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The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. / From the Accession of George III. to the Twenty-Third Year of the Reign of Queen Victoria cover

The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. / From the Accession of George III. to the Twenty-Third Year of the Reign of Queen Victoria

Chapter 240: DEBATES ON THE MILITIA BILL.
By Edward Farr
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About This Book

The volume traces British political, parliamentary, and military developments from the accession of George III through the early nineteenth century, chronicling changes of ministry and cabinet, debates over colonial taxation and the American conflict, parliamentary controversies involving figures such as Wilkes and Warren Hastings, questions of Catholic relief and slave-trade abolition, and responses to the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars, including major naval and continental campaigns, the union with Ireland, and domestic legislation on finance, civil liberties, and parliamentary reform.

DEBATES ON THE MILITIA BILL.

On the 21st of June Lord North proposed that the number of the militia should be doubled, and that individuals should be authorised to raise loyal corps to assist in the defence of the kingdom. This was agreed to in the commons; but in the lords the clause enabling the king to double the militia was rejected, thereby leaving the bill a mere skeleton. When it was brought back to the commons thus mutilated, Lord North was taunted by the opposition with having at length, after spreading the spirit of disunion and discord on every hand, seen it enter into the very cabinet itself. In reply, North, with wonderful equanimity of temper, observed, that he could not agree in their lordships’ judgment in considering his proposition impracticable: that his own experience as lord-lieutenant of a county induced him to believe that the militia could easily be doubled; but that his experience could not control the opinions of the other house, where there were so many lord-lieutenants of counties. However, he said, he accepted the power of augmenting the home force as crumbs falling from their lordships’ table. A debate subsequently occurred on the question which was mooted by a member of opposition, as to whether or no the Militia Bill was a money-bill. It was insisted by some that it was such to all intents and purposes; that no amendment of the lords could be admitted in such a bill, without a surrender of the most valuable privileges of the commons; and that, therefore, the bill must be totally rejected. It was decided by a majority, however, that it was not a money-bill, and consequently it passed.