The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke
Chapter 41 : But if all of these things were not more than sufficient to prove to you the inutility

But if all of these things were not more than sufficient to prove to you the inutility of that expensive establishment, I would desire you to recollect, Sir, that those who may be very ready to defend it are very cautious how they employ it,--cautious how they employ it even in appearance and pretence. They are afraid they should lose the benefit of its influence in Parliament, if they deemed to keep it up for any other purpose. If ever there were commercial points of great weight, and most closely connected with our dependencies, they are those which have been agitated and decided in Parliament since I came into it. Which of the innumerable regulations since made had their origin or their improvement in the Board of Trade? Did any of the several East India bills which have been successively produced since 1767 originate there? Did any one dream of referring them, or any part of them, thither? Was anybody so ridiculous as even to think of it? If ever there was an occasion on which the Board was fit to be consulted, it was with regard to the acts that were preludes to the American war, or attendant on its commencement. Those acts were full of commercial regulations, such as they were: the Intercourse Bill; the Prohibitory Bill; the Fishery Bill. If the Board was not concerned in such things, in what particular was it thought fit that it should be concerned? In the course of all these bills through the House, I observed the members of that board to be remarkably cautious of intermeddling. They understood decorum better; they know that matters of trade and plantations are no business of theirs.

There were two very recent occasions, which, if the idea of any use for the Board had not been extinguished by prescription, appeared loudly to call for their interference.

When commissioners were sent to pay his Majesty's and our dutiful respects to the Congress of the United States, a part of their powers under the commission were, it seems, of a commercial nature. They were authorized, in the most ample and undefined manner, to form a commercial treaty with America on the spot. This was no trivial object. As the formation of such a treaty would necessarily have been no less than the breaking up of our whole commercial system, and the giving it an entire new form, one would imagine that the Board of Trade would have sat day and night to model propositions, which, on our side, might serve as a basis to that treaty. No such thing. Their learned leisure was not in the least interrupted, though one of the members of the Board was a commissioner, and might, in mere compliment to his office, have been supposed to make a show of deliberation on the subject. But he knew that his colleagues would have thought he laughed in their faces, had he attempted to bring anything the most distantly relating to commerce or colonies before _them_. A n.o.ble person, engaged in the same commission, and sent to learn his commercial rudiments in New York, (then under the operation of an act for the universal prohibition of trade,) was soon after put at the head of that board. This contempt from the present ministers of all the pretended functions of that board, and their manner of breathing into its very soul, of inspiring it with its animating and presiding principle, puts an end to all dispute concerning their opinion of the clay it was made of. But I will give them heaped measure.

It was but the other day, that the n.o.ble lord in the blue ribbon carried up to the House of Peers two acts, altering, I think much for the better, but altering in a great degree, our whole commercial system: those acts, I mean, for giving a free trade to Ireland in woollens, and in all things else, with independent nations, and giving them an equal trade to our own colonies. Here, too, the novelty of this great, but arduous and critical improvement of system, would make you conceive that the anxious solicitude of the n.o.ble lord in the blue ribbon would have wholly destroyed the plan of summer recreation of that board, by references to examine, compare, and digest matters for Parliament. You would imagine that Irish commissioners of customs, and English commissioners of customs, and commissioners of excise, that merchants and manufacturers of every denomination, had daily crowded their outer rooms. _Nil horum_. The perpetual virtual adjournment, and the unbroken sitting vacation of that board, was no more disturbed by the Irish than by the plantation commerce, or any other commerce. The same matter made a large part of the business which occupied the House for two sessions before; and as our ministers were not then mellowed by the mild, emollient, and engaging blandishments of our dear sister into all the tenderness of unqualified surrender, the bounds and limits of a restrained benefit naturally required much detailed management and positive regulation. But neither the qualified propositions which were received, nor those other qualified propositions which were rejected by ministers, were the least concern of theirs, or were they ever thought of in the business.

It is therefore, Sir, on the opinion of Parliament, on the opinion of the ministers, and even on their own opinion of their inutility, that I shall propose to you to _suppress the Board of Trade and Plantations_, and to recommit all its business to the Council, from whence it was very improvidently taken; and which business (whatever it might be) was much better done, and without any expense; and, indeed, where in effect it may all come at last. Almost all that deserves the name of business there is the reference of the plantation acts to the opinion of gentlemen of the law. But all this may be done, as the Irish business of the same nature has always been done, by the Council, and with a reference to the Attorney and Solicitor General.

There are some regulations in the household, relative to the officers of the yeomen of the guards, and the officers and band of gentlemen pensioners, which I shall likewise submit to your consideration, for the purpose of regulating establishments which at present are much abused.

I have now finished all that for the present I shall trouble you with on the _plan of reduction_. I mean next to propose to you the _plan of arrangement_, by which I mean to appropriate and fix the civil list money to its several services according to their nature: for I am thoroughly sensible, that, if a discretion wholly arbitrary can be exercised over the civil list revenue, although the most effectual methods may be taken to prevent the inferior departments from exceeding their bounds, the plan of reformation will still be left very imperfect.

It will not, in my opinion, be safe to permit an entirely arbitrary discretion even in the First Lord of the Treasury himself; it will not be safe to leave with him a power of diverting the public money from its proper objects, of paying it in an irregular course, or of inverting perhaps the order of time, dictated by the proportion of value, which ought to regulate his application of payment to service.

I am sensible, too, that the very operation of a plan of economy which tends to exonerate the civil list of expensive establishments may in some sort defeat the capital end we have in view,--the independence of Parliament; and that, in removing the public and ostensible means of influence, we may increase the fund of private corruption. I have thought of some methods to prevent an abuse of surplus cash under discretionary application,--I mean the heads of _secret service, special service, various payments_, and the like,--which I hope will answer, and which in due time I shall lay before you. Where I am unable to limit the quant.i.ty of the sums to be applied, by reason of the uncertain quant.i.ty of the service, I endeavor to confine it to its _line_, to secure an indefinite application to the definite service to which it belongs,--not to stop the progress of expense in its line, but to confine it to that line in which it professes to move.

But that part of my plan, Sir, upon which I princ.i.p.ally rest, that on which I rely for the purpose of binding up and securing the whole, is to establish a fixed and invariable order in all its payments, which it shall not be permitted to the First Lord of the Treasury, upon any pretence whatsoever, to depart from. I therefore divide the civil list payments into _nine_ cla.s.ses, putting each cla.s.s forward according to the importance or justice of the demand, and to the inability of the persons ent.i.tled to enforce their pretensions: that is, to put those first who have the most efficient offices, or claim the justest debts, and at the same time, from the character of that description of men, from the retiredness or the remoteness of their situation, or from their want of weight and power to enforce their pretensions, or from their being entirely subject to the power of a minister, without any reciprocal power of awing, ought to be the most considered, and are the most likely to be neglected,--all these I place in the highest cla.s.ses; I place in the lowest those whose functions are of the least importance, but whose persons or rank are often of the greatest power and influence.

In the first cla.s.s I place the _judges_, as of the first importance. It is the public justice that holds the community together; the ease, therefore, and independence of the judges ought to supersede all other considerations, and they ought to be the very last to feel the necessities of the state, or to be obliged either to court or bully a minister for their right; they ought to be as _weak solicitors on their own demands_ as strenuous a.s.sertors of the rights and liberties of others. The judges are, or ought to be, of a _reserved_ and retired character, and wholly unconnected with the political world.

In the second cla.s.s I place the foreign ministers. The judges are the links of our connections with one another; the foreign ministers are the links of our connection with other nations. They are not upon the spot to demand payment, and are therefore the most likely to be, as in fact they have sometimes been, entirely neglected, to the great disgrace and perhaps the great detriment of the nation.

In the third cla.s.s I would bring all the tradesmen who supply the crown by contract or otherwise.

In the fourth cla.s.s I place all the domestic servants of the king, and all persons in efficient offices whose salaries do not exceed two hundred pounds a year.

In the fifth, upon account of honor, which ought to give place to nothing but charity and rigid justice, I would place the pensions and allowances of his Majesty's royal family, comprehending of course the queen, together with the stated allowance of the privy purse.

In the sixth cla.s.s I place those efficient offices of duty whose salaries may exceed the sum of two hundred pounds a year.

In the seventh cla.s.s, that mixed ma.s.s, the whole pension list.

In the eighth, the offices of honor about the king.

In the ninth, and the last of all, the salaries and pensions of the First Lord of the Treasury himself, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the other Commissioners of the Treasury.

If, by any possible mismanagement of that part of the revenue which is left at discretion, or by any other mode of prodigality, cash should be deficient for the payment of the lowest cla.s.ses, I propose that the amount of those salaries where the deficiency may happen to fall shall not be carried as debt to the account of the succeeding year, but that it shall be entirely lapsed, sunk, and lost; so that government will be enabled to start in the race of every new year wholly unloaded, fresh in wind and in vigor. Hereafter no civil list debt can ever come upon the public. And those who do not consider this as saving, because it is not a certain sum, do not ground their calculations of the future on their experience of the past.

I know of no mode of preserving the effectual execution of any duty, but to make it the direct interest of the executive officer that it shall be faithfully performed. a.s.suming, then, that the present vast allowance to the civil list is perfectly adequate to all its purposes, if there should be any failure, it must be from the mismanagement or neglect of the First Commissioner of the Treasury; since, upon the proposed plan, there can be no expense of any consequence which he is not himself previously to authorize and finally to control. It is therefore just, as well as politic, that the loss should attach upon the delinquency.

If the failure from the delinquency should be very considerable, it will fall on the cla.s.s directly above the First Lord of the Treasury, as well as upon himself and his board. It will fall, as it ought to fall, upon offices of no primary importance in the state; but then it will fall upon persons whom it will be a matter of no slight importance for a minister to provoke: it will fall upon persons of the first rank and consequence in the kingdom,--upon those who are nearest to the king, and frequently have a more interior credit with him than the minister himself. It will fall upon masters of the horse, upon lord chamberlains, upon lord stewards, upon grooms of the stole, and lords of the bedchamber. The household troops form an army, who will be ready to mutiny for want of pay, and whose mutiny will be _really_ dreadful to a commander-in-chief. A rebellion of the thirteen lords of the bedchamber would be far more terrible to a minister, and would probably affect his power more to the quick, than a revolt of thirteen colonies. What an uproar such an event would create at court! What _pet.i.tions_, and _committees_, and _a.s.sociations_, would it not produce! Bless me! what a clattering of white sticks and yellow sticks would be about his head!

what a storm of gold keys would fly about the ears of the minister! what a shower of Georges, and thistles, and medals, and collars of S.S. would a.s.sail him at his first entrance into the antechamber, after an insolvent Christmas quarter!--a tumult which could not be appeased by all the harmony of the new year's ode. Rebellion it is certain there would be; and rebellion may not now, indeed, be so critical an event to those who engage in it, since its price is so correctly ascertained at just a thousand pound.

Sir, this cla.s.sing, in my opinion, is a serious and solid security for the performance of a minister's duty. Lord c.o.ke says, that the staff was put into the Treasurer's hand to enable him to support himself when there was no money in the Exchequer, and to beat away importunate solicitors. The method which I propose would hinder him from the necessity of such a broken staff to lean on, or such a miserable weapon for repulsing the demands of worthless suitors, who, the n.o.ble lord in the blue ribbon knows, will bear many hard blows on the head, and many other indignities, before they are driven from the Treasury. In this plan, he is furnished with an answer to all their importunity,--an answer far more conclusive than if he had knocked them down with his staff:--"Sir, (or my Lord,) you are calling for my own salary,--Sir, you are calling for the appointments of my colleagues who sit about me in office,--Sir, you are going to excite a mutiny at court against me,--you are going to estrange his Majesty's confidence from me, through the chamberlain, or the master of the horse, or the groom of the stole."

As things now stand, every man, in proportion to his consequence at court, tends to add to the expenses of the civil list, by all manner of jobs, if not for himself, yet for his dependants. When the new plan is established, those who are now suitors for jobs will become the most strenuous opposers of them. They will have a common interest with the minister in public economy. Every cla.s.s, as it stands low, will become security for the payment of the preceding cla.s.s; and thus the persons whose insignificant services defraud those that are useful would then become interested in their payment. Then the powerful, instead of oppressing, would be obliged to support the weak; and idleness would become concerned in the reward of industry. The whole fabric of the civil economy would become compact and connected in all its parts; it would be formed into a well-organized body, where every member contributes to the support of the whole, and where even the lazy stomach secures the vigor of the active arm.

This plan, I really flatter myself, is laid, not in official formality, nor in airy speculation, but in real life, and in human nature, in what "comes home" (as Bacon says) "to the business and bosoms of men." You have now, Sir, before you, the whole of my scheme, as far as I have digested it into a form that might be in any respect worthy of your consideration. I intend to lay it before you in five bills.[44] The plan consists, indeed, of many parts; but they stand upon a few plain principles. It is a plan which takes nothing from the civil list without discharging it of a burden equal to the sum carried to the public service. It weakens no one function necessary to government; but, on the contrary, by appropriating supply to service, it gives it greater vigor.

It provides the means of order and foresight to a minister of finance, which may always keep all the objects of his office, and their state, condition, and relations, distinctly before him. It brings forward accounts without hurrying and distressing the accountants: whilst it provides for public convenience, it regards private rights. It extinguishes secret corruption almost to the possibility of its existence. It destroys direct and visible influence equal to the offices of at least fifty members of Parliament. Lastly, it prevents the provision for his Majesty's children from being diverted to the political purposes of his minister.

These are the points on which I rely for the merit of the plan. I pursue economy in a secondary view, and only as it is connected with these great objects. I am persuaded, that even for supply this scheme will be far from unfruitful, if it be executed to the extent I propose it. I think it will give to the public, at its periods, two or three hundred thousand pounds a year; if not, it will give them a system of economy, which is itself a great revenue. It gives me no little pride and satisfaction to find that the principles of my proceedings are in many respects the very same with those which are now pursued in the plans of the French minister of finance. I am sure that I lay before you a scheme easy and practicable in all its parts. I know it is common at once to applaud and to reject all attempts of this nature. I know it is common for men to say, that such and such things are perfectly right, very desirable,--but that, unfortunately, they are not practicable. Oh, no, Sir! no! Those things-which are not practicable are not desirable. There is nothing in the world really beneficial that does not lie within the reach of an informed understanding and a well-directed pursuit. There is nothing that G.o.d has judged good for us that He has not given us the means to accomplish, both in the natural and the moral world. If we cry, like children, for the moon, like children we must cry on.

We must follow the nature of our affairs, and conform ourselves to our situation. If we do, our objects are plain and compa.s.sable. Why should we resolve to do nothing, because what I propose to you may not be the exact demand of the pet.i.tion, when we are far from resolved to comply even with what evidently is so? Does this sort of chicanery become us?

The people are the masters. They have only to express their wants at large and in gross. We are the expert artists, we are the skilful workmen, to shape their desires into perfect form, and to fit the utensil to the use. They are the sufferers, they tell the symptoms of the complaint; but we know the exact seat of the disease, and how to apply the remedy according to the rules of art. How shocking would it be to see us pervert our skill into a sinister and servile dexterity, for the purpose of evading our duty, and defrauding our employers, who are our natural lords, of the object of their just expectations! I think the whole not only practicable, but practicable in a very short time. If we are in earnest about it, and if we exert that industry and those talents in forwarding the work, which, I am afraid, may be exerted in impeding it, I engage that the whole may be put in complete execution within a year. For my own part, I have very little to recommend me for this or for any task, but a kind of earnest and anxious perseverance of mind, which, with all its good and all its evil effects, is moulded into my const.i.tution. I faithfully engage to the House, if they choose to appoint me to any part in the execution of this work, (which, when they have made it theirs by the improvements of their wisdom, will be worthy of the able a.s.sistance they may give me,) that by night and by day, in town or in country, at the desk or in the forest, I will, without regard to convenience, ease, or pleasure, devote myself to their service, not expecting or admitting any reward whatsoever. I owe to this country my labor, which is my all; and I owe to it ten times more industry, if ten times more I could exert. After all, I shall be an unprofitable servant.

At the same time, if I am able, and if I shall be permitted, I will lend an humble helping hand to any other good work which is going on. I have not, Sir, the frantic presumption to suppose that this plan contains in it the whole of what the public has a right to expect in the great work of reformation they call for. Indeed, it falls infinitely short of it.

It falls short even of my own ideas. I have some thoughts, not yet fully ripened, relative to a reform in the customs and excise, as well as in some other branches of financial administration. There are other things, too, which form essential parts in a great plan for the purpose of restoring the independence of Parliament. The contractors' bill of last year it is fit to revive; and I rejoice that it is in better hands than mine. The bill for suspending the votes of custom-house officers, brought into Parliament several years ago by one of our worthiest and wisest members,[45]--would to G.o.d we could along with the plan revive the person who designed it! but a man of very real integrity, honor, and ability will be found to take his place, and to carry his idea into full execution. You all see how necessary it is to review our military expenses for some years past, and, if possible, to bind up and close that bleeding artery of profusion; but that business also, I have reason to hope, will be undertaken by abilities that are fully adequate to it.

Something must be devised (if possible) to check the ruinous expense of elections.

Sir, all or most of these things must be done. Every one must take his part. If we should be able, by dexterity, or power, or intrigue, to disappoint the expectations of our const.i.tuents, what will it avail us?

We shall never be strong or artful enough to parry, or to put by, the irresistible demands of our situation. That situation calls upon us, and upon our const.i.tuents too, with a voice which _will_ be heard. I am sure no man is more zealously attached than I am to the privileges of this House, particularly in regard to the exclusive management of money. The Lords have no right to the disposition, in any sense, of the public purse; but they have gone further in self-denial[46] than our utmost jealousy could have required. A power of examining accounts, to censure, correct, and punish, we never, that I know of, have thought of denying to the House of Lords. It is something more than a century since we voted that body useless: they have now voted themselves so. The whole hope of reformation is at length cast upon _us_; and let us not deceive the nation, which does us the honor to hope everything from our virtue.

If _all_ the nation are not equally forward to press this duty upon us, yet be a.s.sured that they all equally expect we should perform it. The respectful silence of those who wait upon your pleasure ought to be as powerful with you as the call of those who require your service as their right. Some, without doors, affect to feel hurt for your dignity, because they suppose that menaces are held out to you. Justify their good opinion by showing that no menaces are necessary to stimulate you to your duty. But, Sir, whilst we may sympathize with them in one point who sympathize with us in another, we ought to attend no less to those who approach us like men, and who, in the guise of pet.i.tioners, speak to us in the tone of a concealed authority. It is not wise to force them to speak out more plainly what they plainly mean.--But the pet.i.tioners are violent. Be it so. Those who are least anxious about your conduct are not those that love you most. Moderate affection and satiated enjoyment are cold and respectful; but an ardent and injured pa.s.sion is tempered up with wrath, and grief, and shame, and conscious worth, and the maddening sense of violated right. A jealous love lights his torch from the firebrands of the furies. They who call upon you to belong _wholly_ to the people are those who wish you to return to your _proper_ home,--to the sphere of your duty, to the post of your honor, to the mansion-house of all genuine, serene, and solid satisfaction. We have furnished to the people of England (indeed we have) some real cause of jealousy. Let us leave that sort of company which, if it does not destroy our innocence, pollutes our honor; let us free ourselves at once from everything that can increase their suspicions and inflame their just resentment; let us cast away from us, with a generous scorn, all the love-tokens and symbols that we have been vain and light enough to accept,--all the bracelets, and snuff-boxes, and miniature pictures, and hair devices, and all the other adulterous trinkets that are the pledges of our alienation and the monuments of our shame. Let us return to our legitimate home, and all jars and all quarrels will be lost in embraces.

Let the commons in Parliament a.s.sembled be one and the same thing with the commons at large. The distinctions that are made to separate us are unnatural and wicked contrivances. Let us identify, let us incorporate ourselves with the people. Let us cut all the cables and snap the chains which tie us to an unfaithful sh.o.r.e, and enter the friendly harbor that shoots far out into the main its moles and jetties to receive us. "War with the world, and peace with our const.i.tuents." Be this our motto, and our principle. Then, indeed, we shall be truly great. Respecting ourselves, we shall be respected by the world. At present all is troubled, and cloudy, and distracted, and full of anger and turbulence, both abroad and at home; but the air may be cleared by this storm, and light and fertility may follow it. Let us give a faithful pledge to the people, that we honor, indeed, the crown, but that we _belong_ to them; that we are their auxiliaries, and not their task-masters,--the fellow-laborers in the same vineyard, not lording over their rights, but helpers of their joy; that to tax them is a grievance to ourselves, but to cut off from our enjoyments to forward theirs is the highest gratification we are capable of receiving. I feel, with comfort, that we are all warmed with these sentiments, and while we are thus warm, I wish we may go directly and with a cheerful heart to this salutary work.

Sir, I move for leave to bring in a bill, "For the better regulation of his Majesty's civil establishments, and of certain public offices; for the limitation of pensions, and the suppression of sundry useless, expensive, and inconvenient places, and for applying the moneys saved thereby to the public service."[47]

Lord North stated, that there was a difference between this bill for regulating the establishments and some of the others, as they affected the ancient patrimony of the crown, and therefore wished them to be postponed till the king's consent could be obtained. This distinction was strongly controverted; but when it was insisted on as a point of decorum _only_, it was agreed to postpone them to another day.

Accordingly, on the Monday following, viz. Feb. 14, leave was given, on the motion of Mr. Burke, without opposition, to bring in--

1st, "A bill for the sale of the forest and other crown lands, rents, and hereditaments, with certain exceptions, _and for applying the produce thereof to the public service_; and for securing, ascertaining, and satisfying _tenant rights_, and common and other rights."

2nd, "A bill for the more perfectly uniting to the crown the Princ.i.p.ality of Wales and the County Palatine of Chester, and for the more commodious administration of justice within the same; as also for abolis.h.i.+ng certain offices now appertaining thereto, _for quieting dormant claims, ascertaining and securing tenant rights_, and for the sale of all forest lands, and other lands, tenements, and hereditaments, held by his Majesty in right of the said Princ.i.p.ality, or County Palatine of Chester, _and for applying the produce thereof to the public service_."

3rd, "A bill for uniting to the crown the Duchy and County Palatine of Lancaster, for the suppression of unnecessary offices now belonging thereto, for the _ascertainment and security of tenant and other rights_, and for the sale of all rents, lands, tenements, and hereditaments, and forests, within the said Duchy and County Palatine, or either of them, _and for applying the produce thereof to the public service_."

And it was ordered that Mr. Burke, Mr. Fox, Lord John Cavendish, Sir George Savile, Colonel Barre, Mr. Thomas Townshend, Mr. Byng, Mr.

Dunning, Sir Joseph Mawbey, Mr. Recorder of London, Sir Robert Clayton, Mr. Frederick Montagu, the Earl of Upper Ossory, Sir William Guise, and Mr. Gilbert do prepare and bring in the same.

At the same time, Mr. Burke moved for leave to bring in--

4th, "A bill for uniting the Duchy of Cornwall to the crown; for the suppression of certain unnecessary offices now belonging thereto; for the _ascertainment and security of tenant and other rights_; and for the sale of certain rents, lands, and tenements, within or belonging to the said Duchy; _and for applying the produce thereof to the public service_."

But some objections being made by the Surveyor-General of the Duchy concerning the rights of the Prince of Wales, now in his minority, and Lord North remaining perfectly silent, Mr. Burke, at length, though he strongly contended against the principle of the objection, consented to withdraw this last motion _for the present_, to be renewed upon an early occasion.

FOOTNOTES:

[31] This term comprehends various retributions made to persons whose offices are taken away, or who in any other way suffer by the new arrangements that are made.

[32] Edict registered 29th January, 1780.

[33] Thomas Gilbert, Esq., member for Lichfield.

[34] Here Lord North shook his head, and told those who sat near him that Mr. Probert's pension was to depend on his success. It may be so.

Mr. Probert's pension was, however, no essential part of the question; nor did Mr. B. care whether he still possessed it or not. His point was, to show the ridicule of attempting an improvement of the Welsh revenue under its present establishment.

[35] Case of Richard Lee, Esq., appellant, against George Venables Lord Vernon, respondent, in the year 1775.