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240,000l. Without laying a burthen upon the country, there were many regulations to be made in the article of fpirits, that would increafe the revenue from that branch of trade. The article of tobacco was another object that demanded the attention of the legislature; and Mr. Pitt had no doubt, that, from the regulations that would be propofed under thefe heads, the fum of 300,000l. per annum, might at leaft be obtained. In another feffion of parliament he intended alfo to introduce a confolidation of the customs, which would undoubtedly add greatly to the produce of the revenue. If therefore the fubject were fairly confidered, we might here fee fums equal to the extraor dinary demands, without any new application to parliament, and without any additional burthen upon the people.

One million was the fum annually to be contributed to the finking fund, and Mr. Pitt propofed, that this money fhould be placed in the hands of commiffioners appointed for that purpofe, in quarterly payments of 250,cool. each, to begin on the fifth of the following July. He undertook to flow in what manner this money would be furnished for the three quarterly payments, that would fall within the current year. He stated the ways and means at 13,362,480l.; and the fupplies that had been voted at 12,477,0851. Of confequence, there remained a furplus of 885,3951. This forplus Mr. Pitt considered as affording not only the requifite fum of 750,000l. but alfo a remainder of 135,400l.; and including the increafe of the revenue according to the ideas of the committee, a remainder of 449,0931. Mr. Pitt now came to obferve, that the forplus, the existence of which he had endeavoured to prove

to the house, amounted to no more than 900,000l.; and that therefore the additional fum of 100,000l. must be raised in order to complete the propofed annual million. This fum he was happy to be able to obtain without laying any taxes that would be burthenfome to the people at large. He would first move for an additional duty upon fpirits. They had formerly been charged in what was called the wash, with feven pence per gallon. This was afterwards decreased to five pence; and he should now fix it at fix pence per gallon, which would produce. about 70,0col. Another operation he would propofe was only the modification of a tax; it confifted in a duty upon the importation of two fpecies of timber; and this he took at 30.000l. A farther tax which he propofed was upon an article of mere luxury, upon perfumery and hair-powder; and this he would rate at 15,000l. or 20.000l. Thus he would make up the requifite fum in order to complete the annual million.

Mr. Pitt proceeded to explain to the houfe the effects, that would be produced by an attention to compound intereft. The million to be applied would by that hypothefis amount to a very great fum in a period, that was not very long in the life of an individual, and was but an hour in the existence of a nation. It would diminish the debt of this country fo much, as to prevent the exigencies of war from ever railing it to the enormous height they had hitherto done. In the period of twenty-eight years the fum of a million-annually improved, would produce an income of four millions per annum. Care therefore must be taken, that this fund were never diverted from its original deftination. This had hither

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to been the bane of this country. If the original finking fund had been properly applied, it was eafy to prove that our debts at this moment would not have been very burthenfome. To prevent this abufe for the future, Mr. Pitt propofed, that the fum be vested in the hands of certain commiffioners, to be by them applied quarterly to the buying of stock; fo that no fun fhould ever lie within the grap of a minifter great enough to tempt him to infringe upon this national revenue. By placing it in the hands of commiffioners, it would be rendered impoffible that this fhould be done by stealth; and a minister could not have the confidence to come to that house, exprefsly to demand the repeal of fo beneficial and neceffary a law.

The perfons, who should be appointed to this commiffion fhould be of rank and diftinction, to fecure them from fufpicion, and to create, as far as character could go, a belief of their discharging their trust with rectitude and fidelity. In the first place, he thought it right, that the perfon, by whom the office of fpeaker of that houfe fhould be filled, fhould be placed at the head of it. Parliament could not more folemnly promulgate its high fenfe of the duty by which the commiffioners would be bound. He thought alfo, without afcribing any thing to himself, that the perfon who held an office fo intimately connected with finance, as the chancellor of the exchequer, ought to have a place in that lift. To thefe might be added the master of the rolls, the governor and deputy governor of the bank of England, and the accomptant-general of the high court of chancery. Such were the perfons Mr. Pitt fhould propose to be appointed to this

truft, when the bill fhould come before the committee. He was far from afcribing any merit to himself, in fuggefting the fcheme; but he could not but think himself very happy, that, instead of expending the money of the public, he should have the good fortune to be led to fet about diminishing its burthens. The plan had long been the with and the hope of all men; and he felt uncommon pleasure in being able to flatter himself, that his name might be inscribed on that firm column, which was now about to be raised to national faith, and national profperity.

The first perfon, who suggested his remarks upon the plan which had been opened by Mr. Pitt, was for Grey Cooper. He ridiculed the ftrefs, which had been laid upont he mode of the accumulation of money at compound intereft, and remarked that it was a propofition perfectly fimple and obvious tỏ every capacity. He obferved, that the mode in which the late committee had proceeded in making up its report, was extremely unfair. They had taken the amount of the receipt of the public income for the prefent year, because it had proved a remarkably favourable year; and had not flated against it the real expenditure of the year, because that would have afforded no furplus upon the striking of the balance.Very different had been the conduct of the father of the prefident of the committee, Mr. George Grenville, who in a pamphlet, that had been published under his direction at the clofe of the preceding war, entitled Confiderations on the State of the Finances of the Nation, had exprefsly declared that he did not think himfelf at liberty to take the receipt of the current year for the bafis of his enquiry, because

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that was the year immediately after the conclufion of the peace, and of confequence had been a year more productive than ufual. He remarked upon the language of Mr. Pitt, who had faid, that the three millions of exchequer bills to be paid off need not be taken into the account, as they made an article under each diftinct head of fupply, and of ways and means; thofe to be paid off ranging under the former, and three millions more to be iffued in the discharge of them, ranging under the latter. Was Mr. Pitt aware that the circulation of thefe bills would be a great inconvenience, and under certain circumftances would materially deprefs the market? The conduct of ford North in 1773 had been very different, and much more provident. The amount of exchequer bills did not at that time exceed 1,800,000l.; and yet he had exerted himself to reduce their value to 1,000,000l., and had fufpended the payment of the funded debt for that operation, which had been thought by perfons of the greatest experience the most advifeable mode of applying the furplus of the year.

Mr. Fox introduced his remarks with declaring, that no man in exiftence ever was, or ever had been a greater friend to the inftitution of a finking fund, than he had hown himself from the first moment of his political life. He condemned the mode in which the late committee had proceeded in ftriking an average, which he said was not only different from every former committee, but which totally reverfed the very principle upon which an operation of this kind must be founded. In illuftration of his remark, he inftanced the produce of the tax upon malt, in eftimating which the committee had

thought proper to leave out of their calculation the year 1782, which they stated to have been uncommonly deficient. Now the use of an average had ever been to strike a balance between fums of a different amount, and to take into cons fideration a number of years, among which there might be fome of extraordinary scarcity, and others of extraordinary plenty. Mr. Fox reminded the house of the ridicule Mr. Pitt had thrown upon the language he had used on the first day of the feffion, when he had obferved in a moderate style, that he believed there might be fome exifling furplus. The fact was now afcertained, and he begged leave to ask, whether, fo far from its being true, that there was fome furplus for the prefent year, there was not an actual deficiency?

In the opinion of Mr. Fox, twenty-eight years was too long a period to which to look forward for the effect of this plan. Before that term was arrived, it was not improbable we might have another war, and a variety of circumftances might occur, which would operate as a temptation to a future chancellor of the exchequer, and a fu ture houfe of commons to repeal the act, annul the inftitution, and divert the appropriation of its stock to the immediate fervices of the year. It was a melancholy reflection, which was held out to the public by the report under confideration, when it was the clear deduction from the whole, that the permanent peace establishment was not to be expected before the year 1791, eight years after the conclufion of the war. In order to give the proper degree of efficacy to fo import ant a measure as that which was now before the house, Mr. Fox recommended to the minister to proG3

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vide new taxes in lieu of fuch as had failed, in order to make up the fum for which thofe taxes had originally been given. The fhop-tax for instance, had been estimated at 120,0col. It appeared however, that its actual produce would amount to no more than 70,000; and, when the modifications which were now introduced fhould come into operation, the whole would be reduced to an income of 50,000l. In this cafe he held it to be the duty of the chancellor of the exchequer, either to propofe a new tax that would be efficient for 120,000l., and repeal the fhop-tax, or a tax that would produce 70,000l., the fum by which the actual produce of the fhop-tax fell fhort of the amount at which it had originally been eftimated. Inftead of applying an imaginary forplus to the purpofe of inftituting a finking fund, he would have advifed the creation of an actual million by the introduction of new taxes, and the placing the fund upon a folid foundation, which was now built upon nothing but vifionary predictions.

Mr. Fox ftated two fpecific ob. jections to the plan which was defcribed by Mr. Pitt. The first was the idea of making the fum appropriated inalienable in time of war; and he endeavoured to point out feveral difadvantages which would refult from this provifion. His other objection was pointed against the circumftance of making the engagement into which parliament entered for paying off the debt, a matter only of general obligation, and thus leaving both the commiffioners and the object of their inftitution liable to be annihilated by a future parliament. He reminded the houfe of the mode of the original institution of a plan for pay

ing off a part of the national debt, which had been by a fubfcription of individuals, to whom the faith of parliament had been engaged to redeem fpecific portions at certain ftated periods. He dwelt upon the difference between the two plans, obferving that under the latter, the engagement of parliament was held equally facred, with the pledge generally to pay the intereft of the national debt; and undoubtedly, nothing fhort of a national bankruptcy would have prevented the fums for which the nation was engaged, from being paid to the individual fubfcribers. Mr. Fox alfo expreffed fome doubts, whether the compelling the commiffioners to lay out the money on certain days might not raife the market, and to difcover fellers, when none might voluntarily offer, might not fo far. inhance the price of the flock, as to occafion the benefit to be entirely loft to the public.

Mr. Piti replied to the objections of Mr. Fox. He obferved, that the idea of paying off a part of the debt by a fubfcription of individuals, had been fuggefted to him by feveral perfons, and had received his own approbation, but that he had afterwards been obliged to reject it cn account of the inconveniencies to which it was liable. With regard to preferving the fund to be invariahly applied in diminution of the debt, this was to be confidered as the most effential circumftance of the measure. To fuffer it at any time or upon any presence to be diverted from its object, would be to defeat and overturn the whole of his plan. He hoped therefore when the bill he fhould introduce fhould once have paffed into a law, that the houfe would hold itself folemnly pledged never to listen to any propofal for its repeal.

Upon the fecond reading of the bill for the cftablishing of a fund to be inalienably applied to the paying off the national debt, which took place on the fixth of April, Mr. Huffey affigned feveral reafons, though ardently attached to the idea of a finking fund, that induced him to fear, that the appropriating any part of the public revenue to this purpofe was not yet practicable. He declared, that he had felt great fatisfaction, when Mr. Pitt, in taking notice of the excefs of the expenditure of the prefent year beyond the general ft tement in the report of the committee, had faid, that, though there might, upon the four enfuing years, arife an excels of disbursement to the amount of three millions, he had however no doubt that money would come into the hands of the public fufficiently early to answer that demand. But upon recollection he had found, that the receipt of that money was extremely uncertain. The pay ment of the debt of the East India company was not a thing that could be counted upon with fecurity, confidering the embarraffinent in which the affairs of that company were involved. The unclaimed dividends at the bank could not be applied to the fervice of the nation, without fecurity being given to the public creditor, that the money fhould be forthcoming when properly called for; nor ought it to be touched without a diligent fearch after the owner of the dividend. Mr Huffey complained of the inconveniences that would arise from the quantity of exchequer bills which were at this time unfunded, declaring, that, if great care were not taken, the refult would be, that the public in their traffic in the funds would buy dear and fell cheap.

On the fourth of May Mr. She

ridan brought forward a number of motions, of which the houfe had been for fome time in expectation, and the object of which was to cenfure the report which had been prefented by Mr. Grenville's committee. Thefe motions he fupported by a fpecch of great brilliancy, and in the courfe of which he difplayed a very intimate and comprehenfive acquaintance, with the fubject of finance. It was not his purpose to enter into any argument refpecting the principle of the bill for the eftablifhment of a finking fund, or to difcufs the propriety of applying the furplus fuppofed to exift, in the manner provided by that bill. The object, upon which he intended to enter, was, the examination of the great and important queftion, whether there actually existed any furplus. He was well aware, that, however intimate were the connection of the fubject with the welfare of the nation, it was not one of thofe, in which the house took any great delight, or to the difcuffion of which they were fond of attending. The critical fituation of the country however, and the magnitude of the object in question, he hoped, would be thought to entitle it to their particular notice. In the commencement of fo important a bufinefs, plain-dealing was first of all indifpenfibly neceffary. Above all it behoved that houfe not to deceive itself, to glofs over nothing, to avoid nothing that made against the defired purpofe. Under this impreffion it was, and not with any defpondent ideas of the national refources, that he meant to call their attention to the report upon the table; and he conceived that he fhould be able to prove, that it was drawn up upon erroneous principles, that it was replete with mistaken calculations, that the committee had acted under G 4

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