"TOVICS OF THE. DAY:
PRACTICAL MEASURES!"
Ix eomplianee with 'recommendations from 'various quarters, we republish, in a stamped Supplement, the three sections of Practical Measures which have alresely appeared in our weekly numbers.
Advent:Igo has been tuken of this reprint to subject the whole to a careful revieien, as well as to incorporate some considerable addi- tions ; amen gist which are the Pension-list with its notes, and the observations on Military Promotion. A separate edition of the Supplement is also to be published at a cheap price ; and we have reason to believe it will have an extensive circulation even amongst a class of the people who cannot be considered regular readers of the Spectator. In this attempt to prove that no necessity exists for a do-nothing policy, as well as to rouse the Ministry and their
Liberal supporters in the House of Commons to useful exer-
tion, we have selected subjects with a view to their immediate practicability. The laws and institutions of the country are over- run with" proved abuses," some of them originated and all main- tained for the benefit of a caste. But we have not yet asked for reform in the Law, or in the Church ; we have raised no cry for a repeal of the Corn-laws; we have left Taxation untouched. We have looked at measures with respect to the order of time, to their intrinsic importance, at.d to Ministerial capability of execution, with- out relation to the state of parties in Parliament. The Civil List and its Pensions, for example, must be dealt with immediately. And this question tests the disposition of the Ministers in a mat- ter where they cannot meet with opposition. It is therefore of vital consequence to their character ; it may colour the reign of their Royal Mistress. Money seems to be the only consideration ; but morality is lurking under it. If Ministers be resolved still to shroud the Household expenditure in mystery—to maintain the discreditable sinecuses of the "Great Officers of State"—to guard the odious Pension-list untouched and unexamined, and to hang it with its dead weight round the neck of the "youthful Queen"— we know that it must be. Parliament will not, the People can- not, prevent it. The money will be voted. The Ministers, however, will again disappoint their friends, without any of their old ex-
cuses; and the seeds of against their Royal Mistress may be sown, to be ripened by any untoward circumstances. But let them open the accounts to public scrutiny—reduce the useless expendi- ture for Masters of the Horse and other sinecures—aud above all, separate the infamous Pension-list from the Crown—and we shall have earnest-money of their intentions.
The reform of the Dead-weight system—the Civil and Military Pensions of eves y kind— is equally important, and its remedy as easy. Whilst the active service of the country is little more than eight millions, six millions are yeatly raid to persons who render no return.. There is no existing cheek to this " proved abuse" worthy of mention ; little save official pleasure to prevent its increase; nothing to reduce it effectually. Our Supplement detaile its abuses, and points out its remedy. It merely requires a Ministerial will to give that remedy effect. The Army is a still more gigantic abuse, especially if we rise beyond money to political and moral considerations. Nearly a million is annually spent without necessity. The patronage of six-and-a-half millions is monopolized by unserupulous opponents. The hopes and fears of eleven thousand officers—of men in the sham and with the connexions of gentlemen—are directly acted upon ; those of their families are indirectly influeoced ; and the moving power is an enemy—an enemy without responsibility or control. The internal corruptions of the Army are most rank ; its system of reward and promotion is unjust and grievous to the soldier, mischievous to the service, and framed, as we show in detail, for the advantage of the aristocracy alwie. Its exclusive- ness, shutting out the hope of promotion, fills the ranks with the abandoned, the reckless, and the brutal, who can only be kept in the semblance of order by harsh and revolting punishments. Yet much of this can be remedied with greater ease than the passing of the Civil List, for it falls within the prerogative of the Crown. The Executive has only to will it.
Ant this is our answer to those pretended Liberals who argue ihat the Ministry are to be supported in place at any sacrifice of opinion or purse, to do nothing but "keep out the Tories ;" as well as to those too desponding Reformers, who think that the aristocratical influences are so strong in Parliament that no po- pular good is attainable. A remedy for the roll of abuses enu- merated in detail in our Supplement, would be a great good ; and this good can be obtained if the Ministers please. We know, in- deed, that the People's interest is not sufficiently strong in Parlia- ment to force these reforms from a Government backed by the Tories. We know that whatever Civil List the Ministers bring forward, will be voted in despite of any opposition. We also know that the abuses of Half-pay, Superannuation, and so forth, will not reform themselves. We know too that Lord HILL will re- main Commander in Chief till he is removed ; that military plu- ralisms and sinecures will be held till their holding is abolished; and that so long as the purchase of commissions is an "Army re- gulation," money will buy promotion over the head of merit. All this we know ; but we also know that Ministers leave the remedy in their own hands whenever- they please to apply it " Will rot," we understand; but "cannot' is not in our vocabulary.
Let obr desponding friends remember, too, that the success of these measurer etrengsbehithe bands of the People. If rejected, their failure gives a stronger claim for lnititutlbhsl change, as the sole means of obtaining Practical Measures. •
And, after all, to apply these "remedies is the especial duty of the Government. It has been the talk of their official friendi ever since May 1836, that "a Ministry could not outrun the country "—that "it was their duty to fellow public opinion as repris, sented by Parliament"—that "the Ballot, Reform of the Lords, and organic changes in general, could not be advocated as Govern. went measures till the whole people had equivocally declared for them." Be it so. But the Practical Measures we suggest ani strictly Ministerial business—in fact, the household duties of Government—mere Executive regulations, in which Ministerg are for the most part absolute ; for they are matters that regard the whole community—abuses in the remedy of which honest Teries have as much interest as Whigs or Radicals. If the Ministers cannot promote organist reforms, and will not attempt practical improvements, they verify the worst charges of their foes, that they occupy office only for its profits.
Hitherto, by dint of anxiety for organic reforms on the part of the People, and "measures prepared for rejection" by the Minis- ters, the party in power have escaped from the discharge of the first functions of government. With evils that waste the public treasure, and corrupt the public spirit, existing under their very eyes, they have not only taken no steps to remedy them, but seem altogether regardless of their existence. Anti if the heart of the Lords 'relented to-morrow, and the Irish Tithe and Corporation Bills were passed, the grounds of dissatisfaction with the Govern- ment would not at all be lessened in the eyes of those who look at organic and institutional improvements as means to an end, that end being the "greatest happiness of the greatest number." As removing excuses for official sloth and party opposition, to get rid of these measures would doubtless be beneficial. But the politicians who suppose that when these things are carried the work of the Ministers is done, are on an intellectual equality with old Beenetre or any other finality-man. The only diffisrence is in titles ; one is final on a " Reform," and the others on a "Tithe" Bill.
It will behove those constituencies who are really independent of influences, and who conceive that Governments are established for some better purpose than to waste the year in wrangling de- bates on bills for rejection, to scan closely the votes of their Re- presentatives in the ensuing session. If the people of Dundee wish to be considered by the empire at large as admirers of a wasteful Civil List and upholders of Court Pensioners, let them send up a carte blanche to Sir 'HENRY PAI:NELL: but if a vestige of the spit it of other times remains, let them see whether his vote now is in conformity with his recorded opinions in 1830, when be and his colleagues made use or this same Civil List question to turn out the 'WELLINGTON Ministry. " Plain JOHN CAMPBELL° ly;s expressed lihntelf favourable to a revision of the Pension- list Reformers of Edinburgh, look to him ! Mr. WARD, with a becumino- manliness, declared himself opposed to open the queetion (fusing the late King's life, for the Pensions were eoutinued to him in return for the Reform Bill : the King is dead—the right of the Pensioners has died with him—men of Sheffield, you have a claim to the vote of Mr. WARD. Munches-
terians, have the last seven years, fertile in events stimulative of just thought awl free reason, rolled by in vain ? do you wish your Whig Representatives to vote for that now which they voted against to turn out the Tories ? Men of Nottingham, for what have you elected Sir JOHN CAM IIOIMOUSli?—for the views he held when BIIRDRTT'S colleague for Westminster? or for BUR. neee's present views? For be not deceived by differences with- out distinctions ; and such will be the ease if your Member votes for the Pension-list and against Army Reform. The shape and motives of the treason to the People may be different, but the re- suit will be the same ; and as he who acts from his self-will is at lest more respectable than he whose object is profit, the sordid pins:Rum is the baser politician of the two.
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