The Sun.
London, England, 1837-12-09 00:00:00

without mother, that they are without brother, that they are
without any sisters, and without any relation of any kind, or at I
least, as the Hon. and Learned Gentleman who reproaches me
for sneering says, unless they are without any legitimate claim '
on any person—( Hear, hear)—unless they are very wanderers
on the face of the earth, they are to be subject to condemna-
tion ; and to this condition, to this investigation, and to this
trial, is to be subjected every person who has any claim to the
gratitude of the public.—( Hear.) When the Hon. and
Learned Gentleman hinted at this debasing inquiry, not de-
basing to the person subjected to it—(Hear, hear)—but to
the party making it, I could not suppress my feeling of
disgust at such a proposition.—( Hear, hear.) I have been
taunted with possessing an indecent pride of ancestry, and
with an indecent arrogance of station. I hope that lam
not fairly subject to that imputation—(Hear, hear, hear)—
but whether I were moving in the highest or the lowest
rank of society I should consider myself disgraced if it
had ever entered into my imagination to subject any of
my fellow-creatures to such a degrading inquiry.—(Loud
cheers.) Now, Sir, the Right Hon. Gentleman, the Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer, states that be would deal with all
parties most tenderly, and that he would take for inquiry only
suspicious cases; but when the Right Hon. Gentleman has
carried his present motion, will he be master of his own Com-
mittee?—(Hear.) Will he be able to prevent inquiries by
Members into this or that pension ? Why, the Hon. Member
for Southwarth says that such a limited inquiry will be a
mere mockery, and that it will be better to have none at
all, than such a curtailment ; and if the Committee is
granted, I are persuaded that there will be a full and
searching inquiry into the domestic circumstances of every
person in the List, and into pensions which, if they have
not the sanction of the law, have at least the authority of
prescription, and by the recorded declaration of this House.
But the Honourable and Learned Member sneers at the idea
that these pensions are made the subjects of family settle-
ments ; and he asks how can you expect that a settlement
will be made of a pension of 451. a-year ? Why, Sir, nobody
supposes that such a pension is so used, and the notion would
not have entered into the brain of any Member of this Hoei.,
except the Hon. and Learned Member himself. But, Sir, he
does treat lightly the claims which arise, not perhaps in
the strict legal form of a family settlement, but still in effect
the same, upon these pensions. Let us remember, Sir, that
many a faithful servant of the public has been cheered in his
last hours, after a life of labour and responsibility, for which
he has been poorly recompenced, and has closed his eyes in
peace, secure, under the sanction of his Sovereign, of Parlia-
ment, and of the law, that those whom he has left behind would
not after all his toils be left entirely destitute—( Hear, hear)—
that for his services, which had perhaps hurried his dissolu-
tion, a remuneration would he bestowed on those whom he
valued more than himself.—( Cheers.) If, Sir, such a person
has closed his eyes in confidence that his wife will not be entirely
destitute, and his children will not be beggars, how would his
peace of mind have been shaken, how would his last hours have
been disturbed, if he believed that, through any technical rorm,
any Minister of the Crown would be found who would propose
or any Parlinment who would sanction, the appointment of a
Committee on the claims of his widow or his orphan, or that
they would ever be subjected to an examination or cross-ex-
amination before such a tribunal ?—( Cheers.) I know, sir,
that a Committee will be appointed—l know that they will
have before them persons of all ages and of both sexes, that
they will demand of them an explanation which will not be
given, that they will pry into family circumstances which
many must be naturally anxious to conceal.—( Hear, hear.)
and I know, sir, that many persons who have been pro-
vided with little more than the mere necessaries of ,life,
and who can scarcely exist with the help of a paltry so/
pension in that decent competency which their birth, their
education, and their former station have entitled them to
expect, rather than subject themselves to such a degrad-
ing inquiry—(Hear, hear,)—will threw themselves upon
some scarcely richer relative, will part with those few
comforts to which they have a right to lock, and will
go back to not disgraceful poverty.—( Cheers.) But what,
sir, will be thought of the justice of Parliament which
shall compel them to do this? How shall we answer for
adding to the bitterness of their declining years by de-
priving them of their small allowance, without any knowledge
of the facts of their case?—( Hear.) You say, that unless
they subject themselves to this strict examination, that if they
are not acquitted on their trial at the bar of this House, they
shall not be entitled to their trifling pensions, you will receive
the abdication of their miserable pittance, and you will conic
down and congratulate this House on the economical saving
which has attended your great measure of practical "reform.—
( Loud cheers.) But even in the cases in which you continue
the pension, will you call before the Committee those who
have passed a long life in the service of their country? Will
you summon before this tribunal the veteran officers of our
army and our navy ?—(" No, no," frem the Ministerial
benches.) If you will not do this, will you call before you
their widows and their orphans ?—( Loud cheers.) And if you
will not do this, you are not about to apply the pure principle
of the Poor-law, and your inquiry will he useless. And how
many a veteran officer who has faithfully served his country,
and honourably earned a higher reward than a paltry pension,
when he is called upon to .recount his services, and to justify
the honour conferred upon him, will, in the words of the
proud and high-minded, but perhaps mistaken, Coriolanus,
exclaim—

" It is a part
That I shall blush in acting—
To brag unto them. Thus I did, and thus;
Show them the unaching scars which I should hide,
As if I had received them for the hire
Of their breath only."— (Loud cheers.)
It is not however, among the rich and great alone, but among
the poor also that the degradation will be keenly felt of being
called from the retirement in which they have lived in compa-
rative comfort, and of being dragged before the tribunal which
you now propose to constitute, and to give before your Com-
mittee la detail of the pecuniary remuneration which has been
bestowed upon them in gratitude for the services which they
have rendered to their country.—( Hear, hear.) It is you
who give this Committee, and on you must rest the responsibi-
lity of departing from the pledges which you have given, and
if I had given a silent vote upon the question, I should have
felt that I participated in the reproach and the guilt which,
though I say it with regret, I l et think that her Majesty's Go-
vernment have incurred by their patronage of this motion.—
( Hear, hear.) The Noble Lord resumed his seat amidst loud
cheers.

Lord JOHN RUSSELL and Mr. llumE rose together, and
there were a few cries for the latter, but he soon gave way, and

Lord JOHN RUSSELL addressed the House. I re-
member perfectly well, Sir, that when in 1829 the Right
Hon. Baronet opposite, after a long debate, began his reply
to the observation which had been made upon the measure of
Catholic Emancipation, his first and most impressive observa-
tion was, that three-feurths of the debate had been filled with
personal recriminations—(Cheers)--and I must say, Sir, that,
considering that the only motive for their present opposition
avowed by lion. Gentlemen opposite is a deep sense of public
justice, and judging from the speeches of the Right Hon.
Gentleman and the Noble Lord, a love of justice to an oppo-
nent is marvelously prevalent among them.—(Renewed
cheers.) It has been contended that the Government, in giv-
ing its support to this motion, entirely abandons the principles
which they formerly professed ; but, at the same time, I
must point out that notwithstanding this the Government
may not so entirely concur in the terms of the motion, but
that they, nevertheless, may think it matter which the House
may adopt in its discretion ; and the speeches of the Honour-
able Members on the other side having been directed to show
the injustice and impropriety of the proposition, they have
sought to fill their periods and to round their sentences with
quotations from the speeches of the Ministers, to fix the sen-
timents which they contend are ours upon us.—( Hear, hear.)
Surely that is not enough for the House, and I cannot but
conceive that the subject is grave and important ; that even
now, when I rise on my defence, some Hon. Members will
say, " We do not care for the particular imputations or the
defences which may be made ; we wish to know whether it is,
or it is not, the duty of the Members of the House of Com-
mons to decide whether an inquiry and investigation should or
should not take place"—( Hear, hear, hear)--and on that
subject I must say the Noble Lord has given little light to
the House—(" Oh, oh," and cheers)—or, at least, if he has, it
has been entirely reflected light.--( Hear.) But I must say that
these attacks and these imputations which came from the
Noble Lord are not new from him ; nor is it only upon the
Members of the present Ministry, upon those who now oc-
cupy the Treasury bench alone that this censure has fallen.
He speaks of himself as having been cast out with Lord Grey
and Lord Althorp. Ido remember when one of, I think, the
least justifiable attacks possible was made on the Ministry, in
their being compared to " thimble-riggers," and that was
made when Lord Grey was Premier, and Lord Althorp was
the leader of the House of Commons ; and therefore, although
the present Ministry have fallen under the censure of certain
Members of this House, yet I must say that the imputations
now cast upon them are mild, that the accusations preferred
are as milk and water, when compared with those with which
Lord Grey and Lord Althorp were assailed.—(Cheers.) The
question now is, as I take it, whether this House ought or
ought not to appoint a Committee with regard to the pensions ;
and I must agree with the Right Hononrable Gentleman op-
posite, that if it could be made out that this was a case of jus-
tice in 1831, and that in that year justice absolutely forbade
an inquiry taking place then, that it should equally forbid it
in 1837.—(Hear, hear.) But I can not find, except in
answers given by Lord Althorp to the present Lord Port-
man in the House of Commons, in any Act of Parliament,
and least of all in the Report of the Committee of the
House, which the Right Hon. Gentleman quoted in his
amendment, anything to make me think that it is a case of in-
justice. The Committee stated generally that the Pension
List had fallen on the death of the Sovereign ; and at the
eairie time that it would be a harsh measure to adopt a new
course in a subject on which the practice had been long esta-
blished. In making this statement, however, that they did
not condemn such a measure, I do not mean to say that it
may not be liable to objection : a harsh measure may be ex-
treme of justice.—(Hear, hear.) The Report of the Com-
mittee, then, having gone on to state some particulars with
regard to the amounts of various pensions, proceeded to say
that, adverting to all the circumstances, no doubt could exist
that in some cases severe distress and actual injustice would
arise from taking away the pensions.—( Hear, hear.) That
proved that in their minds there would not be actual in-
justice in every case, for if that had been their opinion they
would have gone on to declare their sentiment, and to
have pointed out the cases to which this opinion referred.
If in some cases they say that there would be injustice
worked and distress produced, we must presume that the
Committee would not have stopped there, and would not have
overlooked the other cases in which also injustice would be
produced. If the inquiry is not injustice, am Ito suppose
that the Committee of 1831 would not have been as well
able to see that injustice as the Committee appointed in 1834 ?
The authority of Lord Althorp has been so frequently appealed