The Sun.
London, England, 1830-06-12 00:00:00

against their own, opinions.. But, before going into,
into that case, he wisb6d to say a Word'iri answer to,
the attack made by the lion. Baronet upon Govern-

fnent. That Hon. Baronet had thmagfit fit to im-
pute to Government that, though . they made',very.
fair promises, they had not justified these professions
by their conduct.. Now, upon that point he (the
Chancellor of the Exchequer) was ready to meet
the Hon. Baronet in argument. He 'asserted that.
there never was an Administration which so en-

tirely neglected its patronage as the present, and
that the Duke of , Wellington had not appointed a
single Commissioner, though many became vacant
in his time.—(Hear.) The Hon. Baronet had said
that the, reduction of this estimate was an after-
thought ; but what was the fact ? The estimate was
prepared in January last, and'since then two gentle.:
men, the 'Consuls at Madeira and Haiti, had died;
and their salaries fulling in of course made a dimi-
nution in the estimate, so that it was not an after-
thought. He (the Chancellor of the Exchequer)
agreed generally with the Hon. Baronet, that•it was
doubtful whether, the mode of paying Consuls by
salaries instead of fees was the best ; but it was

forced upon Mr. Canning by this House. It would
appear that the fees were much more in amount than
the salaries; for these would be found to amount to
61,0001., whereas the salaries amounted to only
49,0001., so that the shipping and commercial inte-
rests of the country had a clear gain of 12,0001.—
(Hear.) It had, been for some time in contemplation
to change the present system, and give Commis per-
mission to engage in commerce, for there were many
towns where men, in business could do those duties

more cheaply than others. The matter was now before
. -
Lord Aberdeen, but the differecces of opinion which
prevailed amongst commercial men prevented thaf,
Noble Lord from coming to any definite conclusion, or
adopting any general rule. The relaxed rule had been,
howeVer, applied in some cases, and the salaries reduced
accordingly. But the Hon. Baronet must be sensible how
difficult it was to deal with persons situated as these Con-
suls were, who had spent their youths, and the best part
of their lives, and lost their health, abroad. If they were
brought home, _and placed upon the .superannuation list,
the Hon. Baronet would fall foul of Government, so.that it
was difficult to know what to do.—(Hear.)—The Right
Hon. Gentleman then went in detail into the cases which

had been stated by the Bon. Baronet, and defended each.
Mr. Nugent had spent five years abroad, and had lost his
health. Mr. Schenley was obliged to stay at home, being
threatened with some proceedings of a family nature,
which would have ruined him in his absence; and 11r.

M'Kenzie, the Consul to Hayti, had gone out not merely
as Consul, but as general agent of Government, and had
furnished some very valuable information, which had been
laid upon the table of the House. With respect to the
case of Mr. Bayley, the Consul to St. Petersburgh, the
salary of 1,0001. only a year was given to him in con-
sideration of his receiving 1,500/. from the Russian Com-
pany, for Government estimated the salary of that Consul
at 2,500/. a year. The Right Hon. Gentleman then
contended that the comparison made by the Ron, Baronet

between the salaries of American Consuls and those of this
country was incorrect. The Hon. Baronet argued as if
the fees were still retained by the Consuls, while it was
well known such was not the fact. In addition to this
American Consuls were allowed to trade—n privilege
which-the recent Bill had taken from the British Consuls.

Sir JAMES 'GRAHAM, in explanation, was under-
stood to say that his statement had not been correctly given
by the Right Hon. Gentleman. He certainly had made a
comparison between the incomes of the Consuls of the two
countries, but he had not taken the fees fOrmerly received
by the British into the account.
, Mr. CHARLES WOOD supported the amendment
In order to be convinced of the lavish expenditure of the
Government in this instance, it was only necessary- to
refer to a few of the items which had been paid to some of
the Consols, Mr.,Voussin, -for instance,. bad received 7001.
while at his post in South America ; he next year received
the 7001. though he remained in England; and next year
half that sum.
Mr. HERRIES said there was a mistake in that account.
Mr. C. WOOD then called the attention of the Corn-

mittee to the cases of Mr. Schenley. and Mr. Nugent;
who had been receiving their salaries, while others had
performed the duty. This was such wasteful expendij
ture, that he was convinced Parliament would see the ne-
cessity of making a material reduction. Government, too;
hid acted on this principle already : they had appointed a
Consul-General in Colombia, with a salary of 8001. a
year, while they allowed- other Consuls-General to receive
2,0001. and 2,5001. a year. If the principle was good in
one instance, it must be equally goosl in the other.
The' CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER said,
the office of Constil:•General in COlombia was to be abo-
lished, and the duty to be performed by a, Consul. •
Mr. CHARLES WOOD said, admitting that to be
the fact,. his argument still remained good, as there were
Consuls-General at Mexico and. Buenos Ayres, with the
same salary.
Mr. HUME had pressed on Government the necessity
of some alteration; which would deprive the Consuls 'of
the power of charging the shipping interest as they
pleased, and establish their salaries on a fixed scale. In
order to prove the necessity of a change, he had collected
a list of the charges on British shipping levied by the
Consuls in the different parts of Europe,- and had proved
to the House that there were hardly two ports where the
charges were the same. In some parts the charges were
five times greater, and in others ten times greater, than the
charges of the French Consuls. In short, the Consuls
might charge any thing they liked ; and for these reasons
he pressed on the Government the propriety of placing
all on the same footing, and also the necessity of furnish-
ing to the master of every vessel, on quitting London, a
schedule of the charges which he had to pay on arriving
at the port to which he was bound. Formerly 10,000/
a year had been paid by the Levant Company. This had
been added to the general- charge,- and he considered this
an- important improvement. The alterations which he
proposed on former occasions were confined chiefly to two
points—these. were to place the British Consuls on the
same footing with those of France or the United States.
The Consuls of the former country were paid a fixed
salary, and those of the latter received moderate fees. He
would have preferred the same fees as those granted to the
American Consuls, who, be could state, from his own
knowledge, were a most useful and respectable class of
men. He bad pressed this proposition on-Mr. Canning,
and he certainly, at the time, expected that it would
have been adopted. Such, however, was not the fact ;
and, though the Right Hon. Gentleman had stated
that all, idea of taking fees was now abolished, he
was 'ready to _ prove that, independent of salaries,
the British Consuls still received more fees than
the American. There were still charged two dollars for
signing a document—one dollar for making an affidavit—
five dollars for opening a will—and other charges in the
same proportion. One of these charges he considered
m ist objectionable—namely, that paid by half-pay officers,
on making affidavit before the Consul to the contents of the
schedule on which they claimed their pay. The amount
altogether was very considerable, and was quite sufficient,
to pay the Consuls without any additional salary from
this country. So far from his being a party to the adop-
tion of this new system, be had most decided!), objected,
when the Bill was introduced, in 1825, to the clause which
allowed salaries to the Consuls. The Right Hon. Gentle-
man, in proposing the measure, brought forward a number
of ridiculous cases to show the propriety of giving them a
fixed salary. Among the rest he stated that there had
been a charge of 4/., or 16 dollars, for shoeing the Con-
sul's horse. In speaking of the peat expence, it was not
this only which the Committee had to look to. They ought
to look to the list of Consuls, and find out of what class
of persons it was composed, and then they would see what
qualifications they possessed for performing the .duty. It
ought to be borne in mind, too, that the present charge
was in direct opposition to one of the clauses of the Bill,
which was, that " the Consuls should have reasonable
salaries, and that they should be paid only when they were
in actual duty."—(Hear. )--In allusion to what had fallen
from the Right Hon. Gentleman respecting superannues!
tions, he should only say that in case of illness he should
not object to their receiving a part of their salaries for any
reasonable time; bat he could not consent_that they should
be paid out of the public purse for doing nothing. Such
instances were not uncommon. He, for one, had voted a
salary to a dead man for more than five yews, and disco-
vered the truth at last only by:accident.—(A laugh.)—He
thanked the Right lion. Gent. for reminding hint of the
circumstance, by noticing the deaths which had taken place.
The business at present was performed not by mercantile
men generally. --To this he most decidedly objected,
beeanse he kite* that the business could not be best done
by inert nut acquainted with the trade. Another griev-
ance was, that Consuls had beef} anointed to places where
there was little or no trade. • He had looked over a list of
C.insuls in one tract in South America, where the Consuls
received .10,300/. ; and the whole of the exports were
only 70,000 tons, and the imports 277,000 tons, making
a einirge on the whole of more than four per cent.
Canning admitted the high charge, but at the same time
'said it was only tried as an experimati and as soon