POLICE PROTECTION TO PUBLIC SERVANTS.—OBSERVATIONS. (Hansard, 21 April 1882)

§ MR. STANLEY LEIGHTON

, in rising to call attention to the increase to the rates arising, during a period of deep depression, from the necessity of adding to the local police forces, in order to protect public servants from personal violence, with the view of moving— That the obligation to provide special police protection to public servants is a subject of Imperial rather than local obligation, and should no longer be a charge upon the rates, 1131 said, that the Home Secretary seemed to think it was offensive in him the other day to draw the attention of the House to a matter which seemed to him to be of public importance. He trusted he would now retract that insinuation. This Resolution was one which was universally, or almost universally, accepted elsewhere as an axiom of government, and was both reasonable and politic. One Act of Parliament which established local police provided that special and extraordinary police services should be paid for by those who required them. The Chief Constables might, when applied to, and with the permission of the local authorities, provide constables for special duty. Under the Act 3 & 4 Vict. c. 80, s. 19, provision was made to that effect; and it had been largely taken advantage of by the managers of places of public amusement, as well as by contractors for large public works, and by others. According to the Metropolitan Police Returns, as many as 1,200 men were employed on such special services; and in the Civil Service Estimates it appeared that Royal and public personages and places were provided with police protection, the expense of which was charged on the Estimates, and was not thrown on the rates. Under this head the charge in respect of Marlborough House, for instance, was £595, and for the House of Commons £2,500. The Home Secretary had, indeed, argued that Cabinet Ministers were just the same as any ordinary individuals. He put that down rather to his own excessive modesty than to any want of appreciation of fact or of law. It would follow from this statement that the Ministers who, in the exercise of their public duties, brought themselves into unpopularity, ought to provide the necessary police protection for themselves out of their own pockets. What more monstrous proposition could be laid down? The necessity for that protection came from the discharge of their public duties, and not of private duties; and, therefore, the obligation to protect them fell necessarily, it seemed to him, upon the public. He took the case of the Flintshire Local Authority as an example of what was happening or might happen anywhere. In the autumn of last year, the Chief Constable of the county applied to the Local Authority for special additional police to protect the Prime Minister. 1132 The Chairman of the Local Authority appealed to the Court over which he presided, stating that the Home Secretary required the Chief Constable to furnish men for the protection of the Prime Minister. The Local Authority expressed their opinion that the safety of the Prime Minister was a national affair, and that, for that reason, the cost of his protection should fall on the National Exchequer; but instantly provided the special police contingent that was asked for. In the result a county singularly free from crime was charged with the expense caused by the crime of another part of the Kingdom. Now, the Local Authority ought not to have been called upon to make any such provision. Not long ago the local taxation reformers thought they had converted the Prime Minister to their views, when he surrendered at discretion before the Motion of his hon. Friend the Member for Oxfordshire (Mr. Harcourt). The right hon. Gentleman must excuse them if they were now rather doubtful, and called to mind his words, that any relief to the rural ratepayers would be nothing less than quartering the landlords on the Exchequer. The Prime Minister was quartering himself upon the ratepayers. There was, however, a far graver matter to consider—the inadequacy of the Local Authority to discharge the duty cast upon it. When the Prime Minister thought it necessary to make a visit to a political magnate in a neighbouring county, he was conducted by the Flintshire police to Chester, by the Cheshire police to Lancashire, and by the Lancashire police to Knowsley; he travelled like a State prisoner rather than a State official. Was it right, was it fitting, that the Prime Minister should be treated thus? He would not say one word against the rural police, who, however, were occasionally more distinguished for their zeal than for their discretion, as an anecdote which he would relate to the House would show. When the Prime Minister was at Hawarden the other day a poor stranger appeared on the scene, desirous of obtaining one of those letters of recommendation to a constituency which the right hon. Gentleman was so liberal in giving. He ventured to touch the hem of the Premier's garment, whereupon he was immediately seized and thrown into prison, until it was found he had committed no offence. 1133 There could be no doubt that the ratepayers of Flintshire would willingly pay £50,000 a-year, if necessary, to secure the safety of the Prime Minister; but even if they paid £1,000,000 a-year that would not avail, for the circuit of their authority was limited, while the Prime Minister was ubiquitous. The Prime Minister had told them lately that they did not realize the gravity of the issues which lay before them. They must, indeed, be grave if for the first time the unprecedented degradation had come upon the country, that in Constitutional England the Constitutional Ministers of the Crown were not safe. He regretted very much that this should be the case for the first time under the Premiership of the present Prime Minister. Complaints had been made that police protection had been taken away from the lonely caretaker in Ireland. But that was no reason why the right hon. Gentleman should not be accompanied and guarded by a sufficient force of police. He hoped the House would accept this Resolution. He appealed to all sides of that House to show that they desired to acquiesce in the principle of his Motion; he would ask hon. Members who represented the Irish constituencies to show, by supporting his Motion, that they did not countenance or sympathize with the attempts against the persons of Ministers of the Crown, but were willing to vote Irish money to frustrate those plots. To the great Liberal Party he appealed to rush to the rescue of the right hon. Gentleman, who was termed by them, at all events in the country, the living incarnation of all the principles of Liberalism. As he could not move his Resolution under the Rules of the House, he would content himself by calling the attention of the Home Secretary to the matter.

§ SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

Sir, it is difficult, I am afraid, to treat this matter with all the seriousness which would seem to be demanded by the energetic rhetorical appeal of the hon. Gentleman for a combination of parties who happen to be absent—his appeal to the Irish Land Leaguers to support him, to the great party of local taxation which is absent, and to the Liberal Party, which is, at the present moment, I believe, at dinner. But whether this Motion was intended to be a local taxation Motion, or whether it was intended 1134 to be a great political and personal attack on the Prime Minister, I am left to doubt. The first part of it was a prosaic form of the local taxation creed—if the hon. Gentleman will allow one, without offence, to say so—run rather mad. The latter part of it was a sort of semi-political, semi-personal attack upon the Prime Minister. I will leave that part of the matter, because it has nothing to do with this question. The only point on which I will detain such of the House as are present is the local taxation question. The hon. Member has regard to the case of Flintshire, and I ask myself—"How is it that this Motion has come before the House?" There is a Member for Flintshire. There are Members for the Flint Boroughs, and for Cheshire, for Liverpool, and for Lancashire, representing the people who protected the Prime Minister when he went to Knowsley. But what has Shropshire suffered? I do not know if Shropshire is fertile of Ministers, and when they had their rates overburdened by what they have had to pay. The only thing I could think of as the origin of this Motion was that one of the hon. Members for Shrewsbury (Mr. Cotes), who was a junior Lord of the Treasury, had been protected at an enormous cost. Why did the hon. Member for Shropshire come forward with this Motion? Who have taken the matter up in Flintshire? The magistrates of Flintshire. But the great basis of all local taxation reform rests in the fundamental proposition that the magistrates did not represent the ratepayers. There is no body of men who are less representative of the sentiments of the ratepayers, or less fit to convey their views, than the magistrates; and if my hon. Friend, as a local taxation reformer, will bear that proposition in mind, he will master the grammar of the subject. As far as I know, the ratepayers have disavowed this Motion, and have condemned the view of the majority of the magistrates. It is a remarkable fact that while this matter is brought before the House by a Gentleman who has no connection with Flintshire, the motion at the Quarter Sessions was brought forward by a gentleman who does not reside in Flintshire, and who, for 12 or 13 years previously, had not been at any meeting of Sessions there. There is a gentleman whose opinion, at any rate, is rather taking, 1135 and that is the Chairman of Quarter Sessions. Having considered my letter, he was good enough to say that, though they were justified in asking the Home Secretary to repay some portion of the extra expenditure, he, on the other hand, if he had been the Home Secretary, would have sent the same answer as the Home Secretary had sent—that they were bound to protect their own ratepayers. Now, the hon. Member has stated that I considered the character of this Resolution was somewhat offensive. That is not my expression, but the word he adopted; but it was not my view of the subject. That view of the subject was entertained by a gentleman very well known in Flintshire to hold Conservative opinions; and he said— Is it wise, courteous, altogether right, when we have the privilege of having resident in the county so distinguished a man to begrudge that small contribution towards the protection of his life and property? It is a matter in which politics should be completely put a side. It would he better to bear this little grievance than to lay ourselves open to the charge of unwillingness to protect the Prime Minister, whatever his politics might be. These, I believe, are the views of the ratepayers of Flintshire, and the views of the people of this country. What is the rule? The hon. Member seems to be imperfectly informed of the practice in this country on this subject. He seems to have repeated a statement which was made by Colonel Rowley, that in the Metropolis there were specially employed for the protection of Her Majesty's Ministers 13,000 or 14,000 policemen—and that is the sagacious man upon whose advice and motion the magistrates of Flintshire adopted this resolution. Now, Sir, there is not one particle of foundation for that statement. There are not 13,000 police employed in the defence of Her Majesty's Ministers; and, in the next place, those who are so employed are paid precisely in the same way as the magistrates of Flintshire are called upon to pay. There is no special payment. I have before me a memorandum from Colonel Henderson, which states that it has always been held to be the duty of the Metropolitan Police to make proper provision for any special arrangements necessary from time to time for the protection of distinguished personages visiting the Metropolis, of Her Majesty's Ministers, and of such other persons as are held 1136 entitled to special consideration, and no payment has ever been made by the Treasury on that account. That is a matter which the hon. Member might have ascertained of Colonel Rowley, if he had taken the trouble to ask. Oh, yes; but then it is necessary to read those things intelligently to understand them. The hon. Member has referred to the Houses of Parliament. There is a payment made for the police employed inside the Houses of Parliament, but not for those employed outside. The whole cost of protection for Her Majesty and the Royal Family is borne by the ratepayers of London, subsidized to the extent of one-half from the Imperial Funds; and does the hon. Member maintain that the Queen is to be put on the same footing as public servants? He has not said so. The fact is that the principle is that very sensibly stated by the Chairman of Quarter Sessions of Flintshire, that it is the duty of every local authority to protect persons who are within their jurisdiction. That applies to the highest and to the lowest. It applies to Her Majesty's Ministers; it applies to the hon. Member; it applies to the Sovereign; it applies to the Royal Family. Now, Sir, I should like to know what the hon. Member's definition is with respect to public servants? He originally put it in the form of "Cabinet Ministers." I suppose the magistrates are public servants, and they must not go upon the rates; but the expense of protecting them must be borne by the Consolidated Fund. Officers in the Army are also public servants, and it must be understood that they are not on the rates. And when the Government is turned out, are they then to be protected or are they not? They cease to be public servants; and are they then to go upon the rates? Now, Sir, the hon. Gentleman is a little at fault in his history. He says that this is the first time that Ministers of State have ever required protection. Well, Sir, I will recommend the hon. Member to read in histories of the time of George III., during the Administration in the days of the Wilkes riots, or in the days of Lord George Gordon riots, and he will find that there have been Ministers in former times who have required police protection. Sir, there are people who require protection sometimes more than Ministers—the Leaders of the 1137 Opposition. They are often quite as unpopular and require protection quite as much. I do not know whether the hon. Member has the disadvantage of being old enough, as I have, to recollect that time when the iron shutters of Apsley House had to be closed, and when it was necessary to protect the great Duke of Wellington against a popular siege in London on the anniversary of Waterloo; and I remember some verses of Lord Stanhope, in which it was said the English people were more shamed on the London streets than the French were on the Belgian plains. I want to know whether the hon. Member extends his principle to Her Majesty's Opposition? In reply to an inquiry which I made to the Commissioner of Police, whom I happened to meet to-day, he said he had been at quite as much pains to protect the Members of the Opposition as Members who were in Office. Members of the Opposition, as in the case of the Duke of Wellington at the time of the Reform agitation, may be just as much in need of protection as Ministers of the Crown. It is therefore quite impossible to admit of a limitation of this kind, apart from the universal principle acted upon everywhere, that each locality is responsible for the peace of the locality. When, for instance, the Queen or the Prince of Wales went down into the country, as the Prince of Wales recently went down to Liverpool, did the people of Liverpool or of other places visited grudge the cost of the extra police who were required to be engaged on account of the Royal visit? The police are responsible for the district, and you cannot take particular individuals and ticket them—"This is a servant of the Crown, and therefore it shall not be at the risk of the locality. You shall not protect him. You shall protect another man." The hon. Gentleman has a Colleague whose father was lately a public servant, holding the Office of Master of the Horse. Well, is Lord Bradford to be protected at the expense of the rates when he is not Master of the Horse, and to be protected by the Consolidated Fund when he is? Is that a thing that would be tolerated, or is it possible to work it? How are the police to determine whether a man is a public servant or not—whether he is to be protected at the cost of this fund or the other? I do 1138 not wish to speak at all disrespectfully of the great question of local taxation; but this is an instance in which it is not worth while departing from a very serious principle to gain, I think, no particular advantage. I therefore cannot concur in the view of the matter taken by the hon. Gentleman.