HC Deb 22 May 1865 vol 179 cc702-11

(1.) £1,938, to complete the sum for Privy Seal.

(2.) £5,874, to complete the sum for Civil Service Commission.

(3.) £14,391, to complete the sum for Paymaster General's Office.

(4.) £3,048, to complete the sum for Controller General of the Exchequer.

COLONEL SYKES

objected that the salary of the Controller General was not given. This was necessary to show what was the entire cost of the Department.

MR. PEEL

said, the salary of the Controller General was charged on the Consolidated Fund.

Vote agreed to.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That a sum, not exceeding £24,148 be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1866, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Office of Commissioners of Her Majesty's Works and Public Buildings.

MR. AUGUSTUS SMITH

complained that the Chief Commissioner was not in his place at a time when the sums for his Department were being voted, to give explanation and information that might be required. He wished to ask a question with regard to the salaried architect and surveyor. They had been told that there were several plans preparing relative to certain galleries at South Kensington for the reception of certain collections for the British Museum. Now, they had already had to pay large sums for the preparation of plans upon this land. Was Mr. Penne-thorne occupied in preparing any plans at present, and was he paid extra for these beyond what he received as salaried architect and surveyor?

MR. PEEL

said, the arrangement with regard to the remuneration of Mr. Penne-thorne had been attended with a very considerable saving. He received £1,500 a year for all his duties connected with the Office of Works—such as the repairs of buildings belonging to the Government; but with regard to extra work, as when he was called to design new buildings, he received extra payment.

MR. AUGUSTUS SMITH

asked if Mr. Pennethorne was now preparing any designs for new buildings in Kensington?

MR. PEEL

Not that I know of.

MR. BLACKBURN

said, he could not help thinking that the Estimate for this Department was most extravagant—£32,148 for surveying and looking after public works and buildings. It was £5,000 more than the expense of the Home Office. He found surveyor of works with a salary of £1,000; salaried architect and surveyor, £1,500; assistant-surveyor of works in London, £600; assistant to ditto, £300; assistant-surveyor of works out of London, £500; itinerant ditto for post offices and probate registries, £400; examiner of claims for rates on Government property, £400. He thought the Government paid no rates, and did not, therefore, see why they should pay an officer £400 a year for examining the claims for rates on Government property. Then there was an assistant-surveyor for Scotland, £500; clerk to ditto, £320; solicitor, £1,800. In a note they were informed the Solicitor in Scotland was not a salaried officer, and he was put down at £250. He thought the Government ought to be ashamed of these charges, and that next year an effort would be made to reduce them. He would himself move a reduction, but he feared it would be of no use.

MR. HENNESSY

called attention to the fact that while the minimum salary of the itinerant surveyor was £400, and the maximum £600, the sum charged was £1,092, which appeared to be the maximum in both cases.

MR. PEEL

said, that there were two officers' salaries included in the Estimate, the minimum of both being £400. If the maximum in both were charged, the sum would be not £1,092 but £1,200.

MR. HENNESSY

said, that the Solicitor to the Board of Works, in addition to his £1,800 a year in salary, was allowed, for fees to counsel and law stationers' charges, £1,000 a year. His salary was greater than that of an Under Secretary of State. But while there was a Solicitor for Scotland at £250 a year, there was not one in Ireland. Perhaps the Chief Secretary would take this into consideration. In the absence of the Commissioner of the Board of Works it would not be treating him or the House with respect to pass this Vote. He must, therefore, ask the Vote to be postponed, or would move to report Progress.

THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER

said, it had been expected that when they got into Committee of Supply they would be engaged in a long discussion on the Navy Estimates, and therefore his right hon. Friend was not present. If it was the desire of the Committee that the Vote should in the meantime be withdrawn there could be no objection to that course.

MR. HENLEY

said, that the same excuse which the Chancellor of the Exchequer urged for the absence of the right hon. Gentleman—namely, the expectation that they would be so long occupied in discussing Navy Estimates—applied to every other Member, and showed the inconvenience of dodging on the Civil Service Estimates, when nobody knew they would be taken.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That a sum, not exceeding £20,482, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1866, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Office of Woods, Forests, and Land Revenues.

COLONEL SYKES

pointed out that the solicitor received £l,500ayear as a salary; his four clerks, £1,176; on account of disbursements, £3,000 a year more. The solicitor in Scotland received £2,000 a year, and in Ireland, £250. The other legal expenses were for the land revenue department, £400 a year; ditto in Scotland and Ireland, £200 a year; ditto in Wales, £900. Thus there was a sum of £6,000 for legal expenses, or about 16 per cent of the total charges.

SIR WILLIAM FRASER

asked some Member of the Government to prevail upon the First Commissioner of Works to exert himself for the improvement of the Royal Parks. The same watering carts were used as in his childhood, and apparently the same horses and men.

MR. PEEL

said, the sum charged for legal expenses included the gross charge, but there ought to he set in diminution of it the amount received in law costs, which amounted to £3,000.

MR. COX

said, if the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Commissioner of Works were present, he would cite him as a witness to what he was about to say. A Committee sitting upstairs, of which he was a Member, had found that the manner in which business connected with the property of the Crown had been conducted was this—The Crown possessed rights over the whole of Epping Forest, and up to a certain period the Government sold from time to time to private individuals the rights of the Crown over certain portions of that forest. They had it in evidence that one purchaser had paid to the Crown £3,000 for 600 acres. The hon. Member for Maldon (Mr. Peaeocke) had moved and carried a Resolution in that House declaring that all further sales of the rights of the Crown over Epping Forest should cease, because it was desirable to maintain the open spaces for the recreation of the inhabitants of the metropolis. Yet they had it proved in evidence from the First Commissioner of Works that ever since that Resolution was passed inclosures had been and were taking place at Epping Forest without the Crown receiving a shilling, and that the Department adopted no steps whatever to prevent them on the ground of expense. There remained sonic 12,000 or 14,000 acres over which the Crown had rights, and if those rights over 600 acres were worth £3,000, it was easy to calculate what was their value as regarded those 12,000 or 14,000 acres. Yet the House was now called upon to vote £7,400 for legal expenses. He begged to move that the Chairman now report Progress.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again."—(Mr. Cox.)

SIR GEORGE GREY

said, that the Vote had no reference to the Department presided over by the Chief Commissioner of Works. The Committee were still prosecuting their inquiries, but had not made their Report. The hon. Member for Fins-bury had been guilty of an irregularity in referring to evidence which had as yet been printed for the use of the Select Committee only.

MR. COX

said, the Committee was a public one, and the evidence it took was published in the newspapers.

THE CHAIRMAN

said, it was irregular to refer to evidence taken before a Committee before it had been reported to the House.

MR. PEACOCKE

thought the hon. Member for Finsbury (Mr. Cox) hardly so much out of order, because the House was already in possession of the evidence to which he had referred. It appeared that the rights of the Crown and the public had not been maintained in Epping Forest, because the Government would not incur the expense of litigation. If that principle was to be acted upon, what Crown property would be safe? But while the Government refused to vindicate the right of the public to these open spaces they were not unwilling to expend upwards of £7,000 for other legal charges, which demanded inquiry from the Committee.

MR. LYGON

asked, whether it was true, as stated in the various newspapers, that a failure of justice had taken place in a recent case of murder, in consequence of the Advisers of the Crown having neglected to appoint certain Forest officers, who alone could have arrested the persons charged with that heinous crime? Some explanation was due to the House on that matter. Very large sums were squandered by the Departments of Woods and Works in maintaining contests with each other before Parliamentary Committees and elswhere.

SIR GEORGE GREY

was understood to say, that if the hon. Member would give him particulars of the case of murder to which he had referred, he would make inquiries into it. He had not as yet heard of it.

MR. DILLWYN

thought the Government were not treating the Committee fairly in now pressing on that Vote, and he would support the Motion for reporting Progress.

MR. HENNESSY

called upon some Member of the Government to explain the extraordinary discrepancy between the law charges for Scotland and Ireland; £2,000 was asked for Scotland, and only £250 for Ireland.

MR. PEEL

said, the difference between those two items arose from the different nature of the property. In Ireland they had to deal with head-rents, about which there was no difficulty; whereas in Scotland great expense had to be incurred for recovering the property of the Crown. At the same time, that charge was not likely to continue long.

MR. BLACKBURN

said, that claims had been asserted on the part of the Crown in Scotland to every little inch of mud, and heavy expenses had been incurred with very small profit.

THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER

denied that these proceedings were undertaken frivolously or from any abstract love of litigation. They were instituted from a sense of duty. The rights of the Crown had to be vindicated, and its property preserved from waste, dilapidation, or lapsing into private hands.

MR. BLACKBURN

said, he was often at a loss to know how rights claimed for the Crown could benefit the public. There was one remarkable case on the coast of Scotland, where poor fishermen had been in the habit for years of taking mussels; but the Crown, in the exercise of one of these rights, had latterly taken to charging a small rent for this privilege. How did the public gain?

MR. LOCKE

said, he looked upon the recovery of small sums by the Treasury as very unimportant compared with the maintenance of great public privileges; but it was certainly competent to any Member to ask how much money was devoted to Epping Forest to maintain the public rights, which rights, if maintained, would be of great benefit for the public at large. He wanted to know whether any attention had been paid to these rights; and for himself, he must express the opinion that the rights of the public had been utterly ignored by the Crown. If the Government contemplated spending this money to protect the rights of the public, he should be happy to vote it; but he thought that more explanation should be furnished before they did so.

MR. PEACOCKS

said, he understood the Chancellor of the Exchequer to say that this expenditure was incurred to prevent the rights of the Crown being wasted by the cupidity of individuals; and he wished to know how this statement could be reconciled with the fact that when the Government were called upon to fulfil the wishes of the Committee, and prevent the rights of the Crown in Epping Forest being wasted by the cupidity of individuals, the Secretary of the Treasury said that they were unwilling to incur the expense of defending those rights.

THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER

said, that the two cases were entirely different. They incurred expense when they thought it worth while to do so, but in the case just referred to they did not think so. There was no inconsistency in the Office of Woods, which was constituted by Act of Parliament expressly for the purpose of dealing with such questions; prosecuting rights that they thought it worth and refusing to prosecute those that they did not think worth enforcing.

SIR JOHN TROLLOPE

, as Chairman of the Committee upon this subject which sat two years since, said, that it appeared to him that the right of the Crown in the Forest was simply that of herbage and I browsing for the deer. The deer had now disappeared, and therefore the rights of the Crown were now extremely difficult to define. In former times Lords of the manor had purchased the rights of the Crown in order to get rid of the deer; but it appeared that the rights of the Crown were at present exceedingly small and worthless.

MR. COX

said, the rights of the Crown might appear infinitesimal on paper, but in practice they had the effect of preventing inclosures which would otherwise be made. In one case a purchaser had been willing to give £3,000 for the Crown rights over 600 acres of land; and yet the Government were now willing to let 14,000 or 15,000 acres go without the slightest effort to protect them. It was high time, therefore, that steps should be taken by others.

SIR JOHN TROLLOPE

said, the purchase in question had been made with a view to inclosure; but that took place before the inquiry by the Committee over which he presided. Everybody knew that the Lords of the soil could and did favour inclosures. The Crown, on the contrary, had no rights in the soil.

MR. LOCKE

thought that the maintenance of the rights of the Crown was most important, because they would prevent inclosure in the Forest. The Department was often ready enough to enforce some trumpery right of the Crown, but when the use of a large tract of land like this by the public was at stake, they declined to interfere. This being so, the rights of the public, placed in the Crown, were set aside. The Crown rights might have been in abeyance; but time did not run against the Crown, and therefore they might be resumed at any time. The question demanded from the House its most serious consideration, and before they voted the money the Committee had a right to know whether it was intended to perform that duty to the public which had been hitherto so entirely neglected.

MR. KINNAIRD

reminded the hon. Baronet opposite (Sir John Trollope) that the Report of this Committee was only carried by a majority of one. Since then another Committee had been appointed, whose Chairman he was happy to say did not take a narrow view of the question; and in the course of their inquiry they found new lights, new features, all tending—["Order!"]

THE CHAIRMAN

The hon. Member must not go into matters which are not before the House.

MR KINNAIRD

apologized for having been led to allude to matters some of which had only transpired that day, but the general results were as he had represented. As far as could he learnt from the public newspapers, the down solicitor was taking no notice of the encroachments at the present time.

MR. HENLEY

said, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had told the House that this matter was under the direction of the Woods and Forests, subject to the Treasury, and that they only protected the rights which they considered worth protecting. He had always understood that this property was held in trust for the Crown, and he thought it a very questionable proceeding to allow the Office of Woods and Forests by its own laches to deprive the Crown of its property.

THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER

thought that the right hon. Gentleman entertained curious notions of the duty of a trustee. It was the duty of a trustee to act for the benefit of those for whom he was trustee; and if there existed abstract rights, the vindication of which would cost more than they were worth, it was not the duty of a trustee to enter upon litigation in respect to them.

MR. HENLEY

reminded the right hon. Gentleman that in the case of the public and the Crown the rights were defended, not at the expense of the Crown, but at the expense of the public.

MR. PEACOCKE

observed that nothing could be more unfounded than the statement that these disputed rights were valueless. They had been sold for about £6 an acre.

MR. AYRTON

thought this a very serious question. It was really whether, after the House of Commons had passed a Resolution which was distasteful to the Commissioners of Woods and Forests, that Office was to be allowed to set up its back against the determination of the House, and pursue a course of proceeding which had the effect of entirely defeating the Resolution. If by the evidence taken be- fore the Committee now sitting it should appear that the Woods and Forests had pursued such a line of conduct, of course it would be the duty of the Committee to bring the matter under the notice of the House, and the House would be forgetting what was due to its own dignity if it allowed functionaries so acting to remain in office. The inhabitants of the metropolis had a distinct interest in Epping Forest. It was an old institution for them to hunt there; and hon. Members who had partaken of the hospitality of the Mansion House might sometimes have seen in that place a person in gaudy clothes, who was the Master of the Hunt and supposed to be engaged in training the hunters in Epping Forest. It was not a mere question of browsing deer; but the Crown had the right of hunting, and of granting the right to others—so that it was obvious no one could inclose the Forest.

MR. PEEL

said, that the only right which the Crown had in Epping Forest was the right to prevent inclosures. The owners of the land were willing to purchase that right, and so long as that was the case the Crown had no hesitation in taking steps to prevent unauthorized inclosures; but in consequence of the Resolution, which was passed, to the effect that no further sale of Crown rights should be made, the result was the rights ceased to have any value whatever; and be undertook to say that, according to the provisions of the Land Revenue Acts, the Commissioners of Woods and Forests were not justified in expending money out of the Crown revenue to assert rights which were not capable of realizing money for the Crown revenue.

MR. LOCKE

said, that the great object of the Resolution to which the right hon. Gentleman had referred was that Epping Forest should be kept open for the benefit of the public at large. But immediately that Resolution was passed the officers of the Crown seemed to have said that they would take no steps for that purpose, but would allow persons to inclose right and left.

MR. HENLEY

said, the Secretary to the Treasury had laid down a very curious doctrine—namely, that this property of the Grown when they could sell it, was worth £5 an acre, but because it was the wish of the House, which had the annual usufruct of the money, that it should not be turned into ready cash, but should remain unprofitable for the present, then that any person should be allowed to rob the public. If a gentleman had a coal mine upon his estate, but did not choose to work it, was it to cease to be his on that account? If the property belonged to the Crown, then the right hon. Gentleman was bound to prevent other people from turning it to their own use.

SIR GEORGE GREY

said, he should consent to report Progress.

MR. AYRTON

trusted the right hon. Gentleman would not bring the subject forward again until the Committee were able to report on the conduct of the officer concerned. It was a most serious case, and they would pursue it.

COLONEL FRENCH

was of opinion that the Secretary to the Treasury was the person who was responsible.

MR. PEACOCKE

was perfectly surprised that the Secretary to the Treasury should have sat in his place and allowed the Committee to suppose that it was the right hon. Gentleman the Commissioner of Works who was responsible. He would ask, had not a charge to that effect been made, and had it not been tacitly accepted by the right hon. Gentleman? The Commissioner of Works had nothing to do with this department, which was under the Woods and Forests, who were responsible to the Treasury.

MR. PEEL

said, he supposed that everybody was aware that the Treasury was responsible.

Question, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again,"—put, and agreed to.

House resumed.

Resolutions to be reported To-morrow;

Committee also report Progress; to sit again on Wednesday.