venture to say, that no person in that House contemplated the approaching discussion on the state of Ireland with a more intense feeling of anxiety than he did. To him it appeared to be most expedient, that this new parliament should come to the discussion of that great question with minds free from prejudice; and, above all, that they should be fully sensible of its immense and vital importance. For twenty years, he had attended every discussion in that House on the Catholic question, and had, on every occasion, voted in favour of Catholic emancipation. During that period, he had frequently been in Ireland. He had also been in Ireland since the last agitation of the question; and he declared that he had never returned from that country so deeply impressed with the urgency of carrying that measure. He was convinced that it was their most serious duty to take every means, if it was not yet too late, to save the integrity of the empire. So feeling, he asked the House if the subject was not one which required the calmest consideration? He trusted that others would be of the same opinion; and he intreated the House to enter upon the consideration of this great question, whenever it should be brought forward, with reference only to what was the existing state of Ireland in the year 1827, and to what was the mildest and best course which an honest parliament could adopt. Nothing which had recently occurred in Ireland had altered his view of the great merits of the case, or had shaken his opinion in favour of Catholic emancipation-a measure which he had always thought desirable, and which he now thought absolutely necessary. He implored the hon. member for Dublin, not to be instrumental in any act calculated to excite prejudice and animosity. For himself, no person had ever more uniformly set his face against violence and intemperance on either side of the question.

Mr. Secretary Peel would not say a word
VOL. XVI,

on the great question alluded to. Whenever the subject came regularly before the House, he should be prepared to discuss

he would avoid all allusion to it. This, however, he would say, that he most sincerely believed that the parties on both sides would consult their best interests, by abstaining from all exhibitions of violence and intemperance. Confining himself to the simple question before the House, he could assure the House, that the advice which he should give on the occasion would be given on principle, and without considering from which side of the House, or from what party, the petition emanated. On looking at the petition, he found that it was the petition of a single individual. Now, every individual had an undoubted right to communicate his sentiments to the House in the form of a petition; but the House had also an undoubted right to i abstain, if they thought proper, from giving those sentiments publicity. He found, in this petition, that a certain class of persons were said to be" notorious for their avarice, drunkenness, and debauchery." Now, he certainly did not think it fair, that, under the pretence of petitioning that House, any individual should be enabled to give circulation to statements affecting the personal character of others. He therefore joined with the hon. gentleman opposite in expressing his hope that his hon. friend would not press the printing of the petition. When an individual abused the privilege of approaching that House by petition so far as to indulge in calumnies on the private character and conduct of others, and to introduce treatises on political questions, while the House allowed him the right of presenting his petition, they ought to exercise their own right of refusing to give circulation to that petition at the public expense.

Mr. Moore observed, that he conceived he should not have performed his duty if he had refused to present the petition, and indeed, with the exception of the single sentence which had been animadverted upon by the right hon. gentleman, it appeared to him to be unobjectionable. It was far from his wish to be instrumental in placing any statement on the records of the House which might have the effect of creating any unfair prejudice on the minds of any of its members when this most important question should be brought under their consideration. He would not there L

fore press his motion for the printing of the petition.

The motion was accordingly withdrawn.

tory laws would ruin the whole silk trade of England. Ministers, however, had persevered in their enlightened views; and so far from the English silk manufacturers having been ruined, they were even benefitted by the new system. The opposition to the exportation of machinery arose from the same narrow views and personal motives, and he did not see why the government should not extend their principles to that branch of our industry. The House had been so strongly impressed with the impolicy and injustice of preventing British artisans taking their capital and ingenuity out of the country, that they had come to a unanimous resolution of allowing artisans to export themselves wherever they pleased. The rational consequence of this measure ought to be, that artisans should be allowed to export their machinery as well as themselves. If the exportation of machinery were to be prohibited, artisans would export themselves to an extent to prove highly injurious to the country. The effect of the law, as it now stood, was to encourage the emigration of our most useful machinists. No apprehension could be entertained of foreigners being enabled to rival us in manufactures by obtaining our machinery, for it was in large works that required the use of machinery, in which our supplies of coal and iron, our canals and our large capital, gave us the advantage over foreign manufacturers. In works that required little combinations of capital, and only the application of small machines, foreigners might rival us. Labour in France, considering the relative value of money, was almost as dear as in England. The law, as it now stood, was so contrary to good policy, that it could not be carried into effect; and it accordingly operated solely as a bounty upon the smuggling of machinery out of the kingdom. The law in its details was most absurd. He expressed his most anxious wish that it might be speedily abolished, and moved, that the petition be brought up.

EXPORTATION OF MACHINERY.] Mr. Hume presented a petition from the Machine Makers of Manchester, praying for an alteration of the law prohibiting the Exportation of Machinery. The hon. member said, that the petition involved a principle of very great importance to this country. He recollected hearing the right hon. gentleman at the head of the Board of Trade say, that he hoped the day would soon arrive when the word "prohibition" would be expunged from our commercial system. He perfectly agreed with the right hon. gentleman in the sentiment, and he appealed to him whether it was right to continue a system of prohibitions with respect to machinery, when he was endeavouring to abolish that system with regard to every other article of industry? The object of the petitioners was to obtain a repeal of the law which prohibited them from exporting the produce of their ingenuity and labour to the markets that would afford them the best remuneration or reward. This object, at all times just, was rendered infinitely more necessary now that the markets at home did not afford a demand for their industry. The petitioners declared themselves to be totally out of work, and in a state of absolute starvation; the British manufactures affording them no employment, and the foreign markets being shut against them, by the prohibitory system persevered in by ministers. Every man was now allowed to export the produce of his industry to where he could find a purchaser, except the unfortunate maker of machines. The consequence of this was, that the machinists of England were in a state of destitution, whilst their sufferings were increased by a knowledge that it was in the power of ministers, by opening their trade, to relieve their distresses. Those who opposed the exportation of machinery were like those who had opposed the Mr. Huskisson appealed to the hon. opening of every other trade, in order to member, whether a question of such vast augment their individual gains, and to importance could with propriety be dissecure to themselves a monopoly. He cussed at a period when thousands of mamight illustrate the truth of this by refer-nufacturers were either out of employ, or ring to many trades, but particularly to but partially employed? He assured the the silk trade. The persons engaged in hon. member, that if a bill were to be inthat trade had done every thing in their troduced, which had for its object the power to persuade the country and the abolition of every restriction upon the exgovernment, that removing the prohibi-portation of machinery, it would be pro

would say, that if such doctrines were to go abroad, and to be acted upon by that House, the greatest alarm would be created throughout the country. He meant nothing offensive to the hon. member for Aberdeen, when he stated with confidence, that the alarm existing among the manufacturing interests was not at all diminished by the fact, that that hon. member had taken the lead upon this important question. There was not any one great town in England, from Nottingham downward, that did not entertain alarm at, and that had not expressed a wish to be exempted from, his measures relative to trade. For himself, he thought it a most difficult question for any person, or set of persons, to de

ductive of serious alarm in the manu- | facturing districts, and would give rise to the presentation of numerous petitions from all parts of the country to that House. He trusted, therefore, that the hon. member would confine himself to the presentation of the petition, and would not follow it up with any specific motion. It had been generally agreed, that some alteration in the law respecting the exportation of machinery should take place; and the question having been agitated some time ago, a regulation was made, giving to the Board of Trade a discretion, as to the kinds of machinery which might or might not be exported. The discretion thus vested in the Board of Trade was of a most disagreeable and unpleasant na-fine the kinds of machinery which might ture. It was, moreover, liable to this ob- be exported, and those which were to be jection, that in whatever way the Board of prohibited. Under this impression, he Trade decided, the party refused the right thought that the most advisable course of exportation conceived himself injured would be for the right hon. gentleman to and wrongly dealt by. Upon this ground present the skeleton of a bill, accompanied alone he felt the necessity of establishing by schedules of the allowed and prohibited some fixed and settled principle of export- machinery, and to refer that bill to a seation and prohibition of all articles of ma- lect committee, who should have the power chinery. He had himself endeavoured to of filling up the blanks. That a revision lay down a rule by which the discretion of the law was necessary was beyond all vested in the Board of Trade should be doubt; because as it now stood, though regulated; and that principle was-that the exportations of certain machines was where machinery was of great bulk, and prohibited, yet it was much doubted whecontained a great quantity of the raw ther that law prevented the exportation of material, no objection should be made to the same machinery in parts. Upon this exportation, as he considered that no in- question of the exportation of machinery, jury could be done to the country by it. a memorial had been some time since preBut where machinery was of modern con- sented to the Board of Trade, from the struction, and depended mainly upon the Chamber of Commerce of Manchester, coningenuity and excellence of the mecha- taining such sound and practical argunism, and where the raw material used ments against indiscriminate exportation, was trifling, then the exportation of such that he wished it was possible to have it machinery was prohibited. It was a no-printed and laid before the public. That torious fact, that many manufacturing memorial stated, that if the finer and more establishments were at this moment stand-ingenious parts of machinery were allowed. ing still, under the expectation of obtain to be sent abroad, the artisans and manuing machinery from this country. Under facturers would soon emigrate after them. such circumstances then, and particularly He hoped the hon. member would not in the present state of the manufacturing follow up the petition with any motion on interests, he implored the hon. member this delicate and important subject. not to agitate the question at this period. He had no objection to the petition being brought up and read, and, if necessary, printed; but he did not wish it to go forth to the public, that the whole law with respect to the exportation of machinery might be safely repealed.

Colonel Torrens said, that, although he agreed in principle with those who looked upon free trade as a great advantage, he was far from going along with them to the extent to which they proposed to carry it. He thought that the principle of free trade must be ever limited by another principle; Mr. Littleton protested against the namely, the policy of each country resweeping doctrines laid down by the hon.serving to itself the sole benefit of those member for Aberdeen. As a representative of a large manufacturing county, he

exclusive advantages, which, either from nature or by acquisition, it might enjoy.

Why should we not take advantage of the consideration. It would, in his opinion, materials which were placed exclusively in be much better to adopt this course than our hands, and confine the enjoyment of to fatigue the House, night after night, them to ourselves? We had, for instance, with arguments and disputations without coals at a cheap rate from our mines. He end. The opinions just delivered by the had some time ago been told by a manu- hon. member for Aberdeen, he was sure facturer on the Seine, that he could not he had heard him repeat more than twenty work his steam-engine, on account of the times before; and he could not but think, dearness of fuel. Now, he thought that that they would better suit a discussion if a duty of fifty per cent were levied on upon a specific measure. He was, however, coals exported to the continent, it would pleased that this debate had taken place, produce two good effects. In the first as it had called forth a gentleman whose place, it would, to a certain extent, benefit talents promised to be a great addition our revenue; and in the next, it would to those who thought with him. It had prevent the foreign manufacturer from been for so long a time the habit to competing with us. He was, generally look upon any man as a Goth who disspeaking, a friend to free trade. But, in sented from the modern doctrine of poevery science, there must necessarily be litical economy, that he could not help exceptions. There could be no universal congratulating the House upon the acprinciple applicable to all circumstances. cession of the hon. member for Ipswich Now, it was admitted on all hands, even (colonel Torrens), and he hoped to find that by the hon. member for Aberdeen, that hon. member frequently coming forward, we made better machinery than our rivals; upon his side of the question. It was that they could not compete with us in true that the heavier articles of our mathat branch of art; and that our manu- chinery, such as cylinders, wheels, &c. factures were, in consequence, cheaper were exported without injury to our trade and better. If such was the case, he or commerce. They were composed of a would ask, why we should give up our ex-large quantity of the raw material, but the clusive advantage? He would contend, that we ought to keep, with a firm hand, all our exclusive advantages, because they evidently ministered to the wealth and the prosperity of the country. The country was now, as it were, in a storm, and we ought to keep the ropes tight, and let nothing go, until fair weather came round again.

Sir H. Parnell did not conceive that any mischief could arise to any branch of our trade or commerce, by the exportation of machinery of whatever description. The use of that machinery would enable other countries to increase their wealth, and we should ultimately derive a proportionate benefit from such increase. It appeared to him unjust to withhold this liberty from the manufacturers of machines. They formed a large class of the community; and he could not see why their interests should be sacrificed to those of other manufacturers, the produce of whose industry was exported.

articles proposed to be prohibited were, as far as the material was concerned, of trifling value, and were only prized because of the ingenuity and skill exercised in their construction. As the law now stood, however, it was almost impossible to define what might and what might not be exported; so that, after all, it would be most advisable to appoint a board, who should have power to regulate the whole question of the exportation of machinery. If we were driven to the question of an unqualified exportation, or a total restriction of machinery, he, for one, should prefer the latter. But we were not driven to this extremity; and the best course would be, to appoint a proper tribunal, which should have the power of deciding the articles of machinery which might be exported, and those which ought to be prohibited.

Mr. Warburton was of opinion, that the discussion of such an important subject as this ought not to be confined to Mr. Baring said, he thought that it one field-day, but that it ought to be frewould conduce to the economy of the quently brought under the consideration time of the House, if hon. members would of the House. The speech of the hon. avoid making long speeches upon present-member for Ipswich rested entirely on ing petitions, and reserve themselves until the specific questions to which such petitions related came properly under their

the assumption that this country possessed a monopoly of the more ingenious machinery, and therefore ought to enforce

« PreviousContinue »