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Post-office: pension to a late surveyor of the customs, abolished, £511, and another, on relinquishing the office of postmaster of Portsmouth £80£590 (E) Stamps. Pension compensation to clerk of wine licences £50. Also Incidents, in obedience to treasury warrants: To superannuated officers and persons employed in perfumery duty, and other duties repealed, or transferred to other management £3,080£3,130 Pensions payable out of the land revenue of England, and comprised under the denomination of "Perpetual Pensions," (contained in the XIIth Report of commissioners of Woods, Forests, and Land Revenues of the Crown, 66 to 69; and those out of the revenue of North and South Wales, p. 151 and 153.) are ancient charges on those revenues, and have been subject to no alterations since the date of that Report, except by the Goverments of Conway and Ludlow castles being now vacant (to the former of which a salary of £23, and to the latter a salary of £30 was attached), and by the stewardship of Cantermellenith, held by the Earl of Oxford, having been granted, without the salary of £100, since 1795, when the late Earl of Oxford died.

The salary of £400, payable annually to the Auditor for Wales, was transferred from the Civil List to the land revenue, by treasury warrant, in 1804 or 1805; and other annual sums, to the amount of £10,168, have also been transferred, under the same authority, from the Civil List to the land revenue. It appears that these payments properly belong to the forests, parks, or land revenue of the

crown.

Ordnance Establishment. Gratuities for length of service to sundry officers on the above establishment, estimated and voted this year £8,565.

Pay of superannuated and disabled men, half-pay of reduced officers for good services, pursuant to his Majesty's warrants, according to estimate of 1808, voted by the house £60,805.

PENSIONS. Scotland. Pensions paid out of civil establishment of Scotland, in 1807, £38,588 Of the above; pensions granted in that year£2,834 £36,880 £2,600 Total pensions in 1805, exclusive of con£36,086 £34,679

Pensions paid in 1806 Contingent pensions

tingent pensions

The same in 1804

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L24,864 £23,862 do in 1761 £5,940 The revenues out of which these payments are made, and the authority as well as the general circumstances under which they are granted, require some observation.

The Civil List Acts passed at the commencement of the last and present reign, 1 Geo. II. c. t. 1 Geo. III. c. 1. by which the hereditary revenues were surrendered in consideration of a fixed annuity, expressly reserved to his Majesty the several duties and revenues which had been antecedently payable to the crown in Scotland, in the same manner only and subject to the like charges as the same were subject to" in the immediately preceding reigns.

These revenues constituted, antecedently to the Union, a fund applicable to the payment of the general charges of the Civil establishment of Scotland; but laws were passed immediately after (7 Anne, c. 11. s. 10. and 10 Anne, c. 26. s. 108.) providing that the revenues of customs and excise should be specially charged with the support of the courts of session, justiciary, and exchequer ; on the professed ground, that, since the Union, the expense of keeping up the said courts could be no otherwise provided for."

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The customs and excise are also charged with the expenses of the privy seal, and of the great seal, although they are not mentioned in the acts referred to. The 20th Geo. II. c. 43. s. 29. which abolished heretable jurisdictions, gave authority to grant competent salaries to the sheriffs, but without specifying the fund out of which they should be defraved.These salaries have also been charged on the customs and excise, though they seem more properly to belong to the reserved revenues, since the offices to which they are annexed make a part of the general civil establishment. By 26 Geo. III. c. 47. the salaries of the chief officers of the court of admiralty, and commissary court, whose emoluments before the passing of that act depended on fees of office then abolished, were directed to be paid out of the same fund; XXXth Report Finance Committee, Appendix (A. 5.)

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These reserved revenues consist of new subsidy of customs, which of course increases with the progress of commerce; of the hereditary and temporary revenues of excise, which depend on the quantity of beer and ale brewed in Scotland; of the seizures of customs; the fines and forfeitures of excise; and of the crown rents and casualties, all of which are subject to fluctuation. Their total net amount in three years, ending 10th Oct. 1907, was 209,371; average yearly£69,700

Gross amount in thesame 3 years £259.319 The difference between the gross and net amount of these revenues arose from bounties, drawbacks, and other legal re-payments, as well as charges of management.

Their gross amount for the three years 1761, to 1763, £119,504; average £39,834 Charges to which they were liable, in the

year ending 10th Oct. 1807, were-1st, pension list, £36,506-2d. payment of the civil establishment of Scotland, unconnected with the courts of justice £8,762-3d., miscellaneous services £8,575. £53,843

In the year ending 10th Oct. 1806, the sum of £30,000, being a surplus of this revenue, was transferred to his Majesty's civil government in England, by warrant, and was applied (except £1,000) to various purposes of the civil list.

Your Committee perceiving that so large and increasing a proportion of these reserved revenues has been applied to pensions, and that under the present system there is no security against their further extension, have thought it their duty to direct their particular attention to this subject; which had likewise attracted the notice of the Committee of Finance in 1798, (XXXth Report, p. 15.) who adverting to the great increase of pensions on the civil establishment of Scotland, even at that time," and to the comparatively small duties performed by many of the persons holding some of the offices," thought it" an object well deserving consideration, whether, instead of their being granted, as in some instances they appeared to have been, the emoluments thereof should not, as future occasions and as instances might offer, be applied in favour of persons who might have distinguished themselves by great public service, or in ease of the funds applied to the pension list, if the existing charges, thereon, on a due examination, should be found necessary."

The amount of pensions, which is already equal to more than two-fifths of the allowed pension list of England, ought clearly to be considered, in connexion with the emoluments of sinecure places and offices performed by deputy in Scotland, which amounts to near £30,000; a subject which will come under more immediate consideration in a further part of this Report.

By the articles of Union, it was stipulated that certain branches of the ancient establishment of Scotland should remain; but although the duties of some of these offices have ceased, and those of others have been diminished, the ancient salaries and emoluments continue to be annexed, and in one instance (that of the privy seal) an addition of £1,500 per annum was made in 1804, which is, however, professedly in the nature ot an annuity, and to continue only so long as the present possessor shall continue to hold the office of keeper of the privy seal; being in substance an augmentation of the pension list, to which it has been added in the foregoing account. It is payable out of a part of the reserved revenues called land rents and casualties; and the warrant has been

already printed by order of the House, 5th March, 1805.

As it appears from the foregoing statements, that the pensions granted by the crown in this part of the United Kingdom, as well as the reserved revenues out of which they are paid, have been considerably increased, your Committee are of opinion, that they should not have acquitted themselves of the duty imposed upon them, if they had not pointed out these subjects as matters which will well deserve the consideration of parliament, whenever the expenditure of the Civil List shall again become the subject of investigation; and if not precluded by the terms of the Civil List Act, from interfering in any manner at present with the application of the reserved revenues, your Committee would suggest, 'that it might become the advisers of the crown to refrain from recommending any further increase of the pensions charged upon those revenues, until occasion shall have been given for such investigation.

The number of persons receiving pensions in 1761 was 19; in 1797 it had increased to 185; and it now amounts to 331, exclusive of 24 contingent pensions. The present pensions, however, are for the most part small, and about two-thirds are granted to females.

The Committee of Finance in 1793, remark on the delicacy with which a fund should be touched, which concerns the muni ficence of the sovereign, as applied either to the encouragement of learning and religion, to the remuneration of national services, in the rewarding of public merit, or in the support of those branches of noble and respectable families, which the policy and principles of the British constitution cannot suffer to fall into indigence." XXX. p. 12.

66

Your Committee by no means wish to repress the munificence of the crown, as ap plied to the first three of these objects, nor even to exclude the last-mentioned consideration; but the undefined state of the reserved revenues appears to have encouraged a growing facility in granting pensions, which it may be, on a future occasion, important to retrain. It is obvious that a too general application of them" to the support of the" remoter "branches of noble and respectable families," even though the individuals who receive them should not be affluent, may serve to spare the funds of the opulent at the expense of the public, and may create an undue dependence upon those, in whose hands the distribution of royal munificence is vested.

The Convention of Royal Burghs in Scotland have returned to an order, for an account of public money placed at the disposal of the Convention, (in pursuance of the civil-list act, sec. 16.) a statement of the application of the same.

The Lords of Trade and Police in Scotland

being abolished by that statute, it was enacted, that all sums under their manage"ment should be placed at the disposal of "the Convention of Royal Burghs;" it appears however that no such sums have been received, that considerable difficulty and delay occurred in procuring information, nearly Ave years having elapsed before the balance in the hands of the cashier to the late Board (amounting in July 1783 to £858), was ascertained; that a demand to deliver up the records of the board, and to pay this balance was resisted, on the ground that the act gave no power to receive such papers, nor to call on the cashier to account for his intromissions with the, sums received by him during the existence of the board; that the Board of Police also represented that the same act authorized the commissioners of the Treasury to grant annuities equal to the legal emoluments of the persons whose offices should be suppressed; (the expression of the act is "who have diligently and faithfully executed the "offices,") and that the cashier having been used to derive emoluments from the money in his hands, he could not continue to enjoy a compensation equal to his accustomed and legal emoluments, if the balance in his hands should be taken from him during his life; that the Convention commenced an action against the cashier in 1789 for his said balance, but relinquished it in 1791, from an unwillingness to incur expense in prosecuting a claim which might not be established.

In the 59th volume of the Journals, p. 718, is a list of all pensions granted on the establishment of Ireland, up to 1st Jan. 1804, specifying the date and continuance of each grant; to which your Committee are obliged to refer for particulars, not having received a return to their repeated orders, of the present state of the pension-list. The amount 1st Jan. 1804, according to that list, was £104,258, exclusive of £104, under the head of charity, and £3,832 in mi| ¡itary pensions.

The civil-list act, 33 Geo. III. c. 34, directed the gradual reduction of the pensionlist to £80,000; but as it allowed an annual grant of pensions to the extent of £1,200 in every year, there still continues an excess above the limited sum. In 1794, when the act passed, the total was - £124,000

Of the additions and diminutions in the pensions on the civil establishment of Ireland, since 6th June, 1801, the former amount to £8,400, the latter to £32,353, making ou the whole a diminution of £23,953, to be subtracted from the total given in the printed account for 1801; which would leave, as the total of the present pension-list, £88,163; but by the finance papers above referred to, the total was, on 5th Jan. 1808 - £89,639 Out of the customs for the year ended 5th Jan. 1807 - 17,705 The greater number of these are in sums not exceeding £20.

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In the printed finance papers for the year ended 5th Jan. 1808, p. 13, the salaries, penand gratuities in the customs, exclusive of salaries on the establishment, are stated at • £41,662 Out of the excise for the year ended 5th Jan. 1807 - £5,993 These pensions have been increased by £300, or rather more, in each of the three last year.They are in general in sums under £52, and are all granted by the board, with the approbation of the lord lieutenant and lords of the treasury.

The return further states that £600 per annum, formerly granted by the commissions, sioners of the Treasury to the Board of Police, which the Convention claimed, conceiving it to have been the only fund at their disposal, have, since the passing of the act, been granted to officers of the board, in compensation for the emoluments of the offices suppressed, of which £250 only continue to be paid to four persons, of whom this cashier is one. This payment having been for purposes purely local, seems to be a charge originally belonging more properly to the hereditary Scotch, revenue than to the civil list.

Your committee subinit, that so very unsatisfactory a return may require the attention of the commissioners of his Majesty's Treasury; and that the balance due from the cashier ought to be paid forthwith, or, if it should be irrecoverable, that the annual payment to him of £100 ought immediately to

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In the printed finance papers for this year, ended 5th Jan. 1808, p. 14, the salaries, pensions, and gratuities, payable out of the excise (exclusive of salaries on the establishment) amounted to £15,277

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1,334

Ditto out of the post-officeDitto out of the stamp duties. 1,496 Under acts passed in 1799 and 1800, pensions were granted to persons instrumental in suppressing the rebellion, to be named by the lord lieutenant; they amount at this time, subject to diminution by extinction of lives, to £2,700

Pension contingent to Thomas Lord Manners, now Lord Chancellor of Ireland 4,000 To John Lord Redesdale, late ditto 4,000 To Rt. Hon, Geo. Ponsonby, ditto 4,000 The description of pensions A. C. D. B..

are of an objectionable nature, inasmuch as they are neither paid nor entered at the exchequer under the head of pensions; and in case of any deficiency in the fee fund they fall directly upon the civil list. These allowances are in some cases conferred by the head of an office on persons in that office itself, without any other apparent control; and even where they have been granted by his Majesty in council, although the instrumert becomes more formal, all objection is not removed. They tend to confound two things, which ought always to be kept perfectly distinct, the necessary expense incurred for transacting the business of the executive government, and gratuities paid where no duty is annexed; they becoine indirectly a burden upon the civil list, and by escaping notice, under the general title of establishment, may tend to divert a fund, which was wisely formed under the sanction of parliament out of the fees of office for the purposes of economy, into a source of patronage.

This fund was constituted in 1795, out of the fees and gratuities received in the offices of the three secretaries of state; and it has relieved the civil list from the burden of the fixed establishment of those offices, which was previously charged upon it (with the exception of such deficiencies as are now occasionally made up by the civil list;) in consequence of which arrangement, a material saving has been obtained for the public, and the salaries in those offices, which were before liable to great fluctuations, have been fixed at a precise sum, considerably below the average of their former

amount.

(E) It has been observed, that pensions to certain persons formerly employed in the stamp office are paid and included in the bill of incidents, in pursuance of warrants from the board of Treasury. Your Committee conceive that annual allowances ought not to be granted generally, and without special reasons, to persons retiring from official situations either by their own choice, or upon any new arrangement in the mode of conducting business; and that such grants become more particularly objectionable, if the practice should be allowed to continue of charging any allowances, beyond such as are superannuations in the strictest sense, among the salaries or incidents of any department, instead of classing and entering them as pensions, so that they may be kept entirely distinct from the salaries paid for transacting the current business of the office.

Even where a meritorious officer has served for a number of years, be ought not to receive remuneration as a mere matter of course upon retiring, without taking into consideration the emoluments of the office, and the fortune which he may have had the means of acquiring in that service, as well as the particular

circumstances of his case: but with regard to such as may be inefficient or useless (otherwise than in consequence of age or infirmity) spe cial circumstances alone can justify the propriety of rewarding them, when it becomes convenient for the public service, that their situations should be filled by persons better qualified to discharge the duties.

Your committee cannot but discountenance the principle of granting compensation for offices suppressed or abolished, the possessors of which have not either had an interest in them for life, or by the custom of such offices have been justly considered as having such a tenure in them.

With regard to allowances made to those who were formerly employed in the collection of duties, either repealed, or transferred to other management, it is impossible not to animadvert on suffering persons to remain a permanent burden upon the public, if there has been an opportunity of placing them in other offices, where their qualifications and habits of business might render them useful, and deserving of salary. The warrants for most of these grants were in fact very properly drawn only "during the pleasure of the conmissioners of the treasury, or until the parties are respectively otherwise provided for." The scale of all offices has necessarily been so much extended since the repeal or transfer of those duties, that little difficulty seems likely to have occurred in giving employment to all those individuals; and their situation would probably have been more frequently presented to the notice of the executive government, if the allowance had appeared in the shape of pension, instead of being included among the incidents of the establishment.

Since offices ought to be regarded as created solely for public utility, and not for the benefit of the individuals who happen to hold them, there must exist a perfect right in those who administer the affairs of the public, to regulate, alter, and control their functions; it becomes a duty to abolish such as appear superfluous, and to abridge the emoluments of all which can be conducted to the same advantage, but at a cheaper rate. Without the constant superintendance and vigilance of the House, irregularities in the granting of compensatious and superannuations may from time to time creep in; but your committee conceive that it may be some check against this sort of expenditure, if all such grants, besides being brought as it were into one focus, where they may be viewed collectively, and distinctly, should also pass without exception under the review of the commissioners of the treasury, who being constitutionally responsible for all matters of expenditure, should be intrusted with a general control over every article of it, and armed with powers to prevent in every department any improper accumulationofcharge,

The Committee on Finance, XXII. having observed, that it may materially conduce to the ends of public economy, if parliament should think fit to require annual accounts of every increase and diminution which may have taken place in the course of each preceding year in the salaries, emoluments, and expenses of all public offices, your committee recommend that it should be made an order of the house, that such an account shall be produced, within twenty days after the commencement of every session, and also an account of all additional pensions, and allowances paid for services not performed. COMPENSATIONS.

Compensations for the loss of offices, which it has been judged expedient to abolish or regulate, afford another class of allowances paid for service not now executed; they exhibit a sum continually decreasing, as the lives of those entitled to them gradually fall in.

The compensations printed in the report on the civil list, were, for the year 1803, £11,663 but there were included in that sum the annual and quarterly bounty in the Lord Steward's office, and small pensions in the office of Master of the Horse, which are here classed with the pensions, and among the pensions and allowances enumerated in this report, mauy will be found which might perhaps be classed, with equal propriety, under the title of Compensations.

The list of compensations granted in Ireland on account of the Union, with the particular periods during which the several offices were held by the persons receiving compensation, is printed in the 59th Vol, of the Journals, p.

773.

In examining these several lists, the observation of the house will naturally be attracted in the first place to the magnitude, of the sum derived through various channels, to the use of persons not actually performing any species of public services. It is true, that considerable portions of these payments are to be regarded in the nature of remuneration for services which have been rendered to the public, either by the persons themselves, or their near relatives; and to such as strictly belong to this class where the duty has been diligently and faithfully done, and for an adequate period of time, and where the persons are so circumstanced as to have strong claims upon the public, no impediment is intended to be objected. But though instances may occur of persons whose claims upon the public are not equally apparent or easy to be traced, your Commsttee do not conceive that it is their province to descend into the invidious task of examining particular cases, being desirous of carrying their retrospect no further than may be suficient to lay a foundation for future retou and regulation.

The words with which this part of the statute, sec. 19. is prefaced, that it is no disparagement for any persons to be relieved by the royal bounty in their distress, but on the contrary, it is honourable on just cause to be thought worthy of reward," point out the grounds upon which the objects of bounty should be selected, and show that it was not intended to allot so large a sun to be distributed through favour, without regard to just cause and desert. But the practice which has been animadverted upon, of granting and charging pensions under the general expenses of separate departments, tends to elude the limitation which was meant to be imposed, and by rewarding in this manner a considerable proportion of the claims of official merit, and long service, to leave a larger amount than was intended for, gratuitous disposal.

It must not be overlooked, that in cases of distinguished merit, parliament has ever been ready to exempt the civil list from any additional burden; and as instances of this honourable description have, fortunately for the country, never occurred more frequently than within these latter years, so the liberality of the nation has been called forth to a larger extent than in any former period.

A further consideration is, that although most of the grants are nominally during pleasure, they are generally regarded as equivalent to au interest for life; and that examples rarely occur, where a change in the circumstances of the grantees has occasioned those who have the legitimate control to abolish, or induced those by whom they are held, voluntarily to surrender them. The footsteps towards royal bounty are visible in all directions, but few traces of return are discoverable.

Under all these circumstances your Committee do not hesitate in submitting to the House, that all allowances in the nature of pensions, which are not strictly superannuations, should be classed under their proper head, and paid at the exchequer; preserving at the same time entries of such pensions, together with the circumstances under which they have been granted, on the establishment of the offices in which the services have been perfornied,

It may be also expedient to limit the sums in which allowances may be applied to cases of superannuation, so as not to exceed a certain proportion of the former salary.

The regulations under which superannua tions are granted in the Customs, deserve the attention of the House, as uniting a due consideration towards long and meritorious service, with a just attention to economy."

By a resolution of the House of Commons of Ireland, 7th April 1784, no yearly allowance was permitted to be placed on incidents

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