THE CIVIL LIST.
[To THE EDITOR or TEM "SPECTATOR."] Sin,—Will you allow me to point out that the writer of "A Commentary in an Easy-Chair," in your columns last week,. is under a complete misapprehension with regard alike to the objects and the administration of the Civil List? He complains. bitterly that the cause or motive for awarding a pension should be set forth in the published return,—as, for instance, Mrs.. Blank, " in consideration of her inadequate means of support." And he blames Mr. W. H. Smith for a want of feeling in thus exposing the poverty of the recipients. He remarks: " It is a little amusing, from a cynical point of view, that thee special and particular distinction should have been developed under the reign of a statesman so intimately, in a way, connected
with literature as Mr. W. H. Smith." And again : " It was deeply ungrateful on the part of Mr. Smith, just as the descrip- tions in this year's List are ungenerous and unnecessary, and injurious both to literary reputation and individualfeeling."
Nothing could be more thoroughly unjust than these obser- vations. The description which so shocks your contributor is absolutely exacted by Act of Parliament. A Select Committee of the House of Commons sat in 1838 to inquire into the entire administration of the Civil List- It recommended, among other things, "that in the case of all future Civil List pensions, the warrant or other instru- ment of appointment should set forth distinctly the reason and motive of the grant." This was embodied in the Act 1 and 2 Victoria, c. 95, which still regulates the administra- tion of the Civil List.
Consequently, every Prime Minister or First Lord of the Treasury since 1837-38 has invariably appended to the name of a person who has received a pension, the description which your contributor denounces as "ungenerous and unnecessary," and in further compliance with the Act, the return has been laid before Parliament. If your contributor will get the Parliamentary paper No. 300 of 1889, which contains a list of all the pensions granted from 1839 to 1889, he will see that Lord Melbourne, Sir Robert Peel, Lord John Russell, Lord Palmerston, Mr. Gladstone, Lord Beaconsfield, and every other Minister charged with the distribution of the Civil List, have done the very thing which he fancies originated with Mr. W. H. Smith, and which reveals such deep ingratitude on the part of that gentleman.
Having carefully looked into the administration of the Civil List, and once brought it under the notice of the House of Commons, I may be allowed to add that pensions have never been awarded with greater care or discrimination than by the present First Lord of the Treasury. Your contributor objects to the amounts as being very small. But so is the sum at the disposal of the First Lord. It is not designed ex- clusively or specially for literary or artistic services. The Act says that it shall be given "to such persons only as have just -claims on the Royal beneficence, or who, by their personal services to the Crown, by the performance of duties to the ptiblic, or by their useful discoveries in science or attainments in literature and the arts, have merited the gracious considera- tion of their Sovereign and the gratitude of their country." These provisions render a large class eligible for the fund, and all that can be distributed is £1,200 a year.
Mr. W. H. Smith has, in no instance that I can discover, given any portion of this sum to a person unworthy to receive it, and he has evidently tried to make the money go as far as he could. Would your contributor have the whole amount devoted to one person, or divided onlyamong three or four, while all the rest of the applicants—some of them in circumstances of extreme distress—are sent empty away P Does be imagine that Mr. W. H. Smith is the only Minister who has doled out £25 a year P The very first pension under the Act, awarded by Lord Melbourne, was for that sum ; and in 1849 a Mrs. Grant received £20 a year in consideration "of her destitute condition."
Pensions have ere now been given to individuals who were already in the enjoyment of military, naval, or diplomatic pensions, or who had no just claim upon the bounty of the nation. Not a single case of this kind is to be found in the list of pensions awarded by Mr. W. H. Smith. An application was made to Mr. Gladstone's Government in 1885 for some aid to Mr. Richard Jefferies. It was refused. When Mr. Smith came into office, he could not help Mr. Jefferies, for that delightful writer was dead ; but he gave a pension of £100 a year to his widow. He has given the same amount to the Rev. F. 0. Monis ; he has increased the pensions given to the sisters of John Leech by £30 a year; given £100 a year to the daughters of the late Dr. S. Birch ; £75 a year to Mrs. Sowerby, wife of the distinguished naturalist, and so forth. No such abuse of the fund can be laid to his charge as that which was
-committed in 1880, when £500 a year was given to the two daughters of Lord Stratford de Redcliffe,—a man who for a long period had received £8,000 a year, and afterwards a heavy pension, and who was therefore well able to provide for his own family.
Public grants of all kinds are now watched with greater jealousy and suspicion by the public than ever before, and it is well that it should be so, for the total pension list already amounts to something not far short of £7,000,000 a year. But criticisms upon any part of that amount cannot be effectually made without some little knowledge of all the facts and cir- cumstances connected with its distribution.—I am, Sir, &c.,
House of Commons, July 23rd. L. J. JENNINGS.
Previous page
