CHAP. 1797. Double set of causes which affect Government paper. or by implication, a legal tender in all the transactions of life, two different causes may conspire to affect prices, tending to the same effect, but in very different degrees. The first is the general fall in the the value of value of money, and consequent rise in the price of every article of life, which results from the unrestrained issue of paper; and this effect takes place without any distrust in government, from the mere increase in the circulating medium, when compared with the commodities in the general market of the nation which it represents, or is destined in its transmission from hand to hand to purchase. This change of prices proceeds on the same principles, and arises from the same causes, as the fall in the money price of grain or cattle, from an excess in the supply of these articles in the market. The second is the far greater, and sometimes unbounded depreciation, which arises from distrust in the ultimate solvency of government, or the means which the nation possesses of making good its engagements. To this fall no limits can be assigned, because government may not be deemed capable of discharging a hundredth part of its debts : whereas, the variation of prices arising from the former, seldom exceeds a duplication of their wonted amount an effect, however, which is perfectly sufficient, if continued for any considerable time, to make one-half of the property of the kingdom change hands. The true test of the former effect is to be found in a general rise in the prices of every commodity, but without any difference between the money value when paid in specie and when paid in paper; the mark of the latter is, not only a rise in prices, even when paid in gold or silver, but an extraordinary difference between prices when discharged in a paper and a me XXII. 1797. tallic currency. Notwithstanding all that the spirit CHAP. of party may have alleged, there does not appear to have ever been any traces of the latter effect in this country; or that at any period a higher price was exacted for articles when paid in gold than in banknotes; whereas in France, when the credit of government was almost extinct, a dinner which, when paid in gold, cost a Louis, could only be discharged in assignats for twenty-eight thousand francs. But1 Lac. xiii. the former consequences prevailed long, and with 40. the most wide-spread effects, in this country. Every article in life was speedily doubled in price, and continued above twenty years at that high standard; and, upon the recurrence to a metallic currency in 1819, the distress and suffering among the industrious classes, long exceeded any thing ever before witnessed in our history. ary Reform Grey. The Opposition deemed this a favourable opportu- Parliamentnity to bring forward their favourite project of par- brought forliamentary reform; as the disasters of the war, the ward by Mr suspension of cash payments by the bank, the mutiny of the fleet, which will be immediately noticed, and the failure of the attempt to negotiate with France, had filled all men's minds with consternation, and disposed many true patriots to doubt the possibility of continuing the present system. On the 26th May, Mr, afterwards Earl Grey, brought forward his promised motion for a change in the system of representation, which is chiefly remarkable, as containing the outlines of that vast scheme which His plan of convulsed the nation when he was at the head of reform, and affairs in 1831, and subsequently made so great a change on the British constitution. He proposed that the qualification for county electors should remain as it was, but that the members they returned should be increased from 92 to 113; that the fran VOL. III. arguments it. XXII. 1797. CHAP. chise should be extended to copyholders, and leaseholders holding leases for a certain duration; and that the whole remainder of the members, 400 in number, should be returned by one description of persons alone, namely householders. He proposed farther, that the elections should be taken over the whole kingdom at once, and a large portion of the smaller boroughs be disfranchised. By this scheme, he contended, the landowners, the merchants, and all the respectable classes of the community, would be adequately represented; and those only excluded whom no man would wish to see retain their place in the legislature, namely, the nominees of great families, who obtained seats not for the public good, but their private advantage. Mr Erskine, who seconded the motion, farther argued, in an eloquent speech, that, from the gradual and growing influence of the crown, the House of Commons had become perverted from its original office, which was that of watching with jealous care over the other branches of the legislature, into the ready instrument of their abuses and encroachments; that there was now a deep and wide-spread spirit of disaffection prevalent in the minds of the people, which rendered it absolutely indispensable that their just demands should be conceded in time; that farther resistance would drive them into republicanism and revolution; that the head of the government itself had once declared, that no upright or useful administration could exist while the House was constituted as it then was; that the voice of complaint could not be silenced by a sullen refusal to remedy the grievance, and though this road might be pursued for a season, that the end of these things was death. "Give, on the other hand," said he, "to the people the blessings of the constitution, and they will join with ardour in its defence; and the XXIL power of the disaffected be permanently crippled, by CHAP. severing from them all the rational and virtuous of the community. 1797. Mr Pitt. On the other hand, it was contended by Mr Pitt, that the real question was not whether some altera- Arguments tion in the system of representation might not be against it by attended with advantage, but whether the degree of benefit was worth the chance of the mischief it might possibly, or would probably induce. That it was clearly not prudent to give an opening to principles which would never be satisfied with any concession, but would make every acquisition the means of demanding with greater effect still more extensive acquisitions; that the fortress of the constitution was now beleaguered on all sides, and to surrender the outworks would only render it soon impossible to maintain the defence of the body of the place; that he had himself at one period been a reformer, and he would have been so still, had men's minds been in a calm and settled state, and had he been secure that they would rest content with the redress of real grievances, but since the commencement of the French Revolution, it was too plain, that this was very far indeed from being the case. That it was impossible to believe that the men who remained unmoved by the dismal spectacle which their principles had produced in a neighbouring state,-who, on the contrary, rose and fell with the success or decline of Jacobinism in every country of Europe,-were actuated by similar views with those who prosecuted the cause of reform as a practical advantage, and maintained it on constitutional views; and he could never give credit to the assertion, that the temper of moderate reformers would induce them to make common cause with the irreconcilable enemies of the constitution. That CHAP. reform was only a disguise assumed to conceal the approaches of revolution; and that rapine, conflagration, and murder were the necessary attendants on It is rejected any innovation since the era of the French Revolu 1797. by Parlia ment. 1 Parl. Deb. 646, 734. May 26, Reg. 1797, 253, 261. ject. tion, which had entirely altered the grounds on which the question of reform was rested, and the class of men by whom it was espoused. That these objections applied to any alteration of the government in the present heated state of men's minds; but, vol. xxxiii. in addition to that, the specific plan, now brought forward, was both highly exceptionable in theory, 1797. Ann. and unsupported by experience. On a divison, Mr Grey's motion was lost by a majority of 258 against 93.' In deciding on the difficult question of ParliamenReflections tary Reform, which has so long divided, and still on this sub- divides so many able men in the country, one important consideration, to be always kept in mind, is the double effect which any change in the constitution of government must always produce, and the opposite consequences with which, according to the temper of the times, it is likely to be followed. In so far as it remedies any experienced grievance, or supplies a practical defect, or concedes powers to the people essential to the preservation of freedom, it necessarily does good; in so far as it excites democratic ambition, confers inordinate power, and awakens or fosters passions inconsistent with public tranquillity, it necessarily does mischief, and may lead to the dissolution of society. The expedience of making any considerable change, therefore, depends on the proportions in which these opposite ingredients are mingled in the proposed measure, and on the temper of the people among whom it is to take place. If the real grievance is great, and the public disposition unruffled, save by its continuance, unalloyed good may be expected from its removal, and serious peril from a denial of change; if |