YEAS Mr. John Smyth General Tarleton } 54 } 54 NOES {Mr. Randyll Burch And the members being equal, Mr. Speaker said, that he would not, by his vote, preclude the House from again considering the bill in question; and therefore he declared himself with the Yeas. So it was resolved in the affirmative. Mr. Pitt then informed the House, that as he perceived so many gentlemen were unfriendly to the bill, he would move tomorrow to put it off for three months; which he accordingly did. Debate on the Marquis of Lansdown's Motion touching Reform in the Public Offices.] May 2. The Marquis of Lans down rose and said :—Sensible as I am of the improbability that any motion of mine should meet the assent of a majority of your lordships, it may perhaps excite some surprise, that I should offer myself to your attention. I have only to answer in my own defence, that if ever I weighed a subject more than another, it is thiswhether I should ever again trouble your [VOL. XXXII.] lordships. I was not reduced to this state of perplexity from any motive of personal disrespect to your lordships nor from any feeling of personal neglect. But the utter improbability of any exertion that I could make, being successful in producing a change in the system at present acted upon, discouraged me from undertaking a task, which I had every reason to fear would prove fruitless in the end, accompanied as it is with a sacrifice of health, the trouble of attendance, and above all, an intrusion upon the patience of your lordships. Why then, it will be asked, have I ventured to appear in my place this evening? My answer is, that had I pursued the line of conduct which these considerations suggested, I should have been under the necessity of explaining to the country the grounds upon which I acted-another motive which has influenced me to trouble your lordship this day-on the 15th of December 1779, and on the 8th of February 1780, I proposed two motions, the effect of which was, to suggest that system of public operations with which it is my wish that the resolutions I am to submit to your consideration, this evening should follow up. When these motions were proposed, they were called, not republican, but anarchical: they were said to be instruments of alarm, and the committee appointed to give them effect was termed a committee of safety. I had the satisfaction, however, of seeing the minister of the day obliged to come forward to propose a commission of public accounts. This commission was composed of independent men. The measures which were then adopted, embraced an extensive system of reform. In that system I was supported by many members of the present administration. Since that time, however, there has been a suspension of that system, and a desertion among its friends. Far be it from me to set out with imputing blame to the present administration: all I wish, is to offer them an opportunity of vindicating their characters. If they stand firm to the resolution which they then voted, "that the influence of the crown had increased, was increasing, and ought to be diminished," it is but fair that their reputations should not suffer in the opinion of the world, from the miscon ceptions of any set of men. It is not my intention to enter into a * See Vol. 20, pp. 1285, 1365. [ 3 X detailed examination of the various papers upon the table, but only to touch upon the principle capital points they contain. The first particular to which I would draw your lordships' attention, is the second report upon the subject of consolidating the different boards into one; an expedient which would abolish fifteen out of twenty five places. And I cannot but be surprised, that this resolution has never been acted upon, not only because of its importance, but also, because this report was decidedly approved of in 1782, by a vote of the House of Commons. The reduction of expense attending such a reform would be very considerable; but this is an object comparative trifling, when balanced with the diminution of influence, as each of these places may be supposed capable of gaining a member of parliament, if he is to be so gained. specting the patent officers of the board of customs, these gentlemen are divided into four classes; first, those that are illegal; secondly, those that are useless; thirdly, those who execute their offices by means of deputies; and lastly, such as may be consolidated. It was the object of the commissioners of accounts to abolish these needless offices, and to effect this is one of the purposes of the resolution, which I shall have the honour to move this evening. In the port of London alone, they are 61 in number, enjoying salaries of 26,000l. a year. The sav ing to the public, however, is a trivial consideration, when compared with the benefit which would accrue to trade from their dismissal. In the out-ports there are 157 persons of the same description, with salaries to the amount of 140,000%. The mint also was pronounced by the commissioners to require some reform, which never has taken place. After what was said likewise upon the crown lands, I should have expected some improvement on this score, or at least, not to have heard of any more grants of those lands being made to individuals. I would next call your lordships attention to the 9th report, respecting the pay of the army. The way that the army is paid, has been justly said in the report to be a scene of composition and decomposition, of mystery, ambiguity, and fraud. Instead of two simple articles, of subsistence and arrears, there are separate accounts kept for agency, clothing subsistence, Chelsea, and a number of other articles, which serve only to accumulate expense, and to bewilder those whose business it is to inquire into the mode in which the money of the nation is expended. Why a poor soldier should have so much to pay to the right, and so much to the left, it is impossible to conceive, except it be for the purpose of fraud and concealment, as a pretext of supporting a number of idle clerks, at the expense of a deserving soldiery, and to enable ministers, without detection, to apply the public money to purposes different from those for which it was voted by parliament. If this is not the case, why is not the clear and easy plan suggested by the committee adopted?-The next report to which I would advert, is the eleventh, relating to the unfunded debt, the object of which was to acquaint the people with the real extent of the burthens incurred in the course of a war, and to provide against the debt increasing more rapidly than the means of paying it. But this, like every other beneficial proposition, has been rejected by the present ministers. In the fourteenth report re * See Vol. 23, p. 119. But this leads me to a more important and pressing inquiry-the increased influence of the crown which, in my opinion, has augmented to an alarming degree. When we consider that 1,300,000, without the consent of parliament, have been spent in erecting barracks in this kingdom, which are neither more nor less than armed fortresses, what are we to think? [A cry of Hear! hear!'] Do noble lords cry hear! when I give them this designation? I repeat, that the barracks are nothing less than armed fortresses. Though barracks, to a certain extent, may be necessary and useful, that admission does not disprove, that to their present extent, they may not overturn the constitution. When I look at the army in all its departments, I can perceive an alarming increase of crown influence. Indeed, it seems to be the system of the present reign, to pay all attention to the army. The soldiery get any augmentation of pay from the king without the knowledge of parliament, and a variety of douceurs are given them, the credit of which is appropriated to the sovereign, but the expense is kindly left to the nation. Formerly, only the younger branches of families were desirous of going into the army; now, not individuals alone, but whole families are enlisted: the con sions; and whose more immediate duty it was to have examined into the contracts and other services, pretended to have been performed, and to have pointed out and punished those frauds and abuses, which were afterwards, with no great difficulty, detected by the commissioners of public accounts. The general and unli sequence of which is, there is an end of all education; the books which used to be read when I came into the world, lie neglected, and the sciences are left without a votary, with the solitary exception of military tactics, which at present seem wholly to engross the attention of our youth. In case of an invasion, I would wish to see every hand armed in its de-mited power which was given by the refence; but I never wish to see the country thus converted into a standing army. From the ordinaries, I proceed to the extraordinaries of the army, which, by the committee of 1782, were represented as an evil which called, in the loudest terms, for immediate correction, and that at a time when they were much more inconsiderable than they are at present. Here the noble marquis quoted the passages from the Report. Another paper he would read, extracted from the writings of a person, of whom it was only justice to say, that he treated this subject with the greatest ability. Mr. Hatsell says:-In all the different services, the navy, the army and the ordnance, there has always been an exceeding, or debt contracted upon each, which has been brought before parliament in a subsequent session, under the title of navy debt, or of extraordinaries incurred, and not provided for. Formerly these exceedings were confined within some limits. In what is commonly called the German War, in 1758, these sums first became very large; but in the late war, carried on in America, they exceeded all bounds. There was a degree of negli. gence or extravagance, or both, in those who had the conduct of this department, which rendered all the votes of the House of Commons, or bills for appropriating the supplies, ridiculous and nugatory. The sums demanded, upon the head of extraordinaries of the army, incurred and not provided for, during this period, fell not very much short of the whole sums voted by parliament upon estimate for that service; nay, in the year 1782, they appear to have actually exceeded them. This was such a shameful prostitution of the money of the public, that though perhaps the distance, and magnitude, and nature of the American war might be pleaded as some alleviation and excuse for the generals abroad who commanded, or for the ministers at home, who ought to have controlled those commanders; nothing can justify the House of Commons, who permitted this practice to continue, uninterrupted, through several ses solution of the 3rd of April 1734, to the ministers, was a measure entirely subversive of the rules of parliament, and contrary to the practice which has been wisely established since the Revolution, appropriating the supplies to the services for which they have been voted. We see therefore, that this proceeding did not pass without much difficulty and debate; and that soon after another, and, so far as it was limited, a better mode was adopted, which, though it gave the ministers credit for the manner of disposing of the money voted, confined that credit to a precise and special sum. It is therefore incumbent upon the House of Commons, not only to make this supply as small as possible, but in a subsequent session to inquire into the particular expenditure of the sum granted; and to be assured that it is strictly applied to those purposes for which it was intended, and not squandered loosely, improvidently, wantonly, or perhaps corruptly. Now, does not the noble lord opposite feel that the account of army extraordinaries on the table is liable to the charge which Mr. Hatsell so ably advances against accounts of this nature? It has required ingenuity of no mean kind, to wrap them up in that obscurity with which they are enveloped. Upon the present system of keeping the public accounts, there is nothing which may not come under the head of army extraordinaries. In these accounts I see great services performed at nominally a small expense, whereas I observe thousands upon thousands squandered upon the most trifling and insignificant objects. I received an anonymous letter the other day from the city, informing me that 40,000l. had been sent to the dey of Algiers. I inquired into the truth of the fact, and I find that a very large sum, though not quite to this amount, has been sent. One would think that ministers themselves would be anxious to institute some inquiry as a check upon the numerous hands which are daily * Hatsell's Precedents, Vol. 3, p. 186. in the public purse; and that the country | purse. When I was in office, instead of may have an opportunity of discerning between the honest man and the knave. Another article on the list of abuses is the appointment of a third secretary of state. This is a matter which I am inclined to take notice of, when I recollect the language which was held by an hon. member of another House, when the office was abolished some years ago: "It has died in state, was disposed of with funeral honours, and was, he hoped, consigned for ever to oblivion." But now it is revived, and revived by those very men who supported its abolition. What does not such conduct put it in the power of Mr. Thelwall to say? Will he not say, that there is no dependance to be placed in any man whatever, and that there are no professions of patriotism, come from what quarter they will, in which the people are not liable to be deceived? I find, however, that though ministers have not paid much attention to the suggestions of the committee relative to the abolition of old offices and boards, they have most scrupulously complied with their ideas of the necessity of instituting new ones. In one instance, the board of naval architecture, they have acted right. I approve of the institution; and all I wish is, that it may not be converted into sinecures. The transport board I conceive to be useless and unnecessary. Transports in time of war are certainly much wanted, and that want, I experienced severely at the end of the American war; but is a board the most proper institution to secure a sufficient supply? Is there any person in the House that does not know how little business is done by a board? One active man, such as Mr. Atkinson, if you would give him confidence and time, could do the whole business much better than a board. I know the arguments in favour of boards, drawn from the check which the different individuals of which they are composed, may give to one another. But I have always been of opinion, that one man, under the board of treasury, would transact the business with much greater effect, and with equal security to the public. I mention the board of treasury, because all the public money ought to flow directly from the treasury; and instead of giving the first lord a staff, which is the present badge of the office. I would give him a kaife to cut off every man's fingers that dared thrust his hand into the public employing a victualling board, I made all the contracts for meat, &c. by a confidential person under myself. This I knew might subject me to an imputation of wishing to embezzle the public money; but I despised the insinuation, and am certain the country gained by the mode of procedure which I adopted. By the abolition of this board there would be a saving of 5,000l. a year to the public. But the time would fail me to reckon all the abuses which have been introduced and sanctioned by the present administration. I am tired with surveying all the contents of the Red Book, that chest of corruption. The army list, of itself an elephant, and the Red Book will soon become large enough to form a library. And all this has taken place under the conduct of two noble lords, who came into office abetting the principle that the influence of the crown had increased, was increasing, and ought to be diminished! The measures of civil regulation which have been lately adopted, present a deplorable prospect of our internal situation. When the late famous bills were before parliament, I was in the country, partly on account of my health, and partly in the idea that my attendance would be of no avail to counteract the intentions of those who brought them forward. Another bill of most destructive tendency we have reason to dread, will soon be brought before us, the principle of which is to establish a government police in Westminster, and which, I am afraid, may soon be extended to the country. There is still another evil, which, from its magnitude, is great enough to swallow up all the rest-the unlimited credit upon the bank, which has been voted to the minister in a bill repealing a salutary statute of William and Mary, restricting the credit of government upon the bank, and which would have passed through the House unnoticed, had it not been for the vigilance of a noble lord (Lauderdale) whose talents and whose virtues do credit to the country from which he comes. I must beg not to be understood in any thing I say on this subject, to reflect upon the conduct of the bank; on the contrary, I admire it; and I do not believe it issues a single note, that it has not a representative for in gold or silver. As I have never been a governor of the bank, I cannot speak with certainty, nor can I even speak with the degree of certainty that beneficial grants have been directed: And, on the whole, Whether the public expenses have increased beyond the supplies annually granted by parliament? "This, which would be a duty incumbent upon parliament, were the existing war ever so necessary, just, and successful, is become most urgent, and indispensable, in a contest at once bloody and expensive beyond example; without plan or object, except such objects as the misconduct of the war first created; attended with a waste of money, profuse almost beyond imagination, which has already reduced our trade to a dependance on the very warfare, which is fundamentally destroying it, and has so exhausted our resources, as to drive us to the wretched expedient of reviving taxes, which were a few years since repealed on the ground of thereby increasing the revenue; an effect which that repeal 'produced, and a policy which must therefore, on the return of peace, be again resorted to, and which will consequently bring with it the necessity of finding new taxes, if new and productive taxes can be invented in our then exhausted state. the governor's wife could do, to whom her husband said, "Be quiet, my dear, for no person knows so much, who has not passed the chair;" but when I see the bank, so much under the influence of government, driven to the necessity of stopping its advances, I can impute it to nothing but a fear to go farther. This shews that every thing has its bounds. When people feel unconstrained they wish to try how far they can go, till at last they come to the end of their tether. In such a situation as this, alarm spreads, and the most serious inconveniences arise. I have heard, that for a ten thousand pound prize, a number of coal-heavers, the holders, were forced to give 1,000l. discount. I find too, that the ministers, by whom the lottery was considered a fund which was not to be continued, have made it in a manner a permanent article of revenue. By the repeal of the act alluded to, the bank is at liberty to stretch their credit to government as far as they please, and the minister, without consent of parliament, has an ample resource within his reach. The bank, on the present system, may be converted into a citadel in the midst of London, and stand in the place of parliament, between the king and the nation. On the chapter of finance I shall not now enter, as the papers are too voluminous to go through at one sitting. I shall only say that they open a more dreadful picture of our situation than it is possible for the human imagination to conceive. Frightful as bankruptcy is, and grievous as our burthens may be, there was still some hope, while our constitution remained unimpaired: when it was invaded, ruin, irresistible and irremediable, could only be our fate. The marquis concluded with moving, "That as we see no effectual steps taken to realise those measures of Reform, for which the present ministers, at their entrance into office, stood strongly pledged to the public, or those earnestly recommended in the reports upon the table by two boards of commissioners, both appointed by parliament, it is incumbent on this House to inquire into the cause of so extraordinary an omission, as well as, Whether any new offices have since been created? Whether any old salaries have been increased on slight pretences? Whether any salaries have been granted for special purposes, and continued, though the reasons for them have ceased? Whether any warrants for "In a situation so alarming, and so manifestly tending to destroy the confidence of the people in parliament, which (as every reflecting man must have with deep concern observed) has for some years past, been rapidly on the decline; it behoves parliament, by a timely revival of its ancient energy and integrity, to convince the people, that their constitutional guardians are awake to the common danger, and are determined to come forward with such firm measures of public order and reform, as will effec⚫ tually relieve the subject, and remedy evils, which, if still suffered to accumulate, will be past all remedy, and must inevitably terminate in public confusion." Lord Grenville said, that the motion altogether, was one of the most extraordinary that had ever been brought before the House. To the principal points of the noble lord's speech he never could assent. Instead of no steps being taken on the reports alluded to, since the year 1782, it must be in the recollection of the House, that several bills were brought in upon those reports. Why was he and those who acted with him to be arraigned now for what they were alleged to have omitted before they came into office? He then proceeded to the first point |