OBSERVATIONS. (Hansard, 20 July 1881)

§ SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH

Sir, it may be convenient to the House that I should take the earliest opportunity of stating what course I intend to pursue with respect to my Notice of Motion on the Transvaal; and it will be necessary, therefore, very shortly to recapitulate what has occurred on the matter. Before the Easter Vacation, I gave Notice of the Motion, which was in its terms a direct Vote of Censure on Her Majesty's Government for the course which up to that time they had pursued in the Transvaal. I asked the Prime Minister to afford me an opportunity for the discussion. He then suggested that it would be better I should first endeavour in the ordinary way to find an opportunity for myself. I did so without success. I again appealed to the Prime Minister, after Easter, to give me a day, and his reply was that circumstances which had occurred in connection with the capture and re-occupation of Potchefstroom had altered the position of affairs to such an extent that if there were to be a discussion then it would be injurious to the Public Service. I felt myself bound to accept that reason for delay, which, of course, was based upon circumstances which could only be known to Her Majesty's Government. But I wish to say, in passing, that I hope we shall have at some time or other an explanation of the circumstances which justified that statement, for I have not been able to discover any in the Papers presented to the House. That reason for postponement was renewed from time to time, and it was only about a month ago that the right hon. Gentleman informed us it no longer existed; and then he stated that the exigencies of the Land Law (Ireland) 1369 Bill prevented my Motion from being discussed. I think it was a very exceptional reason to give for the delay. I should have thought it was almost unprecedented for any Government to postpone a discussion on a Vote of Censure upon a question of high policy likely to receive the general support of those sitting on this side of the House on the ground of the necessity of proceeding with any measure of legislation, however important, as to which there was no absolute or statutable necessity that its consideration should be concluded by a particular day. But I felt the difficulty of the position, and I did not think it right to press the right hon. Gentleman in a manner which the Forms of the House would have permitted me to do. The result of all these postponements has been this—that a Notice of Motion of the character to which I have referred, and which I gave early in April, in the natural hope and expectation that it would be discussed within a very short period, has been postponed for a period of three months, and a day is now offered me, the 25th of July, at a period of the Session when it is perfectly notorious that any Government, from circumstances well understood, can command a majority entirely disproportioned to the real division of opinion in the House. That period coincides with the time at which it has occurred to the right hon. Gentleman that this discussion can no longer be delayed, and that it has become so immediately imperative that if I do not proceed with my Motion he will provide somebody else to take my place. There is another point also to which I would refer. We were told only yesterday that a Paper containing the Convention which will be settled by the Royal Commission in the Transvaal, a document of great importance for the full consideration of the whole subject, will be in our hands before the close of the Session. [Mr. GLADSTONE: Probably.] Well, I think the right hon. Gentleman went rather farther than "probably;" but, at any rate, he led us to suppose there was good reason to expect that that would be the case. I felt, considering the very long period for which my Motion had been already postponed, that a postponement of a few weeks longer—possibly of a few days—would not of itself be any serious matter, and that a knowledge of this 1370 document would certainly be a great gain to the complete consideration of the whole subject by the House, and, I will add, to the fair judgment of the policy pursued by Her Majesty's Government. Her Majesty's Government have very naturally expressed from time to time their great desire that this whole subject should be completely and fully discussed, and their confident belief that the fuller and more thorough and searching that discussion should be the more triumphant would be their vindication. Therefore, I must say that it is unaccountable to me why, with the prospect of having so soon in our possession all the materials by which we might form a thorough judgment, not only as to the past, but also as to the present and the future of this question, Her Majesty's Government should insist that this is the moment, and the only moment, when the discussion must take place; and that we must, in fact, form a judgment in this House which, in the present state of our information, I will venture to say as regards the present and the future can only be, if it be in favour of the Government, an expression of the blind confidence of their loyal supporters rather than the deliberate decision of the House of Commons, fully acquainted with the whole course and conduct of the policy which has been pursued. Well, Sir, I feel that what has occurred has seriously prejudiced the chances of the Motion of which I have given Notice, quite irrespective of the merits of that Motion in itself. I feel that I have been placed in what I can only describe as an unfair position; but I will not allow that to make me shrink from what I believe to be my duty in this matter. I intend, in spite of these disadvantages, to ask the judgment of the House, even at this inconvenient time and in this inconvenient way, upon the question of which I have given Notice; and on the understanding that Monday will, without fail, be devoted to the discussion of this Motion, I will proceed with it.

MR. GLADSTONE

Sir, I must own it appears to me that the right hon. Gentleman has gone far beyond the limits which might fairly be allowed him in giving a narrative of the circumstances connected with the postponement of his Notice of Motion. He has absolutely compelled me to note several of the assertions he has made; but I shall en- 1371 deavour to confine myself in the strictest manner to the points he has raised. As regards his narrative of what has occurred I have no objection to take; it is perfectly accurate, I believe; and it is quite proper that we should explain the grounds why we considered the circumstances which occurred at Potchefstroom justified the postponement of the question. Probably it would not be convenient, however, that I should do that now; but it shall be done at a future time. The right hon. Gentleman says that his Motion has been prejudiced by what has taken place. Now, it is a very odd thing that in the first conversation I had with my noble Friend (the Earl of Kimberley) on this question, that is the very observation he made, but in the reverse sense. He said—"Our case has been extremely prejudiced by the delays which have occurred. "Such are the different views taken in regard to it. I then told him that I believed that the right hon. Gentleman took the same view of his side of the case. The right hon. Gentleman says we have strangely insisted that this is the moment, and the only moment, at which this question can be discussed; and that we insist upon its being discussed, after all these postponements, before the production of Papers which may place us in possession of the Convention before the end of the Session. We have expressed that hope, because we entertain it; but it is a pure matter of opinion. It is absolutely impossible for us to say that the Commissioners will be able to bring their business, which is very complex and diverse, to a close at a particular time. The opinion I have given is the best that we can form, and the right hon. Gentleman will take it for what it is worth. But it is quite a mistake to suppose that we are pressing Monday next as the only moment for the discussion. If the right hon. Gentleman thinks it more advantageous to take a later day, on the chance of obtaining this Convention, we shall be quite ready to fall in with his view. But it is not for us, who have been so often obliged to point out the obstacles in his way, to propose any delay whatever except what was required by the necessity of the case, and the necessity of the case we consider to terminate with the Committee on the Land Law (Ireland) Bill. The right hon. Gentleman, therefore, must understand 1372 that it is perfectly free to him, without the slightest departure from our engagement to promote the discussion, to exercise his own judgment upon whether he will propose his Motion either on Monday, or take it upon a later day. I leave that entirely to his own consideration. The right hon. Gentleman spoke of our having a great desire for this discussion. That is far from being an accurate statement of the case. The Notice having been given and speeches having been made—extraordinary charges in extraordinary language from most responsible persons having been advanced in "another place," and in other places, and brought before the public by Members of this House as well as by others—under these circumstances, we expressed a desire that there should be a full discussion and a definite issue. If the right hon. Gentleman interprets that as meaning that we are of opinion, viewing the interests of this country in South Africa, the division of races, and the balance of probabilities there, that this discussion is in itself desirable, I must say that is not the case, and I must throw upon him the entire responsibility of having raised it. I cannot speak too explicitly on that subject. I cannot say for myself that I should have done anything whatever to promote the discussion. The right hon. Gentleman says he thinks it astonishing that we should have urged the Land Law (Ireland) Bill as a reason for the postponement of a debate upon a Vote of Censure. I am ready so far to meet the right hon. Gentleman as to say I think that observation would be perfectly just and sound were the Irish measure simply a measure of legislative importance, such as the Laud Act of 1870 was. But the Land Law (Ireland) Bill at every stage of its progress has stood in the closest and most immediate connection with the peace and tranquillity of Ireland, with the security of life and property in that country; and it was on that account, and on that account alone, that—admitting the urgency, with regard to time, of the Vote of Censure—we felt it necessary to ask the House to continue the debate upon the Land Law (Ireland) Bill until we reached the close of the Committee, when an interval might be given for the disposal of this matter without any serious public inconvenience. Then the 1373 right hon. Gentleman says that it is notorious that an Opposition cannot possibly with justice to itself raise a question of this kind on the 25th of July. That may be the opinion of the right hon. Baronet; but it is rather too much to say that it is "notorious." I should rather say the reverse is notorious; and though it is true that for ordinary purposes towards the close of the Session the Government is strong and the Opposition is weak, yet, when a very serious question is brought forward, there is nothing to prevent the Opposition from carrying on its conflict with exactly the same facilities and with the same prospects as at any other period of the year. Why, Sir, I have seen those Benches crowded with a Conservative Opposition on the 1st of September. It is rather hard to say that on such a question and with all their public spirit, on the 25th of July the friends of the right hon. Gentleman cannot be brought together. Then the right hon. Gentleman, with a taunt which he did not perhaps intend, and which is of no great consequence, says that I have contrived the matter so that if he does not bring forward his Motion I will provide somebody else to do it. Well, I want to know whether my hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle (Sir Wilfrid Lawson) is a person so absolutely known to have no independence whatever of character or action? He was the person who first put the Motion in defence of the Transvaal policy on the Notice Paper; and now I am told that I have provided him in case the right hon. Gentleman does not come forward, and that the hon. Member for Carnarvonshire (Mr. Rathbone) is simply an alternative to my hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle, who would infallibly come into the field. Upon my word, I have not consulted either of them; but I would venture to lay 10 to 1 that if the hon. Member for Carnarvonshire withdrew his Motion the hon. Member for Carlisle would be forthcoming to give effect to his opinions, and that very promptly, indeed, after the withdrawal of the hon. Member for Carnarvonshire. I repeat the expression that we have been compelled by a sense of public duty to take a course which is certainly unusual, under very unusual and very peculiar circumstances.