СНАР. II. received 600l. a year as controller of the excise; 350l. These are a few of the instances, which might be given, of the extravagant provisions which successful politicians and successful lawyers were allowed to make for their posterity, or for themselves. It would be easy to extend the list to an almost indefinite length. It is difficult to 1 Greville Memoirs. Confer Hansard, 3rd Series, vol. ii. p. 91. define the dutics of a teller of the exchequer, yet four tellers of the exchequer drew no less than 2,600l. a year each. No duties of special importance were attached to the registrarship of the Court of Admiralty; yet Lord Arden, the registrar, drew at least 10,000l. a year. The chief clerkship of the House of Commons would have been adequately paid with 2,000l. a year; and the fees of the office amounted to six times that sum.1 The fees of the clerk of the pleas in Ireland amounted to 10,000l. a year; his deputy received no less than 7,000l., not one shilling of which, according to a high authority, was legal. The Duke of Grafton, in addition to some hereditary pensions, received 2,800l. a year as sealer of the King's Bench and Common Pleas. Lord Melville enjoyed about the same sum, as keeper of the privy seal in Scotland. The Countess of Mansfield,' wrote the editor of the 'Black Book' in 1830, 'receives 1,000l. a year from the Barbadoes planters, and the Duchess Dowager of Manchester 2,9281. a year as late collector of the customs outwards. Not long since a right honourable lady, a baroness, was sweeper of the Mall in the Park; another lady was chief usher in the Court of Exchequer.'3 'One of the four patentees' of the sinecure situation of 'custos brevium,' wrote Lord Colchester in his diary, 'was a woman, a second a Catholic, the third a lunatic, the fourth an infant.' Lord Seaforth, though he had the misfortune to be deaf and dumb, was made governor of Barbadoes.5 Lord Rosslyn, a general officer, was made director of chancery in Scotland.6 СПАР. II. Pensions and places, however, were not the only Peerages. rewards at the disposal of successful statesmen and successful lawyers. Peerages were granted with a prodigality which exceeds belief; and pensions were in their 1 Colchester, vol. i. p. 482. 2 Mr. L. Foster. Vide Hansard, vol. xxxiv. p. 8. 3 Black Book, pp. 485 and 488. 4 Colchester, vol. i. p. 143. 302. At a salary of 1,800. СНАР. II. The evils of the system. turn bestowed to support the peerages which had thus been created. The far greater part of the peers,' wrote Queen Caroline to George IV. in 1820, 'hold by themselves and their families offices, pensions, and emoluments, solely at the will and pleasure of your majesty. There are more than four fifths of the peers in this situation! 1 'More than half of the present House of Lords,' said Wilberforce in 1811, has been created or gifted with their titles since I came into Parliament in 1780.'2 'No great thinkers, no great writers, no great orators, no great statesmen, none of the true nobility of the land, were to be found among the spurious nobles created by George III;' They chiefly consisted of mere lawyers,' and 'country gentlemen remarkable for nothing but their wealth, and the number of votes their wealth enabled them to control.' 8 The system was productive of three mischievous consequences. Places, which were nothing but sinecures, were maintained for the purpose of enabling the minister to make a convenient provision for himself, his family, or his adherents. Places, which had only nominal duties assigned to them, or which were really necessary, were scandalously overpaid in order that they might prove acceptable to their fortunate recipients; and offices were bestowed, not on the most deserving candidates, but on the friends and partisans of the minister. The whole parliamentary system, moreover, moved on a hinge of corruption; and persons, known to be interested in the expenditure of the State, could not be believed to be the disinterested advocates of economical administration. The poor man, without political influence, had little or no chance of promotion; and honours and rewards were reserved not for the meritorious but the wealthy. The wealthy had the means of securing political influence. 1 Yonge's Liverpool, vol. iii. P. 102. 2 Wilberforce, vol. iii. p. 531. History of Civilisation, vol. i. pp. 453, 454. 3 II. The influential politician was generally able to obtain CHAP rank. Rank was regarded as an admirable qualification for any office. The highest and lowest situations were lavished upon peers and their relations; and nothing was beneath the dignity of even a duke, provided that an adequate salary was attached to it. Nor were the sinecures the only places which were filled by the great governing families. The working offices of the State were similarly occupied. Commissioners and their secretaries owed comparatively little to their abilities. Their success in life was usually due either to their position or their birth. When the French war broke out in 1793, it never occurred to George III. that the command of the English army should be entrusted to a competent general. The natural leader of the king's army seemed to the king to be the king's son. When the incompetency of the Duke of York necessitated his recall, the king could not imagine that anyone else could be fit for the command except his own brother-inlaw. Rank, in short, was the passport to high office. Rank could be gained through political influence by any ambitious man; and the borough owners stuck accordingly to their privileges with a tenacity which withstood the onslaught of the reformers for forty years. advan Rotten as the system was, deplorable as were its con- The only sequences, there were some compensating advantages con- tages of the nected with it. Men cannot take part in the struggles of system. a political career without mixing in society; and men fail to attain distinction, either in politics or society, without ability, information, and education. The ruling classes were so assured of this that they uniformly gave a polite education to their sons; and men of quality thought it as necessary to be versed in certain accomplishments as to be well dressed, or to be able to shoot. The ruling classes, moreover, conscious of their own inferiority in numbers, were ever on the look out to recruit their party 1 See George III.'s Letters to Pitt in Jesse, vol. iii. p. 210. СНАР. II. Eluca tional defects. with any particularly promising young men. There is no doubt that this state of things was productive of one great national benefit. The door of the House of Commons was not solely opened to the wealthy, it was always ready to admit conspicuous talent. Men did not postpone their entry into Parliament till the close of their career, when success in business had enabled them to accumulate a fortune. Politics were the profession of their lives; the House of Commons their office, not the mere haven to which they retired in their old age. The prizes of political life, too, were so great, that they drew away the talent from other professions. Had they lived in Italy, to use Canova's striking illustration, Pitt and Fox would have been artists, and England would have had no reason to deplore her inferiority in art.1 A system, under which all the rising men of the day regarded politics as a profession, and under which politics were studied with exclusive attention, naturally tended to create statesmanship. A rising young man became a member of the House of Commons as soon as he came of age. Lord Liverpool was elected for Appleby, Fox for Midhurst, Lord John Russell for Tavistock, before they were twentyone years old. England then derived from the system the solitary advantage of having statesmen trained from their boyhood for their work; the more ambitious youth were certainly encouraged by the system to work at school and college, Alison, vol. i. p. 450, note. 1 |