A Corrupt Nobleman

Feilding Star, Volume VII, Issue 62, 3 November 1885, Page 3

A Corrupt Nobleman

. ' I A correspondent writes to the Grlas- , gow Daily Mail :— " Our Tory friends j are rejoicing that the Duke of Richmond has been appointed the first Secretary of State for Scotland, with a salary of £2000 a year. In the year 1676, Charles the 11. granted to oae of his illegitimate sons, who then had been made Duke of Bichmond, a duty of one shilling a chaldron on all . coals exported from the Tyne to any part of England. In 1799, as there was much murmuring against this charge, the character of the payment was changed and made an annual charge of £19,000 a year direct from the Consolidated Fund. The pension has now been paid by the nation to th© descendants of that nobleman for upwai'ds of two hundred years, and for which no service has ever been rendered. The present Duke of Richmond has drawn tnia annual allowance for very many years, andnever thanked the givers, or ever blushed because, of his own unworthiness. If we remember that he possesses a rental of £80,000 a year, we may be also ready to hold up our hands in astonishment at the resolute bravery he displays in the transaction, and the wonderful mental humiliation involved in receiving the money. This is only one example of what Mr Bright calls the system of outdoor relief which our rulers have in past times inflicted upon the nation, and which justly ought to come to an end at once without a farthing of compensation. We appear to have no Joseph Hume to assail these corrupt grants, but surely the Democracy will demand retrenchment, and some measure of honesty in conducting the finances of the nation,, for of late it appears ta have been a lost art.