§ On the Order of the Day for the House to go into a Committee of Ways and Means, having been moved,
Mr. Williamstrusted the House would permit him to explain the reason of his absence yesterday evening, when his name was called, to submit to the House the Motion of which he had given notice, and which stood on the Paper of yesterday. He was also anxious to appease what he thought the rather too sensitive feeling which the noble Lord opposite (Lord Lincoln) had displayed on the question. He had come down to the House last evening with the full intention of making that Motion, but as he had calculated on the Motions which preceded it occupying a much greater length of time, he arrived too late, which he deeply regretted. If he had been present the noble Lord would have spared himself the trouble of making so long a speech on that occasion. He could assure the noble Lord that, in giving notice of that Motion, he had not the slightest intention of imputing anything either to him personally or to his noble father; and if the noble Lord would compare the Motion with the particulars of the sale in the accounts of the Commissioners of Woods and Forests, he would at once perceive that nothing personal could be inferred from it. In the 15th Annual Report of the Commissioners, and signed by the noble Lord, in Appendix No. 2, there was a Schedule of all manors, lands, and hereditaments belonging to the Crown, which had been sold by private contract by the Commissioners of Woods and Forests. Then came the entry with respect to which he required explanation. The date was Oct. 16, 1843. It stated, under the head Cardiganshire, that the Crown had an interest in certain parcels of land adjoining Hafod estate, being waste, amounting to 7438 acres 36 perches, and that such lands were sold to the Duke of Newcastle for 1049l. 15s. 9d. Such was the entry in the Commissioners' Report. Now, if any one would compare it with his Motion, it would be perceived that it did not imply anything against the noble Lord. The Motion was as follows:— 433
Copies of all Surveys and Valuations of 7,438 acres 36 roods of land belonging to the Crown adjoining to the Duke of Newcastle's Hafod Estate in Cardiganshire, which has been sold to his Grace by private contract for 1,049l. 15s. 9d. by Her Majesty's Commissioners of Woods, Forests, and Land Revenues, as stated in the Appendix, No. 2 (A.), in the said Commissioners' Report for 1844.Now, if the noble Lord, or if any man, he did not care who, could point out on that Motion the slightest shadow of a shade of imputation against the noble Lord or his father, he would at once admit that the observations made by the noble Lord last night were justifiable. The House, he hoped, would permit him to state, that, in making that Motion, he had done it on purely public grounds. He had seen a statement, without any explanation appended to it, that freehold property of the Crown had been sold for 2s. 10½d. an acre, and it appeared to him that some explanation was clearly called for. He never doubted that the noble Lord would be able to give that explanation. All he wished to know was, the state of the property and the value of it. He had moved for Returns for that purpose. The hon. Member for Montrose had last night taken up the Notice which he had given. He thought that much evil would necessarily arise if the practice were continued, of one Member taking up the Motion of another. Perhaps it would be some satisfaction to the noble Lord to know that in 1832 he had moved for a similar account. He then moved for copies of the certificate of conveyance, valuation and surveys of a manor of the Crown made previously or subsequently to the sale thereof. The noble Lord would perceive that this Motion was more extensive than that which he had placed on the Paper of yesterday. He had made the former Motion because the property had no sooner been conveyed by the Crown, than the party purchasing it proceeded to remove nearly a hundred poor men who had settled upon it. They had by their labour made the ground valuable—brought it into cultivation from a state of waste, and erected cottages upon it.. Yet the purchaser threatened to compel every one of them to yield up the whole of their property—a thing never comtemplated by the Crown. The case was carried before the Queen's Bench, and the Lord Chief Justice decided that the purchaser had no right to compel these people to withdraw. Notwithstanding this the purchaser gave notice 434 to these parties that he would commence actions against every one of them unless they resigned their rights. A representation of the case was made to him, and he made a representation of it to the noble Lord then at the head of Woods and Forests (Lord Duncannon), who investigated and thoroughly sifted the whole case, and the result was that the purchaser withdrew all proceedings against the encroachers, and an amicable arrangement was come to. After such an occurrence he thought the noble Lord opposite ought not not to have felt surprised when he asked for an explanation with regard to the sale of the land in question. The low rate at which it was sold, 2s. 10½d. an acre, certainly struck him, for he had never imagined that there was within the boundaries of the island land of so little value. He made no charge against the noble Lord for having sold the property to his father. All he wished was the particulars of the sale. He did not mean to say that the purchaser of the property in question would act in the same way as the party to whom he last referred; but if the purchaser should, he would certainly assist the poor men in this as he had done in the other case: that was one reason why he had given notice of his Motion. It was important, in his opinion, that schedules of all encroachments should be furnished. He could assure the noble Lord that if he had been present last night matters would have ended in a very different way. The noble Lord had no grounds whatever for the observations which he then made. An hon. Gentleman had stated that he had seen the property, and that he did not think the 7,000 acres worth twenty acres of ordinary land. That might be, yet he confessed the insignificance of the price surprised him. All he knew was that the Hafod estate had been considerably enchanced in value by the purchase, and that the proprietor had asked a much larger sum for it than he had paid. He begged, however, to assure the noble Lord that he would have made a similar Motion, whoever might have been the purchaser, and that his sole object in doing so was to satisfy himself in regard to the encroachments. He maintained that all private sales of public property were fairly objects of inquiry by Parliament. He would say more, that no sales of Crown property ought to be private, and that they ought all to be made by public sale, as that was the only fair and just mode of proceeding. 435 He had, of late, occasion to point out the great mismanagement of Crown estates, as regarded the public, not as regarded the Crown. The Crown received a civil list of 385,000l., in exchange for which it had surrendered the whole of the Crown estates. These estates produced a very large sum of money, but the amount which went into the Treasury did not exceed 150,000l. or 160,000l. Formerly the revenue of the Crown estates sufficed not merely for the personal expenses of the Monarch, but for a large amount of expenditure, for the maintenance of the civil list, and even carrying on wars. The revenue of that property had dwindled down to its present insignificant amount, through mismanagement and wasteful expenditure; and he must say that the Department over which the noble Lord presided required as much looking after as any other Department of the Government. The noble Lord must not think that he was afraid of bringing this question before the House. He had not shrinked bringing on a similar Motion on a former occasion, and he would not shrink from doing his duty whenever the public interest required it.
The Earl of Lincolnsaid:—Sir, the hon. Gentleman opposite who has just sat down, has entered into a lengthened statement, and has addressed a very long speech to the House, for the purpose of justifying the Motion on this subject, of which he had given notice. I beg leave emphatically and distinctly to repeat, what I have already stated on last evening, that so far as I was personally or officially concerned, neither the Notice of the hon. Gentleman nor his Motion, required any justification. I stated distinctly on that occasion, that I by no means attached any blame to the hon. Gentleman for having given that Notice. I stated, that if the hon. Gentleman, or any other Member of this House, entertained suspicions that any public servant had been guilty of a dereliction of duty, either he, or any Member of this House, had a perfect right to bring it forward in his place, and to claim an explanation from him. But what I complained of, and what I still complain of, was—and I think I had a right to claim this as a measure of justice from the House, and the hon. Gentleman opposite—that when the hon. Gentleman conceived it to be his duty to place on the Books of this House a Notice of a Motion which plainly imputed to me, as a public servant, 436 corruption in the performance of my official duties, he did not think it equally his duty, not only towards me as a public servant, but also to this House, to attend in his place, and bring forward his Motion himself within as short a period as possible, and give that public servant as early an opportunity as he could of justifying himself. This was one of the complaints which I made against the hon. Gentleman; nor in anything which has fallen from the hon. Gentleman to-night has he, I think, cleared himself from that imputation. Such is my impression, at least; and I think the majority of this House will concur with me in that opinion. The hon. Gentleman has stated to-night, that it was better that hon. Gentlemen, Members of this House, whenever they give notice of their intention of introducing any Motion to this House, should bring forward their Motions themselves. With this assertion of the hon. Gentleman I fully agree. But the hon. Gentleman's practice does not correspond with his principles; for he did not attend here to bring forward his own Motion last night. The hon. Member for Montrose (Mr. Hume), who only originally intended to second the Motion of the hon. Member for Coventry, in the unexplained absence of the latter undertook to bring it forward, because he felt it to be his duty, and thought it only fair, when an imputation was cast upon the conduct of a public servant, by the terms of a Notice, to give such public servant as early an opportunity as possible of justifying himself. Why did not the hon. Gentleman himself attend then, and bring forward his own Motion? That was one of my complaints against the hon. Member opposite. Another cause of complaint against the hon. Gentleman, which I felt, and which I also stated to the House last night, was, that when the hon. Gentleman did think proper to put a Notice on the Books of this House, that Notice contained a most unfair representation of the transaction itself to which it professed to refer. The hon. Gentleman opposite has, with a perversion of vision which is to me perfectly extraordinary, read an extract from an official Report of the Commissioners of Woods and Forests, to justify the terms of his Notice. Now, I will undertake to show, and explain to the satisfaction, I trust, of every Member of this House, except, perhaps, the hon. Member for Coventry himself, that this extract introduced into his Notice, is at perfect variance with the Report itself; 437 and that it does convey to this House a very unfair representation of the case, and has the effect of misleading the House and the public as to the real facts of the case, and gives a different representation from what the Report itself really conveys. The Report from which the extract professed to be made was the Report of the Commissioners of Woods and Forests, presented to the House in August last. In page 29 of that Report appears the allusion to this particular property referred to during the present discussion. In noticing what was done respecting it, the Report goes on, and describes the property in question thus,—"the Crown's 'interest' in a certain portion of land adjoining the Hafod estate," &c. Now, the Return to be moved for according to the Notice of the hon. Member was, for "copies of all surveys and valuations of 7,438 acres and 36 roods of land, 'belonging to the Crown,' adjoining the Duke of Newcastle's Hafod estate," &c. Now that makes a most material difference in the facts of the case. Having an interest in is not the same as belonging to, or owning; and the inference intended to be raised cannot be mistaken. If the hon. Gentleman opposite, however, was unwilling to be present, in order to hear the explanation which I gave to the House last night, had he even taken the trouble to read the public prints this morning, he might have had his mind, perhaps, perfectly satisfied. Even had it been possible otherwise to have misunderstood my explanation, I think had he read the remarks, he might be convinced of its justice. Yet the hon. Member now comes forward, and has the hardihood to state, that notwithstanding all this explanation into which I have entered, had he been present last night, things would have taken a different turn. These are the two grounds of complaint which I have to make against the hon. Member for Coventry; but I will not detain the House, or trespass more on its patience, by entering any further into explanations of this subject, which, having so much of a personal character about it, makes it irksome to me to do so. I stated last night to the House, as I now state to the hon. Member, that I was ready to produce all the Papers connected with this matter. I stated to the House—which, however, did not seem to require it—that I was not only ready to produce all the documents bearing upon a right understanding of the present case; but moreover I requested the permission 438 of the House to be allowed to place before it every letter or note I could, which would explain this whole transaction from beginning to end. The only exception which I made, was with respect to an enormous mass of letters and correspondence which passed between Colonel Johnes' solicitors, and the solicitors of the Office; and which being so numerous, amounting sometimes to two or three in the week, would, instead of throwing any light on the case, only tend to confuse and overlay it, were they included. Their production would only have mystified the case to the House more and more; and, therefore, I excepted this correspondence as not being necessary; and, indeed, some of it was almost of a private nature. But if the slightest doubt or suspicion should remain on the mind of the hon. Gentleman opposite, the Member for Coventry—I am rather confident that no such doubt or suspicion is entertained by any other Member of this House—that the explanation I have given is not fully satisfactory, I hope that he will persevere in moving for all the Papers in this case, and for a full inquiry into its merits. Nay, I will now challenge the hon. Member for Coventry to ask for the production of every one of those Papers, documents, and letters. I will not at present enter into any further discussion of the merits of this case; but from what has just now passed, I think the hon. Member opposite is bound in justice to the House and to me to proceed further with this case, and bring it forward as fully and satisfactorily before this House as he can; and I think it will be by no means creditable to himself if he does not after what has occurred to night. I call upon the House distinctly to recollect what the hon. Gentleman opposite has said this evening. The hon. Gentleman has said, that if he had been in the House last night, when this case was under discussion, the result would have been a different one from what it was. I request the House to bear that observation in mind. I will not now enter into any further explanation relative to this matter, having already occupied more of the time of the House than I could have wished; but when all these documents are fully before you—when all the Papers connected with the present case are on the Table of this House—I then call upon the hon. Gentleman, injustice to the public and myself, to put a Notice of a substantive Motion founded upon them on the Books of this House.
Mr. Williamssaid, in explanation, that when he first wrote out the Notice in question, he had merely stated "copies of surveys and valuations of Crown Property purchased by the Duke of Newcastle, described in the following entry in the Report of the Commissioners of Woods and Forests," and there was a reference to the Report. That Notice he had shown both to an hon. Gentleman at the Ministerial side of the House, and his hon. Friend the Member for Montrose (Mr. Hume), and having asked their opinion of it, they had considered it would be more advisable to embody the extract in the Notice in the form which he had used, than give an extract itself in inverted commas.
§ Mr. Humesaid, as allusion had been made to him, he might be permitted to offer a word or two in explanation also of the course which he had pursued in this matter. He should observe, he was very sorry his hon. Friend was not in the House the previous evening. When his hon. Friend showed him the entry in the Report of the Commissioners of Woods and Forests, he had said to his hon. Friend, "This looks very suspicious; but I'd recommend you not to trouble the House about the matter, unless you are well acquainted with the facts of the case;" that was his advice to his hon. Friend. He had said that if the Papers presented to House on the Motion were not satisfactory, he himself would move for an inquiry into the matter. But he did not agree with the noble Lord the First Commissioner of Woods and Forests, that his hon. Friend was bound to bring forward a further case for investigation. If he was satisfied, he might hold his tongue. When his hon. Friend had been absent the previous evening, he had undertaken the responsibility of bringing forward his Motion. He thought it was only fair to give a party implicated by any Notice on the Books of the House the earliest possible opportunity of setting himself clear; and he thought he was really then doing only a kind act towards the noble Lord and his hon. Friend near him, by bringing forward the Motion and taking the responsibility of it on himself; and that his hon. Friend would be of that opinion also, he believed, after a very little reflection. But with regard to the explanation of the noble Lord, he felt bound to state, that long as his experience had been in Parliament, he had never heard an explanation more satisfactory, or more exculpatory than that given by the noble Lord.
§ Order of the Day read.