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Spenlow smiled as I became modestly warm on the subject, and then argued this question with me as he had argued the other. He said, what was it after all? It was a question of feeling. If the public felt that their wills were in safe keeping, and took it for granted that the office was not to be made better, who was the worse for it? Nobody. Who was the better for it? All the Sinecurists.
Can you conceive the fury that would burn in the countenances of a whole family of lordly sinecurists, at being informed, upon official authority, that henceforth their salaries would be equal to their services?
Those fine young gentlemen over there will be the office-holders of twenty years to come, the fat sinecurists and pluralists. The people were better off when, like the lower animals, they had no souls. They were protected by their betters. Now they are at war with them and they are more soulless than before. Dear me, how much fine talk I have heard that never came to anything!"
No, all this you cannot conceive; nor turtle-desiring aldermen, nor cate-fed sinecurists, could, under these their supposed tribulations, have approached, in fury and hate, the meekest-spirited boys of Mr Root's school, when they became fully aware of the extent of the tyrannous robbery about to be perpetrated. Had they not been led on by hope?
Donald Gunn, who was not on the Council, says: "The majority of the Council thus appointed were, no doubt, the wealthiest men in the Colony and generally well-informed, and yet their appointment was far from being acceptable to the people who knew that they were either sinecurists or salaried servants of the Hudson's Bay Company, and consequently were not the fittest men to legislate for people who retained some faint recollection of the manner in which the popular branch of the legislature in their native land was appointed, and who never ceased to inveigh against the arbitrary manner in which the Governor-in-chief chose the legislators."
No man of common sense could, when his blood had cooled, remember without shame that he had voted for a resolution which made no distinction between sinecurists and laborious public servants, between clerks employed in copying letters and ministers on whose wisdom and integrity the fate of the nation might depend.
That the proposed, or any charitable subscription, must be inadequate to relieve the actual distress of the country was a proposition which could not be disputed, but yet he did not intend to oppose that subscription; on the contrary, he should give it every possible support in his power; and it was, he felt, a consolation to them that there were still some persons in this country who could afford something to relieve the poor; but he was afraid that neither the landowner nor the mercantile interest had the means of doing so; for the former could obtain no rent, and the latter no trade the only persons, in fact, who were able to assist the poor under present circumstances were the placemen, the sinecurists, and the fund-holders, who must give up at least half of their ill-gotten gains in order to effect the object.
I pointed out the enormous sums paid by the public for what is called the Civil List, amounting in the last year to 1,038,000L; and in the same year, on account of deficiencies of the said Civil List, 584,713L more; and for the Civil List for Scotland, 126,613L additional, making in the whole, for the Civil List of that year, ONE MILLION SEVEN HUNDRED AND FORTY-NINE THOUSAND THREE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-SIX POUNDS. I showed that the expense of keeping up the army, including the ordnance, was 26,736,017L; that the additional allowance to the Royal Family that year was 366,660L; that the secret service money was 153,443L; and that the sum voted for the poor clergy of the Church of England was 100,000L. I also read a list of some of the most profligate sinecurists and pensioners, male and female, in which I included a sufficient sprinkling of ladies and gentlemen belonging to both the great factions of Whigs and Tories, taking as nearly as I could an equal number from each of them.
Their members informed them, or they were informed by the Canadien, that when the House of Assembly had the entire management of the civil list, they would not fail to reduce the sum necessary to keep up the hospitality of Government House, and only, consequently, consideration for the Governor-in-Chief; nor would they fail to retrench the several pensions, reduce the heavier salaries of the employees, cut off the sinecurists, and, in a variety of ways, lessen the public burthens.
Wait till he begins to sweep the bureaus free of well paid sinecurists. Wait till he finds out how the money is spent that the Assembly votes for railways, education, forestry, and the like. Wait till he reduces the staff of the army and the secretaries. I know Delgratz and Kosnovia, and he does not.
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