guardians of the public purse, and one too who professes to watch over the public expenditure with more than an ordinary degree of jealousy and anxiety, seeking an opportunity, not during the recess of parliament, but in the middle of a session, not in this house, but at a public meeting, stating, that he could point out a plan by which eleven millions a year might be saved to the country, that astonishment was, if possible, increased, when I saw the honouraable gentleman attending, day after day, in his place here, without giving the house any intimation of the means by which this most desirable object might be effected. The honourable gentleman could not be ignorant, that, on the one hand, such a declaration was cal. culated to make a strong impression out of doors; that from the character of the meeting at which it was made, it would be disseminated through the public with a mischievous activity; and on the other, that it was only in this house that the plan could be discussed with a view to any beneficial result, or that any practical measure could be taken for attaining its professed object: and yet, sir, the honourable gentleman has just informed us, that it was not his intention to have brought forward any part of this notable scheme in the present session. In a tone almost of anger and complaint, he tells you, that he has been goaded and challenged by the frequent calls made upon him here; that yielding to such importunity, and not to any sense of his public duty, he, on this last day of the session, condescends to point out the means of relieving the public from the pressure of the property tax. What, sir, is the light in which the honour able gentleman places his own conduct by his statement of this evening? Some two months ago he had ascertained, to the entire satisfaction, I presume, of his own mind, that a tax producing upwards of eleven millions a year could be taken off without any detriment to the public service; he had, at that time, so completely matured the measures of reform by which this saving could be effected, as publicly to record his opinion: and to-night he tells you that it never was his intention, in this session, to follow up that opinion by any proposition in this house! In the view of the honourable gentleman, then, the saving of eleven millions is a matter of such little moment, that the means of enacting it being delivered by him in the middle of one session, it consists with his sense of pub. lic duty to postpone the application of those means till the next. But it also consists with this same sense of duty, in the mind of the honourable gentleman, to send forth the assertion to the public, under such circumstances, and coupled with such sentiments, as appeared to the meeting, where it was first uttered, best calculated to create an impression, that the blame of the continuance of this tax is solely to be ascribed to the corruption of this house. The blame, if blame there be, of not having investigated the honourable gentleman's plan of economy in this session must fall entirely upon himself. The mischief, likewise, if mischief ensue, from his indiscreet assertions, must be laid entirely at his door. The delusion and the disappointment are equally of his own creating. That the honourable gentleman's plan will end in the disappointment of those who who gave credit to his assertions, must, I think, be obvious to every member of this house, who has listened to the details brought forward by the honourable gentleman. I shall not attempt to follow him through all these details. If, indeed, they had been supported by any thing like reasoning or proof, I might have found it necessary to trespass upon the indulgence of the house, with such statements as the arguments of the honourable gentleman night have appeared to me to require: but when the, honourable gentleman brings forward nothing but a string of bare assertions, it would be a waste of time to meet them in detail by other assertions of an opposite nature. Indeed, sir, from the manner in which the hon. gentleman treats this subject, I am at a loss to understand why he should confine his savings to eleven millions. With the same facility, and by the same process, he might produce a saving of twenty; and certainly there are other reformers, out of doors, with a degree of self-confidence equal to that of the honourable gentleman, who do not scruple to tell the public that twenty millions might be saved without any detriment to the public service. Their assertions, I make no doubt, are made with the same sincerity, proclaimed with the same patriotic views, and calculated to produce the same beneficial purposes as those of the honourable gentleman. He, however, is only bound by the minor pledge, but having been the first to start, his anxiety to redeem that pledge may, perhaps, have been quickened, this evening, by the bolder strides of those who have since followed him in this mighty career. The first idea of this saving ap pears to have suggested itself to the honourable gentleman's mind in consequence of a discovery he made in the annual accounts, that the total expenditure of Great Britain, in the year ending the 5th of January 1808, was seventyone millions, and that in the year ending the 5th of January 1809 it was seventy-nine millions. The honourable gentleman finds an increase of charge to the amount of eight millions, and the necessary and natural inference is, that a saving of eleven millions may be made. Having come to this ir resistible conclusion, the honourable gentleman hastens to publish his discovery at the Crown and Anchor, and has since laboured to make up an account, showing the means by which this saving may be effected. Before I proceed to say a few words on those means, I will endeavour to state very shortly to the house the principal causes of the increased expense in the year 1809, compared with the preceding year. This part of the case might have embarrassed the honourable gentleman's caleulation, and he therefore very discreetly appears to have excluded it alto gether from his account. In the first place there is the augmentation to the charge of the public debt, occasioned by the loan of the year, amounting to about 800,000/. In the navy an increased expense of 1,500,000%. owing principally to the increased price of naval stores. In the army, an increase to the same amount, owing to the augmentation of our regular force, and to our having had a great proportion of that force employed in active operations in Spain and Portugal. There is also 1,500,000%. in arrear of debt due to the East India company, for services performed performed by them in former years; and about 3,000,0007. of pecuniary aidto cur allies, of which 1,200,000!. was sent to the king of Sweden, under the sanction of parliament, and th remainder told the patriotic efforts the Spaniards, with the concurrence and approvation of every man in the kingdom. I must leave to the house and to the public to juage, whether any of these branches of expenditure could have been abridged, consistent with justice or sound policy; and will how proceed to the plan of the honourable gentleman. The honourable gentleman took up all the facts noticed by Mr. Wardle, and attempted to show the fallacy of his arguments, and concluded with saying: " There is only one topic more on which I will trouble the house at present. The honourable gentleman has re minded us of the declaration of a gallant admiral (Markham), a member of this house, that one third of the whole expense of the navy might be saved without prejudice to the service. That expense is now nineteen millions; and if the honourable gentleman, upon the strength of this assertion, has taken credit for a third of this sum, it will certainly be of main asssistance to him towards effecting his proposed saving of eleven millions. The assertion, I am afraid, was made in this house. Whether it was drawn from the honourable admiral in a moment of irritation, and when he was off his guard, I cannot pretend to say; but I have no difficulty in declaring that it was a rash and inconsiderate assertion, and one which could not be realized. Since it was made, that gallant admiral has been in office; he has not only been a lord of the admiralty, but what is called the managing lord, a phrase perfectly well understood at that board. In this situation he must have been anxious, not only from every feeling of duty to his country, but from the most powerful personal motives, to make good his assertion, and to establish the truth and solidity of it, by his own practice and his own retrenchments. Further, he must have been goaded to it every day and almost every hour, by that economical admini stration which has this night received the praise of the honourable gentleman, an administration un der which the gallant admiral serv ed, and the members of which had, in a manner, made themselves par ties to this pledge, not less by their boasted professions of economy, than by the cheers of approbation they gave to the original assertion. Well, sir, what was done? Were the estimates of the navy diminish ed? Was the sum required for wages, for wear and tear, for victualling, less than under the honoura ble admiral's predecessors? In fact, was the expense lessened at all, or in any material degree? It certainly was not, and the honour. able admiral must have found his mistake. It would be preposterous to pretend, that in an expenditure of nineteen millions there exist no abuses at all; but I maintain, tha when they are discovered they are corrected; that there is no wilful waste countenanced by the heads of departments; that there is as much vigilance and as much anxiety to keep down expense in the present admiralty as there could be during the management of the honourable admiral; and that many beneficial regulations have lately been made for this purpose; but that no such saving, as was rashly stated by him to be practicable, can be effected; and that the total expense expense cannot be materially, if at all, diminish d, as long as the war compels us to keep up our navy to its present establishment. So far, therefore, from the honourable gentleman's statement having derived any real support from the assertion of the gallant admiral, I say that he, as I trust the house and the public will, ought to take a warning from it, to mistrust his own assertions; and that the mischievous ase which has been made of the gallant admiral's statement and authority out of doors, to create discontent, ought to have been a lesson to the honourable gentleman to hesitate before he came forward here, or elsewhere, with similar assertions, calculated not to alleviate any real pressure, but to add to the irritation of the public, not to improve our resources, but to increase the difficulties and hazards inseparable from a protracted war, of which no man can foresee the issue, or determine the duration." Mr. Ward spoke on the same side... Mr. Parnell. Before, sir, I make any reply to the arguments of the honourable member (Mr. Huskisson), I feel myself called upon to assert, that a charge more unfound ed could not be made by one member against another,than that which he has brought forward against the honourable member behind me, for making his statement on the last day of the session. I appeal to every member in the house, whether or not the honourable member was not compelled to do so; and whether it was possible for him, after the threat that was held over him from the moment at which he first expressed his opinion of the saving that might be made in the public expenditure, to permit the session to close, without coming down to the house and stating the grounds of that opinion. The honourable member has said, that the honourable mover has made a statement of mere assertion, and that he could just as easily have proved a saving of a million as a saving of 500,000l. whenever he had said that he could save the latter sum. This, sir, I positively deny; the statement of the honourable member was replete with sound argument, supported by indisputable facts, and corroborated by the best authorities; nothing was advanced in it which the honourable member did not most satisfactorily sustain; and it was very evident that, when the house heard this statement, a great degree of surprise was excited, in consequence of the extent of proof which the honourable member was able to advance in support of his general opinion. In what the honourable member opposite has said, respecting the expenditure of the last year being greater than the expenditure of the preceding year by seven millions, he has altogether misrepresented the honourable member and me. He made no such absurd position, as that of saying, that because the expenditure had increased seven millions, therefore a saving might be effected of ele ven. He referred to this fact merely with a view of showing that grounds existed for forming a presumption that a considerable saving might be effected, and that whatever he advanced in the detail might be borne out. When, sir, I come to consider the observations of the honourable member upon the statement which has been made to the house, I cannot avoid remarking how very superficially he has dwelt upon that part of it whith relates to the army, It is in this depart ment ment where, according to common notoriety, the greatest abuses prevail; and in the general management of which, a greater want of sound principles is generally conceived to exist than in any other department; and though the honourable member behind me has made out items on which six millions, in his opinion, might be saved, the honourable member opposite has confined his observations to two of them only, the foreign corps and fortifications. Is the house to conclude from this that the honour able member is unable to meet argaments and authorities advanced upon this general head? I think sir, it has, in a great degree, a right to do so; it has, at least, a right to infer that the honourable member who has proposed this saving, has not done so on the light grounds of mere assertion, imputed to him by the honourable member. Now, sir, as to the opinion which the honourable member behind me entertains respecting the military expenditure of Ireland, in this I most fully concur with him, and am desirous to bear with him equal responsibility for the accuracy of it; for I defy any one to show that this greatly increased expenditure, from 400,000l. in the American war to two millions in 1799, and to near five millions in 1809, can be accounted for by any other means than by the impolitic resist ance which is made to the constitutional claims of the people of Ireland. It is notorious to every one, that the object of that expenditure is in a great degree to keep the people in subjection, and that so large an army would not be wanting, if no such object existed. I have therefore a right to say, that if a wiser policy was adopted in governing Ireland, a great por tion of this expenditure might be saved, and an additional security obtained for the defence of the country, against invasion, in the hearts and affections of the whole people of Ireland. The people of this country are greatly mistaken, if they conceive that this part of the public expenditure is of no concern to them. They pay of it by the articles of the union, no less than 15 parts out of 17; and they should be more on their guard, therefore, how they lend themselves to the designs of those who create alarms by talking of the terrors of popery. They should consider that they impose upon themselves a charge of no less than two millions a year, by refusing to their catholic fellow subjects their just and constitutional rights. He I must here, sir, remark upon another point on which the honourable member opposite has greatly mistaken the statement of the ho nourable member behind me. has argued as if he took credit for a great saving to be effected in the naval department, in order to make out a total saving of eleven millions. He has done no such, thing. The savings which he has calculated upon are-in the army, 6,182,000/.-Management of the revenue, 1,110,000l. Commissions of accounts and inquiry, 75,0007. Pensions, 300,000/Colonies, 500,000l. Bounties, 150,000. Allowance on management of debt, 210,000.-The military expenditure of Ireland, 2,000,000l.-making 10,857,0007. The savings which might be ef fected in the navy departments will amply make good what this sum wants of eleven millions; and it will also cover any errors that may have been made in taking the savings in the other department - |