The Sun.
London, England, 1837-12-21 00:00:00

was no frvos'Atih for that statement. When the Duchy
tip'Cornwall was separate from the Crown then there Ivo
a Council attached to it, but when It tnefged ill tie tiedwil
there were officers of the Duchy; hut tic) t:dtitteil ; thO'e
was also a Cenrrit-ssioli tOti., tilW and al
present his Noblie rigAd Lora Privy Seal and the
Cliantqloi nt 111 Z Duchy were Members of that Commis-
Stien, l'aid there were many officers attached to that Com-
mission who wer.; under no obligations of. secre,r Wholler
an oath could supersede the laMllllllthUrity of Uourts of Law
or Pariiament woula not express any decided opinion ;
hut he IptvLi to guard himself from being supposed to be
satishcl that such authority would not supersede the effect
of an oath. He was by no means cleat that in all such
oaths there was not an ittplied exception with respect to
such lawful eethorities. He would now state one nt• two
partirulah,, which were not obtained front any persons sworn,
Or under any obligation of seeeesy. He understood in the
Duchy of Cornwall and in that county there were ex-
tensive lands—between thirty and forty manors—ten of
which had beea sold to redeem the land-tax. There were
also parcels of land in Dorsctshire, Norfolk, Somersetshire,
and Lincolnshire ; there were in the whole one hundred
parcels of property of different kinds. But besides the
surface and manorial rights there was a territorial revenue
to a large extent. This property was either let for lives
or for a term of years ; the practice had been to let it
upon fines—to put in lives as they dropped, and take fines
upon renewing the terms. The amount of revenue independ-
ent of fines could not be stated for a long course of years ; but
from 1183 to 1808 the average amount of yearly rents was
somewhere between 3,000/. and 4,0001., and the fines between
5,000/. and 6,000/. At that time they were peculiarly low ;
before they had been much higher, as was evident from the
fact that during the minority of the Duke of Kent out of the
duchy of Cornwall no less than 223,0001. had been taken outof
the net revenue. Between the years 1808 and 1813 no less a
sum was obtained by fines, exclusive of all other sources of
revenue, than 129,000/. Then there was a valuable piece
of ground near Waterloo Bridge, called Prince's Meadow,
which, within these five years, was let on a fine of
55,000/., at a nominal rent till 1841. There was also a
part of Plymouth Harbour, called Sutton's Pool, which
had been let on a fine of 12,000/., and at a nominal
rent till 1841. There was clearly a certain increase on
these two parcels of land. Thus two fines of 67,000/. de-
ducted from 129,000/. would leave 62,000/. How was that
62,000/, obtained ? The property was not let on lease. The
argument of his Noble Friend then the other night, that
they could not calculate the value of the land from the re-
turns for which he moved, might apply to those two fines
which he had mentioned, but not to the rest, which were
let for terms of years. All of them would fall in within the
next two or three years, and every one of those leases,
which amounted to 62,000/., might be taken again. Of this
property a considerable portion was Mine property, and
the Crown might, it was evident, in a few years put into
its purse the 62,000/. But that was an asumption a great
deal worse for his case than he was obliged to make. He
had assumed that there had been no rise in the amount
of revenue produced by the property ; but from its great
improvement, from the vast depth of skill, the power of
mind and machinery, which had been brought to bear upon
underground property, not only in England but through-
out the world, and which had increased so largely the
wealth of mankind—who was so little sanguine, who was
so cold a calculator, as not to be convince that, instead
of 62,000/., he might reckon the revenue at 80,000/.,
90,000/., or even 100,0001. He had spoken to persons
who themselves worked mines, and they had assured him
that they would be glad to pay 30 or 40 per cent. on the
fines if the Crown only chose to renew their leases and take
fines. To be sure, it might be said that the Crown might
be advised not to take fines, but to allow the lives to drop,
and then to take rents. That was possible ; but it was no
part of the Bill. That was his answer. It was impos-
sible that it should be any part of the Bill, as the Bill
had been—he would not say hurried, because he wished to
avoid saying anything that could give the smallest of-
fence—but carried through Parliament at a period when
they must be totally ignorant of anything connected
with the Duchy of Cornwall. What would be the conse-
quences of their present proceedings ? The Bill passed—
they vested in the Sovereign for life 395,000/. Why, then,
must the Sovereign, three or four years hence—and when
be said the Sovereign he of course only meant her Minis-
ters, because they had lately got into a very unconstitu-
tional course of never saying anything about Ministers or
responsible advisers, and their practices had wandered wide
of the Constitutional path of knowing nothing about
Kings and Queens, but dealing only with their responsible
Ministers—but the Minister of the Crown, be he who he
might—whether the Noble Viscount, if he should contit,u
to hold office so long, or the Noble Duke, who might suc-
ceed
him—would not be bound by this Act of Parliament,
and he would be bound by no statement which might now
be made, but would then still be at full liberty to take a
fine to the amount which he had mentioned, instead of let-
ting the property at its present annual value. There was
also another estate, called the Kennington estate, upon
which he had heard that within ten years a fine of 100,000/.
had been refused to be paid. That sum was assessed by the
valuation of surveyors for the renewal of the lease, but the
party could not afford it ; though it was well known that
he would have 80,000/. or 90,0001. Was this, then, the
best security that within five years—nay three months
—a sum of nearly 200,000/. clear gain would not come
to the Crown, and that a sum of which not the slighest
account was taken in the present arrangement ? He bad
stated those facts for the purpose of showing how much
they were in the dark upon this subject. All those matters
ought to have been laid before Parliament ; and then, per-
haps, they would take the opportunity of doing that which
ought to have been done long ago, viz., compensating the
Crown for the loss of the two Duchies of Cornwall
and Lancaster, and putting them on the same footing with
all the rest of the country. Then let them look to the ma-
nagement of those revenues. In ten years, ending 1819, he
would venture to ask, how much was the gross revenue of
the Duchy of Cornwall ? It was 333,000/. How much
was the nct revenue—that was the test of the good ma-
nagement ?—it was 228,000/.—so that the expense of ma-

nagement was I/. in every 3/.-1/. remained in the land for
that expense. Further, there were very considerable
encroachments on this property, to which attention ought
to be called. Would their Lordships think it ? One
estate originally of 45 acres, had been stretched to 200 !
That which was an estate of 45 acres fifty or sixty years
ago—not by any miracle—not by any natural process—
but by a very fraudulent process on the part of the tenant,
had extended to 200 acres. When this worthy tenant was
asked by an old m in who had known the original bounda-
ries of the estate, how it heppened that it had increased to
200 acres, he replied, in the Cornish dialect, " That his
grandfather bad been an industrious man, and was very good
at hedging by candlelight."—(Lau„l.ter.) Hedging by
candlelight was well known in that county, and was resorted
to until tenants had quadrupled the original amount of
their land, at the expense of the Duchy. Now, he submit-
ted that if those revenues were under the superintendence
of the Noble Lord the Chief Commisiiioner of Woods and
Forests, and if the whole expense were debited to the
public, and the whole revenue credited to the public account,
it was not likely that they would have to pay 33 per cent. of
the gross revenue to defray the expenses of management, or
that encroachments would be allowed to be made to such an
extent as to quadruple the rents of the neighbouring estates.
But it was said that the moment there was a Prince of
Wales, these territories were a provision for him ; and that,
accordingly, he never came to Parliament for any grants
of money, but the Duchy would wholly provide for him.
Why, was there ever such a proof of profound ignorance
with respect to Princely natures ? Had they ever kept
the Prince of Wales from .coming to Parliament for
money ? True, they might have done so when he was
merely Prince in case, but not after he had attained the
age of twenty-one, after he had reached that period of life
when he could spend and exhaust the revenue of the Duchy.
No sooner had the Prince of Wales arrived at such an
age than down he came, or the Minister for him, to Par-
liament for money, and asked for 50,000/. or 60,0001.
a-year. Nor was that all ; for neither this enormous sum
nor the rents and fines of the lands of the Duchy, sufficed
for him, nor prevented his Royal Highness from coming
again, from time to time, for large grants upon sudden oc-
casions, to enable him to pay his debts. So much, then,
for the Duchy of Cornwall ; and, with respect to the Duchy
of Lancaster, he was not on the present occasion disposed
to make any observations. He should have thought that
the natural course for the Government to have adopted
then, was to have had all the accounts connected with this
property laid in proper time before their Lordships' House,
in order that their Lordships might have been enabled to
form some opinion as to whether the income derivable
from it for the next twenty or thirty years was likely to
be 20,0001. or 30,000/. a-year. Many fines would in
the course of that time be falling in, and in 1811 there
would he an increase in the revenue derived from Prince's
Meadow to the amount of 5,000/. He had little
doubt that the property would very shortly be worth
owing to this incrase and to a better system of ma-
nagement, at least 30,0001. a-year. Without taking
these revenues into consideration, Parliament was giving
the Crown 395,0001. a-veer, and throwing in a sum of
8,000/. into the bargain. [The Noble and Learned Lord
here made some observations respecting greets of pensions
to literary and scientific men, but his remarks were not dis-
tinctly beard in the gallery.] But why, continued the
Noble Lord, were all these arrangements made now ? A
Committee upon the subject of pensions had been ap-
pointed. Had that Committee made its report? No.
Had it commenced its inquiries ? No, it had made no
inquiry at all. Had it sat ? No, it had not even sat.
All that could be said of it was, that it had done nothing.
It had called no witnesses—it had made no proposition—
nor had it discussed any one of the topics which must ne-