The Sun.
London, England, 1840-02-28 00:00:00

done so with immense advantage to the country, and his
I,:st financial operation was to fund them in a manner
which left them to the present day at a discour.t.—(Loud
Opi:ositi,,n cheers.) He had intr,duced a new mode of
bidding for loans which had been absolutely scouted and
laughed at, and he had brought forward a new mode of
leasing Church property, which, on being brought before
a Committee of that House, was found to be based upon
error, and which he was consequently obliged to abandon.
—( Renewed cheering.) What was his conduct with
respect to the Committee on the Joint Stock Banks, one
of the most important questions that had been
brought before that House for ra..ny years ? That
Committee had bee❑ sitting for three years,
and Lord Monteagle was chairman on behalf
of the Government, and he had never tendered them any
advice with respect to the recommendations which that
Committee should submit to the House, and upon a ques-
tion of such vital impoAtat,ce no report had ever emanated
from the Committee.—( Cheers.) What was his next ef-
fort? With a deficiency of 3,000,000/., having so managed
the revenue and finances of the country that he was obliged
hunseif to acknowledge, that year after year these was an
increasing expenditure with a reduced income. he brought
forward his notable project for giving up 1,500,0001. of
post-office revenue, and actually advertised a reward of
2001. to any man in the United kingdom who would help
him to a plan to get rid of that sum.—( Great laugh er and
cheers ) Again, with respect to the Charter of the Bank
of Ireland, he brought forward a proposition, to relieve the
country from the payment of 25,0001. per annum ; but be-
fore bidding them farewell he pointed out the necessity of
succumbing to the overweening influence of the Honour-
able and Learned Member for Dublin.—( Loud cheers.)

That was his charge. against the present Government. The
Noble Lord, the Member for Yorkshire, bad spoken of the
Government showing fight upon particular questions ; but
he would remind them that on a former occasion when they
had shown fight they were left in a minority of 104.
( Cries of Hear, hear," from Colonel Sibthorp.) They
had shown fight upon a question which the Right lion.
President of the Uoard of Trade termed a matter of

the utmost importance—an unexampled insult to the
Chancellor of the Exchequer, and a subject of the gravest
importance, the question_ brought forward by his Right
Honourable Friend the Member for H neniely that
the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in the present deranged
state of the finances of the country, should be called upon
for an estimate. The Right Hon. Gentleman said the
motion was a most inconvenient one; but the Gc-
vernment still showing fight again—( Loud laughter)—
it was their misfortune again to be defeated, as he hoped
and believed would be the case again tc-night.—( Much
cheering.) The resolution of his Hon. Friend was said to
be a pointless one ; but he appealed to the House whether
a situation of this sort should be completely under the con-
trol of the Government, and Pbother an office to which no
pension was attached under the Act for the Regulation of
Pensions should be brought directly within the free view
and scope of it. He confessed that if that were the mode
in which the Government showed fight, and if the result of
former divisions was not considered conclusive, they must
he considered gluttons indeed.—( Laughter and cheers.)
The present motion was a direct charge upon the Govern-
ment, because if the course pursued were carried into a
precedent, it would be subversive of the independence
of the office.—(Hear, hear.) It was all very well for
the Noble Lord the Member for Yorkshire to call
the resolution of his Honourable Friend declamatory

twaddle, but really looking at the Noble Lord's resolution,
one would imagine that he was commenting upon his own
production ; and he would undertake to show the House, if
he was not wearying it, he could produce a paraphrase
upon that resolution, setting forth the services of Lord
Monteagle, which would just as well entitle him to a pen-
sion as in the case before the House. Suppose, for in-
stance, a future Administration found the control of Lord
Monteagle inconvenient, which was to prevent their ap-
plying to him, and suggesting that, perhaps, it would be
more satisfactory to him to return to Ireland, and enjoy
that retreat to which his services entitled him upon 1,2001.
a-year ; it would then he found convenient to appoint an
intimate friend to the office. It appeared to him that if
the argument was good for any thing, the present case
might be drawn into a preccthnt, and there was nothing
to save the House from that dangerous precedent but what
lie believed would be the vote of that night.—( Loud and
continued cheers.)

Lord JOHN RUSSELL said I am quite prepared to
defend the Government against the wire-drawn resolution
of the Hon. Gentleman, but instead of having this duty
to Perform I perceive the Right Hon. Gentleman wished
to lead us off from the question—(Cheers)—and make
those resolutions, which entirely concern the pension to
Sir John Newport, and the Act regulating the Comp-
trollership of the Exchequer a medium of attack upon
a gentleman who has not now an opportunity of re-
plying to him.—( Cheers.) I do not feel it necessary to
enter into a defence of conduct not properly before the
House at this time, and I am certainly surprised at this at-
tack, because I remember the Right Hon. Gentleman was
for a long time a member of the Government when Mr.
Spring Rice was a most able and efficient Secretary of the
Treasury, and I should have thought would have recoi-
-1 iected with some gratitude the able and eloquent speeches
which he made in defence of the Government when the
Right Hon. Gentleman shrunk from his duty.—(Loud
cheers.) I should have thought, certainly, that the Right
Hon. Gentleman would have recollected those services,
that he would have recollected how much that Govern.
ment, of which he was a member, and for which he said
so little, was indebted to the able and eminent speeches
and services of that gentleman, before he could have been
induced to have attacked a man who was not now here to
answer him.—(Cheers,) But if those speeches and ser-
vices, both official and Parliamentary, in all of which he
had displaced not only great zeal but great ability, had
obtained for Mr. Spring Rice a high reputation in
that House, they also made such an impression upon
the head of that Government, that, on the resigna-
tion of the Secretary of the Colonies, Earl Grey had
thought he could place the seals cf the Colonial-
office in no better hands—(Cheers)--and, Sir, for my
part, I can only say I think the confidence of Lord
Grey was justified, and that Lord Melbourne was jus-
tified, in continuing the present Lord Monteag c a mem-
ber of his Cabinet. And, Sir, if the Right Honourable
Gentleman had even ventured, which I de not re-
member that he did, to make such an attack on
the conduct of my Noble Friend when he sat in this
House, he would have met with such an answer as,
in all probability, would have prevented him from
repeating it.—(Loud cheers.) But safe as it was to sit
upon this bench, and to have the Government of Earl Grey
defended by others, by Lord Althorp, the Noble Lord
opposite, Mr. Spring Rice, and others, it is more safe to
sit in this House and make a laboured attack upon a per-
, son in the other House of Parliament.—( Cheers.) But
the question before the House is not that which respects
the financial conduct of the Government during the last
Session. It is a question which we will not be induced
by the taunts of the Right Hon. Gentleman, and his
anxious wish to escape from it, to forget, whether the Go-
vernment was justified in granting a pension to Sir John
Newport, a question, I must say, that involves to a great
degree the character of Sir John Newport ; be-
cause, though weakened by age and bodily infirmi-
ties, he is in perfect possession of his understanding ;
and consequently if he accepted knowingly and wilfully a
pension to which Ito was by no means entitled, in violation
in Act of Parliament, and in violation of the spirit of the
Act relrting to the peesions on the Civil List. Let no one
tell me that Sir John Newport will not feel it acute lv that
this resolution imputes blame to him, and consider it a
great blow from the House of Commons, in the decline of
a life spent in a series of the most important services to
his country..--( Cheers ) Sir, I venture to say, that Ido
not think any person now receiving a pension on the Civil
List for civil services (for I do not here compare them with
tense great naval and military services which had been de-
servedly rewarded by the country) is so well entitled
to receive a pension from the favour of the
Crows as Sir J. Newport, and that the pension itself is
(xtremely mod,rate, considering the character and ser-
vices or the person to whom it was given. Sir, looking
back to the variours services which my Noble Friend has
recounted, and which, therefore, I wilt not repeat, let me,
in the first place, observe that I think we have fallen into
a grievous error, and perhaps from these Acts of Parlia-
ment we may have some tendency to do so—if we say that
for the future, not only with regard to Parliamentary pen-
sions hut those which Mr. Burke says are at the control
and disc ction of the Crown, there must be done certain
amount of official service to entitle the person to them. I
think it possible that a person, with ,eeard to the fsvour of
the Cron. n, may in six months perform services to tire country
which another person cotild not do In twenty years. Sir J.
Newport, during the time be held office, iestituted many
:equities in the various departments of the revenue, and
cut off mane abuses, while at the same time he proposed
and carried throu;;I: Parliament an Act allowing a free
trade in cam between this country and Irelaed, which
had been of the greatest benefit to this country and ad-
vantage to Ire! Ind. At the same time, in conjunction
with Capt. Elliott end Mr. Ponsonby—two men whose
names were entitled to the same honour as that of Sir J.
Newport—he was the adviser of an inquiry into the
mate of education in Ireland--another of the great bene-
fits which he conferred on that country. His inquiries a'so
in the Courts of Law terminated in ..he most bent finial Acts,
of which no less than ten or twelve passsed at his soggestion.
Now, if a Parinamentary life spent in a scri• s of innporrant
services is not a good ground for a pension, it appears to
ale, when all the eirennistanc,s r.,1 this case nee considered
--when a man who has served in office with great ability,
arid given great services to his country—when his proposals
have been not only submitted but adopted by Perliament—
aild when, in the course of a long life, he attains to a great
a e ee9 in narrow circumstance:, I do say I think these are
sufficient grounds for a pension.—( Cheers.) Now I must
compare this pension with those grants to others on the
ground of official services, to show the amount of pensions
granted by other persons. Mr. Ward, Mr. Herries, Mr.
Planta, Mr. Hoblionse, and Mr. Cour;enar, all received
a pension cf 1,0001. a-year, exactly the same :is that of
Sir. J. Newport, and in tine case of Mr. Pianta, it was
increased to 1,500/. Mr. Lushington, Mr. Croker, and,
is I said before, Mr. Pianta half as much again as
Sir J. Newport, and Lord Althorp (not receiving it now),
and Mr. Goulburn, 2.0004, and Lord Bexley, 3.000/. a-
year, which is three times as much as Sin J. Newport.
There are others I could mention, among them Lord
Sidmouth, who has given up his pension ; but it will he
said these
I think that is not a sufficient claim , for a pension for a
pensions were granted by Act of Parliament..man who served his country for a nut
to it. Then i
rber of years in oft Tic e
without being of essential isservice
to be considered whether there are any grounds upon
which a person may by recommended to the Crown who
is not entitled to a pension under those Acts. I say, cer-
tainly so ; and the first Minister of the Crown must be tine
belt judge of those qualiffeations. I own the. if I did lint
think that, I think all the pensions must be questioned
before the House of Commons, and if I were asked on
what grounds a pension should be granted to Mr. Croker,
Mr. Lushiegton, and others, I confess I could not guess
recommended
merely
the reason.—( Cheers.) I think this power is properly
placed in the Crown,
artl
ttehreir who
w e r
e trot tica,ns.oe persons doubt the Minis-
those persons to the
Grown. I am therefore recommend •
of opinion these pensions are ,
se t v e services,
as induced them to recom