IV
The report of a committee, distinguished for its ability, had attributed the depreciation in the value of bank-notes to their excessive issue, and recommended a return, within two years, to cash payments. Mr. Canning had belonged to this committee, and had given the subject, however foreign to his customary studies, much attention. The view which he took upon the sixteen resolutions moved by Mr. Horner, May 8, 1811, was, perhaps, the best. To all those resolutions, which went to fix as a principle that a real value in metal should be the proper basis for a currency—a general landmark, by which legislation should, as far as it was practicable, be guided—he assented; that particular resolution, which, under the critical circumstances of the country, went to fetter and prescribe the moment at which this principle should be resumed, he opposed.
Such opposition was unavailing; and History instructs us, by the resolution which Mr. Vansittart then proposed, that no absurdity is so glaring as to shock the eye of prejudiced credulity.
“May 13, 1811.
“Resolution III.—‘That it is the opinion of this committee (a committee of the whole House) that the promissory notes of the company (the Bank) have hitherto been, and are at this time, held in public estimation to be equivalent to the legal coin of the realm, and generally accepted as such.’”
The Chancellor of the Exchequer thus called upon the House of Commons to assert, that the public esteemed, a twenty shilling bank-note as much as twenty shillings; and it had just been necessary to frame a law to prevent persons giving more than £1 and 1 shilling for a guinea, and all the guineas had disappeared from England. It had just been found expedient to raise the value of crown-pieces from 5s. to 5s. 6d. (which was, in fact, to reduce £1 in paper to the value of 18s.), in order to prevent crown-pieces from disappearing also. Persons were in prison for buying guineas at a premium; whilst pamphlets and papers were universally and daily declaring that the notes of the company were not at that time held in public estimation to be equivalent to the legal coin of the realm.
“When Galileo,” said Mr. Canning, “first promulgated the doctrine that the earth turned round the sun, and that the sun remained stationary in the centre of the universe, the holy father of the Inquisition took alarm at so daring an innovation, and forthwith declared the first of these propositions to be false and heretical, and the other to be erroneous in point of faith. The holy office pledged itself to believe that the earth was stationary and the sun movable. But this pledge had little effect in changing the natural course of things: the sun and the earth continued, in spite of it, to preserve their accustomed relations to each other, just as the coin and the bank-note will, in spite of the right honourable gentleman’s resolution.”—[Report of Bullion Committee.]
But if the opposition had the best of the debate, the minister triumphed in the division; nevertheless so equivocal a success, whilst lowering the character of Parliament, did not heighten that of the Ministry.
Mr. Perceval, indeed, though possessing the quick, sharp mind of a lawyer, and the small ready talent of a debater, was without any of those superior qualities which enable statesmen to take large views. Great as an advocate, he was small as a statesman. Lord Wellesley at last revolted at his supremacy, and, quitting the government, observed that “he might serve with Mr. Perceval, but could never serve under him again.”