§ SIR CHARLES W. DILKEasked the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education, If arrangement could be made to enable the public again to have the privilege of seeing Raphael's cartoons of subjects from the New Testament on Sunday afternoons, a privilege which the public had enjoyed for half a century at Hampton Court before those cartoons were transferred to the South Kensington Museum?
§ VISCOUNT SANDONSir, the subject raised by the hon. Baronet really involves the whole question of opening Museums and Picture Galleries on Sundays, respecting which, as the hon. Baronet is aware, there is a great difference of opinion. It would be exceedingly difficult to make a choice between the different subjects which should or should not be open to public inspection on Sundays. The Lord President is, therefore, not prepared to accede to the request. There will shortly be an opportunity, on the Motion of the hon. Member for Leicester (Mr. P. A. Taylor), for a discussion of the whole subject, when the Government will state the views they hold respecting it. I may mention that, as the Hampton Court Gallery is closed on Fridays, and the South Kensington Museum is open for six days in the week, the public have the opportunity of seeing the cartoons for the same number of days as formerly, and that by the Museum at South Kensington being kept open till 10 o'clock on three days of the week, the working classes have special 267 opportunities for seeing these and other works of art which they had not before.