Commons Sitting of 27 June 1871

MINUTES.
SUPPLY—considered in Committee—CIVIL SERVICE ESTIMATES.
The House met at Two of the clock.

METROPOLIS—DRINKING TROUGH IN PICCADILLY.—QUESTION.
CAPTAIN ARCHDALLasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether there is no power to order the removal of the drinking trough
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lately erected opposite Hamilton Place, which, in its present position, caused great obstruction, to some place, such as what was formerly called Apsley Stables, where the road was fifteen feet wider; and, whether the right hon. Gentleman would give orders to the police effectually to prevent any stoppage of the traffic in consequence of the drinking trough?
MR. BRUCE, in reply, said, he had no power over these roads. The power lay with the Vestry. It was by their authority that the trough had been placed in its present position, and by their authority it could be removed. Obstruction of the high road was a legal offence, and the Vestry, if there was any obstruction in this case, would be liable to prosecution for causing it by anyone who felt aggrieved. So far as the action of the police was concerned, he would take care that they should do what they could to diminish any obstruction caused by the use of the trough.

SUPPLY—CIVIL SERVICE ESTIMATES.

  SUPPLY—considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)
  (1.) Question again proposed,
  "That a sum, not exceeding £23,078, 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 1872, for the Buildings of the Houses of Parliament."
  MR. BERESFORD HOPEsaid, it would not be right to allow the debate to close without some observations on the speech of the right hon. Gentleman who presided over the Office of Works, and who, to the great contentment of the House, had announced his intention to bring in a Bill to teach and enforce better manners to people visiting the Parks. The right hon. Gentleman, who might now very properly be characterized as the Chesterfield of the 19th century, made a statement the other day respecting a former public servant (Mr. Barry), which deserved to receive some consideration. The right hon. Gentleman, speaking of his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Whitehaven (Mr. C. Bentinck), with the cause of whose absence from the House that day every hon. Gentleman would sympathize, had said—

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  "The hon. Member who had been so severe upon him in respect of his method of conducting Public Business would form a different opinion on the subject if he had had more experience. He did not, however, attach much importance to the hon. Member's opinion—"
  Probably the hon. and learned Member would be able to reciprocate that sentiment.
  "—because he was probably not aware of the circumstances under which Mr. Barry had been dealt with. What had been written to Mr. Barry had been written advisedly, and with a due regard to the public interest. When anyone desired to get a statement of reasons from a Minister for any course he might pursue it was not desirable to fall into his trap."
  Perhaps that might be considered a candid explanation of the relations between the Treasury bench and the rest of the House, and that the right hon. Gentleman considered that when an hon. Member rose to put a question to the occupants of the Treasury bench the fair assumption was that he was laying a trap, and that it was the duty of the Government not to fall into that trap, or, in other words, to give that kind of answer which would, in reality, be no explanation. The right hon. Gentleman might represent that the leading organ had for once not correctly reported him. But the right hon. Gentleman's statement as it stood was an explanation of the Governmental policy with respect to interrogators. But what was the case between Mr. Barry and the right hon. Gentleman? The correspondence between Mr. Barry and the First Commissioner was very long; but in a few words he would explain the matter. Mr. Barry asked the right hon. Gentleman whether he would allow him to have a copy of the Opinions of the Law Officers of the Crown on the point as to the drawings of Mr. Barry's father, which he refused to give. But of such a question put respectfully the right hon. Gentleman did not hesitate to speak as a trap, although it concerned the professional fame of a gentleman to whom the gentleman who put the question was most nearly and dearly related. The right hon. Gentleman went on to say—and the statement was one which could not be allowed to go uncontradicted—because it was one of those statements which, if the persons concerned had not been in the respective positions of Minister of the Crown and employé, would have led to a sharp correspondence, or
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  if it had occurred in the last generation would have led to something much sharper—the right hon. Gentleman went on to say that Mr. Barry's services were by no means "disinterested." Now, what was the imputation which was supposed to underlie the use of the word "disinterested" in common life? An imputation injurious to the good fame of the person to whom it was applied. ["No, no!] He repeated distinctly that that was the inference to be drawn. No doubt the right hon. Gentleman might bring Johnson's Dictionary, or any other dictionary, to prove the exact meaning of the word "disinterested;" but there were covert meanings behind some words, and when such an expression was used in regard to an employé it left an imputation behind.
  MR. AYRTONsaid, if the hon. Gentleman wished to quote his words, and to comment on them, then it was desirable that he should quote them as they were delivered in that House, with the context. The hon. Gentleman would there find that the words did not bear the construction which he put upon them.
  MR. BERESFORD HOPEsaid, he was quoting from the report in The Times. ["Order!]
  MR. AYRTONsaid, the public journals in reporting the debates necessarily did so very shortly, especially when the House was in Committee of Supply.
  MR. BERESFORD HOPEsaid, he would withdraw that statement and the line of argument. He believed it would be in the recollection of hon. Members that the right hon. Gentleman did make certain statements on the last occasion on which the House was in Committee of Supply to the effect that the services which had been rendered by Mr. Barry while in the position of architect of the Houses of Parliament were not disinterested. Now, what would the right hon. Gentleman think if he were to use similar language with reference to his own services or those of any of his Colleagues on the Treasury bench, who drew, and very properly drew, official salaries?
  MR. AYRTONrose to Order.
  MR. BERESFORD HOPEbegged to inform the right hon. Gentleman that he would not stand those repeated interruptions. No man, because he sat on the Treasury bench, had a right to jump up continually and interrupt any hon.

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  Member. If he (Mr. B. Hope) were to say that the services of any Member of the Government who rightly drew his salary were not disinterested, he should subject himself to the just imputation of very bad taste, and of a very slight knowledge of the value of the English language. He had heard that the right hon. Gentleman, in the course of the debate, had stated that Mr. Barry had been employed to do certain work, for which he had been paid, and that the continuance of his services was inconsistent with the public interest—that this was not merely a question of what was paid to Mr. Barry, but a question of the hundreds of thousands of pounds which the House was called on to pay for carrying out Mr. Barry's suggestions. Now, he had the verbal assurance of Mr. Barry himself, given him that very day, that his business and duty were all along to receive the suggestions of the First Commissioner, by whomsoever that office happened to be held. The practice was that the First Commissioner should state to Mr. Barry that he wanted some work or another to be executed, and Mr. Barry was bound to report to him as to the sum which it would probably cost. The First Commissioner accepted the report, or cut it down; but, whether accepted or cut down, Mr. Barry was bound to execute the work for the sum named. Mr. Barry, he might add, had assured him that on looking back to his career as architect of the Houses of Parliament he found he had never exceeded the amount set down in the report which he had given in. He had, however, other authorities to refer to in favour of that gentleman whom the First Commissioner would hardly say he was not bound to treat with some respect. The first of those authorities whom he would quote was the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who in the debate of May 13, 1870, on Westminster Palace, said—
  "I am not likely to say anything in disparagement of Mr. Barry. …. We had a perfect right to put an end, if we thought it advisable, to Mr. Barry's engagement. …. It does not, how ever, follow that he was never to be employed again. I hope myself—it is not my business—but I hope that he may be employed when we have any architectural duties to be performed in connection with this House."—[3 Hansard, cci. 716.]
  The next testimony he would quote was
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  that of the First Lord of the Treasury, who said, on the same occasion, that he had never given any opinion adverse to that which had been expressed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer as to the re-employment of Mr. Barry should the services of an architect happen to be required for the building; and that Mr. Barry had in no way misconducted himself in the execution of the work committed to his charge. Now would, he should like to know, either the Chancellor of the Exchequer or the First Lord of the Treasury have spoken in such terms of Mr. Barry if the carrying out of his suggestions had led to the waste of hundreds or thousands of pounds, as had been stated by the First Commissioner of Works? Whatever may have been the cause of Mr. Barry's employment or of its discontinuance—whether he had had hard lines dealt out to him or not—the heads of the Government parted with him in all honour and confidence as a meritorious public servant, who had done his duty. He held in his hand, he might add, an account which showed the works which Mr. Barry had carried out from his own designs, irrespective of those which he had completed as the successor of his father, and he found that while he held the appointment of architect the sum expended amounted to only about £66,000. What, then, ought the House to say to a Minister who did not know the difference between £66,000 and hundreds of thousands of pounds? That was sufficient to show how rash and rambling were the figures used by the First Commissioner of Works. This was a matter of personal character with regard to Mr. Barry; but the personal character of any gentleman ought to be precious to the House, and especially the personal character of a gentleman who had been the servant of the public for so many years. He protested against the Treasury bench being made the arena from which private feelings of liking and disliking should be vented in regard to any public servants whose position rendered them so incapable of meeting the taunts which were thrown out in that way. Mr. Barry, like other men, had to earn his bread, and imputations upon him might stand seriously in the way of his professional reputation. Was it fair that in order to catch a cheer, and to pass a Vote at 10 minutes to 7 o'clock, such language as was used

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  by the First Commissioner of Works should be tolerated? When Ministers wished to pass a Vote at such a time, they had better be careful for the future as to who they left on the Treasury bench, and from whose mouths they left explanations to come. Had the Chancellor of the Exchequer or the Prime Minister been present on Friday Mr. Barry would not have been disparaged in this way, nor would these imputations have been so carelessly tossed about.
  MR. AYRTONsaid, that while the hon. Gentleman was addressing the Committee he thought it would be agreeable to him that he should interrupt, for if he recollected rightly the hon. Gentleman was not in the House when the discussion on which he had commented arose, and he could therefore have no personal knowledge as to the accuracy of the statements which he was making. The hon. Gentleman not knowing anything of the matter he naturally supposed that he would like to hear from him what it was that really occurred; but every man had his own view as to what was right. [Mr. BERESFORD HOPE: Hear!] and certainly his view in the present instance differed very much from that of the hon. Member. If the hon. Gentleman had only listened to his explanation, he would not have found it necessary to make several of the remarks, more or less complimentary, in which he had indulged. What he had really said on Friday did not in the least bear the construction which the hon. Gentleman had put upon it, for the report in the newspaper from which he had quoted, though giving a general view of his argument, did not profess to be a strictly accurate verbal account of what had passed on the occasion. What he had said was, that when discussions had previously arisen on the subject a great deal had been heard as to Mr. Barry's having rendered disinterested services; but that since his engagement had terminated he had sent in an account of all those services, amounting to a considerable sum, which had been paid. [Mr. BAILLIE COCHRANE: What amount?] £2,000;—and, that being so, Mr. Barry was not entitled to the credit of having giving his services for nothing. He thought enough had been said on that subject last Session, and there not being a single item in the present Veto which related to Mr. Barry or the payment of his services, he should
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  not have alluded to the matter had not an hon. Member deemed it right to call the attention of the Committee to it. Again, with respect to the advantages which he thought had resulted from Mr. Barry's having ceased to hold his late appointment, what he had said was that there were, as a consequence, no more suggestions from him before the House, involving a large expenditure. He had floating in his mind what had been stated last Session by an eminent Prelate (the Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol) in the other House of Parliament, that £30,000 had been spent in bedizening with gold a part of the building which in former times was used as a coal cellar and lumber room, and which was subsequently used as a dining room for the Speaker. It was stated that having been thus bedizened it had been made more obscure than it already was by the manner in which the windows were painted, and there was a scheme projected for having shutters made to work by machinery, and gas lighted outside the windows with an arrangement of screens, so that, the painted windows might be exhibited by night as well as by day. He had inferred that the vault was not now used for any purpose and never could be, so that it remained a spectacle of the most absolute waste of the public money. Of course, Mr. Barry maintained that everything he had done had been done at the suggestion of the First Commissioner of Works; but whether the architect made a suggestion of an expensive character and the First Commissioner took it up, or vice versâ, the result had been somehow or another a large outlay of public money on projects of the kind. What he stated was that under these circumstances the Government had got rid of all that sort of thing by putting an end to the connection which existed between the Office of Works and Mr. Barry, and the First Commissioner was required, on his own responsibility, to satisfy himself of the necessity for any proposal previous to its being laid before Parliament. What works he should like to know had been projected by Sir. Barry during the two or three years he held the appointment in question? A now House of Commons and a new House of Lords, at an enormous expense. [Mr. BAILLIE COCHRANE: He was acting in accordance with the Report of the Committee.] He did not care who had recommended these projects.

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  The proposals were made and beautifully executed designs were hung about the House to bring the matter before the eyes of hon. Members. [Mr. BERESFORD HOPE said the designs were ordered by the Committee.] All these things were going on while Mr. Barry was Parliamentary architect, and that gentleman was always suggesting things which involved an enormous expenditure of public money. Since the connection with Mr. Barry had ceased, however, these projects were no longer heard of, and there were no proposals to involve the House in a very large public expenditure. He had heard the hon. Member for Whitehaven. (Mr. C. Bentinck) lately condemn the cloister which had been erected in New Palace Yard at an enormous cost, and which many people did not look upon as an improvement to the beauty of the House, and there was a crop of suggestions for future works which would, in all probability, have to be executed in a still more expensive manner. The result was that while small things which hon. Members asked for their own convenience could not be obtained, the public money was being lavishly expended on such projects as those to which he had been referring. The hon. Member for Cambridge University had a great love for the Fine Arts; but he could hardly be of opinion that the interests of art were promoted by putting up a very indifferent statue in stone, and then making it beautiful by plastering it all over with gold. [Mr. BERESFORD HOPE: Where is that statue?] It is in the Royal Gallery. He thought the Government had done well in getting rid of this state of things, and in putting on the First Commissioner of Works the undivided responsibility of any step which was calculated to draw the House into any expenditure on a building which some people thought was one of the most inconvenient and costly buildings over erected. He would not enter into the vexed question respecting the correspondence between Mr. Barry and the Office of Works. All he could say was that Mr. Barry's communications were of a character calculated to draw him into a long controversy, and that he had declined to enter into any such controversy, his replies being confined to the simple matters of business which had to be discussed between them. When Mr. Barry attempted to go beyond the matter of
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  business and embarked in controversial writing, however exciting his letters might be in tone, he had treated them with the utmost calmness, reducing his answers to the smallest number of words necessary to convey the determination of the Office of Works on the point at issue. The result was that the Office had not been led into a foolish controversy. Passing from that subject, he should proceed to answer some questions which he had been asked before the adjournment of the debate on Friday. One hon. Gentleman wished to know what was being done with respect to a display of electric light at night on the Clock Tower or some other portion of the Houses of Parliament, so that hon. Members and others at a distance might be able to know whether the House was sitting or not. Well, the carrying out such a project involved intricate scientific questions as to how it was to be most satisfactorily and economically executed. He (Mr. Ayrton) had been in communication with several scientific gentlemen on the subject; but he was not at the present moment in a position to state what the cost of such a light would be. It was not a thing which could be done for a trifle, and the Government had more than one proposal under consideration. He hoped, he might add, to have an experiment made with the light from one of the turrets of the Victoria Tower before the Session came to a close; but he could not as yet say whether the project would be carried out or not. A question was asked respecting the heat of the Library; but when the external temperature rose above 70 degrees, and when, in addition, the gas was lighted, it was impossible to keep down the heat of the atmosphere very much; but, on the whole, the temperature of the room was by no means excessive. The lighting of the House had been very much considered, and hon. Members would notice that now lights had been erected in the dining room which gave general satisfaction. That question had received a good deal of attention, and a distinguished gentleman connected with the Office of Works (Dr. Percy) was the superintendent of the department. Some complaints had been made in regard to the establishment of the clerk of works for the House. But there were services to be performed which required rather a large establishment. There was a clerk of works who

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  superintended all the business which properly belonged to the Department during ordinary hours; but it was necessary to have a person in addition to continue the services required when the House sat until a late hour. In connection with the ventilation of the House was that of the Courts of Justice, and the services were effected by boilers of considerable power, and great advantage arose from having the double services performed by one set of machinery. The cost of the police for the House of Parliament was doubtless very considerable, and the sum which appeared in the Votes was not the whole expense, because it was not only necessary to pay for the police employed in the service of Parliament, but a large sum had also to be paid to the police on account of the Houses been shown to visitors when Parliament was not sitting. Who ought to pay for that was a question which had arisen, for if the Houses of Parliament were converted into a public show for the gratification of the inhabitants of the Metropolis, it did not belong to the public Exchequer to discharge the expense, but the cost should fall on the police of the Metropolis, who were bound to see that no injury was done to the building. The adjustment between the charge which should be paid out of the local funds of the Metropolitan Police and the charge which should be borne by the Imperial Exchequer might be a matter for consideration; but at present it was thought better not to disturb the existing arrangement.
  MR. COWPER-TEMPLEsaid, after the allusion of the right hon. Gentleman to the work in St. Stephen's Crypt, which took place under his (Mr. Cowper-Temple's) superintendence, he must say a few words. He was in hopes that the First Commissioner of Works when he rose would have apologized for the language he used during the last discussion of the Estimates, because more unwarrantable language than that employed towards Mr. Barry never proceeded from a Minister of the Crown in reference to any individual in the public service. Upon reflection, the right hon. Gentleman not only maintained the accusation he had made, but proceeded to justify it, increasing thereby the injustice tenfold. The right hon. Gentleman had been twitted from the other side for having caused an unnecessary expenditure
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  of £2,000 by his removal of Mr. Barry from the position of consulting architect which he held up to the time when the right hon. Gentleman came into office. That sum of £2,000 was for designs and plans which were not put into execution. So long as Mr. Barry remained in his position as architect of the Palace of Westminster, he was always ready to prepare for consideration any designs that might be wanted, without demanding payment for them if they were not adopted, being satisfied with the percentage he got upon executed works. But when the First Commissioner of Works withdrew employment from Mr. Barry and yet made use of the designs he had submitted, Mr. Barry was obliged to demand his professional remuneration for his unexecuted designs, in order to guard against the denial of their authorship, and thus the course taken by the right hon. Gentleman has led to an expenditure of £2,000 which would otherwise have been saved. One of the designs was for carrying out the work which the First Commissioner of Works executed in the refreshment and dining rooms. [Mr. AYRTON said, that the most of Mr. Barry's designs were not carried out.] Payment for the designs of refreshment and dining rooms was made to Mr. Barry; but that gentleman would not have required payment for unexecuted designs if he had been left in the position of consulting architect of the House. However, it became necessary for Mr. Barry, when removed from that position, and when the First Commissioner of Works was making use of his designs, to ask payment for the unexecuted designs. The First Commissioner of Works said he did not entirely carry out Mr. Barry's design for the new refreshment and dining rooms. Then, that was more the pity, because he spoilt Mr. Barry's designs. These rooms were at present connected by two doors. Mr. Barry's plan would have thrown the two rooms into one, and would have added considerably to the space for dining-tables; and would have provided a much more convenient access to the kitchen. The alterations made in Mr. Barry's plan were certainly not advantageous. In a previous discussion the First Commissioner said that the House had not only to consider what was paid to Mr. Barry himself, but the thousands and hundreds of thousands of pounds the

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  country would have had to expend if Mr. Barry had remained in his situation. If that observation meant anything, it meant that the First Commissioner of Works was so weak as to be under the influence of anyone who made suggestions to him; but no one who knew the First Commissioner of Works would give weight to an argument resting on his readiness to follow the advice of anyone or particularly of an architect or artist. That day he had thrown out another view, and had endeavoured to put upon Mr. Barry the responsibility of various expenses with which he had nothing whatever to do. First among these was the cost incurred in regard to what he called the Vault, but which he (Mr. Cowper-Temple) would call St. Stephen's Crypt. This, according to the right hon. Gentleman, was absolutely worthless—he forgot the exact term of contempt used. [Mr. AYRTON: Useless.] The right hon. Gentleman, then, thought that one of the best specimen of the architecture of the 13th century in this country was totally useless. Let the right hon. Gentleman ask any professional architect whose opinion was worth having, and he would be told that as a specimen of architecture it was most valuable. [Mr. AYRTON said, he had spoken of bedizening the chapel with gold.] Then the right hon. Gentleman admitted that it was valuable, and his only objection to it was that it was bedizened with gold. But that was only the restoration of the building to the condition in which it was in the time of its early beauty and splendour. It was on record that in the time of Henry III. that chapel was most brilliantly ornamented, quite as much bedizened and as beautiful a specimen of architecture as it was now. Indeed, it was much finer, and what had been done was only an attempt to restore it to its old style. But the right hon. Gentleman said this bedizenment had cost £30,000. Now, that was an assertion which he should have thought even the great boldness of the right hon. Gentleman would hardly have ventured to make, although he professed to be backed by the authority of some Prelate in the House of Lords. If, however, the right hon. Gentleman would take the trouble to look into the records of his own Department he would find that instead of £30,000 the cost was little more than £600. Just as in the former
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  part of the debate he talked about thousands and hundreds of thousands, so at present he was endeavouring to draw his hon. Friends below the gangway by talking of economy in regard to this chapel. The work was done by contract with Messrs. Craco; they executed it so liberally that probably they lost money by it, but they got no more than the contract price. The right hon. Gentleman proceeded to say that Mr. Barry was responsible for the cost of the plans for the now Houses of Commons and Lords; but that was totally inaccurate. Any of the Members who served on the Committee would bear him out when he stated that Mr. Barry made no suggestion whatever on that subject. Mr. Barry was called before them as a witness, but he produced no plans until, on the Motion of Sir John Lanyon (then a Member), he proposed a plan of a new House of Commons. The Committee were solely responsible. From his (Mr. Cowper-Temple's) experience of Mr. Barry when he was First Commissioner of Works, he could say without hesitation that Mr. Barry never made any spontaneous suggestions that would have led to any expense. It was not his business to do so; he ought not to have done so, and he did not do so; his only suggestions were made in answer to the demands of those who instructed him. In the same way the expense of the dining room did not originate with Mr. Barry, but with the Committee of the House, who submitted a Report year after year recommending the expenditure proposed. When he (Mr. Cowper-Temple) was First Commissioner of Works he got these Reports; he did not wish to spend the money of the country in altering the dining rooms, and he refused, as his successors did, till the right hon. Gentleman came into office, and he departed from the economical view which had up till then prevailed in the office. He it was who incurred the expense, although now he professed to be more economical than his predecessors, who declined to incur this expenditure. But although he incurred the expense of the new dining rooms, he did it in a niggardly way, curtailing and spoiling Mr. Barry's plans. Mr. Barry only submitted an approximate estimate. His estimate was higher because it included more extensive alterations, as he had been asked to provide a now dining room

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  for the Lords as well as for Commons. The right hon. Gentleman ought to withdraw his very unfair imputations. If he were a private Member perhaps Mr. Barry would not care for his attacks. But speaking as he did with the authority of a Minister of the Crown, it was rather unfair that he should launch out those vague and unfounded accusations against a man professionally employed in his Department. Because Sir Charles Barreled the country into very considerable expense in regard to this great structure, his son was assumed to be intending to do the same. But his experience of Mr. Edward Barry had led him to a different conclusion. The statements that had been made were without any foundation and the reiteration of them against a professional man was unfair and ungenerous.
  MR. BAILLIE COCHRANE, as a member of the Committee to which allusion had been made, must confirm the statements of the right hon. Gentleman who had just sat down. The First Commissioner had stated that the country had been saved hundreds of thousands of pounds, which would have been expended had Mr. Barry remained in office. The Committee had unanimously reported in favour of building a new House of Commons. Mr. Barry was sent for and desired to prepare a drawing. He did make elaborate and admirable plans, and he also produced a plan for a new dining room. That plan was adopted, but not in its entirety, and the bad part of it only had been carried out by the First Commissioner. The credit of the bar in the lobby—which cut the lobby in two, and was quite an offence—belonged to the right hon. Gentleman. He thought the First Commissioner had left an improper impression on the public mind with regard to Mr. Barry's charge, which turned out to be, for 12 years' service, only £2,200, and he was bound to express his regret for having been led away by his florid style of speaking into the great exaggeration of which he had been guilty.
  SIR FRANCIS GOLDSMIDsaid, he regretted the hon. Member for Whitehaven (Mr. C. Bentinck) was not in his place, as he was about to refer to the charge made by him, and which had that day been repeated, that the Chief Commissioner of Works had put the country to the expense of £2,000 by
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  ceasing to employ Mr. Barry. This must mean that if Mr. Barry had remained in his position he never would have received the £2,000 which had been claimed by, and paid to him; and that state of circumstances seemed to be considered as something creditable to Mr. Barry and discreditable to the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Ayrton.) Now, in examining this charge, they were confined to one of two alternatives. Either Mr. Barry was employed with an understanding between himself and the Chief Commissioner for the time being that he was not to be remunerated, or there was no such understanding. The former alternative he (Sir Francis Goldsmid) felt himself to be wholly prevented from adopting, having been informed by all acquainted with Mr. Barry—however much they might differ in estimating his professional skill and economy—that he was a gentleman of the highest honour; and finding it impossible to reconcile with that high honour the supposition of his having sent in an account for services for which it had been understood that he was not to be compensated. Consequently he was driven to the conclusion that it was always intended that Mr. Barry should be compensated, although the period at which his account was sent in was accelerated by his dismissal. If that was so, it was idle and absurd to say that the Chief Commissioner had brought a cost of £2,000 upon the country by the dismissal of Mr. Barry, when the course taken had simply had the effect of causing him to be paid in one year instead of another.
  MR. BERESFORD HOPEsaid, that having been a Member of the Committee to which reference had been made, he would add a few words to what had been said by the right hon. Member for South Hampshire (Mr. Cowper-Temple) in defence of Mr. Barry, and in proof that he was in no way responsible for the expenditure which had been incurred. The Committee was moved for by the right hon. Member for Newcastle (Mr. Headlam) after fair discussion and something like a general expression of opinion on the part of the Members of the House that the Hall in which they assembled was, from circumstances, inadequate for the transaction of their business. The Committee sat for two Sessions, and Mr. Barry drew the plans of the House on the Motion of Sir

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  Charles Lanyon; but there were a good many other plans which increased Mr. Barry's bill—as, for instance, an ingenious design for the re-arrangement of the House, produced by the hon. Baronet the Member for Manchester (Sir Thomas Bazley), which being a pen-and-ink sketch was reproduced by Mr. Barry in the more workmanlike form of a regular plan drawn to scale. Then the Committee of its own motion, and not at all at the instigation of Mr. Barry, obtained plans of tho different Houses of Legislature in different countries in Europe, and these were reduced to scale by Mr. Barry, who was not responsible for that expense. To show the value of those plans, ho might state that recently application was made to him for tho Blue Book containing them by a gentleman of high distinction in the Prussian Parliament, as a guide for a Committee sitting in Berlin to decide upon a now German Parliament House. The Select Committee, after sitting two Sessions, reported unanimously, composed as it was of Members from both sides of the House. In the first Session of the present Parliament the question came before the House, and the matter having been discussed, was postponed, but not shelved, the Prime Minister giving reasons why the building of a new House should not be proceeded with at once. It was not likely, however, to be again taken up under the present administration of the office of Public Works. But to say that Mr. Barry tried to lead the House to expend thousands—to quote the very romantic Arabian Nights-like figures they had heard from the Treasury bench—was simply to state what neither the Blue Book nor the records of the House would carry out. Mr. Barry was no more responsible for the Committee's proceedings than the right hon. Gentleman himself. When people saw the supercilious language in which the Minister of Works had talked of the restoration of an English building equal to the Sainte Chapelle in Paris, the supposed destruction of which had lately caused universal regret, he should not be surprised if they folded up their newspapers and said—"After all, England is a nation of shopkeepers, and a shopkeeper presides over its tastes."
  LORD JOHN MANNERSsaid, that having last year expressed most emphatically his condemnation, on public grounds,
  664
  of the removal of Mr. Barry, and his deep regret at the tone and terms in which, his dismissal had been conveyed to him by the right hon. Gentleman, he was in hopes he might have been spared the necessity of rising on the present occasion; but the right hon. Gentleman had made use of such language as to leave him no option but to follow the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Hampshire (Mr. Cowper-Temple) in expressing his belief that the complaints and charges brought by the First Commissioner of Works against Mr. Barry to-day were totally and absolutely unfounded. He spoke not only as First Commissioner of Works at the time the Committee was appointed, but also as a member of that Committee. The Committee was moved for with the approbation of the Government, and the general assent of the House, and the Motion arose out of the discontent which was felt, rightly or wrongly, with the size of the room in which hon. Members meet. The Committee naturally called Mr. Barry as a witness, and put to him questions which he answered, and which he had no option but to answer. At the request of the Committee he first produced plans of the House. A suggestion was made by an independent member of the Committee that Mr. Barry should be requested to prepare plans, and Mr. Barry came to him as First Commissioner to ask whether he had the sanction of the Government to comply with the formal request of the Committee. He (Lord John Manners) had no hesitation in saying that the Government sanctioned the request of the Committee, at the same time guarding himself against the idea of the Government being committed to any result which might follow the investigation of the Committee. Then he was requested duing the Recess to communicate with our representatives at Berlin, Vienna, and Washington, and with the authorities in Canada, with the view of obtaining plans showing how the Members of the Houses of Parliament in those different countries were accommodated. No doubt a considerable expense was thus incurred by the direction of a body which represented the House of Commons; and although it had not led to the creation of a new building, he had never yet heard any blame attached to any members of the Committee. To say that Mr. Barry was

  665
  responsible in any degree for the plans which he prepared at the instance of the Committee, was to shift the responsibility from the Committee to the shoulders of the gentleman whose reputation the First Commissioner had done his best to destroy. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Hampshire had sufficiently disposed of the charge made with respect to the crypt under this building by saying that he was responsible for recommending to the House the expenditure incurred in the completion of the beautiful work with which his name would be associated in time to conic; and, although we could not quarrel on the score of taste with any views the First Commissioner might profess to entertain, he must protest against the singular injustice of imputing any blame to Mr. Barry for a work which was carried out with the full assent of the House, and against the Votes for which, so far as he remembered, there was no division. If the chapel, being complete, remained useless, whose fault was that? It remained for the Government to communicate with the ecclesiastical authorities, and to say that the chapel should be used. If the Prime Minister thought fit to take the necessary stops, the building could at once be devoted to the ordinary purposes of a Chapel Royal. Neither with respect to the plans for the new Houses of Parliament nor with respect to St. Stephen's Crypt could any blame be legitimately placed on Mr. Barry's shoulders. And with regard to this being an unnecessary and foolish expenditure on the Chapel Royal, he would beg the right hon. Gentleman, when he next visited his constituents in the Tower Hamlets, to see what had been done by a far less august personage than any First Commissioner, in the way of restoring—or, as the right hon. Gentleman would call it, bedizening—that beautiful specimen of ancient architecture in the heart of the City (Crosby Hall). He could only express his conviction that during the whole of the time that Mr. Barry had any connection with that great building, Mr. Barry never did anything to justify the violent censures which the right hon. Gentleman had bestowed upon him. He believed that Mr. Barry was not only a man of the highest professional merit, but also a man of extreme probity, who could not help fooling indignation and surprise at
  666
  the constant attempts of the right hon. Gentleman to run down his character, and throw upon him the responsibility which every Government that had employed Mr. Barry ought to be forward in taking upon themselves. He (Lord John Manners), for one, would never consent, so far as he was concerned, to transfer responsibility from his shoulders to Mr. Barry. He understood the right hon. Gentleman to have said that Mr. Barry had such an influence over him and over the Prime Minister, as the case might be, that as long as he was employed in the public service there could be no security whatever against a perpetual recurrence of enormous charges. He (Lord John Manners), on the contrary, said that the First Commissioner and Her Majesty's Government were responsible for everything that Mr. Barry was asked to carry out.
  MR. MELLYsaid, he thought the First Commissioner was entitled to thanks for the manner in which he discharged the duties of his office and restricted the expenses of the Government. There was nothing in the world so disagreeable as attempting to spare the money raised from ratepayers or taxpayers. If they attempted any economy they trod upon the toes of somebody who had friends, and those friends made a clamour in the House. He was not learned in architecture; but he had read this correspondence as carefully as any man in the House, and he maintained that, looking at the difficulties in which the First Commissioner was placed, the right hon. Gentleman acted most wisely in putting a stop to perpetual expenditure upon that magnificent building.
  MR. AYRTONsaid, he did not want to prolong this discussion, which was really quite foreign to the subject before the Committee; but if had fallen into any error in quoting the statement of a right rev. Prelate he wished to correct it. Having no personal knowledge of the subject when the statement was made, he inquired at the Office of Works what the expenditure had actually been. The reply he received was that the accounts were so rendered that they could not tell; and as he saw no contradiction by Mr. Barry of the very responsible statement made in the other House, he supposed it to be correct. He did not know now what the expense had amounted to; but if the right hon. Gentleman (Mr.

  667
  Cowper-Temple) assured him that he had committed a gross exaggeration, he withdrew it, and regretted having adopted it. He perfectly recollected having seen, after the fire at the Houses of Parliament, the vault which had been mentioned. [Mr. BERESFORD HOPE: The chapel.] The hon. Gentleman called it a chapel. [Mr. BERESFORD HOPE: It is one.] Perhaps he did not recognize the Reformation in this country. He would say that it was an innovation and not a Conservative proceeding — that it was the proceeding of the Radical mob of that day. He (Mr. Ayrton) did recognize the Reformation; and after the Reformation the vault was used as a coal cellar and lumber room until it was converted to the purpose of a dining room to be used in the dark by the Speaker, and he recollected it being so used. He recollected its condition perfectly well, and had no hesitation in saying it was not necessary to spend a shilling on that vault. When it was used as a coal and lumber room it was very much in the condition it was left in at the time of the Reformat ion, because it had been before the Reformation used not as a Chapel Royal, but as a mortuary chapel for masses for persons who had been connected with the Court and St. Stephen's Monastery. That was the purpose for which it was intended. The Reformation did not recognize the continuance of those things, and it then became a coal cellar and a vault; it had been a vault over since, and it was a vault now. It was not a chapel, and no one had a right to say it was one.
  MR. COWPER - TEMPLEsaid, he had understood the right hon. Gentleman to say, in the first instance, that £30,000 had been spent in bedizening the vault. [Mr. AYRTON: No.] £30,000 was spent, not in decorating, but in re - constructing the building. The right hon. Gentleman, in order to show his Protestantism, called this a vault, but he did not see the connection between Protestantism and the calling of an ancient chapel by bad names. It had no historical name but St. Stephen's Crypt, and it had been so known to all persons who had an interest in architecture and archaeology. The fire had injured its supports, and a very heavy expenditure was necessary to remove the results of the fire. It was necessary to put new stone
  668
  throughout the whole of the interior. He presumed that when the right hon. Gentleman spoke of "bedizening" he meant the decorations of the building, which had cost £600. In reply to the hon. Baronet the Member for Reading (Sir Francis Goldsmid), he had merely to say that there was no dilemma in regard to the position of those who complained of Mr. Barry's dismissal. The agreement was that so long as Mr. Barry was employed as the architect he should be entitled to those payments to which architects generally were entitled according to the custom of the profession, and therefore he had a right to charge for any drawings or plans that were not executed. So long as he was dealing with the subject Mr. Barry did not charge anything for works that were not executed; but when he was removed altogether from his position as architect to the Houses of Parliament he was no longer able to exercise that liberal habit which he had formed, because he was afraid that the First Commissioner of Works would turn round upon him and say—"These are not your drawings and plans that I have adopted." Mr. Barry sent in the charge he was legally entitled to in order to make it clear that the plan which was pirated by the First Commissioner of Works was his plan.
  MR. AYRTON, with reference to the word "Vault" which he had used, said that before the Reformation the building was called "St. Mary's in the Vault," and after the Reformation "St. Mary's" was taken off and the "Vault" remained without her.
  MR. DILLWYNsaid, it was quite clear that the Chief Commissioner was right in saying that this very useless restoration had cost the country something like £30,000. This restoration might be very artistic and very pleasant to gentlemen who had tastes in that line; but he doubted very much whether the country would be pleased with this expenditure. He felt very much indebted to the Chief Commissioner for the way in which he had performed the duties of his office. He did not understand the Chief Commissioner to say that Mr. Barry had cost the country £100,000; but that he made suggestions the carrying out of which would have cost the country £100,000. What had the right hon. Gentleman done? He had got

  669
  back from Mr. Barry the plans for which the country had paid, and the House of Commons had now the control of the expenditure. As a Member of the House of Commons he felt grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for the manner in which he had conducted the Office of Works. The right hon. Gentleman had had a very unpleasant task in dealing with Mr. Barry, and had not, perhaps, done it in the most pleasant way; but his right hon. Friend had acted in a business-like manner, and without, as he thought, any want of courtesy to Mr. Barry.
  EARL PERCYcalled attention to the remarks of the First Commissioner of Works in reference to the chapel. The right hon. Gentleman, in the first place, had stated that the chapel had nothing to do with Protestantism—a remark which came with bad grace from one who had some Dissenters at his back; in the second place, that one of the acts of the Reformers which was to be looked upon with the greatest pride was the turning of a chapel into a coal collar; and, thirdly, when a chapel had been converted into a coal cellar that nothing could restore it to its former condition. He had always heard the contrary proposition affirmed, that when once a building was used for a sacred purpose, its sacred character could not be destroyed. He had never heard that the fact of a chapel having been converted into a coal cellar took away its original character.
  COLONEL SYKESbore his testimony to the success with which his right hon. Friend had reduced his economical principles to practice.
  MR. MUNDELLAsaid, he wished to say a word on behalf of national monuments. He was a strict economist; but that was not economy but scandalous parsimony which grudged what was necessary to support our national monuments, or to restore such a structure as that below the House to as splendid a condition as it was in the power of this great nation to do. He wished hon. Gentlemen who grudged the expenditure could witness the enjoyment that the crypt afforded to the thousands of working men that walked through it. It gave them some idea of beauty and the history of the past. He was most thankful for what had been spent this year on the collection of pictures of "the
  670
  Peel Gallery," and he hoped in future, when they were wasting money by millions, they would not grudge £110,000 a-year to give something to art and beauty for our noble working people of the dingy towns of England.
  MR. MUNTZsaid, the hon. Gentleman who had last spoken must have just come into the House, or else he would have known that they were not discussing the question of the crypt. [Mr. BERESFORD HOPE: The First Commissioner dragged it in.] The fact was, a personal attack had been made on the First Commissioner, who had only defended himself. The crypt was, no doubt, a beautiful ornament; but for years and years it had been a coal cellar. They were not, however, discussing that matter now. He was not going to say a word about Mr. Barry, except this—that two years ago, when Mr. Layard, our Minister at Madrid, came to ask for some £5,000 for the frescoes in the great Hall, there was a great outcry about the waste of money and the spending of money without the consent of Parliament. The right hon. Gentleman defended himself by saying that the work was carried out before he was aware, and that £50,000 or £00,000 more would be required. There had been a constant system of extravagance for several years in these matters; but his right hon. Friend had had the courage to stop this useless waste.
  MR. W. H. SMITHsaid, this debate was an illustration of the great inconvenience which arose from the use of unguarded language with respect to any gentleman. The item for the police of the House was put down at £2,048; but then the Metropolis was rated to something like £4,000 a-year in addition, on the plea that the increased duty of the police in consequence of the visits of the inhabitants of the Metropolis to that House ought to be paid for by the Metropolis. But, in his opinion, it was not the inhabitants of the Metropolis who visited the Houses of Parliament so much as the constituents of hon. Members from the country. That House did not contribute a single farthing to the increased rates of the Metropolis, and it was not fair that a charge of £4,000 should be imposed on the Metropolis to pay for the watching of the Houses of Parliament. He begged to express his concurrence with what had fallen from

  671
  the hon. Member for Sheffield (Mr. Mundella) as to the importance of having pure and high examples of works of art for the instruction and delight of the people, and he was sure that House would never grudge the cost that might be necessary.
  LORD JOHN MANNERS, with reference to what had failed from the hon. Member for Birmingham (Mr. Muntz), said, that his recollection was that Mr. Layard, having a great appreciation of the beauty of mosaic works in Venice, had himself originated the idea of filling the vacant spaces with those works. Mr. Barry had nothing to do but to carry out Mr. Bayard's instructions. It was quite true that the work was ordered without having been submitted to the Committee of Supply; but Mr. Barry was acting under Mr. Layard's directions.
  MR. MUNTZsaid, that Mr. Layard had certainly made the statement that the work was done in accordance with the suggestion of Mr. Barry.
  MR. BOUVERIEsaid, that one of the recent small changes that had been made in the House was to render the two front benches extremely comfortable. Now, it would be well worth the consideration of the right hon. Gentleman whether something might not be done in the same way to promote the comfort of hon. Members who did not sit on the two front benches.
  MR. A. GUESTsaid, that the hon. Member for Birmingham (Mr. Muntz) had fallen into an error with respect to the cost of the decoration of the great Hall. About £3,000 had been spent upon it, and he believed £8,000 was the total estimate for its decoration. He was very glad the Hall had not been finished, looking to the specimen of architecture which had been obtained by the First Commissioner.
  MR. MACFIEsuggested some alterations on the gangway of the House; he thought also there should be some place where Members who had clerks could write. He was also of opinion that the right hon. Gentleman would be able to introduce some improvements with regard to the accommodation for Parliamentary Papers, if he would look at the arrangements in the other House. The right hon. Gentleman was entitled also to a vote of thanks for the improvements he had effected in the Ladies' Gallery, the tea room and dining room, and the
  672
  excellent room provided for meeting their constituents.
  SIR JAMES ELPHINSTONEsaid, it was new to him to hear of an hon. Gentleman coming to the House with a private secretary, and he would just as soon think of keeping a pipe in the House. What was required for the real comfort of the House, when hon. Gentlemen were unfortunate enough to have to dine there, was to recur to the custom of their forefathers, and have some place where they could keep a gridiron, and eat a good beefsteak, and drink half-a-pint of good port wine. He hoped, therefore, that, for the sake of those who had been inhaling indifferent air for a considerable number of hours, the right hon. Gentleman, in considering the comforts and amenities of the House, would not forget the gridiron.
  LORD ELCHOdesired to put a question with reference to the grass plots outside the House, or rather to what might be put on them. Last year, or the year before, there was some plan in contemplation for placing the statues of eminent statesmen on that portion of the precincts of the House. One of those statues was that of the late Sir Robert Peel; and he did not know whether it was intended to libel the memory of that distinguished statesman by erecting near the spot where his celebrity had been achieved so villanous a resemblance of him. But, be that as it might, the statue was taken down and relegated, perhaps, to that very vault the Committee had just been discussing. It was, however, rumoured that, instead of being dealt with as it ought to be and returned to the smelting pot, it was to be re-erected in a form which had been already condemned by public opinion, and was to be followed by a statue equally bad of Lord Palmerston. If that were, so he must enter his protest against any such course being adopted.
  MR. AYRTONsaid, the way in which those works of art were spoken of by the noble Lord was by no means complimentary to the artists. The subject was under consideration, and no conclusion would be arrived at with respect to the statues without communication with the House.
  Question put, and agreed to.
  (2.) £60,500, to complete the sum for the New Offices in Downing Street.
  (3.) £1,150, to complete the sum for the Chapter House, Westminster.
  (4.) £11,083, to complete the sum for Sheriff Court Houses, Scotland.
  MR. DYCE NICOLsaid, he thought that the Committee should have some information as to the proposed Vote of £4,000 for the Court House at Aberdeen; there had been Votes already for the same purpose: in 1869–71, £10,000; 1870–1, £3,000; and now, £4,000—£17,000; a sum which required explanation. The Treasury, by the Act, were empowered to contribute one-half the cost of the Court Houses, subject to approval of the plans and estimates; and he (Mr. Dyce Nicol) desired to know what control had been exercised by the Government Surveyor of Works in Scotland over the Aberdeen Court House; and whether the original Estimate of £22,654 had been exceeded. Much dissatisfaction was felt by the ratepayers in the county of Aberdeen on the subject of the cost of this building; as to the taste displayed on which he would say nothing in presence of the hon. and gallant Member for Aberdeen (Colonel Sykes); but he must say it was inconsistent with the character of the other buildings in that fine street in which the Court House was situated. He (Mr. Dyce Nicol) trusted that the Chief Commissioner of Works would direct his vigilant eye to what he fancied was a lavish expenditure of money, and prevent the recurrence of such in the other Court Houses of Scotland, included in the Vote now before the Committee.
  MR. CANDLISHwished for some explanation in reference to the matter. He also desired to know whether the works at Stirling were new works?
  MR. AYRTONsaid, that the Government, having agreed to pay half the expense of erecting these new Courts, were, of course, obliged now to perform the agreement. No doubt the Government had trusted to the well known economy of the Scotch in administering their local affairs; but he was afraid that in this case there had been a little more magnificence indulged in than would have been the case if the whole cost had fallen upon local funds instead of half on the Imperial Treasury. The arrangement was that the whole expense should be £25,602; and £17,000 had
  674
  been voted up to this time. The expenditure up to this time had been £11,000, and this was the actual sum that had been handed over to the local authorities.
  SIR COLMAN O'LOGHLENsaid, that half the expense of building Scotch Courts was borne by the Government; in England, the whole expense was so borne; whilst in Ireland the whole cost was paid out of the county rate. He did not think this was a fair arrangement.
  COLONEL SYKESsaid, the hon. Member (Mr. Dyce Nicol) had been a little premature. The local authorities at Aberdeen had done more than they were bound to do, and had received less than they were entitled to.
  SIR JAMES ELPHINSTONEsaid, the works in Aberdeen were carried on at a disadvantage, because the Government doled out the money in such small quantities that the works could not be quickly proceeded with.
  MR. M'LARENexplained that in these Courts, in Scotland, was transacted a great part of the criminal business of that country, and therefore it was but fair that they should be paid for out of the public purse.
  MR. OSBORNEreplied that the Irish County Courts were just in the same position as regarded their jurisdiction; but that the Scotch, being a "cuter" and more acquisitive people than the Irish, got half the cost of their Courts out of Imperial funds.
  Vote agreed to.
  (5.) £20,500, to complete the sum for the National Gallery Enlargement.
  MR. W. H. GREGORYasked the First Commissioner of Works whether the plans for the work were completed; and, if so, whether tenders for laying the foundations would as soon as possible be issued? It was most desirable that it should be proceeded with at once, as since the acquisition of the Peel Collection the congestion at the National Gallery was so great that it was difficult to know where any additional pictures were to be put.
  MR. AYRTONsaid, that the work of clearing the ground had been going on, so that no time had been lost. There had been a good deal of discussion as to the building; but the whole matter was now settled with the exception of a single point, which would probably be

  675
  disposed of in two or three days. Immediately this was disposed of the tenders would be asked for.
  Vote agreed to.
  (6.) £15,500, to complete the sum for Glasgow University Buildings.
  (7.) £9,000, to complete the sum for the Industrial Museum, Edinburgh.
  (8.) £30,500, to complete the sum for Burlington House.
  (9.) £123,995, to complete the sum for the Post Office and Inland Revenue Buildings.
  (10.) £3,970, to complete the sum for the British Museum Buildings.
  (11.) £36,460, to complete the sum for County Courts, Buildings.
  (12.) £42,547, to complete the sum for the Science and Art Department Buildings.
  MR. BOUVERIEsaid, that not long ago a lecture was advertised to be delivered in the lecture-room of the Geological Museum, and for admission money was charged, which was to be paid, not to the public account, but to private individuals, who made use of the lecture-room for the occasion. He doubted whether that was a proper appropriation of the lecture-room, and he desired to know by whose authority permission was given for such a use of it?
  MR. BAILLIE COCHRANEsaid, he thought that there should be a model exhibition, showing the whole of the works that were to be carried out, so that they might see all that was intended to be done.
  MR. BOWRINGwished to know whether the building would be completed next year?
  MR. AYRTONsaid, he had only to do with the structure of the building, and had nothing to do with the manner in which it was employed. That was a matter which rested with the Vice President of the Council. A model was exhibited, showing the whole of the design of Captain Fowke; and the particular part of the building for which this Vote was required, and which would cost £195,000, was shown upon the model.
  MR. BERESFORD HOPEasked whether the Government intended to proceed with the remainder of the South Kensington buildings; and, if so, when it was supposed that the whole would be completed?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, the Government were not pledged to any further expenditure than the £195,000 in this Estimate. Before any fresh expenditure was undertaken the consent of Parliament would certainly be obtained.
  MR. DILLWYNcalled attention to the fact that in this Estimate as much as £13,000 was asked for decorations of the building now in progress; he wished to know of what use it would be when finished?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, this Estimate was the result of an arrangement made in 1866, when the present First Lord of the Treasury was Chancellor of the Exchequer. The Government had no choice but to complete the building. It was quite true that there was great difficulty in saying of what good such a building could be in South Kensington, where so many departments were growing up. All he could say was that the present buildings would be completed for £195,000, and the Government would be very careful before they entered into any fresh plans.
  MR. DILLWYNsaid, he hoped the Chief Commissioner would check expenditure on the buildings at South Kensington as successfully as he had done on the House of Parliament.
  MR. W. H. SMITHventured to hope that no further buildings would be proceeded with at South Kensington without great consideration. The situation at South Kensington was not the very best that could be selected for the inhabitants of the Metropolis, or for those persons who were desirous of visiting the national collections. It was, in his mind, a misfortune that they should be placed practically beyond the reach of a large portion of the Metropolis. He regretted to find that the Natural History Collection was to be removed to South Kensington, instead of being placed somewhere in the centre of the Metropolis.
  MR. M'LARENsaid, he thought the sum of £13,000 was much too large a sum for the decoration of these buildings.
  MR. AYRTONobserved, that the decorations in question were part of the original structural plans of the building, and necessary to its completion; but strict directions had been given to the architect that these decorations should

  677
  not be of such, a character as to be made the foundation of new demands.
  COLONEL SYKESbelieved that the workmen who visited Kensington in their thousands received the most valuable and interesting information from the various objects which they witnessed.
  MR. SCLATER-BOOTHwas of opinion that no establishment was more highly appreciated, or was productive of greater good than that at South Kensington. But all such establishments had a tendency to overgrow their reasonable limits. Many visitors complained of being bewildered by the immense number of new articles that were added from year to year. He hoped that the Government would place some limit to the expenditure of the money placed at the disposal of the authorities for the purchase of new objects.
  MR. W. H. GREGORYsaid, he thought it of great importance that the buildings should be speedily completed, so that each collection might be seen as a whole. They were now shifted to and fro and in such great confusion that they served rather to bewilder than to amuse or instruct. Under the circumstances, he thought the sum laid out for decoration was by no means extravagant, considering the materials used and the extent of the buildings. The amount expended annually in purchases was very small indeed, and it was the last item he should be disposed to quarrel about. He hoped to be able hereafter to persuade hon. Members, in the terms of the Notice he had given, that it was absolutely necessary to have an inquiry with respect to these multifarious and incongruous collections, and to separate those that were for circulation from those that were for exhibition, while he was sure there were many specimens fit for neither purpose.
  MR. OSBORNE: I have from the first and over and over again protested against the founding of these buildings at South Kensington, and I have now heard a condemnation of them in the expressions which have fallen from the Chancellor of the Exchequer. It is all very well to say that these places are for the instruction and amusement of the poorer classes. I am ready to vote moderate sums for that object; but when you come to an item of £13,000 for the decoration of these galleries, I say it is simply shameful
  678
  and monstrous. What is the present state of these galleries? The most important of them is nothing more nor less than a foundling hospital for the reception of pictures of a doubtful pedigree. The truth is, everything is sent up there which nobody else will have. There are certain persons there who, under the plea of teaching their fellow-countrymen, are making very snug-berths for themselves. I look with horror upon a gentleman who, in the plentitude of patriotism, leaves a collection of pictures to the nation, because I know well what the consequence will be. This House will be called upon to vote sums of money for the reception of them. Look at the Museum. I cannot understand why there should be a School of Naval Architecture at South Konsington. I should have thought that the proper place for it would have been Portsmouth, or Plymouth, or some of those places — [Alderman Sir DAVID SALOMONS: Or Greenwich.]—or Greenwich, which is so efficiently represented in this House by the worthy Alderman—and who, I beg to remark, whenever the interests of Greenwich are brought forward, is the only Member who speaks for those interests. I have no objection to a School of Naval Architecture at Greenwich; but it can hardly be called a seaport town. We are running into great expense with the South Kensington Museum, and if we are to listen to every man of taste who gets up, there will be no end to these Votes. The hon. Member for Galway (Mr. W. H. Gregory) is, no doubt, a man of taste; let me commend to him two lines of Pope—
  "What brought Sir Visto's well-got wealth to waste?
  Some demon whispered, 'Visto, have a taste.'"
  We have got that taste, and we are paying for it. Money is being voted year by year, and before we have done it will amount to a million. Remember that the Estimate for this building was £750,000, and the cost upwards of £3,500,000. I am sure that from what the Chancellor of the Exchequer has said that he feels the time has come when a stop must be put to this profligate expenditure of money furnished by the nation; and the sooner it is done the more it will be to the credit of this House.
  Vote agreed to.
  (13.) £97,200, to complete the sum for Surveys of the United Kingdom, &c.
  (14.) Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That a sum, not exceeding £52,476, 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 1872, for constructing certain Harbours, &c. under the Board of Trade."
  MR. G. BENTINCKsaid, there were not to be found on record more marvellous monuments of human folly than some of the items in this Vote. The first three were called, or rather miscalled, Dover, Alderney, and Holyhead. As far as Dover was concerned it was a complete waste of money. When the first Vote was taken for this harbour his right hon. Friend the Member for Oxfordshire (Mr. Henley) made a calculation, wherein he estimated the ultimate cost for the first plan proposed would be £8,000,000, and that at the rate they were then proceeding it would take 200 years to complete the harbour. The scheme was afterwards modified, and the harbour was only useful to allow the packets from France to land their passengers at all times of the tide. As to Alderney, it was, perhaps, the worst case of all. It was nothing but a nest of rocks. It was not a harbour of refuge or a harbour of shelter. No seaman would take his vessel into Alderney except in very fine weather. So far from it being a harbour of refuge it was one of the most dangerous places in which a vessel could be placed. The original plan was extremely defective. To improve it an additional pier was run out, but in such a manner that it made the harbour worse than it was before. There was no trade with Alderney, and any vessel which went in under certain circumstances must expect to be lost. The money that had been expended had been an utter loss. Holyhead was an excellent harbour so far as it went; but it was another proof of the penny-wise and pound-foolish system on which our public works were undertaken, because it was found too small for the purposes required, and they did there, as was done at Alderney, run out a pier in the wrong direction, and made the harbour less beneficial than it was before. He begged to move, in order to bring the matter to a test, the omission of the sum of £21,483 for Alderney Harbour.
  SIR JAMES ELPHINSTONEseconded the Motion. In 1862, when these works were first proposed, he divided the House against them. The works were of the most appaling nature, and were avoided by every class of ships. There were the most violent and uncertain currents running in all directions—such as the Race of Alderney and the Race of Sark. The money might as well be thrown into the sea, for the end of the pier was 132 feet from high-water mark, and, that being so, it might be easily understood what the base of the structure must be when operated upon by the most violent currents and an ocean swell. Voting money year after year upon this preposterous scheme was nothing but an act of perfect fatuity. It was strange that those who did so should this year have rejected a Vote for a harbour at Filey Bay, which he regarded as a matter of the highest importance.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Item of £21,483, for Alderney Harbour, be omitted from the proposed Vote."—(Mr. Bentinck.)
  MR. BAXTERsaid, he agreed with almost every word that had fallen from the hon. Member for West Norfolk (Mr. G. Bentinck) on this subject. It was totally impossible for anyone acquainted with the facts of the case to say a word in defence of one of the most gigantic follies of any nation. But they were in a fair way of having done with it. He hoped next year would be the last when that House would be asked to vote any money for Dover Harbour. The Committee was asked on the present occasion to vote the last sum of money for the completion of the works at Holyhead, and this would be the last year for voting any sum, however small, for Portpatrick. The Committee might recollect that last year, in consequence of a tremendous storm, the works at Alderney had been so shattered as to be almost destroyed, and it had been found necessary to send over Mr. Hawkshaw and others to examine the works. Mr. Hawkshaw had reported that it would take £250,000 to complete the breakwater; but that would be nearly the end of the expense. If we were to retain the harbour of Alderney, we must erect works to defend it, and he could not see the end of the expenditure if we were to embark on such a

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  course. He hoped in a very few months the full Report would be received, and it would be then for Her Majesty's Government to decide whether or not the House of Commons was to be asked for a further large sum to complete the works, or whether the wiser course was to be taken of abandoning those works altogether. He hoped, under the circumstances, the hon. Gentleman would not think it necessary to divide the Committee. He would undertake, on the part of the Government, that there should be no attempt to spend any more money until the House had full opportunity of expressing an opinion on the subject.
  MR. LIDDELLasked, why there was £21,000 to be spent on the works this year? Why not put a stop at once to what was admitted to be a wasteful expenditure?
  MR. BAXTERsaid, that Mr. Hawkshaw had reported it would be absolutely necessary to spend £21,900 in repairing the actual damage caused by the storm.
  MR. CANDLISHsaid, he was gratified at hearing the speech of the Secretary of the Treasury; but the thing to be regretted was that we should spend upwards of £21,000 more on these works. He trusted the hon. Gentleman would agree to the Amendment of the hon. Member for West Norfolk. He pointed out the instances in which the Estimates had been increased, and in some cases doubled.
  COLONEL SYKESobserved, that there was reason to believe that the foundations were slipping into the sea. He thought it would be useless to wait for the Report of Mr. Hawkshaw, if after the expenditure of this money the harbour could never be used.
  MR. HERMONsaid, he hoped the Government would not proceed with this Vote, but take a commercial view of the matter, and strike it out.
  MR. RYLANDSsaid, he thought the Committee would not be justified in passing a Vote for a work which was generally admitted to be useless.
  MR. G. BENTINCK, after hearing the admission of the Secretary to the Treasury, was surprised that he should defend a Vote of £21,000 for works which were in an insecure state. He would take the opinion of the Committee on the subject.
  MR. ALDERMAN LUSKsaid, he thought that if the harbour would be useless it should be abandoned at once.
  MR. BOUVERIEsaid, the public had embarked on this expenditure after great consideration had been given to it by those who were most competent to form an opinion on what was thought to be a great public object. After having spent so much money he questioned whether the House of Commons ought to withhold this Vote, because to refrain now from expenditure might be fatal to the whole outlay. As a matter of prudence they ought not to risk so much.
  MR. HUNTsaid, he thought it odd that the Government should ask the Committee to spend so much money while they were waiting for a Report, in order to consider whether the works should be continued or abandoned. It would be fair for the Committee to say that they would not spend any more money until the Government had come to some determination. When they had done so they could ask the House for a further Vote of money.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, that great injury had been done to the works at Alderney by the storms in the winter of 1869, and they were now in a deplorable condition. It was easy to say that the works could be abandoned; but a great danger had been created, and if the breakwater were left in its present condition that danger might be increased. Of this Vote, £10,000 was required to enable MR. Hawkshaw and others to report upon the works, and that they could not do without experiments that would last 18 months. He could not exactly say what was going on now; but it might be rash to suddenly stop all expenditure. He thought the better course would be to allow the Vote to stand over for the present.
  SIR JAMES ELPHINSTONEsaid, he thought it would be much better to settle the matter at once.
  Question put, and agreed to.
  Original Question, as amended, proposed,
  "That a sum, not exceeding £30,993, 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 1872, for constructing certain Harbours, &c. under the Board of Trade."
  MR. HERMON MR. HERMON moved to reduce the Vote further by the sum of £1,815, being the annual charges on the Works Department at Holyhead.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Item of £1,815, for the Works Department, be omitted from the proposed Vote."—(Mr. Hermon.)
  SIR JAMES ELPHINSTONEsaid, he thought it impossible to do without this Vote, owing to the engagements that had been entered into.
  MR. BAXTERsaid, he hoped the hon. Member would not divide the Committee.
  MR. HERMONsaid, he would withdraw his Motion.
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
  SIR JAMES ELPHINSTONEregretted that the harbour at Portpatrick had been given up, the harbour being one of great national importance.
  MR. BOUVERIEtrusted that the Government would further consider the matter before they finally determined to sacrifice the million and a-half of money that had been sunk in Alderney Harbour.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, that the Government intended to review the position of affairs with regard to that harbour before they finally abandoned it.
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
  Original Question, as amended, put, and agreed to.
  (15.) £450, to complete the sum for Portland Harbour.
  (16.) £7,500, to complete the sum for the Fire Brigade (Metropolis).
  (17.) £27,223, to complete the sum for Rates on Government Property.
  MR. CANDLISHsaid, that this was an instance of the way in which large sums of public money were voted without there being any legal obligation on the part of the Government to pay. Contributions in lieu of rates were not legal payments, and, therefore, he moved that the Vote be omitted.
  MR. GLADSTONEadmitted that much might have been said in favour of the hon. Member's Motion had it been made at the time when the practice of the Government making voluntary contributions instead of paying rates was originally commenced; but as the whole
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  subject of these exemptions had been at last systematically considered, and as the Government now believed themselves to be in a position to ask Parliament to legislate definitively with respect to them, he thought it would be as well if the hon. Member did not press his Amendment, the more especially as in all probability this would be the last occasion on which Parliament would be asked to vote money for this purpose.
  MR. BOUVERIEdefended the Vote on the ground that in many small parishes the greater portion of the rateable property was in the hands of the Government, who were bound to contribute towards the rates. It would be impossible for a rate collector to assess the amount at which a public building should be rated, and the parishes which contained public buildings would have a right to complain if this Vote were omitted.
  MR. SCLATER-BOOTHpointed out that in several Acts of late years it had been practically admitted that the exemptions of public property from rates ought to be abolished. How was it possible for a rate collector to estimate the annual rateable value of that House?
  MR. M'LARENreminded the Committee that the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Admiralty had brought in a Bill under which all Government property throughout the kingdom would be rated. If that Bill passed it would be unnecessary for this Vote to be placed upon the Estimates again. The effect of the existence of large public buildings in a parish was to increase the value of the surrounding property. He trusted that the hon. Member would be wise enough not to press his Motion.
  SIR JAMES ELPHINSTONEsaid, that a Committee had years ago reported, in favour of a Bill being brought in on the rating of Government property, and he trusted that another Session would not be allowed to go by without such a measure being introduced. The subject ought to be dealt with by itself, and not made a component part of a large measure, embracing many other matters which might or might not be carried.
  MR. RYLANDSpointed out the staff appointed for collecting the contributions in lieu of rates for Government property cost £715 per year for salaries and £200 for travelling expenses. He did not think the duties were sufficient to warrant such an expenditure.
  MR. CANDLISH, after what had fallen from the First Minister, did not press his opposition to the Vote.
  Vote agreed to.
  (18.) £122,465, to complete the sum for Public Buildings (Ireland).
  (19.) £3,976, to complete the sum for the Ulster Canal.
  (20.) £13,810, to complete the sum for Lighthouses Abroad.
  (21.) £800, to complete the sum for the Embassy Houses, Paris and Madrid.
  COLONEL WILSON-PATTENasked, if any estimate had been made of the expense which had been incurred in consequence of the damage done to the Embassy house in Paris?
  MR. AYRTONsaid, no Report had yet been received on the subject; but if it should be found on a thorough survey being made, that any large expenditure would be required, it would be necessary hereafter to bring that circumstance under the consideration of the House. The present Vote would only cover the ordinary expenses for repairs.
  Vote agreed to.
  (22.) £36,215, to complete the sum for British Consulate and Embassy Houses, Constantinople, China, Japan, and Tehran.
  In answer to Mr. BOWRING,
  MR. AYRTONsaid, Reports on this expenditure had been received from abroad, and carefully examined before the amounts were passed. With regard to the Consular house in Japan, the works there had been carried out according to a scheme described in a Report laid on the Table of the House from time to time by an officer sent out to investigate the subject. Nothing would be done without full consideration both at home and abroad of what was necessary to carry on the public service.
  Vote agreed to.
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That a sum, not exceeding £257,972, 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 1872, for Superannuation and Retired Allowances to Persons formerly employed in the Public Service."
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
  (23.) £34,910, to complete the sum for the Merchant Seamen's Fund.
  (24.) £27,200, to complete the sum for Relief of Distressed Seamen Abroad.
  (25.) £14,533, to complete the sum for Hospitals in Ireland.
  (26.) £4,863, to complete the sum for Miscellaneous Charitable Allowances (Great Britain).
  (27.) £4,735, to complete the sum for Miscellaneous Charitable Allowances (Ireland).
  (28.) £10,942, to complete the sum for Temporary Commissions.
  (29.) £35,147, to complete the sum for Payments under Treaties of Reciprocity.
  (30.) £650, to complete the sum for Flax Cultivation in Ireland.
  (31.) £3,245, to complete the sum for certain Miscellaneous Expenses.
  Resolutions to be reported To-morrow;
  Committee to sit again To-morrow.
  It being now Seven of the clock, the House suspended its sitting.
  The House resumed its sitting at Nine of the clock.

PRIVATE BILL LEGISLATION.

  MOTION FOR A SELECT COMMITTEE.
  MR. PIM, in rising to move for the appointment of a Select Committee to inquire into the present system of legislation in regard to Local and Personal Bills, said, the subject to which he asked the attention of the House was one of great interest and importance. It was not a local but an Imperial question—the grievance was universal; though it was more severely felt in Ireland than in England or Scotland, owing to the greater distance, and the complete separation by the sea; and also because Ireland was comparatively much poorer than Great Britain. That grievance was, firstly, the increased expense of a contest conducted at a distance from the place where the parties interested resided. As an illustration he would read from a letter of Mr. Fitzgerald, an eminent solicitor of Dublin, and brother of Mr. Justice Fitzgerald, who stated that the total expense of the Dublin Main Drainage Bill would not be under £15,000; there were also the Alliance Gas Bill, the Newry Waterworks Bill, the Dublin Tramways Bill, all of which had occupied the time of the Legislature at a vast expense, and all of which could have been heard before a Judge in

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  Dublin at one-tenth of the cost, and with no loss of time. Those observations referred only to a contested Bill; but even when there was no opposition, a primâ facie case must be established, and therefore even in the case of an unopposed Bill, witnesses and other persons must attend in London. Another great objection to the present mode of procedure was the uncertainty as to the principles on which the decisions of the present tribunal were based. That was even worse than the expense of bringing witnesses from a distance, as it tended greatly to the increase of litigation, and increased the expenses of the contest. If they had a case before the Queen's Bench, and consulted a competent lawyer, he would say decidedly—"If the facts be so and so, I think you are sure of a verdict." But if they consulted a Parliamentary Agent he would probably reply—"I think your case is a fair one, but these things are always uncertain. It depends greatly on the Committee that may be appointed." Now he (Mr. Pim) certainly did not mean to attach any blame to the Committees on Private Bills. He had sat on such Committees himself, and he felt sure the Members of those Committees anxiously desired to give a fair and impartial judgment; but they were not infrequently without experience, and it was notorious that much uncertainty attached to the verdict of that tribunal, and that uncertainty necessarily led to litigation. The hon. Member then read from a speech of the Marquess of Salisbury—[3 Hansard, clxxiii. 649]—the Petition of the Associated Chambers of Commerce, in which the Petitioners, after referring at length to the great expense and uncertainty attending the carrying of Private Bills for Public Works through Parliament, concluded by saying—
  "Your Petitioners respectfully submit that this evil would be best remedied by referring the evidence in support of, or in opposition to, such Bills to some permanent judicial body of competent and experienced persons, sitting in public, and who would hear and examine the same, and report thereon to each House of Parliament."
  It appeared by a Return which had been laid on the Table of the House that the fees paid in that House on all local and personal and other private Bills amounted in 1869 to £23,377 7s., and in 1870 to £25,219 14 s. 6d., of which latter sum England contributed £19,921 5s. 6d.,
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  Scotland contributed £3,228 7s. 6d., and Ireland £1,911 12 s. 6d. No doubt that large sum was applied to a proper object; but what that object was he did not know. No one defended the present system as working satisfactorily; the question then was—how could the defects be cured? A Select Committee on the subject was appointed in the Session of 1863, when several suggestions were made by men of eminence who gave evidence before the Committee and others. The first of those suggestions was to substitute a Joint Committee of both Houses of Parliament for the separate Committees of each House. That was proposed by Lord Redesdale, and seemed to have met with some approval. Another proposition, suggested by the right hon. and gallant Member for Lancashire (Colonel Wilson Patten), was for the establishment of a distinct tribunal, external to the House, to ascertain the facts and report to Parliament. Again, it was proposed to empower the Board of Trade, under certain limitations, to issue provisional orders for all private undertakings. That proposition was supported by Mr. Booth, the Secretary of the Board of Trade, and by Earl Grey. Lastly, it was suggested that a distinct tribunal should be formed—a Court independent of Parliament in its constitution, with full power to hear and decide respecting all matters of private legislation, but whose decisions should not have legal force until confirmed by Parliament. That was the suggestion of Sir Erskine May, and a suggestion nearly the same in effect came from Mr. Richards, the counsel to the right hon. Gentleman the Speaker. The right hon. Gentleman the present Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Lowe) was a member of the Committee, and also supported that proposition given in the proceedings, but which was not adopted by the Committee. That proposition made by Sir Erskine May, and supported by the present Chancellor of the Exchequer and others, was nearly identical with that contained in the Bill of his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Tipperary (Mr. Heron), except that his hon. Friend also provided that the Court should sit in the locality to which the proposed legislation referred. All those suggestions were, however, rejected:—and a Resolution, proposed by Lord Stanley, was carried in the Committee

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  by 7 Members against 6. Several of the witnesses before the Committee of 1863 dwelt on the supposed unwillingness of the House to part with its jurisdiction. But that could scarcely be advanced now, after the precedent set by the Election Petitions Act of 1868. That Act provided that the decision of the Court of Common Pleas should be final, and that the Report of the Judge as to corrupt practices should—
  "Have the same effect, and may be dealt with in the manner, as if it were a Report of a Committee of the House of Commons appointed to try an election petition."
  It also provided that the trial should take place in the county or borough to which the case referred. The House had thus parted with its jurisdiction in the most important matter which could come before it—namely, the validity of the elections of its own Members; and it had decreed a local trial, the decision of which was final and conclusive, and on which might depend, and had depended, the disfranchising of a borough, when, corruption had been proved before this new tribunal which was external to the House. The hon. Member having read extracts from the speeches of Mr. Disraeli and Mr. Gladstone during the debates on the Election Petitions Bill—[3 Hansard, cxc. cxci. cxcii. cxciii.]—proceeded to say that no one suggested that the change then adopted was injudicious. No one thought of proposing to bring back to the House the consideration of Election Petitions. The saving of expense under this Act was worth considering. The taxed costs of the Limerick inquiry—he spoke, of course, of the successful party, the unsuccessful settled his costs with his attorney without submitting them to taxation—was £285, which was the lowest. The highest was £1,281 15 s. 4d., being the costs of the Petitioners in the case of Dublin; while the costs of the respondent to the second Petition in Dublin were taxed at £986 18 s. 6d. Those were, no doubt, large sums; but the trial lasted for 11 days, and was thoroughly contested. He could not speak from personal knowledge of the costs of the trial of Election Petitions, but the thought it would be no exaggeration to estimate the probable amount in such a case at five times what the costs in Dublin actually were in 1868. That showed the great advantges of local inquiry, in regard to saving of expense;
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  but a local inquiry was also of great importance as a means of arriving at a correct judgment respecting the matter under consideration, whether unopposed or disputed. Take the case of the Dublin railways. In the year 1865 there were five rival schemes for uniting all the Irish railways at Dublin. Two of those projects proposed a central station within the city, and two others proposed to effect the junction by lines not passing through the city itself. Each of those four had warm supporters, and, of course, warm opponents. The contest was a fierce one, lasting 23 days and costing over £50,000. At length the Committee decided in favour of the fifth project—of which he would only say that in Dublin everyone thought it so preposterous as to be unworthy of serious consideration. Of course, nothing or almost nothing had been done since, and Dublin had lost the great advantage of a central station, which we should certainly have had if either of the projects which included a central station had been chosen. He (Mr. Pim) had commenced by stating that the question was one of Imperial magnitude; but he also maintained that it affected Ireland more than any other part of the United Kingdom, because Ireland was more distant from London, and the cost of conveying witnesses to be examined was consequently greater. He wholly disavowed any desire to tinge the question with a political bias, or, as had been suggested, to take a step in the direction of a severance of the union between Ireland and Great Britain. His great object was to have a local tribunal, the decisions of which, he believed, would be generally respected, and not often impugned by the House, even though it should possess the power of setting them aside. The question had excited much interest in Ireland. He could speak as regarded his own constituents; and his hon. Friend the Member for Belfast (Mr. M'Clure) presented a Petition some time since, from the Corporation of Belfast, strongly in favour of the Bill introduced by the hon. and learned Member for Tipperary (Mr. Heron). Therefore, the Corporation of that rapidly increasing borough, which might be considered as representing the province of Ulster, was found united with the citizens of Dublin in looking for better and less expensive arrangements for private legislation.

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  In this matter, at least, both North and South were united. He would not detain the House longer, except to thank them for the kindness with which they had listened to him. He begged to move the Resolution of which he had given Notice.
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That a Select Committee be appointed to inquire into the operation of the present system of legislation as regards Local and Personal Bills, and to consider whether means may not be devised for the improvement of such legislation."—(Mr. Pim.)
  MR. DODSON, in reply, said, that while agreeing with the spirit of much that had fallen from his hon. Friend, he differed from him with respect to the methods he proposed to adopt. No doubt a Private Bill Committee of that House was an expensive, a slow, and to a certain extent, owing to its composition, an uncertain tribunal, while to the public outside it often had the appearance of being more capricious in its decisions than it was in reality. Indeed, a Private Bill Committee was somewhat in the position of a jury without a Judge to guide them. On the other hand, these tribunals had great virtues and valuable qualifications, which in some respects rendered them singularly suitable for the peculiar kind of questions they had to deal with. The questions they had to decide were not strictly legal ones, as they frequently had to consider questions of policy, and to ascertain the balance between private disadvantages and the public good. Again such Committees were not only strictly impartial, but they were universally admitted to be so. They consisted of hon. Members who were in the greatest measure guided by the public opinion of the time in regard to the questions brought under their notice. In the case of railways, for example, public opinion had undergone a complete change during the last 25 or 30 years. Now, if questions relating to railways had been tried by a fixed and permanent legal tribunal, one of two things must have happened; either that tribunal would have adhered to settled rules and precedents, which would have become opposed to the wants or feelings of the people in less than tea years, or else it would have been characterized as a capricious tribunal. He had himself endeavoured to effect improvements
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  in our Private Bill legislation, and he felt disposed to remit, as far as possible, the trial of all the smaller kinds of cases, which did not much depend on public opinion, to a tribunal outside the House. This had been done to a certain extent by the further extension of the system of provisional orders. Little good, he thought, would be effected by the appointment of a Select Committee to consider generally the subject of Private Bill legislation. In the last 18 or 20 years there had been no fewer than 16 Committees of the House which had investigated the subject; but most of the changes introduced during that period were due, not to the recommendations of those Committees, but to some particular case having shown the necessity of a change. Not long ago Committees of that House dealt with cases of divorce, naturalization, turnpike trusts, copyholds, and inclosures; but all these matters were banished almost entirely from the House, and remitted either to Courts of Law or to bodies of permanent Commissioners. Then, in regard to sanctioning public works, a great deal had been done in the same direction by extending the system of provisional orders. Tramways, and in some cases gasworks and waterworks, could be dealt with in the same way. The system of provisional orders, however, could only be extended gradually and tentatively; because if persons were compelled to resort in the first instance to a provisional order, the result in regard to large and strongly-contested schemes would be merely to add another inquiry to the Parliamentary inquiry. He hoped that gradually the work of the Committees might be lightened, and that persons might be enabled to obtain authority for works which they wished to undertake by a shorter process than necessarily coming to Parliament. A step in advance was taken last year, and the discussions which had recently taken place showed that that was as far as the House was disposed to go at present. An Act was passed last year to enable the Board of Trade to make provisional orders in the case of tramways authorized by the local authorities; but when the feeling on the subject became strong, persons did not rest satisfied with the preliminary decision of that Board, but insisted on coming before the House. However much he might be

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  disposed to advance in that direction, he did not think that the present was a favourable time for doing so. The hon. Member had alluded to Ireland, and the case of Irish promoters was somewhat hard, because they were put to very considerable expense in bringing their witnesses to this country; but something might be done by means of Standing Orders and an Act of Parliament to meet their case. The Chief Secretary for Ireland had now before the House a Bill on the subject of Local Government in that country which would in some respects meet the objections that have been urged by the hon. Member, and would enable the making of provisional orders in cases where it was now necessary to apply to Parliament. Something further might be done to enable Irish promoters to obtain provisional orders by application either to the Lord Lieutenant in Council or to the Chief Secretary in the case of railways and gas or waterworks, and such a course was not adopted without precedent. But, in order to do that, it would be requisite to pass a short Act of Parliament, and not merely to have the Report of a Committee. The hon. Member for Dublin might not be aware that a Joint Committee of the Lords and Commons had been appointed in the present Parliament to consider this subject, and they had reported in August, 1869; but, as their Report had never yet been considered by the House, it would be premature at present to appoint another Committee. Under the circumstances, he hoped the hon. Member for Dublin would be satisfied with having called attention to this subject, and especially to the circumstances of Ireland and the difficulties of promoters in that country. He was disposed to consider the points which the hon. Member had brought before the House, and would be willing to do what he could to obviate the difficulty without putting Ireland in a position different to the rest of the country. No one was more sensible than he of the defects of private legislation, and no one was more anxious to remedy them; but he was convinced that it was only by proceeding gradually that the House could advance safely and satisfactorily.
  MR. LEEMANsaid, that during the whole of the time of this discussion there had not been enough Members present to form a House. He had, however, refrained
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  from calling attention to the fact, being anxious that the hon. Member should have an opportunity of bringing forward this subject, and that the Chairman of Committees should be able to give the explanation which he had afforded to the House. He now thought that to continue further the discussion of a subject of this importance in a House of 30 Members would be idle and trifling, and therefore he begged to move that the House be counted.
  MR. SERJEANT SHERLOCKadmitted that the Chairman of Committees had thrown a great deal of light upon the subject of the Motion, and had given them the benefit of his experience. The hon. Gentleman, however, had acknowledged that Committees were not the best tribunals that could be devised for the determination of important questions of local interest. The hon. Gentleman had compared the position of the Committees to a jury without a judge; and certainly nothing could be more unsatisfactory than such an incomplete tribunal. The practice of deciding the local affairs of distant places in London—and the observation applied to York, Edinburgh, or Aberdeen, as well as to Dublin or Cork — was unjust to those places, and to the individuals or public bodies who sought to promote local improvements there. To those whose property or interests were likely to be prejudiced by some projected scheme, the present practice was equally unjust. The expense of opposing a Private Bill in Parliament was often fully equal to the injury which a party might sustain by the Bill passing into law. Besides, the present system showed to what disadvantages these distant localities were subject compared with the Metropolis. The House had seen within the last few days a measure affecting the interests of a portion of the Metropolis re-discussed and re-opened after it had been decided by a Committee of this House; and the residents of that part of London who objected to a tramway passing before their doors had sufficient influence with hon. Members to induce the House to set aside the ruling of the Committee, and they got rid of the apprehended inconvenience of tramways in Oxford Street and the other portions of the Metropolis sought to be affected by the Bill to which he alluded. He might ask, would the opponents of

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  local tramways in any other locality than the Metropolis have had a chance of success if they had appealed from the decision of a Committee upstairs? There was no doubt us to the ability displayed by Committees, nor of their impartiality, nor of the care they bestowed on matters referred to them; but the whole question was whether such inquiries would not be much better held in the localities to which they referred. It was obvious that the opportunities for a full and fair investigation of the merits of schemes for local improvements were considerably greater when the inquiry was held on the spot, and the expenses would be proportionally decreased. Besides, the Business of the House had greatly increased, and it was desirable to lessen the duties of hon. Members, by allowing local inquiries to be disposed of locally, so that they could devote themselves to the consideration of Imperial measures, which they were now called upon to do not only at night, but at Morning Sittings. Nothing was more usual than for hon. Members to move the adjournment of debates on the very fair ground that they were exhausted from protracted attendance on Committees in the morning, followed by late sittings in the House during the night. Committees on public questions were necessary and incidental to the carrying on of the public affairs of the country; but private business could be better investigated, and conducted both more cheaply and expeditiously where the questions originated than under the present system. On the ground of expense, and of the inconvenience to which the public were subjected by the present system, and also from a fair regard to local interests, he trusted the Motion of his hon. Friend would receive the favourable consideration of the House.
  MR. WHALLEYrose to address the House—
  Notice taken, that 40 Members were not present; House counted, and 40 Members being found present—
  MR. WHALLEYproceeded to address the House—
  Notice taken, that 40 Members were not present; House counted, and 40 Members not being present,
  House adjourned at half after Ten o'clock.