65 113 In the same years, the declared value of British clocks ex1213 ported has been 49947., 52647., 51247., 69637., 80317., 54097., 26031687., 34847.; and the number of British watches exported 85 has been 70987., 66977., 9258, 86031., 86331., 10,9437., and 18,678. 14701 [ABSTRACTS OF PARLIAMENTARY PAPERS. TRADE.-Wool.-The quantity of foreign wool imported into the United Kingdom in the year 1832 was 28,142,489 lbs.; of which 555,014 lbs. was re-exported. Of the above quantity imported 19,832,225 lbs.was from Germany, and 2,377,057 lbs. from New South Wales, Van Diemen's Land, and Swan River. During the same period the British wool exported was 4,199,825 lbs. ; and the woollen yarn 2,204,464 lbs. The total declared value of British woollen manufactures was 5,244,478. 10s. 10d. This amount was distributed as follows: Refined Sugar.-The quantity of British refined sugar exported from the port of London during the quarter ended April 5, 1833, was 53,783 cwts. 21 lbs.; and during the quarter ended July 5, 1833, 35,862 cwts. 2 qrs. 27 lbs. Newspaper Stamps.-The number of stamps issued for all the London Newspapers, from the commencement of 1832, to March 31, 1833, was 26,588,050. The number issued in Ireland during the same period was, 5,718,600. Clocks and Watches.-Foreign clocks and watches are rated ad valorem, and therefore their number cannot be ascertained, nor is any distinction made between wooden and metal clocks in the Custom-house entries. During the *These are all the petitions and signatures which are enumerated. In the thirty-second report, the numbers are made to be of petitions brought from preceding report 193, signatures 23 360; but these numbers appear to have been taken by mistake from the twentyninth report, where the same figures appear to the petitions and signatures against the beer bill, being the entry immediately below the only petition mentioned against the bankrupt bill. This error is carried on in the succeeding report, Debtors. In 1831 the number of warrants for debt against the person was, in Middlesex, 14,909; in Surrey, not stated; in 1832, in Middlesex, 13,555; in Surrey, not stated. The number of warrants on mesne process was, in 1831, in Middlesex, 11,859; in Surrey, 2461: in 1832, in Middlesex, 10,534; in Surrey, 2263. The number of warrants on writs of execution was, in 1831, in Middlesex, 3050; in Surrey, 628: in 1832, in Middlesex, 3021; in Surrey, 515. The number of bailable processes executed was, in 1831, in Middlesex, 5373; in Surrey, 1176: in 1832, in Middlesex, 5327; in Surrey, 1115. The numbers of prisoners committed for debt to the different metropolitan prisons on mesne process, judgments recovered, or costs of suits, excluding crown debtors and prisoners for contempt of court, during the years 1831 and 1832, were as follows: the account is made up to the end of December, 1832, the number in custody is that of January 1, 1833. To the King's Bench, in 1831, 1054; in 1832, 842; remaining in custody, 393. To the Fleet, in 1831, 503; in 1832, 681; remaining in custody, 255. To the Marshalsea, in 1831, 585; in 1832, 635; remaining in custody, 133. To Whitecross Street, in 1831, 1901; in 1832, 1940; remaining in custody, 493. To Whitecross Street, on processes issuing out of the Courts of Requests, in 1831, 1370, the amount of whose debts was 13747. 19s. 6d.; and the amount of costs 5487.; in 1832, 1443, the amount of whose debts was 12821. 6s. 1d.; and the amount of costs 5417. 2s. 6d. The estimated annual expenditure for the maintenance of the Court of Request prisoners is 390%. To Horsemonger Lane, in 1831, 339; in 1832, 332; remaining in custody, 69. To Horsemonger Lane, on process out of the Courts of Request, in 1831, 1120, whose debts were 24177. 78. 5d., and the amount of costs 6961. 2s. 7d.; in 1832, 945, whose debts were 20397. 14s. 9d., and the amount of costs 5667. 18s. 2d. The amount paid for the maintenance of these prisoners was, in 1831, 2087., and in 1832, 2267. THE COMPANION TO THE NEWSPAPER. No. 9. TO BE CONTINUED MONTHLY. SEPTEMBER 1, 1833. THE SESSION OF PARLIAMENT. In the preceding pages of the Companion to the Newspaper will be found ample accounts of nearly all the leading subjects that have engaged the attention of Parliament since it commenced its deliberations; but now that the long and laborious session whose progress we have accompanied is about to close, it will be desirable that we look back upon the ground over which we have passed, and endeavour to place before ourselves and our readers, in one distinct and comprehensive view, the whole amount of what has been done by the legislature in the period of nearly seven months to which its labours have extended. Such a retrospect on the present occasion claims no common importance. The session, whose course we are about to review, is the first produce of the Reform Act; it is the only experimental test we yet have of the character of that measure. It is also the first in which the present ministry have had an opportunity of carrying into practical exemplification any of the other professions, except that of parliamentary reform, upon which they accepted office. It may be regarded, therefore, as affording us the means of judging, both of their sincerity in these professions, and of their capacity for the government of this great nation. It is extremely interesting, considered in either of these two points of view. But before proceeding to our summary of the work of the session, we would submit one or two general observations. It has happened in the course of the present sessions, as it has usually done heretofore, that a good many measures have been brought under the notice of Parliament, and have met with more or less of acceptance, which yet, owing to various causes, have not been carried through the two Houses. In some cases the bill has been withdrawn, that it might be introduced in another session, with modifications, or in circumstances giving it a better chance of success. In other cases, after having been allowed to pass through some of its stages, it has been thrown out on a subsequent one by a vote of the House. Now what we would remark is, that these efforts, though they do not terminate in actual legislation, are by no means to be reckoned as going for nothing in the business of reforming the laws and institutions of the state. In working a great effect, it is not the last blow only that tells. A bill which after making its way through one of the two houses is rejected in the other, is lost indeed for the present; but for the present only. Its success eventually may be counted upon as certain. Who doubted, for example, that Catholic Emancipation would be carried after the lapse of a few years through both houses, from the day when the bill was first read a third time in the House of Commons? Who supposed that the Reform Bill could be effectually resisted by the Lords, after the other house had given it their sanction? And so it will be, for example, with the bill for the removal of the disabilities of the Jews, which was this year lost in the Lords after having passed the Commons. In the next, or in some early session, the measure will force its way through both houses. Nay, the same ultimate success, though perhaps later in arriving, may be confidently predicted even for some of the other reforms attempted in the course of the present session, which did not make quite so much progress as the one we have just VOL. I. Price 2d. instanced. Let but a bill involving a new principle reach a second reading in either house, and its speedy passage into a law is sure. Indeed, by the usage of Parliament, the principle of the measure when it has got this length is considered as having been acquiesced in by the House, and after that the only pretence of opposition lying in objections to the details is soon overcome. Such will be the case, we may anticipate, with the Local Courts Bill, which the Lords threw out this session on the third reading. They will probably pass it the next. And, generally, if any proposed innovation really deserving of adoption shall only have commanded so much attention as to have been once formally debated, that is a point, and a great point, gained for it. The vote, even on this first hearing, may be against it; but the argument may possibly for all that be in its favour; and at any rate it is no longer something new and strange, to be regarded with indifference or contempt by most,-by some, perhaps, with the exaggerated aversion or dread inspired by the distant and unknown:-it has been, as it were, introduced-it has acquired what may be called a standing-custom has made it familiar to those who most shrunk from it-it may, in one word, have divers other obstacles to encounter, but the first and most formidable are overcome. Secondly, we would say, in reference to the cry that has been raised on the subject of the moderation of this first reformed Parliament, that this is the very last complaint which any considerate friend of the Reform Bill will make. An opponent of that measure might be conceived to lament that it has not been yet followed by any symptoms of the precipitation and recklessness in the remodelled legislature which he had expected, and perhaps confidently predicted, would be its immediate consequences. To him it might have been gratifying to see changes in every department of the state urged by our new representatives with so impetuous a hand, as to threaten, by the rapidity with which it was made to revolve, to set the whole machine in a blaze. There was, no doubt, reason to apprehend that some tendency of this kind might show itself. The Parliament might have been animated by a spirit similar to that which rages in some of our newspapers for constant movement and indiscriminate destruction. The awakened popular strength that had accomplished the great pull, might have been unable to restrain itself when it got to the top of the ascent, and might have dashed furiously on, breaking every thing to pieces, till it had been arrested by mere exhaustion, or the universal ruin it had made had stopped its further progress. If the first session of the reformed Parliament had exhibited any thing like the commencement of such a course as this, whose alone would have been the triumph?—Their's, undoubtedly, who in speeches, in pamphlets, in newspapers, in caricatures, prophesied incessantly that this very thing would happen. And whose would have been the gain?—Their's only whose plans of private advantage are formed upon the prospect of public confusion-that is, of the greatest, because involving the greatest number of sufferers, of all national calamities. For those who indulge in no such profligate speculations, it is far better that improvement for a time should even move with somewhat of a tardy pace, than that such a risk should be incurred. It is but the loss of a little time. If the direction in which things are pro-ceeding is the right one, it is but a little matter, however it be viewed, that a certain change, or number of changes, which might apparently have been effected this year, should be deferred till another; whereas, on the other hand, the rite of the progress being comparatively of no importance, its certainty and its safety are everything. If the reform that has been effected in the representation be good for anything, it will inevitably carry us forward in time through all other reforms, provided it shall not itself break down or be overturned. This is the only danger. Of (WILLIAM CLOWES, Printer, Duke Street, Lambeth.] K great political changes it may almost be said, that none which come suddenly are good, and none which come gradually are bad. The degree of preparation by which they have been preceded is the most important of the elements that determine their character. Let the best constitution that human wisdom can devise be given to a people not ripe for it, and it will be a curse instead of a blessing. No constitution indeed can be called good or bad abstractedly, and without reference to the condition of those among whom it is to be established. To set this in a strong light, let any one think what would be the result of the experiment of introducing such a constitution as that of Great Britain into New Zealand. Indeed, from the nature of the thing, a re-reduced so as to be considerably more in proportion to the presentative government can only be advantageous when the public to be represented is intelligent and virtuous. In other circumstances a despotism is better than a free constitution. The one form of government is as natural and as beneficial in an early, as the other is in a later stage of civilization. And the same thing is true of the different degrees of freedom. One degree may be the best now; a higher fifty or a hundred years hence. Such changes may be unwisely forced on, as well as unwisely kept back. Desirable as they might be on other accounts, they may be rendered pernicious by being premature. Besides, there is this peculiarity attending all changes in national arrangements, that while the benefits by which they are compensated are for the most part removed to some distance, or only to be fully gathered in a long course of time, the inconvenience which they produce (and they always produce some inconvenience, often a great deal) is immediate. It is a heavy outlay to be undergone, long before there can be any returns. Hence the evident impossibility of a Country standing a multitude of changes operated all at once. The remote advantages may be ever so great, but the present pressure of the cost at which they are to be obtained cannot be borne. It is the case of an individual who, in order to give himself a chance of some prospective good, should involve himself in a present expenditure which brings upon him utter ruin, and thereby puts it out of his power ever to pursue the speculation upon which he had entered. In the same manner, by the attempt to change too many things at the same time, a nation might occasion such extensive derangement in the relations of society, that total anarchy would overtake it before it could reap any of the advantages which it had promised itself from its various reforms. These things must therefore be proceeded with as the country can bear the cost. Order and gradual progress, which are so indispensable to the success of all other great operations, must not be disregarded here, or a fearful rush of mischiefs will soon avenge the rash and presumptuous experiment. spondence, and negotiation in other forms, with public bodies out of doors. But what is the character of the new arrangements that have been made in the case of each? That is the important point. Are these arrangements of a liberal or of an illiberal complexion? Do they carry us forward, or send us a stage back, or only leave us where we were, in the career of improvement and civilization? It is not to be denied, that they one and all at least advance us in the right direction, as far as they go. Some might wish that they had gone farther; but even those who object most to the small quantity of the change will not object to its quality. The Irish establishment has been numbers of the population connected with it; one of the most irritating of the imposts, too, by which it was supported, the vestry cess, has been abolished. In the new East India Charter, the monopoly of the China trade has been taken from the Company, the right has been secured to every Bris tish subject of visiting and residing at any of the presidencies, and the native and the European have for the first time been declared equal before the law. In the terms upon which the Charter of the Bank is to be renewed, the rate at which it is paid for the management of the national debt is to be reduced; provision is to be made for securing the regular publication of its accounts; and that part of its former monopoly, or supposed monopoly, which gave it the power of preventing the establishment of banks of deposit having more than six partners within sixty-five miles of London, is to be taken from it. The West Indian negro is not to be immediately made absolutely free; but he is to be immediately released from some of the hardest and most degrading distinctions of his present condition, and a period is fixed, which a few years will bring round, when he is to be as free as we are in England. All children of slaves now under six years of age, and all who shall hereafter be born, are declared already free. What then is the spirit in which all these measures are conceived? Is it not that of reform and a liberal policy? When before, indeed, was so much gained for the cause of humanity and right government, in any single session since England had a legislature? But many matters of great public importance, in addition to these chief ones, have received the attention of Parliament during the present session. First of all are to be mentioned the measures that have achieved the pacification of Ireland. For we do not use language too strong, when we say that, strenuously and obstinately as these measures were resisted in their passage through Parliament, they have effectually accomplished their purpose, and are at this moment regarded as having been the salvation of the unhappy country to which they have been applied, by all men there whose We hold, then, that in the sobriety which has distinguished party passions do not make them blind and insensible to the first reformed House of Commons, a point has been the most obvious considerations of common sense, as well gained of the very first importance, both for the country, and as to everything that is passing before their eyes. The for the character of the measure of Reform itself. The Act for the Suppression of Disturbances has indeed taken country has been carried in safety through a crisis of no from the people of Ireland for a time some political rights little difficulty and danger; and the Reform Bill has been of which they were nominally in the possession; but they in so far vindicated from the heaviest charge which its op- were rights, the free exercise of which had been long before ponents brought against it. Although, however, none of completely prevented by a tyranny far worse than that of the the precipitancy that might have been apprehended has been most despotic law. That tyranny is now put down, and the displayed by the new Parliament, the operations of the ses-country has been brought to a state in which it is possible to sion have neither been few nor of slight importance, as we live in it-in which families may retire to rest at night shall now proceed to show. without the apprehension of being called up before daybreak by the light of their burning roofs, and the yells of a crew of savages come to batter out their brains, or to cut their throats, in the midst of the flames. But coercive measures are not the only ones that have been applied to Ireland. In addition to the reform of the church already mentioned, both her grand and her petty jury systems have been amended and liberalized, and both tribunals brought in their functions, as well as in their mode of election, more under the control of the public voice. In the first place, four of the greatest questions that ever came before the legislature have been all settled in this one session. If nothing more had been done, the session would have been one of the most remarkable on record. An extensive reform effected in the Irish Church-a new government given to India-the terms of a new charter arranged for the Bank of England-and a termination assigned to West Indian Slavery, these are the measures that will make the first session of the first reformed Parliament for ever memorable. The questions that have been thus set at rest, are all questions that had been long and warmly agitated--that were encompassed with difficultiesin regard to which, powerful private interests were opposed to the changes demanded by the public voice. The plans for their settlement, brought forward in Parliament by Ministers, and supported in all their leading provisions by the majority of both Houses, were debated, at every stage through which they had to pass, with unusual keenness and pertinacity; and, except that for the reform of the Irish Church, were also each of them the subject of much corre Passing now from Ireland to England, we here find a crowd of salutary changes in the law, either effected in the course of this session, or so far advanced towards accomplishment, that their speedy completion may be looked upon as certain. Besides the bill already noticed for the emancipation of the Jews, which, after the discussion it has undergone, and the large majorities by which it was carried through the House of Commons, cannot be long prevented from passing into a law, we have to add to the victories o religious liberty, which the last few years have witnessed, the admission of the first member of the Society of Friends into Parliament, his affirmation at the table being accepted instead of the usual oaths; and the two bills for giving the force of an oath in all cases whatever to the affirmation of Quakers, Moravians, and Separatists. A bill for the permission of the marriages of Roman Catholics by their own clergymen in England, and another for the repeal of certain old penalties affecting clergymen of that church in Ireland, which, after having passed the Commons, are now in the House of Lords, are also to be reckoned as coming under the same head. Among the general improvements again that have been effected in the law, may be enumerated the bill for securing to the author of a dramatic piece a share in the profits of his own performance; the bill by which a power is given to the judges to regulate and reform the rules of pleading in the common law courts; that for diminishing the expense of commissions of lunacy, and the better care of lunatics; the Solicitor General's five bills for the amendment of the law of real property; those for the amendment and consolidation of the highway laws, and the sewer laws; that for the better regulation of the police magistracy of the metropolis; and that for the diminution of the expense of the metropolitan police, by throwing a part of it upon the consolidated fund, or the general income of the country. All these either have passed into laws, or are certain to receive the sanction of the legislature before the session breaks up. Other measures of the same description, that have been lost or withdrawn for the present, but which have been so supported this session that their success in another may be reckoned upon as almost certain, are the bill for the repeal of the Foreign Enlistment Act, that for the regulation of dramatic performances, that for the admission of evidence to the truth of the statement complained against in defences against prosecutions for libel, that for the remodelling of the patent law, that for the establishment of a general registry of deeds, that for the repeal of the Apothecaries' Act, that for the abolition of imprisonment for debt, and that for giving to prisoners charged with felonies the aid of counsel in making their defence. To these add the very important bill already mentioned, for the establishment of local courts, which it is to be hoped another session will not elapse without seeing passed into a law. Several most valuable improvements of the laws and institutions of the northern part of the island have also been the work of this session, or will be completed before its close. We may mention in particular the acts for the reform of the royal burghs, and for the election of magistrates and councils in the parliamentary burghs; that for the establishment of a police in the towns of Scotland, and that for the establishment of small debt courts. Reforms of the Court of Session, of the Bankruptcy laws, of the Sheriff courts, and of the system of entails, have also more or less engaged the attention of the legislature, and have formed the subject of bills, which, after having been advanced some stages, have only been withdrawn for the present to be introduced again in another session. REDUCTION OF TAXATION. THE reduction of the government expenditure to the lowest amount consistent with the public interests, is important in various other ways, as well as in an economical point of view. It operates to diminish government patronage, and, as much as any thing else perhaps that can be done, to satisfy popular feeling. A very interesting and valuable statement upon this subject has lately been laid before the public, in the corrected report of a speech delivered in the House of Commons on the 16th of July, by Mr. Spring Rice, one of the secretaries to the Treasury, in which the right honourable gentleman took a comprehensive, and, at the same time, a very minute review of all the reductions, both in expenditure and in taxation, that had been made since the peace. The account comprehends, of course, not only what has been done in the present session, but all that has been effected by the present ministers since they came into office, compared with what had been effected by their predecessors. The Finance Committee, which sat in 1817, estimated the lowest amount to which the votes in supply for the army, navy, and miscellaneous expenditure could then be reduced, at 17,350,000l. It was some time, however, before the amount actually voted was brought down to this limit; and, indeed, from having, for 1818, been 18,970,9597, it rose to be, for 1820, 19,673,7177. For 1822, it was for the first time below the estimate, being only 16,679,6331.; and for 1823, it was only 15,878,313. But by 1827, it had risen again to 18,745,360.; nor was it again so low as the estimate till 1830, for which year it was 16,648,762. For 1831, it was 17,782,4877.; but for 1832, it was only 15,411,571.; and the amount voted this year has been still lower, being only 14,622,2197. This is a reduction below the estimate of the Finance Committee of no less than 2,727,981/., and below the amount voted for 1820, of more than five millions. Even upon the last two years it is a reduction of above three millions. The whole actual government expenditure of last year was 44,922,000l.; but of this amount 32,949,000l. went to pay the interest on the national debt, and what is called the dead weight, being the annuity paid to the Bank in return for which it undertakes to defray the half-pay of the army and navy, and the retired and superannuation charges for civil officers. The whole sum, therefore, upon which reductions could be made, amounted to somewhat less than twelve millions of net revenue: or, adding the expense of collection, to about 12,800,000l. This is the whole sum upon which must be saved the difference between the votes in supply for the last and for the present year, which is very nearly eight hundred thousand pounds. That is to say, the reduction which has been made in one year upon the whole reducible expenditure of the country, is at the rate of nearly six per cent., or about a sixteenth part of the whole. From another of the tables given in Mr. Rice's speech, it appears that the whole net amount of taxes repealed, expired, or reduced, from 1814 to 1832, was 39,931,8567.; and that the amount of the additional imposts proposed to be repealed in 1833, is 1,545,000l.; making a total of 41,476,8567. Meanwhile the taxes imposed have amounted only to 5,813,1187.; so that the actual amount of relief given has been not less than 35,663,738. This is the difference be tween the annual pressure on the public at the close of the war and at present. The principal legislative measures of a commercial character, which have been passed during the present session, are ten bills introduced by Mr. Rice, being chiefly additions to and completions of as many consolidation acts, passed in 1825. Their titles are,-1. To regulate the trade of the British possessions abroad; 2. For the registering of British vessels; 3. For granting duties of Customs; 4. For the management of the Customs; 5. To grant certain bounties and allowances of Customs; 6. For the general regulation of the Customs; 7. For regulating the trade of the Isle of Man; 8. For the warehousing of goods; 9. For the prevention of smuggling; and 10. For the encouragement of British shipping and navigation. These bills, although they introduce no important innovations into our commercial law, are extremely valuable as codifications of several large branches of it. The measure of the session, of course, by which the commerce of the country will be most affected, is the bill for Of this diminution of taxation, a portion amounting to opening the trade to China. We may also, however, men- about 3,335,000l. has been effected since the present minis tion under this head the bill for permitting sugar to be im-try came into office, or within the last three years. This ported into this country duty free and warehoused, in order to be refined for exportation, which has passed both Houses. The reductions of taxation that have been effected during the session we have noticed in another place. This rapid statement, in which of course many minor matters are omitted, is enough, we think, to vindicate the legislature from the charge frequently brought against it, of having, during the long period it has sat, done little real sum has been remitted in the shape of a repeal of the duties on printed cottons, coals, and slates; candles, tiles, fireinsurances of farming stock, small receipt stamps, land-tax on personal estates, pamphlets, travellers or riders, clerks, bookkeepers, officemen, overseers, managers, shopmen, warehousemen, cellarmen, tax-carts, and horses of marketgardeners; and by a reduction of those on hemp, drugs, marine-insurances, advertisements, soap, cotton, wool, and 4 the houses of shopkeepers, licensed victuallers, and those habit of asserting. It is true that the Government and the rented from 107. to isl. The only tax imposed by the Parliament have not carried their zeal for the diminution of present ministry has been one on cotton wool, yielding a re-expenditure so far as either to violate national engagements, venue of 300,000l. We give Mr. Rice's separate statement of the reductions that have been proposed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer during the present session :: Tiles .. Marine-insurances. Advertisements. Assessed-taxes and farming stock Total £37,000 £1,545,000 The reductions which thus appear to have been made by the present government are to be considered, he it remembered, in connexion with the circumstance that they have been made in the comparatively narrow field for economy left to them by the reductions of preceding_administrations. Upon this point Mr. Rice remarks-" The late go-getting rid of what is either morbid or superfluous has evivernment (that of the Duke of Wellington), in its disposition towards economy, carried reductions in many departments as far as, under the circumstances, and at that time, it might be considered prudent or proper to go. I have never undervalued the reductions of the late government; but the bolder were their economical measures, the greater, of course, the difficulty of effecting further reductions; and, therefore, when the merit of the late government in this particular is fully admitted, I trust that, without presumption, I am entitled to take credit, on behalf of those with whom I serve, for the additional merit of carrying these economical principles into fuller effect." But the most interesting part of Mr. Rice's statement is that which relates to the extensive reductions in the establishments of the several public offices, which have been made within the last few years. As the details which he submitted as to this matter were derived from accounts which have since been printed by order of the House of Commons, we have given the official document referred to among our Abstracts of Parliamentary Papers. It appears that since 1821, the number of persons employed in the public offices has been reduced by no fewer than 5689, occasioning an annual diminution of expense to the amount of 1,206,189. In this work the present ministry are shown by Mr. Rice to have at least equalled their predecessors in zeal and activity. The reductions made in 1828, 1829, and 1830 comprehended 909 persons, with salaries amounting to 106,1777.; but those made in 1831 and 1832, comprehended 1265 persons, and salaries to the amount of 219,9687. per annum. While the average salary of the persons dismissed by the late Government, therefore, was only 1167. 16s. 1d., that of those whose places have been abolished by the present Government has been 2267. 78. 8d.-showing that the present Government is that, by which appointments of high or considerable value have been most liberally sacrificed. This is further proved by another paper to which Mr. Rice refers-a separate return of the reductions that have been made within the last three years on salaries amounting to 10007. and upwards. This return comprehends the Treasury, the Exchequer, the Secretaries of State, the President of the Council, the Board of Trade, the Board of Control, the Privy Seal, the Admiralty, and officers in the Customs, Excise, Post Office, Stamps, and Taxes, the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and various other great offices. When the present ministry entered office, the annual salaries derived from these offices amounted to 315,6497.; of this sum 148,9067. has since been reduced, being not far from one-half of the whole. To this is to be added a saving of 50,000l. per annum on the diplomatic expenditure of the country, which has within the same period been reduced from 178,000l. to 127,000l. Altogether, therefore, these higher salaries have been diminished full 40 per cent., or by an annual sum of little less than 200,000l. Again, in the collection of the revenue, according to Mr. Rice, between the years 1820 and 1833, a saving has been effected to the amount of half a million annually; and, by further reductions, which are at present under consideration, it is expected that 76,4907. more will be saved. These facts sufficiently prove, that the pledges of economy with which the present ministers came into office have not been so entirely forgotten by them as some of our public censors, speaking from vague general impressions, or in utter ignorance of what has been done, have been in the to destroy the efficiency of the public service, or in any other way to injure the interests and the honour, which is one of the first interests, of the country. If this be what any person means by economy, he may possibly not be satisfied either with what has been done, or with the disposition that has been shown. Those, for instance, who, acknowledging the claims of the national creditor, are fond of recommending what they call an equitable adjustment,—that is, in plain language, the substitution for the actual terms of the bargain between the two parties, of some other terms dictated merely by the will of one of them,-and those who, proceeding upon a simpler principle, would at once sponge out the debt altogether, will doubtless look upon the retrenchments of the present ministry as very superficial work. But with others it will be their recommendation, that they have not cut into the vitals of the state. The operation of dently, at any rate, been conducted without any wish to spare that of which governments are usually most tender, their own emoluments and patronage. After the sweeping reductions that have been made in the public offices, it is hardly to be expected that much more can be accomplished in this department. The number of persons employed is probably already as low as the necessities of the duties to be performed will permit. But other sources remain, from which we may look for a gradual reduction of the national burdens. As the holders of such sinecures as still exist drop off, their places will not be filled up; and in all other cases, in which the legal or equitable claims of the present possessors have prevented any interference with emoluments that might otherwise have been withdrawn or reduced, the principle of retrenchment will eventually be as fully applied as it has already been in other cases not sheltered by any such claim of exemption. But the chief process to which we must look for any considerable lightening of the load of taxation, is the reduction of the expenses of the army and navy. The domestic circumstances of the country, and especially the state of Ireland, have hitherto made it necessary to keep up a military establishment of certainly large amount for a time of peace; but we may hope that the permanent restoration of tranquillity, and the supremacy of the law, will ere long allow a large part of the existing apparatus of coercion to be dispensed with. This would be economy too; but it would be also something still better than economy. REPEAL AND REDUCTION OF ASSESSED MOST of our readers are, no doubt, aware that a bill was some time ago brought into the House of Commons by the Chancellor of the Exchequer for the reduction of certain of the duties on dwelling-houses, and the entire repeal of certain other of the Assessed Taxes. It has since been intimated by Lord Althorp that, in compliance with the strongly expressed desire of the public, the government will next year, if the state of the revenue shall permit, consent to the total repeal of the house and window taxes; but it is, nevertheless, important in the mean time, that the nature and amount of the reduction which it is at present proposed to make should be accurately understood. By an act passed in 1823, persons in trade were already partially relieved from the window-tax, no charge being made upon them for any number of windows not exceeding three in any shop or warehouse, in the front, and on the ground story of any dwelling-house occupied by them, provided that any goods, wares, or merchandise were exposed to sale in such shop or warehouse. It is now proposed to be enacted by way of additional relief, that from the 5th of April, 1833, where persons in trade occupy part of any tenement as a place of residence, and carry on their trade in another part of it, the latter being a shop or warehouse, such as is referred to in the act of 1823, they shall be exempted from half the entire duty chargeable by the present law on the rent, or aunual value of the tenement, provided that their names be conspicuously and legibly painted on or affixed to the front. It is also proposed that, after the same date, the duties on all other descriptions of houses, if the rent be 107., shall be reduced from their present amount of 15s. to 10s.; if the rent be 117, from 16s. 6d. to 12s.; if |