parliament; and he defied noble lords opposite to do anything on the
subject which should be at once politic and satisfactory; expedient and
efficacious. Was it right, he asked, for parliament to interfere where
it was utterly impossible to do good? The noble mover might recommend
a committee; but to what end could they follow his counsel if he could
lead them no further? And not one step further had he gone. The Marquis
of Lansdowne said that he had no hesitation in stating what he conceived
to be the causes of the distress. Much of it, he thought, had been
produced by a transition from a state of war to peace. He could not help
recollecting, however, that a great part of the difficulties, out of
which we had now to extricate ourselves, was to be ascribed to that
fatal perseverance, with which we had persisted for many years, in
contracting permanent money engagements in a depreciated currency. That
was the root of the evil; but in saying so, he did not forget,
that, unfortunate as these engagements were, they nevertheless were
engagements which the honour of parliament was bound to respect, and
which we must find means to discharge. It was one thing, however, to
see the cause, and another to point out the remedy: for the present
he confessed that he saw but one means of uniting all opinions on the
subject, and that was retrenchment, retrenchment qualified by diminution
of taxation. The Marquis of Salisbury expressed an opinion that a
general inquiry would do more harm than good: he would prefer a select
committee, and if that should fail in coming at the cause of the
distress, then would be the time for an inquiry of the whole house. Lord
King, in conclusion, moved as an amendment, "that a select committee
should be appointed to inquire into the depressed state of the
agricultural and manufacturing interests of the kingdom for the purpose
of ascertaining whether any, and what relief could be afforded." This
amendment, however, was received with as little favour as the original
motion, which was lost on a division by one hundred and eighteen against
twenty-five.

A similar motion was made, at a more advanced period of the session
in the house of commons by Mr. Davenport. The discussion in that house
lasted four nights, and in the course of it, the leading members of
all parties delivered their opinions, which were in many respects
contradictory on the extent as well as on the causes of the evil. The
arguments and the