The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1872-03-23 00:00:00

"PARSIMONIOUS GRATITUDE."

The Times places the above heading to the following reso-
lution, which had been sent from the India Office for publl-

•
"Resolved unanimously Isy the Secretary of State
for India in Council that, having regard to the eminent
services rendered by the late Earl of Mayo as Viceroy
and Governor-General of India, to the munificence
with which he maintained in that office the dignity of
the Crown, and to his death by a deed of violence to
which he was emars,ed in the discharge of his public
duty, a life annuity of I:1,000 be conferred on the
Countess of Mayo, to be paid out of the revenues of
India ; and, further, that there be paid out of the same
revenues the sum of £20,000 for the benefit of the
younger children of her ladyship and of the late Earl
of Mayo.
"March 15, 1872."
On the above, the Ghthe remarks
. . . . .

There must surely be some strange mistake about
the resolution passed and published by the India
Office, and which The Times inserts under the very
appropriate healing " Parsinionious Gratitude" It
cannot possibly be that the India Office, even though
it be ruled by his Grace of Argyll, can have resolved
to insult the widow of the late Viceroy and to discredit
the English character by offering her Ladyship a life
annuity of £l,OOO a year, and a capital sum of
£20,000 for the benefit of the children of the
noble earl. It is not thus that the British
people provides for the families of those who fall at
the post of duty wtile sustaining the highest offices
of the Crown. Everybody knows that for the
first few years of an appointment like that held
by Lord Mayo it is difficult, if not impossible, to avoid
a drain on private resources. His Lordship left no
effort untried to give prestifie to the name of the Sove-
reign in India. A feeling of unelfable disgust will
overpower and stifle all other sentiments when it is
knownto what a depth of humiliation the pitiful parsi-
mony of an economical Government can stoop when
the subjects, we might say the victims, of its patronage
are not particularly powerful. It is quite out of the
question that the Administration should be permitted
to practise its petty economy in a matter of such
moment. The only doubtful point is how the precedure
of the Government shall be brought under the cogni-
sance of the Legislature.

In connection with the foregoing, the following ap-
peared in Wednesday's Times:-
- • • •

It is stated in ouir article in this morning's paper 'Precedents frnnish a very effective argument." 1 take the liberty
to send you one.
On the 11th of May, 1812, the Right Hon Spencer Perceval,
First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Ercheyner,
was shot dead in the lobby of the House of Commons
by a man named Bellingham, in revenge for the neglect
of his application for indemnity for losses sustained in
Russia.
. . • .

Bellingham was tried, condemned, and executed on the
DAIL .

A vote of £20,000 to the family of the deceased Minister, an
annuity of £2,000 to his widow, and a monument to his
memory in Westminster Abbey, was unanimously passed in
the House Of Commons.-1 am, At., J. HAMILTON.

The Times of Tuesday has the following leader on the, sub-
ject of the grant to Lord Mayo's family
We cannot think that the reply made to Mr. Osborne
by the Prime Minister on the subject of the grant to
Lady Mayo will give satisfaction either in England or
in India. It is to the effect that in the opinion of the
Government the grant is sufficient; a pension of £l,OOO
a year and a sum of £20,000 being more than an equi-
valent for £2,000 a year, which was the amount of
pension allotted to the widowof Lord Elgin. Precedents
furnish a very effective argument, and to a certain
class of minds they are irresistible. If it can be shown
that a thing has-been done once, it is coroluded that
it must be done again, in exactly the same manner,
on any similar occasion. We beg, -however, to suggest
that the death of Lord Mayo by the hand of an as-
sawin is an event which lies entirely outside the order
of precedent. The first impression the paragraph we
published yesterday made upon us, and, we believe, on
the public generally. was that, having regard to the
position of the deceased, the manner of his death,
. .