SUPPLY.

HC Deb 05 May 1871 vol 206 cc323-9

Resolved, That this House will immediately resolve itself into the Committee of Supply.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."

MR. ALDERMAN W. LAWRENCE

said, that his main object in bringing forward this Motion was to induce the Government to have one responsible Member of their body in the House of Commons who should represent the Woods, Forests, and Land Revenues of tie Crown, so that proper information could be furnished to the House; and had he been allowed to complete his observations on his original Motion, he would not have said anything that could have been in any way objected to by any hon. Member who had represented the Duchy of Lancaster. He thought it was curious that the Duchy had a Chancellor, Vice Chancellor, and other officers, whilst the Duchy of Cornwall, with twice the revenue, had nothing of the kind. Formerly there was one Department which managed the Woods, Forests, Works, and Public Buildings; but in 1851 a separation took place. In that same year the Hainault Disafforesting Act was passed, without one word of explanation as to the object and effect of that Act, and the public were thus deprived of that beautiful forest, which was nearer the East-end of London by three or four miles than Epping Forest; no one knew anything about the matter until the Act came into operation. Soon after commenced the sale of the Crown Rights in Epping Forest, which were sold, he believed, in contravention of an Act of Parliament. In consequence of the separation of the two Departments, there was no representative of the Woods and Forests in the House, and the operations in reference to these forests were carried out in a way that was most distasteful to the public. The Commissioners of Woods and Forests had also so mismanaged the foreshores throughout the country that the care of them was handed over to the Board of Trade, in 1866; they had likewise thrown impediments in the way of the formation of the Thames Embankment, and endeavoured to prevent the public road being continued along the Embankment to Westminster, by diverting it at Whitehall, and they were only overruled by the power of the Prime Minister. Again, there was difficulty with regard to the New Forest; and the whole policy of the Woods and Forests Department was one that was not in accordance with the views of the people. A Report of the Commissioners in 1850 stated that probably rights of common in forests had been allowed by way of indulgence, as making up for the strictness of the forestal rights of the Crown, and that the Sovereign should not be considered as a lord of the manor, but as the owner of a forest; that the rights of common should not be dealt with as those of commoners over a manorial waste; and, in case of any arrangement being come to for the suppression of the rights of the Crown, a corresponding part of the forest should be severed for the use of the Sovereign and the public. The rights of the Crown were therefore not small rights, and should not have been sold for £5 an acre, as had been done in the case of Epping Forest. The policy of the Woods and Forests would never be of a satisfactory character until there was some responsible Head to answer for it in that House. As a specimen of the present management, he would ask if anyone walked along the Thames Embankment would he not be disgusted with seeing on the one side a long, dull wall shutting out the view, while on the other there was a beautiful view of the river? Instead of the wall there should have been an iron railing, with ornamental trees inside; and he thought it was a most miserable sight, and most disgraceful to the Woods and Forests, that a dead wall should be placed along public property, and no attempt made to adorn that property. Then look again at Park Lane; that beautiful thoroughfare would never have been widened or continued through Hamilton Place by any action of the Woods and Forests. He thought he had made out a case for some different arrangement as to the Crown lands generally, and that there ought to be a responsible representative in Parliament able to answer for the Department; therefore, he should conclude by moving his Amendment.

Amendment proposed, To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "it is advisable that the Commissioners of Her Majesty's Woods, Forests, and Land Revenues be represented in Parliament by a First Commissioner of Woods and Forests, in the same manner as the Department of Her Majesty's Works and Public Buildings is now represented by a First Commissioner of Works and Public Buildings,"—(Mr. Alderman Lawrence,) —instead thereof.

Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."

THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER

said, he would not, at that hour of the night, go into the numerous questions raised by the hon. Gentleman; but he would remind the hon. Gentleman, who contended that the Department had given great dissatisfaction, and that, therefore, the Department ought to be represented in Parliament, that the fact of the Woods and Forests being a Revenue Department, and, therefore, bound to watch over the interests of the whole of the public, was sufficient in itself to excite dissatisfaction. He could not, however, see that the remedy proposed by the hon. Gentleman would be of any avail, though if it were a fact, that the Department was at this moment unrepresented in the House of Commons, and that there was nobody responsible for the conduct of its affairs, there would be much force in the hon. Gentleman's arguments; but the fact was, that the separation of the Woods and Forests from the Department of Works was made some 21 years, after considerable investigation, and was not a change lightly to be disturbed. So far from there being no representative of the Department in that House, the Chancellor of the Exchequer was himself directly responsible, and if they created a fresh office, with fresh responsibility, the occupant of that office would either not be under the control of the Treasury, in which case they would have the anomaly of a Revenue Department over which the main Department had no control, or he would be under the direction of the Treasury, in which case he would be merely the double of an existing representative of the Department; and the responsibility would, in some degree, be frittered away, because there was some person who interposed between the Treasury and the direct responsibility which the House had a right to expect from them. He could not, on these grounds, accede to the Motion of the hon. Gentleman.

MR. LOCKE

said, he certainly thought the explanation of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer most extraordinary, when he said that there was somebody responsible for the Woods and Forests in that House. When the Woods and Forests were brought before the House, they appeared to be a most extraordinary and nondescript class of people; they belonged to nobody and took no interest in anybody. All they said was this—"All we have to do is to be money-grubbers, and to get as much money as we possibly can out of the public." With regard to Black-heath, the Woods and Forests made this declaration, in a Committee with which he had been connected— For the sake of £50 a-year, we allow great holes to be dug in Blackheath; and we sell gravel and put the money in our pockets; and we are responsible to nobody; and if we effect that object, we consider we have performed our duty. That very point had been brought before the House over and over again. The right hon. Gentleman said there was a Minister in the House responsible and able to give a sufficient answer when a question was put. When any grievance was brought forward, had there ever been anybody sitting on the Ministerial bench able to give a satisfactory answer in the slightest degree? There never had been; and the House had gone on from time to time, complaining of the course which had been pursued by these Woods and Forests, and there had not been the slightest attempt on the part of the Government to give any satisfaction to the public. He thought that the Motion of the hon. Member for the City of London was most opportune. He never knew before that the Chancellor of the Exchequer was to answer for all the shortcomings of the Office of Woods and Forests; for his part, he should like to have an answer like that given by his right hon. Friend the First Commissioner of Works. It had been complained that his right hon. Friend gave curt answers; but he (Mr. Locke) did not complain of them, because they were straightforward and sensible; but with respect to the Chancellor of the Exchequer and such exalted individuals, they never gave any answer at all. What sort of answer had the Chancellor of the Exchequer given that night? He had slurred over the question. What his hon. Friend the Member for the City of London required was a definite answer. He did not think there was anybody in the country which did its duty so badly as the Woods and Forests, and he thought it would be better to turn the Department over to the First Commissioner of Works, than to leave it as it was at present. He should support his hon. Friend if he carried the question to a division.

MR. GOLDSMID

said, that whenever a Committee came to clauses in a Bill affecting rights to foreshores, they were told, on behalf of the Crown, that the clauses could not be discussed, but that they must be accepted as they had been sent in by Mr. Gore. That was a most improper manner of meeting a Committee, and it was time that so bad a practice should be put an end to, and that the Department should be made subordinate to the House. In saying that, he did not want a new office to be created; the Department might be managed by the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, who had nothing to do; and then Mr. Gore could be abolished. The rights which were originally vested in the Crown for the benefit of the public ought not to be used to the detriment of the public as they were now by the Woods and Forests. It was an office that required the light which would be surely thrown upon it by a little public criticism. For these reasons he should vote for the Motion.

COLONEL WILSON-PATTEN

rose to defend two public officers, who had been attacked in a most improper manner. They discharged their duties efficiently, and the public derived the benefit of every farthing they saved. He had not a word to say to the Motion; but he was surprised no Member of the Government had risen in their defence.

MR. LOCKE

disclaimed the idea of making any such charge. What he meant to say was, that they had put money into the pockets of the Department.

COLONEL WILSON-PATTEN

was willing to accept the explanation; but he felt bound, though he had no connection with them, to vindicate the conduct of gentlemen who had sought to do their duty to the public.

MR. GLADSTONE

said, that he was glad that the officers to the Commissioners of Woods and Forests should have received some other than official testimony in their favour, but they should receive official testimony also. He must say, he knew of no public officers who stood in a more irreproachable position, and he was glad that that appeared to be understood. He wished, however, to point out to his hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Locke), and also to his hon. and gallant Friend opposite (Colonel Wilson-Patten), that it was impossible to dispose of such a subject as that under discussion by such a Resolution as was then before them. The subject could not be disposed of on grounds so narrow as that proposed by the Motion, as it was a very large one indeed. The question had been for many protracted years before the House, and had received its careful consideration. It had also been made the subject of most laborious Government inquiries, and it was those laborious inquiries which led to the introduction of the present system. He did not say that the present system was beyond criticism; but he would say that it was not a matter to be dismissed by a conversational debate of that kind. There was a complete fallacy involved in the use of the word "public" in that and similar discussions. There were two publics; there was a local public, and a general public; and Parliament had appointed a Commissioner of Woods to sit on behalf of the general public, and sometimes the Commissioners came in conflict with the local public. This difficulty could only be got over by careful consideration and inquiry, and not by precipitate and sweeping Resolutions, for it was not the case only of Black-heath or the Thames Embankment that this question raised. Go to Scotland, and there they complained that the interests of Scotland were disregarded by the Commissioners, and with respect to the rights of the foreshore at Birkenhead the same question was raised. It was the rights of the nation that were concerned, and no other. If they were to alter the system now established, the alteration would only enable the House of Commons to manage a considerable property; but that property was one of the bases of the dignity of the Crown, and was it on every occasion to be made subject to a Resolution of the House of Commons? He admitted, however, that this property ought to be liberally dealt with. Under all the circumstances, he expressed a hope that his hon. Friend would not press the House to a division.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.