§ MR. T. POTTERsaid, he wished to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether his attention has been called to the following statement, published as correspondence in a London newspaper on the 25th February, and signed "G. A.":—
Messrs. Bidwell and Murray, together with their legal confederate and another false witness of notoriously infamous character, also hired with public money, fabricated an ex parté statement to deceive the Law Officers of the late Government, and I was in consequence fined £2,000, which money Messrs. Bidwell, Murray, and Company divided between them.He wished to inquire what truth there is in such allegation?
MR. OTWAYsaid, in reply, that his attention had been called to the statement which the hon. Gentleman had just read to the House, and he was not sorry that his hon. Friend had noticed the matter, for it seemed to him that when charges were brought against public men in the discharge of their duties it was within the walls of Parliament that those charges should be made and met. He did not understand that his hon. Friend identified himself in any way with the statement he had read, and, therefore, he must say that the value of a statement of that nature depended very much on the character of the person from whom it emanated. With regard to the statement itself, he had no hesitation in saying that from begining to end it was utterly untrue. There were no clerks in the Foreign Office—if they were so minded—who had the power to use the public money in order to hire persons to deceive the Law Officers of the Government, nor had they any power to inflict fines of £2,000, or any other amount. Consequently, it 1084 was impossible that a fine of £2,000 inflicted by them should have been divided among themselves. Now, with regard to the gentlemen themselves whose names had been thus brought into prominence, he might remind his hon. Friend that during the last Parliament a statement not so precise, but somewhat similar in character, was made in that House against Mr. Murray, Assistant Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and the noble Lord the Member for King's Lynn (Lord Stanley) said of that statement that it was simply and absolutely without foundation. [Lord STANLEY: Hear, hear!] And Mr. Layard, who followed, said that Mr. Murray's character stood too high to be affected by any charge of the nature alluded to. Now, he (Mr. Otway) must in justice say of Mr. Murray that he had served in the Foreign Office for forty-three years, having commenced his career under Mr. Canning, and served under the various Secretaries of State of that Department up to the present time, that he was Assistant Under Secretary of State in 1858, and therefore served under Lord Malmesbury, Lord Clarendon, Lord Russell, and the noble Lord opposite (Lord Stanley), and Lord Clarendon again, Mr. Layard, Mr. Egerton, and himself. He therefore thought the character of Mr. Murray might safely be left to the appreciation of those Gentlemen whom he had named; but for himself he felt bound to say—having known Mr. Murray for upwards of twenty years—that he was convinced that Mr. Murray was perfectly incapable of the conduct with which he had been charged. As for Mr. Bidwell, his family had been connected with the Foreign Office for a century, and himself for twenty-seven years, and he had written to him (Mr. Otway) to say that there was no foundation whatever for the charge, and that this was the first time, during the period he had been in the public service, that his public honour had been called in question. He therefore hoped the House would agree with him in thinking the statement in question utterly unworthy of any further notice.