CLASS II.—SALARIES AND EXPENSES OF CIVIL DEPARTMENTS. (Hansard, 27 April 1885)

HC Deb 27 April 1885 vol 297 cc866-936 866

§ (2.) Motion made, and Question proposed, That a sum, not exceeding £37,643, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1886, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Offices of the House of Lords.

§ MR. ARTHUR O'CONNOR
said that, before discussing this Vote for the House of Lords, he would like to ask the Government for some explanation of a proceeding which appeared to him to be most extraordinary. They had put down on the Paper Classes I. and II. of the Civil Service Estimates, and in the ordinary course the Committee would have been invited to consider the remaining Votes in Class I. before proceeding with any Vote in Class II. They were now very suddenly informed that the Government had postponed one Class of the Votes, and they were at once asked to plunge into Class II. of the Estimates when they had had no intimation whatever that it was the intention of the Treasury to bring that Class under the consideration of the Committee. Before this Vote for the House of Lords was disposed of he wished to ask the Financial Secretary to the Treasury what was the explanation of that proceeding, and why Class II. was to be considered in the first instance before the remaining Votes in Class I. were taken?

§ MR. HIBBERT
said, he had intended to give an explanation of the reason why this Vote was taken out of its order. As a matter of fact, there were only two Votes left in Class I. One of them, which related to the Houses of Parliament, had been postponed, owing to the fact that the Committee appointed to consider the question of the restoration of the outside of Westminster Hall was still sitting, and therefore it was impossible to take that Vote; and with regard to the second, he had been asked by the hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton) on Thursday night to postpone ^* NOTE.—See subsequent remarks on April 30th—page 1127. 867 it for the present. It was a Vote which, amongst other things, had reference to harbours, and there was also an intimation that it was not desirable to discuss it until the Report upon Arklow Harbour was in the hands of hon. Members. He made that explanation in order to justify the course which had been taken. It had been his intention to proceed with the Votes in their regular order. He was still in the hands of the Committee, and if they desired to go forward with the Vote in which the harbours were concerned, he was quite prepared to take it. He had thought, however, that in postponing it for the present he was simply complying with the wishes of the Irish Members, and therefore it could not be said that anybody had been taken by surprise.

§ MR. ARTHUR O'CONNOR
said, he recollected the circumstance to which the hon. Member referred. The hon. Member had certainly been invited to consider whether it was not desirable to postpone the Vote for Public Works in Ireland. The suggestion, in point of fact, emanated from himself, and the Secretary to the Treasury said he would consider the suggestion; but he had never for a moment thought of suggesting that all the other Votes in Class I. should be postponed.

§ MR. HIBBERT
said, there was only one other Vote, and that was for the Houses of Parliament.

§ MR. ARTHUR O'CONNOR
said, that in regard to the Vote now under discussion, he would ask the hon. Member to explain the circumstances in which the Fee Fund of the House of Lords now found itself placed. He believed that the Fee Fund was, to a certain extent, called upon to defray certain salaries and pensions, and he imagined that the pensions, at any rate, which were so drawn from the Fee Fund, were perfectly within the cognizance of the House of Commons. He wished to know what was the amount of the Fee Fund, and what was the amount of the pensions paid out of it, which pensions were indirectly supplemented by something from this Vote?

§ MR. HIBBERT
said, the pensions now amounted to a sum of £2,783 per annum, which was much smaller in comparison with previous years.

§ MR. ARTHUR O'CONNOR
asked what was the amount of the Fund?

868

§ MR. HIBBERT
said, the amount received during last year in fees was £32,470, of which nearly £30,000 was paid into the Exchequer. The pensions were calculated upon the salaries, and he believed the House of Commons had no power of reducing them.

§ MR. CALLAN
desired to have some explanation of the reason why the Librarian of the House of Lords had a salary of £810 a-year, and also an official residence. Upon the average, the House of Lords generally rose about 7 o'clock in the evening. He thought that was rather a high average, because that House frequently rose as early as 5 o'clock. The House of Commons generally sat until 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning; and while the Librarian of the House of Lords had an official residence, which included light, coal, and freedom from all taxes, the Librarian of the House of Commons, who was up until 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning, had no official residence at all. He wished, further, to know upon what principle official residences in the Houses of Parliament were granted? He had intended some time ago to move, and he would do so shortly, for a Return showing what the official residences were, and the authority under which they were granted. It seemed to him that, although the House of Commons had not been in existence for much more than 30 years, it had already become an official rabbit warren, overridden by persons who came there and occupied official residences without any authority at all. He could not understand why the Librarian of the House of Lords should have a residence supplied to him, while the Members of the House of Commons, who were engaged in the discharge of their duties until all hours of the morning, had scarcely a place in which to lock up their papers. It was certainly undesirable to give up those enormous buildings to residences for officers who were in receipt of large salaries. He did not suppose there was in the British Empire an official who was paid for the duties he had to perform a higher salary than the Librarian of the House of Lords. He would invite hon. Members to go into the Library of the House of Lords and compare it with that of the House of Commons. They would find that very few of the books were ever removed from the shelves—complete lassitude 869 prevailed from one end of the building to the other—and yet the officer in charge of the Library had an official residence to protect him from the night air in case he might otherwise have been required to go home at a late hour. In order to secure an explanation, and have a clear understanding why this official residence was provided, he would move to reduce the salary of the Librarian of the House of Lords from £810 to £500. The item would be found at page 83, sub-section 6.

THE CHAIRMAN
Does the hon. Member propose to reduce the Vote by the sum of £310?

§ MR. CALLAN
Yes.

§ Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Item of £810. for the Salary of the Librarian of the House of Lords, be reduced by the sum of £310."—(Mr. Callan.)

§ MR. HIBBERT
said, the hon. Member was quite right in asserting that it was an anomaly that, while the Librarian of the House of Lords had an official residence provided for him, the Librarian of the House of Commons had none; and he fully admitted that the Librarian of the House of Commons was much more entitled to an official residence than the Librarian of the House of Lords. But, as a matter of fact, this residence was entirely out of the control and management of the House of Commons. The House of Commons had no power whatever over the arrangements of the House of Lords in connection with their own officials. They could only control the salaries; but they had no power over the allotment of the residences. A Committee of the House of Lords managed the whole of the arrangements for the rooms required by that House, and the House of Commons had no control over them. He should be very glad if it were possible to propose a residence for the Librarian of the House of Commons; but that was another matter. He hoped the hon. Member would not press this reduction, because the Committee had really no power over the salary or the resilience.

§ MR. CALLAN
asked who had the allocation of the residences in the Houses of Parliament? He put that question quite irrespective of this particular case. He wanted to know who had the right to grant those residences, and he would go to a division for the purpose of test- 870 ing what the feeling of the Committee was in regard to the matter. Members of Parliament had no convenience whatever. They sat on a narrow bit of a bench about 14 or 15 inches in breadth, and about two feet high, and all they had in the shape of accommodation was a small box in a Lobby outside; whereas he found that nearly every official had a residence provided for him.

THE CHAIRMAN
The observations of the hon. Member do not apply to this Vote, which is for the House of Lords. The Committee will come to the House of Commons Vote presently.

§ MR. CALLAN
said, he wanted to know whether the official residences were under the control of the Chief Commissioner of Works, and why the Houses of Parliament had been allowed to become an absolutely official rabbit warren? The House of Lords rose sufficiently early to permit of its Librarian spending the rest of the evening at a theatre or a music hall; and why should he be provided with an official residence while the Librarian of the House of Commons, who was in attendance all night long, had none? He took it that the value of the residence in this case would be about. £310 a year, and, therefore, he proposed to reduce the Vote by that sum. The Houses of Parliament belonged to the nation, and this was a matter of great interest. Unless he received a satisfactory reply he should divide the Committee upon the Vote.

§ MR. HIBBERT
said, he could only explain, as he had already done, that the House of Commons had no power over the official residences, or the allocation of them in the House of Lords. It was a matter entirely under the management and control of the House of Lords itself; and he believed that the Lord Chamberlain made the necessary arrangements in connection with the allocation of rooms. He would remind the Committee that when the House of Commons required rooms for the Grand Committees last year they had considerable difficulty in obtaining them, and only succeeded in doing so after negotiations between the First Commissioner of Works and the House of Lords. In regard to the Librarian of the House of Commons, the provision of a residence for that officer would rest with the Speaker; and he would confer with the Speaker in order to see whether any 871 arrangement for rooms could be effected. He was afraid that the great difficulty in regard to official residences in the House of Commons would be to find suitable rooms. He would, however, be glad to bring the matter before the Speaker in any way that would convenient]y raise the question. If the hon. Member wished to have a Return of the number of persons who had official residences in the Houses of Parliament, he thought it was a proper subject upon which information should be given, but beyond that he could not go.

§ MR. CALLAN
said, that the explanation was quite satisfactory except in the most essential point. He wanted to know by what statute or authority the Lord Chancellor, or the Lord Chamberlain, or any other official presumed to allocate chambers in the House of Lords, which belonged to the nation, to the occupation of any individual? The buildings and fittings were the property of the nation, and in Committee of Supply the House of Commons voted the salaries of all the officials.

§ MR. HEALY
said, it appeared to him that the question raised by the hon. Member for Louth (Mr. Callan) was an important one. At the present moment there was a Bill before the House for reducing the judicial expenditure in Ireland, and yet in this case they had a number of useless officials who got annually nearly £50,000, for which the country received no value. He thought it was quite time the House of Commons commenced a systematic attack upon the officials of the House of Lords. He would suggest that Inspector Denning should be sent over to clear out the whole lot, and let them provide a place of their own, or meet, if they chose, in the "Westminster Palace Hotel. He thought they ought in that House to attack systematically anything connected with the House of Lords; and he thought the hon. Member for Louth (Mr. Callan) was perfectly justified in asking questions, and in moving the reduction of the Vote. He was somewhat surprised to find the empty state of the Benches opposite. If that class of persons who were described as "Robust Radicals" would really devote some attention to the discharge of their Parliamentary duties when these Estimates came on something effective might be done; but he was sorry to say that the "Robust 872 Radicals" were at that moment solely represented by the hon. Member for Salford (Mr. Arthur Arnold). It did appear to him (Mr. Healy) extremely cool that the House of Lords should draw a sum of nearly £50,000 a-year, for which the country did not get 1d. of value, while the Treasury should display such great anxiety to cut down the little salaries that were paid in Ireland. The salaries put down in the Estimates were exceedingly large. There was the Lord Chancellor, whose official salary was stated at £4,000 a-year; the Black Rod, who was put down at £2,000; the Yeoman Usher of the Black Rod, who was in receipt of £1,000 a-year; and the principal door-keepers, who were put down as receiving £600 a-year. Those were all gentlemen who were not required to meet until about 5 o'clock in the afternoon, and whoso duties were generally over about 6, after one hour's work a-day, which they had to perform for less than six months in the year. The fact was that those officials did not do 200 hours work in the whole 12 months; and yet a country, which was supposed to be distinguished for its common sense, went on paying those salaries year after year without protest or objection. There was one item put down under the head of this Vote as to which he should like to ask a question. He referred to an item of £350 which was charged for "Witnesses attending Committees." What was the meaning of that charge for the expense of witnesses attending Committees of the House of Lords? He would remind the Committee that the House of Commons had sent a Bill to that Chamber last Christmas, and they had never heard anything of the measure since. The House of Lords read the Bill a second time, and then choked it by referring it to a Select Committee, and it would appear that they had incurred an expense of £350 in trying to find out what the people of Ireland thought of the Bill; but what had become of the measure since then nobody seemed to know. He maintained that the House of Commons was entitled to known under what circumstances the expenditure of £350, to which he had drawn attention, had been incurred. In his opinion, the time had come when some attack in force ought to be made on those items of excessive expenditure. Here was a charge of £200 for the Se- 873 cretary to the Lord Great Chamberlain, and all the other items were in proportion. Really something ought to be done in the way of making a vigorous protest against those ridiculous charges.

THE CHAIRMAN
pointed out that the hon. and learned Member could give effect to his views in regard to this Vote when the question under discussion was disposed of. At the present moment the matter under consideration was a special item in the Vote relating to the salary of the Librarian of the House of Lords, and the hon. Member for Louth (Mr. Callan) had moved the reduction of the Vote by £310. The discussion ought, therefore, to be confined to that proposal.

§ MR. HEALY
wished to call attention to the fact that a question had been asked with reference to this Vote, to which no answer had been returned. The question was, under what authority, statutable or otherwise, a certain room had been appropriated to the use of a certain official? The suggestion of the Secretary to the Treasury appeared to be that it was by the authority of the Lord Chamberlain.

§ MR. HIBBERT
said, he had intimated that it was under an arrangement made by a Committee of the House of Lords.

§ MR. HEALY
said, the answer just given carried them no further than they had got before. He should like to know who had given the Committee of the House of Lords that power? Surely the House of Commons, which had command of the National purse, was the Body that ought to be consulted in reference to those matters, and he thought that that House ought to assert itself in the face of the Upper House. The House of Lords had shown no hesitation in encroaching on the privileges of the Commons by throwing out Bills which the House of Commons had passed, especially Bills relating to Ireland, whenever they were sent into the Upper Chamber; and the House of Lords ought to be made to feel that in regard to those matters of money expenditure the House of Commons had the power of control, and that there was some other power over the Palace of Westminster than that of a Select Committee of the House of Lords, headed by the Lord Chamber-Lain. That Committee had no right to give away rooms that belonged to the country at large; and seeing that the 874 officials of the House of Lords were a great deal better treated in every way than those of the House of Commons, who were an exceedingly hard-working body of men, whose time was taken up from 4 o'clock in the afternoon very often until 4 o'clock in the morning, it was time that some satisfactory explanation was given of this Vote.

§ MR. HIBBERT
said, he had already given the explanation asked for. He might, however, state that at the time the Houses of Parliament were built a division was made of the amount of space available as between the two Houses, a certain amount being allotted to the House of Commons, and a certain amount to the House of Lords.

§ MR. PARNELL
asked whether that division was made under an Act of Parliament?

§ MR. HIBBERT
said, he could not say that it was made under an Act of Parliament; but it was made under an arrangement that was come to at the time. Moreover, it should be remembered that several years ago a further arrangement was made, under which the House of Commons had obtained the use of one or two additional rooms which used to be occupied by the House of Lords. The House of Commons had, however, no power over the allocation of the rooms used by the House of Lords, nor had they any power over the regulation of the salaries of the officials of that House. Therefore, whatever opinions might be entertained with regard to the different accommodation afforded to the Librarians of the two Houses, the matter was one with regard to which the House of Commons had no power. They had, however, power, through the Speaker, of communicating with the Office of Works, and endeavouring to obtain accommodation for the Librarian of the House of Commons if the House should think it desirable to take that course.

§ MR. HEALY
said, he had generally found that on occasions of this kind the Treasury were willing to say that when the salary of a certain officer fell in, as, for instance, in case of death, they would give their attention to the matter. In a case of this kind, where the House might be extremely anxious to appropriate the residence allocated by the House of Lords as the residence of the Librarian of the House of Commons—an officer who was constantly kept at his post 875 until the long hours of the morning—he wished to put it to the Government whether they would not come to the conclusion that, whenever the circumstances should arise that would render that residence vacant, they would take the necessary steps to ensure its being given to that officer who had by far the most occasion for it?

§ MR. HIBBERT
said, he could not make the promise asked for; but, as he had already intimated, he should be glad to bring the matter prominently under the attention of the Speaker, and he should feel as much gratified as anyone to see the Librarian properly housed in that building.

§ MR. CALLAN
said, he was glad to see that attention had been drawn to the injustice done to the Librarian of the House of Commons; but he desired to state that in moving the reduction of the Vote on the grounds he had stated he had acted without communication with that officer in any sense or form, and, in fact, had carefully avoided mentioning the matter to him. Still, he felt that an injustice was done to the Librarian of the House, and he should be glad to see the injustice remedied. He had brought the question forward on another ground—namely, because he considered that there had been an assumption of right without any legal authority whatever. He asked, who really was the authority having charge of the Houses of Lords and Commons? Was it not the First Commissioner of "Works? If not, who was the official? who was responsible for the charge of the two Houses; or was there any responsible authority at all?

§ MR. HIBBERT
replied that the Lord Great Chamberlain was responsible for the House of Lords, and the Speaker for the House of Commons.

§ MR. CALLAN
asked under what statutable authority, if any, such jurisdiction was vested in the two officers named in regard to the Houses of Lords and Commons? It seemed to him that the authority exercised proceeded on the title of internal assumption. He had looked into the matter—he would not say very carefully—but he had recently spent half-an-hour in looking at Acts of Parliament extending over the last 20 or 30 years, in order to find out whether there was any statutable authority under which the Lord Chancellor, or 876 the Lord Chamberlain, or the Speaker of the House of Commons presumed to allocate the different parts of that building to the detriment of the Members of the House of Commons—for it was to their detriment if it precluded them from the use of rooms which might otherwise be at their disposal—and he had altogether failed to find any such authority. They must remember the discussion that had taken place about the allocation of rooms for the telegraph and post offices, when it was made to appear that the jurisdiction was under some antiquated authority, 1he origin of which was anything but clear. Under the circumstances, he must press his Motion to a division; though he would not take that course if the hon. Member for Leeds (Mr. Herbert Gladstone), or the Secretary to the Treasury, would furnish the Committee with any definite information as to the statutable authority under which the Lord Chancellor or the Lord Chamberlain, presumed to exercise authority in regard to the allocation of private residences within that building. If that information were not furnished, then, as a protest against this allocation of private residences to officials who had no right to them, he should go to a division on the Motion he had submitted.

§ MR. PARNELL
said, he always liked to go back to the beginning in discussing questions of this kind; and as a very interesting point had been raised by the subject brought under the consideration of the Committee by the hon. Member for Louth (Mr. Callan), he should like to ask the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury how it was that there seemed to be so little control in regard to the distribution of space in the House of Lords? How came it that there was so little control over that distribution on the part of the House of Commons? He should like to hear from the hon. Gentleman in what way the title to the land upon which the House of Lords stood was vested, and in what body? Was it vested in the House of Lords itself, or was it vested in some Committee appointed by that Body, or in some official appointed by the House of Lords, or in the Houses of Parliament generally? He should also like to know, going a little further than that, if the land were not vested by title, whether it was vested by prescriptive right; and. moreover, he would ask the 877 hon. Gentleman a question as to the buildings themselves. He supposed the Houses of Parliament were originally built under the authority of a Vote of the House of Commons. He had no doubt the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury was acquainted with the history of those matters, and that he would be able, consequently, to enlighten his (Mr. Parnell's) ignorance. He assumed that those buildings, which were modern, were originally built out of money provided by a Vote of the House of Commons, and that they were in all probability erected under the direction of a Governmental Department of the State. If he were right in that assumption he should wish, further, to inquire whether the buildings so erected were vested in any particular body, and whether—this being a collateral inquiry to the other question as to the authority in which the land was vested—if the buildings were vested in some particular body, the hon. Gentleman would state in what body they were vested? He put those questions because it might turn out that the House of Commons had a very complete control, not only over the land on which the Houses of Lords and Commons was built, but also over the buildings themselves, and over every portion of those buildings. It must, he thought, be obvious to everybody that the control of the House of Lords over any portion of the buildings was of a very nominal and shadowy character; that if the interest in the ground on which the buildings stood were vested in some particular body under the control of the House of Lords, nevertheless the House of Commons was the authority outside the House of Lords in which the land or buildings were vested, and might say to the House of Lords—"We give you that notice to quit which is so very often given to Irish tenants." He believed that in this country it would only be a quarter's notice to quit, and that fading a possible surrender on the part of the House of Lords, the House of Commons could direct the sergeants and constables of the Metropolitan Police to take forcible possession of the building from which the Lords were evicted, and hold it according to the will and pleasure of the body of Trustees in whom it was really vested. They had heard something in the course of that discussion about the Lord Chamberlain.

878

§ MR. HIBBERT
The Lord Great Chamberlain.

§ MR. PARNELL
said, it had been stated that the Lord Great Chamberlain had the right to allocate the space in the other House. But no statement had been made as to how the Lord Great Chamberlain derived his authority. He (Mr. Parnell) assumed that that authority was derived from a Resolution of the House of Lords; but to go back a little further, how did the House of Lords derive its authority in the matter? Had the House of Lords anything more than a prescriptive right? He must assume that the land and buildings would be property to which there was some title, and he wanted to know what the title to that property was. The hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury did not appear to have full and sufficient information on the subject; but he trusted the hon. Gentleman would not consider that these inquiries were useless, and that when they came to discuss these matters nest year—or, better still, when they came to discuss them on the Report, because they could not control the action of a House to be elected by a new constituency—the Secretary to the Treasury would be able to furnish full information on the interesting questions that had been raised with regard to the original control of the land on which the Houses of Parliament had been built, and also with reference to the original control over the buildings themselves. If the hon. Gentleman were going to purchase property, even if the seller were so great a personage as the Lord Great Chamberlain himself, he would, before he paid for it, ask the Lord Great Chamberlain to produce his title.

§ MR. HIBBERT
said, there were some points that had been alluded to upon which he was not in a position to furnish information, and he thought he could hardly be expected to go back to the history of the building of the Houses of Parliament, and all the circumstances immediately connected with the allocation of the different parts of the building without Notice. All he could be expected to do was to describe the practical effect of the arrangements that were then made, and that he had endeavoured to do. He had already informed the Committee that the Lord Great Chamberlain was responsible for 879 the arrangements carried out in regard to the allocation of space in the House of Lords on the one side, while the Speaker was on the other side entrusted with the requisite authority in respect to the allotment of space in connection with the House of Commons. He had also stated that from time to time the House of Commons had obtained more space for the use of Members and officers, and that that additional space had been given up by the House of Lords. If, however, the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) desired to go into the question more closely than he (Mr. Hibbert) was able to do at the present moment, he could assure the hon. Gentleman that he should be glad to obtain the information he desired, either on the Report of the Vote, or when it was again brought forward, supposing he should then hold the Office he now had the honour to fill. In any case, he should be happy to obtain the information, not only for his own sake, but because it had been asked for by the hon. Member.

§ MR. ARTHUR ARNOLD
said, the question before the Committee was a very narrow one, and with reference to the proceedings of the Committee of the House of Lords on the Office of the Black Rod he should like to ask a practical question. The Committee of the Black Rod had reported on this very subject with reference to the appropriation by the First Commissioner of Works of certain rooms below the Bar in the House of Lords. That Committee had reported to the House of Lords that the First Commissioner of Works had appropriated those rooms, and that they ought to be given up again to the other House. He should like to know whether any decision had been arrived at with regard to that matter, and whether the rooms referred to were to be given back again?

§ MR. SHAW LEFEVRE
said, he had to state, in reply to the question asked by his hon. Friend, that his action in the matter alluded to had been called in question by the Black Rod Committee, who thought that those rooms, which had originally been allotted to the House of Lords, had been wrongly disposed of. The Committee on the Office of Black Rod had inquired into the matter, and had made the Report to which the hon. Member had referred; but he was not 880 aware that any action had been taken on that Report. He had reason, however, to believe that the House of Lords were satisfied with what had been done. In reply to the question put by the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell), he had to state that in theory the assent of the Lord Great Chamberlain was necessary in relation to any change that might be made in the allocation of rooms in both Houses of Parliament, because he was the appointed Officer of the Queen, and the Houses of Parliament were a Royal Palace. But, as a matter of course, the Lord Great Chamberlain would not make any change in respect of the House of Commons without the concurrence of the Speaker; and, on the other hand, no change would be made affecting the House of Lords without the concurrence of the Committee on the Office of Black Rod. So that, practically, the decision with regard to those matters rested in the one case with the Speaker, and in the other with the Committee of the House of Lords.

§ MR. PARNELL
was obliged to the right hon. Gentleman for the information he had given, and he thought that what had so far been elicited had furnished proof of the very great anomaly, that not only the House of Lords but also the House of Commons could be turned out of doors by the Queen if it should please Her to take that course. It appeared that not only the ground on which the House of Commons conducted its proceedings, but also the Houses which had been erected upon it were the property of the Queen.

§ LORD JOHN MANNERS
said, it seemed to him that the position of the two Houses of Parliament in regard to the Lord Great Chamberlain and the Queen, which had been termed an anomaly, was in strict analogy with everything connected with the Constitution; and that if everything belonging to that Constitution was to be pushed to its extreme logical conclusion many other things besides the relations between the Houses of Lords and Commons, as to their accommodation in this Palace, might be brought to a very uncomfortable stand-point. Having himself held the Office of First Commissioner of Works he must say that he had never, during his tenure of 881 Office, found that any practical inconvenience resulted from the slightly confused relations between the great Officers of State. The Lord Great Chamberlain's Office was always conducted with the greatest prudence and respect for all the other authorities; and in the same way Mr. Speaker, acting through the First Commissioner of Works, had invariably pursued a similar course. Until the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) had unearthed the question he had introduced that evening, he (Lord John Manners) had never heard of any difficulty arising out of the relations existing between the Lord Great Chamberlain and Mr. Speaker.

§ Mr. SEXTON
having risen,

THE CHAIRMAN
said, before the hon. Member addressed the Committee he desired to call attention to the question they were then considering, and which they had for some time been wandering away from in a most extraordinary manner. It had been moved by the hon. Member for Louth (Mr. Callan) that the salary of the Librarian of the House of Lords be reduced by £310; and all the points that had been raised in the discussion which was then proceeding had really nothing to do with that question.

§ MR. CALLAN
said, he had moved the reduction of the salary of the Librarian of the House of Lords because he called in question the authority under which that officer was provided with an official residence, and that was the only way in which he could raise the question as to the advisability of giving an official residence to the Librarian of the House of Commons. The sum put down in the Vote that had been put from the Chair, as the salary of the Librarian of the House of Lords, was £810, and in addition to that amount the Lords' Librarian was provided with an official residence. The reduction he had moved was what he took to be the value of that official residence, not merely in the shape of house-rent, but also all the accompaniments of the official residence, including attendance.

THE CHAIRMAN
said, he hoped the hon. Member (Mr. Callan) could have no idea of the number of times he had stated the same thing. He should think he was not exaggerating when he stated 882 that the hon. Gentleman had made the same statement 50 times.

§ MR. CALLAN
said, then he stated it for the 51st time now.

THE CHAIRMAN
If the hon. Member makes remarks of that sort it will be my duty to adopt a very different course. I hope the Committee will now confine itself to the discussion of the Question immediately before it.

§ MR. CALLAN
said, he wished to point out that the Librarian's residence included fire, and light, and attendance, which he took it amounted in value to more than £310. He should press the Amendment he had moved; and with all due respect to the Chair, he begged to say that he had not made the same statement more than three times, instead of 50, as the Chairman had stated.

THE CHAIRMAN
The hon. Member having contradicted the statement I made just now, I will appeal to the recollection of the Committee as to whether I am not right in saying that I believe he has made the same statement in almost the same words more than 50 times?

§ MR. SEXTON
said, the question that had been under discussion by the Committee was one that related to the power possessed by the Lord Great Chamberlain, and that had led to the further question whether the Lord Great Chamberlain had the allocation of the space on which the two Houses of Parliament stood? He took the noble Lord who had spoken from the Front Opposition Bench (Lord John Manners) as an authority with regard to Constitutional usage; and the noble Lord had assured the Committee that what had been commented upon as an anomalous arrangement was, in reality, strictly Constitutional. But when the matter was reduced to the stand-point of common sense, it was somewhat startling to be told that the Representatives of the people were liable to be evicted at the discretion of a Court official. That, he thought, threw some light on a recent occurrence, when the Speaker had felt it his duty to make new Regulations as to the admission of strangers to the Lobbies of that House.

THE CHAIRMAN
called the hon. Member to Order. The subject he was raising had nothing to do with the Question before the Committee, which was that the salary of the Librarian of 883 the House of Lords be reduced by the sum of £310. That Question had no connection whatever with the Regulations made by the Speaker in regard to the admission of strangers to the Lobbies of the House of Commons.

§ MR. SEXTON
said, he would raise the question he had been about to have introduced on the next Vote.

§ Question put.

§ The Committee divided:—Ayes 17; Noes 92: Majority 75.—(Div. List, No. 130.)

§ Original Question again proposed.

§ MR. PARNELL
desired to move the reduction of the Vote by the sum of £350, which was set down as the cost of witnesses attending Committees during the year 1885–6. That appeared to be a constant sum, as a similar amount was taken for the same purpose in 1884–5; in fact, all the expenses of the House of Lords appeared to be of a constant character. Under sub-head M, for instance, £750 was taken each year for short-hand writers, and for miscellaneous expenses £350 was asked for each year. His reason for calling attention to that matter, and moving the reduction in question, was that he thought the House of Commons would do well to exercise a very severe check and control over the appointment of Select Committees by the House of Lords for the purpose of considering Bills, or, practically, hanging up and destroying Bills, which they did not like to oppose openly and directly, which had been passed by the House of Commons, and sent up to the Lords for examination and consideration. He thought that the Government were very much to blame in that matter—the Government, at all events, in the House of Lords—and he assumed the Members of the Government in the House of Lords were in constant communication with the rest of the Government in the House of Commons. He assumed that the action of the Members of the Government in the House of Lords was arrived at, and carried out, after consultation with the rest of the Government. But however that might be, he thought that the Government in the House of Lords, through Earl Granville, or the other responsible Leaders of the House, assented much too easily to the appointment of Select Committees 884 for the purpose of considering Bills which had passed the House of Commons; and that they, in that way, heaped expenses upon the taxpayers of the country—in many cases very useless and unnecessary expenses. He desired very much to know how the expenditure of £350 for witnesses attending Select Committees of the Upper House was incurred? He confessed he did not understand whether all the money was expended on account of witnesses attending Select Committees, or whether some of it was expended on account of witnesses attending ordinary Private Bill Committees. [Mr. HIBBERT: Select Committees.] That was his (Mr. Parnell's) impression; but he was not quite certain on the point. They were asked to pay an aggregate sum of £1,500 for the expenses of the Select Committees of the House of Lords; and in order to bring the matter formally before the attention of the Committee of the House of Commons, he proposed to reduce the Vote by the sum of £350, being the expenses of the witnesses attending the Select Committees in question. Now, nothing was complete without an illustration, and in order to bring the matter home to hon. Members, he would give them an example of the way in which that money was spent. In fact, he fancied that that particular item was spent in regard to the very example he should give, as he had not heard that any other Select Committee necessitating the attendance of witnesses had been appointed lately by the House of Lords than the one he had in his mind. His example was the Select Committee which, was appointed by the Upper House to inquire into the subject of the Poor Law Guardians Elections (Ireland) Bill. That was a Bill which had passed the House of Commons, with very little opposition, in the Session of 1883. It was then sent up to the House of Lords, and rejected on the second reading by that House without any examination or discussion worthy of the name. In the Session of 1884 the Bill again passed the House of Commons, and was sent up to the House of Lords, which, on that occasion, appeared to be rather chary of throwing the measure out in the summary method adopted on the previous occasion. Their Lordships passed the second reading; but on the Motion for going into Committee they 885 resolved to refer the Bill to a Select Committee for examination.

THE CHAIRMAN
said, the hon. Member seemed to be directing his remarks to the conduct of the House of Lords. He (the Chairman) did not think that that could be fairly discussed in regard to Committees acting on Bills in that House. The hon. Member himself would see that the conduct of the House of Lords could hardly be properly discussed on an item of £350 to defray the cost of witnesses attending Committees.

§ MR. PARNELL
said, he should, of course, bow to the Chairman's ruling. He would not further discuss the conduct of the House of Lords; but he submitted that it was necessary to go, to some extent, into what had been done for the expenditure of the money. It was necessary, in order that the Committee might judge as to whether they ought to vote this money or not, to consider the action of the House of Lords which gave rise to this item.

THE CHAIRMAN
said, he did not desire to interrupt the hon. Member in any observations which were in Order. The province of this Committee was to vote certain sums, or to refuse them, for certain specific purposes. He doubted whether it would be in Order for the hon. Member to go into any great development of the action of the House of Lords, even by way of illustration; because this was a sum of £350 for a specific purpose of defraying the costs of witnesses attending Select Committees in the other House. He should say it would hardly be in Order to discuss the general conduct of the Upper House on such an item as that.

§ MR. PARNELL
appreciated the point of the Chairman's ruling, and, of course, would bow to it. He saw that there was a considerable difference between the action of the House of Lords, from a Constitutional point of view, and the action of a Minister of the Crown. There was, of course, a considerable difference between the manner in which they would approach a Minister of the Crown, and the manner in which they might be permitted to approach a Vote with regard to the action of the House of Lords. Whereas they might freely go into the merits of the action of a Minister of the Crown with reference to any particular matter; whereas they 886 might criticize his action, and the policy of his action, when they were asked to vote a Minister's salary, perhaps the same argument might not hold good with regard to the action of a Committee of the House of Lords, or of the House of Lords itself. He desired, with great respect, without wishing to express any opinion of his own, to bow most humbly to the Chairman's ruling. He would only say why he objected to this Vote for the expenses of witnesses brought over from Ireland for examination before a Select Committee of the House of Lords. In his opinion, those witnesses were not impartially summoned. Of course, he desired to keep himself strictly within the limits the Chairman had laid down, and not to transgress them in any way. He would suggest for the consideration of the Government whether they ought not to take up a firmer attitude in the House of Lords with regard to the Select Committees appointed by that House; whether they should so readily yield to the appointment of those Committees; and whether, when a Committee had been appointed, in the teeth of the Government's protest with reference to a Bill to which they gave their sanction—whether, when a Committee was appointed by the House of Lords in order to oppose a Bill which the Government, and which the House of Commons, had almost unanimously passed, the Government might not fairly set down their foot, and tell the House of Lords—"All we can say is this—if you appoint this Committee we shall not support the payment out of the public purse necessary for this Committee, when that payment is proposed in the House of Commons. We shall leave you to pay for such Committees yourselves." That Bill had been hung up in the House of Lords. It was a Bill which was admittedly necessary, and which nobody had a word to say against. It was a Bill of which they had heard the last in that Parliament; and, forsooth! the Irish and English taxpayers were to pay for the infliction upon themselves of wrong.

§ Motion made, and Question proposed, That the item of £350, for Witnesses at-tending Committees, he omitted from the proposed Vote."—(Mr. Parnell.)

§ MR. HIBBERT
pointed out to the hon. Gentleman that though this amount 887 appeared to be the sum that was voted in previous years, it was really not the amount that was expended each year. The amount was taken on the assumption that it would probably be required next year. £350 was not spent last year in defraying the costs of witnesses, but only £251; and the year before that the charge under the same head was only £119.

§ MR. PARNELL
Will the hon. Gentleman tell us what Committees were appointed?

§ MR. HIBBERT
said, that he was not able to do that. He did not know anything about the Select Committees of the House of Lords; indeed, it was a matter with which the Treasury had no right to interfere; and he should doubt whether he should be in Order in going into the question of Committees. He was quite satisfied that he would not be in Order in expressing his opinion as to the action of the House of Lords upon the Poor Law Guardians Elections (Ireland) Bill; and, therefore, he hoped the hon. Member would excuse him from doing so. The hon. Member objected to this item because it might, he said, be put to the purpose of re-imbursing Irish witnesses who had been brought before the Select Committee on the Bill just mentioned. That could not be the case with respect to this particular £350. This charge was taken for Committees who would sit during the present Session; and, therefore, it was not known whether any such Committee, as the hon. Member referred to, would be appointed. Moreover, it could not be known whether any Irish witnesses would be sent for.

§ MR. PARNELL
The Committee is sitting now.

§ MR. HIBBERT
begged the hon. Member's pardon, because he did not know that that was the case. This money might therefore be used for the purpose of paying the expenses of Irish witnesses; but perhaps he ought to draw attention to the fact that the payment for witnesses before Committees of the House of Lords was a matter with which the House of Commons had no power to deal.

§ MR. BIGGAR
remarked that the explanation of the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Hibbert) was very peculiar. The hon. Gentleman had stated that although £350 was 888 set down for the expenses of witnesses attending Committees, only £251 was expended last year, and £119 the year before. That seemed to him (Mr. Biggar) to be a rather loose mode of estimating. In fact, they might just as well have no Estimate at all. They might as well, at the end of the year, pass a Vote that whatever was expended should be made legal. The hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury ought to tell the Committee whether or not he believed that the present system was an advantageous one, and whether he did not think he ought to adopt some revised plan of making Estimates? The money they were now asked to vote seemed to him (Mr. Biggar) to be expended for the purpose of doing harm rather than good; and he certainly thought that the Treasury, who was supposed to supervise the expenditure in all the Departments, should reserve to itself the right to put a veto upon expenditure which it belived to be unreasonable. In point of fact, the Treasury should assist the House of Commons in stopping any payments which they thought were useless. Now, the appointment of the Select Committee of the House of Lords upon the Bill to which the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) had alluded, was unquestionably made with the object of defeating that very meritorious Bill, and also, if possible, to convey perfectly erroneous ideas as to the real facts connected with the Bill. The Members of the Select Committee were of a partizan character, and would endeavour to mislead the public with regard to the real merits of the case. He thought it should be within the power of the Treasury to refuse the expenses of admittedly useless witnesses, because if that were so, a very considerable saving of expenditure would be effected.

§ MR. SEXTON
said, it appeared to him that the hon. Gentleman in charge of the Vote (Mr. Hibbert) did not possess information sufficient to enable him to give particulars which hon. Members were entitled to receive with reference to this item. The hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) suggested, in the course of his speech, that some of this money might have been used for the purpose of paying the travelling expenses, and the maintenance expenses, of Irish witnesses 889 summoned before a Committee of the House of Lords. The hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Hibbert) replied that he did not imagine such a contingency could arise with respect to any part of the present item.

§ MR. HIBBERT
said, he was not aware when he spoke that the Committee on the Poor Law Bill was now sitting. Had he been aware of that fact, he should not have made the re-marks he did.

§ MR. SEXTON
said, the Committee was sitting; it was appointed last year, and had not yet reported; consequently, its investigations were now in course of progress. The assumption made by the hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) was one which was substantiated by facts. What degree of information were Members of the House entitled to expect on items of this kind? He had always understood that every Vote in the Estimates was accounted for by some accounting officer; that there was someone whose duty it was to render to the Treasury and the House an account of the manner in which the last payment had been spent. Who was the person to account for this expenditure? Who signified to the Comptroller and Auditor General that the money granted to the House of Lords had been duly and properly expended, and what particulars would that officer afford as to items of that kind? Would he inquire in reference to what Committees that money had been spent, what witnesses had been called before those Committees, and what expense had been paid? He (Mr. Sexton) thought the Committee might claim to have put before them that information, because a very important question was here raised. Evidence brought before the House of Lords was very often used for the purpose of evading information; and he therefore asked in reference to what Committees that money would be applied? He would put a case to illustrate his meaning. A Bill passed through the House of Commons by a large majority, and was rejected by the House of Lords. A second Session it passed the House of Commons, and the House of Lords, being unwilling to incur the odium of rejecting it, though the merits of the measure were well known, and though 890 it was obvious that no further inquiry was required into it, referred it to a Select Committee. In that way time was killed, the Bill was deferred for months—it might be for years—and in that way the wish of the House of Commons was defeated, and defeated to a large extent through the agency of the money they voted to the House of Lords. It was perfectly evident that if the purpose of the appointment of those Committees was to evade legislation the Government should challenge the House of Lords, and ask them to reject Bills finally, rather than to waste money in killing time and calling witnesses in matters on which no information was required. If the information he was now requesting in this item, and, in fact, in all the other items in the Estimate, was not forthcoming, he thought they would not be asking too much that the Votes should be postponed.

§ MR. P. J. POWER
said, that it appeared to him that the House of Lords was too active in the way of obstructing useful legislation.

THE CHAIRMAN
Order, Order!

§ MR. P. J. POWER
said, that if he were not in Order, he would confine himself to the items in the Vote. One of the methods of obstructing legislation pursued by the House of Lords was by referring Bills to Select Committees; and that seemed to him to be about the worst possible mode, as it incurred a large amount of unnecessary expense, and brought witnesses unnecessarily to London. Witnesses were summoned, particularly from Ireland, of a class unfriendly to the Party he had the honour of representing, so that that Party suffered particularly from that mode of referring Bills approved by the House of Commons to Select Committees when they reached the House of Lords. Irish Members were, therefore, bound in duty to, at any rate, offer a protest against that practice of referring Bills to Select Committees when the conclusions were really foregone.

§ Question put.

§ The Committee divided:—Ayes 20; Noes 108: Majority 88.—(Div. List, No. 131.)

§ Original Question put, and agreed to.

§ (3.) £45,772, House of Commons Offices.

891

§ MR. PARNELL
said, they had had an interesting discussion some time ago with reference to the Vote for the House of Lords as to the particular body in which the ownership of the buildings and ground of the Houses of Parliament were vested; and hon. Members had been informed that the Houses of Parliament, being Royal Palaces, were vested in an official—namely, the Lord Great Chamberlain, as representing the Crown. The Lord Great Chamberlain, then, was really the owner, as representing the Crown, of the Houses of Parliament and the ground on which they stood. However, by usage or by custom, the right of allocating a portion of the space within the Houses of Parliament, and the right of dealing with the rooms of the Houses and with the internal arrangements of the Houses generally, seemed to have been transferred to certain bodies and certain individuals; and he supposed the Board of Works had already a great deal to say on the matter, at all events in the House of Commons. But what he wished to call attention to was this—namely, to certain inconveniences which had arisen, owing to the new Rules made by Mr. Speaker with regard to the admission of strangers. He wished to call attention to those inconveniences, and to suggest a remedy. After a recent occurrence in the House—an explosion of dynamite, which he believed took place in the lower corner on the Government side of the House—Mr. Speaker felt it necessary to interfere with the usage that had prevailed with regard to the admission of strangers, and to direct that no strangers should in future be admitted into any part of the House of Commons upon the order of a Member; and the right hon. Gentleman had taken upon himself the right of admitting all strangers to any part of the House. He (Mr. Parnell), of course, did not intend to allude at that moment to the right of the Speaker to make such Rules and Regulations, though he thought that that right might be seriously challenged; but he wished to point to one result of those Regulations. It was formerly the custom to permit Members' secretaries to write from the dictation of Members from the Tea Room of the House; but one of the results of the Rules of Mr. Speaker had been that Members' secre- 892 taries could no longer see Members in the Tea Room, and were compelled to remain outside the precincts of the House altogether. It was not possible for Members to bring their secretaries to the Tea Room or any of the Libraries. He believed it would be possible, by going through a very roundabout form, to obtain permission for them, if there was room, to sit in the Strangers' Gallery, to bring them down to one of the Smoking Rooms of the House, and so to enable them to discharge their duties. But that would be a very inconvenient method; and so far as he knew, the private secretaries who were, or had been, in the habit of coming to the Tea Room for the purpose of performing their duties, had not attempted to perform them in any part of the House of Commons since the new Rules were made. Now, what he would suggest would be this—in fact, he might say he had communicated with the Speaker's Secretary on the matter, and had had the honour of receiving a reply that the Speaker was in communication with one of the officials of the House for the purpose of providing a room where Members might see their secretaries. What he would suggest was that proper provision should be made for the convenience of hon. Members in this respect, and what he wished to know was whether any steps had been taken to carry out that half promise of the Speaker? Was there any prospect of a room being provided for the purpose of enabling Members to see their secretaries? If not, would tables be set up in the Central Lobby, and writing paper and envelopes, &c, provided, to enable Members to dictate their correspondence to their secretaries? Would places be provided for secretaries to sit and write, and for Members to come and sign their letters after they had been written? To those Members of the House who had a large correspondence, and whose duties compelled them to be in somewhat constant attendance in the House, this system, under which it was impossible to see their private secretaries, made it extremely inconvenient, almost impossible, to fulfil their duties to those people who were in correspondence with them. It was almost impossible for them to answer letters, and at the same time attend to their functions in the House, because a man obviously 893 could not be in two places at once. Even if a Member's office were in the immediate neighbourhood of the House it was exceedingly inconvenient to have to rush out between divisions and between times when it might be possible for him to devote a few minutes away from his Parliamentary duties to the carrying on of his correspondence. It was next to impossible for a Member to rush out into the street in the snow or the rain, or however inclement the weather might be, perhaps to catch cold, for the purpose of looking after his correspondence. That, he thought, was a matter on which private Members were entitled to ask that some room should be assigned to them to enable them to carry on their correspondence as heretofore. It was almost impossible for a Member to get through his correspondence now, unless he wrote his letters himself. That applied to a Member who had but a small correspondence; because, of course, in the case of a Member with a large correspondence it was obviously next to impossible for him to get through it at all. He hoped this matter might have considerably advanced since the beginning of the Session when, as he had already said, Mr. Speaker had informed him that he was engaged in communication with the officers who had power to deal with the rooms of the House. He hoped he might hear of there being some probability of a convenient, well-aired, well-warmed, and well-lighted room being given to Members for the purpose of getting through their correspondence.

§ MR. HIBBERT
said, he was not aware of the difficulty the hon. Member alluded to with regard to the rights and inconveniences of Members and their secretaries; but, no doubt, all hon. Members had had to submit to inconveniences since those unfortunate occurrences in Westminster Hall and the House of Commons. He was not prepared to give a definite reply as to the position in which the matter now stood; and he could only say that, so far as he was concerned, he should use his influence in order to secure to hon. Members the necessary means for transacting their business in the most comfortable manner possible. At the same time, they all knew there was not very much space at liberty in the House of Commons. With 894 regard to a room being set apart for the use of Members and their secretaries, he could see no objection to the proposal personally, and he would promise to draw the attention of the Speaker to the matter once more. Even if a room were granted, he could not promise that it would be a very comfortable or desirable one for the purpose.

§ COLONEL NOLAN
considered that the hon. Member for the City of Cork was a great deal too modest in bringing forward this question. The grievance was one which he (Colonel Nolan) could thoroughly understand, and which had been very much under his attention. The question was not merely one of providing for the convenience of Members. The Government had at their disposal some 30 rooms in the House—some Members of the Government having two, and some even three. [Mr. HIBBERT: No, no!] He thought the Chief Secretary for Ireland had two or three rooms, or ante-rooms. Would the hon. Member say how many rooms the Government had in the House? He (Colonel Nolan) believed it to be somewhere about 30.

THE CHAIRMAN
I must point out to the hon. and gallant Member that these observations are not in Order on the present Vote. This Vote is for the payment of officials in the House of Commons, and it is not in connection with the Government nor the Speaker. The hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) made some observations for the purpose of eliciting information which seemed quite permissible under the circumstances, and, therefore, I did not stop him. But it will not be right on this Vote for anyone to impugn any arrangement made by Mr. Speaker.

§ MR. PARNELL
I see there is an item here for shorthand writers.

§ COLONEL NOLAN
said, the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) had no business to speak unless he wished to address the Chair on a point of Order, as he (Colonel Nolan) was in possession of the Committee. As the hon. Member was not speaking to a point of Order, he (Colonel Nolan) should like to point out that the Serjeant-at-Arms was in this Vote, and he supposed, therefore, that it had something to do with keeping order in some part of the House, possibly in the Library. He (Colonel Nolan) wished to 895 make a complaint with regard to the Library, and he would ask the Chairman whether he would be in Order in going into that subject?

THE CHAIRMAN
The hon. and gallant Member may mention whatever he likes in connection with the Serjeant-at-Arms Department.

§ COLONEL NOLAN
I also see the Department of the Chairman of Ways and Means down in this Vote. I object, Sir, to your having a room.

THE CHAIRMAN
The hon. and gallant Member is perfectly in Order in alluding to that subject.

§ COLONEL NOLAN
said, it was not because he had any fault to find with the Chairman's ruling, or because he did not think the hon. Gentleman had presided very admirably over their Committees; but he thought the Chairman's room ought to be sacrificed until the arrangements of hon. Members were satisfied. Members of the Cabinet had rooms behind Mr. Speaker's Chair, and right hon. Gentlemen on the Front Opposition Bench also had rooms. [An hon. MEMBER: Have they?] Yes. Hon. Members did not seem to be aware of those facts. The Whips of the Government had rooms outside in the Lobby, and the Whips of the Opposition had also got them.

THE CHAIRMAN
There is no reference to these officers in the Vote under discussion. They are connected with the Building Vote, and that would be the proper place to raise this question. It would be competent to move the reduction of the salary of the Chairman of Ways and Means, or any other official of the House on this Vote, but not to discuss the allocation of rooms.

§ COLONEL NOLAN
said, that if the Chairman ruled him out of Order on this point—if the Chairman ruled that he had no right to say that he (the Chairman) should not have a room—of course he would reserve his observations to another occasion.

§ MR. PARNELL
said, he was astonished to hear the hon. Member opposite (Mr. Hibbert) say that he had heard nothing, up to that moment, about the matter he (Mr. Parnell) had submitted to him. Prom the letter he (Mr. Parnell) had received from Mr. Speaker, he was induced to believe that the matter had been brought under the hon. Member's notice, or under the notice of some 896 other official. He had presumed that the hon. Member was the official under whose notice the matter would have been brought.

§ MR. HIBBERT
No.

§ MR. PARNELL
Then under whose notice would it have been brought?

§ MR. HIBBERT
I think the Office of Works.

§ MR. PARNELL
wished to say a few-words with regard to the Vote for the Department of Mr. Speaker. He observed that in that Department the House provided salaries for the Librarian, Assistant Librarian, Messenger in Library, Extra Messenger in Library; in short, all the officials connected with the Library. He believed that it would at once strike the Committee that the number of assistants in the Library was very limited indeed, in respect of the duties they were called upon to perform. Now, there had been a discussion a short time since in the Committee on the Vote for the Librarian of the House of Lords. They saw that a very large sum of money was voted to the Librarian of the House of Lords, and he certainly thought that this was a matter which might very fairly engage the attention of the Committee. In the American Congress a very large number of Librarians and assistants were employed to enable the Members to get on with their business. If one required to be informed about any question it was only necessary to go into the Library and state the information required, and within a certain time it was produced, and the whole subject made up, so to speak, cut and dried; but in the case of the Library of the House of Commons, every obstruction and obstacle seemed placed in the way of Members, not by the officials, who, considering their number, did more than their best for the purpose of serving and attending to the requirements of Members, but owing to the system which had been adopted of having a small number of officials who were overburdened with the task of getting down books for Members to read, which made it impossible for hon. Members to get the information they required when it was most wanted. Returning to the subject of shorthand writers and secretaries, if those assistants were not allowed access to Members in the House, he thought it the duty of the Government to provide 897 shorthand writers for them in the Library for the purpose of taking down letters. He believed that with proper facilities the correspondence of Members could be got through with an immense economy of time, and that posts would be saved which were under the present arrangements very often lost. In his own case, he knew that between the impossibility of getting at his shorthand writer and the subsequent delay of his letters in the Post Office which always took place his business arrangements were very much interfered with. Besides the delay caused by missing the post, he found that his letters did not arrive until long after the time at which they should have reached their destination, having in the meantime been examined in the Post Office, and in some cases by the higher officials at the Home Office. But he said that if they were not to have access to their shorthand writers, the Government should put down a Vote for the purpose of supplying shorthand writers for Members who, by the aid of the new type-writers, would then be able to perform their duties to their constituents in a shorter space of time than they were now able to perform them in owing to the existing arrangements. With regard to the placing of paper and ink in the Central Lobby, he would point out that the Lobby was large enough to afford space for a dozen tables. He thought it would be competent to the Sergeant-at-Arms to place tables in the Lobby at which Members could conduct their correspondence, and he did not see why it should not be done. At present there was a little room at their disposal not much larger than the Table at which Mr. Speaker so ably presided; on the outside there was written, "For the use of Members," and inside the room there was a table and three very dim gaslights. Driven to extremity the other evening, he went into the room for the purpose of writing some letters, and he found the light so dim that it was impossible for him to see the tracings of the pen on the paper. He did not see why a table with the needful appliances should not be placed in the open Hall. Pens and paper were cheap, and there was no reason why Members who were driven away from the House and from the Tea Room by the arrangements of Mr. Speaker should not be allowed to 898 write their letters in the Central Lobby, and that they should not, like the bird sent out of Noah's Ark, be unable to find a place for the sole of their foot.

§ MR. GIBSON
said, he observed that while Mr. Speaker, of course, the Clerk of the House, Assistant Clerk, and Sergeant-at-Arms had official residences, and certain assistants had allowances from the House, it was, in his opinion, absurd that almost the only officer of high rank and position next to Mr. Speaker had no house allowance. He ventured to say that there was no officer except Mr. Speaker whose presence in the House was so constantly needed as that of the Deputy Speaker. That was a matter which had been considered by past Chief Commissioners of Works and past Financial Secretaries to the Treasury, and he would be glad to know whether it was intended to provide a residence for the officer he referred to?

§ MR. HIBBERT
said, they had had a discussion on the subject of a residence for the Librarian, and he was, therefore, unwilling to go again into that question; but he certainly thought that his right hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Gibson) had made out a strong case for providing residences for officials whose presence was required in the House at any hour of the night, and he would take care that the subject was brought before Mr. Speaker. With regard to the suggestions made by the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell), he should be glad to lay all the hon. Gentleman's proposals before Mr. Speaker, who he was sure would, if it were possible, order a suitable room to be provided for Members who had to dictate to their secretaries.

§ MR. CALLAN
said, it was stated in the discussion about an hour ago that the Librarian had no official residence provided for him; but he had ascertained since that time that an official residence was formerly provided for the Librarians, and that by some jerrymandering the present Librarian had been deprived of that accommodation. The total amount of this Vote, £51,772, was spread over three Departments—namely, those of the Clerk of the House, the Speaker, and the Sergeant-at-Arms. Taking the first of those Departments, he thought it was very strange that the Department of the Clerks of the House, which comprised a number of inferior 899 officers, should receive under this Vote £26,201 a-year, and that the sum of £9,456 only should be allotted to the Department of the Speaker. He was ready to acknowledge that the 36 clerks in the first Department who drew this large amount as salaries were useful; but he wished to ask this question—Had those 36 clerks passed a competitive examination? He heard the Secretary to the Treasury say that they did; but he was bound to challenge that statement. He would like to know under what number of marks obtained at competitive examination Mr. Northcote, the son of the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition in that House, received his appointment? He asked the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury for the competition warrant. He asked the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. Trevelyan), who was entitled to the credit of having secured for the country the system of competitive examination, whether it was by public competitive examination, by private nomination, or by some test examination that those clerks were appointed? [Mr. HIBBERT: Yes.] But that was not competitive examination. His question was this—By what competitive examination had Mr. Northcote, within the last 10 days, received his appointment as a Clerk of the House? Was it by nomination, or was the appointment given to the best man out of, say, five or six selected for examination; in other words, was the examinatiom a sham or a reality? If the Committee were to vote this £26,000 a-year to the Clerks of the House, he said that they ought to have the right of nomination, or the appointments should be made after public competitive examination. Did the right of nomination lay with Sir Erskine May? If so, he would ask how it was that he only nominated the sons, nephews, and brothers of Members of the House? If hon. Members took up the list of clerks appointed, they would find that they were not men appointed by merit, but because they were relatives of Members of the House; and he said that that was a corrupt system, and a system which, if the country knew of its existence, would be at once put down. In the same way he took the Department of the Speaker. The most overworked Department was that of the Serjeant-at- 900 Arms, which, he said, was an efficient Department; and the manner in which it was conducted afforded a contrast to the other Departments of the House.

§ SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFF
said, he also wished to press the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. Trevelyan) on this subject. He recollected that the right hon. Gentleman had been very zealous to introduce competitive examination into the Foreign Service and Diplomatic Service, and that he had brought forward Motions on the subject. The question of competitive examination in those Services had been debated in the House of Commons, and he recollected that there were Motions and divisions upon it, and so great had been the strength of public opinion on the subject that it forced the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs to establish the system of competitive examination. It now appeared that the service of that House was placed in an entirely different position from that in which the whole of the service of the State was placed. Therefore, he asked the Representatives of the Government now on the Treasury Bench why clerks were to be appointed to the subordinate positions in the service of the House without any competitive examination whatever? The nomination to those appointments appeared to him to be an undue power for any official to possess. Even Ministers of State had not the right to appoint clerks to Parliament. But here, in the House of Commons, in which the principle of competitive examination with regard to appointments in the Public Service had been established, it would seem that that was the only Department in the State which ignored its own rules, and allowed young men to be appointed without competitive examination before the Civil Service Commissioners. He understood the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury to say that Mr. Northcote had passed a test examination. He would ask some Member of Her Majesty's Government to say why it was that, with all their interest in the procedure of the House, no Member of the Government had insisted on the same competitive examination with regard to appointments in the service of the House as they had enforced in every other Department of the State? He should be glad to hear from the noble 901 Lord the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, or the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, why that great abuse had been allowed to exist in the House of Commons when it did not exist in any other Department of the State?

§ MR. HIBBERT
said, he would point out, in reply to the hon. Member for Portsmouth (Sir H. Drummond Wolff), that the appointments of the Clerks of the House were made by the Clerk of the House under an Act of Parliament passed in the Reign of George III. Up to the present time the appointments had always been made by the Clerk of the House under that Statute. There was no competitive examination in the case of those appointments such as had been suggested by the hon. Gentleman; but there was a test examination, and, looking at the clerks who entered the service of the House of Commons, he did not know that the system of test examinations in force had provided them with an inferior staff to those of other Departments in which competitive examination had been adopted. He had seen a great deal of the clerks of the House of Commons, and he thought they were men quite as capable of doing the work they had to perform as if they had been brought into the position by competitive examination. At the same time, he did not say that it was not a strong argument to urge that there should be competitive examination for those appointments; but he would point out that if any alteration were to be made, it would require consideration on the part of the Authorities of the House, and, of course, he was not prepared to enter into that question.

§ MR. SEXTON
said, in looking at that Vote for the House of Commons Officers, there was one matter connected with it on which hon. Members could all agree, and that was the uniform urbanity of the Serjeant-at-Arms and his assistants in everything relating to their convenience. With regard to the question of the examination of clerks on their appointment to the service of the House, he had listened with interest to the discussion which had taken place, and he was bound to say that he thought both the hon. Member for Louth (Mr. Callan) and the hon. Member for Portsmouth (Sir H. Drummond Wolff) had done a public service in calling attention to 902 that subject. Most Members of the House would agree with what had fallen from the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury as to the general efficiency of the staff of Clerks of the House. His own experience was that they were both courteous and efficient. But that was beside the question; and although hon. Members might agree that the present clerks were fit to hold their office, it did not by any means follow that the system under which they were appointed was one which ought to be continued. Now, what were the arguments in support of the present system? The hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury, in justifying appointments by the Clerk of the House, had fallen back on a Statute of George III. But that Monarch ascended the Throne 135 years ago, and the Committee would know very well that a great many things happened in the Reign of George III. which no one would attempt to justify at the present day. Why should the Clerk of the House have this patronage? [Mr. HIBBERT: I have not defended the system.] He was glad to have that declaration from the hon. Gentleman. He asked why the Clerk of the House should have this patronage? Why should the Business of the most important Assembly in the country—the Business of the Departments of the House of Commons—be discharged by men appointed under a system which went back further than the days when, in the language of Lord Macaulay, votes were bought and sold in Smithfield? Why should the ghastly corruption of the 18th century have a place in the 19th? He maintained that if it were necessary to carry out the system of competitive examination in respect of the appointments of officials in the various Departments of the Public Service, it was equally necessary that there should be competitive examination in the case of appointments to the Departments of the House of Commons. With regard to what had fallen from his hon. Friend the Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) on the subject of the want of proper accommodation for Members of the House, he would point out to the Committee that one of the officials of the House of Lords had the use of six rooms. His hon. Friend had made the very moderate proposal that tables and chairs, with the necessary writing materials, 903 should be placed in the Central Lobby, so that Members of the House under pressure of their own business and of public affairs should be saved from having to resort to the grotesque expedient of endeavouring to sign letters upon their knees. If the Government were not prepared to provide Members with shorthand writers, on the ground that it might interfere with the Post Office arrangements to which his hon. Friend had alluded, he pointed out that it would only be necessary for the officials of the Government to go into the Library and open and read the letters before they were posted. He would be glad to know whether the Chairman of Ways and Means was an official subject or not to any other official of the House—whether he was subject to the Rules laid down by the House with reference to such occasions when disorder arose in the House; when Report was made to the House, and when Report had to be made with regard to certain proceedings in Committee relating to hon. Members and otherwise? He believed he was correct in stating that the Chairman of Ways and Means was subject to no other authority than the Rules laid down by the Members of the House.

§ SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFF
said, he had been rather astonished by the speech of the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury. The hon. Gentleman accused him of being a reformer; but he might describe the hon. Gentleman as an old retrogressive Tory, because his arguments were always made use of as reasons against reforms in the Public Service. The hon. Gentleman had made a statement in the course of his speech to which he could assent—namely, that the Clerks of the House were an admirable set of men. He quite agreed with that view; but the clerks at the Admiralty and in other Departments of the State were also an admirable class of men, and therefore the statement of the hon. Gentleman was no argument in favour of appointments to clerkships in the House of Commons being made without competitive examination. He might call attention to the argument in reference to the abolition of purchase in the Army, when it was said that the officers of the Army were so good that no change was necessary. But he wished to have an answer on the question of appointments from some 904 Members of the Government—some of those reformers who with magnificent perorations wound up speech after speech on the subject of competitive examination. If the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. Trevelyan) could perorate on the subject of competitive examination in the Public Service, why could he not perorate on this subject relating to the clerks of the House of Commons? He thought the Committee were entitled to some further reply on the question that had been raised.

§ MR. TREVELYAN
said, that, undoubtedly, the arguments of the hon. Member for Portsmouth (Sir H. Drummond Wolff) were unanswerable. There was no reason whatever that the great principles of competition which had succeeded so admirably in the Civil Service and in the Army and Navy should not be applied to that House. The present state of things was an admitted anomaly. It existed because it was under cover of a Statute. There was no doubt that the general standard of public morality with regard to appointments in the different Services had been enormously elevated by means of the system of competition which the hon. Member had so eloquently described. The appointments in that House however, were admirably managed; and the reason of it was that they were in the hands of a gentleman who discharged his functions with public spirit enlightened by very great ability. The system was none the less anomalous; and he was quite certain that the legislative measure for which they were all sighing, and by which the Statute would be altered, would receive the most thorough and the most respectful consideration of the Government.

§ MR. ONSLOW
said, he was sorry to disagree with his hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth (Sir H. Drummond Wolff), and he was glad to hear the remarks of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. Trevelyan). There was no one in the House who knew more about competitive examinations than the right hon. Gentleman. He (Mr. Onslow) was one of those who doubted whether the Public Services in England or abroad had been benefited by competitive examinations. In his opinion they had just as good men formerly as now. Certainly an exception ought to be made 905 in the case of the House of Commons. The gentlemen who discharged the duties of clerks in the House should essentially be gentlemen; and he (Mr. Onslow) trusted implicitly in the gentleman who now made the appointments. He defied anyone to get, no matter what the system adopted was, a better class of men than they had at the present time. Considering that everything had worked well, and that no complaints whatever had been made about the clerks, he hoped his hon. Friend would not pursue hi3 course. He (Mr. Onslow) was very glad to hear that the son of the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition (Sir Stafford Northcote) had recently received an appointment as Clerk in the House of Commons, and he thought that his views would be shared by every Member in the House. Whatever political views the gentleman who now made the appointments might hold, there was no one in the House who could accuse him of jobbery. Why not let things remain as they were now? They could not be improved; and better men could not be obtained. He hoped his hon. Friend would not press his Motion to a division.

§ SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFF
said, that as a matter of fact there was no Motion before the Committee, and there would be no division. He should certainly, however, bring the subject forward on another occasion.

§ MR. HEALY
suggested that the hon. Gentleman (Sir H. Drummond Wolff) should bring in a Bill on the subject, in order to see with what energy the Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Hibbert) and the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. Trevelyan) would address themselves to legislation on the matter. He (Mr. Healy) did not rise, however, to pursue this subject, but for the purpose of directing the attention of the Committee to quite a different matter. In the month of last July, when this Vote was proposed, he raised the question of the propriety of having a Select Committee of experienced Members to assist the Clerks at the Table in the revision of Questions, and in the assistance they gave to Mr. Speaker on points of Order. On the occasion to which he referred he drew attention to the enormous labours thrown upon the clerks, and to the fact that when a Speaker or Chairman of Committee was new to his duties, which, 906 of course, was not the case with the hon. Gentleman (Sir Arthur Otway), it must necessarily happen that, to a great extent, the gentlemen who were in charge of the House, and who controlled all its functions, must be the officers at the Table. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Childers), in replying to him (Mr. Healy), said that the matter was one which was open to consideration, though it was not likely the House would be inclined to change its long-standing practice. Now, it appeared to him (Mr. Healy) rather a hard thing that the hon. Gentleman (Sir Arthur Otway) should have the power of summarily silencing Representatives of the people without there being any appeal. Whatever confidence was placed in the officers of the House, he could not help thinking it was advisable to have an influential, and impartial, and independent tribunal, drawn by lot or nomination from the general body of Members, in the same way as the Committee of Selection was drawn, to whom questions might be referred, and to whom Members would have a right of appeal. He could not but believe that, if such were the case, the rulings of the Chair would be received with much more satisfaction than they were at the present time. For instance, a Speaker, in a moment of pique, might rule an hon. Member to be out of Order, or a Speaker might misunderstand an hon. Member, and rule him out of Order. It was only the other day that he was ruled out of Order for referring to the Orange Party in Ireland as the "toothless Orange Party." The Speaker thought he said "truthless;" but that was altogether a mistake. Again, the word "snobs," which was used the other day, was ruled out of Order. Of course, those were only trivial instances of the inconvenience which arose under the present system; but when it came to be a matter of a Member losing his liberty of action in the House for an entire week—when he was excluded, not only from participation in the debates in the House, but from voting, and from attendance on Select Committees—it was very necessary that there should be a tribunal to whom questions of that kind might be referred. It could not be denied that the Clerks at the Table could exercise, if they were so pleased, almost uncontrolled power over the Speaker; because if the Speaker happened, as 907 must be the case in a new Parliament, to be newly-elected, he was obliged, on nearly every question, to refer to the clerks for guidance. No one had more reason to be thankful to the Clerks at the Table than he (Mr. Healy) had, because he supposed he troubled them as often as anyone else, and he had never failed to receive illumination from them; he had generally found that he was wrong, and that they were right, upon matters on which he had had occasion to confer with them. They were gentlemen of many years experience in the House, and no one could pretend to have the same amount of knowledge of the Forms of the House as they; but he objected to any gentleman, no matter how great his experience, having the right to give, without revision, an opinion on which the Chair might act, and with regard to which hon. Members had no power of appeal. He really did think that if Gentlemen like the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Cambridge (Mr. Raikes), or the hon. Gentleman the Member for Bedford (Mr. Whitbread), or Gentlemen who had filled official positions in the House, would undertake the duties, so to speak, of a Court of Appeal, very great good, would result. If hon. Members could refer to the Gentlemen he had mentioned for direction, if questions could be submitted to them for revision, if matters occurring one day could be adjudged upon the next day by such Gentlemen—not in hot blood, but in a cool and collected manner—if, when the Speaker, for instance, had ruled an hon. Member out of Order, or a particular expression to be out of Order, or had suspended an hon. Member for a week or a fortnight, or for the whole Session, an appeal could be made to an impartial and independent tribunal, it would be very satisfactory. An hon. Member who had incurred the censure of the Chair would feel much more satisfied if he knew that the ruling of the Speaker had been reinforced by the decision of an independent tribunal. Parliament would be much more democratic in the future than it was at present—at least, it was supposed that it would so become. Members of less experience would enter it, and there would probably be more friction between the democracy and the Chair than there was at present, and in 908 that event it was very necessary that what he suggested should be adopted. There was one matter in particular in which the Clerks at the Table necessarily exercised an almost complete control. It was quite impossible that the Speaker could revise 50 or 60 Questions; and, therefore, the duty devolved upon the Clerks at the Table. If an hon. Gentleman asked a Question on foreign policy which was inconvenient to the Government, and it was stopped at the Table, it would be much more satisfactory to the Questioner if he could refer the matter to a Committee of Gentlemen on whom the House generally could place reliance. The hon. Member for Eye (Mr. Ashmead-Bartlett) and the hon. Member for Portsmouth (Sir H. Drummond Wolff) would feel greatly relieved, if Questions of theirs were stopped, if they knew that an independent tribunal, altogether apart from the Clerks at the Table, had sat and pronounced upon the propriety of the Questions. He did not intend to take up the time of the Committee any longer. He had laid his views before the Committee on a previous occasion, and the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Childers) was good enough to say that, although they were not very feasible, they ought not to be entirely excluded from the scope of consideration. In view of what was happening, and in view of the fact that the Speaker in the new Parliament must necessarily be inexperienced, it was not right that Representatives of the people, who had been elected because, in the opinion of their constituents, of their fitness, should be expelled like unruly children from the Chamber simply, perhaps, upon the irate feeling of the Speaker. Of course, they knew that the present Speaker never lost his temper, and his remarks in no sense applied to that right hon. Gentleman. As to the Chairman (Sir Arthur Otway), he (Mr. Healy) must frankly acknowledge that on all occasions the right hon. Gentleman exercised the greatest consideration and courtesy towards all Members of the House.

THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON
said, that the hon. Member had made his suggestion with great moderation. He could find no fault with the hon. Member for bringing forward this question, or with the manner in which he had brought it forward. He must say, 909 however, that at the first blush it appeared to him that the suggestion was one which could not be entertained by the House. The hon. Member had said that they looked forward to a more democratic Parliament in the future, and that other Regulations than those which at present obtained would have to be made. Well, that might be the case; but he thought that it was very undesirable for the House of Commons to look forward to what might be necessary in the future. What they had to deal with was the House of Commons that existed now; and it appeared to him that the powers which were intrusted to the Speaker and to the Chairman of Committees were adequate for the proper discharge of the duties of those Gentlemen, and adequate—but not more than adequate—for the preservation and maintenance of Order in debate. The hon. Member had suggested that the Clerks at the Table and the Speaker should be assisted by a Committee in the duty of revising Questions which were placed on the Paper. The hon. Member brought forward that subject last year, and the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Childers) gave, what appeared to him (the Marquess of Hartington), an extremely reasonable answer—namely, that the hon. Member himself and other hon. Members, who were a good deal in the habit of putting Questions to Ministers, would be the first to object to any such change of procedure if their Questions had to wait very long for revision—to wait, it might be, until all interest in them was lost. The hon. Member had carried his suggestion a good deal further, for he had said there should be a Court of Appeal, consisting of a number of experienced Members of the House, and that that Court of Appeal should have the power of revising the decisions of the Speaker and of the Chairman of Committees. Now, that was certainly a suggestion to which he (the Marquess of Hartington) could not give any concurrence whatever. It appeared to him that the powers which were intrusted to the Speaker and the Chairman of Committees were powers necessarily of a somewhat autocratic character—powers which were absolutely necessary for the preservation of the decency and order of debate in the House. If the functions of such a Committee as had been suggested by the hon. Member 910 were anything but nominal, the exercise of such functions would, in his (the Marquess of Hartington's) opinion, be destructive of the authority of the Chair. How could a Speaker maintain any effective authority over the administration of the House, and expect to have his decisions respected, if his decisions were subject to appeal; and if in the course of a few days a Committee of experts, such as had been suggested, were to overrule the decision which the Speaker had given? It seemed to him (the Marquess of Hartington) that all they could do was to elect that Member from amongst themselves, in whose fairness, and impartiality, and knowledge of the Rules of their procedure, the House had confidence; and, having so elected that Member from amongst themselves, to place great powers in his hands and implicit confidence in his authority. For those reasons it was quite impossible for him to give any support to the suggestion of the hon. and learned Member for Monaghan (Mr. Healy).

§ MR. GREGORY
said, that the proposition of the hon. and learned Member for Monaghan (Mr. Healy) struck directly at the authority of the Chair. It was quite impossible, in the interest of proper debate, that the decisions of the Speaker or of the Chairman of Committees should be subject to appeal. The House selected its Speaker and its Chairman because of their authority in the House, and because they were learned in its traditions and its business; and they reposed in those Gentlemen the most absolute confidence. If it was shown that that confidence was not justified by anything in the rulings from the Chair, it was quite clear that the decisions of the Chair would not be of long standing. The adoption of the hon. and learned Member's suggestion would be destructive of all authority in the House.

§ MR. HEALY
said, that perhaps the Committee would allow him to say a few words for the purpose of correcting, to some extent, the remarks the noble Marquess the Secretary of State for War (the Marquess of Hartington) had made. The noble Marquess had entirely addressed himself to this subject from the point of view of maintaining the authority of the Chair. He would ask the noble Marquess, was there no other authority in the House to maintain? 911 Were the rights of the Representatives of the people not to be maintained? It was all very well to talk about the authority of the Chair. Nobody objected more strongly than the English people to the Infallibility of the Pope. The English people railed at Roman Catholics in the most extraordinary manner because they subscribed to the Pope's supreme authority upon Divine and religious matters; but here they were dealing with human affairs, upon which every person could form a judgment of their own, and with regard to which hon. Members met in the House all together upon an independent and equal basis. He asked the noble Marquess if it were not possible for them to have a hasty or angry Speaker; and was it to be tolerated that the rights of 600 Members of Parliament, elected by the people to carry out their will, should be entirely at the mercy of one man, without appeal? He thought it was very desirable that the Speaker and Chairman of Committees should have the right of revising their own decisions, and that right the present Rules did not give. If the Chairman of Committees ruled him (Mr. Healy) to be out of Order, he was bound to respect the authority of the Chair, because he had no means of questioning the decision; but if he had the means of arguing the point, without meaning any disrespect or discourtesy to the Chairman, he might be able to prove that the hon. Gentleman was in the wrong. It might happen that once in 10 times he (Mr. Healy) might be right, and the Chairman wrong; and, therefore, his point was this—that granted the Chairman might once out of 10 times be wrong, and he (Mr. Healy) right, the Chairman should have the right and power to revise his decision. At present, if the Speaker or the Chairman, acting upon the suggestion of one of the Clerks at the Table, said that he (Mr. Healy) was out of Order, or that an expression he used was out of Order, the Speaker or Chairman had no power to revise the decision. The decision appeared upon the pages of Hansard, and it became for all time a cast-iron decision. All he wanted was, that the Speaker or Chairman, as the case might be, should have power to revise his decision, if necessary, with the assistance of experts, so that if it should happen that an hon. Member, who had been 912 ruled out of Order, was able, by letter or other private communication, to show the Speaker or Chairman of Committees that he had mistaken the argument addressed to him, and that the Speaker or Chairman was entirely in error, it should be within the power of the Chair to remedy his error. At present a Member, whose vote on a question of peace or war might turn the scale, could be suspended for a whole week, at the instigation of the Speaker; and it might so happen that during that week a most momentous decision was arrived at. As a matter of fact, the position of the Speaker in the House of Commons was more infallible than the Pope's position in the Catholic Church. The Pope was provided with a Council, but the Speaker of the House of Commons was provided with nothing of the kind. It would be to the advantage of debate, and it would not in the least detract or derogate from the position of Speaker or Chairman of Committees, if those Gentleman had some authority to guide them, independently of the Clerks at the Table. As he had said before, they had all very great respect for the gentlemen at the Table; but it was quite evident that those gentlemen were bound to impart into all their rulings something of what he might call a professional spirit. They very naturally desired to see the work of the Government done, and they did their best to facilitate the work of the House. A Committee of independent Members of the House, drawn from both Parties, would, he believe, take an independent and impartial view; and it was under these circumstances that he appealed to the noble Marquess not to be led away with the idea that there was nothing in the House to be preserved but the authority of the Chair. At present, when the political temperature was at a great heat, as it might be, for instance, if war were declared tomorrow, there would be no power standing between the rights of minorities and the position of the Chair. He maintained it was very desirable that there should be some Court of Appeal, go that if wrong had been done hon. Members should feel that there was an authority which should set matters right.

§ MR. SEXTON
said, he noticed that; the Clerk of the House was provided 913 with an official residence, and that the Clerk Assistant was also provided with an official residence. The second Clerk Assistant, however, was paid a salary considerably less than either of his colleagues, and he was not provided with an official residence. Now he (Mr. Sexton), approaching the matter in a most impartial spirit, failed to see the slightest reason for that distinction. He had frequently seen the second Clerk Assistant at the end of a long Sitting retire from the performance of his duty in such a state of fatigue as certainly to require rest upon the premises. If any difficulty arose from want of space, he (Mr. Sexton) certainly thought that the bachelor official of the House of Lords might very reasonably give up some of the eight rooms allotted to him to the second Clerk Assistant.

MR. E. N. FOWLER (LORD MAYOR)
said, the remarks of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton) gave him the opportunity to repeat an appeal he had made on previous occasions—an appeal he had made to the hon. Gentleman the Member for Liskeard (Mr. Courtney) when he ococcupied the position of Secretary to the Treasury, and an appeal he made some years ago to the late lamented Lord Frederick Cavendish. It was, whether the time had not come when the salaries of the officials of the House ought to be increased? He had not had the advantage of hearing the debate on the last Vote; but it must be borne in mind that they had nothing to do with the salaries of the officers of the other House of Parliament. Those salaries were given by agreement. One thing was obvious, and that was that the work of the House of Commons had of late vastly increased, and, as far as they could see, it was likely to be still further increased. The work told not so much upon hon. Members as upon the officers of the House. Hon. Members were bound, of course, to attend on the occasion of great divisions; but as regarded the ordinary work of the House, it was rather a matter of their own convenience whether they attended or not. The officers of the House, however, were bound to be in their places always; the three learned gentlemen at the Table, who so ably assisted the Speaker and the Chairman, were bound to be present early and late. Now, he wished to 914 ask the Committee whether it was fair that the salaries that might have been proper some 20 or 30 years ago, when the work of the House was very much lighter than it was now, should continue at their present figure? Hon. Members were aware that the work of the House increased very largely from year to year, and if there was one thing with regard to a future Parliament which he would venture to predict it was this, that it would give a great deal more work to the officers of the House than did the present Parliament. He did not think the Assembly was likely to sit fewer hours than it did, and he thought the present Parliament might take credit for having sat a greater number of hours than any other Parliament in history. He would make an appeal to the Government to know whether the time had not come when they could consider the salaries of the officers of the House with a view to their being increased? The facts he was stating were, he thought, facts which could not be disputed. The hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Rylands) he was sure would not dispute that the work of the different officers of the House was much heavier than it used to be. It should be remembered that the remuneration of the Professions had a tendency to increase, and they must bear in mind that the Clerks of the House were gentlemen who, if they had devoted themselves to the Legal Profession, would probably by that time have occupied the position of Judges, enjoying salaries of £5,000 a-year. He was not arguing in favour of the increase of the salaries of those gentlemen to that extent, but he desired to urge upon the Government the desirability of considering whether the time had not come when it was necessary, both in regard to justice and the due efficiency of the work of the House, to make some addition to the salaries of the officials.

§ COLONEL NOLAN
said, he did not wish to take up much time on the subject under discussion, but desired to draw attention to the fact that there were five or six office-keepers whose position was deserving of consideration. He did not disagree with the Lord Mayor (Mr. R. N. Fowler) in what he had just said, but he was inclined to move a reduction of the salaries, because the Irish Members had no interest in those office-keepers. The Chairman 915 would know the people to whom he was referring, because the hon. Gentleman had one himself. They were people engaged to attend on the rooms of the officers of the House; and he (Colonel Nolan) was pointing out that those were individuals with whom the Irish Members had nothing to do, for the reason that no rooms were allowed to the Irish Members. He did not say the Irish Members objected to having no office-keepers—what they objected to was that they had no offices for office-keepers to attend to. If he got some explanation from the Secretary to the Treasury as to the Vote this subject would more properly come under, he would defer his observations and move the reduction in its proper place. He wished to know who was responsible for the allotting of rooms in the House? Was the Secretary to the Treasury?

§ MR. HIBBERT
No.

§ COLONEL NOLAN
Then is the Speaker?

§ MR. HIBBERT
Yes; the Speaker, with the First Commissioner of Works.

§ COLONEL NOLAN
Perhaps, Mr. Chairman, you would rule that I am in Order in speaking on the allotment of rooms?

THE CHAIRMAN
The fact that the hon. and gallant Member would make his observations on the question of the allotment of rooms does not alter the case in the least. If the hon. and gallant Member wishes to go into that question it must be on the Building Vote. The Question before the Committee is the salaries of the officials of the House of Commons, and has nothing whatever to do with the allotment of rooms.

§ COLONEL NOLAN
said, that if the rooms were not properly allotted he ought to be able to go into the matter. However, he would take some opportunity of raising the subject, either in the form of Questions or upon other Votes. He found in the Votes eight messengers for the Department of the Clerks of the House, and 12 for the Serjeant-at-Arms Department, and he should like to ask whether any of those messengers served the great political Parties? He should like to get a categorical statement as to what those messengers did, and whether they served either of the two great Parties? [Mr. HIBBERT: No.] He (Colonel Nolan) believed the messengers of the Treasury 916 did; however, he would bring that matter up on the next Vote. He would remind hon. Members of the case of Mr. Burgess in the late Parliament. Mr. Burgess was in the interest of the Government, and his assistant in the interest of the Opposition; and those gentlemen were thoroughly impartial, because when the Government went out Mr. Burgess did not go out with it, but went over to the new Government, whilst his assistant went over to the new Opposition. The Government had had a great deal of experience of the controversy on this matter of rooms, and he (Colonel Nolan) intended to work it out to the best of his ability. What he wanted to know was whether the messengers of the House had any connection with the great political Parties? [Mr. HIBBERT: I have said no.] Then he would ask the same question on the next Vote. He considered it very hard that the Chairman and several other officials should have attendance in their offices, and should have 20 or 30 offices for their convenience in that building, while Irish Members, who were so far from their own homes, and who came here against their own wishes, should be accorded none of those facilities.

§ MR. ARTHUR O'CONNOR
must say he had been contemplating the aspect of the Committee for some time with a considerable amount of amusement. That Committee, without a single word being spoken in reply to the right hon. Gentleman who had moved the Motion, had voted £11,000,000 to the Government earlier in the afternoon; but since then they had been, for he did not know how many hours, occupied over the details of one small Vote. If that was the way the Committee was to proceed with its Business, he might as well conform to the fashion and fall into the prevailing mood. He wished to point out one little item that had been overlooked. There was an official whom he believed to be as useful in his way as anyone connected with the House. He was not so high placed as Mr. Speaker, or as the Chairman of Ways and Means, or as the Clerk at the Table; but he was, nevertheless, more frequently applied to personally by Members of the House than any of those. He referred to the Clerk in the Library, who was a model of patience, information, and readiness, and 917 he was sure that there was scarcely an industrious Member of the House who had not had occasion to go to him, and had not received from him the greatest assistance. That gentleman was a very quiet, unobtrusive person, limited to the maximum salary of £300 a-year. That maximum had been reached, and that gentleman had been standing at it now for some time. He was not likely to apply for an increase himself, and he (Mr. A. O'Connor) had not heard from him or from anyone else that he was dissatisfied. However, the fact remained the same that that official was not paid a fair remuneration for the quality of the service he performed. He knew so little about that gentleman that he was not even acquainted with his name; but if no one else would do so, at any rate he (Mr. A. O'Connor) would not neglect the opportunity of saying a word for him. He would ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether that gentleman could not be allowed something more handsome than £300 a-year?

§ MR. HIBBERT
said, that before he replied to the hon. Gentleman, he wished to say that, with respect to the attendants in the Office of the Chairman of Ways and Means, they were not really the hon. Gentleman's attendants at all; they were merely attendants in the Private Bill Office.

§ COLONEL NOLAN
Why are they connected with the Office of the Chairman of Ways and Means?

§ MR. HIBBERT
Because the Private Bill Committees come under his Department. The messengers are not in attendance upon the Chairman of Ways and Means, however. With regard to the gentleman referred to by the hon. Member for Queen's County (Mr. A. O'Connor), I have to say that the Government have no power over these salaries in the House of Commons. These salaries are fixed by Commissioners. There are certain Commissioners who have the management of these matters.

§ MR. HEALY
Who are they?

§ MR. HIBBERT
They are certain Members, four or five in number.

§ MR. HEALY
Members of the House?

§ MR. HIBBERT
I do not know: but I can say that the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer belong to the Commission. There are four or five who fix the salaries of the officers. With 918 regard to the matters I have referred to, and also in regard to the Clerks at the Table, the whole question of salaries should be raised before the Commissioners who have the management of the matter. It is not a matter for the Government, though I should be glad to consider any point which the hon. Member may submit to me, and communicate it to the Government.

§ MR. ARTHUR O'CONNOR
said, he made it an invariable rule never to have any communication with a Member of the Government except across the floor of the House; therefore, he did not feel disposed to consult either of the high functionaries to whom the hon. Gentleman had referred. If the hon. Gentleman would mention to them what had passed, however, he should be glad.

§ MR. HIBBERT
I shall take care to do so.

§ MR. SEXTON
said, he had not yet had an answer to his question with regard to the residence of those clerks who at present had to go home after the House rose. If the hon. Gentleman opposite would put the First Commismissioner of Works in motion, it would be well for him to consider whether there could not be a more convenient disposal of the spare space in the Parliament building, particular in connection with the House of Lords, than at present adopted.

§ MR. HIBBERT
said, he should be glad to bring that matter before the notice of the Chief Commissioner of Works.

§ MR. BIGGAR
said, he should like to put a question to the Secretary to the Treasury with regard to Mr. Speaker's counsel. He (Mr. Biggar) did not know who he was or what his duties were, but he should like to know what value they got for their money?

§ MR. HIBBERT
said, he believed the duties of counsel to the Speaker were very important duties. That gentleman had to be consulted on very important points, and it was quite open to any Member of the House who presided at a Private Bill Committee, or who had to do with any other Committee, if a question of law arose, to consult the counsel. It was really a very great advantage to be able to consult a legal authority in that way. He (Mr. Hibbert) himself had experienced the advantage of having that legal authority to appeal to in 919 the House. When acting once as Chairman of Committees, he had found it in the highest degree advantageous to be able to get a legal opinion from Mr. Speaker's counsel.

§ MR. MOLLOY
wished to know where Mr. Speaker's counsel was to be found? Was he a gentleman in attendance on that House during the sittings of Committees, or was he a gentleman who only sat in his chambers to give advice?

§ MR. HIBBERT
said, that Mr. Speaker's counsel was in his office in the House every day.

§ MR. SCLATER-BOOTH
said, Mr. Speaker's counsel had supervision over all the Private Business in the House.

§ MR. MOLLOY
said, he found eight messengers down in this Vote, and he should like to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether it was possible for two of them to be placed at the disposal of hon. Members for the purpose of bringing in books of reference from the Library during the course of debates? Everyone in the habit of speaking in the House must have noticed that in the course of an evening he found himself in need of books from the Library, and that it was sometimes impossible, when one was speaking, to find a Member near him who could be got to take the trouble to proceed to the Library for the purpose of bringing him a book of reference of which he might be in need. He thought it only reasonable that one or two, and, if possible, several more messengers should be in attendance upon the House in order to wait upon Members in that respect. He had frequently seen on the Ministerial Bench even, Members of the Government obliged to run out to the Library for books of reference for their Colleagues who were speaking. Members of the Government generally had the references beforehand; but in the case of private Members it very often happened that they had not. Although he (Mr. Molloy) was not a very frequent speaker, the inconvenience to which he was pointing had happened to himself. He had happened to require a quotation from a speech to which he had been referring, and there had been no one near him whom he cared to ask to go and bring him the reference from the Library. A private Member, therefore, was thrown entirely on his own resources, and he therefore asked that 920 that favour should be shown to him in future.

§ MR. HIBBERT
said, that so far as his experience went he had never found that Members of the Government or any one else, when they wanted books of reference, were unable to get them. Personally, whenever he had been in want of a book of reference, he had always gone into the Library to fetch it. That, he thought, was the best course to adopt.

§ MR. MOLLOY
said, the course pointed out by the hon. Member was easy enough to follow on some occasions; but he would venture to point out that when a Member was on his legs making a speech, to leave the House suddenly in search of a book of reference would be to bring that speech to an abrupt termination, and when that hon. Member made his appearance again with his book of reference, he would find someone else addressing the Chair. He would, in all seriousness, say to the hon. Gentleman that hon. Members were entitled to the privilege for which he was pleading. He was present in the American Assembly not very long ago, during the course of a debate, and he had there found a large number of messengers going in and out the House attending upon Members. In that Assembly if a Member wanted anything, he had nothing to do but to put up his finger and beckon a messenger, who would at once wait upon him and carry out the mission intrusted to him. If the Member wanted a book it was immediately brought. In fact, he (Mr. Molloy) believed that in every Assembly in the world, except that of Great Britain, those messengers were always in attendance. He did not see why, seeing that the Government were so lavish in their expenditure on employés in that House, that it was too much to ask the Secretary to the Treasury to endeavour to bring about the appointment of two or three messengers for the purpose he had described. The plan he proposed might be adopted to the end of the Session, and then, if it were found that those messengers were not of much use, some other work could be given to them in the coming Session; but, at any rate, the Government ought to try the experiment. There were messengers in the Reporters' Gallery who communicated between the House and the Gallery; but the convenience of 921 Members was very little attended to. If a Member was in the Smoking Room and wanted to know what was going on in the House—if he wanted to know whether the Speaker was in the Chair, or what Bill was under discussion, or when the House was going into Committee, there was nobody to send to make inquiries, but he was obliged to leave his work and do the little mission himself. That was extremely inconvenient when a Member was perhaps going through a very heavy correspondence, or preparing himself for a debate which was coming on. As an illustration of the inconvenience to which he referred, he would mention that the other day two Motions in the names of hon. Friends of his were called on, and neither hon. Member was in his place. Because those Gentlemen were not kept acquainted with the condition of Business in the House they were not present to take charge of their Motions, and, consequently, he (Mr. Molloy) had had to go through the form, which was scarcely proper, of moving one of the Motions, and he had omitted a word here and there from the Resolution in order that it might not appear to be the same as that of his hon. Friend, and he had had to keep the House detained on a subject he knew very little about for 10 minutes, until he could get a Member near him to carry a message to his hon. Friend telling him that the question had come on. That was certainly an undignified method of managing those affairs, and yet hon Members were obliged to adopt it. They did not like to see Members who had prepared speeches on the subject of Motions they had on the Paper, unable to bring them on because they did not happen to be in the House at the moment they were reached, and there was no one to keep them informed as to the precise condition of Business. He therefore urged that the messengers to whom he referred should be appointed to tell them what was going on from time to time. There was nearly three months more of the Session, and he was sure it would not make much difference to the Government financially if they adopted the plan he suggested as an experiment for that period.

§ MR. R. N. FOWLER (LORD MAYOR)
said, there was one thing he should like to point out to the hon. Gentleman (Mr. 922 Molloy). He had referred to the case of America, with which he (Mr. R. N. Fowler) was not familiar; but he was acquainted with the practice in what was euphoneously termed "another place." There the messengers were allowed to go into the House, but that practice was not allowed in the House of Commons. Unless there were to be an entire change of the Rules of the House he did not see how the hon. Member's proposal could be carried out, for the Rule at present was that no one who was not a Member of the House could pass the Bar. Under the circumstances he did not see how they could expect a messenger, who had not the right to pass the Bar, to bring books on to the Boor of the House.

§ MR. MOLLOY
said, no doubt, as the right hon. Member (Mr. R. N. Fowler) remarked, there was a stupid tradition in existence which said that nobody should pass the Bar of the House but a Member, but, if it were necessary, that Rule could be done away with. If it were done away with, he did not believe the sanctity of the Chamber would very seriously suffer. If he (Mr. Molloy) were not mistaken, the right hon. Member himself had found himself in the difficulty which had been pointed out. On one occasion he believed the right hon. Member had had to find someone to bring him a book, and, unlesss his memory deceived him, he believed that he (Mr. Molloy) himself had performed the mission.

§ MR. HIBBERT
said that he would see that the matter was brought before the Commissioners, together with the other questions that had been raised, although he could not hold out much hope that any change would be made this year. Probably when they had a new Parliament many advantageous alterations in the usages and practice of the House would be brought about.

§ MR. PULESTON
said, that with regard to the question raised by the hon. Member (Mr. Molloy), he could not go so far as to support the suggestion that they should employ runners to go between the House and the Libraries or the Smoking Room. Still he believed hon. Members suffered considerable inconvenience, particularly those who were in regular attendance in the House and who had work to do, through there being no means of communication be- 923 tween the House and the ante rooms, by which information could be carried to Members outside with regard to what was going on inside the House. A Member might be interested in a Motion which stood No. 20 or 30 or 40 on the Order Book, and, in the absence of such communication as that he was suggesting, that hon. Member had to spend a good deal of his time running between the Library or the Smoking Room, in which he might be occupied, to the House in order to keep himself informed as to what was going on, and as to the likelihood of the measure in which he was interested being reached. That was a great tax upon the patience of an hon. Member who, no doubt, would feel that his time might be much better spent. He (Mr. Puleston) would make this suggestion, that the existing inconveniences and difficulties should be got over by setting up a communication between the House and the various rooms round it, by telephone or by dial. A dial, if that plan were adopted, might be so arranged as to show what Order of the Day was being considered by the House at the time. He knew that the answer to that suggestion would be that grave mistakes might occasionally occur, and that the wrong Orders might be notified through the carelessness of those who had the care of the apparatus. Well, that inconvenience was, after all, an artificial one, and it must be taken for what it was worth. If a Member wished to keep his position quite secure, he would take measures to make it perfectly certain that he would be in the House at the time the Order in which he was interested came on; he would not trust entirely to the dial. However, he thought such an arrangement as that he proposed would conduce greatly to the convenience of hon. Members, and that the Government would experience very little difficulty in carrying it out.

§ MR. BIGGAR
said, the item of £400 for the salary of the Chaplain was open to some comment. He was of opinion that a Chaplain for the House of Commons was not necessary. The invariable custom was that the Members of the Privy Council and the Members of the Government never attended the ministrations of the Chaplain, although he thought they stood in need of them no less than the other Members of the House of Commons. He thought the 924 time had come when they might do away with the office of Chaplain, on account of which a very substantial sum had been annually paid; and, therefore, he was not disposed to vote for that item in the Estimates.

§ Vote agreed to.

§ (4.) Motion made, and Question proposed, That a sum, not exceeding £50,445, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1886, for the Salaries and Expenses in the Department of Her Majesty's Treasury, and in the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel.

§ MR. SEXTON
said, there were some questions connected with this Vote which deserved explanation. In the first place, he would refer to the appointments to the office of Postmasters and Sub-Postmasters in Ireland, concerning which he might say that there was an obstinate belief surviving in the minds of some people that the nominations to those posts rested with Members for counties. He himself had had several applications from persons desiring to be nominated. He asked the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury, what was the practice of that Department with regard to the filling up of the office of Postmaster? The office was a small one, but it must be remembered that Postmasters had to discharge duties of considerable public importance. He had known cases in which persons recommended by the most influential men in their district—the clergy and others—had been rejected by the Treasury, while other persons recommended in the dark had received the appointments sought. The way in which those appointments were made had given rise to considerable dissatisfaction in his own county (Sligo). He asked the hon. Gentleman whether the Treasury would be willing to receive and pay attention to such recommendations to the office of Postmasters in Ireland as he had referred to, and whether, if they were unwilling to receive them, he would state on what grounds? He knew a case in which a candidate was very strongly recommended, and whose qualifications and character were suitable for the office; but, notwithstanding that, another person had been preferred, whom he believed was recom- 925 mended by two Members of that House. Therefore, he said it was desirable to know what sort of influence the Treasury recognized in filling up those offices, and whether there was or not any influence vested in Members of the House with regard to the appointments in question. Then there was another question connected with the Vote, to which he desired to call the attention of the Committee. He observed that lately the right hon. Gentleman the Postmaster General, in replying to the representations of Members from the West of Ireland, had stated that his desire to improve the Mail Service in Ireland was fettered by the curtailment of his discretion by the Treasury. He wished to know to what extent that Department curtailed or limited the discretion of the Postmaster General in respect of the public Mail Service? The matter was one of great importance to the people of Ireland, and it was consequently one in which Members on those Benches took a strong interest. He had mentioned a case in which the right hon. Gentleman stated that his desire was to meet the wishes of those hon. Members, but that the Department of the Treasury placed an obstacle in the way of the exercise of his discretion; and, therefore, he asked the hon. Gentleman whether the Treasury determined that the Postmaster General should spend no more than a specified sum, and whether they were now willing to consider the general convenience of the districts? His reason for putting that question was because the Postmaster General hesitated to improve the Mail Service between Dublin and the West of Ireland, on the ground that it would cost £3,000 a-year more than was now being paid. The next point to which he would call attention had reference to the Circular recently issued by the Treasury on the subject of the expenses of witnesses at the Assizes. Until the date of the issue of that Circular, the Judge of Assize had it in his power by law to fix the amount of the allowance for expenses of witnesses at the Assizes, and did so fix it, the counties paying the expense in the first place, and the Treasury recouping them. Now, by the recent Circular, the Treasury fixed a scale of expenses, and gave it to be understood that when the Judge of Assize decided to give expenses above 926 the scale, the Treasury would only pay according to the scale, and that the loss represented by the difference between the scale and the actual expenses ordered to be paid by the Judge would have to be borne by the counties. He understood that the pressure of legislation lately had been against throwing Imperial charges on local rates. If there was one charge more than another that was distinctly Imperial, it was the charge for sustaining justice. He was at a loss to understand by what right the Treasury presumed to issue a Circular limiting the discretion which the law gave to the Judges of Assize. The Treasury said—"You may fix the amount of expenses, but if you fix it above the amount set forth in this Circular, the counties will have to pay." The result was obvious; the counties, being helpless in the matter, had to pay the money. He contended that there was no reason why the Treasury should intervene, and by an official Minute break down the powers of the Judges of Assize in this matter, and that so long as the Judges retained their powers in law, those powers should be respected, and the counties not fined save by order of a Judge. That action on the part of the Treasury was so unwarranted that he should be disposed to ask the Committee to resist the Vote until some explanation was forthcoming. Again, he should like to obtain some information with regard to what he might call the growing mystery of the management of the Department of Fishery Piers and Harbours in Ireland, and he had lately put several Questions in the House with that object. The year before last, £250,000 was granted for the purpose of developing fishery piers and harbours in Ireland, and a Commission was appointed, of which the hon. Member for Galway was at present Chairman. From Questions lately put in the House, it would appear that a deadlock had been reached as between the Treasury, the Board of Works, Ireland, the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and the Fisheries and Harbours Commission.

THE CHAIRMAN
said, it appeared to him that the hon. Gentleman was raising on this Vote a question which should be raised upon another Vote.

§ MR. SEXTON
said, he raised the question on the present Vote because all 927 Questions relating to piers and harbours in Ireland were answered in the House by the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury.

THE CHAIRMAN
said, the reason of the hon. Gentleman would apply when the proper Vote was reached, but it did not apply in the present case. If the hon. Gentleman raised the question on the Vote for the Board of Works, Ireland, and also on the Treasury Vote, he raised it twice. He thought, therefore, that if the hon. Gentleman wished to discuss the subject of piers and harbours, it should be on occasions when a Vote was proposed for them.

§ MR. SEXTON
said, there was no Vote for them. On a former Vote, it had been pointed out that the Treasury Vote was the Vote on which to discuss the question of piers and harbours. He asked if he was not now entitled to address the Secretary to the Treasury on that subject?

THE CHAIRMAN
said, the question would properly arise on the Vote for the Board of Works, Ireland.

§ MR. SEXTON
asked, if he was to understand that a letter directed by the Treasury to a Public Department could not be discussed in Committee of Supply?

THE CHAIRMAN
said, he adjudged the question put by the hon. Gentleman according to the items in the Vote. There was no allusion in the Vote to piers and harbours.

§ MR. SEXTON
asked whether, on the assumption that the Financial Secretary to the Treasury answered Questions that were every day put to him in the House with regard to the salaries of officials, as the responsible Representative of the Treasury, it was not competent to him to raise this question?

THE CHAIRMAN
said, if the reasoning of the hon. Gentlemen were carried out, every Question might be addressed to the Treasury.

§ MR. SEXTON
said, he had always understood that when the salary of an official came before the House, his duties were a proper subject for discussion.

§ COLONEL NOLAN
said, he wished to say a few words on one of the subjects brought before the Committee by his hon. Friend the Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton). His hon. Friend had alluded to the manner in which the offices of 928 Postmaster and Sub-Postmaster in Ireland were filled up. Now, he thought it would be a far better and simpler plan if the Government were to say at once that Irish Members should have nothing whatever to do with those small Post Office appointments in Ireland, instead of continuing the present system of giving them the appearance of having some influence with regard to them without the least reality. He pointed out that there were Members who objected on principle to writing to the Postmaster General on the subject of those appointments, and he thought it would be better for the Government to make it known that they would not allow any Irish Member to touch them, and that they wiped out the influence Irish Members were supposed to have with regard to them altogether. He had himself written to the Postmaster General eight or ten times, and the invariable reply was that the subject of his communication had been carefully considered, but that the matter rested with the Secretary to the Treasury, and that application should be made to him. So far as Irish Members were personally concerned, it did not matter how the small Post Office appointments were filled up; and, therefore, he thought it would be well to adopt his suggestion, and then if any persons in the neighbourhood in which there was a vacancy wrote to the Postmaster General with the same result, it would be the Irish people who were shut out. He thought it should be clearly stated either that Irish Members had some voice in the disposal of the £8,000,000 contributed by Ireland to the Imperial Revenue, or that it should be boldly stated that as Irish Members they were entirely shut out from having any share in the administration of the country. He might say that previous Postmasters General had been extremely polite in dealing with this subject; they had smoothed the matter down; but the present Postmaster General, whom he saw in his place, made it pretty clearly understood that Irish Members had nothing to do with those appointments.

§ MR. HIBBERT
said, with respect to the question as to the office of Postmaster and Sub-Postmaster, he did not agree with what had fallen from the hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton) that the patronage of those small appoint- 929 ments should lie with Members of the House. He agreed very much with the hon. and gallant Member for Galway (Colonel Nolan) in the remarks he had made; but he went further, and not only said that, in his opinion, should the patronage not lie with Irish Members, but that no Member for England or Scotland should have it. In that way he thought that Members would get rid of much troublesome work. Even when Members obtained one of the appointments, if they gave satisfaction to one person, they caused dissatisfaction to others. For his own part, he should be glad if the patronage were transferred to the Postmaster General. With respect to the question of the expenses of witnesses at the Assizes, and the other question raised by the hon. Member for Sligo, they were scarcely within this Vote. It seemed to him that the question as to the power of the Treasury to cut down the amount of expenses in the case of prosecutions should be brought forward on the Vote for the administration of Law and Justice, and not upon a Vote for the payment of the salaries of officials of the Treasury. There was no doubt, however, that the Treasury had power to control prosecutions; they had always possessed that power, and he believed it was used in respect of prosecutions in England and Scotland, as well as in Ireland.

§ COLONEL NOLAN
said, he should have been grateful for the answer he had received from the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury, were it not for the fact that he had received exactly the same answer some years ago. He thought the Committee ought to have the advantage of the presence of the Patronage Secretary to the Treasury during the discussion; but as that noble Lord was not on the Treasury Bench, he thought he should be doing his duty by moving that Progress be reported.

§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again."—(Colonel Nolan.)

§ MR. SEXTON
pointed out that the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury had made use of two or three phrases implying that he acquiesced generally in the views expressed by hon. Gentlemen on those Benches; but he 930 gave them no promise that any representation would be made on the subject of the appointments in question; nor did he tell them whether those small appointments were filled on the nomination of Members of Parliament.

§ SIR ALEXANDER GORDON
said, he hoped the views expressed by the Financial Secretary to the Treasury would be adopted. He believed he was expressing the opinion of a number of hon. Members who were anxious to get rid of the trouble caused them in matters of this kind, when he said that those appointments should be made on the responsibility of the Postmaster General.

§ MR. O'SHEA
said, he was glad that an hon. and gallant Member on that side of the House (Sir Alexander Gordon) had risen to speak on this subject. He hoped he should not be using too strong an expression in saying that it was positively indecent that the Patronage Secretary should not be present during that discussion. He believed there was no doubt that in view of the way in which patronage was at present administered in this country, it would be much more agreeable to all Members of Parliament that those appointments should rest with the Post Office Department itself. Under the present system there was no doubt that Members of Parliament were caused a great deal of trouble and annoyance. They were pestered with applications from persons seeking to obtain appointments. Whenever an office was vacant—and oven before they were vacant—Members were troubled with letters asking them to exert their influence with the Treasury in favour of the appointment of such-and-such an individual. In his opinion it would be better that all Departments should make their own appointments; but instead of that they found that in this case the Treasury imposed its will on the Post Office. It was very often the case that the Treasury wrote to a Member of Parliament, asking him to nominate persons for appointments; but that was not a satisfactory mode of procedure, because, although the Member might nominate a person after taking the best advice he could get, it was impossible for him to know that the individual was fit for the appointment.

§ MR. SEXTON
said, he hoped the Government would see their way to assent to the Motion to report Progress 931 for two reasons. First, because he did not think they would make much further progress that night; and, secondly, because he had not received any answer to his question relating to the expenses of witnesses at the Assizes.

§ MR. HIBBERT
I said I did not think it was in Order.

§ MR. SEXTON
said, he thought that time should be given to consider whether it was in Order to discuss the action of a Department on the Vote under which the salaries of that Department were paid.

§ MR. MOLLOY
said, hon. Members on those Benches asked that Progress should be reported, because the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury had stated that he was unable to give any satisfactory answer to the question put by them. The Committee were surely entitled to have an answer with regard to the Post Office appointments, especially as the hon. Gentleman had said that he was in favour of the reforms asked for. He would suggest that the Patronage Secretary (Lord Richard Grosvenor) should be asked to reply to questions on the subject which the hon. Gentleman was unable to answer. The noble Lord was just outside the House, and he appealed to the Government to ask him to walk in.

§ Question put.

§ The Committee divided:—Ayes 22; Noes 101: Majority 79.—(Div. List, No. 132.)

§ Original Question again proposed.

§ MR. SEXTON
said, that as the noble Lord the Patronage Secretary to the Treasury (Lord Richard Grosvenor) had now been called into the House by the division, he would like to ask him a question about the appointment to Post-masterships in Ireland. Some people in Ireland appeared still to think, though it must be a delusion, that Members of Parliament had some influence in nominating candidates, or in getting the appointments filled up. He was not aware upon what foundation that impression rested; and he would like to ask the noble Lord whether Members of Parliament practically filled up those appointments; and, if so, was the privilege confined to those Members only who supported the Government? There had been considerable confusion and per- 932 plexity over the matter in Ireland, and in one case the candidate recommended by the parish clergy and by other people of influence had been passed over in favour of another candidate of whom nobody knew anything. It would be more convenient for Members and more conducive to the public interest if the supposed right of Members to nominate those officials were altogether put an end to. The Treasury or the Postmaster General, or whoever was most capable, should take the appointments into their own hands.

§ LORD RICHARD GROSVENOR
said, the Post Office patronage was exercised to a certain extent by Members of Parliament who supported the Government; but, at the same time, he frequently had communications from hon. Gentlemen opposite, and from hon. Members who sat in the same quarter of the House as the hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton), and he frequently attended to recommendations from them and from parish priests. Such recommendations were always duly considered. He thought it desirable to keep up this patronage. Any hon. Member who did not wish to exercise it need not do so, and could leave it alone; but there were others who did wish to exercise it, and it unquestionably brought them into closer contact with their constituents, and enabled them to confer favours of which there could not be the slightest abuse, inasmuch as all the nominations had to be submitted to the Postmaster General, who had the power to cancel them wherever he found the candidates were unsuitable. The patronage was largely exercised by Members of the House, and as they liked it he did not think it was desirable to abolish it.

§ MR. H. S. NORTHCOTE
said, he had supported the Motion for reporting Progress, because he thought that was a very favourable opportunity for getting rid of this pernicious system of patronage in reference to those small Post Office appointments. The noble Lord had admitted that he duly considered all the applications made to him by Members of the House, in whatever quarter those Members might happen to sit. But the noble Lord had omitted to state whether he gave them all a favourable consideration. He (Mr. Northcote) had some knowledge of what went on at the Treasury; and, without making any 933 charge against the noble Lord, he must say that he entirely disapproved of the system pursued in those matters—a system to which one political Party had been quite as much committed as the other for many years past. He did not think private Members were much attached to that sort of patronage, and he would be glad to see it in the hands of the Postmaster General.

§ MR. ONSLOW
said, the noble Lord had told them that those appointments all came under the scrutiny of the Postmaster General. But would the noble Lord say that the Postmaster General had ever declined to complete an appointment which the noble Lord had recommended? It might be that now and then that was done; but as a matter of fact those appointments were a huge political job, and the sooner they were taken out of the hands of private Members the better. The whole of the Post Office Service ought to bounder the superintendence and responsibility of the Postmaster General. It was absurd to say that those appointments were not given for political purposes, and the result was that all the Postmasters throughout the country took a perniciously active part in politics whenever an election occurred. Whenever this vicious system should be put an end to a great boon would be conferred upon the State. Why the noble Lord wished to maintain it he could not understand.

§ MR. SHAW LEFEVRE
said, the Postmaster General was not relieved from responsibility in the matter by the fact that Members of Parliament made certain nominations. He made inquiries, and the final appointment rested with him. During the short time that he (Mr. Shaw Lefevre) had held the Office of Postmaster General he had, on more than one occasion, refused to appoint the person recommended by the Secretary to the Treasury. No doubt there was a good deal to be said in favour of transferring the appointments directly to the Postmaster General; but one result would be that all the pressure which was now brought to bear on the noble Lord (Lord Richard Grosvenor) would be transferred to him (Mr. Shaw Lefevre). No great evil resulted from the present system, and he was rather inclined to leave it as it was.

§ COLONEL NOLAN
said, he thought he was justified when he moved that 934 Progress be reported; because, if he had not taken that step, they would not have had the valuable speech of the noble Lord the Patronage Secretary to the Treasury. There was not much chance that the system which had been so much complained of that night would be abolished during the next six months, when they were on the eve of a General Election. He would much prefer to see those appointments transferred to the Postmaster General, though he did not pretend to feel very strongly about it, one way or the other. The Irish Members not only had none of that patronage at all, but they had no prospect of ever getting any. The result was that 4,000,000 or 5,000,000 people were altogether left out in the cold, although they continued to pay £28,000,000 taxes for the purposes of the Empire, and their fair share of that £11,000,000 which the Irish Members were foolish enough to allow to pass the other night without protest. It would be well for the Irish people to understand exactly how the matter lay, and that their Members could only obtain those appointments when there were no nominees of anybody else in the way.

§ MR. CALLAN
said, that whenever he applied for one of those appointments he used to go to the Postmaster General direct, and he had always been received in the most kindly spirit. He wished to know from the Patronage Secretary to the Treasury whether it was true that there was a book kept in the Post Office from which, when a vacancy occurred in a particular county which was worth less than £100 a-year, the clerk would know at once whom he should address to ask whether he had anyone to nominate? Such a book used to be kept. Those appointments were managed on very peculiar principles. Suppose a vacancy occurred this week in a county represented by some general supporter of the Government who happened to be absent last Friday night, when the Government were defeated on the Registration of Voters (Ireland) Bill, what chance would that Member have of getting the appointment for his nominee? They all knew that those appointments were not given for the purpose of corrupting a Member into giving a wrong vote; but they were given as a sop for sitting up at night and helping to "make a House, keep 935 a House, and cheer Ministers. "If a Member went home to dinner and did not return, what chance would he have of getting a place in the Post Office for a nominee, in comparison with another Member who did come back, and did what he could to help the Liberal Whips out of the scrape into which they landed the Government on Friday night.

§ LORD RICHARD GROSVENOR
understood that the hon. Member for Louth (Mr. Callan) wished to be a Whip himself, and perhaps in time he might be. When the hon. Member did reach that position he (Lord Richard Grosvenor) would promise to give him, what he appeared so much to wish for, a valuable receipt for keeping his Party in hand.

§ MR. GRAY
said, he knew the Attorney General had a strong objection to giving abstract opinions upon legal questions; but perhaps the hon. and learned Gentleman would not mind saying whether, if those appointments were given to reward constituents for supporting those Members who obtained them, the whole thing was not a piece of direct jobbery and political corruption, and whether it did not come within the provisions of the Parliamentary Elections (Corrupt and Illegal Practices) Act?

§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir HENRY JAMES)
said, he did not quite understand what was the procedure in reference to those matters. He understood that something mysterious went on, and that the hon. Member for Louth (Mr. Callan) was to be told all about it at some future time. But, so far as he (the Attorney General) was aware, he had never known an hon. Member who would willingly be a party to any corrupt influence.

§ MR. SEXTON
said, he thought the object in view in raising that discussion had been attained. That object was to make it understood that the Irish Members had no connection whatever with those appointments. He thanked the noble Lord (Lord Richard Grosvenor) for speaking so frankly, and for confessing that those appointments were really the cement by which the fragments of a Party were kept together. As it was to be understood that those appointments were given to reward those Members who supported the Government, it would be understood in 936 Ireland that there was no use in applying to those Members who represented the national feeling of the country.

§ Original Question put, and agreed to.

§ Resolutions to be reported To-morrow.

§ Committee to sit again upon Wednesday.