TOPICS OF THE DAY. -

THE CIVIL LIST PENSIONS.* THE Report from the Select Committee on Pensions, with its two appendixes, was delivered on Saturday night. On Monday, Mr. SPRING Rica moved, in effect, that the Committee's recommenda- tions should be confirmed, and the money voted ; though, as Mr. WARBURTON observed, Members had scarcely " had the Report in their hands sufficient time to allow the paper to dry." So far as it went, our account of the Report, from the mutilated publication in the Morning Post, was substantially correct ; but, amid some useful information on former practices relative to pen- sions, the general introductory view gives one fact curious in itself, and explanatory of the law by which the Committee felt themselves limited in their inquiries. In 1690-1691, it was affirmed by the Court of Exchequer, on appeal respecting some annuities charged on the hereditary Excise, that the Crown " had the power to alien the revenues " so as to bind successors, not only with respect to its landed estates, but to supplies granted by the Legislature. In 1701, this abuse was rectified by the English Parliament ; but the act did not extend either to Ireland or to Scotland, which had separate Parliaments of their own. As a consequence of this state of matters, the Committee felt legally shut out from any investigation of the pensions on the Scotch and Irish Lists. The exact sum thus withdrawn from examination cannot be given ; for the Committee state the amounts differently in two different pages, and since the death of GEORGE the Fourth all the lists have been blended together. Taking them, however, as they stood in 1830, and proportionately distributing the amounts since fallen in, the English Civil List pensions and those on the Four-and-a-half per Cent. Duties may be stated at 75,0001.; those on the Scotch and Irish Lists at 54,000/. Thus, more than two- thirds of the whole of the Pensions, and of that part too which the Committee emphatically state contain the worst classes of grants, were absolutely protected from the slightest scrutiny. We do not say the Committee are to blame for this, or the present Government either ; but the fact is a significant proof of the know- ledge which our statesmen and legislators possess of their business. Frequently has it been reiterated by Whig and Tory Ministers, and by Members of all parties, during the last eight years, that all these pensions expired on the demise of the Crown. Plain men will be apt to think that the learned individual who made the discovery at the eleventh hour, might have begun his re- searches before, told prevented disappointment.

The practical advantages flowing from the inquiry consist of— pensions altogether rescinded, either by voluntary resignation or by the fiat of the Committee ; and pensions suspended now, or to be suspended on certain contingencies that may happen hereafter. The recipients and amounts of these pensions, with the limitations proposed by the Committee, will be seen in the four following tables.

VERSIONS RESIGNED.

Aston, Lord .. £97

Auckland, Lon', FVOS..4.1 on Lunt

Auckland's appointment in 1830

&OOHS, Lady Catherine

Bouverie, Letly Frances Bradshaw, Attellsttls Brumley, Lady Louisa Caermarthem Marchioness of (711instotin, Lent Dalrymple, Elizabeth Drunimuntl, Thomas, surrendered whilst raler.Secretary in Ireland 300 Elphinstone, Lord. sun cantered on appointment to Madras 276 Grant, Catherine, A nue, and It 97

Gray, Laity 97

Hunter, Sir Richard 258 Hay, Lady Jane 97

Lushingtuti, Ilan able Ann 624

I.ernex, Lady Sophia 150 Parnell, Lady Caroline 200 t+trattglont, Viscount 88

11■01.

£3,6

SRSTONA SlYsPENDED FOR Tilt PRESENT. (And to be regraded on the responsit414 the Government, sha.d.1 the riming. stances of the parties re,rlf r it necessary here,fter, when the .pf eUird coWingemws shalt hart oceerred ) Batson, Isabella. to suspended during the life or her husband, Mr. Batson £103 Welt sky, nireldotiess, to be sus. paraded doling the life of the Mar- quis wrens,lest 300 Cooker, Rosamond, to be suspended the life of the Right lion. J. Vs ikon Croker 300 1,1tinitinani, Hon. M. I)., to be sits• trended tiering the life of her has. band, 'ttr. Drummoial 000 Drummond, Clementitia, to be ralq• uulv■Itttltbtitlie life of her hits-

Freeniantle. ARAMs, to he suspended

during the life or her husband, Mr

Butter Dancers 43 Hobart, Lady Vere, to be suspended

daring the life of her husband, Mr

Cameron of Lochiel 100 Goddard. Isabella, to he suspended

dining the life of her husband,

Archdeacon Goddard 660 £1,757 386 8 I. 81 92 200 BIM 154 49 40

PENSIONS ABOLISHED.

Courtenny. Lady Elizabeth 481 flay, Lady Mary Tuner 97 Hobart, Ludy Albiala 100 Johnstone.Erlward.I.,a retired allow Dire to whichtheparty has been entitled, but which was suspended,

being in future paid 300 Nailer, Caroline. now Reid 97

Sheridan, R. British.), 57 Sheridan, Marriott S.,uow Blackwood 57 Walsineltam Lind 930 276 81

PZNSIONS TO DETERNINF.

(At anoqur er an earlier period than that tchirh is contemplated by the original grant.) Sidney. Family of, not to continue for the life of the grantees. but for the

Ire of the presort Sir 0. S. Sidney £7(0

Stewart, Sir Simeon H., not to eolith nue for the lite or tie• grantee, but fur the life of his mother 100 Tyreminell, Earl of, not to ventilate Me the life of the grantees, Litt ror the life of his Lordship's mother, the Ion. NI rs. Carpenter 600 Strathmore, Coentess or, to lie our• retitled a heti the eiteurnstanees of Laity Strathmore enable her Lady- ship to do so: this contingency is anticipated by Lady Strathmore. who Las expressed her willingness in such case to resign her pension. 194 Holmes, T. K., to be continued, not for the lire of the grantee, but fur

the life of W. Holmes senior 500 Rumba', Emily, to be continued. not for the life of the grantee, but fur the life of Caroline Rumbold 115 £2,099 Houle, Earl of Onslow, Arthur

Sinclair. I or I 181 Wilkins, lion. Eliza, now Stretton.. 115

Scott. Sir David, Burt. 449 Hereford, Viscount 592 £3,412

• Report from Select Committee on Penelope. Onleveil by the Horse or Cosolzi.es to be piloted, 94th Only tea. roll, raper, too, 691, The immediate gain is nearly 9,0001.; the saving may be esti. tinted at 10,0001. taking in the contingencies. At this the Post, quitting the "soft sawdur," alternately sneers and storms_ as " magnificent," as " pitiful," as " paltry," as " shabby," pis " dishonourable," as " dishonestly acquired," as a " manifest breach of faith with numerous individuals." The scruples of the Committee upon the Irish and Scotch pensions will be a sufficieet answer to the graver charges, in the minds of all retiree persons, even without their perusing the documents before ee which show a manifest leaning in the majority towards mete taining every pension that could be upheld with decency. Is looking nt the amount, however, our Tory contemporary forget, that 54,000/. was not inquired into, upon the lists whose pane, the Committee say, were made " carelessly," and where " respon- sibility was less felt, and the facilities of abuse augmented." Paltry as the saving is, however, it amounts to upwards of is per cent.; which most business people will think a pretty goo abatement on an account held to be quite untouchable. As for the delicacy so constantly talked about, let the talkers walk into a court to be sureties for money—or to be trusted with money— or to manage affairs—or even to state what they know of transee. tions ; and they will find justice not restrained by d4icacy troa requiring some account of them. Much less should the-e nice, ties be felt when persons are asking for hundreds or thousanlsa year from a fund avowedly public. We have no feeling fur that delicacy which is not delicate enough to keep its hands out of other people's pockets.

The Report is followed by the Minutes of the Committee, con- taining an account of the points mantel and the decision come to on the thirty-five days they sat. The moot points are resolvable into two divisions—ono relating to the general mode of proceed. ing, the oilier to individual pensions. The Committee began by dividing the lists into two classes; two more being subsequently added, as occasion required.

Class 1. Pensions of the continuance of which no doubt exists at present.

Pensions which may be inquired into at a future time. Pensions which the Committee consider ought to be discon- tinued, unless fresh evidence should be produced. Pensions which ought to he in abeyance, the present circum- stances of the putties not requiring them.

As soon as it was resolved to form the two first classes, Mr. VILLIERS STUART moved, " That when a pension has been granted exclusively as a reward for services, it does not appear expedient to inquire into the private circumstances of the parties now enjoying it : ' upon which Mr. Pill LPOTTi proposed an amend-

ment, " to insert before the word 'services' the word ' public :'" the Committee divided 3 for and 9 against the " public." Later in the day, Mr. IIANDLEY moved " That all correspondence with

parties for the purpose of obtaining further information shall enen nate from the Chairman of the Committee :" 4 divided in favour of the Chairman's pen, 7 preferred that of Mr. SPRING Rice. The remaining divisions amount to forty-five, and relate to the class in which individual pensions should be placed, or to their total abolition. Twenty-five divisions took place upon the point of placing pensions in Class 1 or 2; in which warfare Mr. SPRING Rica gained eighteen victories, and the Economists seven. The other divisions were either upon the transference of pensions to Classes 3 and 4, or upon their total discontinuance. Throughout these contests, as the Post remarks, the Chancellor of the Exche- quer was always on one side, anti Mr. HUME on the other, once dividing alone. The Whig Lord EintINGTON was found with the Government on every occasion save one. Witnesses Were ex- amined by the Committee, as well as documents • but the nature of the evidence, and the objects aimed at, do not transpire. Neither do any of the documents appear in the list of pensions, beyond extracts from official papers, or letters written by the parties with a view to publication.

The Minutes of the Committee are succeeded by a Schedule of the Pensioners, about 700 in number, distributed into eleven classes. To every name a comment is appended, varying in quan- tity from one line to two or three pages. Sometimes these seem drawn from the archives of the Horse Guards or Admiralty; and consist of memorials or enumerations of services, such as officers send in when soliciting employment or promotion. Sometimes they are extracts from old Gazettes, official letters, or the warrant by which the pension was granted and in the case of the children of Sir DENIS PACK, the Committee have printed, as "the best record of his services," the " inscription on his monument in the Cathedral at Kilkenny." A few pensioners, perhaps a dozen, have written to the Committee an account of the claims; and, thsugh varying in power and propriety, these possess the greatest character and distinctness, and carry the most conviction of desert. The commentaries on the remainder embody the conclusians of the Committee, stated with a dry brevity, not always counter- balanced by any striking plainness, and often distinguished by a vague generality, which, though not falsehood, has an air of mystification. The schedule, too, throughout bears the marks of a disposition to make the most of every thing, and to over- whelm the mind by lengthy peas of desert, where they are not wonted, as if to make up for deficiency where they are. Thus, the two daughters of RODNEY have pensions of 2401. and 881. respectively : had the amounts been larger, the relationship to the great Admiral was all that was required; but there is a long enumeration of his services step by step, from the time he first "entered the service in the year 1730," down to his victory over pDs GRASSE, the dates of his commissions inclusive. Sir SIDNEY SMITH has a pension; and precisely the same course is followed,— it as if he were some unknown subaltern soliciting a favour. Taking the subject, however, as it stands in the Report, the gene- rid opinion

we have formed is, that the names on the two lists exa- mined by the Committee do not support the darker suspicions en- tertained respecting them : for which odium, the pensioners have to thank the mystery in which they have been shrouded, and the pertinacious resistance offered to examination. Many of the pen- sioners appear to have a valid claim upon the public, (so long as pensions are allowed at all,) for services either of un extraordinary nature, or

which were not sufficiently remunerated according to the established ratio of reward. In some cases, the income has been given in lieu of superannuation allowances, retiring pensions, or pensions to widows and children, or granted to persons who did not fall within the letter of the regulations : in others, the indi- vidual entitled to an allowance has commuted it for a grant to relations who would otherwise have been left destitute. Many of the pensioners have indeed no further claim than arises from dis- tress, and their relations having been in the public employ ; or from the junction of rank and narrow means ; or from their mis- fortunes having been, by accident, connexion, or political friends, brought under the notice of Royal or Ministerial considerateness. All which points are now held to be invalid grounds of claim to public grants, and justly ; because more deserving and more dis- tressed person% without interest, will be postponed to those who bare interest ; because such grounds are liable to abuse, and faci- litate jobbing ; and because such an application of• the public money is improper in itself. At the same time, when these grants were made, if t he money Lad not been appropriated in this way, It would have been spent in some other ; and law will be disposed to blame the Committee for not rigidly enforcing the law against age and defenceless poverty. These, we soy, are general conclusions. Some pensions, the larger ones especially, are open to question, need Laving been loosely admitted, when need did not exist had the whole case been gone into; nor is it possible fur the most careless eye to glance over the lists without noting the different reward to long and hard plebeian service, and the pensions to the high and well. connected, often for no service at all.

The perusal of the whole Report is a thy and somewhat tedious affair, from the rare occurrence of characteristic points, and the gene- ral sameness of the eases—occasionally relieved, however, by more interest ing things. Sometimes there is a touching case of respect- able distress ; several of the pensi.ma are curious in their origin, reviving historical associations coeneeted w it le the Great Rebellion, the Glorious Revolution, the Scotch insurrections in favour of the

STUARTS, the wars of the Second GEORGE, and the contest with the America& " rebels ; " several carry us back in memory to the

political struggles of olden times ; and some of the letters from the pensioners display traits of feeling and character, or serve as little autobiographies. Of these we will give a few examples.