The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1835-05-19 00:00:00

ENGLISH ♦ND IRISH EX-CHANCELLORS,

Mr. HustEWovecl fora return of ihe several ex-Chancellors
of England and Ireland who now receive, or are entitled to re-
ceive, pensions, as having been chancellors, stating the names,
the date of appointment or several appointments as Chancellor,
the time each actually held office, the dates of resignation or
loss of office, the dates from which respectively each received or
are entitled to receive their pensions, the amount of such
yearly pensions,•and from what fund paid; stating also the acts
of parliament under which they respectively receive their pen-
sions. There were now no fewer than five persons who re-
ceived pensions of £4,000 and .E 5,00 a year for having filled
the office of Lord High Chancellor ; and iu other two or three
years, for any thing he knew, there might be as many more.
He wished to know on what grounds, and by what authority,
for a few months' service, an individual should claim so large a
pension as VAX) or £5,000. It really presented the pension
system in a most absurd point of view. - (Hear.) He was
rather disposed to pay officers well during their period of ser-
vice, and give no retiring pension ut all. '
The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHRQt•Ra said he had no ob-
jection whatever to the returns. Under the• terms of the
statute the person discharging the functions of the Lord High
Chancellor was entitled to receive the salary for the time being;
those, therefore, who had been appointed commissioners. Would
undoubtedly receive their proportions of the salary under that
act. He had before stated that the present arrangements were
only temporary, and would entail no additional charge upon
the country.
Mr. HAWES had hoped that the hon. member for Middlesex,
in alluding to this subject, would have referred to another point
of great importance intimately connected with it—the expedi-
ency of separating the political and judicial functions of the
Lord High Chancellor. He trusted that some plan was in con-
templation by which that would be effected.

Mr. D. W. thavEr complained of the effect which the
present arrangements, even although only of a provisional na-
tute, must necessarily produce. Of the three commissioners
who were appointed; the-Master of the Rolls received c perma-
nent salary of £7.000, the Vice-Chancellor little if any thing
less, and the Judge of the Common Pleas £5,500, salaries abun-
dantly adequate to their important duties, which demanded the
whole of their time consistently with the mental and bodily
labour which they could well afford. But in addition to what
they thus received as the price of their full and undivided ser-
vices in their respective courts, £lO,OOO was, by the new ar-
rangements, to be still farther divided among. them. It was
quite clear if those learned individuals had any time to spare for
the high and important duties of the great seal, it was in their
own courts, and to that extent they were, therefore, overpaid.
Besides, as he understood, the chief commissioner was actually
to discharge the whole duties; and, as he might take his seat
and sit in that house as master of the rolls, he put it to honour-
able members whether it was a safe precedent to allow an indi-
vidual—in point of fact the Lord Chancellor of England, with
his immense patronage, to occupy such an extraordinary posi-
tion. The arrangements being only temporary, he would not
enlarge on the inconveniences that must result from them; but
if the matter was not speedily rectified, he should call the atten-
tion of the house formally to the subject on another occasion.
Mr. G. F. YOUNG thought some previous understanding
should have been come to before the seals were put in commis-
sion, by which those who took on themselves the execution of
the functions of the office, by abstracting a portion of their time
from other paid judicial duties, should forego any additional
emolument. Such an arrangement had been come to when it
was proposed to select the late speaker of the Flouse of Com-
mons; it was asked from that (the opposition) side of the house,
whether, if he were elected, he should take the salary and re-
tiring pension, to which he was formally entitled, and that right
hon. gentleman at once, greatly to his honour, declared that he
would not, if re-elected, take both, although, by the act, he was
so entitled.

The SOLICITOR-GENERAL said that whoever held the great
seal was entitled by law to receive the sum 0f.£10,000 a-year.
That was the law, and the executive government was not answer-
able for its enactment. If hon. members thought it an objec-
tionable state of the law, it was, he need scarcely suggest, per-
fectly competent to them to propose its alteration; but, so long
as it remained the law, it must be allowed to operate. lithe ex-
isting arrangement were any other than one of a merely tempo-
rary nature, there might perhaps be some ground for complaint,
and it might with some reason be alleged that the present COM•
missioners for holding the great seal were unduly remunerated;
but, viewing it as a matter of very short duration, he must be
allowed to say that there would be a material set-off in the case,
for the fees and stamp duties upon the appointment would cost
the commissioners very nearly as much as they, were at all like-
ly to receive. As the subject had been thus adverted to, he
would just state one or two facts. The Vice-Chancellor and
the Master of the Rolls had hitherto been in the habit of sitting
in their respective courts for five hours a-day. Now, he would
appeal to any one conversant with the business of a court of
equity to say whether it was possible for the human mind to re-
main longer on the stretch than that time—whether any man