In a review of the deeds of the session, this
morning, the Times shows that Ministers have exhibited most industry in preparing a huge amount of new patronage. The probable salaries under several bills introduced into the House of Commons amount to not less than 129,930/. ; besides other amounts which, for want of data, cannot be estimated. Of that sum, the appointment of Appeal Judges under the Irish Registration Bill, of Judges under the Scotch Bill, and of Judges and Revising Bar- risters under the Scotch and English Bill, will place patronage to the amount of 21,0001. a year at the disposal of the Speaker ; and the ap- pointments under the bills for the administration of Justice, and the new County Courts, with the jurisdiction in cases of Insolvency, Bank- ruptcy, and Lunacy, will enrich the Lord Chancellor's patronage by the sum of 71,0001. a year. The Times then observes- " We have shown an amount of not quite 130,0001. a year in ascertained salaries of offices proposed to be created by a Ministry, in support of whom the various sections of the House of Commons, comprising Whigs, Radicals, Re- pealers, and Republicans, are capable of affording a majority of just seven votes upon the whole House. And here we are driven to observe upon the patronage proposed to be given to the Speaker. Recent experience has proved that this glorious majority of seven is not always to be depended upon. A case may arise in which one vote may be wanted to save the Melbourne Administration—not from disgrace, for to that Ministers have become accustomed, but—from another minority, which, like ' the last straw that breaks the camel's back,' may oblige the noble Leader in the Commons, the author of a treatise on the British Con- stitntion, by surrendering his office, ' to act,' as he said Sir Robert Peel did in 1835, ' in the spirit of that constitution.' To save the nohle lord from so disagreeable a necessity, a happy expedient would seem to have suggested itself. The Speaker is always at band : let us bribe the Streaker.' Hence, we sup- pose, originated the high bidding in the way of patronage offered for the casting- vote of that right honourable gentleman ; patronage which, if report be true, the Speaker, with a becoming sense of what is due to his station, has declined to accept at the hands of the Government."
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