Mr. Grattan, Mr. Knox, and Mr. Ponsonby were ordered to prepare and introduce the same.

COMMITTEE of supply.

February 12. 1795.

THE Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sir John Parnell), stated that the taxes he meant to propose would amount to a small sum, as those of the last year had been so productive, that the revenue now was adequate to the peace establishment. He would only mention taxes to the amount of 80,000l., the interest of the loan. He proposed a tax on tabacco, paper, revenue bonds, and a continuation of the tax on leather.

Mr. Duquery objected strongly to the latter, and proposed as a substitute, a tax on pensions and salaries, which, in answer to a question from Mr. Grattan as to its amount, he stated would produce 30,000l., from the revenue, stamp, and post-office establishments. Mr. Duquery stated, he intended to give notice of a motion on this subject.

Mr. Ponsonby complimented Mr. Duquery upon his good intentions and his professions in support of the administration, but he conceived that he was entirely mistaken in the course he pursued, and that his speech would produce discontent instead of satisfaction.

No

Mr. GRATTAN said: having heard the honourable gentleman's calculation, I am clear in saying I will object to his proposal, because I am sure he cannot be in earnest. man of common judgment could be serious in a proposal to tax officers in the revenue; for instance, those who receive not more than 40l. a year. Would the honourable gentleman tax poverty under the pretext of relieving it? Could he be so weak as to believe that the House would lay a tax on men whose income is scarcely sufficient to their existence? and yet such are all the lower officers in the revenue, from whose pittance the honourable gentleman would take a tenth. Could he believe that Parliament would snatch her support from the widow of the clergyman or the soldier? The gentleman resorts to the pension list; if he had adverted to the items which compose the 120,000l. he mentions, he would have seen that the greater part is paid to persons who are objects of compassion, and to persons who already pay a tax of 4s. in the pound as absentees. Let the honourable gentleman deduct these from his calculations, and what remains? He does not know! Let him deduct the

generosity of the country to the widow and her orphans, and what will he then draw from the pension list? He does not know! What then is his calculation? A fallacy! Let me put it in another light. The sum to be raised is 30,000l. a-year; the source from which he would draw it is the pension list, which now is 120,000l. but which, by the ordinary course of mortality, must, by operation of law, be reduced to 80,000l.: that is the fund you want to be permanent; so that what the honourable gentleman proposes is not only a fallacious, but a fugitive fund. Thus the honourable gentleman is amusing you with false calculations, while he is disseminating discontent by a declamatory speech.

I do not impute a bad intention to him; but I say his arguments deserve reprobation, since they go to create in the public mind an impracticable wish. What the honourable gentleman has advanced, is indeed of so dangerous a tendency without a possibility of doing good, that one cannot animadvert on it without honest indignation; coming too, at a time when the House, with a liberality of which there has been no former instance, is taking from the shoulders of the poor the most tyrannical tax which ever pressed it, (the hearth tax.)

The honourable gentleman tells the House he will brace the sinews of war. How will he brace them? Is it by an attempt to throw odium on the administration he professes to admire and support, and by stripping the country of its resources? Could the right honourable baronet at my left hand (Chancellor of the Exchequer) procure money for the country on the fugacious ground the honourable gentleman proposes? No, certainly. It is therefore declamatory and worse than idle for the honourable gentleman to give out a parade day for a measure which he cannot show to be useful, and which if it be useful, government will take up, as they have done their other measures, of themselves, and not from the dictates of a member professing to support, but endeavouring to embarrass.

After a few remarks from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the several grants were agreed to.

DUBLIN POLICE.

February 17. 1795.

ON the 12th Mr. Grattan brought forward the subject of the police of the city of Dublin, and said: Sir, I have presented to this House many petitions against the police establishment, praying to be relieved from the inadequacy and extravagance of that institution. Those petitions from very nearly all the parishes in this city are now on your table; and it is my intention to move for leave to bring in a bill to repeal the police law, and to establish in the room of that institution, an efficient and constitutional guard for the city. It was not necessary in order to ground this bill, that the petitions now on your table should have been presented. Had no petition come before you, I would from my own knowledge of the defects and abuses of the institution, and in compliance with the wishes of my fellow-citizens, have introduced the bill. The petitions however, coming. from so large a part of the citizens, form a conclusive argument in favour of the measure. If, therefore, gentlemen. please, I will move that the petitions be referred to a committee, and shall, after they have reported their opinion, move for leave to bring in the bill.

The House accordingly resolved itself into a committee on the petitions, Mr. G. Ponsonby in the chair.

The petitions being read,

Mr. Grattan moved a resolution, "That a motion should be made in the House, for leave to bring in a bill, pursuant to the prayer of the several petitions."

This resolution being agreed to, the House resumed, and Mr. Ponsonby reported from the committee.

Mr. Grattan then moved for leave to bring in a bill, for repealing so much of two acts as went to establish the police; also, to provide a proper and sufficient nightly guard for the city.

Mr. Ponsonby seconded this motion. Leave was given; and on the 16th the House resolved itself into the committee,

When Mr. Grattan said: he thought it unnecessary to enter into an enlarged detail on the inefficiency of the police establishment for the protection of the citizens, compared

with the enormous expence. The number of men required by the police act was 500; by the return on their table, the number of men actually employed appeared to be but 303. The expence annually, at the lowest reduction, was 17,000l. and at the most perfect state of the establishment 20,000l. The house tax collected by the police was 13,000l., being about 1000%. more than the paving board, whose jurisdiction was considerably more extensive; and on this there appeared an arrear, which they could not collect, of 10,000, while that due to the paving board was little or nothing. Thus it appeared they were not only inadequate to the protection of the citizens, but to the collection of their own taxes. They were in arrear to the treasury in a sum of 16,000l., which they had borrowed on their outset, under promise of re-payment, but had never repaid one shilling, though repeatedly applied to.

He concluded by moving the following resolution, "That it appears to this committee, that the protection afforded by the present police establishment of the city of Dublin, is inadequate to the expence of the same, and that a motion be made in the House for leave to bring in a bill for repealing the present acts; establishing a police for the city of Dublin; and for substituting a more effectual guard for the protection of the same.".

It was agreed to nem. con.

The chairman then left the chair and reported forthwith, and Mr. Grattan moved for leave to bring in the bill. Leave was given, and a committee appointed to prepare the same; and on this day (the 17th), he rose to move his resolution.

He would not trouble the House, he said, by entering into a minute history of the establishment; it was sufficient to say, that after a trial of some years it had failed. The House, he said, would not be inconsistent in voting down that institution now, though they had formerly supported it; for the difference between gentlemen on that subject was not that abuses did not exist, but that the experiment had not been sufficiently long; time sufficient had now certainly been given; and he believed that every man was ready to agree that the experiment had failed. He, therefore, called on the House to come to the following resolution:

Resolved, "That the present police establishment, having, on experiment, proved inadequate for the protection of the city, and excessive in expence, ought to be put down, and an institution, establishing and regulating a parochial watch for the defence of the same, be substituted in its place."

Alderman Warren spoke in favour of the police; Sir Edward Newenham against it.

Mr. Grattan replied: that the argument of the honourable alderman acknowledged what the resolution asserted, that the police was inadequate to the protection of the city; and therefore it was, that the honourable alderman had applied to government for invalids. He had said, too, that the object of the police was rather to preserve peace by day, than the safety of the citizens by night. It was of that he complained; that the institution was calculated rather for the protection of unpopular individuals, than that of the city. It was for this that the metropolis was charged 17,000l. per annum. He thought that strength should be given to the magistrate to repress riot of every species, and that no degree of unpopu-. larity could justify insurrection; but he thought also that it was a misapplication of the public money, to use it in fortifying unpopularity by day, under pretext of a nightly protection for the city.

Besides, the honourable alderman in his remark on the disturbed state of the city at the time when the police was instituted, went rather too far; in 1784 the city was indeed extremely molested by riots, but what had occasioned those riots? the question of protecting duties by that question they were created, and with that question they died; and, therefore, to attribute the suppression of them to the police, was attributing it to too much; it was the quieting of the public mind, and not the exertion of the police, which had restored tranquillity to the city; and God forbid that the protection of the city by day, should depend upon an institution, which acknowledged itself inadequate to the protection of it by night! On the whole, then, he thought the House whether they considered the inadequacy of the institution, either by night or by day, or the enormity of its expence, would adopt the resolution.

The question was then put; and Mr. Grattan's resolution was carried without a division.