It appears from the Report of the Com mittee on Pensions that the charge of pensions has been reduced as follow :— England. Ireland. Scot- 44 per Total.
land. Cents.
1782 85,000 80,000 13,300 16,700 195,000 1820 74,200 67,300 37,100 34,300 212,900 1830 74,200 53,900 33,200 24,100 185,400 ISIS The lists cormAitlated 140,901) Mr. Finlayson, of the National Debt Office, calculated, in 1838, the amount of saving which will be derived from the new system, assuming the ratio of decrease to continue as in the three previous years, and that the average ages of persons to whom new grants of pensions are made will be the same as heretofore : Old Pension. New Pension. Total.
1839 132,632 2,384 135,016 1844 97,540 8,077 105,6 1 7 1849 59,258 13,398 72,656 1854 30,792 18,255 49,047 1858 13,161 21,716 34,877 Mr. Finlayson was furnished by the committee with the ages of 866 persons in the receipt of pensions ; and in 828 of these cases the date of the grant was ascertained. The mean age at which pensions were granted to males he found to be 32, and to females 36 ; and out of every 1000/. payable, 257/. was paid to males and 743/. to females. Mr. Finlay son complains that " the females have understated their ages very considerably, and sometimes with a contempt of all probability, more than one lady having set down her age at 39, forgetting that she has been forty-five years in receipt of the pension, and this from an aversion to own the age of 40." The following is an account of the total amount of pensions granted in each year, ending the 20th day of June, from 1829 to 1837 inclusive ; soon after which period the act I Viet. c. 2, came into operation, and the power of granting pensions was restricted. [CIVIL LIST.
1829 . £1830 1834 . £2878 1831) . 6353 1835 . 2748 1831 . 5401 1836 . 1310 1832 . 2638 1837 . 3230 1833 . 900Besides the pensions on the Civil List, the regulation of which at different periods has been referred to above, there are vast sums annually appropriated by parlia ment to the payment of pensions of an other description. Thus every year the suns of about 1,350,0001. was voted on account of the pensioners of Chelsea Hospital ; 245,001./. to the out-pensioners of Greenwich ; 148,990/. to widows of officers of land-forces ; and to officers in each of the civil departments of the government large sums are annually paid to pensions and superannuation allow ances. The half-pay to retired officers of the navy and army may also be con sidered in the light of a pension. In
1832 the charge on the public for pensions, superannuations, and half-pay amounted to 6,152,702/. (Financial Reform, p. 203, 4th edit.) " The operation of the super annuation, the grant of retired allowances, the naval and military pensions granted for good services, the pensions granted by the 57 George III. c. 65, for persons who have occupied high political offices, and the pensions for diplomatic and con sular services, have to a great extent superseded one of the original purposes of the Pension List. These acts have also substituted a strictly defined and regulated system of reward, for a system which depended on the arbitrary selection of the crown or the recommendation of the existing government, exposed to the bias of party or personal considerations." (Report on Pensions, No. 218, Sess. 1838.) it Henry Parnell, in chapter xii. of his ' Financial Reform,' shows that there are many abuses to be remedied in reference especially to superannuations. " Nothing (he says) can be more extravagant and inconsistent with a proper guardianship of the public purse than the system of salaries and superannuations now in ope ration. The salaries are so much higher than they ought to be, that every officer and clerk has sufficient means of making a provision for infirmity and old Age. But notwithstanding this fact, as to the sufficiency of salary, in the true spirit of profusion, a great superannuation allowance has been added." In 1830 there were nearly one thousand officers in the public service, with salaries of WOOL a year and upwards, enjoying amongst them 2,066,574/. ; and of these there were 216 persons whose salaries averaged 4429/. ; and yet from the pass ing of the Superannuation Act in 1810 till 1830, the charge for civil superan nuation was increased from 94,550/. to 480,081/. It was stated in the Third Report of the Finance Committee (Sess. 1828), that in not a few cases persons obtained superannuations, as unfit for the public service, who enjoyed health and strength long afterwards, and discharged the active duties of life in private business. In 1831 the treasury established some very important restrictions relative to superannuation allowances, which are given in a Parliamentary Paper (No. 190, 2nd Session, 1831).
For an account of pensions under the French monarchy the reader may refer to the Encyclopedic Melhodique (section • Finances').