CLASS II. (Hansard, 31 May 1877)

MR. GOLDSMID
said, that on a previous occasion, when it had been pointed out that this Office was not a necessary or component part of the Ministry, it had been answered that the Office was most important, because, having no duties, the holder of it was able to take up almost any work required by the Cabinet. But now the First Lord of the Treasury had himself shown that such a Minister as the Lord Privy Seal was unnecessary, because he had undertaken to fill the Office himself without drawing any salary, and under these circumstances he thought the right thing to do would be to withdraw the Vote. The two or three gentlemen attached to the Office should be drafted to some other Department where their services might be useful.

§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER
said, that, although the Lord Privy Seal had small duties to perform in connection with his own proper office, he was nevertheless an officer of importance, because he was frequently able to be of great service to the Cabinet in its deliberations and otherwise. He could by no means admit the lion. Gentleman's 1151 argument that because the First Lord of the Treasury had for the present associated the duties of the Privy Seal with his own it would be at all times unnecessary to have this amount of spare force in the Cabinet. It was rather a serious argument, too, to maintain that because two offices were sometimes amalgamated the second office was unnecessary. There had been occasions when the Prime Minister had also undertaken the duties of Chancellor of the Exchequer, and was it to be argued that the latter office was unnecessary.

MR. GOLDSMID
said, his argument applied only to sinecure offices.

§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER
said, that the circumstances of no two Cabinets were alike, and times and seasons must be considered. There might be seasons when it was not inconvenient for the Prime Minister to perform the duties of Lord Privy Seal; but if the Committee would consider the whole organization of the Government, they would see that if an adequate number of offices of Cabinet rank were to be maintained it was by no means unreasonable that this Office should be kept up. There were frequent occasions when the Office of Lord Privy Seal was of the greatest possible convenience to the working of the Government. Any sum now voted would not be drawn from the Exchequer as long as the present arrangement lasted; but if any different arrangement were made in future the salary would be required, and it was obvious that if the Vote were withdrawn no different arrangement would be possible during the present year. He trusted that the Committee would follow its usual precedent, and agree to the Vote.

§ MR. RYLANDS
said, he thought that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had not exactly understood the arguments of his hon. Friend (Mr. Goldsmid). It was not proposed to reject the Vote on the ground that the Office was now held by the Prime Minister; but on the ground that all the arguments went to prove there was no necessity for the Office. The right hon. Gentleman had spoken of the composition of the Cabinet as a circumstance which should be remembered in the consideration of the Vote; but this really seemed to prove the case against the Vote. The argument used by successive Govern- 1152 melts year after year in favour of maintaining the Office of Lord Privy Seal was that the weight of business pressing on the Cabinet was such that it was desirable to have an odd man in the Cabinet to relieve the pressure upon any particular Department. Now, the present Cabinet was remarkable (among several other circumstances) for being the smallest known for a great many years. He supposed the deficiency in point of number was compensated for in the quality of those forming the Cabinet. Anyhow, the fact was that there were fewer men than ordinary in the Cabinet; and it was just the time when the holder of the Privy Seal should be a gentleman whose assistance would be useful. But when the Members of the Cabinet were fewer and the pressure of business great, just that very time opportunity was taken to give the Office to the First Lord of the Treasury. Allusion had been made to instances in former years when the First Lord was also Chancellor of the Exchequer; and no doubt there were brilliant examples of statesmen holding those two offices. There was an instance quite recently, when the late Prime Minister temporarily held the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer, but the experience of the junction of those two offices had proved that the course was open to serious objections. But the Office they were discussing was a sinecure, and the only excuse for maintaining it was that a noble Lord would be able to do something for the Cabinet which otherwise there would be nobody to attend to. Now, those who used that argument did so no doubt with the conviction that there was some truth in it; but, looking back at those circumstances, when a Lord Privy Seal attempted to do the work of some Department, he would venture to say the work was always badly done. He remembered when it was said in "another place" that the Lord Privy Seal was engaged in sitting upon the Admiralty eggs, and all those eggs became addled. The only real argument, in his judgment, which influenced a Government in supporting the Office was that occasions arose when Members of former Cabinets had to be appointed again. Generally it would be found upon a Party coming into power that there was a right hon. Gentleman who had held office previously— 1153 it might be Chancellor of the Exchequer or any other office, in which he had not been very successful. When the new Cabinet was formed the question would arise, what was to be done with such a right hon. Gentleman, and a way out of the difficulty was found by making him Lord Privy Seal, and sending him to the House of Lords. But he (Mr. Rylands) was quite sure that did not, in the eyes of the country, justify the maintenance of what was one of the greatest sinecure Offices under the Crown. The Vote should be struck out of the Estimates, and the public service purified from a sinecure appointment for which there was no justification.

§ SIR GEORGE BOWYER
said, the Lord Privy Seal was constantly useful as a responsible Minister of the Crown, because everything that passed the Great Seal must pass the Privy Seal first. It was, therefore, incorrect to say that the Office of Lord Privy Seal was a sinecure. The First Lord of the Treasury merely had in that capacity the rank of a Privy Councillor, and, consequently, it was convenient that he should be also Lord Privy Seal. The present Premier, in taking that augmentation to his dignity, had had the liberality to say that he would not draw the salary. If the hon. Gentleman went to a division he should certainly vote against him.

§ MR. PEASE
said, there was no disposition on the part of the Committee to prevent the Cabinet from having an odd man if they required one; but as the question now under consideration was the abolition, not of the Office of Lord Privy Seal, but only of the salary which would not be drawn, he thought the Committee ought not to pass this Vote of £2,000 a-year.

§ MR. DILLWYN
contended that the duties of the Office in question were not of such a character as necessitated the employment of a Cabinet Minister. In spite of what had fallen from the hon. Baronet opposite (Sir George Bowyer), his opinion was that the Office was a sinecure, and for this reason he had always advocated its abolition.

§ SIR WILLIAM FRASER
pointed out that in former times the Lord Privy Seal was, in fact, the Prime Minister. For instance, Cromwell, King Henry VIII.'s Prime Minister, held the office of Lord Privy Seal.

§ GENERAL SIR GEORGE BALFOUR
suggested that the £2,000 a-year which the Government would save by the abolition of the Office of Lord Privy Seal, would pay for the services of a Cabinet Minister to represent Scotland.
Question put.
The Committee divided:—Ayes 104; Noes 46: Majority 58. — (Div. List, No. 142.)
(2.) £27,255, to complete the sum for the Charity Commission, agreed to.
(3.) £20,280, to complete the sum for the Civil Service Commission.

§ MR. WHITWELL
said, that, notwithstanding the objections urged last year, this Vote had been greatly increased. Was that in consequence of the increased examinations in the country? He noticed that £3,000 of the Vote was for the examination of candidates for military appointments. Why was not that sum placed under the head of War Office expenditure?

§ MR. W. H. SMITH
said, that candidates for Army appointments did not pay any fees for examination, but it was thought right that the examination of these candidates should be conducted by the Civil Service Examiners. If the principle suggested by the hon. Member were carried out it would be necessary to place the amount expended in examinations for clerks under the head of each Department in the Civil Service. The only increase in the Vote was £500 for the expenses of assistant examiners, consequent upon increased examinations. There had been no addition to the regular staff of the Department.

§ MR. RAMSAY
maintained that the amount spent on the Army Examinations ought to be stated on the face of the Vote.

§ MR. W. H. SMITH
said, the sexpense of the Army Examinations was set forth on the face of the Vote.

§ MR. RYLANDS
asked whether the assistant examiners were in the Civil Service or not, and if they were what salaries they were paid for other duties?

§ MR. W. H. SMITH
said, that a circular had been sent by the Treasury to each Department requiring that a full Return should be made of all all additions made to salaries which were paid to every officer.
Vote agreed to.
1155 (4.) £14,982, to complete the sum for the Copyhold, Inclosure, and Tithe Commission, agreed to.
(5.) £7,130, to complete the sum for the Inclosure and Drainage Acts, Imprest Expenses, agreed to.
(6.) £41,819, to complete the sum for the Exchequer and Audit Department, agreed to.
(7.) £4,910, to complete the sum for the Registry of Friendly Societies, agreed to.
(8.) Motion made, and Question proposed, That a sum, not exceeding £564,986, 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 1878, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Local Government Board, including various Grants in aid of Local Taxation.

§ MR. PEASE
desired to call attention to the fact that the Vote for vaccination expenses, which last year was £6,000, had increased to £16,500. He had thought of going more fully into the subject of vaccination, as the mode in which it was being carried out in the country produced great dissatisfaction; but he hoped to bring on the larger question when the Motion on the Paper placed there by the noble Lord the Member for North Northumberland (Earl Percy) came on for consideration. He would, therefore, do no more at present than ask how it was that there was this increase of £10,500 in the Vote?

§ MR. SCLATER-BOOTH
said, that the charges under this head had been increasing for several years past, and were progressive. The Department had paid great attention to the subject in the hope of reducing the Vote, but he feared that it could not be diminished. The increase of £10,500 had not occurred last year, but had been growing for some time, as during the present Session a Supplementary Vote had been granted to provide for the arrears of last and previous years. The expenditure arose in carrying out the requirements of Acts of Parliament. The sum of 1s. 6d. was allowed for each case, and 1s. extra for each successful case of vaccination by medical officers, and he did not think that 2s. 6d. was too much for such cases. The practice of vaccination was carried out much more regularly 1156 than formerly in consequence of the Act of 1873 requiring officers to report to the Boards of Guardians all cases of neglect. That caused children to be brought to the medical officers to be vaccinated, and that again was the cause of an increase in the charges. The greatest pains were taken to secure the right administration of this money, and to mitigate the evils of this scourge.

§ MR. DODSON
called the attention of the Committee to the large and increasing charges for Inspectors of different kinds. In this Vote were included the salaries of 56 Inspectors, amounting to £44, 000, and if their travelling and other expenses were included the aggregate cost was about £134,000. By this and other Votes Inspectors were provided for, exceeding 1,000 in number, whose salaries amounted to £300,000. These were all Inspectors or Commissioners superintending—not to say interfering in—the conduct of local affairs by local authorities, or private affairs by private bodies or individuals. Both in amount and cost the superintendence of the Central Government was daily increasing. It used to be said that everything an Englishman used or enjoyed throughout his life was the subject of a tax. Happily, we had got rid of the greater number of those taxes. There was, however, a danger that the Government Inspector would become the general nuisance that the taxgatherer used to be formerly. It might almost be said that every pursuit in which an Englishman engaged was now the subject of inspection by some officer under some branch of the Central Government. Inspectors haunted their factories, workshops, mines, railways, and ships, and pried into a multitude of other matters. There was an Inspector of the school in which a man received his education at the beginning of his life, also an Inspector of the burial ground in which he was laid at its close. That system had made great strides within the last 12 years. In 1865–6, the number of Inspectors employed by the Central Government was between 300 and 400; whereas now the number of Inspectors and Commissioners was upwards of 1,000; the aggregate amount of their salaries and expenses having risen within the same period, in round figures, from £140,000 to £300,000, or, including both salaries and expenses, to £600,000. However 1157 much could be said in favour of inspection by the Central Government to secure the execution of certain laws, yet the growth of that system ought to be watched with the utmost vigilance and jealousy both in the interest of economy and of what was more important—the avoidance of undue interference in the management of local affairs by local authorities, and of private affairs by individuals. He would not propose the reduction of the Vote; as all that expenditure was intended to carry out services which the House had previously sanctioned; but he thought that unless they made a stand against the inordinate extension of the system to which he had referred, that feeling of local independence and individual self-reliance which had always distinguished our people, as compared with other nations, would soon be destroyed.

§ MR. RAMSAY
concurred with the views of the right hon. Gentleman, believing it to be most undesirable that the self-reliance of individuals or of sections of the community should be impaired by Government interference. He also quoted, as an example of the diversity of practice existing in different parts of the Kingdom, the fact that they were asked to vote £16,000 for vaccination in England, while for Scotland, where vaccination was equally compulsory, there was no corresponding charge. In the same way there was an item of £35,000 for the education of pauper children in workhouses; whereas the cost of educating the same class of children in Scotland was thrown upon the rates. The item was out of place here, and ought to be included in the general Vote for Education.

§ MR. MELLOR
thought the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Dodson) must be under some misapprehension when he spoke of the inconvenience which the visits of the Inspectors occasioned in the workshops, by the frequency of their visits, because no practical inspection of them was ever made. The right hon. Gentleman said that if a man went down a mine he was immediately followed by an Inspector, but colliers who had worked in coal mines for 25 years or more had assured him that they had never seen an Inspector down their mines; and from his own experience he could say that Inspectors were seldom or ever seen inside the mills and factories. The Inspectors were 1158 generally selected from among discharged officers of the Army and Navy, and the Excise, a class of men who knew nothing about properly protecting machinery or the duties that they had generally to discharge. There was scarcely one of them who was competent to say if machinery was properly secured or not. In the Poor Law union of Ashton-under-Lyne he found that the two Inspectors visited the workhouse three times last year, and the whole time occupied by them was just nine hours. Surely if this short space of time was sufficient for the purpose of efficient inspection we might dispense with their services altogether. The country was paying too much for the work performed by Inspectors. They should reduce the number, and thereby produce a corresponding amount of economy.

§ MR. RYLANDS
said, that for some time Parliament had embarked on this species of legislation, without any proportionate benefit for the expense incurred. The effect of the recent relief of local taxation at the expense of the country had been to increase rather than diminish expenditure. The effect had certainly been to greatly increase the expenditure with regard to pauper lunatics. To every pound granted in this Vote there would probably be added 5s. for increased superannuation charges with regard to the different departments concerned. If the Committee did not wish the country to be involved in serious difficulties with reference to increased expenditure they must resist the cry of local relief, which, in his opinion, had always been a mischievous cry; and they ought also to resist the Chambers of Commerce, that were constantly asking the Government to apply remedies for existing evils which these institutions ought to provide for themselves. The creation of so great an army of officials was becoming a positive danger, since it led to a waste of public money, without conducing to the general advantage of the country or to the increased safety of the public health.

§ SIR WALTER B. BARTTELOT
agreed that this expenditure of £340,000 did not benefit the landed interest. He thought the root of the evil was that the counties were forced to provide the most costly lunatic asylums, and to maintain pauper lunatics in them at an expense altogether unnecessary. Such a pitch 1159 of extravagance had been reached in this respect that some remedy must very quickly be found. At the present time Surrey and other counties were labouring under great difficulties as to accommodating pauper lunatics; and he submitted that it was most desirable to allow those pauper lunatics who were harmless to be kept in the Union workhouses, and to be granted a certain sum head for their maintenance there according to their cost. That would tend to save a considerable sum now expended in the construction of costly asylums. He also complained of the inequality with which England and Scotland were treated in this matter, for Scotland had managed to secure a State grant of 4s. per head for lunatics kept in their union workhouses which was not granted to England.

§ MR. WHITWELL
expressed concurrence with the hon. and gallant Baronet in what he had said as to the extravagance of the present system.

§ EARL PERCY
agreed with the hon. and gallant Baronet that harmless lunatics should be retained in the workhouses, and pointed out that the various remedial measures which increased the number of Inspectors, such as the Acts relating to factories, mines, unseaworthy ships, and education had been supported quite as much by the Liberal Party as by the Conservatives. He should like to be informed upon what statistics the President of the Local Government Board based his opinion that vaccination had of late years been more satisfactorily carried out than before.

§ MR. RAMSAY
explained that there was a misapprehension in the minds of some hon. Gentlemen as to the grants made by the State in Scotland, and denied that that country really obtained any concession which was withheld from England. He thought it would be desirable to assimilate the English to the Scotch system.

§ MR. SCLATER - BOOTH
said, he thought his right hon. Friend the Member for Chester (Mr. Dodson) ought not to have founded his homily on this Vote. His right hon. Friend had read to the House a very interesting lecture on the disadvantages of too much inspection, and in that principle he himself entirely agreed. But his right hon. Friend had entirely failed to show that there was in this Vote anything to jus- 1160 tify the lecture he had delivered to the Committee. He thought that his right hon. Friend must be aware that the great increase in the number and cost of Inspectors in the public service during the last 12 years was due, not to any additional increase under this Vote, but to the number of Inspectors assigned to the Education Department, the Board of Trade, and the Home Office. His right hon. Friend might have had the candour to point out that since he had been President of the Local Government Board he had abolished a whole class of Inspectors that had been constituted by the Government of which his right hon. Friend was a Member. This was done at the very trifling cost of adding one or two to the number of the general Inspectors. There were also other appointments under this Vote that he had been the means of getting rid of. He had forborne on many occasions from asking Parliament to establish additional inspection in respect of improvements of the law which he had had the opportunity of passing through the House. When the Adulteration of Food Act was passed he did not ask Parliament for additional Inspectors; he left that matter to the local authorities. The same remark would apply to the measure for the prevention of the pollution of rivers, and to the Act relating to noxious vapours from alkali works. With regard to the complaint that £35,000 was a subvention in aid of education, and that some security ought to be given for the proper expenditure of that money, he must say that the charges for the inspection of workhouse schools erred certainly on the side of moderation. There was no doubt some plausibility in the suggestion that the Education Department should perform the function of inspecting workhouse schools. That was formerly done by the Education Office; but these schools were not only for the education, but also for the maintenance of pauper children; and it would be extremely injurious to have one set of Inspectors to inquire into the education of the children and another to ascertain how they were bearded, lodged, and maintained. The hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Rylands) had raised a large question with respect to subventions in aid of the support of pauper lunatics; but the Committee would remember that the grant of 4s. per head 1161 to which allusion had been made was surrounded by a variety of guarantees against abuse in its expenditure. The management of the lunatic was a matter altogether apart from the duty of the Guardians. The lunatic could only be removed by the authority of the magistrates, and the Visiting Justices were responsible for the expenditure incurred in maintaining him. In Scotland, however, the system was altogether different, the lunatic wards in the workhouses there being certified places of detention. In English workhouses the so-called lunatics were merely imbecile paupers. It had been urged that it would be for the interest of the ratepayers that those imbeciles should be removed from the workhouses to the asylums so that the latter might receive the 4s. per head per week, and that was a question to which he had given much consideration; but the statistics showed that while there had been from year to year an increase in the number of lunatics in the county and borough asylums, there had also been an increase in the number of lunatics in the workhouses, and that not only from removals, which could only be effected by warrant signed by a Justice. He had been asked whether he thought that the Vote under consideration would increase. Well he certainly did not look for a reduction of it, but this he believed—that it was within the control and competency of the local authorities themselves to effect a reduction if they desired to do so. He did not see why several Unions might not unite to provide asylums of a cheaper character, or wards in the workhouses in which imbecile persons might be attended to at a much lower cost than that which they entailed in the county asylums. He should certainly deprecate the breaking down of any of the safeguards against abuses which at present existed. He could not enter into the whole question of the policy of the Government with regard to these subventions; but all who had watched the progress of public opinion for the last 10 years must admit that some system such as that adopted by the Government must have been applied in aid of local rates, or else some fundamental change must have been made in the way of collecting and assessing the rates, not only from landed but from personal property. That was a matter of so much difficulty, and 1162 would involve so great a change in our existing practice, that he was satisfied the Government had adopted the right alternative when they elected to meet the demand upon them by the adoption of these subventions. With respect to Scotland they managed matters in that country well and with great public spirit, but the system which prevailed there was very different from that which existed in England; but he might remind the Committee that last year his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer stated to a deputation from Scotland that with the same securities for due administration as were given here the system of subventions in aid of salaries might be put in force in Scotland. The Guardians and workhouse authorities in England greatly disliked to have the responsibility of taking care of troublesome and imbecile patients. They caused more expense than ordinary paupers, and the Guardians wished them to be removed to the asylums even when they could be treated in the workhouse. With reference to the large increase in the Vote for vaccination, it was accounted for by the more efficient manner in which the Vaccination Act was now carried out. The medical officers charged with the duty of vaccination had now had so much experience of the work that they carried it out with more skill than formerly, and were more alive to the directions for the performance of vaccination which were issued from head-quarters. In a recent Report of the officer at the head of this department it was stated that in the year before last 95 per cent of the children born in England had been vaccinated in that year. That was a great result, and the rapid progress of the Vote was an indication that the work was now performed in an efficient and satisfactory manner.

§ MR. PEASE
said, that, after the explanation that had been given by the right hon. Gentleman of the increase of the costs of vaccination, he should not press his Amendment for a reduction of the Vote to a division, as if he did so it would really imply a breach of contract with those medical gentlemen who in most cases had faithfully discharged the duties they had undertaken; but he must enter a caveat against the remarks that had been made about Inspectors, which remarks would produce an impression in 1163 the country very different from that intended by the hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Mellor). He believed that the Inspectors of factories and mines, as well as Poor Law Inspectors, were generally men of special qualifications who discharged their duties efficiently. At the same time, the increase in the number of Inspectors was a matter deserving of attention, for inquiries by Committees and Commissions generally resulted in the appointment of more Inspectors, and the House was never so dangerous as when it became philan-thropical.

§ MR. CLARE READ
said, he was glad that the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board thought that some cheaper mode than existed at present for the maintenance and instruction, as far as it went, of harmless idiots should be adopted. Some were in asylums who ought not to be, and many were in workhouses where their presence was more or less a nuisance. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would exercise his influence with the Lunacy Commissioners, and endeavour to induce them not to insist upon so many alterations in workhouses when converting them into asylums for harmless idiots. The expense which such alterations necessitated was very heavy.

§ SIR ANDREW LUSK
said, he was very glad that this discussion had taken place. Year by year the Vote to which the attention of the Committee had been directed had largely increased. It had risen from something like £100,000, at which he remembered it when he first entered the House, to £714,000. Such expenditure was not to be regarded in the same light as that on the Army and Navy, which were Government Services, and it was not to be assumed that the expenditure was always justifiable because it was incurred under the supervision of the Local Government Board. It was a very open question whether an increased expenditure did much good; at any rate, this test of expenditure was not a proper test. He was glad to bear his testimony to the sound management of the Department; but the managers for the poor had no liberty, and were placed in a very undignified position, as all control, even in the most trivial matters, was taken away from them by the Local Government Board. He found no fault 1164 with the right hon. Gentleman, but with the policy adopted by the House.

§ MR. BIGGAR
recommended that there should be some test of the qualifications of Inspectors under the Local Government Board, as he believed that many of them were incompetent.

§ MR. SCLATER-BOOTH
said, in reference to the interference of the central authority with Boards of Guardians in the Metropolis, of which the hon. Baronet the Member for Finsbury had complained, he was ready to admit that the interference was greater than with Boards of Guardians in the country, but he wished to point out that it was brought about in the most deliberate manner by the unanimous vote of Parliament in 1867. The hon. Baronet must very well remember the abuses which brought about that centralization. He was not an advocate for an extension of the present system, rather would he wish to decrease it; but he could not deny that it had worked for the relief of the ratepayers and the benefit of the local institutions. He thought the hon. Baronet's charge, that the Vote for his Department had increased, was scarcely justifiable. That increase was brought about by three causes. In the first place, when the Local Government Board was set up, various duties which had been up to that time performed by other Departments were transferred to the new Board. Secondly, when the Public Health Act was passed Parliament deemed it expedient to grant certain subventions to the local authorities in aid of the offices created under that Act. Those subventions caused an increase in the Vote of £100,000 a-year, which had since been reduced to £60,000. The third cause of the increase was attributable to the policy adopted by the Government in 1874 of granting subventions in aid of pauper lunatics. With all these causes in view, it was hardly fair to charge the Department with having allowed the Vote to increase.

§ MR. PARNELL
was sorry that the Vote should be taken when there were so few Members present to discuss it. It was, perhaps, one of the most important Votes that could be brought before the House—not so much from its present importance as from the prospective importance it appeared to be gaining by reason of the centralizing influences the Government were introducing under the 1165 guise of domestic legislation. He wished to point out to hon. Members on the Liberal side, who on various occasions had expressed themselves opposed to the centralizing policy which the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Sclater-Booth) avowed himself in favour of, that by discussing the various items of the present Vote, and by urging objections where reasonable objections could be found, the attention of the Government would be directed to the subject in the most practical way. The hon. Gentleman moved to reduce the Vote by the sum of £10,000.
Motion made, and Question put, That the Item of £16,500, Public Vaccination, be reduced by the sum of £10,000."—(Mr. Parnell.) The Committee divided: — Ayes 2; Noes 115: Majority 113. — (Div List, No. 143.)
Original Question put, and agreed to.
(9.) £12,494, to complete the sum for the Lunacy Commission, agreed to.
(10.) £41,700, to complete the sum for the Mint, including Coinage.

§ SIR ANDREW LUSK
complained that the country had not a proper Mint. The Government ought to look out for a good place and see where a suitable building for the purpose could be erected. He wished to know whether the Chancellor of the Exchequer was prepared to go forward in this direction?

§ MR. SWANSTON
thought the present site was sufficient for the purpose; and, considering the present state of the Exchequer, he thought it would be better to let matters remain as they were.

§ MR. MONK
also hoped that the Mint would not be removed from its present site.

§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER
said, the question of the Mint was no doubt one of some interest and of some complexity. The Government were not entirely satisfied with the present condition of the Mint. The machinery was not so good as it ought to be, and it must be renewed. They must not run into extravagance for the purpose of putting up a Mint "worthy of the country." A Mint that properly did its work was a Mint "worthy of the country." On the other hand, it was true that a good deal might be done by selling the present site for other very valuable 1166 purposes, and possibly then a new site might be obtained on which new machinery might be constructed more conveniently than on the present site. The Government had met with a great deal of difficulty in trying to find such a site, and hitherto they had not been able to come to any arrangement. They were still considering the subject, and making inquiries. If they could not find a place which they thought both from an economical point of view and in other respects would suit them, it would then be for them to carry out the necessary alterations in the machinery on the present site.

§ MR. DODSON
regretted to hear the right hon. Gentleman speak of acquiring a site for the Mint by purchase as if no other course admitted of consideration. It had been suggested that the Mint could be safely and conveniently placed within the precincts of the Tower without any cost having to be incurred for the purchase of the site. A good deal of French copper coinage was coming into this country. He presumed that indicated that the supply of our copper coinage was deficient. He should be glad to know whether the Mint was taking steps to supply that deficiency.

§ GENERAL SIR GEORGE BALFOUR
said, the placing of the Mint within the precincts of the Tower was utterly out of the question. He suggested that it would be better to secure a site at Woolwich and fortify it.

§ MR. DELAHUNTY
said, he had to mention a matter in connection with coinage which was of considerable importance to small shopkeepers. There were two small silver coins, fourpenny and threepenny pieces, and it was very inconvenient to parties trading to find out which was which, and mistakes were very apt to be made by people in a hurry. What he would suggest was—and he knew it would be a great boon to small shopkeepers—that fourpenny pieces should be abolished and three, penny pieces retained, which would be more convenient than retaining both coins.

§ SIR ANDREW LUSK
said, he was glad the Government had taken the subject of the Mint into their consideration.

§ MR. RYLANDS
expressed the hope that if the Government came to the conclusion that it was expedient to purchase another site for the Mint, the House 1167 would have an opportunity of properly considering the whole proposal before it was asked to commit itself to any large expenditure for such a purpose.

MR. GOLDSMID
remarked that the House on two previous occasions had considered the question of the removal of the Mint, and had twice decided that the Mint should be kept where it was. He would, therefore, advise the Government to rest satisfied with those two decisions and not to bring the matter again before the House. The desire of the Government seemed to be to provide a house in a better situation for the Assistant Master; but when a man accepted a good office he should put up with the residence, though it might not be in the most favourable situation. The Government should keep the Mint where it was.

§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER
altogether repudiated the suggestion that there was any idea of removing the Mint for the sake of providing a more agreeable residence for the Assistant Master. The only object which the Government had was to make the most economical and best arrangement for the working of the Mint. The House had not twice objected to the removal of the Mint, but had objected to the schemes proposed. However, there were two alternatives—either to expend money in improving the buildings upon the present site, or to find another site and sell the present buildings and site to the best advantage. No scheme would be proposed by the Government on the subject without giving the House a full opportunity of considering the matter. As to the coinage, he believed that the Mint was providing as much copper coinage, either by its own operations or by contract, as was likely to be sufficient.

§ MR. BIGGAR,
thought it would be much more convenient to have the Mint as near as possible to the London banks, and that it would be a mistake to remove the Mint as far as Woolwich.
Vote agreed to..
(11.) £13,857, to complete the sum for the National Debt Office, agreed to.
(12.) £18,069, to complete the sum for the Patent Office.

§ MR. LYON PLAYFAIR
remarked that while the Government derived a revenue of £180,000 from the inventors 1168 of this country, it made them a very insignificant return. Only about £2,000 was spent upon a Patent Museum. The Patent Museum at South Kensington was very inferior to the corresponding institutions in France and America, and if we had such a museum at all it ought to be a good one, and such as would promote invention. He wished to ask whether the Government had bought or rented a large building for the purposes of an efficient Patent Museum?

§ MR. WHITWELL
asked how it was that so much was expended in these departments for stationery?

§ SIR ANDREW LUSK
asked who now paid the Law Officers? He thought that inventors did not pay so much in fees as it seemed to some hon. Members.

§ MR. W. H. SMITH
said, that two years ago the Government undertook to provide for a better exhibition of patented inventions; but shortly after an arrangement had to be made for an exhibition of scientific instruments, and that exhibition expanded to such a degree that the Government was obliged to concede for the time to the Exhibition the space provided for the Patent Museum. It was still the intention of the Government to find suitable space for specimens of patents and inventions. The hon. Member for Kendal (Mr. Whitwell ) had referred to the cost of printing and stationery for patents; but one condition was that inventors should have pacifications provided, and they were very costly. The Law Officers of the Crown were now paid by salary and not in fees, and these payments were voted annually.

§ GENERAL SIR GEORGE BALFOUR
was understood to complain that the Scotch and Irish Law Officers had not been placed on the same footing as the English. They still received emoluments out of the fees levied on patents. The salaries of the Attorney and Solicitor General of England were now fixed, irrespective of their former fees. Then the Lord Advocate of Scotland received fees from three different sources. It was also impossible to find out what the total emoluments were which the Lord Advocate actually had. All this mystery was wrong. Moreover, Scotland had a right to the entire services of the Lord Advocate, and could afford to remunerate him liberally for devoting all his time to their public duties, without being de- 1169 pendent either on fees for patents or for other causes, and even to pay him so as to enable him to abstain from private practice.

§ MR. DILLWYN
objected to spending money on a Patent Museum. He did not believe in the necessity for one. Unless large enough to contain models of every patented invention it would be of little use, and even then would take more space and cost more money than it would be worth.
Vote agreed to.
(13.) £17,258, to complete the sum for the Paymaster General's Office.
(14.) £18,719, to complete the sum for the Public Record Office.
(15.) £8,136, to complete the sum for the Public Works Loan Commission, &c.

§ GENERAL SIR GEORGE BALFOUR
inquired to what extent the Government were responsible for the loans which the Commissioners made?

§ MR. W. H. SMITH
explained that neither the Treasury nor the Chancellor of the Exchequer were responsible for the particular advances which were made by the Public Works Loan Commissioners; but they as well as the Government of the day were responsible for any remission of debt due to the public which they might from time to time propose to Parliament.
Vote agreed to.
(16.) £38,611, to complete the sum for the Register Office General, agreed to.
(17.) Motion made, and Question proposed, That a sum, not exceeding £377,729, 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 1878, for Stationery, Printing, Binding, and Printed Books for the several Departments of Government in England, Scotland, and. Ireland, and some Dependencies, and for Stationery, Binding, Printing, and Paper for the two Houses of Parliament, including the Salaries and Expenses of the Stationery Office.

§ MR. RYLANDS,
after objecting to several items, said the expense was out of all proportion to the work done. In estimating the extra receipts it must be remembered that a large sum was received for waste paper.

§ MR. RITCHIE
said, the quantity of waste paper arose from the fact that Returns were too freely granted, and he suggested that in future more attention should be given to the fact whether they were for the public interest or not before they were granted. He also suggested that when they were granted, they should not be distributed so lavishly as at present. A great many Returns were moved for and granted that were of interest only to those who moved for them. By restricting their issue to those Members only who wished to have them, hon. Members would be saved the trouble of arranging them, or of selling them for waste paper.

§ MR. DILLWYN
called attention to the large sum paid to the editors and clerks of The London, Dublin, and Edinburgh Gazettes, and moved the reduction of the item by £2,116. He looked upon the office as a sinecure, and he expressed his doubts whether the sums charged for clerks were really so expended.
Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Item of £2,116, for the Salaries of the Gazette Offices, London, Edinburgh, and Dublin, be omitted from the proposed Vote."—(Mr. Dillwyn.)

§ MR. W. H. SMITH
said, the amount of printing was, no doubt, very large; but if a Return was ordered by the House, it did not cost very much more to furnish 100 or 200 additional copies. With regard to the gentlemen employed in connection with The London Gazette, they fairly earned their salaries. The editor, a gentleman appointed by the late Government, was fully entitled to the salary ho received, and the five clerks had a considerable amount of work to do. Considering that a profit of £25,000 was obtained, the amount of expenditure was not very large.

MR. GOLDSMID
complained of the great expenditure which occurred on Parliamentary Returns, and recommended the Government to show a little more firmness in resisting Motions for such Returns.

§ SIR ANDREW LUSK
was of opinion, on the contrary, that no greater obstacles ought to be placed in the way of granting them, inasmuch as they frequently furnished a good deal of valuable information as well as supplied many hon. Members with the only opportunity of bringing their names before the public.

§ SIR GEORGE BOWYER
said, it would be a pity to curtail the privileges of hon. Members, who should be allowed to move for Returns, which might be of service, if not to the general public, at least to their constituents. Economy might, however, be exercised in cutting down the voluminous mass of information which was sometimes laid on the Table by the Government, and which nobody ever read.

§ MR. BIGGAR
supported the Vote.

§ MR. RITCHIE
said, he had no doubt the hon. Gentleman who had just spoken found Blue Books occasionally very useful. Economy might, he thought, be secured, if greater care was observed in the granting of Returns.

§ SIR PATRICK O'BRIEN
thought that the cost of printing might he reduced and the time of the House saved, if the Questions of which hon. Members gave Notice were — as they well might be—confined to a compass much shorter than the space they now usually occupied.

§ MR. ASSHETON
considered that the number of Blue Books printed went in many cases beyond the demand.

MR. J. COWEN
observed that £775 was paid for 121 copies of Hansard's Debates. This was all that Mr. Hansard received for his very excellent record of the debates of Parliament. He noticed also that £400 was paid to Mr. Ross for The Parliamentary Record. The sum paid for each of these publications seemed scarcely proportionate; and he should like to know what number of copies of The Parliamentary Record were circulated.

§ MR. W. H. SMITH
was not able to say how many copies of The Parliamentary Record were circulated. It was, however, furnished to all the Public Offices, and was found exceedingly useful as a record of the proceedings of Parliament.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
Original Question put, and agreed to.
(18.) £20,593 to complete the sum for the Woods, Forests, &c. Office.

§ SIR CHARLES W. DILKE
called attention to the great expense of management of the Woods and Forests as compared with the revenue of that Department. The gross revenue of the Woods and Forests was £470,000 a- 1172 year, while the salaries, legal expenses, &c., amounted to between £110,000 and £120,000 per annum, or one-fourth of the entire revenue. The Woods and Forests were looked upon as a Revenue Department, and the Commissioners had frequently, in documents presented to that House, and in evidence given before Committees, spoken of themselves as being purely a Revenue Department. There was, however, one estate under their charge of a very different kind from the others—the Windsor estate, which cost £25,000 a-year, whilst its receipts were only £6,000, being an annual deficit of £19,000. It was desirable that in future this estate should be included in the first class of Estimates as a Palace in the occupation of Her Majesty. He thought it rather strange that the Commissioners of Woods and Forests, who had thought it their duty to address the House of Commons in opposition to the views it had taken on the subject of the New Forest, should have omitted to point out the inconvenience of keeping a Palace account such as that of Windsor under the head of a Revenue Department.

§ MR. MORGAN LLOYD
said, he was satisfied that the subject of Woods and Forests was one which needed further discussion, and was not sufficiently understood by hon. Members; but lie thought the letter of the head of the Department was a very proper one, and that the views he had expressed were not open to the censure conveyed by the remarks of the hon. Baronet the Member for Chelsea.

THE CHANCELLOR
or THE EXCHEQUER said, that the arrangements now in force had been in existence ever since the settlement with the Crown in reference to Crown Lands. Whether it was the best that could be made, and whether the system of management that was adopted, allowing it to be reckoned with other portions of the Crown Lands, was a good one, he would not say; but it was the way in which the property had been dealt with throughout the present Reign and several previous Reigns, and he did not think it would be fair to make an alteration in the system all at once. There would be no objection to laying Mr. Howard's letter before Parliament.

§ MR. DILLWYN
observed that he did not understand the hon. Baronet the 1173 Member for Chelsea to pronounce any blame on Mr. Howard in respect of his letter. He merely said that Mr. Howard had placed himself in the position of an accounting officer. The real question the hon. Baronet had raised was whether the property should continue to be managed at a cost of 22½ per cent?

§ MR. RYLANDS
thought steps should be taken by the Government to bring the enormous expenditure which at present took place in connection with the Crown Lands into something like reasonable bounds.

§ MR. WHITWELL
considered that the Treasury had not a proper control over the estate as things were, and that the accounts showed the fact.

§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER
said, that the matter was one which might be raised by giving distinct Notice. The accounts were always laid before Parliament, and it was competent to anyone to raise the subject more conveniently than by mere conversation. The hon. Gentleman (Sir Charles Dilke) ought to have considered the peculiar character of the estate, and that it had been taken from the Crown on a certain understanding, part of which was that Windsor Park should be kept up in a particular manner. No doubt the estate was not managed strictly on commercial principles, and there was consequently a considerable percentage of expenses for managment. But the Government had directed their attention to the subject, and always desired to curtail any unnecessary expenses.
Vote agreed to.
(19.) Motion made, and Question proposed, That a sum, not exceeding £31,395, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will conic in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1878, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Office of the Commissioners of Her Majesty's Works and Public Buildings.

§ MR. MELLOR
moved the reduction of the Vote by the sum of £510, the amount of the salary of the superintendent for the supply of coals and firewood, and of the superintendent for the supply of candles and oil.
Motion made, and Question proposed, That a sum, not exceeding £30,885, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum 1174 necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1878, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Office of the Commissioners of Her Majesty's Works and Public Buildings."—(Mr. Mellor.)

§ MR. WALTER
should like to know what offices there were to which those articles were supplied?

§ MR. GERARD NOEL
explained that the officers in question superintended the supply of coals and firewood and of candles and oil, not for the Office of Works alone, but for all the Government Offices in Class I.

§ SIR ANDREW LUSK
drew attention to the fact that several officers whose salaries were included in this Vote also received salaries from other offices, and suggested that it was an unsatisfactory system of paying them.

§ MR. DODSON
also asked for information as to an item of £50 a-year paid to one of the officers as receiver of the tolls of Chelsea Bridge. What connection was there between the Office of Works and Chelsea Bridge?

§ MR. W. H. SMITH
said, Chelsea Bridge was the property of the Government, and it had been customary for many years to allow the officer in question the sum of £50 a-year out of the tolls of the bridge.
Question put.
The Committee divided:—Ayes 40; Noes 122: Majority 82.—(Div. List, No. 144.)

§ MR. DILLWYN
objected to the practice of allowing public officers to be paid by salary and commission. In his opinion, they ought to be paid by one or the other but not by both. The existing practice was bad, and ought to be abolished.

§ MR. GERARD NOEL
said, the arrangement had been come to many years ago after much consideration, and the work was well done.
Vote agreed to.
Resolutions to be reported.
Motion made, and Question proposed, That a sum, not exceeding £20,000, he granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending 31st March 1878, for Her Majesty's Foreign and other Secret Services.

§ MR. PARNELL,
viewing the subject as one of considerable importance, hoped the Government would not think it unreasonable to report Progress at that stage. He did not wish to go into the Vote then, because it was a matter which would lead to much discussion, and he would like to avail himself of the assistance of the other Irish Members not then present. ["Oh, oh!"] He knew that was not a reason which would be accepted if there were no other reason; but it was one which weighed with him and he had no desire to accept the responsibility of discussing the Vote then. It was a matter exciting much attention in Ireland. The Committee would observe that the item of Secret Service came in the Estimates under the branches connected with England only—there were no charges under that head for Ireland or Scotland. In Ireland it was believed —and he thought not without reason—that a considerable portion of the sum voted was spent in a most improper way in England; and in years gone by the sums thus spent were much larger. He thought that the amounts for the Vote spent in Ireland or in matters connected with Ireland should be stated in the Vote, so that the country could understand how much of the Secret Service money was devoted to Ireland. If the Government would undertake to make that declaration he should not press the Motion; but if an objection were raised, he should move that Progress be reported.

§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER
said, it was getting rather late, and the Committee had been engaged upon the Estimates the whole evening. He would not, therefore, object to Progress being then reported.
Resolutions to be reported To-morrow;
Committee also report Progress; to sit again To-morrow.