§ MR. PEACOCKEsaid, he desired to call attention to the manner in which the foreign relations of the country had been treated in that House; and as the Government were about to take a short holiday, he hoped they would take into consideration some mode of improving the mode in which the discussions on foreign affairs had been conducted in that House. During the greater part of the Session all the important discussions on foreign affairs had been transferred to the other branch of the Legislature. In the middle of the previous month the noble Lord the Member for Chichester (Lord H. Lennox) asked a Question relative to the negotiations respecting the Crown of Greece; and the hon. Member for Southwark (Mr. Layard) replied that he could give him no information on 1959 the subject. The noble Lord thereupon said he would repeat the Question, when the hon. Member said that would be useless, because he would not then be able to give a more satisfactory answer. Within forty eight hours afterwards the question was brought under discussion in another place, when the noble Earl at the head of the Foreign Office spoke for an hour on the subject, entering fully into a discussion of the question. It was true that the noble Viscount had stated that the noble Earl did not disclose much on the occasion, but he (Mr. Peacocke) believed that Earl Russell had not yet acquired the art of speaking for an hour and saying nothing. On a subsequent occasion, the hon. Member for Sheffield (Mr. Roebuck) brought before the House the question of their relations with America—a question in which the entire country felt deep interest—and his observations were followed up by remarks from the hon. Member for East Norfolk (Mr. Bentinck). In reply, the noble Viscount said he could give no information on the subject; and the hon. Member for Southwark said "ditto" to the noble Lord. At that very time a discussion was going on in another place, where the noble Earl entered most fully into the subject, and gave assurances which, if made in the House of Commons, would have gone far to allay the irritation which had been felt by so many Members of that House. On Friday week, again, a most important question was to have been presented to the House by the hon. Member for Galway relative to the carriage of the mails to Matamoras; but it was not brought forward, in consequence of no House having been made. Very few persons could have arrived at any other conclusion than that it was the deliberate intention of the Government to withhold information and to avoid discussion. It was only last Friday, again, that the attention of the House was called to the question of China in an able speech from the hon. Member for Northumberland (Mr. Liddell). On that occasion did the hon. Member for Southwark enlighten the House on the subject? No; he deliberately sat still. The hon. Member for Southwark said he was labouring under a misapprehension on that occasion; but with his experience in the House he could hardly have been otherwise than aware that he could address the House more than once. He did not wish to make any charge against the hon. Member, because he would probably reply that he acted according to 1960 orders and instructions. But there was the fact that the Foreign Secretary sat in the other branch of the Legislature, while that Department was represented in the Commons by an Under Secretary. In fact, no less than four of the most important Departments of State were represented in that House by Under Secretaries. These were the great Department of War, the Department of the Navy, the Department of Foreign Relations, and the Department of the Colonial Empire. The Home Office and the Indian Empire were the only Departments represented in that House by their heads. He asked, were the Commons to be allowed to discuss only questions of the sewage of towns, the salaries of police, the affairs of India, and the navigation of the Godavery? It became every Member of the House to be jealous of the character and privileges of the House, and to prevent that Assembly, which had hitherto been considered the first representative Assembly in the world, from being degraded to the situation of a debating club, with no more power than a parish vestry.
§ MR. NEWDEGATEsaid, he thought that so far from there being any danger of the House of Commons being deprived of the power of discussion on foreign questions, there seemed to be a disposition in some of its Members to assume the whole of the functions of the Foreign Office. Whether the House was thoroughly able to discharge the multifarious duties of that office he would not then stop to inquire; but it appeared to him, as it seemed to have appeared to the last speaker, that if the House were to assume those functions, they ought to come to the discussions after due notice. But he rose for the purpose of asking a question of the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, whether the three Powers who held Poland under the Treaties of 1815 were bound to observe the conditions of those treaties?
§ MR. LAYARDsaid, that he was fully aware that he stood in need of great indulgence on the part of hon. Members, and that he did not discharge his duties with all the ability he would desire; but he trusted that hon. Members would do him the justice to say that he always endeavoured to do so to the utmost of his power. He thought that the hon. Gentleman who brought forward the question very much—no doubt quite unintention- ally—misrepresented what had occurred. There were two direct charges made against 1961 him (Mr. Layard). First, that he refused to give information regarding the acceptance of the crown of Greece, though the information was, in forty-eight hours afterwards, given in another place. Next, that he refused to give information respecting the Matamoras mails, though such information was also given in the other House. On both those questions he could satisfy the House that the hon. Gentleman was wrong. To the question regarding the crown of Greece, he thought it was his duty to give no answer. The hon. Gentleman said that the noble Lord at the head of the Foreign Department did give an answer in another place to that question; but the noble Lord did nothing of the kind. The noble Lord made a speech on the subject, but he positively declined to give the information asked from him (Mr. Layard) in that House. With respect to Matamoras, neither the noble Lord at the head of the Government nor himself had any information on the subject when he (Mr. Layard) spoke in reply to the question regarding the mails, because the mails arrived after he left the Foreign Office. The noble Lord was therefore in possession of the information an hour earlier than he was, and was consequently able to communicate it to the other House. He (Mr. Layard) might add, in reference to the Motion of his hon. Friend the Member for Galway, that he was certainly no party to counting out the House. So far from being a party to counting out the House, he rather regretted that he had not an opportunity of replying to the charges which he believed the hon. Member for Galway was about to make against the Government. On a previous Friday the House had declined to let the Government proceed with the Government business; and it was not extraordinary when the business was to be confined to the proceedings of private Members that the members of the Government should not hurry down to make a House. He (Mr. Layard) admitted that he was in error, in the course he adopted, with regard to the questions respecting China on Friday evening. He acted under a wrong impression, because he thought he could not have spoken more than once. The hon. Member said that foreign affairs were not discussed in that House, but there were no less than four Foreign Office questions on the paper on Friday night. It was natural for him, after the speech of his hon. Friend opposite (Mr. Liddell), to want to hear what other hon. Members had to say 1962 on the same subject, and respecting the other question on the paper; and so little did his hon. Friend know of the rule of the House, that when the Speaker put the Question, he cried "Aye," and thought he should get the papers, and was surprised when the Speaker left the chair. Therefore, if the hon. Gentleman charged him (Mr. Layard) with ignorance of the rule of the House, he could plead that his hon. Friend was ignorant of it also. His hon. Friend himself took a course which was some what unprecedented. He had for some time had upon the paper a notice ending with a statement that he would move a Resolution. On the day before, he asked his hon. Friend to let him see what he was going to propose, and his hon. Friend sent a note, which he did not receive until the following morning, containing a list of the papers for which he intended to move. These were, with one exception, papers belonging to the Admiralty, and with respect to which, therefore, his noble Friend the Secretary of that Department should have answered; but his noble Friend was not aware that such papers were to be moved for, and had left the House. He himself did not know what the papers were until the list was read from the chair, He was under a misapprehension as to the rules of the House, and was waiting to hear other Members before he spoke. It might be said that he could have replied to his hon. Friend, and that the noble Lord at the head of the Government could have answered the other hon. Gentleman. There were, however, other questions upon the paper, including that of Poland, and he thought that it would be rattier hard that the noble Lord should be called upon to make four or five elaborate speeches, He spoke with great humility, but he must express his gratitude to the noble Lord for so kindly supporting him in that House. He was glad when he could relieve him from any part of the arduous duties which he had to discharge; and on the evening in question he thought that it was fair that there should be a division of labour, and that he should take the China question. It was from no want of respect to the House that he remained silent; and if the debate had continued, he should have spoken.
§ MR. BENTINCKsaid, that whatever might be the arrangement of Her Majesty's Government with respect to the distribution of offices in that House and in another place, they were not likely to want an opportunity of discussing the affairs of other 1963 countries. It appeared to him, with all due deference to the distinguished Members who brought forward those various subjects so repeatedly, that those discussions were often of an unfortunate character, and not particularly conducive to the credit of that House. They heard a great deal of what was called non-intervention. Non-intervention was proclaimed right and left in that House as the becoming policy of the Government, and yet what was the practice of the House? Why, week after week hon. Gentlemen put forward their opinions with regard to other countries, urging the Government to a course of conduct which, if followed, would inevitably involve the country in war. Now, he would like to ask those hon. Members who were so enthusiastic about the affairs of Poland and other countries, whether they were in earnest in the language they held, and whether, if the Government acted upon their suggestions, they would be prepared to support the Government in the war which would be the inevitable result of the policy they recommended? His hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Mr. Peacocke) said that the House ought to be extremely jealous of its rights and privileges. Now, it was not his (Mr. Bentinck's) province to defend the Government, but he would say that whatever their misconduct had been, with reference to the mode of dealing with that House, it arose entirely from the want of determination which that House, had shown for some time past to defend its own rights and privileges. The House two years ago surrendered what was considered by many of the oldest Members of the House one of the most important rights and privileges of independent Members, and the inevitable consequence was that the Government could easily take advantage of that circumstance to avoid a discussion on inconvenient questions. Before he sat down, he wished to ask what business would be taken on the day the House re-assembled, on Thursday the 28th?
§ LORD ROBERT CECILsaid, he quite agreed with what had fallen from his hon. Friend as to the danger of departing from a policy of non-intervention, but certainly the speech of his hon. Friend the Member for Northumberland, which was intended to prevent the Government from taking the part of the Tartar dynasty in China and involving this country in boundless complications in that distant land, could have no such tendency. Nor with reference to the debate upon the case of the 1964 Peterhoff was his hon. Friend entitled to warn the House of danger to the principle of non-intervention, because it was his hon. Friend himself who brought that subject forward. The truth was that there was a good deal of fallacy in all the talk about intervention and non-intervention. Some interventions were right and some were wrong. He entirely approved the course which his hon. Friend took with reference to the Peterhoff, and believed his hon. Friend was right in the doctrines he then laid down. But his hon. Friend had no right to censure the hon. Member for the King's County for having taken a similar course with respect to transactions in another part of the world. With reference to the subject under discussion, the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs had quite mistaken his hon. Friend in supposing that any insinuation or sneer at his mode of discharging his duties was intended. They all respected the powers which the hon. Gentleman had displayed, and no one had any desire to cast any imputation upon him. It was not to the powers of the hon. Gentleman, it was to the situation which he occupied which they objected. They knew, that when he was defending a foreign policy in that House, he held a brief merely, and had to defend that in the framing of which he had no share. It was necessary, for the convenience of the two Houses of Parliament, that a certain number of Under Secretaries should sit in that House, and a certain number of heads of Departments in the other. The complaint was not of any want of ability on the part of the Under Secretaries who represented four of the most important Departments of the Government in that House; the complaint was that they had no share in framing the policy which they defended, and that therefore they were very inadequate representatives of the Departments which it was the duty of that House to supervise. The hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs was not quite accurate as to his facts. With respect to the Peterhoff debate, he thought the memory of the hon. Gentleman was altogether at fault. The noble Lord, on being questioned, did not say that he had no information to give, but that he absolutely declined to enter upon the subject. ["No, no!"] He was in the recollection of the House, and he confidently appealed to the reports to prove that that was the statement. The noble Lord stated, that the question was of so delicate and dangerous 1965 a nature that he must decline to give any information; but at that very time Earl Russell, in another place, was giving the amplest and fullest information. With respect to Turkey, he was surprised to hear the hon. Gentleman say that it was natural that the Government should not he anxious to keep a House, because there was no Government business on the paper. Was that the mode of conducting business, which they were to accept from the organ of Her Majesty's Government as the authorized system, that unless they had business coming before the House, they would think themselves at perfect liberty to take those measures which resulted in a count-out? A more damaging commentary upon the concessions which the House in a weak moment made to the Government, could not be imagined. With respect to the China debate, also, the Under Secretary had mistaken the facts. He gave the House to understand, that he was obliged to abstain from speaking at that time, in order that he might speak afterwards. [Mr. LAYARD said, that he had acknowledged that he was mistaken.] The hon. Gentleman said, that he was prepared to speak, and that he took notes. He was not wanted to take notes, but to speak, He sat still on the bench, looking exceedingly indignant at, all the charges which were made, but when the Speaker put the Question, he did not interfere, but allowed the debate to fall off. He was sure that the Government would reap no advantage from this, the most discourteous proceeding to a private Member that he could remember. The effect of such a mode of conducting business was only to multiply debates, by forcing hon. Members to have recourse to methods to drive the Government to an explanation of their policy, to which they would not have to resort if the Government would give the ordinary facilities for knowing what their policy was, and take care that the great Departments of the State were directly represented in the House, whose business it was to see that the Departments did their duty.
§ MR. MONCKTON MILNESsaid, as he had resisted the innovation in the mode of conducting their business when it was proposed two years ago, he was not at all surprised at the disappointment now experienced at the working of the modified rules of the House. He was gratified to find that hon. Members were fully awake to the difficulties of the position, and he was quite prepared to co-operate with any of them 1966 in concerting measures to remedy existing inconveniences. At the same time, he felt bound to say that he did not think there had been any intentional discourtesy on the part of Her Majesty's Government last Friday evening, for be could not conceive what possible advantage was to be expected from such a course. It was of great importance to Her Majesty's Government that the Chinese question should be fully debated before the return to China of Captain Sherard Osborne and those acting with him, because a great deal of inconvenience might ensue if a necessity arose for leading the expedition into action before the opinion of Parliament had been clearly ascertained. He believed Her Majesty's Government must have been fully aware of the advantage to the House and the country of such a debate, and certainly his noble Friend at the head of the Government would have been the last person to be guilty of discourtesy towards an hon. Member after an exhibition of ability such as proceeded from his hon. Friend the Member for Northumberland, He trusted, however, that Her Majesty's Government would take care that there should be no repetition of any such unfortunate occurrence.
§ MR. BAILLIE COCHRANEsaid, he I thought it was not asking too much of the noble Lord at the head of the Government to request an assurance, that during the remainder of the Session, Friday should be bonâ fide considered a night for Government business, and that Her Majesty's Government should take the same trouble to make and keep a House as they did when the most important Government business was coming on. The hon. Gentleman was in error when he said the House objected to go into Supply on Friday night when it was brought on by Her Majesty's Government; they only objected to do so at half past eleven o'clock at night—an hour when Supply would not naturally be brought on. He felt bound to point out to his hon. Friend, that next to receiving no information at all, receiving wrong information was the most unsatisfactory. The other night he put a question to the noble Lord respecting the acceptance by Prince William of Denmark of the throne of Greece, and the noble Lord made a very vague and indefinite reply. The morning but one afterwards there appeared in that public organ, which was believed to be under the peculiar patronage of the noble Lord—the Morning Post—a long article, stating that every- 1967 thing connected with the succession to the throne of Greece had been finally settled. So far from that being the case, however, it now appeared that the deputation from Athens was kept at Copenhagen, and that the Danish Government would not give them any reply before the 1st of June. There were, no doubt, occasions when questions addressed to Her Majesty's Government could not conveniently or advantageously be answered. But when information was freely conveyed to public journals, it was not unmeet that Government, in reply to the inquiries of hon. Members, should give them whatever accurate information they possessed.
§ SIR GEORGE GREYsaid, he thought that the question as to the failure of making a House on the only night during the present Session when this had occurred had already been fully disposed of. His noble Friend had expressed regret that no House was made on that occasion; and had promised that for the future Government would contribute to the formation of a House on Friday evenings. But it was only fair that the House itself should assist in the process, and on the occasion referred to there were not twenty Members present when the House was counted. Government had a right to expect that hon. Members having notices upon the paper would come down, and that their friends interested in the subject-matter of those notices, and prepared to take part in debate upon them, would also cooperate in making a House. With regard to what took place on Friday night, his hon. Friend the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs had candidly explained that he laboured under a misapprehension at the time the Question was put. But because he did not happen to speak at the moment, there was no reason why the debate should not have been continued by other Members. The noble Lord opposite had spoken of the alteration in the practice of the House, as if it was a concession made to the Government. He would remind the House that the Government made no proposal to change the course of business in the House; but a sense of inconvenience existing under the former practice suggested a reference to a Select Committee, and some of the recommendations of that Committee were ultimately adopted, but they in no way proceeded from the Government. If it were found necessary to review the course of business, the proper way would be to refer the subject again to a Committee. Then, objec- 1968 tions were taken to the fact of the Foreign Office being represented only by an Under Secretary in the House of Commons. A just tribute had been paid to the ability of his hon. Friend and the manner in which he performed the duties of the office, and he would remind the House that the present position of the Foreign Department was no modern innovation. The Earl of Aberdeen was for many years Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in the other House. The Earl of Clarendon also sat in the other House during the time he held the same office, and, under the Earl of Derby's Government, the Earl of Malmesbury was twice Secretary for Foreign Affairs. Under present circumstances, he thought there was no room for complaint as to the constitution of the Foreign Office. That Department was not represented only by his hon. Friend, but by the noble Lord the leader of the House, whose vast experience at the Foreign Office gave him an intimate acquaintance with all questions of foreign policy. It was said that such questions were never treated in the House of Commons with the respect they deserved. Hon. Gentlemen seemed to forget the debate which had taken place only a little while ago on the state of Italy. He asked whether that had not been a debate worthy of the House and of the subject. He maintained that on all foreign question the fullest information that was desirable was always given by his hon. Friend the Under Secretary and the noble Lord at the head of the Government, and that the subjects were treated with becoming gravity. In answer to the Question relating to the course of business on Thursday the 28th of May, he begged to say that the first Order of the Day would be the Report of the Vote taken the previous night with regard to the Dover Contract. Supply would not be taken, but the rest of the evening would be occupied with Bills of which due notice would be given.
§ MR. LIDDELLsaid, he wished to say a few words in explanation, as remarks personal to himself had been uttered in the debate. He fully acquitted the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs of anything like discourtesy to him on the occasion referred to; any discourtesy there might have been was to the House and to the country. A discussion, involving points of vital interest, had been raised, and no answer whatever was given to the speech originating that discussion. If the inference were drawn that Government wished to veil in secrecy and silence the irregu- 1969 larity of acts committed in China, he should regret it; but the Government would have nobody to blame but themselves. His hon. Friend accused him of not giving notice of the papers he required; but the fact was, that the night previous the hon. Gentleman had asked him for a list, and he then went into the lobby and wrote down all the particulars; but he found, when he had done so, that the Under Secretary had left the House. He then lodged the document in the proper quarter; and if it had not been forwarded, to the hon. Gentleman he was not to blame.