LIBRARY OF THE HOUSE. (Hansard, 4 August 1832)

Sir Robert Inglis

moved the Order of the Day for the House resolving into a Committee for the purpose of taking the discussion relative to the improvements proposed to be made in the Library, and he begged to recall the attention of the House to the subject. He should not have felt it necessary to have troubled the House with more than three or four sentences, if he had not been told to expect opposition to the measure which he should propose. The general view taken by the Committee had been to provide increased space for the books, and for Members in respect to the library, and also for the papers of the House. The Committee felt that they were not to look only to the supply of books, and to the individual accommodation of Members in consulting those books; nor to consider solely in what way the papers of the House could best be preserved. They were called upon to take all these three subjects into consideration; and taking the whole of them together, though they were not prepared to say that if one of these singly had been committed to their inquiry, they would have recommended their present plan, they had had no hesitation in submitting that plan to the House. They could at least say thus much, that, after considerable attention to the subject, no other plan had been either submitted, or suggested, which combined so many advantages as the plan recommended in the Report. The House would recollect that space for books, and for Members consulting those books was wanted, and space for both would be attained by incorporating, according to the suggestion made to the Committee of 1830, by the Clerk of this House, with the existing library, the two Committee-rooms, Nos. 18 and 19; but that would destroy other accommodation which the House could not spare. The Committee rooms in actual service amounted to thirteen or fourteen. There were numerically twenty-one, but, from the reasons stated in the Report, not more than thirteen or fourteen were available, the 1131 House then could not afford to absorb two Committee-rooms; and the two in question were perhaps the very best that could be imagined for the purposes to which they were applied. They were just those in which Committees on the most important questions,—such for instance, as that of the renewal of the Bank Charter—could carry on their business without inconvenience; where it was desirable that the members of the Committee should be separated from the great mass of the public. The Committee-rooms for elections were convenient on the side of St. Margaret's-street; but those over the library were suited to secret Committees, and therefore, though giving them up would supply the deficiency of the library, the House could not afford to sacrifice the accommodation. With respect to the supply of books, the library was deficient in many respects, particularly in law books, and in the statistics of this and other countries; but, generally, the selection had been made with judgment. The foundation was admirable, the superstructure was, in several respects, deficient. The proposition which the Committee had instructed him to report to the House was to elongate the library, or rather the building on which it stood, to an extent of more than its length again; thus providing on the same floor a large area for books, and convenient accommodation for Members; and in the floor below, a good depository for the papers of the House. The Clerk of the Journals stated to the Committee that there would not be room, under the roof of the House, for the papers of more than the next two or three years. The only remedy, therefore, was, either to destroy the existing papers, or to build rooms for further accumulation. Now, he would ask any hon. Gentleman whether, looking to the historical value of the records of England, if such an argument had been addressed to the House in the time of Henry the 6th, or Henry the 8th, what should they have thought of a Parliament, which, in that day, had destroyed its records, rather than be at the expense of providing house-room for them? They might, certainly, and with good reason, have affirmed, that such a Parliament was the Parliamentum indoctum. If they did not destroy the papers, they must provide space for preserving them. He had thus stated the objects which the Committee had endea- 1132 voured to keep in view—to provide space for the books; and for the Members consulting them; and a place to deposit the papers of the House. The last subject to which he had to refer was the price at which the architect estimated these alterations and improvements. They had consulted Sir Robert Smirke, a gentleman whose name was sufficiently high to recommend any plan which he might suggest; and whose sense of honour and conscientious feeling were not surpassed by those of any other architect. The sum he stated was 4,000l.; a sum scarcely more than the price for printing one of the Journals of this House; and, therefore, he was not, he thought, asking too much, seeing that the appropriation of this sum to the purposes he had named would be eminently useful to the Members of this House, and necessary to the preservation of the public records. This was not a question upon which any party feeling could exist. Every hon. Gentleman would decide according to what might be his own immediate view of the matter. There was, however, one point to which he must advert. An objection had been made that the Committee was thinly attended. His first answer was, that the House, by fixing a quorum of five, or of three, had assumed that business, might be done by five, or by three. If, therefore, no more than five or three attended any Committee, the House could not complain. In the present instance, following the precedent of the last Library Committee of 1830, he proposed that three should be the quorum. He begged to state, however, that the Committee was never, except in one instance, attended by less than four or five,—three being the quorum. He must state, that the Report was first drawn up by himself, assisted by the communications of one or two other members of the Committee, that it was read in manuscript to the Committee, was then printed, and copies sent to members of the Committee, and by them separately examined; and after the alterations suggested by them were made, that corrected Report was finally considered, and adopted by the Committee. He moved that the House should resolve itself into a Committee upon the Report.