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The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) by Edmund Burke

E >> Edmund Burke >> The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12)




In every one of these five principalities, duchies, palatinates, there
is a regular establishment of considerable expense and most domineering
influence. As his Majesty submits to appear in this state of
subordination to himself, his loyal peers and faithful commons attend
his royal transformations, and are not so nice as to refuse to nibble at
those crumbs of emoluments which console their petty metamorphoses. Thus
every one of those principalities has the apparatus of a kingdom for the
jurisdiction over a few private estates, and the formality and charge of
the Exchequer of Great Britain for collecting the rents of a country
squire. Cornwall is the best of them; but when you compare the charge
with the receipt, you will find that it furnishes no exception to the
general rule. The Duchy and County Palatine of Lancaster do not yield,
as I have reason to believe, on an average of twenty years, four
thousand pounds a year clear to the crown. As to Wales, and the County
Palatine of Chester, I have my doubts whether their productive exchequer
yields any returns at all. Yet one may say, that this revenue is more
faithfully applied to its purposes than any of the rest; as it exists
for the sole purpose of multiplying offices and extending influence.

An attempt was lately made to improve this branch of local influence,
and to transfer it to the fund of general corruption. I have on the seat
behind me the constitution of Mr. John Probert, a knight-errant dubbed
by the noble lord in the blue ribbon, and sent to search for revenues
and adventures upon the mountains of Wales. The commission is
remarkable, and the event not less so. The commission sets forth, that,
"upon a report of the _deputy-auditor_" (for there is a deputy-auditor)
"of the Principality of Wales, it appeared that his Majesty's land
revenues in the said principality _are greatly diminished_";--and "that
upon a _report_ of the _surveyor-general_ of his Majesty's land
revenues, upon a _memorial_ of the auditor of his Majesty's revenues,
_within the said principality_, that his mines and forests have produced
very _little profit either to the public revenue or to
individuals_";--and therefore they appoint Mr. Probert, with a pension
of three hundred pounds a year from the said principality, to try
whether he can make anything more of that very _little_ which is stated
to be so _greatly_ diminished. "_A beggarly account of empty boxes_."
And yet, Sir, you will remark, that this diminution from littleness
(which serves only to prove the infinite divisibility of matter) was not
for want of the tender and officious care (as we see) of surveyors
general and surveyors particular, of auditors and deputy-auditors,--not
for want of memorials, and remonstrances, and reports, and commissions,
and constitutions, and inquisitions, and pensions.

Probert, thus armed, and accoutred,--and paid,--proceeded on his
adventure; but he was no sooner arrived on the confines of Wales than
all Wales was in arms to meet him. That nation is brave and full of
spirit. Since the invasion of King Edward, and the massacre of the
bards, there never was such a tumult and alarm and uproar through the
region of Prestatyn. Snowdon shook to its base; Cader-Idris was loosened
from its foundations. The fury of litigious war blew her horn on the
mountains. The rocks poured down their goatherds, and the deep caverns
vomited out their miners. Everything above ground and everything under
ground was in arms.

In short, Sir, to alight from my Welsh Pegasus, and to come to level
ground, the _Preux Chevalier_ Probert went to look for revenue, like his
masters upon other occasions, and, like his masters, he found rebellion.
But we were grown cautious by experience. A civil war of paper might end
in a more serious war; for now remonstrance met remonstrance, and
memorial was opposed to memorial. The wise Britons thought it more
reasonable that the poor, wasted, decrepit revenue of the principality
should die a natural than a violent death. In truth, Sir, the attempt
was no less an affront upon the understanding of that respectable people
than it was an attack on their property. They chose rather that their
ancient, moss-grown castles should moulder into decay, under the silent
touches of time, and the slow formality of an oblivious and drowsy
exchequer, than that they should be battered down all at once by the
lively efforts of a pensioned engineer. As it is the fortune of the
noble lord to whom the auspices of this campaign belonged frequently to
provoke resistance, so it is his rule and nature to yield to that
resistance _in all cases whatsoever_. He was true to himself on this
occasion. He submitted with spirit to the spirited remonstrances of the
Welsh. Mr. Probert gave up his adventure, and keeps his pension; and so
ends "the famous history of the revenue adventures of the bold Baron
North and the good Knight Probert upon the mountains of Venodotia."

In such a state is the exchequer of Wales at present, that, upon the
report of the Treasury itself, its _little_ revenue is _greatly_
diminished; and we see, by the whole of this strange transaction, that
an attempt to improve it produces resistance, the resistance produces
submission, and the whole ends in pension.[34]

It is nearly the same with the revenues of the Duchy of Lancaster. To do
nothing with them is extinction; to improve them is oppression. Indeed,
the whole of the estates which support these minor principalities is
made up, not of revenues, and rents, and profitable fines, but of
claims, of pretensions, of vexations, of litigations. They are
exchequers of unfrequent receipt and constant charge: a system of
finances not fit for an economist who would be rich, not fit for a
prince who would govern his subjects with equity and justice.

It is not only between prince and subject that these mock jurisdictions
and mimic revenues produce great mischief. They excite among the people
a spirit of informing and delating, a spirit of supplanting and
undermining one another: so that many, in such circumstances, conceive
it advantageous to them rather to continue subject to vexation
themselves than to give up the means and chance of vexing others. It is
exceedingly common for men to contract their love to their country into
an attachment to its petty subdivisions; and they sometimes even cling
to their provincial abuses, as if they were franchises and local
privileges. Accordingly, in places where there is much of this kind of
estate, persons will be always found who would rather trust to their
talents in recommending themselves to power for the renewal of their
interests, than to incumber their purses, though never so lightly, in
order to transmit independence to their posterity. It is a great
mistake, that the desire of securing property is universal among
mankind. Gaming is a principle inherent in human nature. It belongs to
us all. I would therefore break those tables; I would furnish no evil
occupation for that spirit. I would make every man look everywhere,
except to the intrigue of a court, for the improvement of his
circumstances or the security of his fortune. I have in my eye a very
strong case in the Duchy of Lancaster (which lately occupied Westminster
Hall and the House of Lords) as my voucher for many of these
reflections.[35]

For what plausible reason are these principalities suffered to exist?
When a government is rendered complex, (which in itself is no desirable
thing,) it ought to be for some political end which cannot be answered
otherwise. Subdivisions in government are only admissible in favor of
the dignity of inferior princes and high nobility, or for the support of
an aristocratic confederacy under some head, or for the conservation of
the franchises of the people in some privileged province. For the two
former of these ends, such are the subdivisions in favor of the
electoral and other princes in the Empire; for the latter of these
purposes are the jurisdictions of the Imperial cities and the Hanse
towns. For the latter of these ends are also the countries of the States
(_Pays d'Etats_) and certain cities and orders in France. These are all
regulations with an object, and some of them with a very good object.
But how are the principles of any of these subdivisions applicable in
the case before us?

Do they answer any purpose to the king? The Principality of Wales was
given by patent to Edward the Black Prince on the ground on which it has
since stood. Lord Coke sagaciously observes upon it, "That in the
charter of creating the Black Prince Edward Prince of Wales there is a
_great mystery_: for _less_ than an estate of inheritance so _great_ a
prince _could_ not have, and an _absolute estate of inheritance_ in so
_great_ a principality as Wales (this principality being _so dear_ to
him) he _should_ not have; and therefore it was made _sibi et heredibus
suis regibus Angliae_, that by his decease, or attaining to the crown, it
might be extinguished in the crown."

For the sake of this foolish _mystery_, of what a great prince _could_
not have _less_ and _should_ not have _so much_, of a principality which
was too _dear_ to be given and too _great_ to be kept,--and for no other
cause that ever I could find,--this form and shadow of a principality,
without any substance, has been maintained. That you may judge in this
instance (and it serves for the rest) of the difference between a great
and a little economy, you will please to recollect, Sir, that Wales may
be about the tenth part of England in size and population, and certainly
not a hundredth part in opulence. Twelve judges perform the whole of
the business, both of the stationary and the itinerant justice of this
kingdom; but for Wales there are eight judges. There is in Wales an
exchequer, as well as in all the duchies, according to the very best and
most authentic absurdity of form. There are in all of them a hundred
more difficult trifles and laborious fooleries, which serve no other
purpose than to keep alive corrupt hope and servile dependence.

These principalities are so far from contributing to the ease of the
king, to his wealth, or his dignity, that they render both his supreme
and his subordinate authority perfectly ridiculous. It was but the other
day, that that pert, factious fellow, the Duke of Lancaster, presumed to
fly in the face of his liege lord, our gracious sovereign, and,
_associating_ with a parcel of lawyers as factious as himself, to the
destruction of _all law and order_, and _in committees leading directly
to rebellion_, presumed to go to law with the king. The object is
neither your business nor mine. Which of the parties got the better I
really forget. I think it was (as it ought to be) the king. The material
point is, that the suit cost about fifteen thousand pounds. But as the
Duke of Lancaster is but a sort of _Duke Humphrey_, and not worth a
groat, our sovereign was obliged to pay the costs of both. Indeed, this
art of converting a great monarch into a little prince, this royal
masquerading, is a very dangerous and expensive amusement, and one of
the king's _menus plaisirs_, which ought to be reformed. This duchy,
which is not worth four thousand pounds a year at best to _revenue_, is
worth forty or fifty thousand to _influence_.

The Duchy of Lancaster and the County Palatine of Lancaster answered, I
admit, some purpose in their original creation. They tended to make a
subject imitate a prince. When Henry the Fourth from that stair ascended
the throne, high-minded as he was, he was not willing to kick away the
ladder. To prevent that principality from being extinguished in the
crown, he severed it by act of Parliament. He had a motive, such as it
was: he thought his title to the crown unsound, and his possession
insecure. He therefore managed a retreat in his duchy, which Lord Coke
calls (I do not know why) "_par multis regnis_." He flattered himself
that it was practicable to make a projecting point half way down, to
break his fall from the precipice of royalty; as if it were possible for
one who had lost a kingdom to keep anything else. However, it is evident
that he thought so. When Henry the Fifth united, by act of Parliament,
the estates of his mother to the duchy, he had the same predilection
with his father to the root of his family honors, and the same policy in
enlarging the sphere of a possible retreat from the slippery royalty of
the two great crowns he held. All this was changed by Edward the Fourth.
He had no such family partialities, and his policy was the reverse of
that of Henry the Fourth and Henry the Fifth. He accordingly again
united the Duchy of Lancaster to the crown. But when Henry the Seventh,
who chose to consider himself as of the House of Lancaster, came to the
throne, he brought with him the old pretensions and the old politics of
that house. A new act of Parliament, a second time, dissevered the Duchy
of Lancaster from the crown; and in that line tilings continued until
the subversion of the monarchy, when principalities and powers fell
along with the throne. The Duchy of Lancaster must have been
extinguished, if Cromwell, who began to form ideas of aggrandizing his
house and raising the several branches of it, had not caused the duchy
to be again separated from the commonwealth, by an act of the Parliament
of those times.

What partiality, what objects of the politics of the House of Lancaster,
or of Cromwell, has his present Majesty, or his Majesty's family? What
power have they within any of these principalities, which they have not
within their kingdom? In what manner is the dignity of the nobility
concerned in these principalities? What rights have the subject there,
which they have not at least equally in every other part of the nation?
These distinctions exist for no good end to the king, to the nobility,
or to the people. They ought not to exist at all. If the crown (contrary
to its nature, but most conformably to the whole tenor of the advice
that has been lately given) should so far forget its dignity as to
contend that these jurisdictions and revenues are estates of private
property, I am rather for acting as if that groundless claim were of
some weight than for giving up that essential part of the reform. I
would value the clear income, and give a clear annuity to the crown,
taken on the medium produce for twenty years.

If the crown has any favorite name or title, if the subject has any
matter of local accommodation within any of these jurisdictions, it is
meant to preserve them,--and to improve them, if any improvement can be
suggested. As to the crown reversions or titles upon the property of the
people there, it is proposed to convert them from a snare to their
independence into a relief from their burdens. I propose, therefore, to
unite all the five principalities to the crown, and to its ordinary
jurisdiction,--to abolish all those offices that produce an useless and
chargeable separation from the body of the people,--to compensate those
who do not hold their offices (if any such there are) at the pleasure of
the crown,--to extinguish vexatious titles by an act of short
limitation,--to sell those unprofitable estates which support useless
jurisdictions,--and to turn the tenant-right into a fee, on such
moderate terms as will be better for the state than its present right,
and which it is impossible for any rational tenant to refuse.

As to the duchies, their judicial economy may be provided for without
charge. They have only to fall of course into the common county
administration. A commission more or less, made or omitted, settles the
matter fully. As to Wales, it has been proposed to add a judge to the
several courts of Westminster Hall; and it has been considered as an
improvement in itself. For my part, I cannot pretend to speak upon it
with clearness or with decision; but certainly this arrangement would be
more than sufficient for Wales. My original thought was, to suppress
five of the eight judges; and to leave the chief-justice of Chester,
with the two senior judges; and, to facilitate the business, to throw
the twelve counties into six districts, holding the sessions alternately
in the counties of which each district shall be composed. But on this I
shall be more clear, when I come to the particular bill.

Sir, the House will now see, whether, in praying for judgment against
the minor principalities, I do not act in conformity to the laws that I
had laid to myself: of getting rid of every jurisdiction more
subservient to oppression and expense than to any end of justice or
honest policy; of abolishing offices more expensive than useful; of
combining duties improperly separated; of changing revenues more
vexatious than productive into ready money; of suppressing offices which
stand in the way of economy; and of cutting off lurking subordinate
treasuries. Dispute the rules, controvert the application, or give your
hands to this salutary measure.

Most of the same rules will be found applicable to my second
object,--_the landed estate of the crown_. A landed estate is certainly
the very worst which the crown can possess. All minute and dispersed
possessions, possessions that are often of indeterminate value, and
which require a continued personal attendance, are of a nature more
proper for private management than public administration. They are
fitter for the care of a frugal land-steward than of an office in the
state. Whatever they may possibly have been in other times or in other
countries, they are not of magnitude enough with us to occupy a public
department, nor to provide for a public object. They are already given
up to Parliament, and the gift is not of great value. Common prudence
dictates, even in the management of private affairs, that all dispersed
and chargeable estates should be sacrificed to the relief of estates
more compact and better circumstanced.

If it be objected, that these lands at present would sell at a low
market, this is answered by showing that money is at a high price. The
one balances the other. Lands sell at the current rate; and nothing can
sell for more. But be the price what it may, a great object is always
answered, whenever any property is transferred from hands that are not
fit for that property to those that are. The buyer and seller must
mutually profit by such a bargain; and, what rarely happens in matters
of revenue, the relief of the subject will go hand in hand with the
profit of the Exchequer.

As to the _forest lands_, in which the crown has (where they are not
granted or prescriptively held) the _dominion_ of the _soil_, and the
_vert_ and _venison_, that is to say, the timber and the game, and in
which the people have a variety of rights, in common of herbage, and
other commons, according to the usage of the several forests,--I propose
to have those rights of the crown valued as manorial rights are valued
on an inclosure, and a defined portion of land to be given for them,
which land is to be sold for the public benefit.

As to the timber, I propose a survey of the whole. What is useless for
the naval purposes of the kingdom I would condemn and dispose of for the
security of what may be useful, and to inclose such other parts as may
be most fit to furnish a perpetual supply,--wholly extinguishing, for a
very obvious reason, all right of _venison_ in those parts.

The forest _rights_ which extend over the lands and possessions of
others, being of no profit to the crown, and a grievance, as far as it
goes, to the subject,--these I propose to extinguish without charge to
the proprietors. The several commons are to be allotted and compensated
for, upon ideas which I shall hereafter explain. They are nearly the
same with the principles upon which you have acted in private
inclosures. I shall never quit precedents, where I find them applicable.
For those regulations and compensations, and for every other part of the
detail, you will be so indulgent as to give me credit for the present.

The revenue to be obtained from the sale of the forest lands and rights
will not be so considerable, I believe, as many people have imagined;
and I conceive it would be unwise to screw it up to the utmost, or even
to suffer bidders to enhance, according to their eagerness, the purchase
of objects wherein the expense of that purchase may weaken the capital
to be employed in their cultivation. This, I am well aware, might give
room for partiality in the disposal. In my opinion it would be the
lesser evil of the two. But I really conceive that a rule of fair
preference might be established, which would take away all sort of
unjust and corrupt partiality. The principal revenue which I propose to
draw from these uncultivated wastes is to spring from the improvement
and population of the kingdom,--which never can happen without producing
an improvement more advantageous to the revenues of the crown than the
rents of the best landed estate which it can hold. I believe, Sir, it
will hardly be necessary for me to add, that in this sale I naturally
except all the houses, gardens, and parks belonging to the crown, and
such one forest as shall be chosen by his Majesty as best accommodated
to his pleasures.

By means of this part of the reform will fall the expensive office of
_surveyor-general,_ with all the influence that attends it. By this will
fall _two chief-justices in Eyre_, with all their train of dependants.
You need be under no apprehension, Sir, that your office is to be
touched in its emoluments. They are yours by law; and they are but a
moderate part of the compensation which is given to you for the ability
with which you execute an office of quite another sort of importance:
it is far from overpaying your diligence, or more than sufficient for
sustaining the high rank you stand in as the first gentleman of England.
As to the duties of your chief-justiceship, they are very different from
those for which you have received the office. Your dignity is too high
for a jurisdiction over wild beasts, and your learning and talents too
valuable to be wasted as chief-justice of a desert. I cannot reconcile
it to myself, that you, Sir, should be stuck up as a useless piece of
antiquity.

I have now disposed of the unprofitable landed estates of the crown, and
thrown them into the mass of private property; by which they will come,
through the course of circulation, and through the political secretions
of the state, into our better understood and better ordered revenues.

I come next to the great supreme body of the civil government itself. I
approach it with that awe and reverence with which a young physician
approaches to the cure of the disorders of his parent. Disorders, Sir,
and infirmities, there are,--such disorders, that all attempts towards
method, prudence, and frugality will be perfectly vain, whilst a system
of confusion remains, which is not only alien, but adverse to all
economy; a system which is not only prodigal in its very essence, but
causes everything else which belongs to it to be prodigally conducted.

It is impossible, Sir, for any person to be an economist, where no order
in payments is established; it is impossible for a man to be an
economist, who is not able to take a comparative view of his means and
of his expenses for the year which lies before him; it is impossible for
a man to be an economist, under whom various officers in their several
departments may spend--even just what they please,--and often with an
emulation of expense, as contributing to the importance, if not profit
of their several departments. Thus much is certain: that neither the
present nor any other First Lord of the Treasury has been ever able to
take a survey, or to make even a tolerable guess, of the expenses of
government for any one year, so as to enable him with the least degree
of certainty, or even probability, to bring his affairs within compass.
Whatever scheme may be formed upon them must be made on a calculation of
chances. As things are circumstanced, the First Lord of the Treasury
cannot make an estimate. I am sure I serve the king, and I am sure I
assist administration, by putting economy at least in their power. We
must _class services_; we must (as far as their nature admits)
_appropriate_ funds; or everything, however reformed, will fall again
into the old confusion.

Coming upon this ground of the civil list, the first thing in dignity
and charge that attracts our notice is the _royal household_. This
establishment, in my opinion, is exceedingly abusive in its
constitution. It is formed upon manners and customs that have long since
expired. In the first place, it is formed, in many respects, upon
_feudal principles_. In the feudal times, it was not uncommon, even
among subjects, for the lowest offices to be held by considerable
persons,--persons as unfit by their incapacity as improper from their
rank to occupy such employments. They were held by patent, sometimes for
life, and sometimes by inheritance. If my memory does not deceive me, a
person of no slight consideration held the office of patent hereditary
cook to an Earl of Warwick: the Earl of Warwick's soups, I fear, were
not the better for the dignity of his kitchen. I think it was an Earl of
Gloucester who officiated as steward of the household to the Archbishops
of Canterbury. Instances of the same kind may in some degree be found in
the Northumberland house-book, and other family records. There was some
reason in ancient necessities for these ancient customs. Protection was
wanted; and the domestic tie, though not the highest, was the closest.

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