§ MR. GRANVILLE VERNONsaid, since Her Majesty had undertaken to issue a Royal Commission to inquire into the site of the National Gallery, he wished to put a question upon the subject to the noble Lord at the head of the Government. The Committee which sat in 1853 on the same subject felt itself impeded from recommending any sites which it really considered to be the best from a delicacy with regard to the nature of the tenure of those sites. Now he did not wish to trouble the noble Lord to state specifically what instructions would he issued to the Commission, but perhaps the noble Lord would be so good as to say whether the Commission would have full power to propose such a site as they might consider the best adapted to the purpose.
§ VISCOUNT PALMERSTONI cannot tell my hon. Friend what the instructions will be, because the Commission has not yet been appointed; but of course it will 557 be open to them to make such suggestions as may appear to them to be the hest to make with regard to the site. I can only repeat, however, what I stated in the discussion of this question, that there are places—such as the Royal Palaces at St. James's, and Kensington Gore, and Marlborough House, which no Government would agree to have converted into the National Gallery, even though they should be recommended by the Commission, and for this obvious reason—that such places are the private property of the Crown.