country within one another; the excess of the loan for each year over the sinking fund had not decreased in the due proportion; the increase of product in 1808 had been owing principally to the mere modification of a duty ad valorem, and could not make the principle of any fixed and definite calculation. He seemed to think that it would go more to equalize the mutual proportion, the income and expenditure should bear to each other, to resort in some degree to the aid of new taxes. The Chancellor of the Exchequer admitted that the produce of the measure of 1808 had been owing in some measure to a progressive increase of the stamp duties, but in a still greater proportion to the new regulations then erected.

After some further observations the Resolutions were agreed to, and the report, the House having resumed, was ordered to be received on Friday.

HOUSE OF LORDS.

Thursday, May 17.

[OFFICES IN REVERSION BILL.] Earl Grosvenor rose to move the second reading of the bill, which had been sent up from the Commons, with various alterations from the preceding bills, on the same subject, which had been on former occasions rejected by their lordships. He wished to impress upon their lordships' minds the propriety and the necessity of fully and fairly considering, and of passing into a law the present bill; at least of agreeing to the second reading, and going into the committee upon the bill, wherein any part of it that appeared liable to well-founded objections, might be amended and corrected. His lordship stated the various circumstances that had hitherto attended the progress of this measure, and forcibly recommended its adoption on every principle both of public economy and constitutional policy. Considered as a measure of economy, he would not undertake to say that it would produce any very great immediate saving of the public money; still were it to be considered only in an economical view, it was highly deserving of their lordships' consideration. It was well known that the finance committee of the House of Commons, to which, more especially after the repeated declarations of the sense of that House upon the subject, he was disposed, and he thought their lordships ought to feel disposed, to pay great and just attention, had

considered the existing state of reversionary offices as an obstacle in the way of arrangements for a reform, an alteration or abolition of sinecure places. Such places, were, in argument, generally defended on the ground that it was desirable that the crown should have the power of so rewarding great services; yet it could hardly be maintained, that the practice was conformable to the principle on which their existence was defended. If their lordships would, on an economical principle, look into the subject, they would, he believed, see, that from the period of the commencement of the present reign, up to the present time, 100,000l. a year might have been saved to the country; and that upon a calculation of compound interest, such a measure of practical economy followed up, according to its principles, would have saved for the service of the public a sum little less than 20 millions. He had as yet heard nothing in the shape of argument or refutation to alter his mind respecting the improvidence of allowing sinecures to be granted and held as at present, and certainly nothing against the object of the present measure, which directly tended in its degree to the accomplishment of a general and salutary system of reform in the expenditure of the country. Neither in any constitutional view, could he see any ground of argument against this measure. The present practice did, in fact, fetter the due and wholesome use of the prerogatives of the crown, and was consequently prejudicial to the public interests.

The principles on which the crown conferred the rewards due to meritorious individuals for eminent services were left completely untouched by the adoption of such a bill, while the mischief occasioned by imprudent grants in reversion would be intirely done away. Many of the objections made in former discussions to the principle of such a measure were obviated in the present bill, which took no notice of the reversionary grants in the possession of the clergy, &c. It was a matter of great regret to him, to find on former occasions, that the heads of the law and the heads of the clergy were of different opinions from himself, and came down to the House to oppose these bills. It was also a matter to him of deep concern that so little regard was paid to the wishes, and feelings, and opinions of the nation at large. He had not any recollection of a measure in which the public

of Commons had been sitting for a considerable time, and this bill was all that their lordships had yet heard of, respecting any general system of economical reform. He had no sort of objection to every reasonable and practicable amelioration; but he liked to see his way clear in such matters, and to know what he was doing, before he should consent to an alteration of existing establishments. There were great difficulties in every way of viewing the subject: but the last clause of the present bill rendered it quite impossible for him to avoid voting for its rejection, as it contained quite a new principle, and that one of the most objectionable that could be conceived; it proposed that reversions should not be granted hereafter by the crown, but might be granted in the event of an address from either House of Parliament to the crown for the granting such reversion. By this means the patronage was, in fact, to be transferred from the sovereign to either House of Parliament. This was the sort of compliment which this bill intended to pay to the sovereign-in whom the right was constitutionally vested. He could see no possible public service to be obtained in a view of economy, certainly not in a constitutional view, by such a bill. As to what had been said about the conduct of ministers, about their coming into office, and the campaigns in Spain and Walcheren, such was his opinion of the importance of this bill, that if it was imagined that it would turn out this weak administration, as it was called, he could only say, that in such a view of it, it would be as easy for a child to pull down a mountain with its little finger. Respecting the popular feelings and opinions, he was confident that whatever they might be, their lordships could have but one mode of conduct on this occasion, as on every other; namely to do, not that which a popular clamour might call for, but to do that which in their hearts they believed to be right; to act according to their own consciences, and their own views. Disaffected persons might exist, notwithstanding the excellence of the constitution; and every one who recollected what had passed during the last 16 or 20 years must be impressed with a sense of what he owed to the general welfare of the state, after seeing the great and awful events that had occurred. Disaffection some years back proceeded in a more direct way. It had now changed its mode of attack, but still re

mained precisely the same thing as ever. It then attacked all the most dignified and venerable institutions of the country: now it assailed the constitution and the privileges of parliament, but affected to respect and venerate the throne. But their lordships might depend upon it, that the throne itself must be endangered, if it succeeded in its efforts against the privileges of parliament, which parliament possessed only for its own security and dignity, and for the sake of the people themselves.

Viscount Melville contended, that it was delusive to argue on any saving as a consequence of this measure, for the present.The public had been told, that there had been of late an increase of places, by those who made gross exaggerations, and incendiaries would always be found to také advantage of the popular prejudices, to kindle the flame of discontent; but parlia ment was not to act upon feelings arising from such arts and insinuations. It was their duty to protect the House of Parliament, and also to protect the third branch of the constitution, against an attack made under professions of respect for the crown. Had offices unnecessarily increased of late years? He wished for an account of the number of places held in reversion in 1760, and those so held at present, to see how that matter stood. He had seen a book on the subject, containing statements of reductions of places, &c. during this reign. All administrations had successively abolished offices. In Mr. Burke's bill these grants were entirely omitted. In Mr. Pitt's administration, the pamphlet (Mr. Rose's) to which he had before alluded, shewed that great reductions took place. Every administration had made similar reductions; the last had done so. Turning round to lord viscount Sidmouth, he begged pardon for having omitted to particularize that noble lord's administration, which had certainly done the same (a laugh.) He would however caution noble lords against sanctioning the principles and arguments upon which the bill under consideration was brought forward for their adoption. What, said the supporters of it, can be more absurd than to grant places to persons yet unborn, and of whose capacity to fill such places no idea could previously be formed?-This objection the noble earl would do well seriously to turn in his mind: their lordships should all give it a proper degree of attention:-They would then see how far it went to affect their own hereditary honours

and distinctions. The noble earl was destined to be a statesman-an hereditary adviser of the crown before he was born; and who could have been certain beforc-hand that the noble earl would have have proved such a light to that House, such an ornament to his country, as he now proved to be? Besides the high distinction of the peerage, the most splendid the sovereign could bestow, was often the reward of the brilliant and meritorious services of the father; and how could a father be more satisfactorily rewarded than by conferring favours and honours upon him which were to descend to his immediate descendants and to his latest posterity. In the same manner were places in reversion granted. The father's services were doubly rewarded, by continuing the reward to his 'son. Did not they vote pensions to children yet unborn, when they conferred grants for lives to those who performed distinguished services to the country, such as lords St. Vincent, Duncan, &c. Would they admit the principle and claim its exercise for either of the Houses exclusively. Each might have in that case its favourite, and each might pass their votes for an address, and go scrambling in at the doors and windows and chimnies of the palace, to see which of them should first present it! Could they do real service to the country by taking from the crown the fountain of rewards and honours, its constitutional prerogative? He could never consent to pass a bill so erroneous, upon the plea of pleasing the people. He was certain that in any measure for the real relief of the people, nothing could be more desirable to the sovereign, than to do every thing that lay with him, yet, although he thought the bill objectionable enough in most of its provisions to be rejected at once, still he would suggest the propriety of deferring a decision upon it for three weeks or so, in order to see whether the other House of Parliament would furnish any new grounds to justify its adoption.

Earl Grey said, that this measure, so repeatedly sent up to their lordships from the House of Commons, deserved their most serious attention. Though he concurred in several of the observations that had fallen from the noble lords who preceded him, and though he was not friendly to the last clause which grounded the right of granting reversions on an address of either House of Parliament, yet he could see no particular objection to its provisions that might not be removed in a committee, by

which their lordships would shew most respect to the opinion of the other House, and a proper attention to the feelings of the country. He condemned however the erroneous reasonings on which the noble lord compared the principle of granting reversions to that by which their lordships sat in that House, by hereditary right. He approved altogether of the object of the measure now proposed, either in an economical or constitutional point of view. This opinion was confirmed by a former speech of the noble and learned lord on the woolsack, who, in relation to his own department, had stated, that the practice of granting reversions in the time of lord Thurlow, and even of lord Northington was so frequent, that the noble and learned lord, during eight years of his chancellorship, and my lords Rosslyn and Erskine, could scarcely get an opportunity of conferring any thing on those who had claims upon them by services or consanguinity.

Respecting sinecures and offices in reversion, it had been maintained, that the legal rights and securities by which they were held, were of a nature so similar to those by which private property was possessed by individuals, and that it was so necessary to hold sacred every right which was legally given, that they could not with justice be affected to the injury of the holders. His lordship confessed that in a full view of the case, he inclined greatly to that opinion. Yet some of these offices could never have been expected to produce the sums which, under the recent circumstances of the nation, they had produced to the occupiers, and it was natural, therefore, that the public should look anxiously to their lordships proceedings for some salutary regulation upon such subjects. For instance, he was informed that three offices held by three noble lords, yielded an income to those noble persons of no less a sum than 75,000!. per annum. Lord Arden, Earl Camden and the marquis of Buckingham. One of them possessed by a noble lord opposite (lord Arden), was also granted in reversion in case of his survival to another, a near relative of that noble lord (Mr. Perceval.) Now, upon the principle he had mentioned, no bill of retrenchment, Mr, Burke's nor any other, could make any speedy alteration in such offices. With respect to what the noble viscount had stated from a pamphlet lately published by an eminent author (Mr. Rose); be

was surprised that the noble lord should argue upon the statements contained in it as conclusive, upon the subjects of the retrenchments made during the present reign, and of the decrease of the patronage and influence of the crown. It would require no great knowledge or trouble, if there were time for it, to expose the erroneous and false statements and con clusions which that pamphlet contained. How could any man seriously contend, that this patronage had decreased, who compared the taxes of the country at the time of his Majesty's accession, with their present state, and considered the vast augmentations of our immense naval and military establishments, and the unexampled increase of the number of persons employed in the collection and administration of the revenue? It was scarcely possible to doubt upon this subject. The question then before their lordships was whether it was fitting and expedient, that the grant of places in reversion should be for the future abolished. Should the abolition of sinecures succeed, then this bill would be perfectly innocent, and should it not, then he contended that the bill would be beneficial. He had no hesitation in saying that in all views of the subject which he could take, he thought their lordships ought to pass it.

The noble lord then proceeded to comment on the singular conduct of administration respecting this bill. In the other House, the person who was at the head of the ministry said, he saw no good nor harm in the measure, and therefore he gave it his support; and yet when it came up to that House, ministers were ready to oppose it, though they avoided on such occasions entering into any discussion upon its merits. Why had they not all along taken an express and decided part? He considered the existing practice respect ing reversions as an anticipation of the means of the crown, and as weakening its just prerogatives; and the abolition of it, as giving the crown a much better opportunity of exercising its prerogative for any purpose conducive to its own dignity or the public welfare. He was confident, that there never was a subject of public importance on which he had found so little difference of opinion in conversation with others, or from all he heard or saw of the public mind. He exhorted the House therefore to pay this mark of attention to the public feeling: if it were but little, it would yet be a graceful indication of their

VOL. XVI.

disposition to relieve them of any part of the heavy burthens they were obliged to bear. His lordship then noticed the difficulty with which the means of raising money was accompanied, to shew the necessity of making all practicable savings, and instanced the case of the lottery, which with all its train of evil consequences to the morals and habits of the people, no minister had yet been prevailed upon to relinquish. In the economical reforms and retrenchments which had been made, no administration that he had yet known, had done all that it might, and ought to have done, in pursuit of such great objects. He did not, in this case, except even that administration of which he composed one, though he must add, that from the various circumstances in which they found themselves placed, they had scarcely time to do more than to begin such undertakings, and to offer some prospects to the country when they were displaced. But he would add, that a future administration must take some more decisive and effectual steps for this purpose than had as yet been taken by any ministry that had ever been in power. He must concur in what had been said of the virtues and merits of the sovereign; but he must deeply lament that his Majesty had such imprudent advisers, whose principles of policy and government were so dangerous, and might prove so fatal; who took no warning from the terrible calamities that by a vicious policy had overwhelmed other countries.

Respecting the state of the times, he must say, that during his political life he had not known the general state of the country, such as so seriously to call for attention, and even to excite apprehension. Discontent had never been so generally prevalent as at the present moment. The people might be indeed, and he believed, in some respects they were deluded on important public subjects; but he had still the highest opinion of their good sense and patriotism, and of the effect of conciliation and attention to their just wishes and feelings. But what could they be expected to think and to feel, when they witnessed the daily conduct of the administration; when they heard of reversions and sinecures being defended as the means of enabling the King to reward eminent services, and saw them bestowed for no such purposes, bestowed in open opposition and violence to all their known feelings-when they saw even in the case of providing for those

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