HC Deb 19 February 1878 vol 237 cc1978-90

Order for Second Reading read.

SIR JOHN LUBBOCK,

in moving that the Bill be now read a second time, said, that the promoters had accepted all the Amendments to the measure proposed by the Select Committee to whom the Bill of last year had been referred. The principal arguments against the Bill were that it was unnecessary, and that it was an interference with private property. As to the first objection, he had on previous occasions brought forward evidence of the rapidity with which these ancient monuments were being destroyed in all parts of Great Britain; and, if the hour had not been so late, he would have described the destruction which had taken place, especially among camps, in the particular county represented by the hon. Member for Gloucester (Mr. R. Plunkett), who had announced his intention of moving the rejection of the Bill. With regard to the property argument, the Bill did not pro- pose to take a single monument from the custody of its present owner; but simply said to him—"At least give the nation the option of purchasing a monument before you destroy it." That was neither an unreasonable nor a novel proposal, and the powers asked for were not so sweeping as those given in every Railway or Gas Bill. When the measure of last year had been sent to a Committee, a special provision was introduced, giving the owners of ancient monuments a right to appear; but only one gentleman came forward, and his allegation was not that these monuments ought not to be preserved, but that the particular camp with which he was concerned was so much destroyed that it possessed no scientific interest. During each of the six years the Bill had been before the House there had been only one Petition with one signature presented against it. There was no evidence that the owners of these monuments objected to the Bill; and if it were to be considered from a property point of view, he would, in the name of property itself, appeal to hon. Members to support it—for surely a measure which appealed so strongly to their respect for the memory and traditions of the past, must be conservation in the highest sense of the term? Hon. Members had contended that the present owners had a perfect right to destroy these monuments if they chose; but surely these relics were national heirlooms, and did not belong exclusively to one generation? In the eloquent words of Ruskin— Of mere wanton or ignorant ravage it is vain to speak; my words will not reach those who commit them; and yet, he it heard or not, I must not leave the truth unstated, that it is again no question of expediency or feeling whether we shall preserve the buildings of past times or not. We have no right whatever to touch them. They are not ours. They belong partly to those who built them and partly to all the generations of mankind who are to follow us. The dead have still their right in them: that which they laboured for, the praise of achievement or the expression of religious feeling, or whatsoever else it might be which they intended to be permanent, we have no right to obliterate. What we have ourselves built we are at liberty to throw down; but what other men gave their strength and wealth and life to accomplish, their right over does not pass away with their death; still less is the right to the use of what they have left vested in us only. It belongs to all their successors. The nation was spending large sums in treasuring up the monuments of other countries and other peoples in the British Museum, where they were valued most highly; and the destruction of our own monuments was surely a disgrace to a great and enlightened and a wealthy nation, and would be a source of shame and sorrow to our children. It was said that these monuments were erected by savages; but even savages respected the graves of their dead—and surely we were not so savage as to feel no interest in the history of the past and the relies of ancient times; nor so poor, that we had any excuse when we broke up for road-metal or for gate-posts monuments which were erected with love and labour. He appealed to the hon. Member for Gloucestershire to withdraw his opposition to the Bill, so that the House might show by a unanimous vote that they reverenced and respected these rude though venerable monuments of the past, and would hand them down to their children as they had received them from those who had gone before.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—(Sir John Lubbock.)

MR. R. E. PLUNKETT,

in moving that the Bill be read a second time that day six months, assured the House that he was not so savage as to feel no interest in the history of past times, or to wish for the destruction of our ancient monuments. He did not view them with dislike, and was possessed of several which he would not allow to be destroyed. When the hon. Baronet said all the improvements proposed by the Committee of last year had been adopted, he lost sight of the fact that on that Committee the hon. Baronet had such an overwhelming majority that the improvements made were exceedingly few. Still, the measure was greatly improved as compared with the Bill which was introduced a few years ago; but he could not admit that all the machinery it now provided, such as the continuous Commission, the secretary, and the yearly Report to Parliament, were necessary. If the thing was to be done by agreement, there was no necessity for a permanent body to look after these monuments. Why could not the hon. Baronet schedule those monuments which he considered to be in danger and to be worthy of preservation? The great majority of the monuments which were of national interest were just as safe in the custody of their owners as they would be in the charge of the State. Property vested in the hands of Commissioners would be much more difficult and expensive to guard than that which remained in the hands of private owners. It would be far better to appoint a Commission at once to decide what monuments were worth preserving, and called for the interference of Parliament. The hon. Baronet had referred to the destruction of numerous camps in Gloucestershire; but if an enclosure were set up about each of those remaining, they would in some cases become a nuisance to the neighbourhood. If the Bill had been passed years before, it would not have prevented the destruction of many valuable stones, which had been taken away because their owners did not know their value. The stones were broken and the inscriptions effaced, because no one knew of their existence. Archaeological societies were now being founded in different directions, and if farmers found stones to be of value, they would not use them for gate-posts, but sell them for a pound or two. So that when an outcry was made about finding an inscribed stone in a wall, it must be remembered that this Bill would not have saved it. A good many hon. Members were inclined to support the Bill because they believed it would scarcely interfere with any but great landed proprietors, while it would confer a great boon upon the public at large; but that was by no means the case. The parks and pleasure-grounds of the great were specially exempted from its action, and those it would really affect were the small farmer and the yeoman. By Clause 12 the necessary moneys were to be provided by the Treasury; but what fund were they to come from? The hon. Baronet had protested year after year against the increase of the national expenditure; but here he had adopted a contrary principle, not for the benefit of the people at large, because this expenditure would not promote the education of the people, as picture galleries and museums did; and these monuments could only be seen by those who could afford time and money to travel. If the charge were to be levied on the rates, he must equally protest against it, unless it could be shown that the outlay was for the benefit of the dis- trict rated. The hon. Baronet said he dealt more leniently with the owners of ancient monuments than owners of property were dealt with under gas or railway undertakings; but persons affected by the latter had every opportunity of appeal, not only on the ground of compensation, but on the score of rights of property. It might have been imagined that the Schedule would have been drawn up with some care; but he found included in it not only monuments that had not and would not be interfered with, but others which had no existence. Caesar's Camp at Wimbledon, for example, was included in the Schedule, when last year it had been shown that it had been entirely destroyed. Were the Commissioners to obtain possession of the site, although the camp had disappeared? It did not appear whether the appeal provided for by the Bill was to be on the question of law or the authenticity of the monument. If the hon. Baronet would accept his suggestion as to scheduling the monuments considered to be in danger, and state his extent to which he desired to go, the opposition to the Bill would be withdrawn.

Amendment proposed, to leave out the word "now," and at the end of the Question to add the words "upon this day six months."—(Mr. R. E. Plunkett.)

Question proposed, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."

MR. KIRK

said, in reference to the ancient monuments of Ireland, he was convinced that their owners did not take care of them, and that if they were placed in the hands of Commissioners they would be preserved from destruction. He remembered that in county Meath, one of the finest Druidical structures after Stonehenge was destroyed by an English gentleman who had acquired the land, and who probably was unacquainted with the archaeological value of the stones. So much destruction had taken place in the past, that it, was desirable to place these monuments under the control of Commissioners, who would prevent interference with them in the future. The advantages conferred on the public by the establishment of picture galleries had been referred to, and it had been said that these monuments were of no use to the State; but they would at least show the knowledge of mechanics, arts, and sciences possessed by the people in the remote past. He remembered many monuments in Ireland 20 or 25 years ago, which had since] been entirely destroyed. In one case the Antiquarian Society of Ireland obtained permission to excavate some ancient remains. They found nothing within them; but they left them after the excavations had been concluded unrestored to their former condition; and, when applied to, the answer was that the Society had no funds with which to do the work. Such an instance was a strong argument in favour of the Bill. The measure did not contemplate removing these remains from the hands of landed proprietors if they were kept in proper preservation; but only that the Commissioners should have the power to step in if necessary, and, when it was desirable to save a monument from destruction, to give full value for the land on which it stood. That was neither confiscation nor interference with the rights of property. Those monuments testified to the mechanical knowledge in Ireland 2,000 years ago, when many of the stones used to build some of the Druidical remains, and which were 16, 18, or 20 feet long, had been brought from mountains 50 miles away. He warmly supported the Bill.

MR. SIDNEY HERBERT

contended that the ancient monuments of the country were sufficiently preserved under present conditions. Proprietors, as they knew, were extremely jealous of any Parliamentary interference with their property; yet the principle of the Bill was levelled directly at that class. Ancient monuments suffered a great deal more from the hammer of the geologist and the spade of the antiquarian than they did from the ambition of a vandalizing public to inscribe their names on a stone or wall, or from the neglect of proprietors. So far as he could see, there was no danger of their ancient monuments being materially interfered with; but, at the same time, he was prepared to argue that an old. earthwork like Caesar's Camp should not be allowed to stand in the way of the requirements of an increasing population. He had presented a Petition against the Bill from the proprietor of Stonehenge, who had done his best to protect that "ancient monument," and who objected to having the jurisdiction over his own property taken out of his hands. The Bill was entirely unnecessary, and exceedingly arbitrary, and he hoped, therefore, that the House would not pass the second reading.

MR. OSBORNE MORGAN

maintained that the principle that ancient monuments were national property had been repeatedly affirmed by the House. The intention of the Bill was not to interfere with the enjoyment of private property, but simply to prevent owners from destroying and effacing what, in a certain sense, belonged to the nation. How could that be said to be an infringement of private rights? As one of the Select Committee which sat on this subject, he assured the House that nobody could have shown more tenderness for the rights of private property than the Committee. The Bill, no doubt, had its faults; but it could easily be amended in Committee. The principle of the Bill had been solemnly affirmed in three or four former divisions, and it was now too late to dispute it.

MR. RAIKES

said, when his hon. and learned Friend asserted that the principle that the monuments contemplated in the Bill were to be regarded as public property had been affirmed by several divisions of the House, he, in his (Mr. Raikes's) opinion, contended for too much. What was affirmed by those divisions was that ancient monuments were objects of national interest; and there was, he admitted, a strong feeling —not confined within the walls of Parliament—in favour of preserving those monuments. The great difficulty in dealing with the question, as it had from time to time been raised by the hon. Member for Maidstone (Sir John Lubbock), was that the House was asked to treat it in a concrete form, without having had any satisfactory opportunity of coming to a decision on the abstract principle. If, in the first instance, the hon. Member had brought forward a Motion for a Select Committee to inquire into the desirability of preserving ancient monuments, he would probably have met with very little opposition, and would afterwards have been able to go to the Government of the day with a request that they should themselves bring in a Bill on the subject. But if he met with no response from the Government then, armed with, the recommendations of a Select Committee, he would be justified in himself enforcing upon the House the propriety of dealing with the subject. His hon. Friend, however, had persistently put the cart before the horse, and had complicated the matter by raising questions of private property, about which there must necessarily be the greatest divergence of opinion. The hon. Member for Gloucestershire (Mr. Plunkett) remarked that the Bill came before the House this year in an improved condition. He scarcely agreed with him; indeed, he was of opinion that the Bill was open to exactly the same objections that were taken to it at first—in reference to its machinery. It still proposed to vest in a Commission of private individuals powers—and very strong powers, too—such as hitherto Parliament had only accorded to the Government, or to Railway or other public Companies, for the purpose of carrying out some great commercial enter prize. Again, the Bill proposed to schedule a list of particular monuments, but it did not give any definition whatever of the word "monument." That was a most extraordinary omission—so extraordinary, indeed, that he could not remember a single similar instance. Then they came to the position of the owners who would be affected, or might hereafter be affected, by the provisions of the Bill. They were to be precluded from any defence of their property, the right of which the law accorded them in all other cases. There was not one of them owning half-an-acre of land who might not, some fine day, find himself brought under the provisions of the Malicious Injuries Act, for dealing with his own property. True, the property would not be taken from him; but it was a monstrous thing that a man should be put in the position—as he would be under the Bill—of affirming that he was injuring his own property, and of writing himself down a sort of enemy to the public. He did not deny that there was something to be said in favour of the measure; but he would ask where was the effective machinery of the Bill to come from? Why, he noticed amongst the list of individuals who were to form the Private Commission, the name of a Nobleman who had accomplished a more sweeping destruction of ancient monuments than, perhaps, any other subject of Her Majesty. He would ask the House what was the good of bringing in this tiresome measure, year after year, without any fundamental reason for its necessity being shown? The House was asked to go through the form of a second reading, when everybody knew that the Bill as it stood was entirely inoperative. One of the arguments used by the supporters of the measure was that these ancient monuments were of great value; but that was an argument which would apply to a great deal of other property—and, under it, they might ask to schedule the Old Masters at Burlington House, which were worth infinitely more than those shapeless barrows or dilapidated cairns, or any of those pre-historic remains in which some people took such great interest. By way of further answer to the argument, it might be contended that some of the letters stowed away amongst the dusty records of great Houses should be scheduled, for some of them were of great value—far greater value than the decayed and obsolete objects contemplated by the Bill. Still, he was bound to admit, that something was to be said in favour of the purpose of the measure; and if his hon. Friend would strike out the whole of the compulsory clauses and constitute his Commission as a body having power to take over ancient monuments from those willing to transfer them, he should be ready to vote for the second reading; but, so long as the hon. Member persisted in maintaining a machinery which was clearly vexatious and wholly inoperative, so long it was impossible for him to assent to a measure of that description.

MR. HERSCHELL

expressed a hope that the proposition of the hon. Gentleman the Chairman of Ways and Means would not be accepted by the hon. Member for Maidstone. They had been told that their proper course in dealing with this matter was to have moved a Resolution for a Select Committee; but, for his own part, he could not conceive any more effectual mode of delaying legislation in regard to these ancient monuments, since the excuse would always be made that the Government were waiting for the Report of the Committee. He would like to know, too, in how many cases the recommendations of Select Committees had failed to be adopted and carried out?—so that there would be no security in the procedure recom- mended by the Chairman of Ways and Means, that the subject would receive the attention which he and others considered it deserved. It was said that the Bill involved an unnecessary interference with the rights of private property; but when it was conceded that these ancient monuments were objects of national interest, had not Parliament a right to step in and say that as they could not be replaced, so they should not be destroyed? All the Bill proposed was, that owners of monuments should be restrained in so far as the nation had an interest in restraining them. There would be no interference with private management and interests, but simply the imposition of certain responsibilities. The Bill only asked that when an owner contemplated the destruction of an ancient monument— as might be the ease with some future proprietor of Stonehenge—the nation should have the opportunity of acquiring it at its fullest value.

LORD HENRY THYNNE

contended that the Bill ignored two important questions—those of economy, and the rights of private property. He would like to ask the hon. Member for Maidstone, who they were who destroyed ancient monuments? They were destroyed more by the antiquarians than by any other class of people. He remembered seeing an account of some Antiquarian Association who went down to a certain place to investigate some remains which were supposed never to have been opened. The President went solemnly through the ceremony of digging out an indicated spot; and, after several hours labour, he discovered that another President had been there 20 years before him—the only reward of their research being a relic with a very modern mark upon it. For his own part, he should be very sorry to place any monuments in charge of the Commission proposed under the Bill. If anything were to be done at all, the property should be placed in the hands of the county authorities. The real operation of the Bill would be nothing more or less than to confiscate private property; and for that reason, as well as the reason that the measure was an extravagant one, he should oppose the second reading.

MR. SHAW LEFEVRE

explained that Caesar's Camp at Wimbledon was sold by its owner for building purposes. When his neighbours heard this, they offered to buy the Camp at its value for building purposes. The owner, however, refused this. It was then found, on an appeal to the Court of Chancery, that there was power to restrain the owner from carting his materials across Wimbledon Common, and consequently the value of the land for building purposes was practically destroyed. The offer to purchase was then renewed by the neighbours at the same price; but the owner rejected this, and out of pure spite, gave orders to level the Camp. Now, if there had been some such law as that proposed by the Bill, that valuable monument might have been saved to the nation. The measure did not touch any private right whatever, except the right to destroy; but its compulsory clauses were necessary in order to meet the cases of contumacious owners like the one he had referred to.

COLONEL STANLEY

observed that, so far as he had read the Bill, the power proposed to be vested in the Commissioners was not in any way limited as to the number and extent of the properties the Commissioners were empowered to purchase. On behalf of the Treasury, he was, therefore, bound to demur to these provisions, inasmuch as the Commissioners were not the persons who had to provide the Ways and Means, and the Treasury would possess no control over their proceedings.

SIR JOHN LUBBOCK

said, there seemed to be an erroneous impression among hon. Members as to the powers of purchase sought by this Bill. All that was desired was that in cases where the owners wished to destroy ancient monuments, they should communicate with the Commissioners and give that body an opportunity of purchasing the monuments at a fair valuation. Regarding the extent of the powers of expenditure to be vested in the Commissioners, the impression of the promoters of the Bill was that a certain sum would be sanctioned by the Treasury and voted by Parliament, and that the powers of the Commissioners would be limited to the expenditure of that sum. That, however, was a question for the Committee; but it should be remembered that the money expended by the Commissioners would represent investments in land, which would pay, say, 2 per cent. These monuments were being rapidly destroyed, and they would eventually disappear if such a Bill as this were not passed. The Chairman of Committees had said that great powers under the Defence Act were sought to he obtained by this Bill; but the hon. Member would find that the Defence Act was introduced into the Bill for the purpose of ascertaining and fixing the amount of compensation. He thought the objections made were not urged against the principle of the Bill, and he trusted, therefore, that the House would pass the second reading.

MR. ONSLOW

remarked that many hon. Members who had taken a great interest in this subject were not present. He therefore begged to move that the debate be now adjourned.

SIR BALDWYN LEIGHTON

seconded the Motion.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Debate be now adjourned."—(Mr. Onslow.)

MR. BERESFORD HOPE

protested against the tactics of obstruction brought to bear, and stated that the supporters of the Bill would take the sense of the House rather than yield to such a mode of opposition. He maintained that the hon. Member for Gloucestershire had himself conclusively proved the necessity for such a Bill by the admissions which he had made, and was bound to co-operate to help it to that Committee in which he could amend it. The Chairman of Committees had also worked himself up in quite a touching way in favour of the absolute necessity for legislation in that direction; and yet he did contend to secure that nothing should be done to give effect to the deepest and most sacred feelings of his heart. The hon. Member had taunted the supporters of the Bill with not confiding the Bill to the Government. They were quite accustomed to such tactics. Sometimes, when an hon. Member brought in a Bill, he was told that he ought rather to have introduced the subject in a Resolution. Then, if a young Member acted upon such advice, he was told that he only showed his inexperience in bringing in that amorphous, invertebrate thing called a Resolution, and that he should have given the House a Bill to show in what manner he would deal with the subject. These were the two ways of smothering a measure; but it was rather late in the day for the Chairman of Committees, good tactician as he was, to adopt that attitude, when the House, by large and increasing majorities, had affirmed the principle of this measure. If the Government would undertake the charge of the Bill, he was sure he could speak for the hon. Member for Maidstone, and for those who supported him, when he said that they would gladly leave the measure in the hands of those who could most legitimately carry it.

MR. E. STANHOPE

hoped that the Motion for the adjournment of the do-bate would be adjourned.

Question put, and negatived.

Question put, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."

The House divided: —Ayes 64; Noes 56: Majority 8.—(Div. List, No. 19.)

Main Question put, and agreed to.

Bill read a second time, and committed for Tuesday next.