- of the Minority, in the House of Commons, on Mr. Parliamentary Debates During the Fourth Session of the Seventh Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, appointed to meet at Westminster, the Fourth Day of February 1823, in the Fourth Year of the Reign of His Majesty King GEORGE the Fourth. HOUSE OF LORDS. Thursday, May 1, 1823. EQUITABLE ADJUSTMENT OF CONTRACTS-PETITION OF MR. THOMSON.] Earl Stanhope presented a petition from Charles Andrew Thomson, of Chiswick, in the county of Middlesex. The petition was the same as the one presented from the same gentleman to the House of Commons, a copy of which will be found in our preceding volume, at p. 188. After it had been read, respect to gold, it must be recollected, that it cannot be understood as a standard value, except when it is used for purposes of government. For a few years, gold became itself depreciated to a great extent, in the same manner as paper when compared with gold. It has been stated, that nothing can be more futile or more fallacious than an attempt to measure the market price of gold by the depreciation of currency at different periods. That argument may suit those whose endeavour is, to prevent the matter from being viewed Earl Stanhope rose and addressed their in its true light. As the value of the curlordships nearly as follows:-My lords, rency, however, has been very different at the petition which has just been read various periods, it is requisite, for the sake brings under your consideration a subject of justice, to pursue the principles of of very general interest and extreme im- equitable adjustment, so that each conportance-it is that subject of equitable tract should be rectified or adjusted, acadjustment, which has been so much mis- cording to the real original value the understood by some, and has been by commodity bore at the period when it others so much misapplied. An equita- was contracted for. This is another prinble adjustment is a phrase which of itself ciple of equitable adjustment, which is implies an adjustment upon principles of essentially different from all those proright, a true, clear, and undeniable con-posals which we have heard of, for the sequence of that natural and immutable state of affairs, without which, although obedience to human laws may be enforced, those laws cannot command respect. It is evident, that if the government of a country alter the value of its currency, it ought in the same proportion, to alter the value of contracts made antecedent to such a regulation. By the introduction of the Bank Restriction bill in 1797, the value of the currency was rendered what it was not before; and such has proved to be the case not only with respect to gold, but by that which affords a much more accurate criterion, namely, by the value of manufactures and commerce. With VOL. IX. (NEW Such purpose of altering the standard, inas- payments in the year 1797, and previous to the restoration of cash payments in 1819. The effect of that would be to do justice to all parties contracting; to correct all the grievances that now exist; and to place all the parties interested, in the same situation as they were in at the time when those contracts were entered into. Such being the means of remedying the evil, and such the nature and object of an equitable adjustment, I should be surprised at the calumnies that have been heaped upon it from various quarters, were 1 not convinced that wilful and base representations have been made upon the subject, by those who are perhaps interested in the continuance of that iniquity which it is the object of the proposers of an equitable adjustment to prevent. It was, however, with great astonishment that I heard, the other night, this measure stigmatized as being revo lutionary, on a petition presented by a noble lord not now present, which petition proceeded from the county of Hereford, and also prayed for an equitable adjustment. When we talk of propositions being revolutionary, I should like to know, what can be more revolutionary, or more destructive to regular government and good order, than that which has the effect of revolutionizing the value of property? What can be more terrific than that, when done under the sanction of law? I would beg to quote the words of that admirable petition, which the noble lord presented from the county of Hereford, in which this country is said to be governed by a violent aristocracy, and proceeding gradually towards revolution. Can your lordships suppose that such a revolution can be consummated without experiencing the effects of, I will not merely say a change, but a total destruction of the constitution, and without producing evils which no man has anticipated? I retort the charge of revolutionary intentions upon those who have so used it, and who attempt to calumniate the measure with such epithets, but with which they in vain attempt to stigmatize it. I would wish them to use arguments instead of abuse. We have heard it lately asserted that a system of equitable adjustment would produce dreadful confusion. It is the first time that I ever heard such an argument used against obtaining justice, to prevent the continuance of spoliation, and to avert the most destructive state of circumstances to individuals as | well as to society in general. It never was proposed by any man, that in following up the principles of equitable adjustment, we were to strike at the foundation of property, to discover who were the original holders. It is clear that every holder of a contract, whether by purchase or otherwise, is the same as the original holder: he not only possesses the same rights, but must submit also to the same obligations. That this is the principle of equitable adjustment is not a discovery that is new; but I should consider that as being no valid objection to it: if it were, I should refer your lordships to an act of parliament, passed in Scotland in the 3rd parliament of James 3rd, for the purpose of settling equitably all debts and contracts then subsisting. That act differs from the acts of our days, as it is very short: it states, in the preamble, that whatever contract may have been made for money, it is for the good of the realm, that the same should be settled equitably, according to the value of the currency; it then enacts that all debtors who owe any debts upon contracts, may be allowed to pay the same, according to the sum and substance of what was intended between the parties at the time of making their contract. Now, my lords, you here see the principle of an equitable adjustment measured out in Scotland in former times, by the authority of an act of parliament; and, if I be correctly informed, the same principle has been established in this country by the decision of a court of law. I don't know the names of the parties in that case; but I have no doubt they are familiar to my noble and learned friend upon the Woolsack. It was, I believe, a case which occurred towards the end of good queen Elizabeth's reign, with respect to a person who, having made his will at the close of that reign, and (as a great alteration had taken place in the value of the currency at that period), his executors entertained a doubt as to how to settle the testator's affairs, on account of the ruinous obligations they found imposed upon them by that will. A question was therefore agitated as to whether that testator understood that the payments were to be made at the valuation of the currency at the commencement of the reign, or according to that value which existed at the time the will was executed? The court decided, inasmuch as the words of the will were, "I give and bequeath such and throughout the whole of the emperor's dominions.-Having troubled your lordships, at this length, upon the general principles of this measure-principles which have been so unjustly calumniated such sums, to be paid to certain persons named, according to the valuation of the currency," that those words were to be understood as being applicable to the general value of the currency at the time the payments were to be made. allow me to apply those principles to Here again your lordships see the effect the case of this petitioner. His case is of an equitable adjustment acted upon this-that he is in danger of losing two in courts of law. Besides that, if we estates which were bought by him in the look to the example of other coun- year 1811 for 132,000/.; he is in danger tries, I need only refer your lordships to of being dispossessed and deprived of the conduct of the emperor of Austria, those estates by the foreclosure of a deed and for which conduct, I dare say, the of mortgage for 60,000!., being less than government of that country cannot be one-half of the value of the estates upon called in any respect revolutionary; in which that mortgage was granted."-His that country the present emperor having lordship then entered into an elucidation made considerable alterations in his cur- of the losses sustained by the petitioner, rency, issued an edict to all the magis- founded upon the statement in the petitrates within his dominions, forbidding tion, and also stated various other similar them, under the severest penalties, to cases of hardship, which had come within open it before a certain day; and desiring his knowledge, as arising from the depre them, at the same time, when that day ciation of landed property. He mencame, to give it all possible publicity. tioned one instance, in Herefordshire, When that edict was opened, it was where an estate was sold for 25,0007. found to contain a scale for the payment some years ago, and which had been reof debts, and directing all debts consti- purchased by the original proprietor for tuted by contracts previously obtained, 6,000l. He would ask their lordships, to be paid according to that scale. It is whether it was possible to state any thing also singular that the same country, more strong and energetic, to shew the Austria, should exhibit an example, not cruelty and hardship which this petionly of the sort of equitable adjustment tioner and others in a similar situation here proposed, but also a measure similar were under the necessity of enduring, on in its nature to that bill, which has lately account of the injustice arising from the passed in this country, commonly called inconceivably great reduction in the Mr. Peel's bill. Be that as it may, how-value of property, without any alteration ever, it is certain, that the paper currency being made in the value of the currency. of Austria has from time to time fluctu- Those evils could only be remedied by ated from 440 to 250 in paper, as com- an equitable adjustment; and until that pared with 100 in silver. The emperor system which he now proposed, was determined to ascertain the proportion adopted, the evils complained of could between paper and silver which was not be remedied. In duty to their counsettled at that time, and it was ascertain- try, their lordships were bound to preed, that it afforded no more a just crite- vent the mortgagee under such circumrion of the value of silver in that country, stances executing a foreclosure. — His than what are called the market-price of lordship also mentioned the case of a pergold in this country. The emperor di- son whose income had been reduced from rected, as in this country, that the debts 60,000l. a-year, to 30,000l. a year; with should be paid in silver, according to the same annuities of 21,000l. a-year to that ratio which he then established, pay out of 30,000l. a year, which he had and that system was begun in that coun- to pay out of 60,000l. a-year. He was try, having been occasioned by similar well aware, that 9,000l. a-year was quite causes as have existed in this. At that enough for any man; but he only mentime, the most grievous and intoler- tioned it to shew the proportionate hardable inequality of payments prevailed ship which was inflicted by the state of in that country; and, as in this, the the currency upon landed proprietors. No disproportionate value of payments was man could willingly submit to be thus monstrous. Such a system as formerly dispossessed of his property nor have it prevailed in Austria, as to the payment swallowed up or transferred into other of debts, was in the result, a source of hands. In order to pay claims establishextreme dissatisfaction and discontented upon former contracts, many were |