nt for the improvement of Ireland, and that
his majesty had the satisfaction of acquainting the peers and members
assembled, that the industry of that part of the United Kingdom was in
the course of a gradual and general advancement; an advancement mainly
attributable to the tranquillity which now prevailed in that country.
The addresses in both houses passed without any serious opposition,
although much discussion took place on every topic on which the speech
touched, and on some to which it made no allusion. In the upper house
Lord King, after ascribing the pecuniary embarrassments to over-issues
of paper money by the Bank of England, attacked the corn-laws, and urged
the necessity of a complete alteration in them. He moved an amendment to
the address, pledging the house to revise the corn-laws in this session;
but this proposal was resisted as too precipitate, and the amendment
was negatived without a division. The principal object of Lord King,
however, and of other peers who spoke on the occasion, was to elicit
from the minister some general description of the measures alluded to
in the speech, as likely to be proposed for the purpose of preventing
future pecuniary embarrassments. Lord Liverpool, in gratifying them,
attributed the embarrassments to the mad spirit of speculation which had
existed for the last two years; a spirit doubly mischievous, because it
had affected the issues of the country banks to such a degree that
they had increased in a far higher proportion than those of the Bank of
England. He showed that in the course of the last two years the issues
of the country banks had increased from four to eight millions.
The correctives government intended to apply were to prohibit the
circulation, after a certain period, of notes under L2, whether issued
by the Bank of England, or by any private banker; to increase the
stability of private banks by enabling them to augment their capital;
and to repeal that clause in the charter of the Bank of England which
rendered it unlawful for any private banking establishment to consist of
more than six partners. In the commons, on the occasion of the debate on
the address, Mr. Brougham stated that he believed that the distress now
existing proceeded from causes much more complicated than those to which
the speech ascribed to it. He believed it to be universal; and he took
occasion to combat the opinion of those who derived it from the late
introduction of more liberal pr