Offices executed wholly or chiefly by deputy, should be arranged with as much regard to economy as the public service will admit; and any offices that have not duty annexed in proportion to the salary should be reformed, and the salary suited to the responsibility and labour of the office.-The list of such offices is extracted from the returns in as complete a state as the examination of them can render it; but it may probably be still defective, for the same causes as have been mentioned under the former head. In applying the principle of retrenchment to this class, your Committee desire to be understood, as recommending it with the same exceptions with which they have accompanied their recommendation in the case of sinecures. Some of the great offices in the exchequer (which are indeed, as far as regards the principals, purely sinecures) be ing probably among the fittest to be retained, for the reward of personal ser'vices, or to secure an honourable retreat to persons who are entitled to marks of public favour, by the long and meritorious discharge of the duties of high office, or who have sacrificed lucrative profes sional situations on engaging in the pub lic service.' Finance Rep. xxi. 19.-It should also be considered, that some of the lucrative offices in our courts of jus tice, which are in the disposal of the chiefs of the courts, constitute a considerable part of the valuable appendages to those situations, which it concerns the essential interests of the state, still more than its dignity, to have filled by persons who are the most eminent, and best qualified in their professions.

who have sacrificed lucrative professional situations on engaging in the public service, by vesting such office in the persons themselves, or in their immediate • descendants.'-Since the date of that report, his majesty has been empowered by the statute 39 Geo. 3. c. 10. to make provision for life for those who have sacrificed lucrative professional situations, so far as relates to chancellors and judges, on retiring from office; which must be remarked, in passing, as extending the power of granting pensions, and as fairly to be set off against some of the retrenchments proposed. In the peerages subsequently created, your Committee cannot discover that any such application of the sinecures, as was suggested in that respect, has taken place, but that the annexing of pensions by authority of parliament has been not unfrequent. The view which your Committee take of this subject corresponds in principle, and differs only in degree from that of the former committee; but it is their anxious wish to guard against suffering the subject to escape notice, without being acted upon, while the information is fully brought under observation. If the opinion should prevail, that a legislative measure ought to be no longer deferred with regard to offices of this description, your Committee submit that, leaving untouched all places of honour and distinction connected with the personal service of his majesty and of his royal family, it may be expedient considerably to reduce the emoluments of some, and to abolish others. At the same time, regarding it as a fundamental part of the constitution of this country, and of the reason of state in every country, that there must be means of rewarding public service, and that those The last general head is that of places means will be incomplete, and indeed granted in Reversion; a power which apwholly insufficient for that purpose, if there pears to have been exercised by the Crown should be no further reward for that ser- with regard to particular departments, for vice than the daily wages it receives dur- a very long period, without any fixed ing the pleasure of the Crown, your Com-rule or principle which is discoverable, as mittee are of opinion that such sinecures as the house in its wisdom may think fit to retain, should always in future be applied to recompence the faithful discharge of the duties of efficient office; or in the event of the house preferring to abolish generally all such offices, they conceive that it will become proper to substitute some other mode, by which the Crown may be enabled to reward public servants in a manner proportioned to the nature and length of the duties performed.

any such anticipations. The right of the crown over its own demense lands was formerly as complete, as its power of conferring offices; and yet the use which was made of that part of its prerogative, occasioned parliament frequently to interpose; and particularly after the crown had been greatly impoverished, an act passed whereby all future grants, for any longer term than 31 years, were declared void.-The misfortune is, as Mr. Justice Blackstone remarks, that the act was made too late, after every valuable possession of the crown had been granted away for ever, or else upon very long leases. It must not be passed altogether without notice, that reversionary grants have, in some instances, been applied to pensions on the civil list; and it is easy to see to what an extent such a practice might be carried, and how entirely it might exhaust the future means of bestowing the royal bounty, even upon the most deserving objects. Appendix, Nos 77 to 79.

puty. The chief objections to this method of conveying contingent interests are, that in the first instance of every such grant, a diminution must take place in the permanent prerogative, equal to the difference in value between expectancy and possession; that the appointment of fit and sufficient persons to hold offices, is less likely to be regarded when it is to take effect at a distant and uncertain period, than when a certain notoriety attaches upon the manner in which each vacancy is filled; and it can hardly be disputed that incapacity from age, sex, or natural disability, may be disregarded, in the former case, which could not be tolerated in the latter. It may be further urged, that anticipations of this sort tend to perpetuate inefficient places, and to render any alterations and regulations less effectual, and more distant, which the wisdom of parliament may think fit to adopt with regard to them.-On the other hand, reversionary grants may be defended as a cheap and economical mode of Upon the more general question relatconferring favours, of paying services by ing to the prerogative of the crown, as expectation, rather than by actual office connected with, and affected by, the proor pension; and of enabling the crown posed arrangements, your committee proto draw distinguished talents and eminent ceed to submit their sentiments to the characters into the public employ, who, judgment of the house, trusting that the without some prospect of permanent pro- same disposition which has so often been vision for their families, might be unwill-manifested by parliament, will never be ing to give up their time and labor, and wanting to correct the growth of such above all their professional emoluments, abuses as the lapse of time, or alterations upon the hazard of the short and uncertain in the mode of transacting business, may duration of two things, so precarious in have imperceptibly introduced into any their nature, as office and life.-It must be of the departments of executive governadmitted, that the prerogative will be ment.-The civil list act in 1782, the acts abridged during the suspension of the for abolishing certain offices in the years power of making such grants, so far as re- 1798, and 1807, that already referred to lates to the value of the reversionary right of the present session, and many others, in these particular offices; and no farther. afford abundant examples of temperate -It is also contended, that grants of this and judicious retrenchment; nor could sort have neither been carried to excess, the beneficial objects, proposed by the innor become chargeable with actual abuse. stitution of the Committee of Finance in -With the view of fairly stating this 1797, have been attained, nor can those part of the case, your committee proceed for which your present committee was apto lay before the house the extent and pointed, be expected, without interfering, amount of all subsisting Reversions, some in some degree, with the patronage and of which will be found to come distinctly influence of the crown.-The subjects within the class of those offices which which are detailed in this report, have they recommend to be regulated or been specifically brought under considerasuppressed; and with regard to the re- tion by the direction of the house; in mainder, they see no cause to depart from obedience to which your committee now their opinion, which was reported to, and present them, in the full persuasion that adopted unanimously by the house, on the the reforms, which they venture to recom24th March 1807, thinking it safer to in- mend, may be made without detriment vigorate and restore to an entire state this to the public service, and with advantage branch of the prerogative, than to allow to the public revenue.-No offices of any that it should continue encumbered by description were originally created for the

James Buller, £. 1,000; hon. W. W. Pole, Secretary, £. 4,000, subject to a deduction of during peace. Also Secretary to the Commissioners of Charity for Poor Widows, £. 160.

mere purpose of giving lucrative appointments into the disposal of the crown; the fact is, that duties were formerly attached to many places, which a different manner of transacting business, or accidental alterations, have long rendered sinecure; Alienation Office:-Receiver General, and therefore the patronage of the Crown-Right Hon. Geo. Canning, £. 492. has, in some cases, been unintentionally (Vide infra.)

increased, by transferring to new offices Auditor of the Land-Revenue for Wales, the business of the old ones, without abo-Tho. Johnes; Lord Lieutenant of Carlishing the latter, or the salaries attached diganshire, and Steward of several manors to them. and lordships belonging to the Crown in that county, £. 1,505.

Lord Chamberlain's Office:-Secretary, J. Calvert; appointed by the Lord Chamberlain, £. 1,389.

Clerk of the Parliaments,-Reversion vested in Geo. Henry Rose, £.3,278. (Vide infra.)

Exchequer, Teller of,-Hon. W. F. E. Eden, £. 2,700.

Governor of the Isle of Wight,-Visc. Fitzharris, for life, £. 1,379.

Groom of the Bedchamber to His Majesty,-Hon. Edw. Finch.

India Board, Officers of the; receiving salary from the East India Company only: Right hon. Robert Dundas. (Vide infra.} Lord Lovaine; Right hon. Tho. Wallace; Geo. Johnstone, is also a commissioner, but receives no salary. Secretary,-Geo. Holford; paid by the East India Company.

Under the words directing the names and descriptions of the persons to be reported, by whom, and in trust for whom, all offices, pensions, and emoluments, payable out of funds applicable to the public service are held,' your committee conceive that the house may be desirous to see at one view, which of these are possessed by their own members; and the subjoined list gives the names of all those who appear so described, upon a careful inspection of the returns. (See below.)A more compleat catalogue is also given of every office from which returns have been required, than it was possible to make out before the close of the last session, distinguishing those from which none have been yet received: the present report therefore is intended to be substituted for that which was presented in August 1807, and entitled The third.' Nos 81, 82, 83.-Your committee, having selected such parts of the papers before them as are immediately connected with the subject of this report, have only to lay before the house Master of the Horse:-Office of First the remaining mass of information which Equerry,-Robert Manners, £.736. has been collected in consequence of their Mint:-Clerk of the Irons and Meltings, precepts, consisting chiefly of all the civil-Right hon. Spencer Perceval, £. 114. and judicial establishments of the United (Vide infra.) Kingdom; many of which have been already printed in the reports from the Committee of Finance, without having received any material alterations since that period, which have not been noticed in the returns of increase and diminution of offices, presented from time to time to the house.

King's Printer,-Andrew Strahan; by patent, for 30 years, from 21st Jan. 1800. No salary annexed to this office; which is paid for the work done as Printer.

Navy Office:-Comptroller,-Sir Tho. B. Thompson, £.2,000.-And a pension of £.500. on account of wounds in service.

Navy Pay-Office:-Right hon. G. Rose, ---Treasurer of the Navy, £. 4,324; Clerk of the Parliaments, £. 3,278; and Keeper of the Records in the Receipt of the Exchequer, £. 400.

Ordnance :-Clerk,-Hon. C. Ashley Cooper, £.1,958; Storekeeper, Mark Singleton, £.1,799; Treasurer,-Jo. Hunt, of old naval stores, £.500. Clerk of the £.625; and a pension paid out of the sale Deliveries, Tho. Thoroton, £ 1,243. Pay-Office-Joint-Paymasters,-Right hon. C. Long, £. 2,000; and a pension of £. 1,500.; suspended on holding any office exceeding £.2,000.-Right hon. lord C. Henry. Somerset, £. 2,000.-Joint-Deputy