1830.] The Session of Parliament. 491 



the rents from houses were estimated at 20,000/. annually, which, at 

 eighteen years' purchase, would produce 360,000/. ; the farms were worth 

 160,000/. ; the waste lands in forests were estimated at 86,000 acres, 

 which, at 5/. an acre, would produce 430,000/. ; the allotments under 

 488 enclosure acts, passed within the last forty years, were estimated at 

 225,000/. ; the church livings were considered to be worth 100,000/., 

 which, at twenty years' purchase, would produce 2,000,000/. ; making 

 a total of 17,805,000/." 



The motion was, of course., negatived. 



In the Committee of Supply Sir James Graham moved the abolition 

 of the office of lieutenant-general of Ordnance, and charged the whole 

 Ordnance department with being kept up to swell the influence of Go- 

 vernment. 



" There was, first, the master-general, a peer of Parliament, and a per- 

 son of considerable importance ; then there was the lieutenant-general, 

 member for the county of Gloucester ; then the surveyor-general was 

 the member for Sandwich, and the clerk of the Ordnance for Newport, 

 and another important officer for Cambridge, and the clerk of the De- 

 liveries for Scarborough; finally, there was the treasurer of the Ord- 

 nance, a most important personage, of whom he knew not in what terms 

 suitably to speak, so varied and so valuable were his services. He knew 

 not whether to regard him as a civil or a military functionary. In the 

 House he was looked upon as the muster-master general, and, he might 

 add, the Ajaxflagellifer of the Commons' House. He could mean none 

 but the honourable member for Bishop's Castle." ( A laugh.) 



So much for the public opinion of that worthiest of whippers, Billy 

 Holmes, whose office is to hunt the coffee-houses, the smoking-rooms, 

 and every other room of every other kind, for the lazy, the sleeping, the 

 smoking, or, however may be employed, the great legislators of this 

 fortunate country : and for this lofty employment this poor fellow has 

 only 1500/. a-year, besides certain more private good things for life. 



But this is no matter of jest, after all. The people must wring from 

 their own necessities every shilling that remunerates such is the word 

 the services of the whole Billy Holmes' tribe. Sir James Graham spoke 

 with natural scorn and indignation on the subject. " Let him then hear 

 no more of East Retford, wjien Sandwich and Queenborough were over- 

 awed by the Admiralty, Newport by the Treasury, and other boroughs 

 by the Ordnance. Let them hear no more, then, of the great borough- 

 holders ; let them not be told of the Duke of Newcastle and of other 

 noblemen in the same circumstances, when such doings as those of the 

 Ordnance and the Treasury and the Admiralty were before their eyes. 

 Could it be that his Majesty's present Government were incapable of 

 understanding the signs of the times ? If they possessed but the most 

 limited capacity for reading those signs, they would perceive that the 

 time was fast approaching when the people would no longer endure the 

 prodigious establishments with which it was loaded, and their inevitable 

 consequence a weight of debt and of taxation of which the history of 

 mankind afforded no parallel. They might rest assured that the weight 

 of that taxation would speedily make the people cry aloud in a voice 

 that would be heard cry aloud for a still further reduction of all public 

 establishments, with a view to the removal of public burdens. Now, 

 after having voted, in time of peace, a military force of 82,000 men, it 

 would be little matter of surprise that the people should begin to demand 



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