516 ANNUAL REGISTER, 1817. 



wholly executed by deputy, your 

 committee do not feel themselves 

 competent to recommend any ge- 

 neral regulation by which the 

 proper scale of salary in any of 

 them may be settled, as soon as 

 the pro{)osed reductions can be 

 accomplished. They do not pos- 

 sess all the information necessary 

 for this purpose ; and, even if 

 they did, it is possible that an es- 

 tablishment, which might be now 

 adequate for any particular office, 

 might cease to be so before the 

 termination of the existing in- 

 terest. 



Your committee are therefore 

 of opinion that it should be left 

 to the judgment and responsibility 

 of the Lords of the Treasury for 

 the time being, as vacancies occur, 

 to place the several offices pro- 

 posed to be regulated upon such 

 an establishment with respect 

 to the number and rank of the 

 persons reijuisite for the discharge 

 of the efficient functions of such 

 o: Ices, and the amount of salary 

 to be assigned to each jjerson, as 

 may appear to them adequate, 

 after a full inquiry into the nature 

 and extent of the duties to be |)er- 

 fornied, and the degree of official 

 and pecuniary responsibility which 

 necessarily attaches to some of 

 them. If it should Le tliought 

 proper in any act to be passed, 

 with reference to the subject of 

 this report, to enact, that when- 

 ever any of tlie said offices shall 

 be reduced and regulated, there 

 should be laid befoie both Houses 

 of parliament a comparative state- 

 ment of the numbei', duty, and 

 emolument of the respective offi- 

 cers under the old and new estab- 

 lishments, your conmiittee con- 

 ceive that the pai liainentary check. 



created by this arrangement, would 

 be sufficient to jjievent any abuse 

 of a power which seems properly 

 to belong to the Lords of the 

 Treasury, as the official and re- 

 sponsible advisers of the crown, 

 upon all matters which relate to 

 the superintendence and control 

 over the public expenditure. 



It may not be improper, in 

 treating this part of the inquiry, 

 to call the attention of the House 

 more distinctly to some peculiar 

 circumstances before alluded to, 

 which are connected with offices 

 of great emolument in the courts 

 of law in Ireland. 



It appears, that upon a vacancy 

 which recently occurred in the 

 office of Clerk of the Pleas in the 

 Couit of Exchequer, by the death 

 of the Earl of Buckinghamshire, a 

 claim to the appointment to tliat 

 office was preferred by the Chief 

 Baron of the Exchequer in Ireland, 

 and an individual was ap|)ointed 

 by him, and was sworn in before 

 the Court of Exchecjuer. A pro- 

 ceeding, by quo warranto, was in- 

 stituted on the part of the crown, 

 and the judgment of the Court of 

 King's Bench was adverse to the 

 claim of the Chief Baron. An 

 appeal, however, has been made 

 to the Court of Error ; and may 

 hereafter be made, by either paity, 

 to the House of Lords. In the 

 mean time, by an act of the legis- 

 lature, .'56th Geo. HI. c.l2'2, the 

 emohmicnts of the office are paid 

 into the treasury, and the due dis- 

 charge of all the official duties 

 ])rovided foi'. It is not impossible 

 that claims, similar to those which 

 have been preferred in this in- 

 stance by the Chief Earon, may 

 be preferred to the appointment 

 to other offices in the law courts 



of 



