port some offices which, since that day, have been swept CHAP. away with advantage to the public. V. 1817. of sine The report of the committee of 1817, and the excitement which universal distress had produced, compelled the Reduction Government to take some steps to reduce the number of cures. sinecures. In previous years they had successfully resisted any proposals of this character. But, from 1817 to the present time, useless and superfluous offices have been gradually diminished in number. Six acts were passed with this object in the session of 1817 alone. The first dealt with certain offices in the Court of Exchequer; the second with the Chief Justices in Eyre, north and south of the Trent; the third with certain offices in Ireland; the fourth with the clerks of the Signet and of the Privy Seal; and the fifth with some Scotch offices. The sixth enabled the king to reward high political service with adequate pensions. A certain number of persons, who had served in the highest offices of the state, and who had occupied such positions for a definite period, were to be entitled to pensions on their retirement from the public service. The gross amount of all the pensions which the sovereign was thus authorised to grant was not, however, to exceed one-half the sum which the offices which were abolished had cost. On purely economical grounds, therefore, the change which was thus made was advantageous. But the economy, which was the direct result of the change, formed only a portion of its merit.1 All patronage is liable to abuse. But the patronage which is the most easily abused is that which deals with offices requiring no peculiar qualification and involving no special duties. A minister is apt to regard the calls of friendship or the claims of party as far more pressing than the reward of public merit; and the man who has devoted his abilities to the service of the state has the mortification of being superseded by some gentleman 1 Ann. Reg., 1817, Chron., p. 318. СНАР. V. 1817. Report on the revenue. who has perhaps spent a thousand pounds in unsuccessfully contesting some insignificant borough. Abuses of this character were much greater when sinecures were in existence than they are now. A man must have some qualifications for the post to be appointed to an office with definite duties attached to it. A man need have no qualifications for a situation which involves no cares but the punctual receipt of a considerable salary. The first report of the committee of 1817 dealt exclusively with sinecures; the second was devoted to a consideration of the military and naval establishments; the third and most important dealt with the entire revenue and expenditure of the state. This report was not presented till the first week in June; the Budget was postponed till after its presentation, and was ultimately founded on the figures contained in it. These figures showed, in a very remarkable way, the severity of the crisis through which the country had just passed. Up to the close of 1815 the revenue of Great Britain had been regularly and constantly increasing. The receipts from the most important branches, the customs, the excise, the stamps, and the Post-office, had risen from 42,293,0837. in 1812, to 45,277,5797. in 1815; they fell to 41,302,9597. in 1816. The committee considered that, including the Irish revenue and other sources of taxation, they might fairly rely on a revenue of 51,905,3647. during the year 1817. The sale of old stores was estimated to produce an additional 400,000l., and thus raise the ways and means to 52,405,3647. The expenditure of the state, which amounted to 68,064,2601., was far more than this sum,1 and exceeded the estimated revenue by at least CHAP. V. 1817. The Sink 15,850,000l. The situation, however, was hardly so bad as this short statement of it seemed to indicate. The deficit was really due to the Sinking Fund; and, if the Sinking Fund had been suspended, the deficit could ing Fund. have been immediately converted into a surplus. In the expenditure of 68,250,000l. no less than 16,124,443l. was devoted to the payment of debt.1 The temporary suspension of the Sinking Fund would at once have terminated the embarrassing situation. It would, however, have required a much stronger mind than Vansittart's to have seen the wisdom of this obvious arrangement. Vansittart clung to the Sinking Fund with a tenacity which was worthy of a better cause, and amused himself for years with effecting large reductions of the debt on paper. He provided for the deficit of the year in various ways: a lottery supplied him with 250,000l.; a surplus in the ways and means for 1815 and 1816 afforded him 1,865,000l.; and the arrears of the property tax which were still unpaid were relied on for 1,500,000l. More than three millions and a half of the deficit was thus provided for. For the residue Vansittart relied on Irish Treasury bills amounting to 3,600,000l., and on V. 1817. CHAP. 9,000,000l. of Exchequer bills. The minister, in short, proposed to borrow 12,600,000l. with one hand and to pay 16,000,000l. of debt with the other. Lord Liverpool, Lord Castlereagh, Vansittart, and all their colleagues seem to have been incapable of perceiving that the simpler, wiser, and more economical course would have been to have satisfied themselves with applying only the difference between these two sums to the reduction of debt. The distress which characterised the year led to two other financial measures, widely different in their objects from those which have thus been mentioned, and differing also in their effects. The poverty of the country was so universal, and the burden thrown on the poor rates was so excessive, that the ministry felt itself compelled to afford some aid to the local authorities. The prudence of relieving local distress out of the public purse will probably always be disputed; but if it can ever be desirable for the central authority to assist the local guardians of the poor, it was eminently advisable that they should do so in 1817. The distress at that time was not confined to particular districts, it was universal throughout the kingdom. A sudden and unprecedented fall in the rent of land was diminishing the rates on which the local authorities were solely dependent. The labouring classes, from a variety of causes, fancied that they were oppressed by the administration. It was evidently proper that the legislature should take some steps to show Grants for its sympathy with their cause. On the 28th of April local works. the House of Commons authorised the Government to issue half a million of Exchequer bills in Great Britain, and a quarter of a million in Ireland, for the completion of public works in progress or to be commenced, for the encouragement of the fisheries, and for the employment of the poor. 1 See Report of Select Committee, Hansard, vol. xxxvi.; appendix, p. lxxxi. Some of the figures were slightly altered in the Budget, vide The money thus voted was PP. 1098-1109, and Ann. Reg., 1817, to be advanced, on fair security, to different persons, and arrangements were to be made for the repayment of the principal in small instalments.1 CHAP. V. 1817. tion of The expenditure of three-quarters of a million on the Instituemployment of the labouring poor could not practically savings have had any very great effect on the condition of the banks. country. But another step, which Parliament took at the same time, produced much more beneficial consequences. The first breath of adversity had thrown the kingdom into universal poverty; and a poverty so universal and so sudden could only have arisen in a state of society where the masses of the population were in the habit of taking no thought for the future. The Poor Law had, in fact, deprived the poor of every motive to save and of all means of saving. The poorhouse afforded the labourer a miserable but certain retirement in his old age. The universal distribution of paltry doles in the shape of out-door relief reconciled the labouring poor to a state of dependence. There was no shame in pauperism when every workman, at one time or another, was a pauper. There was no need for saving when the thrifty and the careless poor were equally certain of ending their days in the same common refuge, the parish poorhouse. In 1817 Parliament took one step towards encouraging thrift: it afforded the working poor the means of saving by establishing savings banks. There is a good deal in the constitution of these banks which is open to criticism. Since the establishment of the Post Office savings banks the old savings banks, in the opinion of some authorities, have survived their mission. But, in 1817, no one had foreseen the career of usefulness which the Post Office had before it. The old savings banks, then instituted for the first time, afforded the more industrious poor some prospect of escaping from the utter helplessness of their position. Their establishment relieves 1 Hansard, vol. xxxvi. p. 27. Ann. Reg., 1817, Hist., P. 45. |