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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 780: MOTION FOR INQUIRY INTO THE STATE OF THE NATION.
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.

MOTION FOR INQUIRY INTO THE STATE OF THE NATION.

After passing the celebrated “six acts,” the Marquess of Lansdowne moved for a select committee to inquire into the state of the nation, and especially in those districts where distress and radicalism prevailed. His lordship said that the principle called radicalism existed in exactly the same proportion as that of distress in the respective districts; and that he had a right to infer this from the agricultural part of the country being yet untainted, and from the spirit of the principle having reached its height in the manufacturing districts both of England and Scotland. The distress, he thought, arose from the long war, which gave us the carrying trade of the world, and which created a fixed capital, which still existed, and filled the markets, while no vent could be found for their produce. It was also increased, he thought, by the poor laws, the paper currency, and the spirit of speculation. Two propositions were enforced by his lordship on the house for the alleviation of the distress: namely, to rescind the duties on articles which had decreased in various districts, as tea &c.; and the establishment of favourable commercial treaties, which government had not yet succeeded in accomplishing. The Marquess Wellesley deprecated all such inquiries, as did other noble lords, and the motion was negatived by a large majority.

GEORGE III. 1818—1820