Star.
London, England, 1819-02-26 00:00:00

poises. The situation of Custos. was as
a very burthensome public office. His, Hitti
Seas filled another public offite that required all •
time. Which of them was he to neglect, that.
Commander-in-Chief or Custos? He was the eee-
?ant of the public in a department that demanded'
the most unremitting attention, and yet 10,0001. *-
year was now required,to drag him away from the
Horse-Guards, where his duties lay. He believed
the observation of the Noble Lord behind him (Car-
hampton) was true, that his Royal Highness would
willingly take upon him the care of his Majesty with-
out any remuneration, and above all, when he per-
ceived that such flimsy pretexts were advanced for
demanding it. What was the measure by which public
gnu* were to be considered? Assuredly either labour
or responsibility. This could not be measured by-
either. He did not see how they could discharge
their economical duties to the public if they did not
resist it. Tlie observation made from the opposite
side of the House was very ill timed—(Hear, hear).
It was said that this, being a grant to one of the
branches of the Royal Family, for discharging.a new
and arduous duty,' was not to be considered an the
same light as other grants, nor measured by the'
amount of labour or responsibility. If it was not to
be thus measured, so much the worse. Public du-
ties;attended with labour, should be rendered pala-
table by the example of those who held the highest
station in society. The necessity of the present dis-
cusiion was much to be lamented, and every person'
must feel sorry that Ms Royal Highness was not saved
the rnoitification of it. The proposition might, thmugh
the influence of Ministers, be carried through the
House by a great majority, and the minority might,.
perhaps, be called small ; but however small it may
be, certain he was It would be large enough, upon a
question like the present, to carry at weight with
the country in its present state. A propmtion was
made by an Ilonourable Gentleman behind him to
reduce the sum to £5,000. If there was any incli-
nation to agree in it, that was not the time for put-
tingit to the House. It should be the subject of an
after vote, and they should first decide upon the pre-
vious point, that £lO,OOO do stand part of the ques-
tion. If the House was thus disposed, he would
ha4e no objection to act in unison wills their feelings
of liberality towards his Royal 'Highness ; but he
could not agree to a grant of £lO,OOO, however wil-
ling he might be to bear his Royal Highness harm-
less from all incidental expenses,
Mr. CANNING began by complaining that the
Geetlemen oh the other side were determined to think
Ministers wrong, whatevr course they pursued.
When, in compliance with the feelings of the House
a ..d the country, they had cut down the Windsor
tstablishment, and had entered into minute details
of expenditure, which he would have been glad to
have seen spared, the cry on the other -side was—
Why dcryou not give us some wholesale measure,
instead of wastiOg the attention of Parliament on such
petty items?" Mirnistere" at length brought forward
one wholesale or general measure, and then an Ho-
nourable Gentian:tin, one of the lovers of wholesale
measures too, gets up and insists it on cutting it in
half—while the Right Honourable'entleman on the
t
s tote side is not content with this ecision, but must
flither reduce it to fractional parts—(Laughtets)-
11* Gentlemen on the other side of the House had
not treated the present questicef fairly. They had
argued, as if the Custos was a new office, with
1:10,000 a year about to be added to it: if that had
been the case, Parliament would certainly have a
right to demand'an item of every part of the duty,
and every tittle of the expense : but the case was very
different. It was a question of reducing an old esta-
blishment, not of making a new one. It was their
present business not to build, but to pull down : at
the same time; it was their duty not to make un-
seernly rents in the edifice, nor to let in the unhal-
lowed gaze of vulgar curiosity on the naked wretch-
edness of unsheltei ed M.: jesty.—( Ilear2 hear.) They
should still recollect, that though afflicted and help-
less, the sufferer was our Sovereign still.—(!-fear,
):rir.)—An [Lou. Gentleman had said that a vote of
Ole noose rejecting tl;e proposed grant would be a
popular one. lie did not know whet ethe llonotir-
atdc (c.entlernUtt gathered his notions a, to the popu-
larity
.othis.view of the question : but-this he knew,
whetherlhe House were to be considend as the. ex-
citer or the echu.of the reeling out of doors, he did
not, on all occasions, think it tare best criterion of the
public mind. lie was sure that there was a large, if
not the largest, class who felt that this was a question
in which it was a disgrace to enter upon beggarly
details of probable or possible expenditure. Ministers,
therefore, had no easy task to perform, to meet the
expectations of one party; and not to offend the feel-
ings of the other. They had en,leavoured to take the
reasonable course, by cutting down the expenses from
058,000 to C 60,000, including the charge for the
Custos. One benefit had arisen from the Committee
of Inquiry, and that was a conviction, candidly al-
lowed to exist by the Right Hon. Gentleman oppo-
site, that the establishment could not possibly be re-:
duced any lower. It hadheen seen toe, he believed,
for the first time by several persons, that the repairs
of Windsor Castle alone amounted to E 20,000 a year,
leaving only £.50,000 for the other expenses of the
establishment. No one could grudge that sum of
Cepa°, Whether it were for the purpose of main-
taining so fit a shrine for the sacred relick that was
enclosed within it, or for the sake of preserving so
venerable a monument of ancient magnificence and
taste.--(Flear, hear.)—The, whole question was, whe-
ther in comparison with the general reduction, Such
a reductkon had also taken place in the charge for
the'Custos, as was consistent With the office, and with
the just expectations of the country; or whether it
was the duty of Parliament to cut off the £lO,OOO
also ? for as to offering any smaller sum, he sup-
posed no one would persist in such an offensive sug.
gestiod. And here he must say, in answer to the
remark that this sum would be a burden to the
country, that although what was not saved when it
might be saved was worthy of the name of extrava-
gancy, yet it could not in fairness be called a burden.
He would'say but a few words on the question, of
theses 'bility of the cedes, on which the Right
Hog; had placed so much reliance. As
a legal 'questa" be was not prepared to argue it, nor
did be-110Ni** that Many precedents existed on the
subject; happily there had not been frequent occa-
sion for the agitation of such a topic ; but looking at
die coma= with the eye of reasonable analogy, be

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