PLACES, PENSIONS, SINECURES, REVERSIONS, HALF-PAY, AND SUPERANNUATIONS. So far we have penetrated into the recesses of the Oligarchy! Our first entrance was into HOLY CHURCH, passing, with fear and trembling, through the venerable cathedrals, the collegiate establishments, the stalls, chapters, cloisters, and parsonages-glancing, as we proceeded, at the lawn sleeves, silk aprons, shovel-hats, surplices, hat-bands, and gloves. Next, we ventured into the precincts of royalty, surveying the pomp and gorgeous pageants of courts and palaces; loitering, as we went along, in the pleasant retreats, in the woods and forests, the manors, chases, and crown-lands; afterwards, we entered the domains of feudality, looking over the inheritances and possessions of the Percys, the Wentworths, Cavendishes, Pelhams, and other lords of the soil. Next, we plunged into the rookery among the wigs and gowns, the owls and owlets of Westminster; passing over thence into the treasury, the exchequer, and admiralty; and, finally, concluding our exploratory researches in the purlieus of Leadenhall and Threadneedle-street. After all this long and devious tour, without mentioning sundry offsets and ramblings by the way, our readers, we fear, are only yet imperfectly acquainted with the Borough System; they comprehend only its geography--its general departments and divisions-and know nothing of the various living creatures—the birds and beasts, and creeping things it contains. Our next object, therefore, will be, to introduce them into the menagerie of placemen, pensioners, sinecurists, reversionists, compensationists, superannuationists, and what not; first, describing their classes, genera, and species; and, afterwards, concluding with a catalogue of their names and qualities. This department of our work will be found a museum of rarities, embracing every link in the human creation, every description of men, women, and children. Like the ark of Noah, there has been nothing too great or mean in nature to find admission. It exhibits all the vice, the caprice, and injustice, of aristocratic government: the highest services to the state almost without -- Li notice, and the greatest gifts of the Crown lavished on profligacy, servility, and intrigue. It exhibits indolence and luxury devouring the bread for which poverty and industry have toiled, and for which they are now starving. It exhibits the strength, arcana, and machinery of the English government. It is a real picture of our boasted constitution-if not by law, as by practice established; and is a source whence a foreigner may draw far more correct notions of the checks, balances, and supports of the system, than from the visionary and panegyrical descriptions of Blackstone and De Lolme. Before giving a list of the public cormorants, let us briefly describe their orders and degrees, beginning with the host of placemen filling the public offices. From returns to parliament, it appears there are 22,912 persons employed in the public departments, whose salaries amount to £2,788,907.* This does not include the immense number of persons employed in courts of law, the royal household, nor the colonies, and which, if included, would almost double the number of functionaries and their emoluments. The following exhibits a statement of the principal branches of revenue, in which this vast army of tax-gatherers and collectors is distributed, and a comparison of their relative numbers and emoluments in 1797 and 1827. An important consideration is the comparative remuneration of placemen in 1797 and at present. In the year 1797 there were 16,267 persons employed in the public departments; and they received £1,374,561 a year. In 1827 there were 22,912 persons, and they received £2,788,907: the average income of each individual was £84 in 1797, and about £121 in 1827, being at the rate of thirty-three per cent. increase of salary. Now, can any just cause be assigned, why the whole mass of salaries should not be reduced to the rate of 1797, thereby effecting a Parliamentary Paper, No. 552, Session 1828. The Custom returns for this year are incorrect, owing to the returns for the Port of London having been destroyed by fire in 1814. The persons employed in the Port of London, in 1815, were 2,043. The return of the amount of salaries, at the two periods, is accurate. To obviate another objection, it must be observed, that in 1806-7, and 18, fees to the annual amount of £40,000 were abolished, and equivalent salaries substituted. This, however, accounts only for a very small part of the enormous increase in the charge of this department. saving of upwards of one-third in an expenditure of £2,788,907 per annum. All the reasons which have ever been alleged for an augmentation in the pay of public servants have ceased to exist. The price of wheat in 1797 and in 1830 is nearly the same; at least there is no material variation, and the value of the currency has been restored. How much better circumstanced are placemen now than in 1810; in that year there were 22,931 persons receiving £2,822,727, averaging about the same income as in 1827: but, at the former period, wheat was 105s. a quarter; while, at present, it is 60s. a quarter. Why should those who live on the taxes enjoy such advantages over those who pay them? Rents, profits, wages, every description of income, the produce of industry and capital, has fallen at least one-third since 1810, and why should not those who are paid by the public be compelled to retrench in an equal ratio? Do not let a suffering community be insulted by the declaration, that there is no room for retrenchment--that it has already been carried to the utmost limit. Here is the proof to the contrary; here it is shewn that, without the least injustice to individuals, in the single item of SALARIES, one million per annum might be saved, which is nearly equal to the produce of the window-duties, and more than double the produce of all the taxes on newspapers, advertisements, and knowledge! After all, it is not the clerks-the mere underlings of office-that we wish to see exclusively curtailed; it is the vultures of the system whom we wish to see scotched-the chairmen of boards-the commissioners of stamps, of the excise, the customs, and assessed taxes-the secretaries of state-the lords of the treasury-the lords of the admiralty— the president of the council-the great officers of the king's household -the lord privy-seal-the judges, masters, registrars, and secretaries of bankrupt in the courts of law-the receivers of taxes-the comptrollers, paymasters, treasurers, solicitors of taxes, and prothonotaries: it is these, the great birds of prey, whom we first wish to be brought down, and then the inferior race may be pounced upon. The increase in salaries is not confined to civil offices, it extends equally to military, naval, and ordnance pay and allowances. In all these branches of service, there has been a great augmentation in consequence of the rise in the price of provisions, which is a reason that can be no longer urged against reduction. In 1792, the pay of a private soldier in the regular infantry was only £9:26 for 365 days; it is now £185. The pay of the regular cavalry has been increased in the same proportion. The pay of a commander in the navy, in 1792, was 20s. per diem; in 1829, 60s. per diem. The allowance to the widow of a colonel, in 1792, was £50 per annum; in 1827, £90 per annum.* A similar scale of augmentation has been applied to almost every other class; but the time has arrived when they ought all to be reduced to the rate before the war. The productive orders of society have long since been compelled to retrograde, and those who live on the produce of their industry must follow them. While the tide was Parliamentary Paper, No. 594, Session 1830. at flood all officers and placemen were wafted too high on the beach; now the tide has fallen, they must either voluntarily glide or supinely wait to be forced into the common channel. CIVIL AND MILITARY PLURALITIES.-One of the greatest abuses in the public service is pluralities. When a single individual can adequately discharge the duties of half a dozen different offices the the duties of these offices must be either very small or unimportant, and consequently some of them might either be abolished or consolidated, and the salaries saved or reduced. A few examples of this abuse may not be uninteresting. Lord Cathcart receives a pension of £2000 a-year as late ambassador; he is Vice-Admiral of Scotland (a sinecure); besides his military pay and allowances as a general officer and colonel of a regiment of life-guards. The Earl of Rosslyn is Lord Privy Seal of England, and Chancellor for Scotland, (a sinecure) with good salaries with each, together with his large military pay, allowances, &c. Lord Melville was, lately, first Lord of the Admiralty, £5000 a-year, and Keeper of the Privy Seal for Scotland (a sinecure) £2675 a-year. To these we subjoin a few other examples of pluralities as they stood at the latest period of the Duke of Wellington's administration; we do not cite them as peculiarly illustrative of the Duke's ministry; similar abuses existed under his predecessors as they will under those who have succeeded him, till there is a parliamentary reform. They are taken from the Parl. Paper, No. 479, Session 1830, with a correction or two from the Annual Finance Accounts. Lord Ellenborough; President of the Board of Controul ....... Custom Brevium of the King's Bench; an office held jointly with £ 8. d. 5000 0 0 9625 8 1 Governor of Jersey; paid out of tithes, rents, &c. in 1828... Duke of Wellington; First Lord of the Treasury.. 3175 18 4 469 0 0 1173 2 6 2000 0 0 1100 0 0 5000 0 0 Nil 238 15 5 2695 0 0 950 0 0 295 13 7 No salary 4000 0 0 1000 0 0 1573 0 0 Major-General of Marines 1037 0 0 Lieutenant-General Sir Herbert Taylor; Adjutant-General 1383 19 2 Abundant other examples of similar enormity will be found on reference to the List of Places. HALF-PAY AND SUPERANNUATIONS. The sums expended under the head of "Dead Weight," consisting of retired full-pay, half-pay, civil superannuations, and allowances to the army and navy, is equal to the revenue of many powerful states. The number of military officers, on full-pay, is 6,173: the number of military officers on half-pay, is 6,009. In the navy, there are 5,528 officers; of this number, 200 are admirals, of whom only ten are in actual service; 803 are captains, of whom only seventy-nine are employed; 836 are commanders, of whom only seventy are employed; and 3,689 are lieutenants, of whom only 669 are employed. The total sum annually paid in retired full-pay, half-pay, superannuations, pensions, and allowances to officers in the army and ordnance; to militiaadjutants, local-militia-adjutants, and serjeant-majors; to foreigners on half-pay, and to foreigners receiving pensions, &c. is £3,314,639:17:7.* The total sum annually payable under similar heads in the navy, is £1,583,797:16:10. The Dead Weight altogether, including the superannuations, grants, and pensions, in the Metropolitan Police, Excise, Customs, Treasury, Stamp, Tax Offices, Revenue, and Military Boards, is £5,363,640: 7:11.† Such, in addition to the public debt of eight hundred millions, and the conflagrations in the home counties, is the fatal bequest of aristocratic government; of that government which vainly sought to avert domestic reform by foreign war and intervention! There is, however, something so peculiar in the Dead Weight, that it deserves more particular investigation. It might have been thought, during a period of peace and reduced establishments, and more especially by the deaths of annuitants, that the burthen imposed on the community under this head would have been lightened. But it is not so; the Dead Weight is too good a thing for the Aristocracy to be suffered to expire, and it seems likely to be, at least, co-existent with the system which created it. In 1822, this precious entail of the Boroughmongers war expenditure amounted to £5,289,087, which is less, by £74,553 per annum, than it was in March, 1830. All the time go+ Ibid. page 5. Parliamentary Paper, No. 185, Session 1830. |