Baring, a partner in Baring Brothers and Company from 1803 and senior partner since his father’s death in 1810,
He continued to act with the Whig opposition to Lord Liverpool’s ministry on many issues, including parliamentary reform, 9 May 1821, 24 June 1822, 24 Apr. 1823, 26 Feb. 1824. He voted for Catholic relief, 28 Feb. 1821, 17 Apr. 1823, 1 Mar., 21 Apr., 10 May 1825. He was a frequent contributor to debates, particularly on economic matters. He supported the London wool trade’s petition against the increased duty on foreign wool, 4 May 1820, maintaining that it had given an advantage to Britain’s competitors and harmed the agricultural interest. In presenting a London merchants’ petition against commercial restrictions (which may have been encouraged by ministers)
Baring played a leading role at the Hampshire county meeting, 14 Jan. 1821, when he moved petitions condemning ministers’ conduct towards the queen and denounced the underhand methods employed to try to suppress the meeting. He was also present at a turbulent meeting on this issue in the City, 29 Jan., which the Whig leader Tierney had asked him to help organize in order to counteract an earlier loyal address.
He supported reform of the mode of presenting the public revenue accounts, which were often so complicated as to be ‘unintelligible’, 1 Feb., 25 May 1821. He condemned the conduct of the Bank of Ireland in refusing to receive coin of the realm as deposits, suggesting that its status be reviewed, 2 Feb., although he recognized that there must be a national bank, 9 Apr. Endorsing the Birmingham petition for inquiry into distress, 8 Feb., he emphasized the need for retrenchment but rejected any return to a paper currency, hinting at his own favoured bimetallist solution. He was convinced that ‘the attempt to bring about the restoration of the currency was at the bottom of the public distress’, 22 Feb., and hoped this would ‘operate as a solemn warning to future times, not to depart from the established standard of value’. He did not object to bringing forward the date for the resumption of cash payments, 19 Mar., but still argued the bimetallist case for a double standard of gold and silver; his amendment for inquiry was negatived. Another for inquiry into how the Act of 1819 might be altered so as to relieve the pressure on various branches of the economy was defeated by 141-27, 9 Apr. He feared that the ministerial plan to revise the method of calculating average corn prices was likely ‘not only to create uneasiness among ... consumers, but to inspire the growers with false hopes’, 26 Feb. He divided with ministers against repeal of the additional malt duty, 3 Apr. He backed their proposed revisions of the timber duties, 5 Apr., and Navigation Acts, 25 June, believing that ‘a free importation would be productive of the greatest benefit’. He supported repeal of the duty on foreign wool, as Britain was ‘in danger of losing a large portion of her trade’, 9 Apr. He thought repeal of the usury laws would be ‘of the greatest benefit to the country’, especially the landed interest, 12 Apr. He opposed repeal of the husbandry horses tax, 14 June, arguing that the maintenance of public credit was the chief priority given the ‘extravagant’ level of expenditure approved by the House. When ministers gave way on this issue, 18 June, he delivered what was described as a ‘provoking’ speech,
In January 1822 the cabinet, ‘with Baring in attendance’, considered various options for agricultural relief, before deciding against increased protection or major tax cuts.
He called for ‘a complete remodelling of the exchequer’, 16 Feb. 1824, as it was ‘high time ... the country [got] rid of a system of keeping accounts so cumbrous and so inefficient that it might almost disgrace a tribe of Indian savages’. He believed the Bank of England was necessary and that its charges for handling public money were reasonable, 19 Feb. He welcomed Robinson’s encouraging financial statement, 23 Feb., and while he thought the revenue estimates and the consequent scope for tax reductions were probably too optimistic, it was ‘a subject of national pride and exultation that, recovering from a long and expensive war, we were enabled to effect such improvements in the finances of the country without the violation of any honourable principle, or of those moral obligations by which society was held together’. He gave the House the benefit of his historical knowledge and technical expertise concerning the Austrian loan convention, 24, 26 Feb. He was a majority teller for the usury laws repeal bill, 27 Feb., having argued that ‘there was nothing so necessary to the freedom of trade as the freedom of capital’ and that variable interest rates would help attract capital to Ireland. On the grant for the new courts of justice, 1 Mar., he complained that ‘nobody connected with the government ... was responsible for these ridiculous buildings’. He opposed repeal of the window tax, 2 Mar., and reduction of the sugar duties, 8 Mar., on the ground that it was vital to maintain the sinking fund. He presented a London silk trade petition against removing the prohibition on imports, a matter that also concerned his constituents, 5 Mar. He was prepared to make an exception to the free trade principle in this case, 8 Mar., as British manufacturers could not compete on equal terms with the French, and he condemned the government’s plan as ‘a dangerous experiment for the country’ which would ruin an industry and cause thousands to starve. He suggested that any change should be gradual, 9 Mar., and moved an unsuccessful amendment to delay free importation for three years, 22 Mar. In a lengthy critique of ministerial indecision on the slavery question, 16 Mar., he called for an impartial inquiry, as the abolitionists were guilty of gross exaggeration and the planters had not received fair play. According to one cabinet minister, Baring was ‘cut to the bone’ by Canning’s reply, and a Whig Member wrote that
the best thing I have heard for a long time in Parliament was Canning’s castigation of Baring, whose dirtiness and shabbiness of conduct exceeds all description ... It lasted about half an hour. He gave a loose rein to his fury, which was excessive, and with all stops pulled out, laid on him unmercifully ... Baring evidently suffered greatly under the operation, and is extremely sore about it. The House enjoyed it, and supported Canning with all the glee of boys surrounding a dog worrying a rat.
Buckingham, ii. 46; TNA 30/29/6/3/92.
His absence in Paris in May on business brought him ‘into something of a scrape’ with his constituents, as he was unable to attend to the Bridgwater and Taunton canal bill, which ‘passed the Commons by one of those disgraceful committee scrambles which usually attend this sort of business’.
In the discussion on private bills, 23 Feb. 1825, Baring agreed that Members with a personal interest should refrain from voting as a matter of honour, but doubted whether it was possible to do more. However, in a wider criticism of current practice, he claimed to be ‘shocked at the manner in which private business was conducted’ and ‘so convinced ... of the partiality and injustice evinced by committees on private bills’ that he would rather see such business removed from the House altogether than left as it was; at the very least, voting should be confined to Members who had heard the evidence. He supported the Welsh Iron and Mining Company bill, arguing that the Commons should not obstruct the spirit of enterprise, 28 Feb., and the Thames Quay bill, which was ‘absolutely necessary’ to facilitate communications in the metropolis, 15 Mar. That day he opposed the Canadian wastelands bill, which was not designed to improve the country but merely assisted a joint-stock company speculating on future emigration. He supported the Peruvian Mining Company bill, in which he had no personal interest, 16 Mar., as the House had passed many similar measures, but shared the fears about the gambling mania infecting investors and ‘believed that all the mining speculations would turn out to be delusions’. He supported the West India Company bill, denying that it would encourage the slave trade, 16 May. He defended the conduct of the committee on the Western Ship Canal Company bill, 3 June, claiming that it had been well attended and thorough. He argued that Catholic emancipation was an experiment worth trying in order to get to the root of Irish disorder, 25 Feb., and denied that hostile petitions were representative of public opinion, 21 Apr. He expressed no opinion on Grattan’s Irish poor relief bill, 22 Mar., as he ‘did not know what [he] meant by it’. He welcomed the president of the board of trade Huskisson’s proposed resolutions on colonial policy, which were based on ‘broad and liberal views of commerce’, 21 Mar. He similarly approved of Huskisson’s general principles of commercial policy, 25 Mar., declaring that Britain should ‘set the example of free trade to other nations’. Yet according to Charles Arbuthnot*, Baring, for ‘all his liberalism in the House’, privately believed that Huskisson’s tariff policies would result in an outflow of gold from the country and predicted ‘great distress from ... diminishing circulation’.
In what one observer considered to be a ‘very sensible’
He objected to the policy of appointing consuls who could not engage in trade, 17 Mar. 1826, preferring the old system of employing the principal merchant of a trading port at a lower salary. He urged the House to be more consistent in its treatment of private legislation such as the Welsh Mining Company bill, 22 Mar., observing that in the previous session every ‘trumpery’ bill had been passed whereas now there was a reluctance to agree to any. He initially supported the proposed salary increase for the president of the board of trade, 6 Apr., but when Robinson announced that the treasurership of the navy would not be abolished to pay for it, he was regretfully obliged to vote against ministers, 7, 10 Apr. He was shut out from the division on reform of Edinburgh’s representation, 13 Apr.
In 1825, Baring’s support for Catholic relief had placed him under great pressure at Taunton, where a ‘No Popery’ campaign was orchestrated by the Tory county Member Lethbridge. This confirmed his disinclination to face another protracted election campaign and he announced in September that he would retire at the dissolution. Writing to Lansdowne, he predicted that this was imminent and feared the general election would produce ‘a vile No Popery Parliament’.
He welcomed Torrens’s speech against the export of machinery, 6 Dec. 1826, which was a refreshing change when it had been ‘for so long the habit to look upon any man as a Goth who dissented from the modern doctrine of political economy’. This speech prompted one Member to note that Baring’s ‘change’ on free trade, ‘since he bought the bad land and turned round on the silk, is very bad’.
In what a minister described as a ‘warlike’ speech, outdoing that made by Canning, 12 Dec. 1826,
Baring approved of Lansdowne’s decision to join Canning’s coalition ministry in April 1827 and offered his ‘co-operation’, seizing the opportunity to apprise his old friend of his own ambition:
My success in the world in my own particular pursuit is almost without parallel and I believe I may with truth add, what is not always attendant on the accumulation of a large fortune, that my character has been uniformly and successfully upheld. For some years I have been withdrawn from active occupation and with a clear income of between £50 and 60,000 a year, of which the larger portion is in land attended with every desirable circumstance of political influence, and with my eldest son with character and habits which encourage me in indulging the vision of founding, as it is called, a family: the only thing that remains to me to wish for is the finishing my career by a seat in the House of Peers. My political habits and connections forbade the entertaining in the remotest measure of any such dreams until the late unexpected revolution.
Chatsworth mss, Lansdowne to Devonshire, 24 Apr.; Lansdowne mss, Baring to Lansdowne, 2 May 1827.
He was prepared to extend his support to Lord Goderich’s premiership in August, believing that the dispute over Herries’s appointment as chancellor of the exchequer was not sufficiently important to justify Lansdowne in resigning. Of greater concern was the leadership of the Commons, and Baring felt that ‘we want something better than I yet see in our ranks to keep us in order, especially if, as I fear, Huskisson’s health will not stand siege’. He thought Althorp, though a ‘second rate performer’, would ‘please the House and satisfy the country better than anybody’. As the autumn progressed, he became more pessimistic about the state of affairs, suspecting that the king exercised the ‘real power of government’, and judging that foreign affairs were a source of weakness which might ‘offer a great field for a man in Lord Grey’s temper’. He believed that when Parliament met ‘new combinations may arise’, but in the meantime advised Lansdowne to adhere to his ‘straightforward’ course, which would at least be ‘intelligible and satisfactory to the rational part of the country’.
He supported the bill to relieve Catholics from double payment of the land tax, 4 Feb., and divided for Catholic claims, 12 May 1828. He voted to repeal the Test Acts, 26 Feb. He was named to the finance committee, 15 Feb., but expressed surprise that so few ministers were on it and particularly regretted the omission of Huskisson. From the Wellington ministry’s viewpoint, Baring was chosen as a ‘reformer’, in favour of retrenchment, who ‘would not lean to the subversion of our financial system’; one minister summoned to give evidence thought he ‘showed intelligence and good sense’.
He did not resist the introduction of Althorp’s borough polls bill, 21 Feb. 1828, as reform was needed, but he opposed the second reading, 3 Mar., complaining that its obscure wording was ‘calculated to produce mischief’ and spread ‘extraordinary confusion’. In moving its rejection, 31 Mar., he argued that it would complicate matters and put more power in the hands of usually partisan returning officers; he dropped his amendment on the understanding that the bill would be withdrawn and amended. At the report stage, 15 May, he said his experience of Taunton elections showed him that the bill would be unworkable. He voted against extending East Retford’s franchise to Bassetlaw freeholders, 21 Mar., and was against recommitting the bill, 27 June, arguing that Parliament should retain control of the way in which seats from disfranchised boroughs were transferred, rather than vesting their disposal in the hands of the crown. He opposed any alteration in the parliamentary representation beyond the enfranchisement of ‘a few’ manufacturing towns to give the Commons ‘somewhat of a more popular character’. He unsuccessfully moved to omit a clause in the Penryn disfranchisement bill requiring the poll clerk to administer the bribery oath, 24 Mar. He pressed ministers to make their intentions clear on the slavery question, 5 Mar., warning that the present uncertainty would have ‘ruinous consequences’. Next day he deplored the abolitionists’ denial of the right of property in slaves and the ‘erroneous’ impression conveyed that the condition of the negroes was one of ‘cruelty and abomination’. He doubted that compulsory manumission was workable and lamented that Britain did not sufficiently value its colonies. He supported the tithes commutation bill, 17 Mar., maintaining that the Church of England would benefit from the removal of a cause of friction between clergy and parishioners; he was a minority teller against limiting the duration of any agreement. He urged ministers to announce their intentions regarding the corn laws before the Easter recess, 24 Mar., as ‘the whole kingdom [was] excited’ on this issue and Members needed an opportunity to consult their constituents. However, he opposed an early division on the government’s resolutions, which might bind Members prematurely, 28 Mar. On hearing the ministerial plan, 31 Mar., he felt ‘very like ... a person who is only transported, after expecting to be hanged’, and warned protectionists like Lethbridge that ‘the effect of realising their ... extravagant expectations would be to pull the house down about their ears’. He preferred the older system, which allowed government to intervene in exceptional circumstances, and feared the new plan would cause wild price fluctuations. He warned that the proposed duties were too high and that the agricultural interest would ‘labour under the obloquy of the whole country’ as a result, 22 Apr., although he stressed that he was not opposed to a reasonable level of protection. He voted that day with the minority for a lower pivot price, but opposed Benett’s alternative sliding scale giving less protection to agriculturists, 25 Apr. 1828, as he was inclined to trust to ministers’ judgement. He hoped the country would ‘struggle through the difficulties by which it is surrounded ... and ... go on for some few years longer in the present condition of its resources’.
He saw nothing wrong with the principle of selling life annuities to the public, but thought it had been done on disadvantageous terms for the government, 24 Mar. 1828. He supported the Battersea and Wandsworth enclosure bill, which would benefit the public as population growth made new house building essential, 31 Mar. He was prepared to support the emigration bill, 17 Apr., as he considered ‘excessive population’ to be a ‘great evil’, but he doubted that any ‘great outlay’ of public money was possible and looked instead to voluntary funding with the government providing transport. He voted to condemn delays in chancery, 24 Apr., and for greater control over crown proceedings for the recovery of customs and excise penalties, 1 May. He approved the proposal to amend rather than abolish the usury laws, 20 May. Next day he opposed the alehouse licensing bill, which involved ‘a direct invasion of the rights of magistrates in corporate towns’. He thought the petitioners opposing the removal of £1 notes from circulation exaggerated the likely consequences and was confident that ‘the difficulties which will attend our return to a sound system are very much over’, 22 May. He opposed inquiry into this subject, 3 June, as it would be ‘an outrage on all reason and decency’ to interfere again with the currency. He supported the Scottish and Irish bank notes bill, 16 June. He made light that day of the demand for equalizing the duty on East and West Indian sugar and said that such ‘absurd disputes’ between rival colonial interests ought to be put aside. He drew attention to the unsatisfactory practice of Members connected with the East India Company being absent for long periods in India, 24 June, and hinted that he might introduce a bill next session requiring such individuals to vacate their seats. He supported repeal of the Foreign Enlistment Act, preventing unlicensed weapons or ships from being supplied to other countries, 3 July 1828, as there was no reason for ‘shutting ourselves out from what is now considered a legitimate subject of commerce all over the world’.
Baring opposed the demand for drastic reductions in the army, which could not be achieved ‘without injury to the public service’, 20 Feb. 1829, but he saw scope for economies in various government departments and questioned the employment of cavalry in Canada. He said he would not object if ministers decided against reappointing the finance committee, as the work had been very time-consuming and it had proved impossible adequately to examine all the subjects referred to it. Nevertheless, he believed that such a committee exercised a ‘salutary control’ over ministers and was needed from time to time; he trusted they now had their own plans for retrenchment. He was satisfied with the ministerial statement on the navy estimates, 27 Feb., but looked for improvements in naval administration and regretted the financial burden arising from ‘deadweight’ expenditure on pensions and the half-pay list. He condemned the ‘extravagant application of ... public money’ to the Rideau Canal in Canada, 2 Mar., when he suggested that civil officers should be required to make their own pension provision. He saw little scope for the diminution of taxes, 8 May, as it was necessary to maintain an ‘efficient’ sinking fund, but thought the unfunded debt might be extinguished by using funds tied up in chancery. He generally approved of the ministerial plan for debt reduction, 11 May. He opposed the exemption of husbandry horses from taxation, as there would be ‘no end to it’ once such a distinction was made, 13 May. He doubted whether reduced sugar duties would lead to increased consumption, 25 May, and was disinclined to ‘run the hazard’. He objected to the ‘taste’ of the building work at Buckingham House, but even more to the way in which the Commons had been deceived in this matter, 12 May. As a Windsor commissioner, he defended the expenditure incurred in restoring the Castle, a national monument, but in the case of Buckingham House he regretted that ministers had ever become involved with Nash; he voted to reduce the grant for the sculpture of Marble Arch, 25 May 1829.
He objected to various anti-Catholic petitions on the grounds of their wording, their unrepresentative nature or the ‘fraudulent practices’ employed in getting them up, 26 Feb., 3, 9, 19 Mar. 1829. He divided for the ministry’s concession of emancipation, 6, 30 Mar. He voted against requiring O’Connell to swear the oath of supremacy before taking his seat, 18 May. He presented a Canterbury petition complaining of the absence as governor of Madras of its Member Lushington, 19 Mar., and announced that he would introduce a bill requiring Members to vacate their seats in such cases. When introducing it, 6 May, he disclaimed any personal or party motive and denied any desire to reduce the power of the crown. It received an unopposed second reading, 15 May, after Baring had indicated willingness to amend it in committee so that the principle of exclusion was not carried too far. He stated that it would not apply to crown officers in Britain, who could attend parliamentary sittings, 19 May. At the committee stage, 22 May, he accepted amendments proposed by the chancellor of the exchequer, Goulburn, agreed that it should exclude military officers serving abroad, but regretted that it did not apply retrospectively to Lushington. The committee was adjourned while a select committee inquired as to whether Lushington’s case was covered by the Place Act of 1708, but Baring reported, 2 June 1829, that no agreement could be reached and his bill would therefore deal with the issue prospectively. No further progress was made before the end of the session.
He doubted the wisdom of entrusting money to the king of Spain for the settlement of war claims, 6 Apr. 1829. He presented a petition from George Simcox against his treatment by the commissioners dealing with war claims by British subjects on France, 4 May, but regarded the Commons as ‘the worst possible’ tribunal for hearing such a case, given ‘the canvass which takes place, the interest which [Members] insensibly imbibe for the parties whom they wish to succeed, and the slovenly manner in which business is done’. He approved of the archbishop of Canterbury’s estate bill, ‘a measure to maintain the splendour and dignity of the church’, 10 Apr. In a rambling speech on the motion for inquiry into the state of the silk trade, which he considered to be pointless, 13 Apr., he regretted that ministers had no remedy to offer but was not sure that ‘relief is in the power of ... government’. He recognized that the extension of free trade principles ‘may be inevitable’ but warned that if silk manufacturing stood ‘condemned ... sooner or later [to] perish’, the cotton and woollen industries would eventually go the same way. Condemning the government’s plan to cut the duty on imported Indian silks, he urged the House to consider the plight of those in the manufacturing towns ‘who, from European habits, are not able to do without clothes [or] subsist upon a handful of rice’. He fatalistically accepted the government’s silk trade bill, as the alternative of total prohibition was out of the question, 1 May. He voted to transfer East Retford’s seats to Birmingham, 5 May. He supported a small debts recovery bill, 8 May, arguing that such a ‘beneficial’ measure ought not to be delayed by the consideration of its effect on certain office holders. He advised the government and the East India Company to make ‘a gracious act ... to conciliate the trading interests’, by opening access to Chinese markets, 12 May. He thought the appointment of a select committee should be postponed until the next session, 14 May, suggesting that three committees were needed, to consider the Company’s financial position and its dependence on the China trade, trade with India and the condition of the Indian people, ‘the greatest question of the whole’. He suspected that British trading interests had exaggerated ideas of the benefits of ending the Company’s monopoly, and generally praised the Company’s ‘disinterested, liberal, and enlightened conduct’ in governing India. He questioned ministers about the cost of the silver coinage, believing the operation to have been ‘at least ... ill-judged’, 15 May, and pressed for immediate action to stop England from being inundated with small paper notes, 22 May. He dismissed the claim of the Birmingham petitioners that their distress was caused by the metallic currency, 4 June, and was similarly unsympathetic to a Blackburn petition on distress, 12 June 1829, seeing nothing that Parliament could do and claiming that conditions were improving in any case.
On the address, 8 Feb. 1830, Baring acknowledged that distress was widespread but he was unclear as to causes and remedies. He believed that agriculture was suffering most and that the corn laws must be maintained at their present level; recognized that the withdrawal of small banknotes had caused much suffering, but would ‘not easily yield’ to the restoration of a paper currency, and contended that manufacturing was not in as bad a state as other sectors of the economy. He approved of the government’s foreign policy of non-interference, argued that Spain should be encouraged not to meddle in South America, where Britain had an interest in the preservation of peace and stability, and in general was ‘sorry ... to observe a disposition in some quarters to disturb a government with which I can as yet find no fault’. He warned that those who looked to ‘reductions upon our establishments ... as a permanent source of relief’ from distress were ‘very much mistaken’, 19 Feb., and while he welcomed the proven desire of ministers to retrench, he considered reduction of the ‘enormous weight’ of debt more important than tax cuts. He was not against inquiry into distress, 3 Mar., but was sceptical as to what it would achieve, thinking that ‘exaggerated statements’ were being made about the extent of the problem; he ‘never knew’ Hampshire ‘so perfectly quiet’. Convinced that ‘experience has fully proved ... the theory of Mr. Malthus ... correct’, 9 Mar., he saw emigration as the only remedy for pauperism, arguing that the poor law must be revised so that relief was confined to the aged and infirm, while ‘the young and able-bodied proceed to the colonies’. He maintained that the transition from a paper to a metal currency was the cause of the ‘peculiar state of depression’ afflicting Britain almost continuously since the end of the Napoleonic wars, 8 June, but repeated his unwillingness to support another change in the system now that it was established ‘on a secure basis’. However, he approved of Attwood’s resolution in favour of a silver standard, which would conduce to greater stability. He considered the proposed reductions in excise duties to be ‘most judicious’, 15 Mar., but wished ministers had waited to see if prosperity returned. He feared that the failure to reduce the national debt would inflict ‘a permanent evil, calculated hereafter to augment national distress’, and deplored the way in which Parliament tended to be ‘ruled by meetings in market places, where, whoever calls the loudest for the repeal of taxes, without caring for the consequences, is sure to be applauded as the greatest patriot’. He voted to reduce the grant for volunteer forces, 9 Mar., paired against the salary of the lieutenant-general of the ordnance, 29 Mar., argued that cadets at the Royal Military Academy should pay for their own training, 30 Apr., and voted to reduce the grant for consular services, 11 June. He thought a property tax was ‘totally unsuitable’ except in wartime, 25 Mar. He voted to repeal the Irish coal duties, 13 May, as ‘an act of ... economical policy, to enable that country to employ a portion of her population in other than agricultural pursuits’. He made clear his opposition to a protective duty on lead, 25 May. He thought the proposed reduction in the sugar duties was ‘too great a risk’, 21 June, 1 July 1830.
He was named to the select committee on East India Company trade, 9 Feb. 1830, approving the inclusion of directors because of their valuable knowledge, but he feared that the task was too much for one committee. He voted to transfer East Retford’s seats to Birmingham, 11 Feb., 15 Mar., and paired with the minority to enfranchise Birmingham, Leeds and Manchester, 23 Feb. He concurred with the resolution that Members should not manage private bills for pecuniary reward, 26 Feb. He called for a statute of limitations on bounty claims for slaves captured in wartime, 29 Mar. He favoured postponing the St. Giles’s vestry bill, 2 Apr., to give time for the parishioners to reach an agreement, and advocated a lower voting qualification. He divided with the minority to amend the law relating to Irish vestries, 27 Apr., when he called for reform of the Irish and English churches as Parliament had ‘not merely the power ... but also the equitable right’ to deal with the unequal distribution of ecclesiastical property, which threatened to cause ‘mischief’. He wanted a revision of English tithes to remove the friction between clergy and farmers, but had no practical suggestion to make, 18 May. He objected to the way in which the additional churches bill surreptitiously gave bishops greater power over the clergy, 8 June, 1 July. He doubted the practicability of abolishing imprisonment for debt or of making a distinction between fraudulent and unfortunate cases, 29 Apr.: ‘nothing but the disgrace ... can ... operate to make men more careful of their own interests’. He suspected that the petitioners for abolishing the death penalty for forgery were acting from ‘the impulse of warm feelings, rather than from sound and practical views’, 13 May, but he appeared willing to consider reform provided there was a ‘sufficiently severe punishment’ available ‘to operate as a terror to those who would otherwise be inclined to violate the laws and attack private property’. He regarded the crown’s exemption from import duties on sugar as ‘an important constitutional question’, 14 May, warned that this privilege could be abused for commercial gain, 21 May, and welcomed the ministerial proposal to place such sales under parliamentary control, 4 June. He presented and endorsed ‘a most important testimonial’ from 14,000 London businessmen in favour of Jewish emancipation, 17 May, which he saw as proof of the mutual goodwill between the Jewish community and their neighbours. He asserted that there was ‘no question more important ... to the whole commerce of Great Britain’ than the disruption caused by Spanish-Mexican hostilities, 20 May, and called on ministers to press Spain to cease its threatening behaviour. He supported the rate imposed by the new metropolitan police force, 15 June, as the public would benefit from ‘the diminution of crime that will ensue’. He urged ministers to give parliamentary time for the labourers’ wages bill, which was of great interest to manufacturers, 17 June, observing that under the present system ‘the masters and men are always in a state of disorder’, 1 July. He pressed ministers to state when the sale of beer bill would next come on, 24 June, complaining of the difficulty for Members who did not know if it was safe to leave the House ‘when discussions on important questions are taken at two or three in the morning’. He argued that revenue could be better sacrificed in relieving the poor from taxes on basic necessities, 1 July, and warned that the loss of magisterial control over alehouses was ‘an experiment ... fraught with imminent risk to the country’, as it deprived them of ‘all control ... over poachers, vagrants and idlers’, making it impossible to secure law and order. He voted that day to postpone on-consumption for two years. At the opposition meeting in Althorp’s rooms, 4 July 1830, according to a Tory source, he spoke against a strategy of outright hostility to the government.
The ministry still regarded Baring as one of their ‘foes’. However, he clashed bitterly with Hume, 5 Nov. 1830, accusing him of making ‘outrageous and extravagant assertions’ in public about government corruption which were ‘disturbing the tranquillity of the country’, and maintaining that it was a ‘gross exaggeration’ to describe the English as ‘a starving people’. In a second heated intervention he charged Hume, who had called him ‘a snake in the grass’ and suggested he should cross the floor, with behaving like a dictator since his election for Middlesex. He attended the opposition meeting at Althorp’s, 13 Nov., and his nephew, Francis Baring*, believed he would vote against the government on reform.
Baring’s breach with the Whigs had become clear on 3 Mar. 1831 when he opposed the government’s reform bill, which he feared would destroy the blend of monarchical, aristocratic and popular influences in the Commons on which ‘the whole working of the constitution hinges’. The presence of monarchical and aristocratic elements, for instance through the close boroughs, had prevented the Commons from becoming simply the mouthpiece of the absolute power of the people, enabling it to retain a degree of independence. Pointing to historical proof of the ‘sins of democracy’, he nevertheless considered it important that the working classes should have some share of power and deplored the way in which the bill proposed to concentrate it in the hands of the ‘middling classes’. Claiming to be a ‘moderate reformer’, who admitted that representation was needed for the large manufacturing towns and that the Scottish electorate should be enlarged, he was averse to ‘pulling the constitution to pieces’, warned against testing it ‘by some imaginary state of felicity, which the wise man knows to be beyond our reach in this world’, and asked ‘if the ministers of the crown turn agitators, where is common sense to find a refuge?’ On the Tory side, he was judged to have ‘spoken gallantly and very well’, deploying a ‘very astute, able, and mischievous argument’, and his effort was greeted as ‘very important’ and a ‘practical sensible speech’, which was ‘considered the coup de grace of the measure’.
In June 1831 Baring reportedly spoke at an opposition meeting at Peel’s residence.
He moved for information about the precautions being taken to prevent a cholera outbreak in Britain, which would give a ‘very serious check ... to our manufactures and other branches of productive industry’ from which the country would ‘not be able to recover ... for several generations’, 24 June 1831. On the petition from British merchants at Canton for protection of their interests, 28 June, he predicted that military action would eventually prove necessary to uphold British honour. He was named that day to the select committee on the East India Company’s charter (and again, 27 Jan. 1832). He favoured inquiry into the working of the Sale of Beer Act, 30 June, believing that while it had made little difference in the towns, the appearance of small alehouses in rural areas was ‘a plague and mischief’, largely responsible for the recent disturbances. He strongly opposed any extension of parliamentary privilege, following the imprisonment of Long Wellesley, Member for Essex, for contempt of chancery, and urged the need for new regulations, 18 July. On a sensitive personal issue, 21 July, he supported an inquiry into the conduct of his eldest son, William Bingham Baring*, a Hampshire magistrate accused of violent conduct during the arrest of Thomas and Caroline Deacle, claiming that he had been unfairly hounded by the press. He received a sympathetic response from Althorp, the leader of the Commons, who privately hoped this might ‘soften’ his opposition to the government.
Before the reconvening of Parliament Baring was in communication with the Tory ‘Waverer’ Lord Wharncliffe, whose attempts to negotiate a compromise reform measure with ministers met with his approval. He also attended the meeting of leading City bankers, 22 Nov. 1831, which failed to agree on a moderate reform declaration, although he felt he had been ‘sufficiently yielding, indeed if I were very solicitous about what is called political consistency I was perhaps rather too much so’. While he was not surprised when Wharncliffe’s negotiation failed, and expressed concern that ‘the timid portions of the peers and particularly the bishops’ might snatch too eagerly at any minor concession offered, he remained confident that ‘if they could be brought to act together and ... play their game with common skill ... a tolerably safe measure might yet be worked out’.
When the resignation of Grey’s ministry was announced, 9 May 1832, Baring demanded specific information as to the advice which the king had rejected, suspecting that it was ‘the most outrageous and unconstitutional that could possibly be given’. After attending a meeting of Tory leaders at Lord Stormont’s* residence, 10 May,
Baring praised Althorp’s candid statement regarding the Russian-Dutch loan, 26 Jan. 1832, but contended that with the separation of Belgium from the Netherlands Britain’s obligation had ceased; he divided with the minority against any further payment. He asked when the bill to legalize the loan payments would be introduced, 4 June, and condemned Althorp for failing to seek an Act of Indemnity and ‘dragging the House unnecessarily into the dirt’, 12 July, when he again voted against the loan. He moved for papers regarding the convention of 1815, 16 July, complaining that the Commons had insufficient information with which to make a judgement, suspecting that ministers were ‘paying the emperor of Russia to keep the peace’ and declaring that nothing ‘connected with our foreign policy has been less to the credit of the country since the days of the Stuarts’; he was defeated by 191-155. He condemned the Treaty of London, by which Britain guaranteed the neutrality of Belgium, as ‘the most unfortunately worded treaty I ever saw’, 3 Feb. On 26 Mar. he deplored the way in which Britain’s ‘rash and precipitate interference’ had encouraged Belgium to secede from the Netherlands, ‘converting into bitter enemies our old friends the Dutch’, and creating a new state which was no more than ‘one of the French provinces’. He acknowledged that ministers were ‘acting most substantially for the benefit of the people, so far as economy is concerned’, 6 Feb., and only feared that retrenchment in the public service might be carried too far. He saw dangers in allowing all parishes access to the public purse under the provisions of the cholera prevention bill, 14 Feb., and suggested that the privy council should have discretionary power to distribute funds. He supported the grant to enable Dr. Bowring to study the French public accounts system, 17 Feb., as Britain’s were ‘in a most wretched condition’. As the only trustee of the British Museum sitting in the Commons, he moved the annual grant, 29 Feb. He regarded the contribution made by merchant seamen towards the cost of Greenwich Hospital as a tax on commerce, 8 Mar. He thought ‘no very material reduction’ was presently possible in the army estimates, 28 Mar., as the volatility of the manufacturing population necessitated a considerable home force. That day he defended the Military College, which provided opportunities for ‘the democracy and the middle classes’ and prevented the army from becoming an ‘aristocratic preserve’. He favoured a comprehensive investigation of distress in the silk trade, 21 Feb., and was converted to supporting inquiry into the glove trade, 3 Apr. However, he saw no case for a general inquiry into the state of trade, 22 May, because ‘the labouring classes are as well off at present as they were at almost any period’ and the agricultural labourers were ‘on the whole, in an improved condition’. He urged that Parliament should declare its intentions regarding the corn laws before the dissolution, 1 June, as the concealment of Members’ views would be ‘a very unfair and uncandid manner of dealing with the country’ and vested interests would ‘be driven to a state of ruin and despair’. He was named to the select committee on renewal of the Bank of England’s charter, 22 May 1832, and secured the addition of Alderman Thompson, a director, whose expertise was needed.
On 14 Feb. 1832 he introduced a privileges of parliament bill to limit parliamentary privilege in cases of arrest for personal debt, require insolvent Members in custody to vacate their seats and prevent insolvents from being elected. He argued that in the changed circumstances of society Members’ privileges ‘tend to degrade the House in the eyes of the public and ... produce an injustice between subject and subject’. The bill was discharged so that a mistake in its title could be rectified, and a revised bill was introduced, 22 May. After stating that he had no intention of extending it to cover peers, the second reading was carried by 38 to four, 30 May. Faced with numerous objections to details, 6 June, he urged that these be left to the committee, and his motion to go into committee of the whole House was carried by 72-29. The same motion was passed by 69-50, 27 June, when he repudiated the accusation made in a Birmingham Political Union petition that the bill was designed to give the wealthy a monopoly of parliamentary representation, denied that he was motivated by the passing of the Reform Act, but defended the principle of a property qualification for Members, as ‘a competent and independent subsistence is necessary for the security of a faithful discharge of the duties which a Member ... has to perform’. The bill was withdrawn in view of the state of parliamentary business and of ‘the public health of the metropolis’, 16 July. He advised ministers to settle the sugar duties question for the sake of the colonies, without which ‘we lose the foundation of our happiness and prosperity’, 7 Mar. He backed inquiry into the distress among the West Indian planters, 15 Mar., and opposed the immediate abolition of slavery, 24 May. He voted for a system of representative government for New South Wales, 28 June. He felt unable to refuse the grant to the West Indies for the damage caused by the Jamaican insurrection and a hurricane, 29 June, but warned that ‘we are about to proceed upon an entirely new principle’, by not requiring security for repayment from personal property. He opposed the bill to transfer the alternate Norfolk assizes from Thetford to Norwich, 23 May, arguing that this was not only unjust to Thetford, which benefited economically, but that it was a matter for the judges to decide and that parliamentary interference would encourage ‘corrupt jobbing’ in future cases; he was a minority teller against the second reading. He believed that coroners should have the power to exclude the public from their courts, as it was not always appropriate to allow ‘hackney coachmen and rabble from the street to be admitted’, 20 June. He thought the Polish question was ‘much more ... a matter of feeling than of national interest’, and that Britain could not interfere in every case of injustice without becoming involved in ‘perpetual broils and interminable disputes’, 28 June 1832.
Baring was narrowly returned in second place for North Essex as a Conservative at the general election of 1832.