The (almost really) Complete Works of Lewis Carroll

Most respectfully, but most earnestly, I would urge on every Member of the Governing Body, at a critical time in our fortunes like the present, and when matters of such importance are under debate, to endeavour to understand the question for himself, and not to accept at second-hand the opinions of others. I am very loth to come forward in a matter where I feel my familiarity with such subjects, and my power of dealing with them, to be so inadequate: but I think I ought to do my best.

The main matters to consider are:—

(1) Our needs, present and future;

(2) The economies to be effected with a view to meeting those needs.

I will first make a few remarks on the Report of the Committee, and then state, as briefly as I can, the conclusions which I have come to myself, as a result of the enquiries I have made.

1. The Report

In paragraph 1, it is stated that, after payment of first-charges, Sinking Fund, and interest on Loans, our available income does not exceed £12,000.

This any one can test for himself by referring to the Statement of Accounts for 1885.

In paragraph 2, they speak of “the risks and depreciations of an estate of nominal value of more than £50,000 a year.” It should be remembered that of this £50,000, £20,000 is the Tithe Rent Charge: and that, although this will undoubtedly depreciate for the next year or two, no great unexpected depreciation can take place in it.

It seems to me that this paragraph might be more accurately worded thus—“Consequently, £17,700 is liable for all the risks and depreciations of an estate of nominal value of £30,000 a year.”

This may, or may not, be a dangerous state of things. I doubt if the Committee, or any one else, could name the exact sum which would be absolutely satisfactory for meeting these risks. To take an example from the other Colleges: the “available external income” of S. John’s appears to be about £5000, to meet “all the risk and depreciations” of an estate of the nominal value of about £20,000 a year.

As compared with this, our prospects are favourable: but I have not pursued the comparisons, as it seems clear that the general conclusion (on whatever figures it may be based) that, in the face of probable further depreciation, we ought to economise our resources as much as possible, is quite unassailable.

In the last paragraph on p. 1, it is stated that a balance of £2373 1s. 11d. is due to the Tuition Fund for 1885. It should be remembered that £1,315 of this is merely “due” as having been voted, in May, 1885, to be paid as “Capitation Fees” out of the Corporate Revenue for that year, and that, if paid, it would be at once transferred to the Pension Fund. Whether it might not be desirable, under present circumstances, to rescind that vote, is matter for consideration. It depends, largely on what need there is, at present, for augmenting the Pension Fund (a matter I shall discuss further on). But in any case it would, I hold, be quite absurd to consider this matter as if the Electoral Board were some external creditor, ready to exact his full legal rights: this is simply, as it were, a transaction between the House and itself, to be carried out, or modified, as may be best for the interests of the House.

In the third paragraph on p. 2, it is recommended to borrow (if it be found necessary) the £2,000 Building Loan, “so as to be repaid in a term of not more than five years.” No reason is stated why we should choose a moment of temporary embarressment to lay an unnecessary burden on the next five years, instead of taking the usual course and so spreading it over 30 years allowed by the Act. In that case the annual instalments would be only £66 13s. 4d.: whereas, if the Loan had to be repaid in 5 years, the Treasurer might be obliged to ask for another loan before the repayment of the first was completed.

In the next paragraph, the Committee recommended that “separate banking accounts should be kept for the Corporate Funds and the Trust Funds.” Such is not the view of our Auditor’s assistant, Mr. Carr, with whom I have had two interviews on this subject. Though strongly of the opinion that we ought not to draw upon one Trust to meet the deficits of another, he yet sees no objection to a Trust balance being on the wrong side of the ledger, where the Corporate Fund temporarily supplies the deficit: nor does he see any objection to a Trust Fund temporarily supplying, in a similar manner, a deficit in the Corporate Fund. He says therefore that, if a separate banking account be kept for the Corporate Fund, a separate banking account ought also to be kept for each of the Trusts. (He has seen, and approves of, what I have here said. He incidentally mentioned that he is now engaged in trying, with regard to one of the Colleges for which he is auditing, to reduce their accounts “to the Christ Church form,” which he evidently regards as a worthy model. At his suggestion I wrote to the Auditor himself, to make sure that he also approved of what I have said. It appears to be the case that he does approve, though I have not succeeded in making my question quite clear to him. As there is no time, now, for further reference to him, I think it best to quote his exact words: valeant quantum valent. “I am not sure that I fully understand the matter. Speaking generally, there ought always to be a sum of money in hand sufficient to meet the balances due to the Trusts, but this of course does not render a separate banking account necessary either for the whole or any one of the Trusts. A number of banking accounts would I am afraid lead to considerable complication in keeping the accounts. Like many other questions, there is a good deal to be said on both sides.”) To recur once more to the example of other Colleges, I learn that Balliol has borrowed about £26,000 of its Trusts, with the knowledge of the Visitor, and the approval of the Auditor. Magdalen has, similarly, borrowed more than £40,000 of its Trusts.

To exclude all further possibility of one of our accounts thus helping another to tide over a temporary difficulty, seems to me much as if an Alpine traveller should insist that, whenever they reached a difficult place needing the use of the rope, every one should let go of it.

In the paragraph numbered (1), near the foot of p. 2, it is stated that the balance of the Pension Fund, at the end of 1885, was £581 16s. 9d. This might easily mislead any reader, who did not refer to the Schedule for himself. He would then see that this Fund already possesses an invested capital worth about £4750: and, further, that the Tuition Fees exceed the Tutorial expenses by about £1300 a year, the whole of which excess may be paid over to the Pension Fund.

The suggestions in paragraph (2) to (5) are all, I think, most reasonable, except that such an economy as taking off 5 p. c. from Studentships would only yield (if it could be done in all cases, which it cannot) about £280 a year: it is a very small measure of relief, and, if it were left to individual Students to give or not at pleasure, it would resolve itself into a sort of subscription-list, and would fare but badly after the first enthusiasm for economy had passed away.

In the last paragraph of the Report, it is stated that the Committee “consider the cost of collection and management and the law expenses (in all about £4300) to be excessive.”

In the first place, their estimate of the total amount is “excessive.” They have included, in the Treasurer’s pay, the £300 he has by a vote of the Governing Body on account of the Stewardship, formerly held by him: this has nothing whatever to do with any one of the three headings named by the Committee, and cannot fairly be counted. Again, they have valued, at £225 a year, a house which could not possibly be let, unfurnished, for more than £150: and they have taken the whole Law Bill, £560, whereas nearly half of it consists of exceptional items (chiefly business at Budworth) not likely to recur: £300 would be a much more reasonable estimate for its average amount.

However, making these deductions, let us allow that the total is about £3700. The next question is, is this “excessive”?

To judge by the reductions proposed in the last sentence of their Report, it would seem that it is only the “collection” and “law expenses” they think excessive: but, as I see they name “management” also, I conclude that they consider the present Treasurer and his clerks to be overpaid.

Now, first, as to “Collection” being made in future, as they suggest, “through the Treasury.” Is this practicable?

It should be remembered that, to collect tithes, it is absolutely necessary to hold a tithe audit in the place where the tithes accrue. A tithe dinner would perhaps bring together a good many of the tithe-payers: but many would remain to whom a personal application would be necessary; and this would entail many visits to the place. Local collectors are, in most of our business, indispensable: and when comparison is made (as I understand the Committee have done) between ourselves and other Colleges, the special circumstances of the individual cases need to be taken into accout.

Again, as to small rents, it is absolutely necessary (as perhaps the Committee already know) to have some go-between, some one more in the position of the rent-payers, who can be going constantly among them, and extracting the payments, piecemeal, as he can. To delegate such work as this to our Treasurer would indeed be “to cut blocks with a razor.”

But is it possible, even while employing collectors, to get the work more cheaply done? Our collectors receive, on an average, about 5 p. c. I understand that the Committee name 3 p. c. as a fair amount. Let us consider a few instances.

The Leeds Tithes amount to about £1000 a year. We had always paid, up to about 5 years ago, 12½ p. c. for collecting these Tithes (amounting to about £1000 a year.) Mr. Paver resigned this business, on the ground that he could not do it for the money. Mr. Castle then undertook to do it for 10 p. c.: but, after trying it for a year or two, he came to say he really could not continue to do it for less than 12½ p. c.; which arrangement was agreed to by the Governing Body.

Take, again, the Harrow Tithes, amounting to upwards of £800 a year, for which we pay 5 p. c. No agent would undertake to collect for so little as 5 p. c., unless he were employed by the House in other and more remunerative business as well.

Take, again, the Cheshire Tithes, amounting to upwards of £3000 a year, for which we pay 5 p. c. These require, from their being spread over so large an area, and being in many cases split up into so many small holdings, resident collectors: and the large amount of money involved, entailing the employment of collectors of position and respectability, and capable of providing bonds for large securities, would make it extremely hazardous to entrust the collection of them to less costly hands than the present one.

To take cheapness only as a test of a fit collector, seems a rash policy. You may, no doubt, especially in these days of universal depression, get any work undertaken, by somebody, for almost any pay you like to offer. The great question is, what sort of man you get, and how the work is done. The best workmen are really the cheapest in the long run: it will be a poor consolation, to think that we have saved (say) a few hundreds a year by “accepting the lowest tender,” when some exceptionally cheap collector, whom we are proud to secure as “a great bargain,” vanishes into space, taking with him two or three thousand pounds of our money!

As to making “reductions in the Law Bill,” this is an operation every sane man is only too glad to perform, whenever it is possible: our Treasurer is surely no exception to this universal law.

And lastly, as to the cost of “management” being excessive: by which they cannot mean anything else than that the present Treasurer (receiving £700 and house; say £850 altogether), and the Clerks (receiving £320), are, in their opinion, overpaid. I really doubt whether, in saying this, the Committee quite understand what they are talking about: I doubt if they quite realise the high quality of the work already done for them by their Treasurer—in bringing our Accounts into such perfect order, and inventing and constructing a set of ledgers, and a system of book-keeping, that are a credit to the House and have won the very highest commendations from competent judges (the University Commissioners, in 1873)—and the unremitting zeal and attention with which he and his clerks are still labouring in the service of the House. I even doubt if they clearly recall the circumstances under which he took his present position, by no effort of his own, but yielding to the wishes of the House, who, in 1875, appointed a Committee “to consider on what terms the services of the Treasurer could be retained”: and who persuaded him, in the interests of the House and at a considerable personal sacrifice, to remain here instead of taking the large living he had just accepted. In the name of Common Sense, let us know a good workman when we have got him. And, having got him, let us not begin asking whether we have screwed down his pay to the lowest possible figure.

2. Our Needs, and how to Meet Them

Our “needs,” other than “first charges” and necessary expenses, arise from our debt, which entails payment of (at present) about £6000 a year interest, besides the expenses of the Sinking Fund.

The debt itself, which now amounts to about £220,000, will, if all goes well, be reduced, by 1894, to about £156,000, which is not much more than two-thirds the present amount. Of course this may be delayed by further depreciation in the value of our estate: such depreciation we can neither measure beforehand nor avert. All we can do is to provide as far as possible for whatever may befall us, by practising, in all we undertake, the strictest economy that is compatible with real efficiency.

It may be necessary hereafter, if harder times come, for the Law to step in, and reduce all the “first-charges” with unsparing severity. But we need not, as yet, anticipate such evil days.

There is, however, one source of expenditure, which threatens, if no remedy be found, to drain our resources to a dangerous extent, by locking up a large amount of capital: this I propose to discuss by itself.

3. The Pension Fund

The object of this Fund it is no doubt desirable to secure—that there shall be pensions available for all suitable cases requiring them. No such cases exist as yet: there is no fear of any such need arising for five or ten years at least, and it may be many years to come before we have more than a couple of pensioners to provide for: and in future times, I think we may reasonably assume that the annual expenditure in pensions will never exceed £1200 or so.

Now to meet this need, what is it proposed to do? Is it to sink, in investments, a capital large enough to provide this sum in the form of interest alone, thus relieving our successors of all necessity to contribute out of their annual income—an income which will be, compared with ours, simply colossal? (For it must be remembered that we are now, at the cost of great sacrifices to this generation, enormously increasing the future income of the House.) What would be thought of a Government, that should come to Parliament with a proposal to invest a capital of a thousand millions, in order that its interests might pay the Army and Navy for all future time? Would it not be answered “and why should our descendants pay nothing towards their own protection?”

Let us grant then, what seems obvious, that we cannot reasonably be expected to provide, out of the resources of the present generation, pensions for all future generations. The next question is “But is it necessary to provide anything?” We must pay pensions out of present resources: cannot future generations do the same? Clearly then can. The Tuition-Fees, whose sole present function is, first to pay the Tutors, and then to swell the Pension-Fund, exceeds the first requirement by about £1300 a year. This by itself would be enough, in any one year, to pay the pensions of that year: or, if a little more were needed, in excess of the £150 a year interest on the already-invested capital, it would always be possible for the House to supplement it by granting, from the Corporate Revenue, whatever was needed, in the form of Capitation Fees, payable to the Tuition Fund, thence payable to the Pension Fund, and instantly available (to quote the words of the Statute, at the end of section XI) “for payment of current pensions.” (For this interpretation of the Statute—viz. that it contemplates the payment of current pensions from all of these sources—I have the authority of Sir R. Harington.)

This being so, I venture to assert that a very important “economy” might be effected, by (1) rescinding the vote of May, 1885, of “Capitation Fees” to the amount of £1315; (2) reducing the “Capitation Grant,” not to £1 as the Committee suggest, but to zero; (3) sinking no more capital, at present, in the Pension Fund.

Let me say in conclusion, to anticipate any suspicion that this paper, speaking as it does of our Treasurer, has been inspired by him, that I have written it entirely proprio motu, and not at his or any one else’s suggestion. Some of the facts I have got from him—some from other sources. As to these, the only reasonable question seems to me to be, not “from whom do they come?”, but “are they true?” For the opinions here expressed, I am alone responsible.