Commons Sitting of 26 July 1822

SUPERANNUATION ACT AMENDMENT BILL.
On bringing up the report on this bill,
Mr. Calcraftsaid, that if the bill was made optional towards the present holders of office, and only compulsory in future, he would withdraw his opposition to it. His principal objection to the bill was, that it imposed a partial tax upon persons who had never contemplated it when they first entered upon their situations. Many of them had insured their lives, and they would in future be bound not only to pay the annual premium, but an additional 5 per cent. The House was dealing with a class of persons who had discharged no trivial duty to their country, and who had not been by any means overpaid. To the principle of superannuation prospectively, he had no objection. The salaries of the public officers had been reduced; yet even from this lessened amount a farther sum was now to be abstracted. It would be merely just, that those who quitted office should be allowed to recover back what they had contributed without receiving the slightest advantage. The case was one of great hardship and oppression. He had never met with a man who did not think the bill in principle most unfair. After referring to the correspondence of lord Sid-mouth and Mr. Hobhouse, against the bill, the hon. gentleman contended, that it broke faith with the public servants. The project was founded only on expediency, and it was to be enforced because the persons who were to suffer were weak and defenceless. The right hon. gentle-

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man and the noble marquis were turning their men in office against their clerks in office, by requiring the votes of the former on behalf of this odious and cruel bill. The whole economy to be effected was not more than 100,000 l. a year. A saving of greater extent might easily be made elsewhere; nay, the whole sum might be obtained at once by a review of the transactions of the government with the Bank of England.
Mr. Canningconsidered the bill in principle as objectionable as any measure that had been ever brought forward: it was most unfair to subject any particular class to peculiar taxation. In the arrangements of the measure there was a clear breach of faith. He did not say that it was not in the power of the Crown to reduce the salaries of its official servants without the aid of parliament; but for this House to originate such a plan was in direct opposition to the address of the last session, and could be looked upon only as a species of parliamentary taxation. The bill was obviously a breach of faith towards all who, since 1810, had devoted themselves to the public service, on condition of receiving the benefits which the act of that year held out. He would put an individual case—that of a young man of the highest promise and of most respectable birth, but deprived of his father, who at a time when he was obtaining the honours of his college, and had every prospect of distinguished preferment in the church, was induced to accept a public situation under the Crown on the conditions of the statute of 1810. On those conditions he had relied; but he was now to be told that they were not to be fulfilled—that a large part of his emoluments was to be taken from him. This bill would be to him a grievous injury. It was impossible to know how many individuals had quitted the law, the army, or the church; under the faith of the act of 1810. This bill might also be considered an invasion of the rights and powers of the Crown. Besides, if a man were removed from office, he would lose all he had contributed to this fund: it would really be nothing short of pillaging him to turn him out of his place without returning the money he had annually paid. He saw no remedy for this objection, but by defining in the bill for what faults a man should or should not be dismissed, and under what circumstances he should or should not be allowed to withdraw the
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sum he had contributed to this joint stock. The bill gave all the apparent accuracy of rule to that which could not be governed by rule. It provided not for extraordinary merit; it recognized not services, the performance of which required superior talents. In the relations between the public and their executive servants, as in the relations of private life, many things must be taken into the account, when rewards were about to be granted, which were not susceptible of legislative interference. He would therefore, in the first instance place the extent of reward in the discretion of the Crown, and next in the high official servants of the Crown. He would not attempt to confine that discretion within legislative limits. It was a vain endeavour to defined those shades of merit which were almost too minute for human observation, and infinitely too nice for legislative enactment. Having stated his sentiments on the measure, he did not mean to proceed further. In the present state of the session and of the House, it would be vain to hope for effectual resistance to the bill. He had repeatedly expected the discussion to come on, and though he did not like to sit up so late at night as some of his hon. friends, yet he had regularly attended in that hope. The bill had been put off twenty seven times, and it was no very pleasant thing to go 27 days without a dinner. He believed the measure originated in a laudable desire to meet public opinion; but if it were passed, it would not, he was convinced, satisfy the public mind.
The Chancellor of the Exchequersaid, that the bill in question was founded on an address which had been agreed to by both Houses. Its object was to bring the salaries of the different public offices as near as possible to the standard of 1792; but in doing this he was most anxious to avoid making any sudden reduction, or, indeed, any reduction which was likely to be felt by the parties. The arguments of his right hon. friend, if good for any thing, would go to prove, that when once a person obtained a situation in a public office, it was no longer in the power of the Crown or of parliament, to reduce or qualify that office in any way. Such a principle, if once introduced, would go to confound vested rights arising out of grants for life, with contingent and general expectations from the present occupation of a public office;

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whereas, it was known, that those offices were distributed, subject to every change of circumstances, and every variation or alteration in public departments. But, if it was unjust to reduce the salary of an individual in a public office, how much more unjust was it to dismiss him? And yet, in no case was it denied, that the Crown, or the ministers of the Crown, had a right to dismiss the persons under them, if they so thought fit. How, then, if this greater power was admitted, could the lesser be denied? But in this case the hardship was not of the extent insisted on. The greater portion of the persons affected by this bill had been appointed before the augmentations in the salaries had taken place; they, of course, had no expectation whatever of receiving the large salaries which they now enjoyed; and therefore, the argument of his right hon. friend did not apply. His right hon. friend had also objected to this bill as imposing a partial and unequal tax. But how could the operation of this bill be so considered? It was admitted, that government had a right to dismiss these persons from office; why not, then, a right to reduce their salaries? And the more so when the proposed reduction was not altogether taken away, but applied to their own advantage. The augmentation of the salaries in public offices took place during the existence of the property tax. That tax took 10 per cent from the clerks in public offices. The greatest portion of the augmentations took place with a view to meet that reduction, and also the increased price of the necessaries of life. Now the salaries were continued, but the property tax was removed; and the present bill only called upon the persons holding those salaries to pay one half of what the property tax took from them, which half (or 5 per cent) was to be applied to their own benefit. On this ground, therefore, he did not see how the bill could be called a hard or partial measure. On the contrary, he thought it was a much more lenient measure than that proposed by the hon. member for Aberdeen, who wished to take 25 per cent off the salaries of all persons in public offices.
The Marquis of Londonderryassured the House, that he had never felt a more painful duty than that imposed upon him by this bill. The House had appointed a committee to inquire into all public offices, and that inquiry had continued its sittings for up wards of three months. The com-
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mittee having come to a decision, it was not now for parliament to turn round and quarrel with the details of that principle which they had so strenuously advocated. The noble lord went over the arguments urged by the chancellor of the exchequer, with respect to the causes which operated to produce the rise of salaries in the different public offices. The whole of the circumstances induced government to bring back those salaries, as nearly as possible, to what they were in 1792. The doctrine of his right hon. friend, would go to give the persons now employed in public offices a vested right, a kind of freehold, in the offices which they held. If this notion of vested interests and freehold rights were to go forward, then there must be an end of legislation: these rights and interests would meet them at every turn, and put a stop to every measure however beneficial or necessary. He admitted that his feelings had been severely hurt in the course of this inquiry; but nevertheless he must protest against the course pointed out by his right hon. friend. Why should the public offices be conducted on a plan different from private concerns? If a banker or private merchant wished to remove a clerk, or to lower his salary, he did it at once. Now, would any man contend that that clerk would have a right to turn round and say, "I gave up a fellowship at College, and a place in the church, to accept of your clerkship, and therefore you ought not to dismiss me?" If any hon. member on the other side were to bring forward a motion of this kind, and he (lord L.) were to meet it by saying that the salaries in the public offices were vested rights, were a kind of freehold, and could not be tampered with, it would be scouted. The question naturally divided itself into three points; namely, the salaries of office, the scale of emolument, and the act of superannuation. With respect to the salaries, there were but little deductions to be made except in the higher classes of office. Remarks had often been made in that House respecting clerks holding 700 l. and 800 l. a year; it had been stated that clerks came down to their offices in their tilburies. In consequence of these complaints, it became the duty of ministers to institute an inquiry, with a view to regulate a fair but graduated scale of remuneration to persons employed in public offices. They were all duly convinced of the great services rendered to the public by the clerks in the different

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departments; but they were bound to enter upon the inquiry, and that duty overcame every other consideration. In adopting a scale of remuneration, they had taken care to arrange the emoluments so that they should not overshadow the salaries. He would give an instance. In his office there were persons holding salaries of 240 l. a year, but their emoluments from length of service and other circumstances amounted to 400 l. a year. This overshadowing of the salary by the emoluments would be remedied by the proposed bill, which established various classes of service. The hon. member for Aberdeen might ask, "why not put an end to this complicated system by at once giving adequate salaries?" To this he answered, that the thing was as broad as it was long, with regard to the public expenditure; but it was a very different case as it regarded the individual employed. The very fact of having a prospective increase of salary, would produce a moral effect upon the young man's character: he would be anxious to exert himself when he found a certainty of having those exertions rewarded: he would find that a provision was to be made for him in old age—a provision which he mainly contributed to, but which was aided and supported by that public who were satisfied with the propriety and correctness of his conduct. But let it be taken the other way—the whole burthen would be thrown on the public; whereas they wished that the public should merely aid and countenance the economy of the individual. Upon this ground it was, that ministers had acted. In the event of any removal from office for improper conduct or inefficiency, the parties should, he thought, be allowed to receive back the principal vested by them, subject however to the decision of the Treasury in extra-ordinary cases. This he conceived would meet the objections of his right hon. friend. He would not be guilty of the insincerity of saying that ministers were volunteers in entering upon this question. The subject had been pressed upon them by the hon. gentlemen opposite; and he now hoped that after advocating the principle of that question, those gentlemen would not turn round and quarrel with it in detail. He should be sorry to support any act of injustice, on the ground that it would make a saving of 100,000 l. a year to the country; but he hoped that those gentlemen who had said so much about
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lay lords of the Admiralty, and joint post-masters-general, would not he so high minded as to reject even such a trifling saving, when it was shown that it could be made without injury to any class of the community [Hear, hear!].
Mr. Humeagreed, that the speech of the right hon. gentleman (Mr. Canning) was one of the most extraordinary he had ever heard. That right hon. gentleman was undoubtedly capable of clothing any opinions he entertained in language which was calculated to produce a considerable effect; but he was much deceived if the speech he had made that night had carried conviction to the mind of any man who heard him. To contend that because an individual made a selection between the church and the public offices, his majesty's ministers were therefore precluded from making any change in the scale of salaries was a most monstrous and absurd principle. Since he had sat in that House he had never heard a more constitutional and consistent address than that which had just been delivered by the noble marquis. He concurred entirely with the noble lord as to the right of the Crown to regulate the salaries of public officers, and the necessity of doing away with the idea of any vested interest in their situations, which those officers might conceive they possessed. The noble lord had stated most fairly, that it was the duty of government to do away with the idea that persons in public offices had any claim to remuneration after any number of years'. He (Mr. H.) thought the present bill did not go far enough, and that it would not answer the expectations of the country; but if the argument of the right hon. gentleman proved any thing, it would prove that government had no right to make any reduction at all. The present bill was objectionable, since it raised a new fund, and involved some complex operations; and he would put it to the gentlemen opposite, whether it would not be better to give up the bill, and proceed at once to a reduction of salaries, at the rate of 15 per cent, which was proportionate to the alteration in the value of money.
The report was received, and the amendments agreed to.

COLONIAL COMMISSION OF INQUIRY.
The debate being resumed,
Mr. Wilmothoped, that the hon. gentleman would withdraw his amendment, for extending the commission to Trinidad.

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He had already pledged himself to produce papers; and was ready to give every facility to the full elucidation of the subject.
Mr. Humesaid, he had full confidence in the sincerity of the hon. gentleman, and would agree to withdraw his amendment.
The address was then agreed to.