out the estimates of that department for the current year, he laid them before the -first lord of the treasury, for his attention and observation, and was ready to answer his inquiries as to any of the articles therein contained; but yet he did not think that the first lord of the treasury had any controul over those estimates. His "hon. friend had found fault with the charge of current expenses and contingencies; but he had, in common with many other gentlemen, fallen into a mistake. He had on a former night observed the same thing of an hon. gent. opposite (Mr. Whitbread), who, notwithstanding his acuteness, and his being one of the most active members of that House he had ever seen, had fallen also into the same mistake. He would convince his hon. friend of his error. The Ordnance estimates had always been made up in this way, and for this reason. He would, for instance, take the estimates for the island of Pe. merara at 4,000l. Yet, when the issues came to be made, it was found that they amounted to 6,000l. the additional 2,000l. was therefore added under the head of current expences and contingencies, and when the estimate was made next year, the current expences and contingencies would be put down at 6,000l. the contingencies having exceeded the estimates. It was easy, however, to account for gentlemen being liable to fall into such mis takes. When they got an army estimate in their hands, each of them fancied himself a general; when they got an ordnance estimate, each of them thought himself a great engineer; and when a navy estimate came into their possession, each of them became, in his own mind, a gallant and experienced admiral; and thus, without knowing any thing of these several professions, without having been bred to any one of them, they set them selves down as competent judges, and preferred their own opinions on those subjects to those of men who have studied, perhaps for years, to attain a thorough knowledge of those branches of naval and military science to which they were bred, and which one would suppose might enable them to form tolerably correct estimates in these several branches of the service. Having said thus much, he did not think it necessary to trouble the House further. As to the financial opinions of his hon. friend near him, further occasions would occur in which he should have an opportunity of combating them. Mr. Huskisson said, his hon. friend had taken such particular notice of an unfortunate shake of his head, that he could not avoid saying a few words on the present occasion. It was not his intention to have repeated what he had said on a former night; but as he had been alluded to, he must again say, that if we did not look to some permanent establishment that might be adequate to the expences of the war, this country would be in a very awk. ward predicament, and in considerable embarrassment. He should be as glad as any one to hear of a peace; but as he had reason to fear the war would be very long, we must, he thought, look to some system; we must see what we can expend in one year, and how that can be done to the greatest advantage. He, for one, had the greatest confidence in the resources of the country, but we must see in what per manent scale of expence we can carry on the war with effect, and provide adequate resources. As he was called on by his right hon. friend who spoke last, to shew, more than by a shake of his head, that there was a controul over the expenditure of the ordnance, he could only say, that ever since he had known the treasury, it had been so held; and if that principle had always been adhered to, it would have saved great sums to the public, particularly in barracks. His right hon. friend had said, that his hon. friend oppo. site (Mr. Bankes) had found fault with the extravagance of the expenditure, and had not pointed out one single item in which there could be a saving, whereas the contrary was the case. His hon. friend opposite had particularly pointed out a great saving which might be made in district horses; and in several articles under the head of expenses for the defence of the country; in which he agreed altogether with his hon. friend opposite, that very considerable savings might be made. Mr. Whitbread adverted to the high tone in which the right hon. gent. opposite (Mr. W. Pole) had talked of the incompetence of members to understand the accounts; and he contended, that, though neither an engineer nor a general officer, yet as a member of parliament he must be allowed to know something of the ordnance accounts; and though there might be circumstances connected with them of which official men alone could be aware, the House had a right to full and explicit explanation upon these points. When he talked of keeping things secret from the enemy, did he think that Buonaparté was such a dupe as our ministers were, to what was called secret intelligence? Did he think he would have undertaken an expedition against such a place as Antwerp without having a plan of it? If he had known of many things which ministers were about, he would have laughed at them, as he had done since. But it was impossible to commence the erection of such works without the thing being known; and it was in vain to expect secrecy, merely by keeping the head of parliament in a sack. He then stated, that he perfectly coincided in what had been said by the hon. general near him (Tarleton) whose authority was supported by many other eminent military characters. The military canal too, which had been constructed at so great an expence, was considered as highly ridiculous. He objected also to the idle expence of building magnificent houses for storekeepers, clerks, &c. and expressed his conviction that these things would never be properly managed till the accounts were regulated as a private individual would regulate his own affairs. Private morality was strictly applicable to general politics as well as private economy to the public expenditure. Why were not these buildings erected by contract, which would shew the expence at once, instead of giving a per centage to the builder on the sum is sued, which was a premium on fraud? tions, he could not believe that any gentleman would be found indisposed to give effect to pledges so solemnly and so frequently repeated. That economy was in the existing circumstances of the country indispensably necessary could not, he thought, be disputed by the most sceptical. That it was necessary, appeared to him perfectly obvious no less from the peculiar situation of this country than from the general state of Europe and of the world, and particularly from the operations of the enemy, which seemed directly and distinctly pointed at our financial prosperity. But, independently of these considerations, the known wishes and wants of the people were alone sufficient to cali the attention of the House to this subject. If no recommendations had ever been offered from the throne, if no pledges had ever been made by that House, it was impossible that any candid man who looked at the amount of the public revenue, and at the manner in which it was disposed of, could hesitate about the propriety of taking effectual steps to controul the public expenditure. -When it was known, that the whole of the burthen arising out of sinecures amounted to no less than 1,500,000l. per annum, could any one question that propriety? He did not mean to state that the entire of this expenditure ought to be done away; for he was willing to accede to the propriety of making good the seve ral sums voted by parliament; that the allowances, for instance, to the younger branches of the royal family were neither exceptionable nor unnecessary; but the amount of the expenditure under these [THIRD REPORT OF THE FINANCE COM- heads respectively, furnished an addiMITTEE.] Upon the motion of Mr. H. tional argument why economy, so uniMartin the House resolved into a com-versally admitted to be necessary, should mittee to take into consideration the Third Report of the Finance Committee, Mr. D. Giddy in the chair. The Report was then agreed to. HOUSE OF COMMONS. Monday, March 19. Mr. Martin then rose and said, that, in rising to perform the duty which he had assumed to himself, he felt a considerable degree of satisfaction from knowing that there was no objection to be made to the principle of the propositions which he meant to submit. It would, indeed, in his judgment, be impossible to justify any objection to a proceeding which had nothing but public economy in view. Since so many speeches from the throne had recommended economy, since so many addresses from that House had expressed an entire acquiescence in those recommenda be more particularly attended to in other respects. In fact, wherever that economy was practicable it ought to be promptly and effectually enforced, and there was, he believed, scarcely a department of the state in which its enforcement was not loudly called for by the nature and extent of our public expenditure. It was once observed, with regard to the duchy of Lancaster, that although it yielded only 4,000l. a year to the public treasury, it afforded 40,000l. to the pockets of individuals; and a similar observation was, he feared, applicable in a certain degree, to several other branches of the public revenue. Let the Committee recollect the sums raised in the way of fees and per strength to their opinion, and all he proposed by his Resolutions was distinctly and directly to pledge the House to act upon that opinion. quisites upon the produce of the public taxation, and how much these fees increased with the increase of our taxes, and then the grounds of his apprehension would be easily understood. Although he had regretted the delay which had taken place in bringing this question under discussion, he was disposed to consider that delay as by no means injurious to his object; for full time had been thus allowed for examining the question in all its bearings, and an opportunity had been offered for hearing the statement of an hon. gent. (Mr. Huskisson) respecting our finances, which statement, if it did not alarm, was certainly calculated to attract the most serious attention of the House, from the known acquaintance of that hon. gent., with the best sources of information upon that subject. It must now, therefore, be evident, that the closest examination of our expenditure should take place; that every degree of regularity in its administration and retrenchment in its application should be established. To his mind, indeed, it furnished matter of astonishment that some of those retrenchments had not been long since made, which had been often and long since recommended. By the Report of the Committee of Finance in 1795, the abolition of two offices, namely, the treasurership of the ordnance, and the paymaɛtership of the marines, was particularly recommended, and yet those offices had still existed, until the justice of the opinion of that Committee had become glaring to the country. Even now, indeed, those offices were tolerated, notwithstanding the notoriety of the evidence that they were totally unnecessary for any public purpose, and led only to the greatest abuse. Having thus stated his disposition to accede to any suggestion from Mr. Bankes, the hon. gent. expressed his happiness that that hon. member was again invested with the power of prosecuting and rendering effective his laudable solicitude for the promotion of public economy. That much had been done to economize the public expenditure, and to introduce reform into the public offices, he was ready now, as on a former occasion, to admit. But he regretted that, notwithstanding the Report of the Finance Committee in 1796, and the public animadversions which had been repeatedly made upon the subject, not a step towards reform had been taken in any of the law offices. On the contrary, every sinecure office had continued to be filled up again and again, from a succession of reversionary grants. Thus the Report of the Finance Committee of 1796 was utterly disregarded. Such disregard might have been tolerated before the salaries of the judges were advanced. But when that advance took place, it ought, in his opinion, to have been stipu lated with the judges, that they should give up part of their patronage. The Report of 1796 sanctioned this opinion; for it proposed that the patronage so given up should be disposed of in the ordinary way, and the produce applied to a fund, from which the judges who retired should derive their pensions. Such an arrangement ought, in fact, to have been provided for in the act granting the increase of the salaries of the judges. Had that been the case, he believed that a fund might have been formed, sufficient not only for pensions to judges on their retirement, but even to defray a considerable part of the salaries of the acting judges. The necessity of reform in the disposition of offices in the several law departments, was in fact notorious to all those who had any knowledge of the subject. The circumstances connected with the appoint As to the Resolutions which he meant to propose, the honourable gentleman begged it to be understood, that he was not tenacious of any forms which might create a difference of opinion among those who agreed in the main principle; his object being to embody the suggestions of the Commitiee of Finance, he was not at all wedded to forms, but would be will-ment of the chief clerk of the king's ing, with the utmost readiness, to attend to any proposition from the worthy chairman of that Committee, (Mr. Bankes) to whom he had before alluded. The suggestions of this Committee were entitled to peculiar attention. In fact, every day that had elapsed since their Report had been laid before the House, served to give bench, contributed to prove it. In this office there had been in fact but five vacancies since the restoration of Charles the Second. Nothing appeared to him more disgraceful to a great country, or more inconsistent with the dignity of the judicial offices, than that any judge should derive profit from fees or perquisites. While he recommended the reform he had described, he begged it to be understood, that it was quite foreign to his wish to interfere with the legitimate patronage, or fair emoluments of the judges. Indeed it was his opinion, that the arrangement he proposed would in effect add to their respectability, while it would not diminish their salaries. He would be sorry that his intention on such an occasion should be misunderstood or misinterpreted in any degree. Adverting to the late pamphlet of a right hon. gent. opposite (Mr. Rose) he expressed his astonishment at the position which that right hon. gent. had laid down, that the influence of the crown had not been increased since the adoption of Mr. Dunning's celebrated Resolution, "That the influence of the crown had increased, was increasing, and ought to be diminished." Such a position, indeed, was calculated to excite universal surprise. But there was scarcely a man of common observation in the country who did not know and could not prove the contrary. He would ask any man to look at the enormous increase of our army and navy since the passing of Mr. Dunning's Resolution at the several new offices created, since that period, and the pensions granted, since the adoption of Mr. Burke's bill, in violation of its spirit, and to state what he thought of the right hon ourable gentleman's extraordinary assertion. He would challenge the right hon. gentleman at any time to a discussion of the grounds upon which he pretended to rest that assertion. But the most effectual refutation of the right hon. gent. would appear from a simple statement of our comparative receipts and expenditure at the period Mr. Dunning's Resolution was adopted, and at the present day, with a Report of the grants and promotions which had taken place within that interval. Here the hon. gent. read the following statement : 1810. Public Funded Debt £. on 5th January.... 144,053,414 Interest & Manage on 5th January.... #784,552,112 Interest & Manage 29,992,565 MUL .............. 5,506,999 Lieut.-Generals.......... 80 ment..... The Redeemed stock not 2 bad From this statement he should leave it to the House and the public to decide as to the accuracy of the right hon. gent.'s assertion. For was it possible that any mau of common sense could subscribe to the opinion that such an augmentation of revenue, such a variety of appointments would not operate directly to increase the influence of the crown? But it seemed the right hon. gent. in his calculation quite forgotten the new sources of influence created by the barrack department, the transport office, and the board of controul, especially the latter, the junior members of which had, he understood, no other trouble assigned to them than that of receiving their salaries. It was, however, convenient for the right hon. gent. to forget these and other points also which could not at all square with his favourite doctrine as to the influence of the crown. After referring to the Report presented to the House of the number of civil offices in the country, and expressing a wish that a report of a similar nature should be annually laid before parliament, the hon. member proceeded to animadvert upon the object and application of the four and a half per cent. duties, Those duties were, he observed, originally levied for the purpose of keeping up and improving our fortresses in the colonies, and Majors................ 764 by no means with a view to be subject to the private dispensation of the crown. But, yet, those duties had been made the Army. Field Marshals.............. Generals...... 24 Generals......... 71 Major-Generals 180 Lieut.-Colonels....... 661 2080 means of advancing that influence which the right hon. gent. would maintain to have been for years back wholly unimproved. It was not difficult to divine the cause of the right hon. gent's anxiety, to disseminate his statement through the country before the discussion of this subject took place. But the doctrine of the right hon. gent. could make no stand. It was in fact totally unfounded. the aggregate amount to something considerable. The country had expected the attention of parliament to be directed to this subject, and therefore it must calculate, that as the report under consideration had lain two years before that House, it would now come to some satisfactory decision upon it. He was sorry that it had remained so long on the table without any decision being come to upon it, because, from that circumstance, the interest it had originally excited, and which it still in an equal degree deserved, seemed, from the attendance of members, to have somewhat abated. it became the peculiar duty of parliament to devote its attention to that object. From the temper manifested of late by the House, there was every reason to augur well for the cause of economy. Through the exertions that must result from a continuance of that temper he had no doubt that considerable savings would be made in the several departments of the public expenditure, and the smallest savings He wished, however, in the observations, should be estimated; for even such savwhich he felt it his duty to make with re-ings, if economy were extended, might, in spect to pensions, not to be understood as by any means disposed to object to the grant of a liberal provision and an ample reward from the public purse to meritorious public servants. But he would ever contend against all grants of pensions under the sign manual, as an illegitimate exercise of the prerogative. He also objected to the practice of granting pensions out of the salaries of public offices, for he maintained, that the crown ought to have no power to grant pensions contrary to the spirit and provisions of Mr. Burke's bill, which prescribed that the whole of the pension list should not exceed 90,000l. a year. If in any case With respect to the Amendments proit were deemed just to make any addi- posed he was willing to adopt the first tional grant, let it not be done by such and second Resolutions of the Chansubterfuges as he had alluded to-let not cellor of the Exchequer, as there was the provisions of Mr. Burke's bill be evaded in reality little difference between them -but let the case be brought fairly and and his own, but the third Resolution of constitutionally before parliament, which the right hon. gent. seemed to recognize never was and which never would be, he a principle which he (Mr. Martin) felt it trusted, inattentive to any claim of justice. his duty to oppose, namely, that some Whilst upon this topic he felt, that he offices should still continue to be matters could not impress too strongly upon the of patronage. There were he understood Committee the necessity of investigating some resolutions to be proposed by an hon. this question, and of making some provi- friend of his (Mr. Bankes) which he should sion against the practice he deprecated, have no objection to, as far as he was made which practice involved a wanton addition acquainted with their nature and substance. to the public burthens and an evasion of The eighth Resolution of the Chancellor of the law, while it gave scope to favouritism the Exchequer went to limit the pension list and unjustly extended the influence of to foreign ministers to 2,000l. a year, he the crown. Recurring to Mr. Burke's knew that many pensions had been lately bill he animadverted forcibly upon the granted for very short services, and would excess beyond its provision which had of wish to see some distinction established, by late taken place in the pension list. It which those, who had served long and sucwas his wish that the whole of this business cessfully, should be distinguished from should be brought annually under the those of a contrary description. As to the inspection of parliament. The grantees, interference of parliament upon such ocin all cases, of pensions, ought to be made casions, it was no new thing, in proof of known, in order that the amount of their which the hon. member quoted the case pensions might be compared with the na- of the receipts of the auditors of imprest ture of their services. It was by frequent accounts having been reduced from revision in these cases that parliament 13,000l. to 7,000l. a year, and also of a would be most likely to ascertain what motion of a similar tendency, with regard retrenchment was practicable; and under to the tellers of the exchequer, having the present circumstances of the country been lost in 1780, only by a majority of |