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

he (Mr. Hawes) was not bound to grant 10,000/. more on the
present Civil 'List than was granted in the last reign. This
sees one point which he wished the Chancellor of the Exche-
quer to consider. The second point to which be would advert
was the large amount received by the Crown from intestates'
estates. In a case in which he was personally interested (as
we understood), out of 140,0001. received by the Crown from
an intestate's estate, no less than 70,0001. was actually ap-
plied towards the furnishing and embellishing of the Palace
(as it was called) at Brighton. Knowing this fact, he had
a right to inquire how it was intended that sums of mon, y
coming from such a source into the hands of the Crown were
in future to be dealt with. From Intestates' Estates alone an
additional 10,000/. a-year accrued to the Crown ; therefore,
according to his view of the case, the present Civil List ac-
tually amounted to 20,000/. more than the last. To this he
was by no means disposed to agree; and he should, there-
fore, after the amendment of his lion. Friend was disposed of,
propose a reduction of the vots to the amount of 10,000/.
Mr. F. BARING said that his Hon. Friend wished the
House and the public to understand that thseproposed Civil
List was larger in amount than the Civil List of his late Ma
jesty. His Hon. Friend said there was now no Queen Con-
sort, and therefore 50,000/. ought to be deducted from the
amount of the last Civil List in order to make a fair comparison
between it and the amount now proposed. But if his Hon.
Friend wished to make a fair comparison between the proposed
Civil List and the Civil List of the late reign, he should com-
pare those items which were in the List of the last reign with
those of a similar description in the present List. His Hon. Friend
did not act quite fairly when he told the Committee that they
ought to deduct 50,0001. from the amount of the late Civil
List when estimating what ought to be the presentCieil List, be-
cause there was now no Queen Consort, and yet to complain that
10,000/. should be added to the present Civil List, because
the Sovereign happened to be a queen and not a king. The
10,000/. was added for the establishment of ladies. He ( Mr.
F. Be!inE) need not argue that an establishment of ladies was
absolutely necessary in consequence of the Sovereign being a
queen.—(Hear, bear.) His Hon. Friend had lost sight of
this, and he had likewise put aside the question of pensions.
Did his Hon. Friend mean to tell hire (Mr. F. Baring) that,
by any calculation he could make, the power of giving 1,2001.
a year in pensions would ever amount to 75,0001. a year, which
was the extent of the power that existed in the late reign ?
(Hear, hear, and a laugh.) It must be remembered, when
discussing this question, that his late Majesty. was King of
Hanover as well as King of England.—( Hear, hear.) And
although the revenues of Hanover were mainly appropriated to
the benefit of that country, yet it was fair to presume that
some part of those revenues were available to the support of
the dignity of the King of England as well as that of the King
of Hanover. These were sources of revenue which her pre-
sent Majesty did not enjoy ; were she in possession of them, she
no doubt would derive a greater amount of revenue than she
would now do from the present proposition. His Hon. Friend
had said that the amount of the former Civil List was very
large, and on too high a scale, and that considerable reduc-
tioos might have been made in it if it had been under the
supervision of Parliament ; but his Honourable Friend ought
to recollec, that he was speaking of a Civil List of a very dif-
ferent description from what existed now. If they looked to
that expenditure which had been transferred from the old
Civil List to the present estimates laid before Parliament,
and pieced under the supervision of Parliament, they
would find that a very considerable reduction had been made in
the annual expenditure on account of those estimates. Ho ( Mr.
F. Baring) was perfectly well aware of the case to which his
Honourable Friend the Member for Lambeth had referred. It
wa in case where there existed very great doubt as to the right
of the party claiming to be allied to the intestate. He never
could prove his ease—he had failed twice before a court
of law. The Crown, therefore, very naturally refused to
give the property to such party. His Honourable Friend
bad complained that the Select Committee bad not exa-
mined all the details of the items constituting the Civil
List, and that therefore the Committee had no means of de-
ciding what ought to be their amount. But what did his
Hon. Friend expect to do with regard to the Civil List ?
His Hon. Friend said that it was compared with the Civil
List of the reign of George IV., which was a very expensive
reign ; but what was the fact ? Did not the Committee take
this course? Did they not observe the expenditure, under
the different heads, in the reign of William IV. ? They all
knew that when his late Majesty presided over this empire the
dignity of the Crown was maintained in decent splendour--
that there was that noble hospitality upheld which was worthy
the sovereign of a great empire ; but they knew, else, at the
same time that there was no extravagant or profuse expendi-
ture on the part of the Crown ; and that his late Majesty
might have this praise added to his other praises, that when
he left the Crown to his successor he did not burden the
country with one sixpence of debt.—( Hear.) What, then,
could they, in common sense, have as a better standard by
which to compare the present scale of the Civil List than the
Civil List of the late reign ?—( Hear, hear.) His Hon.
Friend had talked of going back to the principles of
1792 ; but in how many cases was his lion. Friend pre-
pared to do this ? In all matters, save in the article of
money, no one was more ready to ridicule the " wisdom of
our ancestors" than his lion. Friend. They were, however,
now arguing in 1837, and not in 1792. Did his Hon. Friend
apply the principle of his argument to his own private affairs ?
Did lie pay the same rate of wages to his servants now that
was paid in 1792? Every gentleman knew from his own
experience that they could not bring down the expenditure of
the present day-down to the standard of 1792. Was it to be
expected, when shopkeepers, farmers, merchants, and country
squires lived in a very different style and adopted essentially
different habits from the style and habits which prevailed in
1792, when what at that period were considered luxuries were
now regarded as common necessaries, and were more remem-
bered for their being being absent than present—when this
gradual alteration in the habits of life took place among all
©!asses of people, was it possible to expect that the Crown
—that the head of the empire—should remain unaffected by
the general change, and its dignity continue to be supported
on a scale of expenditure adaeted to a state of circumstances
of altogether a different nature ?—( Hear. )
Mr. HAWES said a few words in explanation, referring to
the Report of the Civil List Committee in support of his
former statement.
Mr. GROTE observed that there were two points in the
speech of the Hon. Gentleman, the Member for Portsmouth,
which seemed to require special notice. One was the rise in
the price of articles of provisions since 1792, and, from the
tenor of the Hon. Gentleman's observations, it would seem
fortunate that a Civil List had not been proposed of double
the present amount, for such was the only inference which
could be drawn from those remarks. In the next place, he
must remark on the extreme inutility of the Committee, of
which he (Mr. Grote) and the Hon. Secretary for the Trea-
sury were members.—( Hear, hear.) If the Civil List of the
late Monarch were to be handed down to the present Sove-
reign without alteration, why did not the Government do so
on its own responsibility ?—( Hear, hear.) Taking, however,
a different view from the Hon. Member of the fitness and
amount of the proposed Civil List, he should vote for the
reduction recommended by the Honourable Member for Kil-
kenny, and he conceived it a proper and reasonable proposal.
He was prepared to say that the whole amount might be
lessened by 50,000/. yHe would most willingly support,
not only every thing which could add to the comfort
and elegance, but also to the dignity and splendour of the So-
vereign, but he did aot think that the suggested reduction
would detract from any of these. Before he sat down he
must enter a strong protest against the doctrine laid down by
the Noble Lord the Member for Stroud, that the respect which
the House entertained for the Sovereign was to be measured
by its willingness to grant money for the use of the Crown.
He would maintain the direct contrary, and assert that the
best friends to the maintenance of the respectability of the
Crown were those who were most anxious that it should not
appear in the light of an odious and unnecessary burden on
the shoulders of the people.—( Hear. )
Captain PECIIELL said that the lion. Member for Kil-
kenny had omitted to notice the fact, that whilst the fees in
the Lord Chamberlain's department were done away with, the
theff:issteinnc,..o
otlicee
ttof the
houghtltshoartd
itS twewasarhdigh weretim too
that
t stillhr left i
n
Ma-
jesty's tradesmen should be relieved from the payment of
the present enormous fe.ei for procurlog their warrants.
There was another point to which he wished to call
the attention of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. and
it related to the department of the Master of the
Horse. As all the Queen's pages were now presented
with commissions in the Guards after a certain period of
service, he suggested that commissions in the navy should also
be held out as as inducement and reward for good conduct.
His late Majesty William IV. had introduced naval men in
many situations previously occupied exclusively by military
men; and as there were four pages connected with the Master
of the Horse's department, he suggested that two of these
should be chosen from persons fit to have commissions in the
navy._( Laughter.) And if the Right Hon. Gentleman
snould meet with any difficulties in procuring fit persons from
among the midshipmen, he (Captain Pechell) mialet possibly
be able to furnish him in a few rears with a candidate for the
office.—( Hear, and laughter. )
Mr. C. BUL LE R, though he could not entirely go along
with the Hon. Member for Kilkenny, would go so far as to
say that it appeared to him that the proposed Civil List was
couststuted on a scale wholly unsuited to the age in which
they lived.--( Hear.) What he complained of in the pro-
posers of the present Civil List was, that the) did carry back
their ideas to past times, by ;
giving to the Monarch an estab-
lishment entirely unsuited to modern notions of necessity
or dignity. They had taken their ideas of luxury and
magnificence from an age long pessed ; they had given a
most splendid establishment, and gone back, as it appeared
to him, to an almost antediluvian period. —( Hear, hear,
and laughter.) la forger times undoubtedly many of the
greater nobility had performed menial offices in the eitab-
lishinents of the Sovereign acid of persons of high degree.
lie believed that it was Burke who had stated that an Earl of
Warwick had been Clerk of the Kitchen to one Monarch,
and that one Earl of Gloucester had occupied a similar si-
tuation under- an Archbishop of Canterbury ; but why was
it now necessary that they should go back to the period
when these menial offices' were performed by Noblemen
rind Gentlemen? Why was it necessary that the Queen's
furniture should be superintended by a Nobleman under
the title of Lord Chamberlain, with a salary of 2,000/.
a-year ? 'Why were the expenses of the table now to
be regulated .by another Nobleman designated the Lord
S sward ? Why was the situation of manager of the
Royal Stud, under the designation of Master of the Horse,
to be filled by another Nobleman with a salary of 2,500/,
a-year ?He saw no occasion for this, and he should vete for
a reduction equal in amount to that suggested by
Honourable Friend the Member for Lambeth. He would
abolish the offices of Lord Steward, Lord Chamberlain, Master
of the Horse, Mistress of the Robes, Master of the Buck
Hounds, and Constable and Keeper of the Round Tower, the
yearly salaries of which
.amounted together to 10,009/, ex-