EXPENSES OF THE CORONATION.
During this session the expenses of the coronation came under consideration. Mr. Hume inveighed not only against the length of time which had elapsed before they were laid on the table, but against their enormous extent. The chancellor of the exchequer, he said, had promised that they should not exceed £100,000; but they were £238,000, the surplus having been taken from French indemnities. Estimates at variance with the expenses were a farce. And of what service, he asked, was it to attempt the relief of public burdens by cutting down small clerks, and inflicting distress on other individuals, when such sums were expended for such purposes as the decoration of Westminster-hall, which cost £111,000, and the habiliments of his majesty, for which the master of the robes was paid £27,700? Mr. Hume also reproached the ministry with bad faith, in calling for a smaller, and expending a larger sum. He also accused the chancellor of the exchequer and his colleagues with violating the public faith, by taking money to which they had no right in order to pay the difference. He thought the house would fail in its duty to the public, if it did not call for an examination into the profligate extravagance of this affair: and he concluded with a proposal for a committee for such purpose, and more especially to inquire by what authority the sum of £138,000 had been applied to the coronation expenses without the previous sanction of the house. This motion was negatived; and the house next went into committee, in which the sum of £160,000 was proposed toward the civil contingencies of 1823. This gave Mr. Hume an opportunity of exhibiting the extravagant system of expenditure pursued, particularizing items as proofs. He moved for a reduction of £52,799 from the sum required; but Mr. Canning defended the expenditure, and satisfied the house, so that this motion also was negatived.