now suffer to go uncontradicted, and that was the idea of French manufactured silks being permitted to be imported into this country. Such an idea going abroad might produce great discontent, and therefore he could not agree that the motion should extend to silk goods, which were actually prohibited. Lord Cochrane contended, that he himself did actually see French silk goods for sale within these two days. If no silk goods however had really been imported, the return would most effectually shew this. Mr. Rose asked, would the noble lord take upon him to say, that had seen French silks in the ris within these two days? Lord Cochrane said he had seen them fore, and was informed they had been ately imported. Mr. Rose said no Custom-house officer dared suffer any such article to be imported. Sir F. Burdett submitted, that with the information his noble friend had received, he had done nothing more than his duty in bringing the matter before the House; and he hoped the House would not be satisfied unless the word silks formed part of the motion. The return too, if it shewed that no silks had actually been imported, would most effectually calm any dissatisfaction or fermentation that might prevail. Mr. Rose thought it hardly worth while to oppose the motion as it stood, as the return would give the best answer to this charge. Lord Cochrane did not pretend to say that the silks of which he spoke had been entered at the Custom-house; but he had been informed, that they had formed part of a cargo of the value of 9,000l. which had been imported into this country. Sir J. Newport moved to add to the motion the words, "Whether for exportation or for home consumption," when The motion so amended was agreed to. The House then resolved itself into a Committee on the Petitions against the Orders in Council. SINECURE OFFICES BILL.] On the order of the day for taking into consideration the Report of the Sinecure Offices Bill, Mr. W. Dundas argued against the principle of the Bill. His chief ground of objection was, however, that it violated the articles of Union with Scotland. The Bill pretended only to regulate Sinecure Offices, but he contended, that as far as Scotland was concerned, it went altogether to abolition. In a question of this kind, it ought, in his opinion, never be forgotten that the rights of two countries were to be considered; and though the making of distinction might be invidious, yet he never could suffer the rights of his country to be violated without opposition; he never could suffer the rights of the Scottish peopl, the remnants of their ancient monarchy, the memorial of their pride as an independent nation, to be done away, without making all those efforts which his private duty as well as his love of country dictated. The people of Scotland had stipulated at the Union, that their chief offices of state should be preserved. This was to them a sort of remuneration, and not merely an act of grace or favour; and he should like to know on what ground it was, that the very first offices in Scotland were, in defiance of solemn treaty and plighted national faith, to be now abolished? Was this preserving that honourable feeling in the contemplation of which the Union with Scotland was formed; or was it not rather, for a paltry consideration, a dereliction of that honourable feeling? When Mr. Burke made his attempt at the reformation of offices, did such a departure from good faith ever enter into his head? Did he not in fact know human nature too well ever to have ventured on a breach of faith with a people who were too much alive to feelings of that description to have suffered such an insult and such an injury with tame insensibility? The right hon. gentleman then protested, that he had no quarrel with the mover or supporters of. this Bill; that he opposed it totally on high national ground. That he respected the rights of England, but that he never would desert the rights of Scotland; and that if this Bill were to pass, he should feel it his duty to say that it was an unnecessary infringement on the character, faith, and honour of a nation. The Lord Advocate of Scotland followed on the same side. He was quite aware that gentlemen by no means conceived to what evil results this Bill might lead. At the time of the Union with Scotland it was stipulated, that the municipal law and its regulations should be preserved entire. This was done as much for the sake of supporting private right as for any public consideration; it was done, in fact, for the safety of the landed proprietors. Scot it in truth abolished it. It gave up a place of high trust and public care to obscure and inferior individuals, who should act as deputies; and by it, therefore, the property of Scotland was put into unsafe hands. He then contended, that as far as the Bill regarded Scotland it enacted con doing particular acts in distinct places at The land was united to England in their public seal, but in matters of private right it was reserved that Scotland should have a keeper of the great seal. This office was therefore a memorial of the ancient Scottish monarchy, it was a lasting symbol of that independent kingdom: and, he conceived, that, without the greatest out-tradictions. It commanded one to be rage to the feelings of a great portion of the British empire, it could not be destroyed. In this instance he stood up for his country, not as asking a favour from England, but as demanding the preservation of a right. In fact, Scotland was asking nothing from England but the mere keeping of a covenant; and he was confident that the House would never consent to depart from stipulations which were solemn in their origin and rendered sacred by time. The hon. and learned gentleman then argued on the enactments of the Bill, which entrusted to deputies what it took from the principals. The offices were destroy-danger the safety of the state. The House ed or sunk into inferior situations, which had lately been threatened with this pomno persons but those of inferior rank pous appearance; but he did not appear would ever think of filling. All responsi- in his place as the advocates for Ireland bility was therefore at an end, because it did. He asked no privileges, he prayed could not be expected that deputies cal- for no favour; but he demanded the fulculated for situations of a few hundreds afilment of a contract, the preservation of year could be sufficiently responsible to the land proprietors of Scotland. Were the landed rights of Scotland to be thus trifled away? In fact, when deputies would be converted into principals as holders of the offices of Scotland, he wished to know what, except the honesty of the deputies, could the landed proprietors of Scotland depend upon? And as to their honesty, he was afraid that it would require all the pure virtue and all the immaculate character of the chairman of the committee of finance, to withstand the temptations which they would continually meet. He then went into the details of the Bill. It abolished, in the first place, the office of the keeper of the great seal of Scotland. (No, from Mr. Bankes.) The hon. gentleman said no, but he said yes. He should not mind the interruptions of the hon. gentleman, but he would look to the Bill itself. The Bill abolished the emolument of this great office. (Hear, hear, from Mr. Bankes and the opposition.) Well! what remained of the office after the emolument? The emolument was what induced responsible persons to take it; and it was the want of responsibility which he attributed to the enactments of the present Bill. The Bill, to be sure, only said that it regulated this office, but rights which were never considered inju rious to any mortal, which were the legacy given to her children by an ancient kingdom, and which were now sanctioned by an Union of one hundred years. Mr. Lyttelton observed, that notwithstanding the high authorities of Junius and Wilkes, he had always thought the assertion a calumny, that the Scottish nation was attached with peculiar fervour to any thing in the shape of pecuniary emolument; the speech just delivered had induced him to waver in his opinion, and perhaps his countrymen might thank the right hon. and learned gentleman for a confirmation of the truth of the statement. He (Mr. L.) could not give the Scotch credit for that zealous attachment to monarchy which had been so much boasted; nor would he dwell upon the subject, lest the headless ghosts of a Charles and a Montrose should be conjured up in the imaginations of the members for North Britain. He had passed a considerable portion of his life in Scotland, and he would not, as their countryman to-night had done, be so unjust as to assert, that he had noticed any peculiar affection for the majesty of inefficiency, or the dignity of idleness. With regard to the immediate question, he was fully convinced that the not to compare it with that which had hitherto prevailed, and under which there had been various abuses, but with the present system, amended as it was proposed to be by his right hon. friend, (the Chancellor of the Exchequer), by which amendment a number of sinecures would be abolished and others regulated, without any such substitution as was proposed by the hon. mover, so that whereas the saving that would accrue from this Bill would be contingent and precarious, whatever saving there would arise from the proposi→ tions of the Chancellor of the Exchequer would be positive and certain. true reason why the influence of the aris-nomy of the new system, the House ought trocracy of Scotland was so debased, was because these places, now the subject of contention, had been continued. It had been said, that persons of high rank and distinguished talents should fill sinecure offices, as the reward of meritorious services. He thought that this argument came with a very bad grace from those who had advised the recent appointment of colonel McMahon. In his opinion, if there ever was a time when it was fit that this power of augmenting influence should be wrested from the hands of the crown, it was the present. When it was known that there prevailed in the court a base system of unprincipled favouritism[hear! hear! from the Chancellor of the Exchequer.] What! did the right hon. gentleman, of all others, express his dissent? With all other men it had ceased to be a matter of doubt.-It was notorious that the Regent was surrounded with favourites, and, as it were, hemmed in with minions. If there was among them a man of note or talent, there certainly was not one of any character-nor had a single individual selected the slightest claim to a farthing of the public money. He would not now notice the merits of colonel M'Mahon, because a fit opportunity would soon be afforded for doing so, but thus much he would assert, that the public who paid him, knew nothing of any services he had performed. He thought that any minister who dared to recommend such an appointment, possessed a degree of fortitude and boldness, that scarcely fell to the share of any other individual in the kingdom. He was not one of those who would be parsimonious of public money, where it was claimed by merit, but he would rather give hundreds of thousands to a Nelson or a Wellington, than a single farthing to a Gaveston or a Despencer. Mr. Courtenay felt great difficulty in opposing a measure purporting to be a measure of economy, and the proposer of which professed himself to be treading in the steps of Mr. Burke and Mr. Pitt. He trusted that he should shew that so far from being an economical measure, it would be one of wanton profuseness, that it would tend to encrease the improper influence of the crown, and that it was, as it stood, a measure quite inconsistent with the principles and practice of Mr. Burke or Mr. Pitt. He begged that it might be remembered that in estimating the eco But the present Bill was liable to objection in its entire formation; the offices to be abolished ought to have been divided into five or six classes, upon each of which different principles should operate, as well with respect to the mode of abolishing as the propriety of the abolition. In the first place, there were the offices upon the civil list, the existence of which was recognized when the amount of the civil list was fixed, and when the pensions were limited; and some even upon the hereditary revenue of the crown; it was against all parliamentary practice, and against that of Mr. Burke in 1782, and against the whole tenour of Mr. Pitt's conduct, without a single exception, to interfere with these offices without the consent of the crown previously signified; and this principle had during the present parliament been carried so far, that the Speaker had on one occasion declined putting the question upon a motion affecting the King's hereditary revenue. To the next class the principle of abolition ought certainly to be applied. When that House had granted certain revenues to the crown, for public purposes, giving the crown the power of defraying out of those revenues the charges attending their collection, it was a great abuse, and one to which there was scarcely any limit, to make use of that power in the creation of sinecure places. In looking to the enactments of former times upon this part of the subject, he found a circumstance which might be considered as illustrative of his assertion in regard to the hereditary revenues. An act had passed a few years ago, for rectifying a supposed mistake in the Act of 1798, for confirming the abolition of certain places in the customs; the mistake was in the omission of the office of Surveyor of Petty Customs. Now, Mr. Courtenay had little | doubt but that this office was omitted in the act, because those petty customs had been granted by parliament to one of the Edwards and his heirs for ever, and constituted part of the hereditary revenue, to which, upon a demise of the crown, the new king would become entitled. In like manner, the salaries of offices which were paid out of the annual grants of that House, might be fit subjects for abolition or regulation, but not by Bill. If the House thought any such office useless or overpaid, the constitutional mode of proceeding was to withhold the vote of the salary, as had been recently done in the case of the Paymaster of Widows' Pensions. With respect to the offices belonging to the courts of justice, he (Mr. C.) felt incompetent to say much; but it appeared to him that the consideration involved a variety of details, which were by no means sufficiently provided for by the Bill. And the same observation applied to the offices in the colonies, in touching which, the House might perhaps be legislating for the colonies in a way that might be productive of evil consequences. Much depended upon the nature of the emoluments and the purposes to which they were applied. As far as making effectual the Act of 1782, relative to patent places in the colonies, which had been notoriously evaded, there could be no objection to the Bill. There were very many other objections to the detail, but he objected to the whole principle upon which the pensions, which were to be substituted for the sinecures, were grounded. Under the Bill, pensions would be given to those who ought not to have them; and withholden from those upon whom they ought to be conferred. At present, sinecures were often given to persons who held high and efficient offices, but such as were not sufficiently lucrative; such were the sinecures of lord North, Mr. Pitt, and lord Grenville. The pension under the Bill only attached after a certain number of years service; if, therefore, you deemed the emoluments of these high offices insufficient, and pensions were not to be given except for previous service, you must permanently increase those emoJuments, though the offices would frequently be in the hands of persons whose circumstances rendered the increase unnecessary. He contended that the crown ought to have the power of conferring pensions to a limited amount on the whole, but upon such persons as for any cause it might think proper to select. The hon. mover admitted that the crown ought to have the power of granting rewards, but said that, under this Bill, rewards could only be given to meritorious persons; and what was his test of merit? It was exceedingly difficult to appreciate merit, in persons living, or in persons long dead; but the hon. gentleman professed to have a test for appreciating all future merit,and this test was Place. It was only necessary for a man to shew, that he had filled such or such an office for the number of years specified in the Bill, he was a meritorious officer, and entitled to his reward! Rewards were now given to persons who held offices, in which they might be very useful, but which the hon. gentleman had properly enough left out of his Bill, because it would have been a still more extravagant measure than it now stood, if all such offices had entitled the holders to the pension. Here was another proof of the hopelessness of any attempt which, like the famous plan of finance, or other schemes, professed to apply a fixed principle to that which was in its nature fluctuating and uncertain. But Mr. C. held that the crown ought to have the power of conferring pensions or sinecures even upon persons who had filled no offices at all. There were various kinds of merit, which it was utterly impossible to define. Very useful exertions in that House, such as those of Mr. Burke, ought to be rewarded; and though his pension was the subject of obloquy at the time, few now doubted the propriety of granting it. The hon. mover himself, if not, fortunately for him, placed in affluence, would be a fit subject for a similar mark of approbation. In fact, the power of granting permanent rewards, tended to diminish rather than to increase the hurtful influence of the crown. (Hear, hear!) To those gentlemen who seemed to receive this with something more than doubt, he would say, that the sentiment was borrowed from Mr. Fox's Speech on the Teller's Bill in 1782. It created independent men, whereas the hon. gentleman's system, making place the only channel through which to obtain reward, created a great inducement to side with the government of the day. It was an encouragement to take office under any circumstances, and discouragement to re signing it upon public grounds. It was an inducement to desert party, thought to be so necessary in that House; the gentlemen opposite probably thought there might be much merit in opposing ministers; and certainly, it was as fit to promote the removal of evil counsellors, as to encourage good counsellors. And supposing the sovereign, after a long struggle, to be convinced of the rectitude of the conduct of a new set of ministers, he could, under the present system, reward them for the services which they rendered him in removing the old. He trusted that the right hon. gentlemen opposite would experience this-some time hence. (A laugh.) But under this Bill, if there was any man among them who had left them, and joined for the sake of a place those whom they had opposed, he would be entitled to reward, and they to none. He should be told, that among those to whom sinecures had under the present system been given, he should have named another class, namely, those who were obviously unworthy. He believed that this class had not been numerous, and he was sure that it was daily becoming less so. If this Bill passed, it would be difficult to refuse the pension to any person upon whom it might lawfully be conferred, with his act of parliament in his hand; but under the present system, and particularly, with reference to the state of the public mind, when instruction, as it were, was accumulating, under the new plans of education, at compound interest, no violent abuse could take place; there would be much more real and hurtful abuse, profusion, and undue influence under the present Bill. Mr. C. was anxious to make further observations upon other parts of the subject, but having already detained the House so much longer than was his usual practice, he would postpone them to a future stage. Lord A. Hamilton urged as a motive to adopt the Bill, the disappointment which would be felt by the people at large, if after the expectations held out to them, some measure of this kind should not be adopted. There was no reason to think, that this measure would prove less popular in Scotland than in England. It appeared to him, that if there were defects in the Bill it was the duty of those who pointed them out to have assisted in amending them in the Committee, and not to bring them forward for the purpose of getting rid of the Bill altogether. The House had now been receiving Reports from the Finance Committee for three years, they had affected great anxiety concerning them, and now in a year when the national expenditure would probably hardly fall short of a hundred millions, they were called on by the hon. gentlemen opposite, to reject the Bill before them, because there were certain imperfections to be found in particular parts of it. Seeing, as he did, that this was the true object of those who opposed it, he should feel ashamed to discuss the provisions of such a measure in detail in the present stage of the question. He regarded it as a partial fulfilment of some of the many pledges which that House had given to the country, and considering that it had now to decide whether it would do any thing or nothing, he should certainly vote in support of the motion. Mr. Bastard professed, that he looked at the opposition given to this measure as not a little insidious. That House bad been long engaged in exciting expectations and feeding hopes in the people, which, whether they were for ever to be disappointed, the vote of that night would probably determine. They had been told, that they ought to consider this measure with reference to past, not to present times, and to try it by principles abstracted from any immediate considerations. Was it then possible for them to shut their eyes to all that was passing in the country; to those grievous burdens under which almost all classes were now suffering? Was it possible that the peasant, who could scarcely procure the loaf that was to sustain the lives of his children, should not feel impatience at finding himself compelled to contribute to the gratification of the luxurious appetites of those, whose only recommendation was, that they were the favourites or the creatures of a minister? The time was now come when something must be done. They had indeed that night been told, that they could not with propriety enter upon this subject without an instruction from the crown. Good God! that it should be stated even in that House itself, that they had no right to enquire into, or to provide for the redress of public grievances, except in the case of a message from the throne: such a proposition carried with it its own refu. tation in the mind of every man. Much had been said of the necessity of furnishing reward to service, but was no other motive expected to operate, at least with |