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William Pitt and the Commission on Fees, 1785–1801*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

John R. Breihan
John R. Breihan
Affiliation:
Loyola College, Baltimore
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Extract

On 17 February 1785, William Pitt reported to the house of commons on his administration's response to the reports of the commission for examining the public accounts established by Lord North five years earlier. Since 1780, the commissioners of accounts had summarized and rationalized the new approaches to public administration that had blossomed in the economical-reform movement of the early 1780s; their work has been described by recent commentators as ‘a comprehensive and quite radical philosophy of the public interest’, and even ‘a new bureaucratic ideology’. For his part, Pitt commended the commissioners for having ‘given light to parliament on subjects hitherto involved in the most inscrutable obscurity’, and he stated that it was ‘the duty of the House to profit from the Reports’. After reviewing their findings of manifold deficiencies in the issue and audit of public money, Pitt introduced legislation to reform the treasurership of the navy and to set up a new department for auditing public accounts. The commissioners' more sweeping recommendations for reforms of official compensation and discipline were to be addressed by a new commission on fees, whose broad charge would be: to inquire into the fees, gratuities, perquisites, and emoluments, which are, or lately have been, received in the several public offices…; and to report such observations as may occur to them for the better conducting and managing the business transacted….

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Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 27 , Issue 1 , March 1984 , pp. 59 - 81
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1984

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77 Two reports of the commissions on customs fees were printed with the 4th report of finance committee, 1797, ibid., XII, 79–81. The reports of the commission on the crown lands and forests revenue are printed in H.C., Sess. Papers (Abbot), Accounts and Papers, XXXVI.

78 See, for example, Westmorland, Lord to Pitt, , 5 02 1791, frothing with indignation over the commission's investigation of his family's lucrative rights of ‘Herbage and Debrouze’ in Rockingham Forest, University Library, Cambridge, Add. MSS 6958, v, 911Google Scholar; 9th report of crown lands and forests commission, H.C., Sess. Papers (Abbot), Accounts and Papers, XXXVI, 546 ff.

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84 See, for example, Bankes', Henry eulogy of Pitt for trying ‘to proportion the salaries to the services performed’, in the public service, delivered in support of Bankes's bill to abolish all sínecure offices, 29 03 1813, Parl Deb. XXV, 397–8Google Scholar; Breihan, , Proc. ofConsor. on Revolutionary Eur XI(1981)Google Scholar.

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86 46 Geo. III, cc. 82, 141; 47 Geo. III, sess. 1, c. 51; treasury minutes, 17 July, 12 Aug. 1806, P.R.O. T. 29/79/308–10, 432.

87 48 Geo. III, c. 56; 49 Geo. III, c. 116.

88 50 Geo. III, cc. 56, 117; Roseveare, , The treasury (1973), pp. 65–6Google Scholar. Perceval also expanded the audit board: Gray, Denis, Spencer Perceval (Manchester, 1963), chap. 17Google Scholar.

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