HC Deb 23 August 1881 vol 265 cc752-60

Bill considered in Committee.

(In the Committee.)

Clauses 1 and 2 agreed to.

Clause 3 (Suspended elections and limitations of tenures).

Amendment proposed, at end of Clause to add— (3.) When any University or College office or emolument, including the headship of any College, shall be or become vacant after the passing of this Act, and such office or emolument is subject to a Statute made by the Commissioners, but not approved by Her Majesty, the Commissioners, or after the thirty-first day of December, one thousand eight hundred and eighty-one, the Universities committee may, if they think fit, order the election or appointment to such office or emolument to be suspended until the date at which such Statute, whether amended or not, or any statute in lieu thereof made in pursuance of this Act, is approved by Her Majesty in Council, or until the date at which the Commissioners or the Universities Committee order the said suspension to determine; (4.) Where in pursuance of section thirty-three of 'The Universities of Oxford and Cambridge Act, 1877,' or of this section, the Commissioners, or the Universities Committee as the case may be, authorise or direct the suspension of the election or appointment to any University or College office or emolument, they may make such provision, if any, as they may think fit for the performance and exercise in the meantime and until such election or appointment shall be made, of the duties and powers attached to such, office or emolument."—(Mr. Lyulph Stanley.)

Question, "That those words be there added," put, and agreed to.

Question proposed, "That the Clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill."

MR. CHARLES ROUNDELL

said, he proposed to move the introduction of the following new clause on behalf of the hon. Member for Oldham (Mr. Lyulph Stanley):— (Appointment of two additional Members on Committee.) And whereas by 'The Universities of Oxford and Cambridge Act, 1877,' section forty-four, a Universities Committee of the Privy Council is established consisting of the persons in that section named or referred to: Be it Enacted, That Her Majesty may from time to time appoint such other persons not exceeding two in number, as She may think fit, to be Members of the said Committee along with the person in that section mentioned or referred to, and that all the provisions of that Act relating to the said Universities Committee shall be read and have effect as if the power to appoint such additional Members herein contained had been contained in that Act. He and his hon. Friend thought it necessary to strengthen the Universities Committee. Under the Act of 1877, the Commissioners were to frame statutes to be submitted to the Privy Council; and, if any such statute was objected to, the objector could go before the Universities Committee to state his case; and the Committee had the power to either disallow the statute or remit it to the Commissioners with a declaration. But, as the term of office of the Commissioners was about to expire, there would be no sufficient provision for the working of any new statute. Under this Bill, the Commissioners would have certain additional powers put upon them; but they would be unable either to make a new statute or to amend any statute. He therefore thought it desirable to strengthen the Committee by the addition of other members; and that the basis upon which the Committee was instituted should be widened. Under the Act of 1870, the functions of the Committee were strictly of a judicial character; but by this Bill their functions would be administrative and of the highest importance. He would further observe that by this Bill the Committee would be the judges in their own case if objections were taken to any proposed statute.

New Clause—(Mr. Charles Roundell,)—brought up, and read the first time.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause be read a second time."

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

said, he thought that what had just happened was an illustration of the inconvenience of bringing on matters of importance so late in the Session. The whole management of this Bill appeared to him to have changed from day to day. The Amendment was originally put down by the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets (Mr. Bryce). That loaded the mine, and then the hon. Member went off to America, and left the hon. Member for Oldham (Mr. Lyulph Stanley) to light it. That hon. Member remained till last night, and now, his patience exhausted, he had left the task to another hon. Gentleman, who was not present last night, and in consequence had made a speech which would have been more proper on the second reading than on this Amendment. The argument of the hon. Member (Mr. Roundell) was that, the duties of the Committee being increased, it was necessary, therefore, to widen the basis of the Committee; but it by no means followed that by being strengthened by an increase of Members the Committee was rendered more efficient for its duties. He admitted that something might be done in that direction; but something had been done by the Bill as it now stood, which would be more effective than anything proposed by the new clause. By the second clause the Committee were empowered to add as assessors any Members of the University Commission; and later on last night the Committee of the House had empowered the Universities Committee to add to their number; so that, so far as knowledge was concerned, the Bill already provided all that strength which it was necessary for a Committee of the Privy Council to have. He thought the notion of strengthening the Committee by increasing their number could only be held by Gentlemen who had not gone through the Bill, and that it would be extremely hard to find among the ex-Court officials, or Judges on Circuit, or Ambassadors abroad, gentlemen qualified sufficiently to carry out the duties of this Committee, or to add to its strength. He feared that the real motive that actuated the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets was a desire for something not very different from a Party triumph. On the Privy Council Committee there were two Conservatives and four Liberals. He must also point out that the whole of the proposal of the Government was not contained in the Bill. The new clause proposed to add two Members to the Committee; but the hon. Member had not reminded the Committee of the fact that the Government proposed to exercise the powers they already possessed of appointing not only two new Members, but three; and of those, two were Members of the Liberal Party. He could not understand how this Amendment had the support of the Government, for the Prime Minster had undertaken that at that time of the Session no controversial matter should be brought before the House. There could not be any matter of a more controversial character than this, and yet the House was asked to deal with it at a time when a debate upon it was almost impossible. He would remind the Government of one consequence that might ensue from their action. The House of Lords had assented to the Bill in its original shape; but this new proposal, combined with the well-understood intention of the Government with regard to the third Commissioner, would make such a change, and one so pronounced, that the House of Lords would be justified in rejecting the Bill—as he thought, to the great inconvenience of both Universities. If that result ensued, the responsibility would not lie with the House of Lords, but with the Government, who, on the 23rd of August, in a House of little more than the quorum of 40, asked that the machinery by which the statutes of the Universities were to be regulated for some years to come should be modified. For these reasons he hoped the Government would re-consider their decision, and give some pledge that if the House accepted this Amendment they would not exercise their power of appointing a third Commissioner—or, if they would not do that, would not support the Amendment. He would suggest that this clause be not read a second time.

MR. GLADSTONE

The observations of my hon. Friend as to the inconvenience to which the House has been put by the block of Business are perfectly undeniable; but they do not carry the Committee to anything. There is likely to be in the Recess, before the next meeting of Parliament, a considerable amount—there may be a great amount—of most important and onerous business cast on the body whose composition my hon. Friend (Mr. Lyulph Stanley) seeks to extend. The hon. Member for Hertford (Mr. A. J. Balfour) has put that body into too narrow a view by describing it as a body simply for political purposes; and, having apparently accurately informed himself, states that there are four Liberals and two Conservatives on the Committee. I have watched the votes in the House of Lords, but I have not seen any strong demonstration upon this Bill to induce the Committee to believe that the Members of this Committee have acted solely with a view to their Parties, but rather that the Bill has been kept completely out of the limits of Party action. If that be so, there disappears the contention of the hon. Member opposite. We have not looked at this matter simply as one of Liberals and Conservatives; we have looked at it with reference to the question of how far the Members of the Committee are so placed with regard to the addition to their duties, as that they can give the amount of time which may be required for the performance of those duties. It is there that I think the strong case of my hon. Friend lies. The Lord Chancellor, taking his case first, is very much occupied, and he is a man with regard to whom we have not at all the same assurance now as we have had as to the immense amount of work he has been in the habit of doing. And, in the third place, he is a man who, as Chairman of the University, has been a party to many of the statutes that may have to come under consideration for repeal, and he would feel considerable difficulty in sitting on the Committee. Therefore, the Lord Chancellor is really, in some considerable degree, to be viewed as less than a perfectly efficient Member of the Committee. The Archbishop of Canterbury, again, is a man who is exceedingly busily occupied, and could not give any great amount of time to these duties. The Duke of Devonshire is in the same position. He is a man who is known to be devoted to the discharge of very varied and extended duties connected with his great possessions and high standing in society; and he is not a person who can give more than a limited amount of time to the discharge of the duties of this Committee. Those are three of the six individuals who form this body. If three Members are added to the Commission, the number of working Members will only be raised to the number originally contemplated, and there will be an increase of the strength of the Commission. Having regard to the amount of duties which the Commission will have to perform, it is necessary that there should, be some addition to the strength of that body. I have no doubt that, although an addition of three Members be made to this body, it will even then be very difficult to secure an average attendance of more than six Members, and I do not think my hon. Friend will contend that that is too large a number. I hope, therefore, that the clause will be accepted.

MR. BERESFORD HOPE

said, he was afraid that he could not look upon the question as so plain and easy as his right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, with his unparalleled talent for presenting a case to the House, had put it before them. He must go back to the Parliamentary history of this measure. He would not go further back than that. The measure was essentially a Government Bill, and it had passed, unanimously, "another place." It was accepted there on the understanding that it was to be what it was—that it was to be the measure then presented; establishing the tribunal thereby created, and no other tribunal. It was unanimously accepted in "another place" by noble Lords, he would not enter into their politics after the warning they had had; but it was accepted there, and if they analyzed the politics of those who accepted it they would find that people quite as conspicuous on one side of the House as the other had aided in facilitating the passing of the Bill, in order that it might be sent down to the House of Commons on the understanding that it would be submitted and passed in the form in which it then stood. Well, in the House of Commons it appeared destined to the same sort of unobtrusive, happy career as it had had elsewhere; but the ardent spirit of the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets (Mr. Bryce) induced him to propose an addition of two Members to the Committee. Of course, those who supported the Bill in that House, "and those who had to re-consider it elsewhere," were upon the qui vive. There certainly was a general understanding on the part of those who might make themselves troublesome in that House and troublesome "elsewhere," that the addition of two Members to the Committee, which was the demand of the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets, and which appeared in the clause placed upon the Paper by the hon. Member for Oldham (Mr. Lyulph Stanley), was a matter quite sufficient to wreck the Bill altogether. Still, this modification was accepted; but now it seemed that even that proposal was a minor matter compared with the difference which it was really proposed to make. By some sort of legerdemain the two Members were rolled out into three. Now, three Members might be better than two, or they might be worse. They were certainly more in number; but whether they were better or worse was another thing. All he had to say was that the proposition was now an entirely different proposition from the one which he had himself readily accepted, and which would, he believed, be approved "elsewhere." The good understanding on which he, for his own part, had hoped and trusted that the Bill might have been passed, and on the faith of which he had been exerting himself to get the Bill accepted, was at an end. Why, he asked, should there have been this obscure dodging and reference to other Acts of Parliament, and this coming down at the fag-end of the Session, to make the proposal the House was now asked to accept? The hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets asked them to accept two new Members. He had consented to accept them; but he was not aware that in doing so he was to be caught in a trap and find that he had accepted three. He did not accept three. The proposal might be a good one, or a bad one; but that was not the question. It might be a mistake, or else he himself might be very much in error; but he knew perfectly well what he was told, and what he was led to expect, and he knew in what form he had agreed to accept the Bill, and in what form he had refused to accept it. It was with very great regret that he found himself bound, under the circumstances, to vote with his hon. Friend the Member for Hertford.

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

said, that his right hon. Friend the Member for the University of Cambridge (Mr. Beresford Hope) had no one but himself to thank for the extraordinary apprehension under which he appeared to be labouring, because nobody concerned in the Bill had been ignorant that two Members were to be added by that Amendment, and that a third was to be added by the University Act of 1877. It could only have been the result of the want of care that any such misapprehension could have been entertained. His right hon. Friend must have been quite aware of the provisions of the Act of 1877; but yet he now stated that he had thought all along that they were going to add two Members and not three. How his right hon. Friend arrived at that conclusion he (Sir William Harcourt) was unable to comprehend. There had never been any concealment about the matter at all. He had been in constant communication with the hon. Member for Hertford, and had given him to understand the exact position of the matter from first to last. It had been pointed out to the hon. Member from the beginning what the position was, and that this Amendment would add two Members, in addition to the one added under the Act of 1877. The only question was one of numbers, and what the Government proposed was to add three to the present number of Members; and the result of that proposal was simply to restore the Committee to its full working efficiency.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

had no wish to prolong the debate. He thought the very least they had a right to expect was that the names of the Members it was proposed to add should be given to the House, so that the House might be able to ascertain whether they were gentlemen already engaged in the discharge of onerous duties. Everything would turn upon that matter; and, therefore, they ought to know who the new Members were.

Question put.

The Committee divided:—Ayes 63; Noes 18: Majority 45—(Div. List, No. 408.)

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

said, there were one or two verbal Amendments which he desired to introduce into the clause. The first was in line 4, after the word "may," to insert the words "in addition."

Question, "In New Clause, line 4, after the word 'may,' insert the words 'in addition,'" put, and agreed to.

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

moved, in line 5, to introduce, after the words "two in number," "being Members of the Privy Council." As the clause stood, it would have the effect of introducing gentlemen who were not Members of the Privy Council, and that would be entirely an anomalous proceeding.

Question, "In line 5, after the word 'number,' insert the words 'being Members of the Privy Council,'" put, and agreed to.

Clause, as amended, agreed to.

Bill reported, with Amendments; as amended, to be considered To-morrow.