MR. PEELsaid, that in the absence of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, he rose to move the nomination of the Select Committee on this Bill as follows:—Mr. Peel, Sir STAFFORD NORTHCOTE, Mr. DUNLOP, Mr. CAVE, Mr. SCHOLEFIELD, Mr. EDWARD EGERTON, and Mr. BONHAM-CARTER.
§ MR. WYLDsaid, he must oppose the appointment of a Committee in the absence of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He wished to know what the Committee was to do—whether, for example, it was to inquire into the whole of the circumstances connected with the laying of the cable? He believed the contract was carried out in good faith by both the late and present Governments. Every one believed it would be beneficial both to India and to England; but the question, to his mind was, as to the power of the Committee to deal with the contract.
MR. PEELsaid, he thought the best way of determining the purpose for which the Committee was to be appointed was by referring to the object for which the Bill had been introduced. Now, the object of the Bill, as explained by his right 540 hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, was simply to carry out the intention with which the late Government on the one hand, and the Red Sea Telegraph Company on the other, had entered into an agreement for a guarantee of the Company's capital. That intention, according to the interpretation of the contract, by the law officers of the Crown was not carried out either by the contract or by the Act of Parliament; and the question turned altogether upon what the intention was of the Crown and of the Company in entering into the agreement. Was it the intention of the parties that the guarantee should be conditional or absolute, entirely irrespective of the success of the undertaking—a guarantee in which the whole risk was to rest with the Government? The inquiry of the Committee would be as to the intention of the Government and Company in entering into the agreement; not as to the policy of the measure. If it was desirable that the general question should be inquired into it would more properly come before another Committee. For the present, and for the purposes of the Bill, the Committee would have to deal simply with the intention of the parties.
SIR MINTO FARQUHARcould not help observing that every question which had been put to the Government on this subject had been most vaguely answered. The question before the public appeared to be somewhat misunderstood. Many did not comprehend why there should be a Committee at all. The hon. Member for Inverness-shire had put a question, the reply to which the parties interested could not understand; and the reply of the right hon. Gentleman opposite had now made confusion worse confounded. That right hon. Gentleman said the question to be inquired into was whether the guarantee was conditional or unconditional. The public had taken up the matter with much interest; marriage contracts had been drawn up on the basis of this guarantee, the project had been recommended as a Government security, and money never could have been raised unless it had been believed that the agreement was to be an unconditional one. Public faith was most clearly pledged, and the only question was simply this, how the contract was to be carried out. The question was submitted to the law officers of the Crown upon the contract. Then arose the question as to the agreement being 541 conditional or unconditional. Mr. Stepheson of the Treasury, actually gave the instructions to the solicitor of the Treasury, and the contract, therefore, was drawn out by the solicitor of the Government. It was thoroughly and entirely-understood that the contract should be fully carried out. This was clearly laid down by the right hon. Member for Buckinghamshire, and the hon. Baronet the Member for Stamford; and the statement now made would only confuse the public mind, and lead to the inference that it was questionable how far the contract should be carried out.
§ MR. GREGSONsaid, he had no doubt whatever that the guarantee was unconditional. There was a great desire on the part of the country generally to see that line of telegraph carried out; and the Government of the day were entitled to the highest credit for entertaining the question. They had endeavoured to make the best possible terms for the public. Without an unqualified guarantee the concern would not have floated. Whatever party had been in office at the time could not have made a better contract, and the late Government were entitled to unqualified praise for the patriotic and zealous manner in which they had given this guarantee.
§ ALDERMAN SIDNEYsaid, he must insist that the House was entitled to the fullest information as to how the company had performed their part of the contract, as well as to know the degree to which the public faith had been pledged. No doubt the Company was respectably formed, and that the Government had guaranteed to be paymasters; but there was not a scintilla of evidence that the Company had fulfilled their portion of the contract, and yet the country was called on to pay £36,000 a year for fifty years. The question had been discussed three times, and yet the House had not been favoured with the opinion of the law officers of the Crown as to whether the country was pledged to such payment.
SIR GEORGE LEWISsaid, he wished to recall the attention of the House to the real question before it. The House had already determined to appoint a Select Committee. That question did not now remain for discussion; the Motion was as to the parties proposed to be nominated. It would, therefore, be more convenient to confine the debate to who should be members of the Committee. The hon. 542 Member for Stafford (Mr. Alderman Sidney) asked for the opinion of the law officers of the Crown. The hon. Gentleman, with his Parliamentary experience, ought to be aware that it was not the practice of the Government to lay before the House the opinions of the law officers; that those opinions were confidential documents, intended for the guidance of the Government, and which were not under ordinary circumstances to be produced. But with respect to the understanding come to when the contract was made, that would be the subject for the consideration of the Committee. It would not be their duty or business to go into the policy of the engagement—a question wholly foreign to their inquiry. All they would have to inquire into was what was the nature of the engagement that had been entered into. When that inquiry had taken place, no doubt the House would receive full information.
§ MR. J. L. RICARDOsaid, that with all deference to the right hon. Baronet he thought the question put by the hon. Member for Bodmin (Mr. Wyld) was perfectly fair, and that when the Committee was proposed the hon. Gentleman had a right to ask what was the investigation into which they were to enter. Having heard the explanations of the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury, and the Home Secretary, it appeared to him that this so-called Committee of Inquiry was to make no inquiry at all. He really thought, when they named the Committee, they ought to have a perfect understanding as to what it was about to do. It seemed that the Committee was to investigate a question which the House did not want to know anything at all about. What they did want to know was simply this—whether the Company had complied with the agreement made by the Government, and what that agreement was. His own idea—and he thought he knew something of this matter—was that the Company had not at all fulfilled the engagement for which they were now about to pay £35,000 a year. He believed the arrangement made was to this effect:—The noble Lord at the head of the late Government had determined that this line should be in work for thirty days; but, when the matter went back to the Treasury, on the accession of the new Government, somehow or other it was so manœuvred that at last the arrangement came to be this, that if a certain section of the line should be in working condition 543 for thirty days, the Company should be I entitled to the £35,000 a year. Now, he believed the line had never been one single day in work throughout its whole length. That was the circumstance which ought to be inquired into in Committee. But if he gathered anything from what had fallen from the right hon. Secretary to the Treasury and the right hon. Baronet, he must say that that was a point from the investigation of which the Committee was to be interdicted. He wished to know, then, how the Company had fulfilled the engagement into which they entered with the Government. If the Committee were not to be at liberty to inquire into that, their labours would be of no use whatever, and the House had better go on with the Bill without their intervention. The explanations of the Government were not at all satisfactory, and he should be glad to hear that the Committee would not be fettered in their inquiry. If no such assurance were given, he would take leave to move that it be an instruction to them to investigate as to how far the Company had complied with the terms of the contract.
§ SIR CHARLES WOODsaid, the arrangement was one for which the present Government were not responsible, it having been made by their predecessors. A question had arisen, on which the opinion of the law officers of the Crown had been taken, and that opinion was to the effect that the Government were not legally bound. Her Majesty's Government, however, conceived that if not legally, they were morally bound to carry out the agreement which was supposed at the time to have been entered into by both parties. He believed, with his hon. Friend who spoke last, that the line had never, as a whole, been in working order, but each portion of it had; and a certificate had been given by an officer on the part of the Government that sections had been in that condition for the time stipulated. A Bill had, therefore, been introduced to carry out the engagement under which they considered that the Government had come. The House had determined that a Committee should be appointed, and the question now simply was who should be its Members. That Committee might report in favour of or against the Bill; but by them that investigation would be conducted, which all who had spoken agreed in thinking necessary. The object of everybody would, therefore, be attained 544 by the appointment of the Committee, whose Report would put them in full possession of the information they required. Surely, therefore, hon. Gentlemen who called for that information were defeating their own object by objecting to the nomination of the Committee.
§ Motion agreed to.
§ Select Committee nominated accordingly.
§ MR. WYLDsaid, he wished to give notice that he should move that it be an Instruction to the Committee that they should investigate all the circumstances connected with the undertaking, and how far the contract had been fulfilled.
§ House adjourned at Eleven o'clock.