HC Deb 07 July 1863 vol 172 cc355-64
MR. BAILLIE COCHRANE

said, he rose to move the following Resolution:— That the large sums annually voted for Public Buildings and Improvements in the Metropolis are not expended in a satisfactory manner; and that, with a view to the efficiency of the Office of Works, it should be constituted on a different basis. He thought the circumstance that there had been so many discussions on the subject of Public Works during the Session, instead of being a reason why such a Resolution should not be moved, was, on the contrary, a reason why the House should pass a Resolution indicating strongly their opinion with respect to the manner in which those works were conducted. It was very hard that the House of Commons should be charged with the faults that had been found with the architecture of the metropolis. That that charge was unfounded, was, he thought, shown by the vote which had been given the other night as to the purchase of the structure at South Kensington. The country were, he thought, much indebted to the House for their vote that the South Kensington building should not be kept to be a disgrace to the country; for if, unfortunately, it had become the property of the country, instead of being "a joy for ever," it would have proved an incubus for ever. When first he put his Notice on the paper, he intended to end it at the first clause, "That the large sums annually voted for Public Buildings and improvements in the metropolis are not expended in a satisfactory manner;" but everybody asked him what was the use of stopping at a truism of that kind, for everybody knew that the money was not spent in a satisfactory manner. He therefore felt it necessary to make an addition, in order to induce Her Majesty's Government, after the Resolution was carried—as he hoped and trusted that it would be—to see during the recess in what way the Office of Works could be modified so as more adequately to represent and carry out the requirements and interests of the metropolis. A short time ago he had the honour of addressing the House on the subject of public works, and some of his friends told him that he had exhausted the case. But he had done nothing of the kind, for he should be able to prove the truth of his proposition without trenching on what he had stated on the former occasions. He would begin with Burlington House. It was purchased by the Government in 1852 for a sum of £160,000. In 1855, 1856, and 1857—in nearly every year since 1852—Her Majesty's Government had been asked by Members of that House what they intended to do with Burlington House. The same question was put to his right hon. Friend the First Commissioner of Works the other day, and he made a very mild joke about it. He rather turned it off; and the other night the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, when the same question was put to him, replied, "Wait till you come to a decision about the building at South Kensington, and then I will tell you what we will do with Burlington House." The grounds of Burlington House were now turned into a kind of practice ground for Volunteers, who threw up earthworks and carried on a kind of mimic warfare on a small scale. The house itself had been taken possession of by the Geological Society and some other societies, and the property was entirely lost to the country. Leaving Burlington House, he would next turn to the the National Gallery and the Royal Academy. In 1848 there was a discussion in that House on the subject of the National Gallery and the Royal Academy, and the result of an investigation by a Select Committee was that the two institutions should be separated. This was repeated in 1856 by a Select Committee, and again in 1857 by a Royal Commission. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bucks (Mr. Disraeli), then Chancellor of the Exchequer, in 1859 congratulated the country, in the course of his able speech, on the circumstance that the two institutions were to be separated. [See 3 Hansard, clii. 182.] What occurred in 1860? His right hon. Friend (Mr. Cowper) came down to the House and moved a Vote of £15,000 or £16,000 to improve the National Gallery. He also talked about getting up a magnificent facade, and of buying up the workhouse in the rear for the purpose of enlarging the building. The money was voted and spent in improving the Royal Academy and the National Gallery. Now, he understood, the Royal Academy was to be removed. If that were so, this sum of £18,000 would be entirely lost; while the National Gallery, if it was to remain where it now stood, was positively injured by the alterations that had been made. All these difficulties and inconsistencies arose from the constant change of the First Commissioner of Works, the average tenure of office of each person holding the appointment not being two years. The consequence was that new Commissioners were constantly coming into office and overthrowing what had been done by their predecessors. He now came to a very strange case, that fully illustrated his proposition. A very large sum of money was voted for the Duke of Wellington's funeral. After payment of all expenses a balance of £25,000 or £30,000 remained in the hands of the Government, and it was determined to erect a monument to the Duke in St. Paul's. But from that day to this they had heard nothing of the monument, and what had become of the money he knew not. It was not his intention to cast blame on any particular Commissioner of Works, and he believed that his right hon. Friend opposite (Mr. Cowper) was anxious to discharge his duty as efficiently as possible;—what he blamed was the system. With regard to the Foreign Office, there was in 1838 the decision of a Committee that that buiding was not adequate for its purpose, and not even safe. Twenty-five years had since elapsed, and not a stone of any new Foreign Office had yet been laid; and yet what money had been squandered on plans and Commissions. For the Houses of Parliament the first estimate was £700,000, and very nearly £3,000,000 had been expended. What an unfavourable opinion many hon. Members entertained of the building they all knew. The hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets (Mr. Ayrton) had said that it was a disgrace to the country; and the hon. Baronet the Member for Buckingham (Sir Harry Verney) declared that there were so many draughts in the House that he could not come down to it without putting on a pair of worsted stockings. The Record Office was incomplete, and was not to be completed, he understood; and the records of the country were heaped up in old cellars and musty rooms not safe against fire. With respect to the War Office, a Select Committee had expressed the opinion that it should be placed in the neighbourhood of that House; the passages were so dark and intricate that no one could find his way through them—the reason the War Office was kept in Pall Mall was that the Secretary and Under Secretaries had agreeable apartments overlooking the Park. Under the present system there was a great waste of the public money, without any satisfactory result. He now came to one case which he believed would astonish the House. It was mentioned on a previous occasion by an hon. Member, and a more curious specimen of the mismanagement of public money he had never heard of. It appeared that it was proposed to place a floating light on the Little Basses Rocks, Ceylon, and the hon. Member to whom he alluded stated— These rocks were in the direct line of the steamers between Point de Galle and Madras, and as early as 1826 it was represented to the Government that they ought to be lighted. In 1848 the Government made up their minds to do something, and wrote to Ceylon for advice how lighthouses could be erected. Six years afterwards, in 1854, they got Reports showing that floating lights were impracticable, and strongly recommending the building of light-houses on both the Basses Rocks for the estimated sum of £4,500. In 1355 Parliament voted £3,000; in 1856 £17,000, and £6,000 for a steamer to carry the materials; in 1857, £8,000; in 1858, £10,000; and in 1859, £10,000; making a total of 54,000, for which there was never any other estimate than the one of £4,500. Even now the lighthouses were not put up, and he saw them on the wharf at Point de Galle. In 1860 they were told that they could not put up a light-house, and that they must have a floating light, which was in the first instance condemned. Accordingly, in 1861 the House voted 8,000, and in 1862, £2,000 more for a floating light. The money was not expended, and now they were asked to vote £8,000." [3 Hansard, clxxi. 551.] The whole of the sums made up a total of £80,000 voted for these lights, of which £54,000 was entirely wasted. Surely this was trifling with the public. On another point he must do his right hon. Friend justice. His right hon. Friend had not been quite satisfied with what he (Mr. Cochrane) had stated on a former occasion as to the Serpentine; and they had since driven together to see the fountains. Certainly the fountains were playing that day, and the water was pretty clear. But he was forced to say that the only things he really admired were the water lilies. The water in the Serpentine was perfectly green; and if the right hon. Gentleman's friend bathed in the Serpentine, all he could say was, that if he took the colour of the water, he must come out very green. With respect to the monolith, they put a jet costing £300 eight feet above the level of the water. Next, as to the land sold at Carlton Gardens. He understood that land at Carlton Gardens had been sold for one-third of its value. Why had that property been so sold? He thought he was justified in making this Motion on the authority of the noble Lord at the head of the Government, and he could not for the life of him understand how the noble Lord could vote against the Resolution. The noble Lord had recently stated that the great commerce and population of the metropolis had tended to impair its architectural and ornamental character. "Our streets," he said, "are narrow, our open spaces few and small, our public buildings not showy. What is the reason of the inferiority of this city as compared with other first-rate towns in regard to the conditions of the space occupied and the character of the buildings?" His (Mr. Cochrane's) answer was, that the inferiority was owing to the organization of the Office of Works. Then again the Chancellor of the Exchequer said the other night, "For a long time it has been observed, and with rare unanimity, that every possible evil of vacillation, uncertainty, delay, expense, and many others that I need not now repeat, attend our method of management of those great questions of public works." ["Order!"]

MR. SPEAKER

said, the hon. Member was not in order in quoting extracts from speeches in a past debate.

MR. BAILLIE COCHRANE

said, he was sorry he was out of order. There would at least be no objection to his citing the opinion of a great and influential journal, whose articles on matters of taste were generally very just and accurate. The Times lately said— It is impossible to point to any public building which answers its purpose and satisfies the public. We possess many buildings which have their merits, and which, for our part, we cherish as monuments of taste and skill; but, for one reason or another, they are more or less costly failures, and so confessed to be. If they are not, the British people are a very complaining, unthankful race. Were they to go on for ever in this way, year after year, doing nothing but discussing the subject, and thereby self-humiliating themselves before the world? Were no steps to be taken to remedy the existing evils? Did the House know that nearly a million of money passed every year through the Office of Works? Since 1848 no less a sum than three millions sterling had been expended on arts and sciences, and the only return they had for it were "The Brompton Boilers," the National Gallery, and the additions to the British Museum—nothing else. It was not for him to say what should be done. The horn Member for Finsbury (Sir Morton Peto) had proposed that the First Commissioner should, as in France, be surrounded by a body of practical advisers. Had such a system been in operation, he did not believe that the scene of Thursday last would have been possible. Either the Council would have appreciated the objections to the building, or they would have recommended the purchase with such authority that it would have been at once agreed to. He thought he had proved his case, and had shown that something ought to be done, and he believed that the only remedy now was a strong Resolution of that House, such as that which he now begged to submit.

MR. FERRAND

seconded the Motion.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That the large sums annually voted for Public Buildings and Improvements in the Metropolis are not expended in a satisfactory manner; and that, with a view to the efficiency of the Office of Works, it should be constituted on a different basis."—(Mr. Baillie Cochrane.)

MR. COWPER

said, his hon. Friend was well known as a man of cultivated taste, and no doubt it was painful to him to see in the metropolis so many buildings which offended his fastidiousness. He wished, however, that his hon. Friend had taken a little more trouble to inquire into the cause of what distressed him. No doubt there were short-comings attributable to the existing Office of Works, but it was not responsible for many things that had been laid to its charge; and it was rather curious that all the instances which the hon. Member had cited to show the mismanagement of the Department, were cases for which it was not answerable. With regard to Burlington House, the original purchase money was £140,000: the purchase was completed in 1854; and, instead of being of no use, it had been very serviceable in accommodating various learned bodies, such as the Royal Society, the Senate of the University of London, the Chymical and Linnæan So- cieties, and others, and in relieving Somerset House, which had previously been inconveniently occupied by those societies. If it had depended only on the Office of Works, the National Gallery would already have been erected on the site of Burlington Gardens; but the action of the Department depended on other and wider considerations. As to the National Gallery, it was certainly not a building to be proud of, but the Office of Works had had little little discretion in its construction. He might, perhaps, be permitted to say that with regard to that building the original fault was in spending too little money for such a building in such a position. The Government of the day were so economical that they first proposed to build the Gallery for £50,000. The Commission had recommended the use of stucco; but the then Secretary to the Treasury, Lord Monteagle, persuaded the House to add to the Vote the cost of stone. There could be no doubt, that a building of such a character in such a situation should have been more liberally treated. The hon. Gentleman had used Buckingham Palace to attack the Office of Works, but the Surveyor of Works had declared, in 1839, that Mr. Nash received his orders, not from the Office of Works, but from the Sovereign himself, or from the Treasury. His hon. Friend was at such a loss for materials for his Bill of indictment against the Department that he actually went to the Basses Rocks for a grievance, forgetting that it was the Board of Trade and the Admiralty which had jurisdiction over light-houses, and not the office of Works. The sale of land at Carlton Gardens was equally beyond the scope of his Department. The only accusations which at all came near them was as to the water in the Serpentine; and even there, if weeds would grow, he did not see how he could keep the water clean. He did not feel bound to stand up for the architectural features of the metropolis, but still it contained many satisfactory buildings. Where, for instance, was there a more handsome building than Somerset House? The Mint, Custom-house, Post Office, and Museum of Geology, were simple and substantial structures, very suitable for the purposes for which they were intended. His hon. Friend had included in his Motion the improvements in the metropolis; and had asked what improvements had been made? He (Mr. Cowper) might point to Cranbourne Street, New Oxford Street, and the thoroughfares recently provided in connection with the Embankment of the Thames. But the hon. Gentleman had completely failed in showing the slightest connection between the complaints he had made and the constitution of the Office of Works. The hon. Member had not sufficiently considered what the Office of Works was. In early times it was a subordinate Board, consisting of architects. At one period it was composed of Sir Christopher Wren, Sir John Vanbrugh, a master mason, and a master carpenter. For a long time its powers were very limited. The Board, for example, could not expend £500 without the authority of the Lord Chamberlain; nor £1,000 without the sanction of the Treasury. In 1813 a public inquiry led to the appointment of General Stephenson as head of the Board and the responsible accountant. In 1832, for the first time, the office of Works was put under the control of a Minister of the Crown, and then matters were somewhat improved. Still, the system of a Board was not found to work well, and in 1851 the present constitution was adopted. The business of the Office was to maintain and repair about 120 buildings in England and 24 in Scotland. There were 17 parks and gardens to be looked after, and there were 80 post offices and 41 probate registries also to be kept up. Those were duties in the ordinary routine of the Office. The Office was likewise required, when any new and important improvements were contemplated, to prepare estimates and information for the guidance of Government and Parliament; and when the works were actually agreed upon, to select the architects, make the contracts, and see that no unnecessary expense was incurred. He ventured to say that there was no Office under the Crown conducted on a better method, with more accuracy, or with more efficiency. The system of accounts was generally acknowledged to be admirable, and the permanent officers were efficient. The Secretary was a permanent officer; Mr. Austin had managed the finances in a satisfactory manner; the consulting surveyor, Mr. Hunt, was thoroughly up to his business; and, besides the architect, the permanent staff comprised seven assistant surveyors, fifteen clerks of the works, and four superintendents of parks. But the assistance at the disposal of the office was not confined to the regular staff, for whenever there was occasion, the highest professional ta- lent was sought for. At this moment, Mr. Scott was building a new Foreign Office, while the completion of the Houses of Parliament had been intrusted to the hands of Mr. Edwin Barry. Mr. Fowler was frequently consulted as an engineer, and on questions of landscape gardening the office had recourse to Mr. Nesfield, who, with rare disinterestedness, had given his services gratuitously. When the decay of the stone of the Houses of Parliament was under consideration, the office consulted Professor Faraday, Sir Roderick Murchison, and a commission of eminent geologists and chemists. In like manner, Professor Airey, had given his opinion on the clock and bells. The hon. Member wanted to make the head of the Office a permanent officer, and for that proposal be had the sanction of the Committee of 1860; but, it would be a retrograde movement, reducing the Office to the subordinate position it occupied before 1832. As long as the heads of the Treasury changed, no advantage could be derived from making the First Commissioner a permanent officer. The recommendation of the Committee was that the head of the Office should be permanent; and that the Department should be represented in Parliament by a sort of talking Minister. That experiment had recently been tried and had broken down in France, and he believed it would not be tolerated a single day in this country. How would hon. Members like to have their questions answered by a Minister who had no control over the Department which he represented, and for the doings of which he could not be held responsible? The alternative of a Board was also objectionable. Such a Board as the hon. Gentleman shadowed out—consisting of men of taste, science, and art—would not be a really effective administrative body—it would probably degenerate into a debating club. One reason why so many questions connected with the public offices remained in abeyance, was because they had had so many Committees and Commissions, entertaining such conflicting views that the Government of the day could not act upon their recommendations. The delays in regard to the Foreign Office were partly attributable to the Committees, five in number, which had sat upon that subject. Four Committees and two Commissions had sat upon the National Gallery; and with respect to the British Museum, he forgot how many Committees and Commissions there had been. The House would make a great mistake if it agreed either to alter the constitution of the Office of Works, or to relegate it to a subordinate position, when it would be without any one directly to represent it in Parliament. In fact, the latter course would be quite unconstitutional. Every Department intrusted with the expenditure of public money must be represented either by its head or by its Secretary in that House. [An hon. MEMBER: The Office of Woods is not.] The Office of Woods did not come within the category to which he referred, because it did not expend, but only received, public money, and, like the other Revenue Departments, it was responsible to the Treasury. It would be inexpedient to weaken the authority of the Office of Works. The great misfortune of all these questions in relation to architecture and the promotion of the arts was, that there had been a want of authority in the Government to deal with them. They had been made the battle-field of rival pretenders to taste, and of antagonistic schools of art; and, instead of being grappled with seriously, they had been impeded and postponed by individual differences of opinion. In place, therefore, of going back in the direction suggested by the hon. Member, it would be better to strengthen and give more authority to the Office of Works. It might, indeed, be an advantage to the occupant of that office if permanence of tenure were added to its other attractions, and he was not liable to be displaced through the vicissitudes of political parties. But the House ought not to part with that influence and control over a Department intrusted with a large public expenditure to which it was legitimately entitled. Although, then, the hon. Gentleman had criticised some portion of the architectural performances of the Government in past days, he had not proved that there was any flaw in the constitution of the Office of Works, as it had existed since 1851, and therefore the House would do well not to sanction this Motion.

Question put.

The House divided:—Ayes 24; Noes 116: Majority 92.