RESOLUTION. (Hansard, 27 June 1864)

§ MR. AYRTON

said, he desired to bring under the notice of the House a matter of considerable importance, bearing in mind the precedent it involved, and the effect it might have on their future proceedings. In 1832, after the British Government of that day had adopted the decisive policy of establishing the independence of Greece, they determined, in conjunction with Russia and France, to afford such material assistance to the new kingdom as might enable it to organize a regular Government. In fulfilment of that design, a Convention was entered into between those three Powers for the purpose of enabling Greece to raise a loan sufficient to meet the financial necessities of that country. By that Convention it was provided that a sum of 60,000,000f., or about £2,400,000, should be raised by way of loan in three separate instalments. The first was to be raised immediately; the other two as the circumstances of Greece might require. The Government of that day took care that the Convention should preserve to the House the opportunity of expressing its judgment on the transaction, and, accordingly, while the Emperor of Russia bound himself at once and unconditionally to guarantee one-third of the loan, the constitutional sovereigns of France and England only bound themselves, the one to recommend to the French Chambers, and the other to recommend to Parliament, the expediency of giving a similar guarantee. Some three or four years afterwards, in 1846, a question arose whether the British Government were bound to guarantee the second and third loans, if the other Powers did not adopt the same course; and the Government of that day, instead of taking it on themselves to decide the question, applied to the House of Commons for an Act to amend the original proceeding and to resolve the doubt. From 1832 to the present time no less than £977,000 had been paid out of the Consolidated Fund on account of the Greek loan. The treaty undoubtedly contained provisions for the repayment of the loan, which was to be a first charge on Greek revenues, but until the year 1847 the Greeks did not pay anything. In 1848, the attention of the Government having been called to the fact, some pressure was put upon that country, and about £40,000 was paid on account of the advances they had received. Greece 357 was then allowed for some years to go to sleep again and to disregard its obligations, but in 1860 the British Government, in conjunction with the other protecting Powers, was moved to make a strong remonstrance against its disregard of the duties imposed by the Treaty of 1832. An investigation was made into the resources of Greece, and recommendations were made that she should forthwith set apart some 900,000f., equal to £36,000 a year, in discharge of her obligations. In the same year the Greek Parliament voted £36,000 as a first instalment in accordance with that requisition, and £12,000, the third of that amount, was paid into the Consolidated Fund. But from that time Greece had been in a very troubled condition, and her troubles culminated in what he might call the politest revolution that had ever taken place, the King having been escorted on board ship and informed that he might go upon his travels to any other country. Negotiations were then set on foot to find him a successor and the country a King, and when the Prince of Denmark ascended the throne one of the terms of the proposal signed by the protecting Powers was, that out of the £36,000 a year which the Greek Government had engaged to pay annually, £12,000 a year should be paid to the Prince of Denmark, of which sum the proportion to be given by Great Britain would be £4,000 a year. When that proposal was laid on the table he called attention to the peculiar language in which it was couched, no reservation being contained as to the right of Parliament to express any opinion. The Under Secretary of State undertook that the matter should be considered, and the hon. Member for Horsham (Mr. Seymour Fitzgerald) having reminded the Government of their promise to explain, on the 8th of July the Chancellor of the Exchequer said it was intended to afford Parliament an opportunity of expressing its views, but as it would be necessary to reduce the transaction into the form of a diplomatic act, that might not be accomplished before the close of the Session. After it had expired, the treaty which had been negotiated on the 13th of July was published, and as regarded the annuity to the King of Greece it was precisely in the same terms as the Protocol itself. Another treaty subsequent to the cession of the Ionian Islands was made, with a proviso that it should not endanger or in any way impair the obligations of the Treaty of 1832, or the transactions relating to the 358 loan. The House, he thought, could hardly doubt that the making of treaties, disposing of the public money in those absolute terms, and without reserving any right to Parliament of expressing an opinion, was a matter which they were bound in some manner to notice. Nothing could be more clear than that all casual receipts, either derived from revenues at home or from foreign countries, belonged to, and ought to be paid into, the Consolidated Fund. An Act was passed in 1854 to abolish the practice of intercepting the public revenue in its way to the Consolidated Fund. In order that everything should go into the Consolidated Fund, Parliament also provided that hereditary pensions and other hereditary claims should be no longer paid out of special sources of revenue. The Chancellor of the Exchequer on the 6th of July last year, in the fullest manner, accepted the doctrine that it was the duty of the Government to obtain the sanction of Parliament in all matters of this kind, and yet seven days afterwards Earl Russell signed a treaty by which the doctrine was set at naught, because, instead of reserving to Parliament the right of expressing an opinion, the treaty was made in absolute and definite terms that gave to Parliament no option. The prerogative of the Crown had, in fact, been exercised in a manner which set at naught the privileges of the House of Commons. Parliament had for many years interested itself in the right of the Crown to grant annuities out of the public revenue. In 1782 it was provided that no pension should be granted by the Crown of a greater amount than £1,200 without a previous Resolution and Address of both Houses of Parliament. It was further provided that no pension should be payable out of any particular source of revenue, but that all pensions should be paid at the Exchequer, so that they could not escape observation. There was one exception in favour of the families of the reigning Sovereign. It would be seen that the treaty in question violated both the rules laid down. At the end of the reign of George III. another Act was passed further to check the extravagance of the Sovereign. In that and every succeeding Act for the settlement of the Civil List, Mr. Burke's Act of 1792 was cited and made one of the regulating statutes. There could be nothing more clear than that Parliament had restrained the right of the Crown to grant annuities. The question 359 of pensions again excited the attention of the House of Commons at the beginning of the reign of William IV., and a Resolution tending to restrain the power of the Crown in this respect was the cause of the change of Administration which placed the Whigs in power. That Resolution was in 1834 followed by another of a more stringent character—namely, that no pension should be granted by the Crown except for public services which were to be particularly stated. On the accession of Queen Victoria, and the arrangement of the Civil List, that Resolution was cited in the Act as the rule for the future granting of pensions. The Act further provided, that instead of the Queen having a large fund available for pensions she should have a stipulated sum of £1,200 a year for this purpose. Parliament had strictly limited the authority of the Crown in regard to the granting of pensions, but notwithstanding all these statutes the Government by this treaty had bound itself to grant an annuity to the King of Greece in a manner which deprived the House of Commons of all legitimate opportunity of expressing an opinion on the subject. It was true that the Government had submitted to Parliament a Bill for confirming the annuity; but it was idle to ask the House to give an opinion on the Bill, as it was impossible to set at naught a treaty which had not only been ratified, but partly carried into effect. This treatment of the House of Commons contrasted forcibly with the liberty which had been given to the Ionian Parliament. The Protocol reserved to the Ionian Parliament the right of expressing an opinion on the dotation of £10,000 a year to the King of Greece. The Ionian Parliament formed an opinion of its own, and determined that the dotation should not be a separate charge on the Ionian Islands, but should be only a temporary charge until Greece and the Ionian Islands came to an agreement on the subject. The treaty had, consequently, to be altered in this sense. Her Majesty's Government were by no means so desirous to make provision for the public servants of Her Majesty in the Ionian Islands, for they had left them to be dealt with by a convention with the Greek Government, so that it might possibly happen that our pensioners in the Ionian Islands might be left to be paid out of the revenues of this country. The question was, whether before passing the Bill the House would not place on record some distinct declaration 360 in regard to the power of the Crown to enter into engagements which affected the revenues of the country without first eon-suiting Parliament. If the House were to allow this Bill to pass unchallenged it would form a most dangerous precedent. He was desirous of asking the Chancellor of the Exchequer to explain how he could reconcile the terms of the treaty either with precedent or his own pledge; and if he could not do so, the House ought to place on the Journals some record of its opinion of such proceedings. In conclusion he begged to move that the grant to the King of Greece of an annuity of £4,000 out of moneys belonging to the Consolidated Fund by treaty not made subject to the sanction of Parliament was a violation of the privileges of the House of Commons.

§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER

said, he would give the hon. Gentleman all the explanation in his power. He believed the hon. Gentleman had challenged the proceedings of Her Majesty's Government—first, with regard to the promise stated to have been made by them last Session; and, secondly, with respect to precedents in analogous cases. With regard to the promise, it had, he believed, been fulfilled, both in the letter and the spirit. In the record of the proceedings of the House he found that, in answer to a question put by the hon. Member for Horsham (Mr. S. Fitzgerald), he stated that the sum in question, £4,000, must, I in the first place, be the subject of diplomatic arrangement, and, as it would not be until after such an arrangement that Her Majesty's Government would be able to apply to Parliament for an Act, he apprehended they would not be able to submit a Bill upon the subject during that Session. Therefore, he stated distinctly that there would be an Act of Parliament, but that it could not be introduced until after the negotiations then pending, nor probably during the Session then drawing to a 361 close. He spoke on the 6th of July, the treaty was signed on the 13th, but it was not ratified for a considerable time after. If, however, it had been ratified on the 13th of July, it would not have been possible or becoming to bring before the House, at such a late period of the Session, a question which, in a constitutional point of view, was one of a high order. Her Majesty's Government, therefore, had done exactly what they had engaged to do. But the hon. Gentleman had asked whether such a proceeding was in accordance with practice? It was fully in accordance with practice that when a sum of money to which the Crown of this country was entitled was surrendered by the Crown, that the surrender should be made by treaty, and it was not customary to make that surrender contingent upon the assent of Parliament. He admitted in a constitutional point of view that the assent of Parliament was necessary, but it was not usual to make it a condition in the diplomatic instrument. On the contrary, when the Crown undertook to pay a sum of money, it was customary to make that payment conditional on the assent of Parliament. But there was, in a formal point of view, a broad distinction between engaging to pay a sum of money which was to be levied upon the people and surrendering money which had never formed part of the revenue of the country. The difference between the Ionian Parliament and the British Parliament was founded upon that distinction which he had pointed out. Of this practical distinction it would be easy to give instances. There might be a distinction between surrendering a sum of money once for all, and making a surrender which would extend over a series of years. In the case of the Ionian Parliament, the question was to provide an income for the King of Greece out of the Ionian revenue, to be raised from year to year in the Ionian Islands. In this case the question was to provide him with a portion of his income, not out of the revenue of this country, but out of money due to us as part of a debt. There were two precedents which might be cited for the course which the Government had taken in this matter; the one in respect of the remission of certain claims upon Austria, the other of a similar remission with regard to Portugal. On the 22nd of January, 1815, a treaty was signed at Vienna, in which the King of England remitted to Portugal certain outstanding 362 payments in respect of a loan of £600,000, which had been spent in the service of Portugal in the year 1809. In that instance the grant was never challenged or called in question by Parliament. He believed he was correct in saying, that no application was made to Parliament on the subject, and that the remission never received its sanction. Her Majesty's Government did not seek to cover themselves by that precedent, which, however, more than covered them. The other case was that of the Austrian loan, which was, perhaps, more immediately in point. In the year 1823 a convention was made between His Majesty the King of Great Britain and the Emperor of Austria, by which the latter engaged to pay £2,500,000, and the King agreed to accept that sum in satisfaction of all claims whatever on the Emperor, a much larger sum having been due to us under previous engagements. That was by a treaty signed at Vienna on the 27th of November, 1823, and in March, 1824, an Act was passed which recited the original proceedings, the raising of money on behalf of Austria, and likewise the convention to which he had just referred, and then it proceeded to enact in conformity with the provisions of that convention itself. Therefore, as far as precedent was concerned, he had shown that Her Majesty's Government had followed exactly that precedent which was before them. His hon. Friend might possibly say that it was the duty of Government to come down to Parliament with a proposal anterior to making the arrangements. But when last year he stated the course which the Government intended to pursue—namely, first to enter into a convention, and then to come to the House for its sanction, that explanation seemed satisfactory. Indeed, he did not think it would have been possible to come to Parliament for its sanction beforehand, for one peculiar reason, that the dotation, as it was called, of £4,000 a year was not a single arrangement; it was a small and limited portion of an extended political negotiation involving transactions with other parties. The hon. Gentleman appeared to apprehend that in a certain case this sum of money might have to be reimbursed out of the revenues of this country. He was not aware of any contingency in which such an obligation would arise. The money was not received and accounted for as part of the revenues of this country, and paid over into the hands of 363 the King of Greece. The English Government were not bound, as far as he was aware, to see that the King of Greece received it; but in the terms of the convention they remitted so much of their claim on Greece as was represented by it. Therefore there was no engagement to pay the money in any contingency out of the revenues of this country. The question still remained, whether it would be possible to introduce any improvement into the established practice with regard to cases of this kind. That was a very fair matter for consideration, but it was not the subject at present before the House; and as the proceeding which had been taken was in accordance with the announcement made by the Government before the end of last Session, and with the course taken in former cases, he hoped the hon. Gentleman would withdraw his Amendment.