1830.] England and Europe in October 1830. 499 



and connections of more dubious kinds, on the pension list ; and thus, 

 by disburdening the nation of unnecessary taxes, enable the English- 

 man to live by the labour of his hands. If these things may be done 

 by the change in the elective franchise of the manufacturing towns, it 

 will be only by a circuitous process. But England has no time to wait. 

 What must be done at last, cannot be done too speedily. The truth is, 

 that the nation is disgusted with the insolent extravagance of the public 

 expenditure. It hears on all hands the most zealous declarations of 

 economy, diminution of salaries, and withdrawal of taxes ; but it finds 

 itself practically unrelieved of a single tax. It sees a Chancellor of the 

 Exchequer start up, and sweep away an impost ; yet by some unac- 

 countable fatality, it never feels that it is a shilling the richer. The tax- 

 gatherer makes his appearance armed with increasing demands; the 

 necessaries of life increase in price as they decrease in excellence ; every 

 thing that man eats, drinks, or wears, loads him with an additional tax ;, 

 and in spite of the oratorical economy of the government, he is poorer 

 every day that he rises from his pillow. 



There must be something wrong where industry cannot make a man 

 rich, nor prudence keep him so; and this wrong the Representatives of the 

 British people must set right, or the people will have formidable reason 

 to complain. The public expenditure must be diminished. Vigorous and 

 honest economy must supersede the kind of economy that leaves the 

 nation poor ; and public men, whether soldiers or civilians, must learn 

 that lucre is not to be the sole stimulant of the Official mind. 



But, to come to detail. Sir James Graham has stated, in the hearing 

 of the House, and the country, that one hundred and fifteen of the 

 Privy Council live on the public money : and they have no great reason to 

 complain of the penury of their treatment, for the aggregate sum is up- 

 wards of 600,000 ! This must be inquired into, in all its bearings. We 

 must hear no more of the defence of hereditary sinecures. No man 

 has a right to receive public money without public work ; and the 

 simple ground of having an ancestor in the way to commit a public 

 plunder, and availing himself of his opportunity, must not stop the 

 course of justice. The sinecures must go. Many of those are in the 

 law courts, and act as encumbrances on the course of justice, by en- 

 creasing the expenses of every step in obtaining it. The sinecure clerk- 

 ships held by noble lords, the prothonotary ships ; the Pells, the hundred 

 other unintelligible titles for pensioning individuals who know no more 

 of the duty than the man in the moon, must be abolished. 



Doctors' Commons will make a fine subject for revision ; the heavy 

 sinecures of the Prerogative Courts, the registrarships, the notaryships 

 will richly reward investigation. We must demand some account of 

 that 10,000 a year which was claimed by the late primate. The 

 sinecures of all kinds must go. 



Then come the extravagancies of actual office. Sir James Graham 

 must look to the public boards. Why should each have half-a-dozen 

 commissioners at enormous salaries, when a couple actually do all the 

 duty ? Why are we to have a dozen boards, all inflicting so heavy an 

 expense ? Next, why is a secretary of state to receive the inordinate 

 salary of six thousand pounds a year ? Is the rank nothing, the honour 

 of the office nothing, the actual power nothing, the opportunity of 

 being a benefactor to one's country and mankind nothing, unless it can 

 be recompensed with a salary that would maintain a hundred families of 



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