CHAP. XXXIV, Meeting of parliament.-Consideration of the Westminster scrutiny-Debts of CHAP. 1785. PARLIAMENT met on the 26th of January 1785, and the chief object recommended by his majesty to the attention XXXIV. of the legislature, was the adjustment of such points in the commercial intercourse between Great Britain and Ireland, as had not before been arranged. The success attending measures Meeting of which were embraced in the last session for the suppression of parliament. smuggling, would encourage them to persevere in their application to those important concerns; they would also consider the reports suggested by the commissioners of public accounts, and make such regulations as might appear necessary in the different offices of the kingdom. Notwithstanding the dissensions on the continent, his majesty continued to receive assurances from foreign powers of their amicable disposition towards this country. The earl of Surrey opposed the address, or rather objected to it on account of what he conceived to be wrongly omitted; especially because no mention had been made of the reduction of the army. Lord North, conceiving parliamentary reform to be intended by one recommendatory expression, declared his XXXIV. 1785. CHAP sentiments very strongly against any alteration of the constitu tion; and Mr. Burke blamed the total silence relative to the affairs of India. Mr. Pitt replied to the objections; the observations on the reduction of the army were premature, until the supplies of the year should be before the house: parliamentary reform was a subject of the highest importance, but at this early period of the session it was impossible to state his plans specifically all his ideas were not yet thoroughly matured; the subject comprehended a great variety of considera tions, and related to essentials and vitals of the constitution; it therefore required considerate and delicate attention; and though it was a path which he was determined to tread, he knew with what tenderness and circumspection it became him to proceed. There was not a general debate, and the address was carried without a division. Considera tion of the ster scruti Westmin ny. Debts of the nabob of Arcot. The scrutiny of the Westminster election was again brought before the house in the month of February. Mr. Fox had cons tended, that the election ought to be tried by Mr. Grenville's act, and had imputed the perseverance in the scrutiny to the persecuting spirit of the minister. Mr. Pitt argued, that Mr. Grenville's act was for trying elections virtually made, but that› there being no return from Westminster, the law in question was not applicable: a scrutiny had been demanded by one of the candidates, the returning officer had complied, as official duty required; far from having any personal motives to promote a scrutiny, the very reverse was the case; it would have been more convenient and easy for ministers to have suffered Mr. Fox to take his seat without question, but instead of attending to their own accommodation, they had consulted the rights of the electors, and the purposes of substantial justice. The house continued in the same opinion as to the legality of the scrutiny; but finding in its progress that, though there were. objectionable votes on both sides, a majority, nearly the same in proportion as at the close of the poll, remained in favour of Mr. Fox, they judged it expedient and equitable to direct the high bailiff to make a return; and the following day that officer returned lord Hood and Mr. Fox. On the eighteenth of February, the nabob of Arcot's debts to Europeans were the subject of parliamentary discussion. In Mr. Fox's India bill the new commissioners had been instructed to examine into the origin and justice of the claims; by Mr. Pitt's law the examination was appointed, but referred to the court of directors, who were to enjoin their presidencies and servants to inquire into the case, and in concert establish a fund from the nabob's revenue, for the discharge of the debts which should be found just, that they might be liquidated ac cording to the respective rights of priority of the several creditors, and consistently with the rights of the company, and the honour and dignity of the nabob. Conformably to this clause, the directors had prepared orders; but after inspection, XXXIV. the board of control rejected them, and gave new instructions, CHAP. which admitted the greater part of the debts to be just, assigned a fund from the revenues of the Carnatic for their discharge, and established the priority of payment among the several 1785. classes of creditors: these directions had been publicly read at a meeting of such creditors as were in England. Motions were made in both houses, that copies of the letters or injunctions issued by the court of directors might be produced; the object of this requisition was to prove, that the board of control, in originating the contrary order, had departed from the express purpose of their institution, and had violated the act of parlia ment. Mr. Fox having opened this subject in the house of commons, and assuming the position that was to be proved, expatiated with copious eloquence on the arbitrary power which was usurped by the board of control, and the mischiev ous consequences that the present act must produce to the interests of the Carnatic, and of the India company. Mr. Dundas argued from the act of parliament, that the power exercised was not an usurpation, since, by the strict letter of the statute, the board was enabled to originate orders in cases of urgent necessity, and to direct their transmission to India. In the present exercise of that power, the board of control had acted upon the most complete information that could be received, and had directed the arrangement in question, on finding it the most fair and just to all the parties concerned. It was expedient not to keep the nabob's debts longer afloat; the final conclusion of the business would tend to promote tranquillity and harmo ny, and the debtor had concurred with the creditors in establishing the validity of the claims. After these general observations, he, by a particular detail of their respective circumstances, undertook to justify the several debts which were admitted by the board. On this subject Mr. Burke made a very long oration, which Mr. Burke's displayed a most extensive knowledge of the history and state speech on the subject: of India; but it was much more remarkable for narratives, imagery, and philosophy, to inform, delight, and instruct a reader in his closet, than for appropriate arguments to the point at issue, to convince a hearer in the senate, and induce bim to vote as the speaker desired. The part of his reasoning that appeared specifically applicable to the subject before the house was adduced, to demonstrate that the alleged debts arose from a collusion between the nabob and certain servants of the company, who had been guilty of the most heinous fraud; oppression, and cruelty: forcibly animated and highly coloured was the picture he drew, of tyranny and suffering, guilt and misery, in British India, as the result of the alleged connivance; but since, as a chain of logical deduction, the evidence did not make out the case, the motion was negatived; and in the house of peers a similar proposition was rejected. XXXIV. 1785. reform, CHAP. On the eighteenth of April, Mr. Pitt again introduced his propositions for a reform in parliament. Desirous, as the mi nister professed himself, of such a change in the representation as he conceived most consistent with the principles, and conducive to the objects of the constitution, he was aware of the danger of essays of reform, unless very nicely modified Mr. Pitt's and circumscribed. The general characteristics of his plan plan of par- for that purpose, were caution, and specification: nothing liamentary vague or indefinite was proposed; no chasm was left which visionary imaginations might fill with their own distempered fancies; thus far shalt thou go and no farther, was obviously expressed in the extent and bounds. The leading principle was, that the choice of legislators should follow such circumstances as give an interest in their acts, and therefore ought in a great degree to be attached to property. This principle being established, it was obvious, that as many very conside rable towns and bodies either had no vote in electing represen tatives, or had not the privilege of choosing a number proportioned to their property, it would be necessary to disfranchise certain decayed boroughs. In relations between government and subject, it was a manifest rule in jurisprudence on the one hand, that the interest of a part must give way to the interest of the whole; but on the other, that when such a sacrifice is required from a subject, the state should amply compensate inis introdu- dividual loss incurred for the public good. Guided by these ced into maxims of ethics, Mr. Pitt proposed to transfer the right of choosing representatives from thirty-six of such boroughs as had already fallen, or were falling into decay, to the counties, and to such chief towns and cities as were at present unrepresented; that a fund should be provided for the purpose of giv ing to the owners and holders of the boroughs disfranchised, an appreciated compensation; that the acceptance of this recompense should be a voluntary act of the proprietor, and, if not taken at present, should be placed out at compound interest, until it became an irresistible bait to such proprietor; he also projected to extend the right of voting for knights of the shire to copyholders as well as freeholders. The chief arguments in favour of a reform were derived from the alleged partiality of representation; an active, reforming, and regulating policy, which kept pace with the alterations in the country, was requisite to preserve the constitution in its full vigour: when any part of our system was decayed, it had ever been the wisdom of the legislature to renovate and restore it by such means as were most likely to answer the end proposed; and hence had arisen the frequent alterations that had taken place with respect to the rule of representation. From a change of circumstances, towns which once ought to have a vote in choosing a senator or senators, now behoved to have none; and towns once without any just claim to the right of such an election, were now aggrieved and injured by the want of that privilege. parliament, XXXIV. 1785. The principle continued the same in both the former and the CHAP latter, but its application should be altered in a difference of case. The opposers of reform, on the other hand, contended, that no necessity had been shown for such a change; that whatever inequalities theory might exhibit in the existing sysfem, the people were all actually represented, as far as was necessary to their rights and happiness; that no man could be deprived of liberty, property, or life, but by his own act, whether he had a vote for a member of parliament or not; that under the present mode of representation, both individual and national prosperity had risen to a very great pitch, and was rapidly rising to a higher; that it was extremely dangerous to alter what experience, the only sure test of political truth, had uniformly shown to be good. The people did not want re form; the large towns that were said to be aggrieved by the present state of representation, had made no complaint, or sought any redress; those which were called rotten and decay. ed boroughs were frequently represented by gentlemen who had the greatest stake in the country, and consequently were as much concerned in its welfare as any other representatives, ༄ ཉི་ རོ་ལས་རྗེ་ r Never, perhaps, were the arguments on this side of the question more clearly exhibited, than those which are compressed into a page of one of the most valuable works that can be recorded in the literary history of the present reign. Paley, in his Principles of moral and political Philosophy, resting the question concerning representation, as well as every political establishment, solely on expediency, says, "We consider it (representation) so far only as a right at all, as it condu "ees to public utility; that is, as it contributes to the establishment of good laws, “ or as if secures to the people the just administration of these laws. These effects "depend upon the disposition and abilities of the national counsellors ? wherefore, "if men the most likely, by their qualifications, to know and to promote the publi “lic interest, be actually returned to parliament, it signifies little who return "them. If the properest persons be elected, what matters it by whom they are elect"ed? At least no prudent statesman would subvert long established or even sets ? "iled rules of representation, without a prospect of "procuring wiser or better representatives. This then being well observed, let us, before we seek to obtain "any thing more, consider duly what we already have. We have a house of "commons composed of five hundred and forty-eight members, in which number: "are found the most considerable landholders and merchants of the kingdom, the "heads of the army, the navy, and the laws; the occupiers of great offices in the *state, together with many private individuals, eminent by their knowledge, "eloquence, or activity. Now, if the country be not safe in auch hands, in whose "may it confide its interest? If such a number of such men be liable to the influ *ence of corrupt motives, what assembly of men will be secure from the same danger? Does any new scheme of representation promise to collect together "more wisdom or produce firmer integrity? In this view of the subject, and at“tending not to ideas of order and proportion (of which many minds are much "enamoured,) but to known effects alone, we may discover just excuses for those parts of the present representation which appear to a hasty observer most ex **ceptionable and absurd." Paley, vol. ii. p. 219, 1... POE. IR 6 4 |