The Sun.
London, England, 1844-04-02 00:00:00

PRIVY COUNCIL BILL

On the Order of the Day being put for going into a
Committee of Supply.
Lord JOHN RUSSELL said, in pursuance of the
motion of which he had given notice the other night,
he wished to put a question to the Right Hon.
Baronet, with respect to a Bill now in progress in the
other House of Parliament. It would at a future period
be brought before this House, when he would have
another opportunity of speaking. When his Noble and
Learned Colleague (Lord Cottenham) was in office, he
had expressed his opinion that it was not desirable that
two additional judges should be appoiated,, although he
(Lord J. Russell) knew that another Chancellor, con-
nected with a different Government, might think those
appointments necessary. With respect to all the judicial
establishments of the country, especially that part which
was connected with the Privy Council, it might be ex-
pedient that the Crown should originate such establish-
ment, and make particular appointments, and then state
to Parliament what the additions were. The Bill to
which he had alluded had been brought into the other
House on the 4th of March, by which a new
judge was to be appointed with a salary of
2,0001. There were already two with salaries' of 1,5001.
and 1,200/. respectively. On the 15th of March, the
Bill was referred to st-CoMmittee, and from that period
up to the present they had heard nothing of it. Now
what he feared was, that in the present complicated
state of the Parliamentary business the Bill would not
be brought to this House until near the close of the
session, when it could not receive that attention which it
demanded. He wanted to call the attention of the Right
Hon. Gentleman to an extraordinary statement which
had been made. It was stated that a very eminent per-
son was to be placed at the head of the Judicial Com •
mittee of the Privy Council as Judge.—(Hear, hear.)
It was within the discretion of Government, he was per-
fectly aware, to make up their minds with respect to
this appointment, or that such a Bill should be intro-
duced ; but he thought it seemed an extraordinarycourse
—not to say a suspicious one—to admit that any
individual, however eminent, should be named
to an appointment before the office had been created,
and at a time when the Government might forego their
intention of creating it. If the Government thought fit
that there should be such an appointment, surely it was
right that they should state their reasons. The whole
question depended on whether any one individual was
ready, or had engaged to accept this office. Now here
was the Bill introduced, and likely to be brought down
to this House at a late period of the session, and in con-
sequence he wished to ask the Right Hon. Gentleman
whether it was the intention of her Majesty's Govern-
ment to bring the Bill before the House at an early
period, and whether there was any foundation for the
statement to which he had alluded?
Sir R. PEEL, who spoke in a very low tone of voice,
said he thought the Noble Lord would agree that he
(Sir R. Peel) was entitled to exercise his unfettered dis-
cretion in the matter. He could assure the Noble
Lord that the Bill would be brought before
this House as soon as it was possible in
accordance with the due course of business. He did
not concur in the opinion of the Noble Lord opposite,
that the Noble and Learned Lord (Cottenham) was
opposed last year to the appointment of a juelge to pre-
side in the Privy Council. With respect to the state-
ment concerning which the Noble Lord put the other
question, he should say, it was the impression of the
Government that the Crown had the power of creating
such an office, and under this impression it had been
offered to a Noble and Learned Lord in the other
House, but he declined to accept it, stating at the same
time that he did not consider at that moment that such
an office was required. The Bill had been brought into
the other House independent of the Government by the
Noble and Learned Lord.
Mr. R. YORKE protested strongly against this Bill,
and whenever it should come before this House, he
would use every means which the forms of the House
allowed to oppose it.

SUPPLY.
The House then went into a Committee of Supply.
Sir G. CLERK rose to move the civil contingencies
and miscellaneous estimates. He felt glad to be able to
assure the House that a considerable reduction would
be made in the grant this year from what it had been
last year. For the last year, the sum required was
130,000/, while for the present, he should only move for
100,000/. for the payment of the civil contingencies.
Air. WILLIAMS protested against the enormous sums
which were voted annually to defray the expenses of
Ambassadors at Foreign Courts. There was a charge of
4,10/ for the expenses of the embassy to Hammer.

Now, the least thing, he thought, which the King of Ha-
nover could do, in return for the 21,000/. which he received
annually from this country, was to take care of its inte-
rests at his own Court. He objected also to a charge
which he saw for the conveyance, in some of the vessels
of war, of two Princes of Prussia and their respective
suites—Prince Adelberg from Rio de &micro to Pere,
and another Prince from Java to Beyrout, and thence
to Constantinople. He thought it quite enough to furnish
them with vessels to convey them and their suites from one
place to another without at the same time paying the ex-
penses of their passage. There was another charge, of
a very singular nature, to which he had an objection.
It was 774 ls. 4d., the amount of Messrs. Vizard and
Main's bill of costs in an action brought against Lord
Brougham, in his official capacity, when Lord Chan-
cellor of England. He thought that if the Lord Chan-
cellor left himself open in his official capacity to such a
charge, he ought to pay it himself. He objected also to
the very heavy charges that were made for sending out
Governors to some of our petty colonies—for instance, to
Van Diemen's Land and New Zealand, in each of which
the cost was 8001. That was a monstrous charge. Why
the population of New Zealand did not amount to more
than 5,000 persons altogether. It ought to be shown
whether such charges were at all necessary. There
were several others of a similar kind, but he referred to
these as being of the largest amount. Again, the ex-
penses for robes and collars for the Knights of the seve-
ral Orders were charged at 1,2021., and the bill of Messrs.
Gerrard and Co. for repairing the same was no less than
1,152/. Now this was an expenditure to which he altogether
objected, for he thought the Knights themselves ought
to pay for their own decorations. Then there was the
funeral of the late Duke of Sussex. No one more highly
esteemed that lamented nobleman when alive, nor had
greater veneration for his memory, but still he thought
that a charge of 1,352/. for his funeral expenses could
and ought to have been avoided. With respect to
colonial bishops, they had been often told in that
House when the matter was discussed, that they gave
rise to no public expenditure. Now, he found that no
less than five of those colonial bishops were receiving
the public money, and employing our ships of war and
steamers, in conveying them from one place to another.
They were the Bishops of Jamaica, Newfoundland,
Tasmania, Gibraltar—and with respect to the latter
he found a charge of 2101. for the conveyance of him-
self and suite on board her Majesty's steam-vessel, the
Devastation, from Gibraltar to Constantinople and
back. He thought it was quite enough to have sup-
plied the Right Rev. Prelate with the passage in a Go-
vernment vessel, without also paying for the expenses
of his suite. There was another item, which he re-
quested the Right Hon. Baronet to be good enough to
explain. It was to the Bishop of Chester for preachers
in Lancashire, for eleven years and a half, begin-
ning on the 15th of April, 1832, and ending
on the 10th of October, 1843, 1,3221. Bs. He sup-
posed that the money had been refused by the
late Government, and hence the present demand. He
should like to know the reason that could be assigned
for another another singular vote, namely, for watering
Parkgate-street, in Dublin, in the summers of 1841 and
1842, 68/. 17s. 6d. There was another vote to which he
wished to call attention, namely, the sum of 4001. for the
College of St. David's. He did not regret that there
was such an item ; he only complained of the sum as
being too small, being quite inadequate to supply a good
system of education for the clergy of Wales who were
educated there. In fifteen parishes, in the immediate
neighbourhood of that college, the tithes were in the
hands of one lay impropriator to the amount of not less
than 6,0001 each parish, thus furnishing 4,0001. to that
single layman, while the twenty-one clergymen who
served those parishes received 71/. 10s. from each. He
mentioned these facts to show that there was no induce-
ment held out to men of ability and education to enter
the Church there, and that to those who did enter it, the
means of obtaining a good education was not furnished.
He thought, if the fugds of St. David's College were en-
riched, it would confer a most important benefit on the
Established Church in that part of the country. The two
richly endowed universities, Oxford and Cambridge, re-
ceived 2,0001. annually from the public funds ; and the
colleges and universities of Scotland received annually
7,0801. from the same source ; and the Dublin Society
in Ireland received 12,6781., besides 1,5001. a year for
the ordinary purposes of education and last year the
London University received 4,548/ from this House.
When sums were thus liberally expended in other quar-
ters, he trusted that the case of St. David's College
would be taken into consideration by the Government,
and he assured them that the cause of the great extent
to which Dissent existed in that part of the country had
been mainly owing to the want of sufficient provision
for the clergy of the Established Church there, and to
the not affording them the means of a liberal and en-
lightened education, which every clergyman of the
Church of England ought to have.
Dr. BOWRING said there was one item on which he
would take the liberty of asking a question. The Noble
Lord the Member for Tiverton (Lord Palmerston) when
in office had pointed out the disadvantage of having our
diplomatic interests dependent in a great measure upon
strangers, who were used as intepreters by our Minis-
nisters in eastern countries, and had shown the neces-
sity of educating some young men of this country in
the languages of the East, for the purpose of acting as
interpreters in negotiations. He (Dr. Bowring) there-
fore wanted to know whether there were any young
men exercising public functions of that nature in Con-
stantinople ?
Sir G. CLERK said that the expenses of the embassy
at Constantinople were necessarily increased by having
an establishment of dragomans, and the inconvenience of
employing foreigners in that capacity had been very
strongly felt. English subjects had in consequence been
instructed for some time back in the Turkish language,
in order that they might, when oppertunity offered, take
the place of those foreigners. There could be no doubt
that solid advantages would be derived from the em-
ployment in this capacity of persons having the interests
and feelings of this country at heart, instead of merely
employing foreigners. The system which had been
referred to by, the Noble Lord the Member for Tiverton
was still carried on. The Hon. Member for Coventry
had alluded to the expense arising'from foreign princes
and foreigners of distinction on the occasion of their
obtaining a passage in some of her Majesty's ships.
The saving of the sums included in this item would be
very small, and not worthy of the consideration of this
country. With regard to the sums allowed for the con-
veyance of governors of colonies, it should be considered
that the charges for many years past had been anything
but extravagant. With respect to the charges for con-
veying out the colonial bishops, the expenses had been
very small, and as the salaries of those bishops were
also very small, he thought it could not be complained of
that the Government had undertaken that charge upon
itself. As to the charge for sending back the envoy
from the Imaum of Muscat—the fact was, that the envoy
had brought hither very valuable' presents, which were
the more valuable on account of the effect which they
had of more strongly cementing our friendship with a
useful ally, and as the envoy was accompanied by a very
large retinue, it would not have been worthy of this
Government to allow him to go back at his own expense.
The charge of 2001. for the Bishop of Chester was for
the purpose of enabling him to pay for four preachers in
his diocese.
Sir C. N.A.PIEIt said that the charge in some instances
for the removal of functionaries from one station to another
was no more in each ease than it would cost the func-
tionary to remove from his country house to his town-
house; but he did not care whether the expense was
only 1/. or 1,0001, the principle was the same.—(Hear.)
He saw some estimates for the expenses of the civil
service in China. He -did not understand thoroughly
the nature of the disagreements between Sir IL Pottinger
and Admiral Parker, and he, should like to have an ex-
planation from the Right Hon. Gentleman opposite.
There was another point which le-did not understand
—the expenses under the head of civil and military
service in the Levant. _ _ _

The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER said that
the estimate was for expenses incurred in 1841, and paid
in 1843.
Sir C. NAPIER could not see why the country should
be put to so much expense for the benefit of those civil
officers. When an admiral was sent out he got an
allowance of plate—that was to say some half-dozen old
silver spoons.—(A laugh.) But he was at once charged
ten per cent. upon the value of the plate, which he was
required to return, and which he could procure from
any Jew (upon the same condition) for seven per cent.
—(A laugh.) He thought that all ought to be placed
upon equal terms. When civil officers and governors
were sent abroad, it would be better for the naval ser •
vice and for the public purse if they were sent out in the
Government steam-packets, instead of sending upon
such a service a fine frigate, and putting the captain to
great inconvenience by compelling him to give up his
cabin. When Sir Robert Wilson was sent out to
Gibraltar, a fine frigate of fifty guns was em-
ployed to convey him, and was occupied five or
'six months in the service, although the Government
had at their disposal at the time a magnificent steam-
ship upon the station, which would have carried him in
a few days, and had the most splendid accommodations
for the Governor and his suite. The accommodations
were quite good enough for her Majesty—(A laugh)—
and, in fact, her Majesty had sailed in that very ship.—
(Hear, and a laugh.) He would take the sense of the
House on this part of the estimates.—(Hear.)
Mr. HUME said that his Hon. Friend had been mis-
understood. He had not complained of the expenses of
the establishment for the education and training of
dragomans at Constantinople. He had only asked how
many young men there were under instruction, and
what progress had been made. He wished an explana-
tion respecting a sum of 6001. stated to have been paid for
the expenses of Mr. M'Gregor in Norway, and in respect
to some negotiations as to the Stade duties. It was pro.
mired last year that something should be done as to
these duties, and before he proceeded with any further
remarks he would give the opportunity to the Govern-
ment of stating any thing in reference to them they
might be enabled to do.

Lord STANLEY said, before the Hon. Member's
question was answered, the House, perhaps, would permit
him to give an explanation in reference to the remarks
of the Gallant Officer (Sir C. Napier) on the way in
which Sir Robert Wilson had been conveyed to Gib-
raltar. He (Lord Stanley) would take the liberty of
stating that there was no class of persons who suffered
such great losses from the expenses-necessary to take
them to their destinations as Governors. Tn sending
out Ministers a grant was made, but there was none for
Governors, and nine-tenths of them were for the first,
second, and sometimes for the third year, out of pocket
for moneys they were compelled to raise to enable them
to accept and get out to their appointments. There was
no outfit ; but there was a certain fixed rate for them-

selves and families—be the family large or be it small
—according to the length of passage, and each Governor
had a right to demand that sum of money. It did so
happen sometimes that a ship was going out the very—
Sir C. NAPIER—The Warspite was hot going out
anywhere. She was
_lying at Spkileati? and was not
under ordorS.