GRANTS TO THE DUKE AND DUCHESS OF CLARENCE. (Hansard, 19 February 1827)

The Marquis of Tavistock
said, that he should not discharge the duty which he owed to his constituents, or consult the real interest of the Crown itself, if he did not oppose the present motion. He would not go so far as to say, that this grant of 9,000l. a year was likely to be much felt by the country, even in its present state of distress; but he would say, that considering the circumstances under which it was proposed—considering the present state of the country, and the reductions which had been actually made in the salaries of many public servants, who had nothing but their salaries to support them—he did think that, to say the least of it, it was one of the most indecent and most ill-timed propositions he ever remembered during his parliamentary experience. He was perfectly astonished, that the chancellor of the Exchequer, who had really a character to lose, could have lent himself to such a proposition. He returned his most cordial thanks to his noble friend, the member for Northamptonshire, for the upright and uncompromising spirit with which he had discharged his public duty, and he should certainly take the sense of the House on the present motion.

§ Mr. Hume
rose, and was proceeding to address the House, when he was inter-566 rupted by much noise, and cries of "Question." The hon. member then sat down for the purpose of allowing those who wished to prevent any further discussion of the question, an opportunity to state their objections. There not seeming, however, to be any disposition to take that course, and it being intimated that he was about to propose another amendment, the hon. gentleman was allowed to proceed. He began by observing, that he hoped those hon. members who were not endowed with patience enough to hear what he had to say, would take the opportunity to leave the House. Although they might feel uneasy to have their time occupied by such discussions, or feel a disregard of the public interest, he hoped they would not blame him for a conscientious intention to do what he considered his duty. It was his wish to prevent what he considered an unnecessary waste of the public money; and he would take the liberty of stating briefly why he thought that they ought not to expend one shilling upon the purposes to which they were now called upon to give their assent. When there was a deficiency in the revenue of four millions and a half to meet the charges of the year, was that a time to propose such an extravagant grant? Were they to keep the members of the royal family wallowing in wealth, at a time when so many thousands were dying for want of food? Were they to take the beds from under those miserable wretches by warrants of distress, in order to make up an enormous sum to be wasted in heartless expense, under the name of the necessary grandeur of royalty? He had taken the trouble to look over the Civil List, and he found that it amounted last year to the enormous sum of 1,057,000l. Of that unnecessary waste, 364,000l. were paid for pensions, and no less than 246,0007. to defray the expenses of the junior branches of the royal family, which would be increased to 255,000l. by the addition of the 9,000l. which they were now about to grant. If the duke of Clarence had any family, or was placed in a condition to require such sums, there might be an apology for the present addition to his income; but he had already a yearly grant of above 29,000l. His family received every year 2,500l. from the 4½ per cent fund; and all that was exclusive of his professional income, which amounted to 1,000l. a-year. It was not altogether the magnitude of the sum of 9.000l. to which he objected: it 567 was the insult which such a grant, at the present time, conveyed to the feelings of every man in the country who was suffering from distress. It was the sure way to make the heir presumptive unpopular; and ministers could not have invented any course more likely to place him at variance with public opinion. The hon. member, after ridiculing the idea of such a sum as 9,000l. being required for those charitable purposes, which the chancellor of the Exchequer had enlarged upon, concluded by moving, as an amendment, which he declared no man could fulfil his duty without supporting—"That, taking into consideration the present distressed state of the shipping, manufacturing, and commercial interests; the distressed state of the working classes, and the alarming deficiency in the public revenue, this House does not deem it expedient to add to the burthens of the people, by increasing the pension of his royal highness the duke of Clarence, who already enjoys a clear income from the Consolidated Fund, of 29,500l. per annum, exclusive of his professional income."

Mr. Maurice Fitzgerald
said, he anticipated for the vote he was about to give the same severe chastisement from the hon. member for Aberdeen, which he had that night, and on a former evening, given to those who had brought forward the proposition now before the House. That hon. gentleman had characterized it in very unmeasured terms: he had charged it with profligacy, extortion, and insult. He had gone so far, even, as to declare it injurious to the shipping and manufacturing interests. Now, for his own part, he must say, that a more exaggerated statement he had never heard, nor had he ever listened to a more unnecessary display of vehement oratory. For the resolution itself, taking it independently of all exaggeration and colouring, it did strike him as being a very fair and natural proposition to be made on the part of his majesty's government, from the first moment that his royal highness succeeded to the station which he at present occupied. It had been asked, in what consisted the difference of station which his royal highness had so experienced? But he believed, that the common sense of every man in that House must instantly supply the answer to such a question; and he, for one, required no official reply upon the master. His royal highness now 568 stood in that altered situation, and had succeeded to those important relations to the Throne, which called for the support of every man who valued the welfare of the illustrious family, of which his royal highness was a member, or the dignity and honour of the Crown, to which he was so near in point of succession. One word as to what the hon. member for Aberdeen had said about the insult to the sufferings of the country, which would be conveyed by this addition of 9,000l. a year to the duke of Clarence's income. In a country, where the public expenditure amounted to about sixty millions annually—where about half that sum was made applicable yearly to the payment of the public debt—where, during the last war, no less than thirteen millions, and, in the last year only, as much as five millions had been appropriated for a sinking fund, to prop up a particular interest—in such a country, to talk of the grant of 9,000l. a year to a man in his royal highness's situation, was neither more nor less than a gross delusion upon the public. He must also object to this being considered as a question of monarchy. As to the United States of America, and the expenses of their government and executive —if the superior advantages of their institutions were to be made a question, as contrasted with those of the British monarchy, he did trust that that question at least would not be raised upon this grant of 9,000l. a year to the presumptive heir to the Crown. If such a question was to be introduced for discussion in that House, he hoped that, among all the aggravated topics which could be brought forward with the view of enforcing the preferable nature of a republic as contrasted with a monarchy, the admiration of the national economy attaching to the former would never cause it to be gravely discussed there, whether it would be improper to make such an allowance as that proposed in favour of his royal highness, when his altered and very peculiar station was considered. Believing, as he did, that that station had become most materially altered and that his royal highness was entitled to have such an addition made to his income, he should cheerfully support the vote. In doing so, he was tempted to observe, that there was no man in that House who, during a long political existence, had shewn a more perfect disregard of adulation, addressed either to men in power or 569 to princes, than himself. He was confident, therefore, that his support of this resolution would be attributed solely to that abstract view of its reasonableness and propriety, which he most conscientiously entertained; and, entertaining, had avowed—a duty which he did not hesitate to perform, although its execution placed him under the painful necessity of recording his dissent, on this occasion, from some of those hon. friends in that House with whom he was in the habit, upon almost all other occasions, of voting.

§ Mr. Ridley Colborne
deplored the present opposition to the grant, and declared that, whatever might have been the opinion of the honourable members at first, such continued and obstinate resistance would make the offer of the money come as ungraciously from the House, as its acceptance must be rendered painful to the illustrious individual for whom it was intended.

§ Lord Leveson Gower
did not think it necessary to trouble the House with any explanation of his reasons for supporting the grant after the question had been so fairly and ably stated by the knight of Kerry. In every expression which had fallen from that right hon. gentleman he most fully concurred; but he wished to say a few words upon the line of argument taken by the hon. member for Aberdeen. That hon. member had endeavoured to take the course which he thought best calculated to enlist upon his side the passions of the people, and to make the grant of any sum to the duke of Clarence a matter of obloquy in the eyes of a great portion of the distressed. There was, however, no period at which the hon. member might not be able to find the same reasons for opposing any, even a necessary, matter of public expenditure; and if it might be objected to such an argument, that the present grant was an unnecessary piece of expenditure, then he would answer, that the very same would be said of the most necessary. The same argument might be applied in the same manner to even the accumulation of large private fortunes; but he conceived that such appeals to the passions instead of the reasons of men were not to be justified upon any sound principles of policy.