The Sun.
London, England, 1850-08-10 00:00:00

OFFICIAL SALARIES.

The NOBLE and LEARNED LORD then proceeded to at.
tack the rep.art recently made by a Select Committee
of the Reuse of Commons on official salaries. There
were imperfections in every line of it. The savings
which it recommended were uttetly insignificant in a
financial point ef view. It trampled upon all consider?...
liana of justiee at home, red destroyed all our diplomatic
relations abroad. What inf. rination the Cenam.Veihad
got, where they had got it. to what witnesses they had
resorted to enlighten the darkne,s of their understand-
ings, he could not by any possibility conceive. With
regard to the reductions to be made in the salaries of
the judges of the High Court of Chancery, they had
neither examined Lord Lyndhurst, Lord Cottenham, nor
himself. They load passed over all the abuses of that
court, and had made no reference to the saleries paid to
its subordinate officers. He particularly objected to the
reducti. n of the salary of the Lord Chancellor to 8,0001.
a-sear, and of the Lord Cnief Justice of the Common
Pleas to 6 0001 a-year. Such a mass of contradiction,
absurdity, and ignorance, he bad never seen comprised
in a single report. They recommended that the salary
of the Judge-Advocate should be reduced on the next.
appoi' talent from 2,000/. to 1 5001. a-year; but, as a
makeweight, they recommended that the future
holder of that offise should not be debarred from the
practice of his profs ion. Why, he was not debarred
from it at present. The present holder of the office had
recently pleaded before bite; and if Mr. S. Wortley had
' given up practising before the Judicial Privy Council
whilst he held it, it was only because he was himself
a Privy Councillor. That gentleman, as Judge Advo-
cate, had as much right es any of his prefersional
brethren to practise in the Coutts of Queen's Bench,
Common Pleas, Exchequer, and Chancery. He (Lord
Broueha,n) obj-'cted to wetly other reductions recom-
mended by the Committee, and especially to the reduc-
tion , f the salaries of the Masters in Chancery to 2 000/. a
pli,r. tie had himself reduced them from 5,0001. a year„to
which their salaries, with foes, in some instences, formerly
amounted, to 2,500/. a year; and below that sum he was
rsot prepared to go. Some three or four years ago
their number had been reduced by not filling
up two vacancies which occurred i but now, owing to
the Winding-up Act, they were overwhelmed with
work, and their numbers ought co be increased. He
had, by means of a connexien of his own, same in-
al3: :le
labour,
hi of that
to go circuit. But the Grief Justice
a
hsight into the amount of labour they performed; and
he would say that eighteen hours a day would net
enable them to get through it. He then reverted once
more to the miserable saving proposed in the reduction
of the salaries of the LoreCnancellor and the Chief
Justice of the Common Pleas. His Noble and Learned
Friend on the Woolsack was, he supposed, to have only
8,000/ a year. Considering that he was entitled to that,
amount of salary as Lord Chief Justice of the Common
Pleas, he was surprised to find that his Noble and
Learned Friend had given up that salary, which he
might have retained for life, tor the same amount of
salary in an office tar more laborious, and from which he
might be removed perhaps in the course of the next
four or five months, it might be with, and it might be
.
without, a retiring .pension. Then, did the ignorant
men who formed this Committee know the difference in
the amount of the labour performed by the Lord
Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas and the
tayteca court, ;
rt, the Chief Justice as well
as the
puisne judges of that court? The Chief Justice was
puisne judges 5,000/.
had on the close of every term to
go the Guildhall end Westminster circuit or sittings,tboethe
Allsihdt hea esvpe 6
jtuhnd4
puisne,
which generally lasted two or three weeks after each
term. Anything more ignorant than this arrangement
he could not conceive. Then how utterly ridiculous was
the plan of cutting down all the diplomatic salaries and
offices to the same size. All of them were to be abo-
lished, and a single mission at some central point in
Germany was to be substituted for the several missions
now existing at Hanover, Dresden, Stuttgard, Munich,
and Frankfort. Nay, more, the mission at Florence was
to be united with one of the Italian missions. He sup-
posed that the next proposal of this. Committee would be
chat a mission should be seat to one of the peaks of the
Andes, to superintend all our diplomatic relations with
the States .ote'etiouth America. After some passing sar-
casms at the Garman principalities, the Noble and
Learned Lerci suddenly crossed the Atlantic, and said
that it was one of the grossest of all pus,
able delusions to suppose that these reductions
could be defended by the example of the United
States. The Government of the United States,
considered as a whole, might be a cheap Govern-
men', but then it should be considered that, besides its
expenditure, there was a heavy expenditure incurred in
and defrayed by each state for its own domestic govern-
ment and administration. America was not a cheaply
governed country, fn• each of the states swarmed with
myrials of pla.cekolders. After several other remarks
anything but eulogistic, on the institutions of our
brethren in North America, the Noble and Learned
Lord reminded the Horse that he had been all his lite-
long an advocate for wise and well-considered measures
of retrenchment and reform; but he could not allow
their Lordships to part without entering his protest
again-t the unwise, nay, he must say, the absurd
salaries. He hoped
propo-
sitions of this Committee on official
that he should never see the administration of justice
poisoned at its source by measures which would render a
seat on the bench unworthy the acceptance of the best
and ablest and most experieneed advocates at the bar,
nor the diplomatic appointrnente of the country stripped
of their due influence by
being filled either by men of
great qualifications
tune without any qealificatioos for the posts to which
they were appointed.
The House then proceed to ether business.
THE POST-OFFICE.
trn Levi BROUGHAM,
In answer to a question fie
DF t t d
'I ANRICAR a s a.e the the
The Marquis of te .
ointed e Treaeur •
Committee which had been app 3
of Commons relative to tee
upon the vote of the HOW
t met t wo or three times, and
new portal arrangements has. h
he h w w ell lapel they would
would meet again to morro .
to a report.
be able fleetly to agree
~
_,i7NE
said it .
..,
..
was high!),
•of Le,sl')u"
The Met quie ,
should b, satisfactorily settled.
desirable that this mater
since the new arrangemerrs
Scarcely a day had elapsed
without cumptints o. inconvente .
erice, and in some cases
• t
..,0 er oPs h'd rcsal.trd. The.
the moat calLuni:ottA c°3— -.1%. Ur• Pike's Luurder lu I, e-
se
W" the (-ass the usher dee o• : ,
' 2et tne postal this;, the
laucj'
s."
.Then in "7'teciv" was prevented tsar kw•
hroinee of the Leiter:nate 1,." ~, i • had
been ahe su aject oid
ing present et the coror.er's inque
Committee,
• b., the who
been one of utirewittiog ierjetry .e .
se a better he trusted wooll be able to prop
arrange-
ment than the present.
The Earl of S C. GERMAIe, -
es drew the attention of the
i lee, d taken place upon
House to the debate that hate ao '
appointments. With
the subject of the Pint-office
Or Order epartne,nt of
d D
re-
ference to the clerks of the Money . 0
.1 b an impression that
the Post.(dßee, there spi.eareo to
the condition of she probationary department was better
The fact was, that
than be had represented it to be.
until recently no clerk in the probationary class, however