TOPICS OF THE DAY.
WANT OF A NATIONAL PENSION-LIST.
THI1 grant of a pension is scarcely ever made without calling to recollection the still unsatisfactory state of the Pension-hat. Three pensions lately granted do credit upon the whole to the
Government. To Father Mathew is given one of 300/. a year, for the most obvious reasons. To Mr. Leigh Hunt, 2001. a year, for his literary eminence, and his sufferings, personal and pecu- niary, in support of Liberal opinions. Mr. Hunt's services in that respect are well known. He never professed to be a scientific politician ; he viewed the political world from a point of feeling, and vindicated the rights of his fellow citizens on the score of poetical justice. More exact politicians had succumbed under the apparent hopelessness, the apparent want of worldly wisdom implied in any endeavour to contend with the abuses that ob- tained under Tory Governments possessing the opportunities afforded by Parliamentary corruption and by the war. He, not alone, but one of a few, contrived to keep alive the flame which afterwards revived to triumph in the Reform Bill agitation. It was suspected, indeed, that he had spoken in those days with more warmth than suited the fastidious nicety of Whig retro- spection in these piping times of peace ; and the grant of the pension has therefore removed from the party in power no small stigma which they bore in the eyes of many among their sup- porters. The grant of 200/. a year to the widow and daughters of the late Dr. Chalmers, will be regarded with the highest satisfaction by a no leas numerous circle in Scotland. It will be thought a tasteful tribute from a statesman who has claimed the divine as his teacher, and will accord with the general wish to do some- thing in the way of practical consolation to those who chiefly suffer from a loss which is generally felt. But if we closely scrutinize the reasons assigned for the gift, it must be admitted that they are not very conclusive. In his letter to Mrs. Chalmers, Lord John Russell says—" The Queen, taking into her consideration the piety, eloquence, and learning of the late Dr. Chalmers, has been pleased," &c. ; and Lord John trusts that this act of the Queen may render the remainder of Mrs. Chalmers's life "as tolerable as the loss of so eminent and excellent a partner will permit." Now " piety, eloquence, and learning," are surely not the dis- tinctive merit of Dr. Chalmers ; which consisted in the use he made of his powers and opportunities for the good of his fellow creatures. Nor would it be maintained, on reflec- tion, that a gift of 200/. a year can be any compensation for the Ices of such a man. The idea is derogatory, and does injustice to the real feeling which it so ill expresses. Again, the question of necessity enters into the grant of a pension ; and we do not understand that Dr. Chalmers died in narrow circumstances, or that his death even diminishes the family income. The pension, indeed, might have been a graceful act of the Royal bounty, witnessed without the slightest misgiving, but for the fact that the fund from which it is drawn is so absurdly limited, that every appropriation is naturally watched with jea- lousy to see that the most urgent claims are first satisfied. The true grounds for a pension are—recognized public service, and the necessity of the recipient. That service confers the greatest claim which is in its nature of a kind that does not repay. Father Mathew's is a case in point : he evoked a beneficial senti- ment among his countrymen ; he devoted himself to that task with a total disregard of his own interests ; and in fact he sus- tained heavy losses. Political expediency will give compensation to services of that nature as a premium for others to do the like. Literary services are often similarly advantageous to the country, profitless to the undertaker : some of the very highest in their nature preclude the possibility of profit, and imply in the labourer entire self-devotion and abnegation. While we have such cases —and they are only too numerous—it is not satisfactory to see any part of the limited fund bestowed on those who are not in need of pecuniary tribute, or on those who have performed only personal services to individuals, however exalted in station.
Not that there can be any desire to cramp and mortify the Royal munificence. But in fact, the Pension-list is an attempt to compromise incompatibilities. It is a practical anachronism. Is is the relic of that part of the Royal treasury which was re- garded as the property of the Sovereign, to be disposed of as 'bounty for the comfort and dignity of the Sovereign. To fulfil its original purpose, it ought to be bestowed according- to the Royal will and pleasure. As the Royal will and pleasure were not always of the best, the pensions on the Civil-list have often been very discreditably bestowed. Accord- ingly, to curtail that abuse, the fund was limited, and so ar- ranged as to be open to greater public responsibility. A compro- mise was made between the ancient arbitrary disposal of the Royal bounty and a national provision for claims upon the national consideration. But it is only a makeshift. Not a year passes without Ministers' declaring that they are obliged to neglect the most just claims because they have no adequate funds. Meanwhile, those limited funds are still in part bestowed on per- sons who might be proper recipients of the Royal bounty, but who are improperly competitors with others who have claims to aid on really public grounds. The thing wanted is, not a mere readjustment of this paltry lung, but the creation of a new fund, applicable to aid the un- official servants of the country or solace their declining years. It
should be a grant not distributed as a favour from the bounty of the Sovereign, but administered by the Sovereign solely as the executive and responsible officer of the nation. And a mere pen- sion-fund might well be combined with some systematic alloca- tion of congenial official employment for literary men who are still in the active vigour of their faculties, but cannot depend for their maintenance on the precarious patronage of the popularity- market ; which is so little discriminating, and gives so little en- couragement to the most exalted and useful literary labours.
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