HC Deb 08 March 1869 vol 194 cc842-63
MR. SCLATER-BOOTH

rose to call attention to the Treasury Minute of the 28th December, 1868, and to make further inquiry as to the constitution of the present Board of Treasury. The hon. Member said the House was aware that on the formation of the present Government certain important alterations were made in the constitution of the Board of Treasury as well as in that of the Board of Admiralty. His right hon. Friend opposite (Mr. Childers) had already made a clear statement in reply to an inquiry as to the changes which he had thought it his duty to make in the Board of Admiralty, and his only reason for now interposing was his anxiety to elicit from some member of the Board of Treasury a similar statement in reference to the changes which the Government had deemed it necessary to make in that Department. The Office of Lord High Treasurer had been in commission for more than 150 years. From time to time the commission had varied in numbers; but he need not enter into its past history, because the practice, with which all hon. Members were familiar, of appointing three Junior Lords under the First Lord and the Chancellor of the Exchequer was of comparatively recent date. The practice originated, he believed, with the recommendation of a Committee of that House which sat to inquire into miscellaneous expenditure in the year 1846, and which made a distinct recommendation to the effect that the number of Junior Lords should be reduced from four to three. That recommendation was followed, and from that time to the present there had been three Junior Lords. Now, if there were no other reason, he should say that the number having now been varied, contrary to the expressed opinion of a Committee of that House, it was essential that an explanation on the subject should be given by Her Majesty's Government, and the more so on account of the great importance attaching to one of the offices now newly created. He accordingly asked a Question of the Secretary to the Treasury in reference to this subject shortly after the opening of the present Session, and his hon. Friend immediately promised to lay on the table the Minute explaining the changes which had been made. He little thought, therefore, that it would be necessary for him again to trouble the House on the subject. But, in point of fact, the Minute which had been laid upon the table in compliance with his inquiry was so unsatisfactory and ambiguous that he deemed it his duty to re-open the question. The Minute had reference only to one out of the four subordinate officers of the Treasury, and even then did not convey any clear idea of the duties assigned to that officer. With the permission of the House, he would read one or two paragraphs from that Minute. It stated, that Her Majesty's Government had deemed it expedient to assign to the Third Lord of the Treasury, Mr. Stansfeld, certain duties, and the investigation and decision on certain subjects connected with the business of the Department, which will have the effect of placing him on a different footing from the Junior Lords; and, in consideration thereof, they recommend that there should be assigned to him a salary of £2,000 a year, and a Private Secretary, with a salary of £150 a year. Now, he wanted to know what were the "certain duties" intrusted to the Third Lord, and what were the subjects in respect to which the House might regard him as a responsible Minister of the Crown. A newspaper statement had been made, apparently by authority, at the time of the formation of the Government, and to that statement he would refer in order to ask whether it were really intended to indicate the position of the Third Lord of the Treasury. The Times of the 10th of December last stated that the Third Lord will undertake so much of the work of the First Lord as has hitherto been thrown on the Financial Secretary, and he will, in fact, represent the department of receipt, whereas the Financial Secretary represents that of expenditure. His (Mr. Sclater-Booth's) term of Office at the Treasury was not, it was true, very protracted, but he confessed himself unable to understand what was meant by the "department of receipt." He had no desire, however, to prejudge the question, nor to deny that some redistribution of the work of the Financial Secretary might have become necessary, especially during a very laborious Session. He would merely remark that the necessity, however urgent, was less so at a time when the duties of the Leadership of the House were dissociated from the position of Chancellor of the Exchequer, as they had been during the last three years; and it was his own opinion that, if the Financial Secretary was to be the spokesman of the Board of Treasury in that House, he certainly should be acquainted with all the business that went on at the Treasury. He should have thought therefore that the Financial Secretary, rather than the Permanent Secretary, should have forwarded such heavy business as could not be dealt with by himself to the Chancellor of the Exchequer or to the Third Lord as the case might be. The Government appeared to attach much importance to the appointment of Third Lord, seeing that the salary of the office was £2,000 a year, and the holder of it obtained the rank of a Privy Councilor. It was but right, therefore, that the House should be informed of the reasons which had led to the change. The Minute said nothing whatever about the augmentation of the number of Junior Lords of the Treasury, but this matter was one with regard to which the public had not been left altogether in the dark, because the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Truro (Captain Vivian), in addressing his constituents, subsequent to his acceptance of Office, told them very plainly what was to be the nature of the position which he was to occupy. The statements, however, which he on that occasion made were, in some respects, of so startling a character, that he felt induced to ask Borne higher authority at the Treasury whether they were to be accepted without qualification. The hon. and gallant Gentleman began by making some very unpleasant remarks as to the discharge of their duties by some of his predecessors in Office, whom he by implication described as drones; and against such a description he (Mr. Sclater-Booth), for one, must protest, for he was sure there were in the late Government no harder working men than his hon. Friends the Members for Bridgnorth (Mr. Noel) and Peeblesshire (Sir Graham Montgomery). The hon. and gallant Member for Truro, on the occasion to which he referred, went on to say— The right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government is determined to abolish these sinecure offices, and in their place to establish two of great importance, with very important duties. One of them is to be at the Treasury, and to have financial control over the Civil Service Estimates and general finance.…. To the other of these important offices Mr. Gladstone has suggested to Her Majesty to recommend me. The duties of that office are to supervise the whole finance of the army. I am to watch the Estimates, to watch the accounts, and to diminish both the one and the other if I can. In short, with my office and my staff at the War Office— He might have said "my rod and my staff."— I am to be called the War Lord of the Treasury, and I am to exercise a general control over the financial administration of military affairs, subject, of course, to my Chief, who is the Secretary of State for War. Now, he should like to know whether that statement contained a correct definition of the position which the hon. and gallant Gentleman was to occupy. If so, it appeared to him to place an absolute, extinguisher on that important change which had lately been made at the War Office by the appointment of a Controller-in-Chief and his Assistant, by whose exertions, as the House was well aware, very great reductions had last year been effected in that Department. In the second place, the appointment, as described by the hon. and gallant Gentleman, added one more to the already somewhat large number of heads of departments in the War Office. The Secretary of State had an Under Secretary of State, a Military Under Secretary of State, and a Financial Under Secretary of State, and if in addition to those he was to be burdened with a Lord of the Treasury, he (Mr. Sclater-Booth) must say that, in his opinion, a confusion of that distinction which ought to prevail between two great Departments in the State must be the result. He wished, before he sat clown, to say one word with regard to another appointment—that of a noble Marquess as one of the Treasury Commission. The statement which appeared in the papers at the time of the appointment of the noble Lord to whom he referred was to the following effect:— The new Administration has hit on a patent process for the utilization of young Peers. The Marquess of Lansdowne, whose large fortune would prevent his accepting any small official berth with a salary attached, is to be made an. extra Lord of the Treasury without salary. Now, hon. Members, no doubt, remembered with great respect the services of the grandfather of the present Marquess of Lansdowne, and no one in that House would, he felt assured, venture to dispute the claims which that nobleman had upon his party. It was, however, a somewhat new doctrine that a noble Lord, who happened to be a man of very large fortune, was to be placed in a position of authority and responsibility without, at the same time, accepting the salary which usually attached to the performance of the duties of his office. He did not exactly know whether the grandfather of the noble Lord to whom he was referring received any salary when, without holding Office, he was a member of a Liberal Cabinet; but the precedent, at all events, was not one which could be urged in support of the present arrangement. The House had within a very short time expressed it to be its opinion that even in the Diplomatic service the anomaly of having unpaid attaches should be done away with, and it was not at all desirable, he thought, that the circumstances of the appointment to which he was calling attention, should pass unnoticed by the House; and he need hardly say, that neither in that case—the case of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Halifax (the Third Lord of the Treasury)—nor the case of the hon. and gallant Member for Truro (Captain Vivian), whose talents he had often occasion to admire, had he any wish to disparage their fitness for the performance of the duties imposed upon them. His object in bringing the question forward was simply to get from the Government information on the subject of those appointments. As to the noble Marquess who had been appointed a Lord of the Treasury, he would only add that while he had no doubt he would make an excellent public servant, yet he should have thought that the office of private secretary to some great officer of State would have been a more appropriate channel of introduction to public life than that which he had received. Many gentlemen entering public life would, he felt, have some reason to be jealous at seeing a person appointed an officer of the Treasury without the salary which properly belonged to such an appointment because he happened to be a nobleman possessing a large fortune. In conclusion, he hoped he should receive from the Government satisfactory explanations on the subject.

THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER

I think, Sir, the hon. Member for North Hampshire (Mr. Sclater-Booth) has only done his duty in calling the attention of the House to this subject, and thus affording the Government an opportunity of giving an explanation with respect to it which, it appears to me, can be very easily given, and which, I trust, he will regard as satisfactory. By what has been done a very considerable change has, there is no doubt, been made in the Board of Treasury. The House is aware that the Treasury is constituted under a Royal Commission to supply the place of a Lord High Treasurer, just as the Board of Admiralty supplies the place of a Lord High Admiral. There is no limitation whatsoever to the Prerogative of Her Majesty as to the number of Commissioners she may appoint, and there is no violation of any official or other rule in creating a larger number of Lords of the Treasury than it has been usual to appoint for some years past. The arrangement must stand or fall according to its effects as regards the expediting of Public Business. All, indeed, that is requisite is that the number of appointments should be in accordance with that which, in the judgment of the House, may be necessary for the efficiency of the Department. It cannot be said that there is anything either proper or improper in the number of officers beyond this, and there is no rule in the matter, except that a Committee of the House of Commons on a previous occasion recommended that the Lords of the Treasury should not exceed three. Now, the Junior Lords of the Treasury have—at all events—ever since I have been in Parliament, occupied a position which no one, I think, can regard as satisfactory. One of them has generally assisted the Patronage Secretary to discharge Ms duties in this House, and the other two did little except settle the superanuation allowances of clerks. But although those Lords had little to do, it seems to me to be impossible to deny—indeed, my hon. Friend who has just spoken has admitted—that the Department has been considerably overworked, and that the pressure of business has been too great, especially on the Secretary to the Treasury, who was expected to be constantly in this House, watching the conduct of a great mass of its business, and who was obliged to get through an immense amount of work in his department besides. The first object of the changes which have been made was to remedy that state of things, and the best way to effect that object was deemed to be this—to leave the Secretary of the Treasury in possession of the duties which he exercised in regard to this House, but to relieve him from a portion of the official labours through which he had to go, so as not to overload a single officer in a department where the business was sometimes very involved. The Third Lord of the Treasury was created with that view, and the business of the office has been divided entirely for the purposes of internal convenience, but the change made is tentative, and subject to alteration. In making that arrangement we allotted to each of these Gentlemen the duties which we thought best calculated to promote the efficiency of the Department. Very likely in many cases we have not made so good a division of the duties as future experience will enable us to make. At any rate, we have made the attempt, and it is not the only one that has been made, because in 1805 the Treasury became convinced of the evils which arose through the disappearance of the whole Board at every change of Government, and they appointed Mr. Harrison the first Permanent Secretary, dividing the business between him and the Parliamentary Secretary. That, as the House is aware, is the constitution of several great Departments of State. The Permanent Under Secretaries of the Colonies and the War Office have each stated parts of the business of their Departments, the remainder being done by the Parliamentary Under Secretary. The arrangement we are now discussing is an extension of that principle, and makes the constitution of the Treasury so far analogous to the office of a Secretary of State. As to the duties of the Third Lord of the Treasury, they are very important. He has a large portion of the business of the office to transact. If I were to describe it in general language, I should say that his duties rather tend towards those which are discharged by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, while the duties of the Secretary of the Treasury tend to those which have been ordinarily discharged by the Secretary of the Treasury. The division of duties may not be a logical or complete one, but that is the direction to which it points. For instance, to the Third Lord Belongs the duty of looking after the revenue; to the Secretary of the Treasury that of looking after the expenditure. That is the sort of idea upon which the present tentative division has been made. Then the third Lord has been and will be most useful and valuable to the Department in conducting those inquiries into the expenditure of other Departments of State which form so important a part of the duties of the Treasury. It has been the practice previously to appoint gentlemen at the head of large Departments at the Treasury to make these inquiries, together with the permanent officers of other Departments. That practice has not been, on the whole, beneficial to the public service—first, because those gentlemen, being permanent officials, did not always command the weight to which their abilities and knowledge might entitle them; and, in the second place, because they were already fully occupied. The time which they took in investigating the business of other Departments was too often subtracted from the necessary business of their own. It is a great advantage to have a Gentleman in the Treasury holding high Parliamentary position, and having the full confidence of the Government of the day, who will be; able to serve in the conduct of such inquiries, giving the weight of his authority and official position to the Reports which may be made during these inquiries, without, at the same time, materially disarranging the business of the office to which he belongs. That is the best answer I can give to the Question which has been put as to the functions of my right hon. Friend the Third Lord of the Treasury. Well, then, I am asked whether a newspaper account of his duties is correct, which account, my hon. Friend (Mr. Sclater-Booth) says, appears to have an official origin. I should have thought that my hon. Friend's official experience would have shown him that it was not very likely that such a statement would come from the Treasury, when it stated that the Third Lord would discharge certain of the duties hitherto performed by the First Lord. As my hon. Friend knows, the First Lord of the Treasury, being at the head of the Government, does not take any part in the departmental business of the Treasury; nor was it likely that it would be stated on the part of the Treasury that the Third Lord was put there to watch over the receipts of the revenue, a duty which, of course, we know belongs to a different Department altogether. I hope, therefore, my hon. Friend will believe that statement was not inserted by the direction of the Lords of the Treasury, and I can assure him that it does not contain a correct statement of the duties of the Department, which are, as nearly as possible, what I have described them to be. Then I am asked as to the duties of my hon. Friend the Member for Truro (Captain Vivian), and am requested to explain what it was he thought necessary to address to his constituents on this subject. No doubt my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Truro will, if he thinks necessary, explain that address. I think it would be a most evil practice to take upon ourselves the responsibility of each other's election speeches. All that I am. answerable for is the actual duties intrusted to my hon. Friend. On the occasion referred to he described those duties perhaps a little emphatically, but in substance pretty correctly. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for War will, I am sure, fill that office very ably; but he has not been a man of war from his youth up, he was not born in camps and cradled in the field. It will be no derogation from him to say that he is not thoroughly versed in all the technicalities of the military art. It was necessary that the Under Secretary for War should be in the House of Lords, because the administration of the War Department is a subject in which the House of Lords, from the fact that it contains so many retired military officers, takes a keen interest. A great many of the questions connected with this Department are for this reason nowhere more keenly debated, and it was, therefore, necessary that some representative of the War Department should have a seat in the House of Lords, the presence there of the Commander-in-Chief making the necessity still greater. I do not understand that any one blames the arrangement, which indeed was the arrangement of the late Government, under which the Under Secretary for War is placed in the House of Lords. But then my right hon. Friend (Mr. Cardwell), from the little defects in his education to which I have referred, felt the want of a military assistant in this House. The Lords of the Treasury not having been overdone with work hitherto, we thought it a good arrangement that the hon. Member for Truro (Captain Vivian) should be associated with the Secretary for War, in order to give that technical assistance and advice which his great abilities enabled him to give in transacting the business of the Department in this House. Then, as to the remaining Lord of the Treasury, the Marquess of Lansdowne—it is hardly fair to represent his appointment as nearly equivalent to that of a private secretary. The Treasury has no representative in the House of Lords. Many questions, however, arise there which it is necessary that somebody should answer on behalf of the Department, and I hope no one will think we did wrong in endeavouring to establish a connection between the Department and the House of Lords by having a distinct representative there. The duty which the Marquess of Lansdowne specially discharges at the Treasury is that which was formerly discharged by the Lords of the Treasury—the arrangement of the superannuations that come before the Department. He has also been employed in several other matters, and has given real and very efficient and useful assistance to the Department. That fact I do not understand to be called in question, and nobody who knows my noble Friend would doubt it. What I understand to be complained of is, that we have appointed the Marquess of Lansdowne without giving him £1,000 a year. Well, in the first place, that is a fault very easily remedied. But, in the next place, I doubt whether it be a fault. There being such a pressing necessity for his appointment—the Lords of the Treasury being fully occupied in the public service: the Third Lord in discharging very important duties, the hon. Member for Truro in assisting the Secretary for War, and the hon. Member for Clackmannan (Mr. Adam) in assisting the Patronage Secretary for the Treasury—and the presence of a representative of the Department in the House of Lords being expedient, it did not appear to me that, considering the ample resources of my noble Friend, it was necessary to give him a salary, when he was willing, patriotically, to discharge the duties intrusted to him without a salary. Of course, this change in the Treasury—for it is a very considerable change—necessitated a change in the conduct of business in my office, because, when you have two Gentlemen performing duties there, a responsibility is thrown upon the head of the office quite different in its nature from that which will be thrown upon him if one person only be so engaged. It is his duty in that case to preserve a unity in the work of the office, for were there not one common centre it is quite possible that my two hon. Friends might, without intending it, diverge in their principles of action; the Department might told different language upon matters brought under our cognizance there, and might adopt principles which could not be reconciled. It is only on this ground that I have undertaken rather more of the Treasury work—duties ordinarily discharged by the Secretary of the Treasury—than, perhaps, it has been usual for persons in my situation to undertake. I have done so very much with the view of maintaining uniformity in the decisions and conduct of the office. I have done so, also, for another reason—because the Government has come into Office pledged, if to anything, to economy. I am not so foolish or so vain as to suppose that I can discharge the business better than the two able Gentlemen by whom I have the honour to be assisted. But if you want to enforce economy, you must throw into the scale of financial retrenchment all the weight you can get; and high Office is a great element of strength and one which a Government anxious for economy ought not to neglect. It is a very different thing whether a recommendation comes from a Secretary, a Third Lord, or a Chancellor of the Exchequer. I therefore thought it my duty to throw my own personal exertions into the scale, so that the recommendations of the Treasury should have as much weight as it was in my power to give. That, I think, is a full answer to the Questions which have been asked. I hope what we have done will be found to work satisfactorily, and will also be found not to diverge from the principles on which public offices ought to be constituted. Whether the change works well or not, however, it has been made with the sole and single object of promoting public economy and departmental efficiency.

MR. HUNT

The House, I think, will' agree with me that the subject brought under its notice by my ton. Friend (Mr. Sclater-Booth) is one of very considerable importance, and one quite worthy of being discussed by the House; and I cannot say that the explanations given by the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer are, to my mind, at all sufficient with regard, at least, to one of the changes made by the present Government. It will have been noticed by the House that, when the right hon. Gentleman came to discuss the expediency of the appointment of a Junior Lord of the Treasury without salary, he seemed to feel that he was getting into smooth water, and had to deal with a I subject far less difficult than that of the appointment of the Third Lord of the Treasury. I confess that, after listening attentively to the right hon. Gentleman's explanation as to the respective duties of the First Lord of the Treasury and the Financial Secretary, I feel myself very little wiser than I was when he began. The right hon. Gentleman did not, I think, give us a very clear account of the particular duties assigned to those two functionaries. With regard to the Department of the Revenue, I should fancy that the duties connected with that particular Department would lie with the Chancellor of the Exchequer himself. I cannot, therefore, understand why the duties ascribed to the Third Lord of the Treasury should not be as well performed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, The right hon. Gentleman, no doubt, truly states the case when he says that in increasing the number of the Junior Lords, nothing has been done contrary to law; but we must remember that the number of the Lords of the Treasury was fixed some years ago upon the recommendation of a Select Committee of this House. The salaries of those officials were also fixed. Since 1847, the number of Lords of the Treasury has been five, three being Junior Lords. Now, what I complain of is this—that an additional Junior Lord of the Treasury has been appointed by the present Government without any notice to Parliament, or statement of the reasons for such appointment. The real state of things, then, is this—a new office has been created in the Department of the Treasury second only to the First Lord in political rank, in salary, and in dignity. Though such a creation may not be altogether illegal, I think there can be no doubt that it is against the spirit of the Constitution that such a new office of this importance should be created by the Government by a stroke of the pen without any notice being given to Parliament or the country. The office that is really created is that of Chief Financial Secretary of the Treasury, and the post of Financial Secretary has been reduced to that of Assistant Financial Secretary. [Mr. LOWE: No, no!] If the House will bear with me, I will endeavour, in a few words, to prove my statement. The information in respect to the office is very meagre, but the Minute states the intention to be that, under the instruction of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Permanent Under Secretary shall transmit to Mr. Stansfeld all Papers relating to certain subjects, to be transmitted by the latter from time to time to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and that with respect to certain Minutes, the signature of Mr. Stansfeld shall be taken as the decision of the Board. You here state in effect that the act of a particular Member of the Board shall be the decision of the Board. I want to know then whether this new functionary is not really created the Chief Financial Secretary. I repeat that, by a mere stroke of the pen, a new office has been created without any communication being made to Parliament on the subject. Now, the year before last, the very contrary to this was done. There were two officers in the Board of Treasury with the same salary, and each, a Member of the Privy Council. A Bill was brought in to abolish one of the offices, and to substitute that of Parliamentary Secretary in its stead. That arrangement was ultimately effected. In the present case, however, a new office has been created without any communication on the subject to Parliament. I think that this is a precedent which ought not to be followed. It may, no doubt, be said by the Government that the House of Commons will still have a voice in the matter, inasmuch as the House may object to the salary of this Third Lord when it comes before them in the Estimates. For one, I should be sorry to see the House of Commons placed in the position of discussing so important a matter at such a time. I confess, I should feel the greatest difficulty myself in expressing my opinion upon the question when it was presented to me in the shape of a particular Vote in the Estimates, because its consideration then must have a personal Rearing, which I should be sorry to give it. I have not the slightest wish to disparage the merits of the right hon. Gentleman who has been so appointed. Indeed, I am certain that the right hon. Gentleman has every claim upon those with whom he is politically connected, and that his high honour and ability qualify him for one of the highest offices in the Government. I say, however, it is my opinion that there was no necessity for the appointment of a second Secretary of the Treasury of the same calibre as that of the Financial Secretary. The Government ought, at all events, to have shown us that the work of the Financial Secretary is too great to be discharged by one man, or by those who have hitherto filled the position of Junior Lords. The Minute of the appointment says nothing of the kind. I certainly should be surprised if such a representation had been made by the present Financial Secretary of the Treasury (Mr. Ayrton); for we all know how constant has been his attendance, and how indefatigable he was, when out of Office, in taking part in the discussion of every subject connected with the business of Government. Indeed, the hon. Gentleman has always shown himself to be a master of every subject which came under his notice. If I were asked to select a man who was thoroughly competent to discharge even two men's work, I should certainly be disposed to name the hon. Gentleman who now discharges with such efficiency the office of Financial Secretary. I have had some experience of the labours of Financial Secretary of the Treasury. When I was at the Treasury the question was mooted, whether a Lord of the Treasury ought not to be appointed to assist me in my duty. I, however, declined to receive such assistance, considering it wholly unnecessary. The duties of Secretary of the Treasury are much more considerable when the Chancellor of the Exchequer is also the Leader of the House; but the time chosen for creating this new office is one which cannot offer even that as a reason for such an appointment. It seems to be a question whether the man was wanted for the place, or the place wanted for the man. I do not want to say anything personal, but we all know that it has been stated that the greatest difficulty in the way of forming the new Government was the immense number of claims for Office. Doubtless, the result of the General Election reduced that difficulty considerably, inasmuch as several right hon. Gentlemen of Liberal principles, who had previously filled high offices in the Government had failed to recommend themselves to the respective constituencies whom they wooed. I should wish, however, to know whether, if the number of claimants for Government appointments had been fewer, we should have heard of such an official as a Third Lord of the Treasury. I am inclined to think we should not. I do not see how the right hon. Gentleman opposite has made out any case for this new creation, nor for giving this Junior Lord double the salary of any of the other Junior Lords. If the Head of the Government and the Chancellor of the Exchequer had shown that it would conduce to the advantage and convenience of the Department to assign it to the three Junior Lords' duties, which would prevent their being drones and would make them working bees, I am sure we should never have heard this discussion; but they have thought proper to create what I say is a new office, and I think the House will watch rather jealously the creation of this new office by a stroke of the pen of the First Minister without some explanation of its necessity to the House. I now come to the duties of the War Lord of the Treasury, and I confess that when I read the speech of ray hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Truro (Captain Vivian), in the papers, I was a little startled to find from it that he was to control the whole military expenditure; because last year we had a discussion which resulted in the expression of opinion that military men were the most unfitted to control military expenditure, and the decision of the late Government was that it was highly expedient that the civilian element should be introduced into that Department, so that the military authorities at the War Office should not be left with the sole control of military expenditure. The Secretary to the Treasury and the Secretary for War under Lord Russell's Government were in the House at the time the discussion took place, and they approved of the view expressed by the Treasury; and I must say I am very much surprised now to find that the present Government have selected a military man to control military expenditure. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has told us that, although he cannot exactly answer for all the expressions used by the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Truro (Captain Vivian), yet they must be taken as substantially correct, and if that be so I think they require a little more explanation than we have just had given to us. If the account given by the Chancellor of the Exchequer is correct, the hon. and gallant Gentleman's position appears to be that of a sort of military interpreter to the Secretary for War, to explain to him the meaning of military terms, and, when he makes official statements in this House on military matters, he will endeavour to keep him straight. My experience of the abilities of the Secretary of State for War leads me to suppose that he requires no such assistance, because I have confidence in my right hon. Friend that he is able perfectly to master military terms and matters without the assistance of an officer of the army. But supposing his modesty is such that he feels a diffidence with regard to these matters, and requires assistance, it seems to me that it is not to the Treasury he should go for assistance. It is the duty of the Treasury I take it to control public expenditure, and not to supply military interpreters to civilian Secretaries of State for War. But I want to know whether the War Lord of the Treasury is a member of the Board, and if he is to have a discretion with regard to military expenditure; because, if so, I should prefer that he did not go so often to the War Office. I understand he passes his departmental time at the War Office, and not at the Treasury. Now. I should much prefer that he should breathe the atmosphere of the Treasury than the atmosphere of the War Office, because those who are surrounded by military men are less likely to check military expenditure than those who pass their official hours at the Treasury, where the habit is to criticize and object to every item of expenditure that comes before them. The explanations then with regard to the Third Lord and the War Lord with which we have been favoured, in my opinion require supplementing. In neither instance do I exactly understand what their functions are. I now come to the Sixth Lord of the Treasury. Shortly after the Union with Ireland—in 1807, I believe—a sixth Lord was added to the Commission. Up to that time the number varied. For the most part there had been five, but from 1807 to 1847, there were six Lords, and the reason given for the appointment of the Sixth Lord was the increase of business in consequence of the Union with Ireland. But in 1846, as my hon. Friend has stated, a Committee, appointed by the House, investigated the miscellaneous expenditure; and having considered, in the first place, whether the salaries should be reduced, they recommended in their Report the reduction of the number of the Junior Lords to three rather than to continue the full number at reduced salaries. It is rather remarkable that the Sixth Lord at that time was the Earl of Shelburne, the father of the present Marquess of Lansdowne the present Sixth Lord of the Treasury. The Earl of Shelburne resigned his office, and it has never been filled up until this appointment of his son. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has treated, I think, rather lightly this appointment of rank and wealth to an office without salary. I think, however, the House will be of opinion that this is rather a grave matter: and the question is, are offices of State to be put up to a sort of Dutch auction, and disposed of, not to the best man for the position, but to the man who will take the office with the least pay, and if none, so much, the better. That is a very serious matter. Not only is it serious to the country at large, but also to public men. It is, I think, a question for consideration whether such a course of procedure is quite just to public men. I do not wish to disparage the merits of the noble Marquess; I have not the honour of his acquaintance, and I have no doubt he ably performs his duties if he has any to discharge. But what I want to know is this—Would he have been placed in his present position without salary, but for the rank and wealth he enjoys? If not, I want to know, considering the competition—if I may say so—that exists amongst public men to attain official dignity, ought those who have adventitious advantages to be lighter weighted than those they compete with? I consider it is an honourable ambition for a man to wish to serve the Crown in high offices of State, and it is seldom that a man can do so without first beginning in the lower ranks, and a generous rivalry exists among competitors for these minor appointments. Nothing gives a man so great an advantage towards his being selected for high official position as two or three years experience in Office, and no one will deny that he is a much more competent man for Office than if without that experience. If you get young Peers to be utilized in this way you will give them that official experience which will enable them to distance all competitors when they seek higher offices. The right hon. Gentleman opposite (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) asks what objection we can raise to the appointment of a Sixth Lord of the Treasury if he has no salary? but I answer, will not the noble Lord who takes that place, without pay, have superior claims to the first vacant place with pay? In this country, where all public men, Peers or Commoners, should start on an equality, it is objectionable—certainly it is novel—to give either class an advantage by placing its members in high official position, even though they receive no salary for the duties they perform. Some explanation beyond what has already been given should be offered to the House for this novel proceeding. If work is to be done by a man, whether he be Prince, Peer, or peasant, he should receive a salary for it. The labourer is worthy of his hire, and if the noble Marquess has duties to do which occupy his time he should receive a salary. I make no apology for detaining the House, because, although the Navy Estimates are of great interest, the matter which my hon. Friend has brought before us is of considerable importance and ought to be discussed at an early period of the Session. The Chancellor of the Exchequer's explanation does not satisfy me that the changes which have been made in the constitution and functions of the Treasury—as far as I understand them—are justifiable, nor can I comprehend from the right hon. Gentleman's remarks in what manner the duties of the Treasury are divided among the Junior Lords.

MR. CARDWELL

So much has been said respecting the alteration that has been made in the mode of conducting the business of the War Office that I should like to say a few words in answer to the right hon. Gentleman who has just spoken. When I first entered Parliament we had in this House, to take part in the debates on military matters, the Secretary of State for War and the Colonies, the Secretary at War, the Paymaster of the Forces, and two members of the Board of Ordnance; the Treasury was responsible for the Commissariat, the Home Office was responsible for the Militia, and there were no Volunteers. When I look at the Board of Admiralty I see that my right hon. Friend the First Lord of the Admiralty has associated with him no less than three Colleagues in this House; and, if my memory serves me, my noble Friend Lord Herbert, with all his great knowledge of the business of the War Department, urged upon the Committee presided over by Sir James Graham—and that Committee agreed with him—the great importance and necessity of providing additional assistance in the War Department. Moreover, when my right hon. Friend opposite (Sir John Pakington) vacated the office I now have the honour to hold, he expressed the opinion, which I am sure he sincerely felt, notwithstanding his competence to discharge the duties of the post, that his successor would be the better for some additional assistance in the House of Commons. When I found that my right hon. Friend at the head of the Government had submitted my name to the Queen for my present office, I took the liberty of saying I should want some professional assistance in giving satisfactory answers to the numerous questions that would be asked me in the course of discussions in this House. It was an old saying Cucullus non facit monachum, and a man putting on the wig and gown of a barrister does not necessarily become competent to give answers on all questions of law and equity. So a man does not become acquainted with all the difficult and complicated questions which military knowledge involves merely because his Sovereign has chosen him to fill the office that I now have the honour to hold; and I assure the House, with perfect frankness, that when my right hon. Friend the First Lord of the Treasury told me that he had submitted my name to Her Majesty's approval for the office of Secretary for War, I told him that what my predecessors had felt I felt in an increased degree, and I trusted that he would give me the assistance of an experienced military officer to aid me in taking part in the discussions in this House. I will not allude to the remarks made by my hon. and gallant Friend (Captain Vivian) to the electors of Truro; but this I will say, that I have felt the manner in which my hon. and gallant Friend has devoted his talents and his industry to the laborious duties of the office which he has accepted to be most useful. That is the arrangement which has been made, and no unconstitutional change has been introduced. My hon. Friend has not signed any letters or done anything that could be regarded as unconstitutional in one holding his position, but he does give me assistance which. I greatly value in my endeavours to reduce our military expenditure. Then the right hon. Gentleman the late Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Hunt) has said that it used to be the object to have civilians rather than military men employed in the War Office. But the right hon. Gentleman must have forgotten that upon the constitution of the late Government, a military Friend of mine, a man most competent to fill any office, was placed at the head of the War Department, and that the office of Under Secretary of State was also allotted to a military man. The late Government also made two other military appointments in the War Office, for which I fully admit they de- serve great credit. I allude to the appointment of that distinguished man, Sir Henry Storks, and his Assistant, General Balfour. These were all military appointments and yet the right hon. Gentleman argues against military appointments. Now, what is the course taken by the present Government? They have placed a civilian at the head of the War Department and another civilian (Lord Northbrook) in the House of Lords, whose ability in the conduct of Business in this House is still fresh in the memory of hon. Members. That is the case with respect to the War Department, and I will venture to say that, from the experience and knowledge of my hon. and gallant Friend, the House of Commons will derive great advantage in the discussion of military affairs. I do not know that I am so competent to speak with regard to the duties of the Treasury. It is a long time since I had the honour of filling the office of Secretary of the Treasury; but this I know, that no one can have taken part in the discussions of this House, or in any Department of the State, without seeing the great labour that has been thrown of late years on the Secretary of the Treasury. During the short time when I held an office to which little labour was attached, my right hon. Friend who sits beside me (the First Lord of the Treasury) used frequently to appeal to me to take the Treasury business and to manage it before Committees of this House, when it would have been more appropriately conducted by some member of the Treasury; and I am inclined, from my own experience, to affirm strongly that the Treasury did require additional force in order to exercise in this House a more complete and adequate control over the expenditure of the country. As for my right hon. Friend the Third Lord of the Treasury, I am sure that every one who knows him will admit that there was no man whose services it was more desirable to enlist on the side of economy. Then, fault has been found with the appointment of a noble Marquess (the Marquess of Lansdowne) who represents the Treasury in the House of Lords. What is the fault? Is it that the Treasury should be represented in the House of Lords by a competent person, or that he should be appointed without salary? But if he had been appointed with, a salary, it would have been in direct violation of the last Report of the last Committee that had inquired into the subject. Therefore, if the appointment was right it was more respectful to the House, and more in accordance with the precedents which we are desirous to follow, that we should have made the appointment without salary than with it. I hope the House will see from this explanation that the object of the Government was to promote retrenchment and economy, and to do so in the manner which seemed to them best calculated to carry the wishes of the House into effect.

Motion, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair," put, and agreed to.

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