§ SUPPLY—considered in Committee.
§ (In the Committee.)
§ (1.) £5,184, to complete the sum for Magnetic and Meteorological Observations, &c.
§ MR. AUGUSTUS SMITHsaid, he had before objected to the weather table issued under the auspices of the Board of Trade, and he still entertained the belief that no reliance could be placed on those 1599 prophecies or forecasts of the weather which had lately appeared, and which had very rarely been verified. It was said the forecasts were based on scientific principles, but unfortunately that did not save them from being contradicted by events. About two years ago a forecast was made of an expected gale from the north. It happened, however, that the gale blew from the south, and its effects were very mischievous. In another case a gale from the south-west was prophesied, but instead of blowing on our coasts, as it was stated in the forecast it would, it visited the Baltic, and fortunately was confined to that sea. He had gone through the different tables of forecasts, and had found them twice wrong to once right. He wished to know, whether any instructions had been issued by the Admiralty that their sailing vessels should be governed by the forecasts?
§ LORD CLARENCE PAGETsaid, he differed from the hon. Gentleman, and believed he expressed the opinion of every seafaring man in the country, when he characterized the remarks just made with respect to Admiral Fitzroy's signals as very unfair. Admiral Fitzroy never professed to prophesy exactly what the wind was going to be, but said that the system was still in its infancy, and required great development. It was, however, making progress, for every European Government was adopting it and making a comparison of observations. In reply to the Question, whether naval officers were to be governed by the weather signals, he could only say that he thought an officer would be blamed if he went to sea in spite of a bad weather signal, and caused damages to occur to his ship, unless he was under some stringent orders on no account to delay his voyage. All along the coast, the seafaring population paid great attention to the signals. His own constituents, who were upon the sea coast, had repeatedly expressed their satisfaction with the system; and he thought it would be extremely unwise, now that the system was becoming developed, suddenly to stop it.
§ MR. DILLWYNsaid, he understood that his hon. Friend did not object so much to the weather drums which were intended to indicate from what quarter a gale was coming, and which might be serviceable, as to the pretences of forecasting the weather. Those weather prophecies, he thought, did not mislead the public, for the public paid no attention to them. 1600 These prophecies were like Ministerial answers—they might be read in a hundred different ways. He hoped his hon. Friend would divide the Committee against the Vote. The noble Lord talked of the system being in its infancy. It would be time enough to ask for a Vote when the system had attained a mature growth.
§ MR. LAIRDsaid that, being connected with a seafaring population, he could state that the weather observations were considered very important, and had been the means of saving a vast amount of life and property.
§ Vote agreed to,
§ (2.) £500, Royal Geographical Society.
§ (3.) £1,000, Royal Society.
§
(4.) Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a sum, not exceeding £500, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1865, for enabling the Directors of the Royal Academy of Music to provide accommodation for the Institution.
§ MR. BERNAL OSBORNEsaid, he wished to ask for an explanation of the Vote.
MR. PEELsaid, that the Royal Academy of Music had existed for thirty or forty years, during which time it had been a self-supporting institution. Its object more particularly was to afford to persons desirous of entering the musical profession an education in this country as good as on the Continent. The expenses of the Academy had been on the average of the last few years £500 a year greater than the receipts from the pupils. The deficiency was made up by voluntary subscriptions and by money derived from a sum which had been invested. That sum of money amounted originally to £10,000, but was now reduced to £4,000, so that it was obvious that if the sum went on diminishing in that way the society would have no alternative but to close their doors. Under these circumstances the society had addressed a memorial to the Chancellor of the Exchequer requesting that Parliament might be recommended to grant to the Academy a small sum, and that memorial was signed by a very long list of names, including almost every name of eminence in the musical profession. The Academy undertook to instruct teachers, and some of the most eminent professors had stated their opinion that it was worthy of support. The Vote was not proposed with the view 1601 of propping up a decayed institution, but with the object of enabling the Academy to recover itself. Under these circumstances he hoped there would be no opposition to the small sum proposed by the Government.
§ MR. BERNAL OSBORNEsaid, the House would remember that on a recent occasion a financial lecture had been delivered by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who had told them that every man had his peculiar crotchet which he pressed upon the Government and Parliament, however expensive it might be to the public. There was before them at that moment an example of what the Government themselves could do in this way. That was the first time a Vote was asked for the Academy of Music. The Academy was a private one. ["No, no!"] He believed it was strictly a private Academy. In the present Session the House had put a stop to street music, which amused the people. They were now about to pay for music for the better classes. The House had degenerated into a rich roan's club. The first attempt was to get £500 for the Academy of Music, but before long we would have them in a building, and when the public interests required that they should be turned out, the House would be asked for a Vote to keep them in. He could not understand how the Government could make such a proposition if they were anxious for economy. He knew the Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Frederick Peel) was a musical man, that he attended concerts, and was acquainted with the Academy. Well, he also was acquainted with it; and he challenged the Chancellor of the Exchequer to produce six good singers whom it had ever produced. They did not want the Academy at the expense of the taxpayers of the country; and though the House was a thin one he hoped it would have sufficient spirit to reject the proposition. Again he challenged the Chancellor of the Exchequer to produce any person eminent either in vocal or instrumental music whom the Academy had handed down. It was nothing but an attempt on the part of a few amateurs to indulge their taste at the expense of the public; and he, therefore, moved that the Vote be rejected.
§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERobserved, that there could be no doubt that his hon. Friend (Mr. Osborne) was exercising a right in objecting to a new Vote proposed by the Government, 1602 and there could be no doubt that it was quite within the province of the Committee to reject the Vote; but he could not see much relevance in the other matter which his hon. Friend had introduced—namely, the demands made on the Government by private Members. The two questions were quite different from each other. However, his hon. Friend opposed the Vote on two grounds. He said the Academy was a private institution, and he further said that the proposition of a Vote of £500 would be followed by demands for larger sums. Now, with regard to the first objection he entirely denied that the Academy was a private society unless they said that all the multitude of institutions for which they voted annual sums were private societies. They might say on the same grounds that the Royal Institution and the Royal Academy were private societies. Societies for the promotion of the arts and sciences in this country did not emanate or proceed directly from the State; but still the system had been for the State to afford a moderate assistance to those institutions, His hon. Friend said that these grants always grew enormously. That he denied. By way of illustration, he would take another grant—that to the Geographical Society, which was first proposed when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer ten years ago. If any hon. Gentleman asked the question of a member of the Geographical Society he would find that it mainly owed its prosperity to the grant of £500, which had first been voted ten years ago, and had never grown. It was a truth that the culture of music in this country had extended enormously in our generation. The people of England had become conscious of the fact that the taste for music was a gift conferred on mankind generally in various degrees. With some persons it was absent altogether, but as a general rule it was an universal gift. In regard to music, as in that of other sciences, it was found that benevolent persons were disposed to promote education among the young, but were not so ready to support schools and colleges for training teachers. His hon. Friend was mistaken in thinking that the Vote was intended for the support of an institution in which a particular class of music was to be cultivated. The Academy gave no preference to English music in particular. If his hon. Friend looked at the memorial in favour of the Vote, he would find that it was signed by some of 1603 the most eminent musicians of the various schools of music. At the present time the Crown, the Royal family, and a small number of persons had the exclusive honour and burden of supporting the institution, and it appeared to him when the claim presented itself, that it was not possible to say it was an illegitimate application, having regard to other Votes which the House passed annually. It was true there was no money-Vote for the Royal Academy, but that institution had a grant of premises which was equivalent to several thousand pounds a year. Before they undertook to submit the Vote to Parliament the Government had required the society to show them that they had the confidence of the musical profession. That they had now shown by the names of the Englishmen and foreigners who supported the application. Secondly, they had required that the society should discard any intention of acting on a system of private patronage; they had required that the society should throw open their doors to all comers, and conduct the institution on the most liberal principles. To both those conditions the society had conformed. Thirdly, the Government said they could not take upon themselves the responsibility of supporting the Academy. All they could do was to apply to Parliament for an experimental Vote, and if the countenance of Parliament was the means of securing for the Academy adequate public support the grant might be continued, but the Government could not make the society public pensioners. The expenditure of the Academy was several thousands a year, and the moderate amount covered by the Vote was only applied in aid of private subscriptions, the bulk of the expense being borne by the pupils. He did not think that the House would retrace its steps and revoke the grants made that very year in behalf of kindred objects, and he hoped therefore that this Vote would also command cheerful acquiescence.
§ MR. AYRTONsaid, there was no analogy between the Academy of Music and the Geographical Society, which was essentially a public society, with public objects, whereas the Academy was merely for the purpose of giving persons a superior knowledge of music, and thereby enabling them to earn larger salaries than they otherwise could command. As to the precedents which had been referred to, every act of extravagance into which the House was inveigled by the Government, 1604 was made a precedent to justify further extravagance in some further Session. The Government seemed to be about to teach every thing to every body at the public expense, and when the Chancellor of the Exchequer spoke of a maximum grant of £500, he should look to the Science and Art Department. No sooner would the grant be made in London than the provinces would ask why they should not also have a share; and Dublin and Edinburgh would make demands which could not be resisted for the establishment of schools of music there. The Kensington Museum had led to a museum at Dublin and Edinburgh, and to an expenditure of thousands for erecting, filling, and keeping up those buildings, and for a travelling museum very much like that of Barnum or Womb-well. In the memorial which had been presented, the memorialists trusted that the time was not distant when music might stand here on the same footing as in those countries where the Government wholly and permanently maintained a school of music. These persons had not arrived at the happy frame of mind which the Chancellor of the Exchequer had attained when he said that he saw the end of this expenditure. Now he (Mr. Ayrton) only saw the beginning of it. The grant was for the maintenance of music of a high character among the upper classes, who ought to be able to pay for it themselves, while they were unable to endure the organs and the humbler music of the lower classes. A more contemptible vote was never presented to Parliament, and he hoped it would be rejected.
§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, he did not wish to mislead the Committee, and he would, therefore, inform them that there had been an application from Dublin founded upon the proposed grant; but the answer given was that it was an experimental proposal, and that any other application was premature. Within very moderate limits he thought it not unwise to recognize the claims of Dublin and Edinburgh in such cases. But if even the grant of £500 were supplemented by grants of £200 or £300 to those two cities, the fears of the hon. Member must be easily excited if they were aroused by the contingency of such proposals. He hoped that the hon. Gentleman would not attempt to propagate the fallacy that it was a question between the music of the higher and of the lower classes, because the music of the higher classes was the 1605 opera, and was essentially foreign music, whereas the vote applied chiefly to music enjoyed by the middle classes, especially in London.
§ MR. CLAYsaid, that even if the consequences foreseen by the hon. Member (Mr. Ayrton) were realized, and the provinces obtained a share in the giants made for purposes of art, he could not say that any harm would be done by the softening-influences of art being felt all over the country. The hon. Gentleman said that the object of the Academy of Music was to enable people to make money. That was not so. Its object was to improve the taste and increase the knowledge of music throughout the country; and if some persons thereby gained a higher position than they would otherwise have obtained, that was a mere accident, and was not the original aim and intention of the Academy. He remembered the time when nothing beyond hunting and drinking songs were known as English compositions, and when one opera, Artaxerxes, represented the English school. Things had now changed, and we had a musical school not inferior to that of any country, which result was mainly owing to the influence of the Royal Academy of Music.
COLONEL DUNNEsaid, he did not know whether it was competent to him to move a similar grant for Dublin, but if it were, he would do so, and an hon. Friend was equally ready to propose a Vote for Edinburgh.
§ MR. AUGUSTUS SMITHsaid, he wished to know if the science of music was to be encouraged by a grant of public money where was the system to end? He thought that the less Government had to do with such institutions the better it would be for everybody. Formerly agriculture and fisheries were sustained by public money, but since the grants had ceased neither agriculture nor the fisheries had been less productive. If any Government management were to be given to any particular science, he thought it would be most usefully given to a school of cookery, as there was no country in the world in which the proverb, "Providence sends food and the devil cooks," was more verified than in England.
§ SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTEreminded the hon. and gallant Member for Portarlington (Colonel Dunne) that it was complained that Ireland was suffering from a pressure of taxation. The hon. and gallant Gentleman wished for additional 1606 expenditure, because additional expenditure was proposed for England. But increased expenditure meant increased taxation, although it might be well for a rich country to bear the increased taxation, yet it would bear more hardly upon a poor and suffering country like Ireland. He would be sorry to impede the spread of musical taste and knowledge, but he was disinclined to support that new Vote.
COLONEL DUNNEexplained, that he did not desire to increase expenditure, but what he complained of was, that while Ireland had too much of the taxation, she had too little of the expenditure.
§ MR. DILLWYNsaid, he could not see the analogy which the Chancellor of the Exchequer had drawn between the grant for the Academy of Music and the grant made to the Royal Academies, the Geographical Society, and the Royal Society. With respect to the Royal Academy, they had the benefit of a public building, for the use of which they drew an immense revenue, and yet were found resisting the demands of the country. The grant for the Geographical Society was for a public purpose—the exhibition of their collection of maps. The Royal Society received a grant of £1,000 to carry on certain experiments for public purposes. The Vote could not be said to be of an analogous character, and therefore he should oppose it. It was in the continuance of a system by which they were very fast assuming a paternal character and educating the whole nation. He thought it would be much better to leave the people to their own voluntary efforts.
§ MR. ADDERLEYsaid, he thought the principle upon which such rules as that they were discussing might be justified was this—that in some things the natural demands of the people were not so vigorous as they ought to be for the interests of the nation, and those demands were particularly connected with the fine arts. In those cases the State, or those who represented it, were justified in giving public money in the interests of the people for the purpose of stimulating a demand which, when it once became natural, would be beneficial to the nation. On that ground they justified the Vote for science and art, and the result had proved the justness of the principles upon which that Vote was proposed; for notoriously the taste of the country had been stimulated, and the designs of our manufactures raised, and the consequence had been a great pecuniary benefit 1607 (even to put it on that ground) to the country at large. The question was whether music should be treated upon the same footing as other arts, and he thought that it ought; and that if the Vote were rejected they should in consistency withdraw the other Votes which were given for the encouragement of science and art. The principle which had been acted upon was to give public money where it was felt that an artificial stimulus was required to promote a particular object.
§ MR. BERNAL OSBORNEobserved, that if the principle of the right hon. Gentleman were adopted, the Vote before the Committee would be only the thin end of the wedge, and before long they would be asked to vote for music schools all over the country. The Academy of Music was a private society started forty-four years ago by the Earl of Westmoreland and other noblemen and gentlemen, under the patronage of George IV., but till now not a sixpence of the public money had been voted for it. It appeared, however, that the subscriptions of the patrons had fallen off considerably; and hence the appeal which was made on behalf of a bankrupt private society. For his own part he should have been content with Artaxerxes even (to which, by the way, the hon. Gentleman had not done justice) rather than have this false system of Government aid established. There was a beautiful air in that opera, "In infancy our hopes and fears." Well, the Vote was in its infancy, and they had better crush its hopes at once. He held that the State ought not to pay for more than the mere rudiments of education. If they had a Vote for music, why not for dancing? An enthusiastic dancer once undertook to prove that all the orations of Cicero and Demosthenes might be represented by dancing, and there was a great deal to be said for the art. Some day they might have the Chancellor of the Exchequer institute an analogy between the Geographical Society and the Academy of Dancing. If the House was not a mere rich man's club they would put a stopper on that stimulating process at once.
§ SIR JOHN PAKINGTONsaid, that while the hon. Member for Swansea declared that all these things should be left to voluntary effort, the hon. Member for Liskeard showed that voluntary effort had in this case been at work for forty-four years, and could go on no longer. There was surely some inconsistency in these 1608 views. He believed the Government had done right in proposing the Vote to a society which had contributed greatly to the improvement of a national taste for music.
§ MR. SCLATER-BOOTHsaid, that if there was one art or science more than another which could stand by itself and did not require the aid of Government, it was music. There had been of late years an immense advance in musical taste in this country, and there was no art more popular. It was in no need of a miserable Vote of £500, and he hoped the Committee would reject it.
§ MR. HENNESSYsaid, he must protest against the Chancellor of the Exchequer offering to Ireland the prospect of a paltry grant in aid of music when everything in the country had gone to rack and ruin through his mismanagement. What they wanted was something practical.
§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, the hon. Member had mistaken what he said.
§ SIR GEORGE BOWYERthought that the knowledge of music was in such a condition in this country that improvement was highly desirable; and he protested against the time of the Committee being wasted in discussing a Vote which was so small as to have scarcely any effect upon the expenditure of the country.
§ The Committee divided:—Ayes 52; Noes 42: Majority 10. Vote agreed to.
§ (5.) £771,473, Customs (Salaries and Expenses).
§ SIR HENRY WILLOUGHBYsaid, he wished to ask how it was that there was an increase in the Vote this year of upwards of £17,000? There was strong reason to believe that the Reports of imports and exports were not correct, that there were no accurate data upon the subject, and he wanted to hear from the President of the Board of Trade what was the machinery by which the Returns were obtained, and whether he would undertake to show that the monthly and annual Returns, especially of exports, were accurate?
§ MR. MILNER GIBSONsaid, he believed there was no reason to doubt the general accuracy of the Returns. The imports with regard to quantity were ascertained from the entries made and also from information supplied by the dock authorities. He believed it was the practice of the Customs to compute the value of the imports from the prices of the various 1609 articles according to the price current of the day. As to the exports, in the case of quantity the bill of lading on which the duty was formerly levied was no longer required, but there was a Customs bill of lading shown by those who unloaded the ships to the Customs officers at the dock gates. The value of the exports must depend in a great degree upon the declaration of the merchants, but he had no doubt that they gave a very fair and accurate account. He believed that there was no reason to doubt the general accuracy of the Returns made by the Customs of the imports and exports of the country.
MR. PEELsaid, the increase in the Vote of £17,000 was purely nominal with the exception of a sum of £4,600, which arose from a small addition to the Customs establishment in the course of last year.
§ Vote agreed to.
§ (6.) £1,313,467, Inland Revenue (Salaries and Expenses).
§ (7.) £2,114,616, Post Office (Salaries and Expenses).
§ (8.) £492,536, Superannuations, &c, Customs, Inland Revenue, and Post Office.
§ SIR HENRY WILLOUGHBYexpressed himself dissatisfied with the explanation given by the President of the Board of Trade upon the Customs Votes. He should not have raised the question if there had not been evidence on the table that the Returns were very inaccurate.
§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, that in 1860 the Government proposed that a certain charge should be levied on bills of lading for exports, mainly with a view of giving the Customs authorities power to obtain very precise and accurate statistics with respect to goods exported. A great deal of complaint, however, was made by the trade on that subject, and a Committee reported that the old mode of obtaining such statistical information was sufficient for its purpose.
§ MR. SEYMOUR FITZGERALDsaid, the real question was, whether the President of the Board of Trade could pledge himself that the statement he had made about the existing machinery for collecting this information was a correct one, and whether the right hon. Gentleman himself could rely in any way upon that machinery?
§ MR. MILNER GIBSONsaid, he had stated that they took the declaration of the merchants as to value.
§ MR. SEYMOUR FITZGERALDsaid, he wished the right hon. Gentleman to explain more explicitly what was the exact machinery by which the value and quantities of exports were ascertained.
§ MR. MILNER GIBSONsaid, he would beg before he did that to be permitted to make further inquiry. They had not the same means of ascertaining such particulars in regard to exports as they had in regard to imports; and in the case of the former they placed reliance on the declaration of the exporter.
MR. WHITEsaid, he could himself testify to the absolute inaccuracy of the Board of Trade Returns, especially in respect to non-dutiable articles. Some merchants were in the habit of declaring goods at double their true value, and very often gross exaggeration took place. At the same time, as the merchants had no more interest in misrepresenting in one year than they had in another, these Returns afforded a rough means of estimating the progress of our trade.
§ Vote agreed to.
§ House resumed.
§ Resolutions to be reported on Monday next; Committee to sit again on Monday next.