THE ROYAL MINT. (Hansard, 28 February 1837)

§ Mr. Labouchere
stated, that in pursuance of the notice which he had given, he had to CHLL Inattention of the House to that department over which he had the honour to me side. Although the subject, or the d tail connected with it, might not appear to be very interesting, yet both were of considerable importance. He trusted, therefore, that the House would favour him with is attention for a short spare of time. It would not be necessary to detain hon. Members for a very long time, because 1163 his principal object was, to endeavour to have an inquiry instituted into the establishment with which he was connected, through the medium of a select committee. In preparing a Bill upon this subject, it would be found that he was not prejudging any of the questions which the committee would have to determine, but rather that he had smoothed the way for them. One branch of the subject was the manner in which the expenses of the Mint were defrayed. What he proposed to do upon this point he had put together in a Bill, which he meant to ask leave to introduce that night. The average expenditure of the Mint, including costs for prosecutions, was 52,000l. a-year. His wish, then, was to submit to Parliament the estimates altogether which were in any way connected with the Mint, instead only of a small part of its expenditure. He considered the latter a very inconvenient mode. He proposed in his Bill to put a stop to this practice. He wished to put together all the sources from which the Mint was supplied, and to substitute one single estimate. This was certainly the most constitutional mode of proceeding. It was of the greatest advantage to the public service; and this he wished to have done—namely, that the amount of the vote for the Mint—that the whole of the items for the one service should annually be submitted to that House. He had stated that 52,000l. were defrayed for the expenses of the Mint. There were four sources from which that money was supplied to the. Mint. The first of them was the manner in which the Master of the Mint was paid; and he could conceive that nothing could be more objectionable. The Treasury allowed the Master of the Mint for every pound Height of gold employed, the sum of 6s. 8¼ed, out of which he paid the expense of the coinage, and the master's fees of 1s. 10d. a pound, the surplus being carried to the account of the general expenses. This was the system still acted upon, and the 1s. 10d. upon every pound was said to constitute the master's emoluments. It amounted to a very large sum; in some years of a large coinage it amounted to as much as 12,000l. Some years ago a Bill was passed for regulating the salary of the master, but whilst it left all the old machinery, it merely enacted that the fees should continue to be paid to the Master of the Mint by the Treasury; that 1164 he should take out of them his regulated salary of 2,000l. with the one hand, whilst he should pay back with the other hand to the Treasury the surplus, amounting to 8,000l. Such a system as this produced a great confusion of accounts—it was useless; and he thought that a word could not be said in its favour. But, besides producing a great confusion of accounts, it had the effect of causing great mistakes as to what was supposed to be the expenses of the coinage; it led to considerable public mistake in this respect. He understood that since the year 1816 the repayment to the Treasury had not been less than 80,000l. He proposed entirely to abolish this system. He proposed that the salaries of the master and other officers of the Mint should be submitted to the scrutiny of a Committee of that House, and that they should entirely do away with the present cumbrous and useless machinery. The next source from which the expenses of the Mint were defrayed was derived from the Consolidated Fund, to the amount of 13,800l. yearly. This grant rested upon an Act of Parliament of the 18th of Charles the Second, and was applicable to the general purposes of the Mint. Wishing, as he stated before, that the whole of the expenses should be expressly defrayed in one simple manner, he proposed to do away with this grant altogether. He meant that it should no longer be paid out of the Consolidated Fund, but that the Mint should come to Parliament for a vote to supply any deficiency. He now came to the third source from which the expenses of the Mint were defrayed, and it appeared to him to be more objectionable than any of the other sources. What he alluded to was the manner in which the profits of the silver and copper coinage were applied to the general purposes of the Mint. The profits of the coinage had amounted since the year 1816 to not less than 500,000l. of money. The application of these sums, according to the present system, never came under the scrutiny of that House. It was completely veiled from the observation of the public. All that was known was, that it was supposed to be appropriated for the general purposes of the Mint. He must say, that the system was not only objectionable in this respect, but also inasmuch as a discretion was left to the Master of the Mint, without the control of the Treasury, to apply this 1165 money in any manner that should appear to him to be in any way connected with the Mint. This appeared to him to be exceedingly objectionable. It was proposed to repeal this Act, and that in future the Master of the Mint should pay the whole of the profits derived from the coinage into the Consolidated Fund. The fourth source from which the expenses were derived was by a vote of that House. It varied very much, as it of course depended upon circumstances. Last year it amounted to 16,000l. and the year before, it only amounted to 3,000l. As he before stated, he proposed to substitute this one mode for all the modes that had hitherto been adopted, and he would therefore have to propose a vote for the purpose in the present year, amounting to the entire of the expenses, namely, 52,000l. There was only one more point connected with this part of this subject, to which he felt it necessary to call the attention of the House. Any Gentleman who at all considered the nature of the Mint transactions, would be aware that it was necessary that the Master of the Mint should be, to a certain degree, a trader in bullion, it being necessary that he should purchase the gold, silver, and copper required for the coinage. In order that he might be enabled to do this, he must have in his hands a certain fund with which he might go into the market. The manner in which this fund had been hitherto obtained, was by the Master of the Mint detaining, in rather an arbitrary manner, any sum of money that remained out of the profits on the silver and copper coinage, and using it in the purchase of bullion. As Master of the Mint, he knew that there was, at that moment, in his hands the sum of 80,000l.,which was actually being applied in this manner. It was proposed by the Bill, which he wished to introduce, to oblige the Master, instead of detaining this money, to pay it into the Consolidated Fund; and in order to supply the Master with the necessary means of carrying on the services of the Mint, he had introduced a clause to this effect:—"It shall and may be lawful for the Lords of the Treasury to make advances of money to the Mint, from time to time, for this purpose; it being compulsory on them, at the beginning of every Session, to lay upon the Table of the House an account of the whole of the money thus advanced, and the purposes to which applied." 1166 This, in his opinion, was the most expedient, the most constitutional, and the most regular mode of carrying on the necessary operation of the public services of the Mint. With regard to the details of the Bill he proposed to introduce, he would not at that stage trouble the House with any further observations, except to state that he thought it bolter to bring it for ward than run the risk of delaying the question for another year, by first referring the matter to a Committee. So much for the Bill. It might, however, save the time of the House, and be more satisfactory, if, having stated what the Bill was, he should at once proceed to state the grounds on which he ventured to recommend the House to grant a Select Committee to consider this subject. What he had stated formed only a small and insignificant part of the business of the Mint, but he was bound to say, that, filling the situation of Master of the Mint as he had for two years, he could not think he should have performed the duty he owed to the public if he had not asked the House to institute inquiry into the manner in which that department was conducted. He begged, however, not to be understood as expressing any opinion of sweeping or general condemnation of the system. On the contrary, he was ready to admit, that many parts of that system were good, and this was proved by the fact that many foreign countries had actually adopted them. Still less did he wish it to be understood, that he meant to say anything in disparagement of the officers of the Mint. So far from it, he was bound to take that opportunity of declaring, that there could not be found men of greater respectability or higher professional honour; but, still, looking at the whole system, he did think that the subject was one which required grave and mature inquiry, in order to ascertain whether it would be advisable to make any further alterations in the system than those which he now proposed for adoption. The motion he should make was, and he begged particular attention to it, for "a Select Committee to inquire into the establishment of the Royal Mint, and the system on which the fabrication of the coin is conducted." He had paid particular attention to the wording of his motion, as he was naturally desirous that no mistake with respect to the object which he had in view should be entertained out of doors, or that it should be for a moment 1167 supposed that the Committee would have anything to do with the currency question. His object in proposing the appointment of a Committee had nothing whatever to do with that question, and therefore he hoped the Committee would not carry their inquiry beyond that which he intended. "While he said this, it was far from his wish to exclude any inquiry the Committee might think fit to make on any subject relating to the Mint: but with respect to the standard, it certainly was not his intention that they should go into any such inquiry, and he did trust that they would exclude all investigation on that subject. He would not trouble the House with any further details. The Mint had, he might say, remained unaltered, as far as its constitution was concerned, from the time of Charles 2nd. It was true that, in 1816 when Lord Mary borough was Master of the Mint, some improvements were introduced, but then none that at all affected its main principles. The Mint consisted partly of establishment and partly of profits, but he was bound to say, that he did not consider the establishment too large, nor the officers at all over-paid. However, he admitted that some of the sources of emolument were of a nature to be a proper subject of inquiry. There were some of these sources of emolument which, from their nature, were open to suspicion, and liable to misrepresentation, and to which it would be especially the duty of the Committee to direct attention. There was one particular subject, however, which would mainly call for the attention of the Committee; he alluded to the system that at present prevailed, where the Master of the Mint entered into a contract with the moneyers. Now, he was exceedingly desirous that this part of the system should be closely examined into, and that was his main motive in bringing the entire subject under the notice of a Committee of the House. The present system was extremely ancient. The company of moneyers had exercised the privileges they at present enjoyed for a great number of years; but he did not think that was a sufficient reason why they should be paid higher than that for which others would be found to do the same business. It was found that our coinage was more expensive than that of other countries, and it was a question worthy of inquiry and consideration, whether these men were able to maintain £he Mint system in a proper state of effici- 1168 ency, and with a due regard to that fair and proper economy which it was the public interest to promote. When he spoke of economy, he wished to be distinctly understood as repudiating that false system of economy which would cripple the efficiency of the Mint. What he meant by economy was, that they should endeavour to conduct the whole operations of the Mint in a business-like and efficient manner. He trusted, that during the recess of Parliament, he had employed himself so successfully as to be enabled to shorten the labours of the Committee considerably as respected the objects of their inquiry. He had exerted himself, and, as he thought, with effect, to procure very important information with respect to the state of the coinage of this country, as well as that of foreign countries, particularly of France and America. It was rather curious that, looking to those two countries, in both which the strictest vigilance and control were exercised throughout all the Government departments, yet, in respect to the coinage, they adopted systems totally and thoroughly distinct. In France, they carried the system of contract to a much greater extreme than in this country, whilst in America the coinage was conducted by a Government establishment, and wholly placed under its management and direction. It was calculated to embarrass the inquiry of the Committee, when they found in these countries two different systems prevailing, and both perfectly successful; but they would have the advantage of fully considering the ample information that would be brought before them, and thus be best enabled to come to the conclusion of what system could be applied in the coinage of this country, so as to secure its best, most efficient, and satisfactory operation. He would conclude by moving for leave to bring in a Bill to amend the several Acts relating to the Royal Mint.

§ Mr. Hume
rose to second the motion, and was glad that the subject had been brought forward so early in the present Session. During last Session he (Mr. Hume) had paid great attention to this matter, and, had not the occupation of his time by other business prevented him, it was his intention to move for a Committee of Inquiry. He was, however, of opinion that such inquiries were always much more usefully conducted when suffered to re- 1169 main in the hands of the department to which they related; and when a department was willing to undertake such an inquiry he was always much better pleased, for, in such cases, the public business was always better attended to. Now, if he had obtained a Committee of Inquiry last year, he should have been unable to obtain the important information which had been acquired through the exertions of the right hon. Gentleman. It had been properly stated that this inquiry would not interfere in any way with the public circulation of the country. He would now discuss whether they might not have a better coinage if greater facilities were afforded to private individuals. One advantage, however, would result from this inquiry, that public servants would receive a fixed and settled salary, and that they would receive no profit, directly or indirectly, or have no interest whatsoever, in the mode in which the business of the department was conducted, beyond the proper discharge of the duties that devolved upon them. They had set an example with respect to the officers of their own House, which he trusted would pervade all the departments of the public service, namely, that the public servants should be rewarded by fixed and settled salaries, and have no expectation or interest from fees of any description. He did not say that those Gentlemen connected with the department now under consideration were entitled to particular blame for having received considerable sums of money—they were only emoluments taken in the ordinary course of their service; but, however blameless the individuals, the system was not the better. It was satisfactory to hear it stated that there was no disposition to interfere with the present standard of value, the certainty and stability of which was so necessary to the public interest. It would be their object to consider how they could adopt a system most conducive to the public interests in general, and to the commercial interests of the country. Until the Committee could come to the conclusion of their inquiry, it would be premature to discuss whether they ought to depart from the contract system or not; but he would repeat his satisfaction that the inquiry was about to take place, and he had no doubt that it would be followed up by a satisfactory and practical result.

§ Mr. Clay
wished to ask the right hon. 1170 Gentleman whether in the Bill he proposed to make a provision for that remuneration to the moneyers which they at present received under the contract system in the shape of a percentage on the amount of coin? He understood that it was intended by the Bill to do away with the percentage, and to place the whole department under the management of the Exchequer.

§ Mr. Labouchere
said, that the sole object of the present Bill would be to get the money from the public by a vote of the House, instead of from other sources; but the present measure did not propose to interfere with the mode of payment of the officers of the Mint, which would remain unaltered. But with respect to the inquiry before the Committee, it would of course be competent for them to inquire into every part of the entire system.

§ The Chancellor of the Exchequer
said, that it was unnecessary to say, that the present measure had the sanction of the Government. He was exceedingly gratified that this motion had been brought forward, although in the present very thin state of the House it might not receive that attention to which from its importance it was entitled. The subject which had been introduced by his right hon. Friend was one to which for a long time he had paid particular attention. His right hon. Friend had been anxious to bring forward the subject last Session, but had been induced not to take that step, because it was thought that they could come to the examination of the whole subject much more advantageously, and with fuller information, in the present Session. It was most material to apply the most improved, safe, and economical principles to the management of all public departments. The present system under which the Mint was conducted, was a most complicated and unsatisfactory system. It was a complicated, difficult, operas, and unintelligible system. Indeed, he might say, that the business of the Mint was conducted, in an unconstitutional mode. They were desirous to substitute the simple mode of a vote of Parliament of the necessary sums, and the introduction into the management of the Mint of the same principles as were applied to the management of all the other public establishments connected with the Government. He wished it to be understood with respect to the inquiry before the Committee, that it was 1171 their intention to confine that inquiry strictly within the bounds prescribed by the order of reference, and expressed in the speech of his right hon. Friend. Let it not be supposed that, because they were about to enter upon this inquiry, they had any disposition to open the question of the standard of value. The present inquiry had no more connexion with the standard of value than an inquiry into the mode of conducting the business of the Admiralty, or any other of the public departments of the country.