The Sun.
London, England, 1860-02-03 00:00:00

He believed that in those departments the duties were very
efficiently discharged. But still, taking the expenditure in
the whole of the public departments together, it would
be found it was exactly doubled. The increase of expendi-
ture did not arise in the charges for the two Houses of Par-
liament, which were in 1852, £89,000, and last year £BO,OOO.
As far as the House of Commons was concerned, the whole
expenditure was £52,000, of which £41,000 was supplied by
fees. Probably in no public office in the metropolis were
economy and efficiency so combined, and all who had had ex-
perience of the House of Commons and its officers knew that
the latter had always discharged their duties with an effi-
ciency and a courtesy which deserved general thanks.
(Cheers.) Between 1£139 and 1859 they had spent
£6,000,000 in printing and stationery. In 1856, the item
was £458,000, but he was happy to see that last year it was
reduced to £337,000. (Hear, hear.) He should be very
sorry to curtail the printing of useful documents, but he
thought the printing should be limited to papers of that
kind. The stationery and official postage items were both
very much abused. Chntlemen connected with the Science
and Art Department did not study economy in those re-
spects. He received from time to time from that department,
in common, he supposed, with every peer and member of
Parliament, bushels of papers, which went into their house-
maids' baskets. He had recently received one, rather more
than usually attractive. It was in a huge official envelope,
bearing on the outside, " Henry Cole, cience and Art Dt-
partmentl South Kensington—On her Majesty's Service,"
and consisted of an almanac. (Laughter.) He liked to
buy his own almanacs, and really he thought the Treasury
ought to check this sort of nonsense. (Cheers.) They all
knew that they could not do without Secret Services, but
under that head there had been • an expenditure during 20
years of £954,600, and he very much doubted whether the
secret information which had been obtained was worth the

money. (Hear, hear.) When any complaint was made ol
increase of salaries they were generally told that a great
number of salaries were put in lieu of fees. In 1851
the fees amounted to £138,000. Last year they
had dwindled down to £lll,OOO, and of that sum the House
of Commons' fees supplied £41,000, so that the fees did
not amount to any very large sum, and could not
contribute as largely to salaries as was represented. (Hear.)
He had a great respect for both law and justice, but he
thought the expenditure under that head, which was enor-
mously increased, required revision. The item was £2,500,000
with the addition of £718,000 charged on the consolidated
fund. He did not say that the charge on the consolidated
fund was improper, because the judges ought to be provided
for in that permanent form. Into the important item of
education, science, and art, there was a commission inquir-
ing at the present time, but he was anxious to call attention
to the fact that the expenditure under that head had in-
creased from £175,000 in 1819 to £1,328,000 in 1859. Ho
hoped the country was receiving an equivalent for that ex-
penditure. They voted last year £230,000 for pupil teachers,
and his experience taught him that the pupil teacher sys-
tem was becoming a failure; they had married very early,
if they were attractive young women, or went out as gover-
nesses, and that in one way or the other they left the service
of the educational staff. (Hear.) The next item was the
consular and colonial expenditure. He was pleased to think
that the committee which sat on the consular system two or
three years ago had not been without its effect, and he sin-
cerely trusted that her Majesty's Government would carry
out the recommendations of that committee. Her Majesty's
late Government entered very warmly into the question,
and were, he believed, prepared to adopt measures likely to
lead to great and beneficial changes. (Hear, hear.) The
colonial charges were very large indeed, amounting in five
years to £22,000,000. Then there was the superannuation
and other items, into the details of which he would not
enter, but he begged to call the attention of the house tql.
Class 7. Those estimates were generally laid on the table
at a very late period of the session, when there was no
time for investigation. They were termed temporary
charges, but he was sorry to say, after the first appearance
of an item in that class, it was generally continued for ever
afterwards. (Hear, hear.) With all respect for the metro-
politan members, he objected to the large sums invariably
demanded for metropolitan purposes. In counties they
built bridges, made public gardens, and discharged at their
own expense all the duties which No. 7 of the estimates did
for the metropolis. For instance, last year they voted for
Battersea-park, Chelsea-bridge, and Vauxhall embankment
no less than £525,000. (Hear.) With regard to the Conso-
lidated Fund the items comprised in it were never brought
before the house. They were printed in a blue-book at the
end of each session ; but something store was required than
an inquiry within the four walls of the Treasury. The right
hon. gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer had, in
1854, expressed an opinion that there was no point on which
the house was more apt to be led into laxity than that of
laying on the Consolidated Fund charges which it ought
not to bear, the consequence of which was, that in some
measure they escaped the control of Parliament and were
forgotten, and the right hon. gentleman also said that it
would be advisable to establish some means by which the
attention of the house would be drawn periodically to these
charges. That was exactly the object of this motion. The
first item en the Consolidated Fund was £385,000 for the
Civil List. and, with regard to that, the only observation
1 he would make would be a hope that her it might
live many years in health and happiness to enjoy it. He
was glad to observe that there had been a greatimprove-
ment lately in the revenues of the duchies of Lancaster and
Cornwall, for a few years ago they used to bring in very
little and cost a great deal. In the duchy of Lancaster there
was a chancellor, a vice-chancellor, an attorney- general, and
50 other officials; in short, to use Burke's words, " all the
apparatus of a kingdom to manage a country gentleman's
estate." The house, he contended, had a right to look into
the management of these Crown lands and forests, to see
whetherthey produced a sufficient revenue. By an actpassed
in the reign of George IV. it appeared that the expenses of
collection were the first charge on the revenues, then pen-
sions, and whatever was left went to the State. It was high
time that this mode of proceeding was altered, and the com-
mittee on public moneyswas of the same opinion. In their re-
port they expressed an opinion " that these charges should be
brought under the system of votes for expenditure, just like
the charges respecting other branches of the public revenue.
But in answer to this report the Treasury had made a
minute to the effect that " My Lords" were of opinion that,
considering the peculiar nature of this revenue, it was ad-
visable to postpone any further consideration of this point
unlil a further investigation took place preparatory to a new
surrender of the Crown lands to the public, and a grant of
a now Civil List to the Crown. He never could understand
the reason of the Treasury for recommending this postpone-
ment. Mr. Hnskisson, Lord Monteagle, and other public
men whose judgment should have great weight, were of
opinion that the control of Parliament ought to he exercised
over these revenues quite as much as over any other branch
of the public revenue. According to a Parliamentary paper
lately delivered the revenue of the Crown lands, Woods and
Forests, from 1816 to 1859 was £13,273,295, and the ex-
penses upwards of £6,000,000. The income for 1858-9 was
£416,771, and the sum received by the Consolidated Fund
was £280,040, from which was to be deducted a vote on Es-
timate 2 of £23,000, so that it cost £190,231 to get £256,510.
In 20 years the total revenues amounted to £6,705,917, out
of which was to be taken £2,214,000 for manage-
ment, and £995,000 for permanent improvements, leaving a
net profit to the State of £3,495,000. This was much as if
a country gentleman, with a gross rental of £3,300 had to
pay £l,lOO for management and £.500 for permanent im-
provements, leaving himself with an income of £1,700.
What tenant for life would admire that state of things?
Yet it exactly represented the position of the country with
reference to the revenue of the Crown lands. No doubt
the gentleman at the head of tho Department had effected
considerable improvements of late ; but there was still a vast
amount of unseen and uncontrolled expenditure. Leaving
the lands, and travelling now to the mysterious recesses of
the Woods and Forests, it appeared fi om this paper that the
receipts of the Woods and Forests from 1803 to 1859 had
been £2,589,183, an I the expenses £2,085,304. In 1859 the
receipts were £47,181, and expenses £52,984 ; in 1858 the
receipts were £68,743, and expenses £58,170; and in 1857
the receipts were £63,811, and the expenses £55,469. In
order that it might net be thought that he had selected an
exceptional period he would take the four years ending 1852,
in which he found that the receipts were £186,000, and the
expenses £lBB,OOO. In the four years ending 1850 the
receipts were £307,000 and the expenses £245,000. For the
thre3 years ending 1859 the receipts were £175,000 and the
expenses £166,090, making fur that period of 11 years a
total of receipts of £673,000 and of expenses £600,000. Tak-
ing now three of these Crown forests, it appeared that in
that of Dean the receipts last year were £11,900 and the ex-
penses £11,300 ; in the New Forest £16,000 had been re-
ceived and £ll,OOO expended ; and in Windsor Forest,
which from its vicinity to the Castle was exceptionally placed
and required additional outlay in salaries, upon labour, the
maintenance of deer, &c., the receipts had been £5,000 and
the expenses £19,010. When the large establishments and
expenses connected with -the Woods and Forests were com-
plained of it was urged that they were absolutely requisite
for the management of this extensive property, which
amounted nominally, in forests alone, to 103,000 acres ; but
he believed it was the fact that they had not a really benefi-
cial interest in more than 30,000 acres. A few years ago the
Treasury directed three gentlemen of eminence to visit these
portions of the Crown property, and they proceeded during
their, term of inspection to Delamere forest, which he would
take as an example of the injudicious mode of treatment that
had sometimes been adopted. The commissioners reported
that the 4,000 acres of which the forest was composed " was
in every respect unsuited to the growth of oak, and that such
a crop ought never to have been planted upon it ; that trees
had been planted in such places and of such sizes as to preclude
argbey
amount
ou
all chance of their success ; that considerable loss had been
unskilfulntinvalinne of ode of cutting
larchtingdown trtereeen,s; tkat
a very sustainedl
admir-
ably suited to the soil in which they'Ti were growing and ap-
proaching rapidly to geed timber,
,had been displaced to give
room for stunted thriftless oaks, which were of no present
value, and
never could attain any." He desired in an
especial manner to direct the attention of the Secretary to
the Treasury to the arrears which were permitted to occures
in the rent accounts which were made up to April in every
year. In 1857 the arrears which were thus permittedetrl
remain due amounted to £220,241, in 1858 to £206,680, and
in 1859 to £202,248. The Treasury certainly ought to have
the power of checking this system, which seemed, at all
events, to have existed for three years, and which must be
attended with very injurious effects, as it permitted so large
a sum as £200,000 to remain in the hands of the country
agents and stewards charged with the collection of the re-
venues of the Crown. (Hear.) The capital account likewise
called for examination, as it was both mysterious and unsa-
tisfactory in its nature. Within the last 30 or 40 year,
Crown property to the value of £2,408,203 had been sold,
and this system of constant sales and re-investments was
attended with inconvenience and enormous expense. Last
year an amount of no less than £13,037 was paid for legal
expenses and plans incidental to these sales of Crown lands, to consolidate
this though it might be extremely desirable
this property, which was scattered through almost every
large army of
county in in England, and so to get rid of a
ear
agents—(h thought
ceivers,surveyors, stweards,and ern )
ffe d h b
cte t an
the improvement might be more judiciously.
The Chaneellory
this perpetual system of buying and selling. _
of the Exchequer had, a few years ago, taken the wise and
judicious course of removing a great number of charges
from the Consolidated Fund to the estimates for the year ;
and he trusted that the right hon. gentleman, whom he be-
lieved to be at heart a sincere financial reformer, would per-
severe in the same beneficial direction. There were a num-
ber of charges which, in his opinion, might with great ad-
vantagebe removed from the Consolidated Fund to the yearly
estimates, where they would be exposed to the consideration
and criticism of the house. Among these he placed the charge
for the Lunacy Commission of £12,500 ; that for the Audit-
office of -£6,300, which was in addition to the sum of
£32,466, appearing on the estimates for the expenses of that
Office. Then there was the sum of £lO,OOO for secret service
money, in addition to the £32,000 in the estimates ; and this
~aitem,s he should like to abolish altogether, believing that it
opposed to the openness of the English character, and
that
fromt:,ule country had never derived any substantial benefit •
eh expenditure. The of £lO 000 for the G.,-
sums ,
vernment of the Isle
Wetf stipend t of Man ; £17,000 for the augmenta
s India el s the Scotch clergy; and £20,300 to the
vent ageously etrog&ereight in like manner be transferred ad-
the Lord Lieutenantesottultes. The salary of £20,000 to
tained on the Consolidated
ought, perhaps to be re-
waa maintained ;but it Ft Fund as long as the office itself
ad-
dition to this 120,000 there °uld be remembered that in ad-
of Castle expenses to the werefurther payments on account
amount of
Howsehold of £6,431 yearly. £4,378, and to- the
The allowance of £3lOOO to