The Sun.
London, England, 1837-12-16 00:00:00

to the extent of 94,0001. a-year, it was absolutely proposed I
that the amount of the new Civil List should be increased by
no less a sum than 10,0001. a year. What cause was there for
this ? He did not object to the first item upon the Civil List—
the sum allotted to the Civil List. He was not disposed i
to interfere with a sum which, for upwards of half a I
century had bren provided for this branch of the Royal
expenditure.—( Hear, hear, hear.) The second class
of items comprehended the salaries of the gre-t officers of
State, there of the officers and menial servants of the Royal
Household, and the superannuation and retired allowances
payable to persons of the latter class. These were the items
to which he objected, as having been made extravagantly,
as having been carried up to the high pitch of war prices,
and as never having been reduced; whilst it was notorious
that the pay and emoluments of almost all the officers in all
the other establishments had been materially diminished. It
was the duty of the House to avail itself of this opportunity
to begin the work of reduction as regarded the salaries of
officers deriving their pay frem the Civil List. This would
become apparent when he mentioned that the expenses of
the Lord Chamberlain's Office now amounted to 66,000/.,
whilst in the reign of George 111. they amounted only to
48,0001. ; that the expenses of the Lord Steward's Office
now amounted to 36,0001., whilst in the reign of George
111. they amounted only to 29,000/. ; that the expenses of
the office of Master of the Horse amounted now to
20,6001., whilst in the reign of George 111. they amounted
only to 12,7001. Thus it would be seen that in three
offices only there was an excess of 31,0001. as compared
with 1792. What ground Was there to justify this large
increase? The same observation applied to many other offices
connected with the Civil List. It seemed that the pay of the
Yeomen of the Guard, mere officers of state, amounted to
upwards of 33,060/. What necessity Wag there for such a
charge as that? The menial servants were necessary no doubt;
but their salaries did not amount to more than one-third of
the sum paid to the Yeomen of the Guard. But the most
preposterous, the most outrageous thing of all was, that the
expense of keeping the accounts of the Civil List amounted to
10,0001. a year. The annual expense of the establishment of
clerks and paymaster in the Lord Chamberlain's office amounted
to 3,1101; and the mere expense of keeping the accounts in I
that of the Lord Steward, to 4,7281. Thus it appeared that
a sum of nearly 10,000/. was annually expended for the mere
purpose of keeping accounts—accounts which, be would
venture to say, would he much better kept, by officers of a
different description, for less than one-third of the amount.
He objected, too, to the superannuations and retired allow-
ances, many of which ought to he reduced. But there were
two offices against which he had most strongly protested in
the Committee, and which he certainly hoped the Throne
would abolish : he meant the offices of the Governor and
Constable of Windsor Castle, whose salary was 1,1201. a-
year, and the Lieutenant- Governor, whose emolmuments
amounted to 173/. a-year. These offices were both of them
perfect sinecures, and ought to be expelled from the. con-
sideration of the House as totally indefensible. Then,
again, there was the Master of the Buckhounds, with a salary
of 1,700/. a-year. Such an office, in such times, could not
be defended—it ought to be abolished. The pressure of
taxation upon the general comforts of the people was not
sufficiently considered. The new Civil List had been pre-
pared in such a way as to bring upon the Queen all the
odium of maintaining a large, expensive, and unnecessary
establishment—such an establishment as existed only under
that most profuse and extravagant of monarchs, George IV.—
[ Hear the Honourable Gentleman read passages from the
reports of several of the Committees, in which it was de-
clared—let, that the only justification of the departure from
the Civil List of 1792 was the increased price of all provi-
sions and of all the necessaries of life, in consequence of the
war ; and, 2dly, that as soon as the war ceased and prices
again reduced, the expences of the Civil List ought to be re-
stored to what they were prior to the commencement of the
French war.] He should conclude by moving that the
amount of the present resolution be diminished by the sum of
50,000/. ; that was to say, that it be reduced from 385,0001. to
335,0001.
The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER begged to
remind the Hon. Member for Kilkenny that when he com-
pared the establishments of 1791 with the establishments of
the present time, he was enieavouring to institute a compari-
son between two periods which had nothing in common with
each other. In earlier times, as the Hon. Member for Kil-
kenny well knew, there was a vast amount of fees, of perque-
sites, and of other emoluments, which did not find their way
into the estimates in the shape of salary, but which, neverthe-
less were included in the charges of the several departments.
In consequence of suggestions feequently urged upon the
House since 1812, and especially by the Hon. Member fur
Kilkenny himself, a Commission of inquiry was appointed to
look into the whole of the fees of the household, with the view
of amending the system. The Commission prosecuted its
inquiry with considerable success, and the result of it was that
the system had been more or less amended. The object that
the Government now had in view was to carry the amend-
ment still further, and as far as possible to get rid of fees
altogether. But suppose that the proposition of the Hon.
Member for Kilkenny were adopted, and that a re-
turn were immediately made to the charges that existed
upon the Civil List in the year 1792, what would be the re-
sult of it? He (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) must in-
form the Hon. Member for Kilkenny that the effect of carry-
ing. his plan into execution, and of adopting the scale of sa-
laries that existed in the royal household in 1792, would be in
many instances to increase the emoluments of officers instead
of reducing thorn. The result of the Hon. Member's plan
would be to give too much in some instances, and too little in
others. The Hon. Member had entirely excluded the fact_
though when the last Civil List was under the consideration
of the House, he grounded a heavy complaint upon that head
—the Hon. Member had now entirely excluded the fact that
the Committee of the present year had very materially re-
duced the amount of salaries paid to the high officers of
State. The Lord Steward was now appointed to receive a
smaller amount of salary than in 1792 ; so also was the
Treasurer of the Household, and so also was the Comptroller
of Household. He (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) stated
this to show that the estimate of 1792 was not applicable to
the present time, even for the purpose of economy. Tho
stlaries of the clerks and accountants of which the Honour-
able Member complained so much were, many of them,
less now than in 1792. Those who in 1792 received annual
salaries of 560/. a-year, now received no more than 260/. te-
year. He might mention many other instances in which si-
milar reductions had been effected. In the Lord Steward's
department alone the reductions amounted to several thousands
a-year. The salary of the Master of the Horse, it was true,
bad been somea hat increased ; but why ? Because formerly
there were attached to this office allowances of horses and of
forage, betides many valuable perquisites of horses and car-
riages, which were now wholly excluded. Formerly the offi-
cer who surveyed and condemned horses and carriages as too
old or too much worn for the Royal service was the very offi-
cer elm, upon his own part, was entitled to receive the things
condemned as his own perquisites. That was a system which
the present Government thought ought not to be continued,
and it was consequently abolished. But the result of it was,
that the fixed salary of the Master of the horse had been some-
what increased. But his objection to the amendment pro-
posed by the Hon. Member for Kilkenny did not rest only
upon the grounds he had stated. Would any Gentleman whom
recollections extended to 1792, pretend to say that he could
now keep up his own private establishment at the same
rate of expenditure as before the commencement of the war ?
Compare the amount of tradesmen's bills iii 1792 with those
of the present time. In 1792 the charge for butchers' meat
was sd. a pound ; in the present year it was Bd. In 1792 the
price of butter was Is. ; in the present year it was ls. 6d. In
1792 the price of oil was ss. per gallon ; in the present year
it was 7s. 6d. So that when the Hon. Member talked of re-
duced prices as compared with 1792, he must observe that the
reduction did not apply to the items which ordinarily came
within the range of tradesmen's bills. If the Yeomen of the
Guard now received some increase of pay, it was because they
had been deprived of perquisites to which they were formerly
eet;tled. Then the Hon. Member complained of the retired
allowances. These allowances would be gradually dimi-
nished ; but it was absolutely necessary that some of them
should continue. There was not a family in the kingdom
which had not its old retainers—it was impossible that the
Crown should not have some also.—( Hear, hear, hear.)
There were two places of this description now, and there
was a recommendation in the Report that upon a vacancy
one of them should be suppressed, and one only should re-
main. If there wore—but which he did not think there
was—but if there were, as the Honourable Gentleman seemed
tei imagine, the possibility of introducing further economy
in the Civil List, he hoped it might be, as it certainly ought
to be, made. Looking forward to a protracted reign, he con-
sidered it was the wisest and best economy on the part of
Parliament to make such an arrangement is the outset as
would prevent the possibility of debt. The Hon. Gentleman
had compared past times with the present ; but what did the
policy of past times lead to ? They led to the contracting of
debts on the part of the Sovereign, and to the payment of
large amounts by the country in aid of the Civil List. The
Hon. Gentleman ' had complained that adequate information
bed nf)t been furnished to the Select Committee on the sub-
ject of the Civil List; hut be (the Chancellor of the Ex-
chequer) begged to say that the explanation which had been
afforded by the present Government had been much more
full than had ever been given by any Government on any
former oce:sion. Under these circumstances, he thought he
might humbly entreat the Committee to agree to the vote.
Mr. HAWES was compelled to declare that he conceived
that the present Civil List WAS larger than that which was
granted in the last reign. The Right Hon. Gentleman the
Chancellor of the Exchequer indicated his dissent from that
proposition. He (Mr. Basses) would shortly state the grounds
on which he believed it to be perfectly correct. The amount
of the Civil List in the last reign was 51 0,000/. : from this
was to be deduCted 50,000/. granted for the Queen's privy
purse, thus reducing the Civil List of the late King to
460,000a/s.
la'ilalebeefsotriemitxtheed
sexelpeecntdcitoutrlemoifttetleie, present Sove-
reign,obviously making an increase as compared withwatlste4l7B.osioC"iyili
List of 10,000/. But it would be said, that while in one de-
partment of the Queen's establishment thero was an increase,
in another department there was a decrease. In the ladies'
departmert :the increase occurred, while in the gentlemen's
department the decrease took place. The increase and decrease,
however, nearly balanced each other, still leaving the present
Civil List 10,000/. greater than the last. The last Civil List,
again, was 10,000/. more than the one preceding, while in
referring to the debates on the Civil List of George the
Fourth, even the amount of that list was considered to be un-
necessarily extravagant. It was not his wish to observe a too
rigid economy in the Parliamentary provision for the Crown.
Let it be proved to him that the sums proposed was necessary,
end he zliould be r::::,:). to concede them. The Select Com-
mittee -were bound to place their reliance upon the representa-
tions of the Minister; but, although he was as one of that
Committee so bound, yet, unless the Minister made out a case,