The Statesman. — London, England, 1820-05-06 00:00:00

i,....ai110m THE STATES (A\. .Judges declared with reipeet to other droits also. Of the Judges. however, Lord Coke mentior.ed that Mr. Justice I rawley had some doubts upon ths.puint, for. after first admitting the doctrine, he said that the royal fish were not droits of the Crown, because they were too moan to belong to the King as Costal of the seas. The sturgeon and the whale, in his opinion, steer a!) too small for the use of the Sovereign. But had the worthy Justice lived in our time, and witnessed the millions of reyenue which arise from the Ji , posal of whales, his argument would have totally failed. He si..ishe,!, however, not to be misunderstood. He ad mitted, that as the law at present stood, a great alt. ra tion had been made in the arrangement of the revenue. He need not say that now the Crown had ma long r to defend from piratical invasions the seas out of tie re venues carried into his possessions by virtue el . his droits. No : all those condition upon wh:cii the droits were first conferred ulon the Sovereign were taken away step by step from the Cron Ti, and each expence alienated from it. Yet it happened, that one of these reve:me!, granted especially fir the defence of the country, and as the Act of Henry the Eighth had it. `• for the tuition and gt,..od govern ment of the country," was still continued, although the service had not been performed. This, then, was the beginning, the middle, and end of his argument. But he meant not too strictly and literally to follow this subject; it was ',Pert the height of injcstice, par ticularly in cases between the Crown anti-the people, to fellow too severe a line of policy. It was one of those cases where the greatest injustice too often arose from the strictest adherence to justice. Prudence and discretion, and a regard for the security ant the State, often required that, where a balance has been struck in 1 1 rermge times, it ought nut to Le disturbed, because learning and ingenuity might discover that it should Lot hire been struck at all. For this principle he would ever profess the utmost reverence. If argu ments acre necessary upon the subject, lie should say, that reasoning and analogy, by which they should be governed upon this occasion, should be sought fur in the dealings of the people with s...nie other great cur petition ; and if he could show that between this Public and the Mirth Estaiilishinent some tangible analogy might he traced, he trusted they a :mid give it their maturest consideration. It was well known that tithes were not originally the roperty of the church for ecclesiastical purposes only, for they were then burthened with provision fur the pour, and e.a it parson was bound to maintain the poor. He degrees. it was found that the provision left at the disposal ofj the clergy was incompetent to the maintenance of the poor, particularly after the violence of Henry VIII. had i deprived the clergy of their great resources. It w s' therefore not deemed proper that the law of tithes should be literally acted upon, anal in process of time Cie claim which the public had upon the church to support the poor was abandoned. Here then was the analogy. Originally tithes were burt h ened with provision for the pour; so the droits of the Crown were charged with the expenses of keeping the teas clear. Step by step, during time reigns of Mary, Elizabeth, James, exc.—fur it was wrung to suppose that the measure was the effect of one Act—a bargain was effected between the laity and the clergy, that the former should support the pour. Let then the analogy be continued : let the revenue be discontinued, since the charge to defray which revenue was granted had been taken up elsewhere, and let a composition be concluded. How this composition was to be paid—what was to regulate its anaount—whether or not it should be more or less in time of war than in peace, were points upon which he did not intend then to trouble the House. lie wished only to have the general proposition countenanced by the House, that some arrangement was necessary. It was natural to believe that all who considered the subject of the Civil List, must at once see that nothing could be worse for the intelligibility of the subject, for the dig nity of the Crown itself, and for the comfort of all whose business it is to entertain the matter, than the whole manner of the arrangement of the Civil List, as it at present stood. Suppose any person, not ac quainted with the usinutise of finance, were asked how much money the King of England had ? it would be a difficult thing for him to tell ; it would he difficult for some of the most experienced Members of that House to tell it, even after a full half hour's computa tion. You GAO tell the amount of the provision for the Frenash King—for the President of the United States of America, and a Dutch Stadtholder ; you can at once declare for all, except a King of England. And the consequence was, that the arrangement for him was the subject of daily blunders; and in its Gothic obscurity and consequent mismanagement, be came injurious to the dignity of the Crown. When Paine wrote his book, he complained that the King of England was the most expensive magistrate to be found in Europe ; because, said he, the country paid about ten or twelve hundred thousand a-year for governing the kingdom. " I could final," said he, with his usual coarseness, " an able-bodied man that would do the business for five hundred pounds a year !"---(A laugh.)—The serious part of the matter was this, that not one man in a million was able to contradict the gross misrepresentation or to expose the error of the writer. And why not ? Suppose a person were to tell Paine, or an advocate of his, that he was greatly mistaken in his statement, fur that the King enjoyed no such sum as ten or twelve hundred thou sand a year. " How do you know ?" the advocate would say ; " because," says the other, " the Civil List is not for his own use, for out of it he has to pay his great Officers of State, Judges," Ste. " Well, then. tell us how much fur each." It was impossible fur the antagonist to go any further; be could not tell, almost, unless he were a Chancellor of the Exchequer, and even then the thing was extremely doubtful ; at least he (Mr. Brougham) knew some Chancellors of the Exchequer that would find it difficult to tell.—(A laugh.)—But the misfortune was, that this saute ! mystery was kept up through all the Civil List Acts,' op to the present time. The title to these Acts usually I contained the words " for the better support of the I honour and dignity of the Crown." Now, would any t man believe, that out of sums thus apparently placed' at the disposal of the bloaarcli, sums of money were to be paid as salaries to the great &Hikers of the State, so Judges, Zsc.. Even in the Resolution of the : Chancellor of the Exchequer on the table occurred the same vague and inapplicable language. The Hun. lieutlenme (Mr. Brougham) a' a friend to the dignity of the Crown. would boldly demand, was this fur play to the Monarch T . Wu it fair to the dignity of the Crown, to min uprth the provision for the maintenance of the 'pietism of the Kingly Office the salaries of Judges, salaries for other officers, both great and small—incidental charges, occasional pay meats, charges for arrears, he., and allowances which it would be beneath the dignity of the subject to name. ' Was it fair to the dignity of the Crown, that these ac counts should be confounded with its own provision? Or was it more becoming that these accounts should be separated? Pal not every private mar. anxi ous to have it in his power to gain at any true a knowledge of the state of his property—his profit and loss,, libour to keep his accounts separately fur that purpose? But this was riot the advice of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. " No ;" the Right Hon. Gentleman would say, " avoid this perspicuous arrangeutent--junible all the accounts together, hut do not separate them on any account!" The consequence would be, that the person, whenever be wished to as certain the relations of his *maws with each other, would be obliged to employ some able aceountant to unravel them. Hut then it was said that the dignity of the Crown required all this confusion and mystery. Even suppose so—a little regard fur popularity, for in telligibility, demanded that this gothic disguise should be thrown aside. And with respect to the diguio of the Crown, did it really tend to that object to embarrass the sources of its provision. —did, really. this eonfu sion du more for the honour of the King, than fur his Pa:las/met, to say, " lour Majesty shall be paid cheerfu:ly, handsomely, and liberally, by a grant from the Consolidated Fund. amply suffi cient for all the purposes of your situation." But " No," ea's! the Chancellor of the Exchequer, this shall nut take place—the allowance to the Monarch requires to be in a state of confusion—his dignity can tolerate nothing short of mystery." But then, in this prying age, people will tarn their attention to an in vestigation of those matters for themselves; and by so doing will lied out, unhappily, that the Ms narrh of this country, to whose dignity and honour the sacrifice of arrangement and perspicuity in his accounts had been deemed necessary, did not disdain to have a part of his revenue made up by a tax of one penny in the gallon ui on ale, and one halfpenny in the gallon upon whiskey. Yes; the Monarchs of former times did not per. ive any degradation in exchanging, for a settled revenue derived by these humble means, the gaudy and more unsettle.' profits of their predecessors :I those gems of feudal splendour, in which so much of their honour was bliagined to consist, and of which they most have been so tenacious. Nor were our an cestors able to distinguish any danger to the dignity and respect of the Crown, in this commutation.— I (Hear, hear!)—He held in his hand the Report of the ! Committee on the Civil List, the coufitsiou of which was only to hr outdone by that of the Cita List itself. In this he found, that the provision fur some of the branches of the Royal Family was charged partly on the Civil List, and partly on the Consolidated Fund. In fact, his Majesty had recently been recommended to accept 100,i'00/. a year from the Consolidated Fund, instead of the Civil List.—(lt was here intimated that , this recu 1111 l initiation was given up.)—At all events, it was emoseh for him to knew that thcrecosamendatiost was niade by a Courtnittee, who thought it not unwise to have it carried into effect. The House, indeed, was I not aware ef the company his Majesty was forced to keep. He was obliged to associa•e himself with per- I sons with whom a comarou Herman Ba would be ashamed to he seen. In page 61, of the iippetailix to the Report in the 7th class, the first item which met his eye was the Vicar of the Tower, a great officer of State, stipp,,rted in his dignified station at a salary of 1/. I3s. sd. a year. The office was not very expensive, and, indeed, he ought to be rec mended, as a most useful example of economy. This Functionary of State, this Vicar of the 'lower, this dignitary of the Civil List, 7th class, for the classes rose upon each other in dig nity—notwithstanding all his distinctions, stood his afflicted country in no larger a sum than If. I3s. bd. Next came the minister of St. Botolph's„ and, as he descended, appeared those snore useful, more indus trious, and nu less eminently distinguished officers oil State, namely, the churchwardens of St. John the Baptist, at salaries of IL 3s. and 51. each. Then CAI/10 / the schoolmaster of Southwark -- in short the ark it self contained nothing like the variety of the seventh class.—(Loud laughiug.)—Here were specimens of every description of human beings—clergy, laity, gents, and nobles. Nor were they always sorted to gether in pairs as in the ark—but four or five of the same species were combined together; sometimes, perhaps, fur the sake of variety, there was but one of the same kind. The Universities appeared eunspicu ons in the seventh class. There were Regius Profes sors in abundance, Corporations, a Mayor, Minister of the Savoy, h.c. But nut satisfied with these terrestrial objects, they must also include celestial ones. There was the Astronomer Royal, at a salary of M. 10s.; the Master of Christ', Hospital, the Eiewealories, the, Master of the Hawks, the Master of the Ceremonies, the Marshal of the Ceremonies, &e. But even the beasts IS the forest were nut deemed unworthy the dignity of a place in the seventh class. Here was a salary to the Keeper of the Lions in the Tower, and a Latin Secretary was retained at 70/. a/ear. There was next an Exchequer watchman. He (Mr. B.) did not know if the Right lion. Gentleman was acquainted with this persusaage.—(Much laughing.)--But for his part, provided the watchman did his duty, he would not grudge him a larger salary. There were perhaps five of these dignitaries, who had together a salary of Mi. a-year. To his sorrow, however, he found in another part, Viet these gentlemen watched to the tune of thousands per annum. All that he wished from them was, that they would produce much better evi dences of their official activity in the Exchequer de partusent, than were to be found in the unfortunate confusion of the Civil List. He wished that what was necessary to support the honour and dignity of the Crown should be given. He objected to have this ar rangement made for the life of the Sovereign, be it short, which Hod forbid, ur be it lung, which he anxiously hoped for. But lot it continue as long as there was found no reason to alter , it by mutual con sent. Why was a grant made only fur life, because the Sovereign granted his hereditary revenue only for life? But this limited commutation was the most ri dicilous blunder that could well be committed. What was the consequence in the late reign of sixty years ? This, that Parliament hail to make six new arrange ments of the Civil List, :luring that time, and to pay right times the arrears of the Civil List ; and some times these fresh arrangements occurred within a short interval. If a commutation, extending only to the life of the Suverign, were made, if the life were short, it might be too much ; if long, too little. The only remedy was, for Parliament to take permanent pos session of all these revenues, carry the:a to the Con solidated Fund, anti par the Sovereig.i a settled an nuity instead, to keep separate front the provisions of the Crown the salaries of Judges, the salary of the Speaker of the House of Commons—a provision, next to that of the Monarch, that ought to be the least grudged by the country. By all means, however, have the expenses provided for lv estimates; and, if necessary, there ought to be a Civil List extraordinary. In this manner only could the dignity of the Sovereign be best consulted, a clear and necessary arrangenient of the civil expenditure secured, and economy satisfied. With respect to the Droits of the Admiralty, he would only remind the House, that they possessed all the bad qualities o Lich rendered revenues of this nature the objects of dislike to Parliament. They were occa sional. Conlin•_ at intervals—sometimes slowly, some time; in a lump; and, what was worse than all, they could be turned with the greatest facility to a bad account. In proof of this, lie should mention, that in 1607, the sum of 113,011t0/. came into the hands of the Sovereign, all at once, by the lunacy of a rich person. Some time after, another sum came in in like man ner, of 47,000 f.; in I sitt9, a sum of 62,0t10/. He did not cite these sum. to complain of their enormity, but he objected to their irregularity, because some such sum might by accident be brought into the hands of the Sovereign at s unlucky season—at the eve of a general election, fur instance. Again, to mention other instances of the accidental falling in of money : in 1404, the c.itiliscatien of a ship produced to the Crown the sum of 105,04111/. Another, shortly after, brought in -111,0041/.; another, in 1795, 611,111111/. But the proceeds of the lictch prises amounted to 1,030,000/.; the Spanish prizes t.i 2.200,000/. Such was the irregularity of the proceeds. But there was one circunistance which would, no doubt, give rise to serious reflection in the mines of the !tense. In 14116 his Majesty was graciously pleased, out of his great goodness and rontlescensii.u, and in consideration of the great burdens of the country, to send down a Message to Parliament, that he was ready to lay one million out of the droits at the disposal of the House, ' 1 with a view to reliese the distresses of the people. In answer to this gracious Message, the Commons re- I I tumed their most grateful acknowledgments. Did he I charge the Parliament with obsequiousness? Certainly I not. But our ancestors wonld have discovered in these things a strange conversion of our constitutional order. What! the Sovereign cowing down to Par liament. and, out of his gracious condescension, giving money for the relief of the distresses of his subjects— to Parliament, whose functions it was to controul the provisions of the Sovereign, and, instead of the King asking for pecuniary aid, and the Parliament granting it, the Crown giving, and the Parliament thanking him for the donation. 'I here was a part of the funds which were of a permanent nature, though not of large amotrit, which required to be spoken of; namely, the surplus revenues front Barbadoes and the Leeward Isles, and the Civil List of Scotland. The first of these did not amount to mere than 25,000 t, and the I second was all consumed in pensions, without the knowledge or controul of Parliament. The services for which these pensions were granted, might be good or bad, or there might be no services at ail. So that, in fact, these windfalls might easily be converted to effect mischief—to make a job; he did not mean to use the word in an invidious sense. But it must he the case, that so long as these funds continued to he uncontrolled by Parliament, the suspicion would be kept alive, that means were in existence of sup porting a bad influence in that House. If, indeed, these pensions were to be granted to Earl St. Vincent, to the relations of Lord Nelson, or those of Lord Hutchinson, the Minister would not have hesitated to route down and ask the consent of Parliament, be cause he knew full well that the proposition would be met with unanimous approbation. But it struck them very properly, that the same approbation would not be extended to a proposal of pensions to those who neither fought in Egypt, nor yet at Trafalgar, and who in short could boast no other claim to their con sideration than being favourites of their Sovereign. It was by no means self-evident that any of those tientlemeio—for instatiee, the Right lion. Gentleman (a Scotch pensioner) opposite, or any other of the nu merous pensioners he could name--Lord (irenville for instance—lt wu very convenient, by the by, that he could name two pensioners connected with different sides of the House ; but it was by no means self-evi dent that any of these Uentlemen would have obtained their pensions with any thing like the uuauimity that could bse-enputed is the case of Lord St. Vincent. But that there might be an abuse in the management of these revenues, he should show, by citing the ease of Sir Home Popham. lie would take the circumstances of this gallant officer's history from himself. At the end of a long war, when a continued peace was ap prehended by most of the military functionaries of that time, this gallant officer, disdaining a life of In glorious quiet—anxious also to seek the haunts of his former exploits—impatient of that repose to which he was unaccustomed, and burning to augment the glory which he had so often acquired on the watery ele ment—giving way to all these enobling emotions, he engaged in transactions for smuggling.—(Loud laugh- ing.)—Thus it was with the norld—there were va rious pursuits b y various paths. One man sought glory in the field, and found it in death—another sought it in smuggling, and found it in capture.—(Much laughing.) —Having invested his capital in a consignment, he embarked on a voyage to the West Indies, taking upon him the name and character of his purser. He there fell in with a Captain Rubinson, afterwards Admiral Robinson, who was quite as anxious for the good of his country as the gallant officer, though not quite so disposed to engage in smuggling transactions. The Captain, however, seized upon the gallant Contraband ist—the vessel was condemned and became a davit of the Crown. Instead, however, of the proceeds or any portion of them being given to the Captain+ 25,000/. were made ovk to comfort the gallant officer who engaged in smugglieg for the good of his country. But it was a question indeed, whether or not Sir Home had smuggled homewards also.—(Laughing.‘ —A. the man who was foremost in battle, was generally distinguished for the cultivation of the domestic vir tues, so did the gallant ggler unite the char acter of the hero and the not!) of sentiment. " God forbid," said he, " that I, who am so forward in the battle, should ever be welding in my duty to my fa mily. No, I will leave the ship, and join my w if e and family un the shore." In fart, he left the Strums to join his wife in a small boat, but, by an odd acci dent, the boat, the endearing little boat, " which sped the soft intercourse," between them, was o'.- served to go back and forward during the night b e . tween the shore and the ship.--(3lurla laughter.) ---ft turned out, however, that Sir House did nut own the cargo ; the vessel and cargo belonged to Messrs. Char flock, of Osten& Nitiv the gift to Sir Home migh: :,e right ur wrotr, but this was certain, that it was girt secretly, and out of the droits, without the consent of the House. The Hon. Member then proposed to argue, that the !fruits ought most to continue, of the ground that they furnished a temptation to the Government of this country to enrage iu war, aid quoted, as instances of the effect of this inducement, the attempt uiton the Smyrna fleet, the Danish prizes, and lastly, the Spanish prizes, the remetul range which, as was said by almost every officer with whom he conversed upon the subject, otteht to make an Eng lish seaman hang his head in shame. At all events there was sufficient ground for foreign nations to ins• pute the worst motives to this country to ensage in war, which ought to be removed. lie next :ppiied himself to the consideration of the 44 per cent. West India Duties. It was a revenue that was just usnr;wd hr the Parliament from the Legislature of Barbadues, and after having been treated in several reigns as among those revenues of th.. Crown over which Parliament had controul, it was upon representation of the autho rities at Barbadoes, surrenth red by Queen Anne. The usual arguments against the entertainment of these questions now ceased. We !Pepin 5: new reign, and it became extremely proper to have these !natters dis cussed. If his proposition were re jec.-ell now, it would be saying that these droits ou 4 ht to remain as a per petual stigma on the country, aud an injury to the dignity of the Cruse!). Ile been moved the f o ll ow i ng Ili-solution, and sat t'o w n amidst loud cheering from al! parts of the House. That It is expedient. with x slew to an arrangement of Lis Majesty's Civil List, film this Dense do take into con sideration the Moils of tie Crown and Admiralty. the 4 per Cent. West India Duties. end all other fends at the dis posal of the Crown, and not u.nally deemed within the eon fund of Parliament, and make such provision lunching the same as shall be most consistent with the honour and dignity of the Crown." Mr. CANNING, aft. r a few prefatory observations, said, that on the part of hia:s. It' and his colleagues, he I would reject the proposition of the Win. Member for the sale of the old pre , ozaf ive of the Crown. He saw nu grounds whater• r tor a substantive motion on this subject, and the eon—, :adopted was altogether an unusual one at such a of the proceedings as the present. The itivar,ali:e usuage had been, during the i last four reigns, to settle the amount of the Civil List ' in the first proceeding of every New Parliament, and he saw no mason why there should be now a departure from that rule. He pen•eived, however, the distinc tion which the Hon. tientleinan attempted to draw, but it could not he maintained by any argument either (of expediency or coesti:utiunal legislation. The change which it was Pow sought to effect in the at rangerueut of the feud in question was quite unprece dented, and was but au ungracious return for the courtesy evinced by gentlemen on his side of the House, who conceded a point at the beginning which it hal not before been the practice to yield, as nothing was ;transacted before the necessary provision was made fur the maintenance of the splendour and dignity of the Crown. It ought to have been enough for the Honourable Gentlemen and his friends that they beard from the Sovereign hitt:self that no new burdens were to be imposed, and that he asked for nothing beyond the fulfilment of an engagement which had been made after mature! deliberation. In favour of that arrangement an argument might justly be offered that could not have been addueed with respect to any former one—namely, that after the practical experience of four years, it was found to answer satisfactorily all the ends proposed. Hut it was, he must insist, a most unseemly return for the generosity of the Sovereign, I to say that when nothing new was wanted, there re mained something which might be taken away. This, indeed, was what he could not have anticipated, even ' from su.:h zealous advocates of economy as the Hon. Gentlemen on the other side. Nor could be help thinking it hard, that if a little excess was found be- I yond the fixed allowance of the Sovereign, a charge of wasteful extravagance should be made. This, to say the least of it, might be termed a suspicions eco nomy, and was altogether unworthy the sanction of the Legislature. If the sum established was found sufficient, let it be adhered to; hut let it not be di minished merely because no addition was required to it.—(hear, hear, from the Ministerial Heuches.)--Let them nut say to the Sovereign, " We And you are too well satisfied, but we shall see if there be nut loan- thing which might be taken away from the feeds at your disposal." But the Honourable Gentleman proposed a suitable compensation to the Crown; yet the queition fur the House to eonsider was, not whether the funds were to be abolished, but whe ther it would be consonant with the long-established usage to make any change in their arrangement. The Honuarable Gentlenian, in support of his ergo' nients for a change, had 'traced the history of these funds, and he (Mr. Canning) should follow him as briefly as the nature of the subject would admit. He should, therefore, begin with that feud, shich was known by the term 44 per Cent. lb* 1)040110n re specting this fund, he touted to be involved is mach difficulty, and they hat: been so for a lung i 1 peo. I. the beginning of the reign of Queen Anne, re' presentation v.-as made by certain peruse tilivrto with Barbadoes, which induced the ifettee to APO 1° the expenses of that island being defrayed est the 44 per Cents, and the conditioe of such a nseilfilte, was. that quit rents and some other chargeer will , is h e done away. It was certainly true, thee mpill - 0 0 rt - , 'tips of an addles*, communicating therepeuemledi". Queen Anne said she would gigs direction, .11"rj. I IN LI P [ail L.