ESSAY III. ON THE ECONOMICAL REFORMERS. THE state economists have for some years past excited much discussion in parliament, and considerable interest in the public. The attempts which they have made toward the abolition of reversionary grants and sinecures have been the most popular of their proceedings; the former might well have been conceded to them, as a practice peculiarly liable to abuse, and which mortgages the influence of the crown, at the same time that it offends the feelings of the people. Sinecures also have been made offensive to the people; but the necessity of some mode of remuneration for public services was fully admitted by Mr. Bankes, and there can be no doubt, as was objected to him, that under whatever name remuneration may be awarded, the same feeling toward it would exist as long as any party in the country should think proper to raise a cry against the expenditure and the existing circumstances of government. Some mode, however, must exist, under any form of government*, which does not, like that of * The consequences of the Superannuation Act of 1810 (50 George III. c. 117), which passed on occasion of Mr. Bankes's motion, are very instructive, inasmuch as the result of injudicious reform cannot be better illustrated. In the year 1821, returns were made to parliament ancient Carthage, confine public offices exclusively to the wealthy. Aristotle, comparing together the several forms of polity then in the world, praises the institutions of that commercial state above all others, excepting only this limitation of which exhibited a profusion of superannuations, especially in the Customs and Excise, in which the great number of inferior officers personally unknown to the commissioners at the head of these departments had, perhaps, led to improper grants of this kind. The government of 1822, feeling themselves considerably pressed by repeated motions for economy and retrenchment, and being aware of a mistake in the scale of superannuations established by the Act of 1810, amended it by a new act, and therein sought popularity by creating a superannuation-fund: that is, by deducting 24 per cent., or in some cases 5 per cent., from all official salaries, and 10 per cent. from the amount of all other official emoluments. The sacrifice excited little notice, and the Act (3 George IV. c. 113.) received the royal assent in August, 1822. But it did not remain long in force. Mr. Stuart Wortley (afterwards Lord Wharncliffe) presented a petition against it in May, 1824, when a conversation ensued of some length, in which this unfortunate Act was almost universally reprobated as a partial and therefore unjust income tax; and it was urged successfully that liberal superannuation allowances were quite as much for the benefit of the public as of the officer. Heretofore, it was said, when a clerk became old or infirm, he was enabled to retire upon his earnings from the fees of office, accumulated and reserved by his own prudence for that purpose; or the head of the department, in meritorious cases, might be able to appoint him to some sinecure office. But fees and sinecures being abolished, superannuation allowances became necessary for the efficiency of the public service; because it was become impossible in common prudence for a veteran clerk willingly to retire; and almost equally impossible, in moral feeling, to dismiss him in old age to penury and distress. Hence the public officers could not but, in the course of a few years, be reduced to a state of decrepitude, unless a liberal superannuation act were kept in full force, in lieu of the abolished fees and sinecures. This reasoning was so conclusive, that the repeal of the Act of 1822 experienced no difficulty; and the discomfitnre of false economy was so complete in this instance, that all sums of money retained under the Act of 1822, were required by the Act of 1824 (5 Geo. IV. c. 104.) to be repaid to the contributors, their executors or administrators.' |