NOTICE OF MOTION WITHDRAWN. (Hansard, 24 February 1859)

§ Mr. Speaker

I have to intreat the indulgence of the House, which I am sure will be readily granted when I say that I am addressing you, Sir, and the House probably for the last time, while I explain the course which circumstances have forced me to take, with reference to the Resolutions you have now called on me to move. I feel it a duty incumbent on me to do so, here in my place, because these Resolutions are, as no one will doubt, of the highest importance, and invested with great interest in the eyes of many thousands of excellent persons out of doors, who are awaiting with anxiety the issue of any discussion, within these walls, of a subject so momentous. I have also the honour of knowing that very many hon. Members of this House share that anxiety, whether agreeing with, or differing from the Resolutions. You may recollect Sir, that on the last day of the last Session I gave notice, in the following terms—cautious, as I hope they will be thought—of my intention to submit to the House certain Resolutions on a very early day in the then next Session, Expressive of the opinion of this House, as to the principles by which the Queen's Government in India should hereafter be regulated, with reference to the promotion of Education, and the adoption of such preparatory measures as can be safely brought into action, with a view, ultimately, to the extension of Christianity. Fully aware of the responsibility which the giving of such a notice cast upon me 775 I have devoted a great deal of valuable time during the recess, to the framing of these Resolutions, which have been submitted to the ablest and most experienced men to whom I could get access—men of practical familiarity with the subject, some of them having resided in India, and to the preparation of such arguments, and the collection of such information, as tended to support the Resolutions. Well, Sir, yesterday week (the 16th inst.) I was busily engaged preparing for this evening, when I most unexpectedly received from the Lord Chancellor a letter offering me, in general and unconditional terms, the vacant office of Master in Lunacy, which had, a day or two before, been the subject of painful allusion in this House. I trust I need not assure the House, that neither directly nor indirectly had I solicited such an offer, nor could I possibly entertain the least idea of doing anything so unbecoming and derogatory. After re covering from the surprise into which the letter had thrown me, I took for granted that the office, being of a judicial nature, would on general principles be inconsistent with a seat in Parliament, and immediately wrote a letter to the Lord Chancellor, in which, after calling his attention to my Resolutions then standing in the Votes for this evening, I said— I am profoundly in earnest in this matter—that of attempting, however humbly and unworthily, to lay before this House and the country, the elements of a scheme of acknowledged Christian policy, for the government of a fifth of the human race. If an office of £50,000 a year were offered to me, it could not and should not induce me to desert my post—voluntarily occupied—and subject me justly to the reproach of men, and the condemnation of my own conscience, as having basely sold my birth-right—the privilege of such an opportunity—for a mess of pottage. I know, my dear Lord Chancellor, that no man living more thoroughly appreciates such a feeling as this than yourself. If, therefore, it is necessary for me to decide between this day and Thursday the 24th instant, I beg most gratefully and respectfully at once to decline your offer. As I was finishing this letter, which I now have with me, it occurred to me that this particular office might, after all, not be one that would require me to vacate my seat; and after carefully referring to the statute creating the existing jurisdiction in Lunacy, and other Acts of Parliament and authorities in Election law, and consulting with a gentleman for whose opinion on these matters we all have a great respect, I came to the conclusion that acceptance of the office did not interfere with my seat in Parliament. On this I wrote a second letter to the Lord Chancellor, not sending the 776 former, accepting the office, and stating most distinctly that I did so, because I found that I could retain my seat; his letter to me having made no allusion whatever to the matter. As I feel this a matter touching my personal honour and character in a vital point, I beg leave to read the first portion of the letter which I sent off that evening. Temple, 16th Feb. 1859. MY DEAR LORD CHANCELLOR, When your letter reached me I was immersed in statistics relating to my Resolutions on Education and Christianity in India, specially appointed for to-morrow week (Thursday the 24th inst.) and which have been on the Votes since the first day of the Session. Your offer took me altogether by surprise; and as I find, on referring to the statutes and authorities, that I am not disabled from sitting in Parliament, being appointed not by the Crown, but by the Lord Chancellor, and also during good behaviour, I am relieved from any imputation which ill-natured persons might have attached to me, of having sacrificed to personal considerations the discharge of that which I regard as a great public duty. Happening to see the Lord Chancellor late that evening, he entirely concurred in this view, congratulated me upon the circumstance and requested me to attend him in his private room in the House of Lords the next afternoon, to be sworn in. When I did so, I was greatly concerned and surprised to find that his Lordship had in the meantime come to the conclusion, which he expressed to me in the most considerate terms, that the office of Master in Lunacy was not one that ought to be held by a Member of the House; that he intended to insert a prohibitory clause to that effect in the pending Lunacy Bill, and could not, under such circumstances, confer on me the appointment, except on that footing. I begged time to consider so serious a matter, the aspect of which had been so suddenly altered, and in the kindest way he gave me till the next evening to do so; informing me, in answer to my inquiry, that as the business of the office was already in arrear, he could not think of keeping the office vacant, as I had proposed, till after the 24th inst. Having consulted with a friend in the country, without whose advice and concurrence I take no step of importance in public life, I waited on the Lord Chancellor on the ensuing evening, and told him that if he remained in the same mind—and he said he did, subsequent reflection having only strengthened his conclusions—I begged leave finally to decline the offer he had made me, and which I said I felt it impossible to accept, without disabling me from 777 doing my duty, and ruining my character as a public man, and as a Member of this House, and subjecting not only myself to intolerable suspicion and misrepresentation, but possibly even compromising himself and the Government. He cheerfully agreed, seeing me so earnest, to leave the matter open once more till the ensuing Monday. I returned direct from his Lordship's room to this House, and was encountered by a number of friends—among them four of the most eminent and distinguished in the House; one of them, my noble Friend, now sitting beside me, the Member for the East Riding (Lord Hotham) who strenuously urged on me that my scruples were groundless, and that I could with the nicest sense of honour and conscientiousness accept the Lord Chancellor's offer, and that nobody would be absurd enough to impute to me base motives in so doing. My noble Friend, with all the great weight due to his character and opinions within, and out of, this House, was most decisive in the view he had taken. To my noble Friend's powerful representations at last I yielded, for I had just before been made acquainted with a strangely altered state of things with reference to my Resolutions, without any reference to those personal considerations to which I have referred. My two hon. Friends, the Member for Perth (Mr. Kinnaird) and for North Warwickshire (Mr. Spooner) emphatically assured me that in the opinion of the great religious bodies, who had had my printed Resolutions under their anxious consideration, the present was a most inopportune moment for bringing them forward and discussing them in this House—that whatever intrinsic merit they might have, much mischief would inevitably be done in India by stirring in them here, at this present conjuncture. I beg to read to the House a letter which my hon. Friend (Mr. Spooner) put into my hands, and which had very great weight with me—for all in this House, I am sure, personally respect him. National Club, White Hall, February 18th, 1859. MY DEAR WARREN,—I have often had great pleasure in consulting with you on questions involving moral and religious considerations, and happily we have almost, if not entirely, agreed on every such occasion. Allow me now to state my opinion, an opinion formed not without deliberate and anxious consideration, that the present moment is very inopportune for bringing forward and discussing your Indian Resolutions. Thoroughly as I agree in the principles laid down in those Resolutions (although differing perhaps in some of the details,) I greatly fear that the discussion 778 of them in the House at the present moment would be misunderstood in India, and consequently jeopardize the great cause we have so much at heart. Ever since the appearance of your Resolutions I have consulted many of my friends, on whose judgment I can safely rely, and whose opinion I am in the habit of asking, and I find that they universally concur in the view I have above taken. I know you will receive this as it is meant, and give it grave considerations. Believe me, my dear Warren, Yours very faithfully, RD. SPOONER. Subsequently to receiving this letter, my hon. Friend the Member for Perth (Mr. Kinnaird) to whose opinion also, on this subject, I felt bound to defer, communicated to me documentary evidence, at this moment in my possession, of an important character, and, from another quarter, decisively corroborating the views of the hon. Member for North Warwickshire.

Although the Lord Chancellor, who has throughout behaved to me in the kindest and handsomest way possible, had given me till Monday morning, I felt it my duty to wait upon him at all early hour the next (Saturday) morning, when he showed me a letter written by himself to me, lying on his table, and which was to have been sent off almost immediately. He read it to me himself, and I only wish, so much honour does it reflect upon him, that I were at liberty to read every word of it to the House. Being marked private, however, I cannot do so. He assured me most distinctly that the idea of my proposed Resolutions for Thursday next had never crossed his mind, and that he had not had the slightest communication with any of his colleagues on the subject—that his objection was on general grounds, and not in the smallest degree personal to myself, or with reference to my intended proceedings in this House: that he then saw clearly the position in which I should be placed, and perhaps the Government also, if I were to leave Parliament before Thursday next. His Lordship said again that he was the only person responsible in the matter, and no one else had anything to answer for with respect to it. He said finally that he should deeply regret that my character should suffer on the one hand, or that I should be called upon to make any sacrifice on the other; and would therefore give me till Saturday next to decide whether I would or would not accept the office; which would enable me to fulfil the duty I had undertaken, and secure—his Lordship was pleased to say—my services to the public, in the office for which he considered me fitted. Sir, having 779 been thus considerably freed from everything that could fetter my movements, or bias my mind, my presence here in my place to-day is a sufficient vindication, I hope, of the pnrity of my motives, and the propriety of the course I have determined to take, and the honourable manner in which I have been dealt with by the Lord Chancellor. I am prepared to support every one of my Resolutions, which have been deeply considered by me in all their bearings, and contain my fixed and matured opinions on the transcendant question to which they refer. But, Sir, after what has happened, and deserted as I have been at the eleventh hour, by that moral support on which I had relied both within and without these walls, and assured by those whom I respect that I should, by persisting in my own course, only injure the great cause I had wished to serve—what can I do, but withdraw my Resolutions? I do therefore, withdraw them, and hope that my conduct in doing so cannot possibly be misunderstood. I felt this explanation absolutely due to my own character individually, and as a Member of the House, for I shall have no future opportunity of vindicating here my procedure in this matter. And now, Sir, there remains for me only to express my deep sense of the personal kindness with which I have always been received by this House, for which I entertain a profound respect,—and to perform the most painful duty I ever had to perform in my life, that of bidding you, Sir, and this House, a reluctant and respectful farewell.