GRANT TO THE DUKE AND DUCHESS OF CLARENCE. (Hansard, 22 March 1827)

§ Mr. Hume
said, he could not allow this bill to pass without again raising his voice against it, and declaring the grant to be a profligate waste of the public money, and that it placed his royal highness in a most degrading situation. However, he would not press the question to a division, as he had on a former occasion experienced its inutility.

§ Mr. D. W. Harvey
said, that he had divided against this grant on every occasion, but not on either of the grounds which had been advanced by his honourable friends. Those who might be termed the 1341 party tacticians on his side, opposed the grant, not because it was too large, but because the duke of Clarence was not the heir apparent to the throne. Now, when he looked at the proximity of that illustrious individual to the throne, and that it was scarcely possible that any child of the present king would interpose, he thought the objection on that ground untenable and ungracious. If the duke of Clarence would really be intitled to it, were he actually the heir apparent, for one he should say, let him have it, although in law he was only heir presumptive. Nor could he oppose it on account of the peculiar distress of the country, for he did not believe that the people of England would derive any comfort for their own wretchedness, by stripping the Crown of its due splendor. But he opposed it on the broad principle, that the general financial affairs of this country required a speedy, sincere, and effectual supervision, with a view to a real and unsparing system of retrenchment and economy. And where, he would ask, could the House begin this good work so effectually, not only as being- an expensive part of our establishment, but still more from the value of the example, as with the Civil List? For one, he liked to begin in high places, and he despised the contemptible policy of lopping off a few pence from unpatronised clerks, leaving the over-grown, over-fed, and over-paid consumers of the public money to remain unmolested. The same motives which had influenced him in opposing any additional grant to the duke of Clarence, would cheerfully induce him to cut down very considerably the incomes now allotted to the other branches of the royal family.

§ Mr. Pallmer
supported the bill. He thought it must be satisfactory to those who supported the grant to know that the illustrious personages who were the objects of it, exhibited a pattern of domestic virtue and hospitality.

Lord Rancliffe
said, he was so averse to the grant, that he would take the sense of the House upon this the last stage of the measure.

§ Lord Althorp
said, he had opposed the vote in the first instance, but had abstained from taking a part in the discussion since that period. He put it to his noble friend whether, as it was evident, the majority of the House was favourable to 1342 the bill, it did not take from the grace of the measure thus to persist in opposition to a measure which, however objectionable, was not so important as to require an hostility so persevering. If his noble friend determined to divide the House, he should decline voting with him.

Lord Rancliffe
expressed his disinclination to trouble the House unnecessarily, or to do any thing that might be considered ungracious. He would therefore not press his opposition to the measure to a division.