£22 GRATTAN. the House of Lords, instead of being the record of their privileges, the monument of their disgrace, I opposed him; now what did I oppose in that administration ? The violation of the privileges of this House, with regard to money bills, and the wanton augmentation of offices, by the division of the board of commissioners into two parts. In Lord Harcourt’s administration, what did I do I had the two boards of commissioners reduced again into one. I do not say my single voice effected this, but as far as it had any efficacy, it insisted on having the twelve commis sioners again reduced to seven, and the two boards to one; a saving, including the whole arrangement, of 20,000l. a year to the nation. It went further; it insisted to have every altered money bill thrown but, and privy council money bills not defended by the crown. Thus, instead of giving sanction to the measures I had opposed, my conduct was in fact to register my principles in the records of the court, to make the privy council a witness to the privileges of parliament, and to give final energy to the tenets, with which I commenced thy life. Economy did did not stop with the reduction of the commissioners’ board. The right honourable gentleman, who has cen sured me, in order to depreciate that economy, said, that we had swept with the feather of economy, the pens and paper of your table: a pointed and brilliant expression is far from a just argument. - - “This country has no reason to be ashamed of that spe cies of economy, when the great nation of Great Britain has been obliged to descend to an economy as minute. Neither, Sir, was this all; it is not my fault, if infinitely more was not done for this country upon that occasion; they were offered a saving, they did not chuse to take i t
they were offered the absentee tax, and they refused i t
I am not t o blaine for that, i t was a part o f the saving pro posed. I f administration were wrong o n that occasion, they were wrong with the prejudices o f half a century; they were wrong with every great writer that had ever written upon the subject o f Ireland; they were wrong
