Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 6.djvu/323

Rh foanded on reasons of public policy applicable to the busi ness in question. To avoid the necessity of constantly re-enacting the same principles in private Acts, their common clauses were embodied in separate statutes, and their provisions are ordered to be incorporated in any private Act of the description mentioned therein. Such are the Lands Clauses Consolidation Act, the Companies Clauses Consolidation Act, and the Railways Clauses Consolidation Act, all passed in 1845.  CONSOLS, an abbreviation of Consolidated Annuities, had their origin in 1751, and now form the larger portion of the funded debt of the United Kingdom. In the progress of the national debt it was deemed expedient, on grounds which have been much questioned, instead of borrowing at various rates of interest, according to the state of the market or the need and credit of the Government, to offer a fixed rate of interest, usually three or three and a half per cent., and as the market required to give the lenders an advantage in the principal funded. Thus subscribers of 100 would sometimes receive 150 of threepercent. stock. In 1815, at the close of the French wars, a large loan was raised at as much as 174 three per cent, and 10 four per cent, stock for 100. Thelowrateofinterestwas thuspurely nominal, while the principal of the debt was increased beyond all due proportion. This practice began in the reign of George II., when some portions of the debt on which the interest had been successfully reduced were con solidated into three per cent, annuities, and consols, as the annuities were called, and other stocks of nominally low interest, rapidly increased under the same practice during the great wars. In times of peace, when the rate of money has enabled portions of the debt at a higher interest to be commuted into stock of lower interest, it has usually been into consols that the conversion has been effected. Tem porary deficits of the revenue have been covered by an issue of consols ; exchequer bills when funded have taken the same form, though not constantly or exclusively ; and some loans of the Government in recent times for special pur poses, such as the relief of the Irish famine and the expenditure in the Crimean war, have been wholly or partly raised in consols. The consequence has been to give this stock a pre-eminence in the amount of the funded debt. It appears from a recent parliamentary return than of 773,313,229 of funded debt of the United Kingdom 398,147,075 consisted of consols, 107,227,854 of three percent, reduced annuities, and225,256,099 of newthrees. The funds of the savings banks have been appHed to the absorption of reduced annuities and new threes in La ger proportion than of consols. The characteristics of this large portion of the debt, though it would seem almost indistinguishable from the three per cent, reduced, which originated about the same period as the consolidated threes, are that the interest has never varied ; no attempt has been made to convert it to a lower interest or into another form of stock; and not only from its larger amount than other stock is it most convenient to dealers, but from the great number and variety of its holders it is believed to express with the greatest nicety the state of monetary affairs. The price of consols, however, does not in ordinary times vary much. It has a tendency, indeed, to rise when all other securities are most shaken. In periods of panic and extreme pressure for money, it has gone down for a few days between 80 and 90; its most customary range may be said to be 95 to 97 ; and it has occasionally touched par. The legal provi sions erecting consols are found in several clauses of 25 George II. c. 27, and the regulations for their redemption in section 24 of the same Act.  CONSPIRACY, in English law, is an agreement between two or more persons to do certain wrongful acts, which may not, however, be punishable when committed by a single person, not acting in concert with others. The following are enumerated in text-books as the things, an agreement to do which, made between several persons, constitutes the offence of conspiracy:—(1) Falsely to charge another with a crime punishable by law, either from a malicious or vindictive motive or feeling towards the party, or for the purpose of extorting money from him; (2) wrongfully to injure or prejudice a third person or any body of men in any other manner ; (3) to commit any offence punishable by law ; (4) to do any act with intent to per vert the course of justice ; (5) to effect a legal purpose with a corrupt intent or by improper means ; to which are added (6) conspiracies or combinations among work men to raise wages. The division is not a perfect one, but a few examples under each of the heads will indicate the nature of the offence in English law. First, a conspiracy to charge a man falsely with any felony or misdemeanor is criminal ; but an agreement to prosecute a man who is guilty, or against whom there are reasonable grounds for suspicion, is not. Under the seccnd head the text-books give a great variety of examples, e.g. mock auctions, where sham bidders cause the goods to go off at prices grossly above their worth ; a conspiracy to raise the price of goods by spreading false rumours ; a conspiracy by persons to cause themselves to be reputed men of property, in order to deceive tradesmen; a conspiracy to cause by threats, contrivances, or other sinister means a pauper of one parish to marry a pauper of another in order to charge one of the parishes with the maintenance of both. These examples show how wide the law stretches its conception of criminal agreement. The third head requires no explanation. A conspiracy to murder is expressly made punishable by penal servitude and imprisonment (24 and 25 Viet. c. 100). A curious example of conspiracy under the fourth head is the case in which several persons were convicted of conspiracy to procure another to rob one of them, so that by convicting the robber they might obtain the reward given in such cases. The combination to effect a lawful purpose with corrupt intent or by improper means is exemplified by agreements to procure seduction, &c. The most important question in the law of conspiracy, apart from the statute law affecting labourers, is how far things which may be lawfully done by individuals can become criminal when done by individuals acting in concert, and some light may be thrown on it by a ehort statement of the history of the law. In the early period of the law down to the 17th century, conspiracy was defined by the Ordinance of Conspirators of the 33 Edward I. : &quot; Con spirators be they that do confedr or bind themselves by oath, covenant, or other alliance, that every of them shall aid the other falsely and maliciously to indite, or cause to indite, or falsely to move or maintain pleas, and also such as cause children within age to appeal men of felony, whereby they are imprisoned and sore grieved, and such ns retain men in the country with liveries or fees to maintain their malicious enterprizes, and this extendeth as well to the takers as to the givers.&quot; The offence aimed at here is conspiracy to indict or to maintain suits falsely; and it was held that a conspiracy under the Act was not complete, unless some suit had been maintained or some person had been falsely indicted and acquitted. A doctrine, however, grew up that the agreement was in itself criminal, although the conspiracy was not actually completed (Poulterer s case, 1611). This developed into the rule that any agreement to commit a crime might be prosecuted as a conspiracy. A still further development of this doctrine is that a com bination might be criminal, although the object apart from combination would not be criminal. The cases bearing on this question will be found arranged under the following 