1830.] The Opening of the Session of Parliament. 247 



mohs, commences, as usual, with a promise of ceconomy in the budget. 

 " The estimates have been framed with every attention to oaconomy ; 

 and it will be satisfactory to you to learn, that his Majesty will be ena- 

 bled to make a considerable reduction in the amount of the public ex- 

 penditure, without impairing the efficacy of our naval or military 

 establishments." What reductions the premier may be pleased to make, 

 we must be satisfied to wait for, until it shall be his will to declare them. 

 But what he will not make, we shall take the liberty of venturing to 

 conjecture. He will not retrench a penny of his own salary of 5,000/. 

 a year as first Lord of the Treasury, nor of the pay and allowances of 

 the multitude of those epaulet wearers whom he has planted behind 

 the desks of civil office. To the fieldmarshal's emoluments, we have no 

 objection. He has earned them, we admit. But generosity in public 

 men is out of the question, and what he has earned he will hold fast. 

 Nor will he diminish a penny of the enormous salaries of his fellow 

 officials, nor mulct Sir Henry Hardinge of his half-pay, on considera- 

 tion of his 3,000/. a year as Secretary at War. Nor will he unrighte- 

 ously slice away the smallest strip of his gains from the celebrated Billy 

 Holmes, that model of a statesman, and meritorious servant of his coun- 

 try ; though those gains, in the single office of the Ordnance, amount to 

 2,000/. a year. Nor will he hurt the patriotism of Colonel Trench, 

 whose public services, equally valuable, have been rewarded by a ". grate- 

 ful country," much against its inclination, with 2,000/. a year more. Nor 

 shall we see any reduction, of any importance in the eyes of any man 

 alive, (except that man be a Chancellor of the Exchequer,) suffered to 

 occur during this session, nor the next, nor the next dozen, if we should 

 be favoured with the present ministerial dynasty so long. That the 

 premier would wish to lessen the public expenses, we have no doubt, if 

 it could be done without any sacrifice. But that government, consti- 

 tuted as it has been within our memory, will ever seriously set about 

 measures which curtail its own influence, we must be allowed to dis- 

 believe. 



Of course there will be desperate doings among the minor offices. We 

 see, in the dim futurity of the grand retrenchment, the dismissal of a shoal 

 of fifty pound clerks ; and Lord Melville, a nobleman and minister, whose 

 zeal, vigour, and ability, have been by all men long estimated at their 

 full value, has already commenced a new sera in " chips." The pecula- 

 tion in chips has been magnanimously crushed in the bud throughout 

 the dock-yards ; and if the ship-carpenter lights his fire with any chips 

 whatever, they must henceforth not be the chips of his Majesty's blocks ! 

 But what do we hear of retrenchment in the salaries of the whole body 

 of the higher dependants on the purse of John Bull ? We have not yet 

 heard that the proud patriotism of his Grace of Buckingham has stooped 

 to follow the example of Lord Camden, and disgorged the enormous 

 profits of his place in the Exchequer. As to that illustrious victim, the 

 Marquis Camden, we see that this nobleman's self-denial does not ascend 

 to the denial of self-panegyric. Every year a trumpet is blown before 

 him, on his refunding the sum, which the outcry of the nation wrung 

 from him after long and many a compunction. But of Lord Camden 

 we plainly say, that he had as much right to the whole 40,000/. a year, 

 as he has to the 4,000/. a year, which he has retained : he having in 

 fairness no right whatever to either, if right is to be estimated, not by 

 the mere grant of ministerial prodigality, but by service done. What 

 services were ever done by the Marquis Camden in the Exchequer to the 





