MR. HENLEYsaid: Sir, in calling the attention of the House to the subject of which I have given Notice—
To call the attention of the House to the rule or practice of ordering strangers to withdraw, and the effect thereof,I have, in the first instance, to state that I am quite aware of the regularity of the proceeding to which my Notice more particularly refers, and I do not in any way question either the power or the discretion of the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Craufurd) who thought fit to put the Order of the House in force. What I wish to do is to call the attention of the House to the gravity and extent of the subject which, was then prevented from being discussed in public, and to the interest which the public had and take in that subject. Now, Sir, up to the 23rd instant, which was the date of the last Return, the Petitions presented to this House on that subject had more than 330,000 signatures attached to them; from 70 to 80 public meetings had been held on the matter; and I believe that, with the exception of the Education question, there was no other on which during the present Session so large a number of people had manifested an interest. Some 20 years back, strangers having been ordered to withdraw on one occasion, a Committee was appointed, of which I had the honour to be a Member. No evidence was taken on the point; but, as far as I recollect, it appeared that, on all occasions when this Order had been enforced, the matter was more or less of a personal nature. No discussion on a matter of great public interest had been kept back from the public by means of the exclusion of strangers. But what was the question 1641 discussed the other night with closed doors? The delicacy or indelicacy of a subject, whatever it may be, is in the subject itself. The subject may be discussed in such a manner as not to offend the most delicate ear. And if we want an illustration of the matter, what happened? On that very night, when strangers were excluded from the House, some speeches were made on the same subject in the other House of Parliament. What is more, the next day what is called the leading journal had a leading article of nearly two columns on that subject, and also a garbled account of the debate which was held in this House. On a matter which excited such curiosity, he thought it was far better to have had what was said accurately reported, than that a mystery should be thrown over it by any attempted secresy. Now, the question itself is not whether more or less ailment affects our soldiers and sailors, or whether the means for curing it about to be devised are the best means. The matter which the public takes so great an interest in is this—whether the moral question is to be subordinate to the sanitary one. That is a matter on which the public have a right to know the opinion of their representatives. It is one of the largest questions we have been called upon to discuss. The treatment of the persons subjected to this legislation is also a question on which the people have a right to know the opinion of their representatives. They have a right to know whether their representatives consider it proper that women who wear stuff gowns should be subjected to treatment which women who wear silk gowns are not to be subjected. They have a right to know whether their representatives think the moral ought to be subordinate to the sanitary consideration, and whether they think this treatment ought not to be extended to men as well as to women. They have a right to know whether their representatives hold that, in subjecting a certain class of women to this treatment, if mistakes be made—and evidence shows you that mistakes have been made—those mistakes must be confined to women of a poor class, and the injury must not be inflicted on a higher grade who can wear silk. Those reflections have occurred to my mind, and, curiously enough, if I wanted any confirmation of the belief I had formed, it would have been fur- 1642 nished by something that has occurred within the last few days. The circumstance to which I allude shows the wisdom of discussing those matters in public. What was called a sanitary meeting was held a few days ago at Manchester. The Bishop of that diocese took part in the proceedings. It is impossible for me to say what sex was there under the shelter of the lawn sleeves. A report, published in The Times of the 26th of May, gave these remarks of the Bishop with reference to the objections against the legal measures—That they tended to propagate moral evil by making prostitution safe; that women were subjected to treatment at the hands of the officials to which no woman should be subjected. If that complaint were true, it certainly demanded attention; but neither of these matters had anything to do with the sanitary or medical element in this question; they ought to be discussed on different grounds, and if there were moral evils or social evils, surely legislation could remove them.From that extract it would almost seem that, in the opinion of the speaker, the moral evil of the treatment of women ought to be postponed to another season; but if an extract which appeared in The Globe be correct, that would, be a misapprehension of the speaker's meaning. It was in these terms—He thought the sanitary question should be kept separate from the moral question, and that the moral question should be dealt with by its own proper remedies.If those be the opinions of the Bishop upon the subject, it would almost appear as though he did not comprehend the view taken by other people, that that very mode of treating the sanitary question was in itself a moral evil. I think it would be impossible to find a stronger confirmation of the necessity of accurate reports than those two versions of the Bishop's speech to which I have referred. It is not for me, nor do I presume, to offer any opinion to this House as to what is the proper course for it to adopt in reference to this question; but, before I go further, I ought to say that we were prevented by the same means from offering an opinion to the Government upon the subject, and from pointing out to them how unsatisfactory any inquiry by a Commission must be to meet the evils felt to be attendant upon this species of legislation. There must, of course, be a difference of opinion upon the subject; but it is felt by many people that such legislation is a great evil in itself. 1643 It is copied from our neighbours the French, who have derived no good from it. The Committees which have sat, with the view of ascertaining whether the operation of these Acts ought to be extended more widely, have not in any way met the question, which is not whether a few persons more or less shall be saved from the inconvenience to which they are subjected to under these Acts. What the public take an interest in is what they believe to be the immoral tendency of the legislation, and I should not be candid to the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Gladstone) if I did not say that I do not believe that any Committee will decide that question, which is too wide to be dealt with in such a manner. ["Order!"]
§ MR. SPEAKERI feel bound to point out to the right hon. Gentleman that the Notice which he has given is, that he intends to call the attention of the House to the rule or practice of ordering strangers to withdraw, and the effects thereof. Now, it is perfectly competent to the right hon. Gentleman to point out that he thinks the subject on which the right of excluding strangers was exercised a very important one; but I think he is not in Order in entering into the details of that subject.
MR. HENLEYI shall, of course, at once bow, Sir, to your decision; but I beg leave to explain that I was about to show that I conceived the exclusion of strangers on the occasion to which I have referred would prevent our constituents from knowing the opinions which we, their representatives, had formed upon what the intentions of the Government upon this subject had been stated to be. I hope that such a topic comes within the terms of my Notice, because I believe that it would be a great inconvenience to the public not to know the opinion of their Members upon such grave and serious matters. I have no intention of suggesting to this House what they ought to do in the matter; but I thought it to be my duty to call the attention of the Government to the subject, because there is a strong feeling in the country that the exclusion of strangers was the doing of the Government. I myself have no reason to believe such to be the case; but it would not be right for me not to say that that belief is entertained by a considerable number of the public. In consequence of the enforcement of 1644 that Order the public had no opportunity of knowing what they would otherwise have known, that the offer made by the Government to refer the subject to a Commission had been declined by the hon. Member who had charge of the Motion. Therefore, although I feel sure that the Government had not anything to do with the matter, I thought it well to give the Notice that stands upon the Paper in my name, in order to give them an opportunity of disclaiming any wish on their part to shut out a fair discussion upon this matter of the gravest interest. I also thought it proper to call the attention of the Government to the question of what is the proper course to be pursued, for this reason—there are other matters of the greatest public importance coming forward, and many people think that when certain of those subjects come before the House, on the same principle as the matter under discussion the other night, involving as they believe a proof that the tree of knowledge is going to be put uppermost, and that the tree of life is about to be put downwards—other hon. Members may exercise the power that is in their hands of closing up discussion upon these matters by excluding strangers from the House during the debates upon them. I should be very sorry to be driven to exercise that power with the view of forcing the House to consider the matter; and, therefore, I have adopted this course in order to direct attention to the subject. I should I have regretted had I been obliged, in order to compel the House to look into the matter, to have gone on moving that strangers should be excluded until I became a nuisance. [A laugh.] The right hon. Gentleman opposite smiles at that. Perhaps he rather doubts whether such conduct would have rendered me a nuisance, because we should, under such circumstances, get through our business much quicker than we do at present. But what I mean to represent is that publicity is worth everything in the world, and I cannot conceive that any subject cannot be discussed in this House in such a manner as not to shock even the most delicate minds. I believe that there is ten thousand times more evil in attempting to carry on discussions of this character in secret than in public, and I hope and trust that we have not become so corrupt that we cannot bear to 1645 look in the face or name the vices around us. That is a state of things that has been described as the greatest curse that can befall a country, and I hope that we have not yet arrived at it. I ask for no opinion at present from the Government upon the matter, and I merely express a hope that they will consider the subject during the Recess.
MR. GLADSTONESir, it is not my intention to offer any remarks upon the subject that was under discussion the other night when the hon. Member for the Ayr Burghs (Mr. Craufurd) exercised the power—for I cannot call it the privilege—of calling the attention of the House to the fact that strangers were present, and thereby brought about their exclusion. I agree, however, with the right hon. Gentleman opposite that the occasion for the exercise of that power was inopportune, and that the subject in question was one with respect to which, notwithstanding its peculiar nature, the lesser evil was that it should have been discussed in public, than that our constituencies and the public at large should remain ignorant of the opinions existing in this House with reference to it. At the same time, the question is not whether in the mind of the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Henley), in my mind, or in the mind of the majority of the House the power so exercised was happily, or unhappily, used upon that special occasion; but whether it was such an exercise of that power as to make it good policy for the House to reconsider its rules, under which its individual Members possess the power of excluding strangers. I wish, however, to point out that, although the opinion of the majority of the hon. Members present at the time was unfavourable to the course taken by the hon. Member for the Ayr Burghs, yet, as far as I can learn, the opinion out-of-doors on the subject appears to be very much divided. It cannot, therefore, be said that the conduct of the hon. Member on the occasion referred to has met with universal or even general disapprobation. I feel the more called upon to make these remarks, because I happen to differ from the hon. Member upon the expediency of the course he adopted. There is, therefore, nothing of a startling nature in the particular exercise of this power to distinguish it from any other case in which it has been used, although I quite agree with the right hon. Gentleman that it has 1646 had the effect of keeping an important subject from the knowledge of the country. I will for a moment go back to the Committee of which the right hon. Gentleman was a Member, and which, if he had not been afraid of seeming to be guilty of self-praise, he might have said was a Committee of very great weight. The Committee was appointed on the 15th of June, 1849. It was presided over by Sir James Graham, and amongst its Members were Mr. Disraeli, Mr. Goulburn, Sir John Cam Hobhouse, Mr. Hume, and Mr. John O'Connell. Mr. John O'Connell was the Member who had exercised the power of excluding strangers; he was a man of experience, and all the other Members of the Committee were of great weight and consideration in the House. On the 21st, a further addition was made to that Committee, consisting of Sir Robert Peel, the Lord Advocate of that day, Mr. George Hamilton, Mr. Brotherton, Mr. Green, the Chairman of Committees, and lastly, whom I should, perhaps, have mentioned first, the name of yourself, Sir, the present Speaker. Here are 15 Gentlemen, including no Minister except Sir John Hobhouse, who was in Lord John Russell's Cabinet, a Committee of remarkable weight and judgment, who resolved:—
That the existing usage of excluding strangers upon the Motion by an individual Member that strangers were present, has prevailed from a very early period of Parliamentary history, that the instances in which the power has been exercised have been very rare, and that it is the unanimous opinion of your Committee that there is not sufficient ground for making an alteration in the existing practice with regard to the admission or exclusion of strangers.This unanimous Resolution is an important fact in the consideration of this question; at any rate, it is a fact which weighs with the Government in considering whether it is their duty to propose any alteration in the matter. In the particular case we have in mind the discretion was exercised in a manner on which opinion is much divided; I have, therefore, no proposal to make for the alteration of the practice on the responsibility of the Government; at the same time, if the House should think the opinion prevails extensively in the House that the time has come when its practice should be altered, the safe course will be to do that which was done in 1849, and appoint a Committee carefully composed and representing, as far 1647 as possible, the weightiest judgments of the House, to go impartially into the matter. There is no doubt that in former times this power of exclusion was abused, and abused by the majority of the House. There is no doubt, also, I presume, that in later times the power has been clung to, even after any great practical necessity for its continuance, or at least for its daily use, had disappeared. It has been clung to from the idea, not altogether unjust, that there may be circumstances in which the free exercise of that power may be connected with the perfect freedom of opinion and its expression in debate—a privilege as valuable as the practice of publicity. That is a matter which ought to be taken into consideration; but upon which it is not necessary for me to come to a decided opinion at present, because we are, I believe, quite agreed that if the practice is to be disturbed, the resolution to disturb it should grow out of the deliberations of a Committee rather than out of the opinion and initiative of the Government. We do not see sufficient grounds for recommending the appointment of that Committee; but such a measure would be entirely unexceptionable if the opinion of the House warranted it.
SIR JOHN HAYsaid, he wished to throw out for the consideration of the Government, whether it would not be possible to give the intending occupants of the Ladies' Gallery upon any particular evening notice that the House proposed to discuss matters which they would prefer not to hear discussed. He believed those who approved the exclusion of strangers on the occasion referred to were of opinion that the presence of ladies in their Gallery would interfere with free discussion. Perhaps the matter could be arranged by the Serjeant-at-Arms, so that the Press would have an opportunity of being present at a discussion with which it was well the public should be made acquainted.
§ MR. CRAUFURDsaid, it was unnecessary, after what had fallen from the First Lord of the Treasury, that he should say a word in justification of the course he had pursued, and he was quite content to leave the matter to public opinion. He would not have risen but for the observations of the last speaker, which seemed to be based on a misapprehension similar to that which had become current through some portion of the Press. It had been said that his 1648 sole object in excluding strangers from the House on the occasion referred to was to clear the Ladies' Gallery; in justice to those for whom that Gallery was set apart, he disclaimed any such motive. The ladies of England required no such notice to withdraw from a debate which would be disagreeable to them. He had taken the trouble to make inquiry, and every one of the ladies in the Gallery on that evening, with the exception of two, rose to leave immediately after the Division which preceded the Motion of the hon. Member for Cambridge (Mr. W. Fowler). His object was to secure that the debate should not be reported. A feeling of disgust had been expressed by correspondents in the newspapers with regard to what had already been published in the public Press, with reference to a notorious case that was just now creating great excitement, and he conceived it to be the duty of any hon. Member who felt as strongly as he did, to avail himself of the privileges of the House to prevent their breakfast tables being flooded with authoritative reports of details utterly unfit for modest eyes. He thought it due to the ladies of England to state thus much.
§ MR. W. FOWLERsaid, he must repeat that he found a difficulty in drawing a distinction between reports which were constantly appearing in the newspapers of details far more disgusting than anything which had fallen from his lips on the occasion referred to, and the discussion of an abstract question like that which he had introduced the other day. If any distinction could be drawn it must be in favour of the debate the other evening, as compared with the publication of the actual proceedings of individual men far more disgusting and far more corrupting than anything which occurred in the course of the debate on his Motion. On that occasion the House was discussing an important social question upon which the public had a right to know their opinions; and he had not heard a word this evening to show him why an individual Member should be intrusted with the monstrous power of ordering the public to withdraw. They had been told that freedom of debate was involved in the question; if so, let it be in the power of the House to order strangers to withdraw. It might have been expedient in times when the personal safety of Members was at stake that such a power should reside in the 1649 hands of an individual Member; but these were happier times. The House had heard the conclusion arrived at by the Committee in 1849; but it was not in possession of the reasons which induced the conclusion. He still believed the course pursued by the hon. Member was exceedingly improper. [Cries of "No!"] At all events, it was not well-advised. He regretted it very much, and he thought a Committee ought to be appointed to see whether there was not now good reason for altering the rule.
§ MR. DALGLISHsaid, he thought the Order for excluding strangers should be so framed as not to include the Press. He thought the House might safely leave it to the good sense of the reporters in reporting such debates not to report anything offensive to the general public.
§ Motion, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair," put, and agreed to.