§ (1.) £95,000, to complete the sum for Public Offices Site.
§ MR. DILLWYN,in rising to oppose the Vote, said, he thought it was one concerning which the Committee was entitled to a full explanation, and also to some assurance that economy was intended to be practised by the Government, who had not, at present, given to the House any reason to expect that such a state of things was likely to come about. Not only was a large expenditure of public money contemplated, and, for that matter, intended, in connection with the Admiralty and the War Office, but a large sum was intended to be spent at the Foreign Office in addition to what had been already expended there; and he therefore held that explanation, to a much larger extent than had been already afforded, ought to be given. A good deal had been said about the intentions of Her Majesty's Government to practise economy 589 in reference, especially, to building operations; but no tangible evidence had yet been given of the reality of such intentions. He had, on many previous occasions, endeavoured to enforce the right of Parliament, by moving the rejection of Votes in Committee of Supply, to have, if not assurances of intention to practise enconomy, at any rate, sufficient explanations of proposals, which, to some Members of the House, savoured strongly of needless extravagance. He certainly could not think that the Government was entitled to spend so largo a sum of money as was now asked for, immediately after completing the New Law Courts, at an enormous cost to the public. It, surely, was not unfair to ask for a little breathing time before starting upon any fresh undertaking of the kind. In any case, extravagance ought to be avoided, and to that end he would strongly urge upon the Government that the plans of the proposed buildings ought to be presented to Parliament, and, at any rate, an approximate idea of the total to be given before any money was voted. He strongly objected to the Government being left free to purchase sites for public buildings which were not only costly, but absolutely extravagant.
§ MR. ARTHUR ARNOLD,speaking as a Member of the Select Committee which considered the Public Offices Site Bill in 1882, was of opinion that the Estimate was one which ought to be accepted, because he believed that, in the end, economy would result from the building of the Offices on the proposed site. The proposal was, in his view, strictly consistent with economy and with the business which the two Departments had to carry on. It must not be forgotten that the site which it was now proposed to acquire would be much less costly than the one which was proposed to be bought in Great George Street, and it must not be forgotten either, that the right hon. Gentleman the present Chancellor of the Exchequer, who had filled the Office of First Lord of the Admiralty, and was, therefore, well acquainted with the Admiralty buildings, had given evidence before the Select Committee, to which he (Mr. Arnold) had referred, that a more wasteful building than the present Admiralty could not be conceived. He could not understand on what grounds it could be 590 urged that it would not be advantageous to have the Admiralty nearer to Charing Cross, and the War Office nearer to the Horse Guards. No one, he thought, could doubt the wisdom of concentrating the Offices of the Government Departments; and, as this was a step in that direction, which was, in his view, at the same time, wise, economical, and beneficent, he hoped the Committee would accept it.
§ CAPTAIN PRICE,speaking in the interests of the Navy, supported the opposition given to the vote by the hon. Member for Swansea (Mr. Dillwyn). Whether it was, or was not, that the financial condition of the country was in so deplorable a state that it could not maintain an efficient Navy, he said nothing; but he certainly thought that the Government were not entitled to ask for so large a sum of money in order to erect new Admiralty Offices. To do that, would be to put the cart before the horse. What was wanted was a new Navy—a Navy strong enough to do the work which might be required of it. He quite admitted that there were certain inconveniences connected with the present Offices, both of the Army and the Navy; but he maintained that, before the additional money was spent in building more palaces, the Navy ought to be put into a satisfactory condition. The Government were going to spend a large sum of public money in carrying the effigy of the late Duke of Wellington from the other side of the Park, and they also proposed to incur a large expenditure in making new and unnecessary Offices for a Navy which was not efficient, instead of spending the money upon the Navy itself.
§ MR. BROADHURSTsaid, he regretted that he could not support his hon. Friend the Member for Swansea (Mr. Dillwyn) in opposing the Vote. His hon. Friend did not oppose the Vote on the ground that anything like jobbery was contemplated by its means, but simply because he was opposed altogether to any further spending of public money at the present time on public buildings. The hon. and gallant Member opposite (Captain Price) was going to support the opposition to the Vote on an almost exactly opposite ground. He (Mr. Broadhurst) was unable to agree with either Gentleman. The money was proposed to be expended, not is the 591 purchase of additional guns, as the hon. and gallant Member for Devonport seemed to desire, but in the erection of a suitable building for the transaction of the business of an important Department of the Government, which his hon. Friend the Member for Swansea (Mr. Dillwyn) seemed to deprecate. As it seemed to him (Mr. Broadhurst) the proposal was a very wise and just one, and if the erection of new public buildings was to be undertaken, he did not know that any time was likely to arrive more appropriate than the present. There was a great scarcity of work, and many men who would find employment in the erection of these buildings had been walking about for the last six months without being able to find any work to do. He hoped that, under no circumstances, would the contracts for the buildings be let out at prices which would have such disastrous results and altogether unsatisfactory work, unsatisfactory alike to the workmen themselves and the public whom they served.
§ MR. BERESFORD HOPEsaid, that the Site of the Admiralty and War Office question had gone through what he might call a pilgrimage of Select Committees in recent years, and he was sorry to say that he had been engaged on some of them. He would venture to suggest to the hon. and gallant Member for Devonport that he should read a Report of a Select Committee which was appointed on the Motion of Mr. Baillie Cochrane, now Lord Lamington, in the last Parliament, if he wished to get an accurate idea of the ruinous, discreditable, and higgledy-piggledy condition of the present Offices of the Admiralty. He would learn something, too, of the then sanitary condition of the War Office, in Pall Mall, which was so atrocious as actually to have killed that gallant officer Sir James Lindsay, and to have made the Surveyor General of the Ordnance (Lord Eustace Cecil) very gravely ill. He did not say that, in his view, the proposed site was the best one that could be obtained for the new Offices. He should have preferred the Great George Street site; but he thought the proposal was a very fair compromise, and he hoped the money would be granted, and the work proceeded with.
§ SIR HENRY SELWIN-IBBETSONsaid, that while he hoped the Committee 592 would agree to the purchase of the site, as suggested by the Select Committee on the Public Offices Site Act of last year, he could not accept the proposition of the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, that if workmen were out of work, the Government of the day ought to commence the erection of public buildings, in order to find employment for them.
§ MR. BROADHURST,rising to Order, denied that he had suggested anything of the kind imputed to him by the right hon. Baronet (Sir Henry Selwin-Ibbet-son). What he said was, that if new buildings had to be erected, it would be better to go on with them, when, as at present, there was great scarcity of employment.
§ SIR HENRY SELWIN-IBBETSONsaid, he was willing to accept the new and more satisfactory version of the hon. Member's statement. He had long been satisfied that it would be much better for the Public Service to concentrate the Public Offices, than to have them scattered in different parts of London and Westminster; and he thought that remark applied, with especial force, to Departments so closely connected as were the Admiralty and the War Office. He believed that the site which had been adopted would furnish the finest and, at the same time, the most economical mass of public buildings at present in existence in this country. He hoped that when his right hon. Friend opposite (Mr. Shaw Lefevre) was carrying out the plans for the erection of these new buildings, he would see to it that the greatest possible care was taken to avoid the architectural blunders which were committed in the erection of the most recently-erected block of public buildings in Whitehall—he referred especially to the defective drainage arrangements in the new Home Office at Whitehall.
MR. JOSEPH COWENsaid, he had no doubt that both the War Office and the Admiralty were, at present, in a very insanitary condition; but he thought more definite information about the proposed purchase should be given before the Committee was asked to vote so large a sum as £100,000.
§ MR. SHAW LEFEVREsaid, the hon. Member for Swansea, who had moved the rejection of this Vote, seemed to have forgotten what took place in 593 the House last year, when the whole question was considered in connection with the Public Offices Site Act. As far as he (Mr. Shaw Lefevre) remembered, there was not, at that time, any opposition to the Bill from any quarter of the House. In the course of the discussion last year, he explained the matter fully, and showed that, while the site now proposed would only involve an outlay of £160,000, the site in Great George Street would not cost less than £1,300,000. It was therefore thought that, in an economical as well as an artistic point of view, the site which had now been determined upon was much preferable. The measure was referred to a Select Committee, and for reasons which the majority of the Committee thought adequate, they approved of the Bill. The conclusions at which they arrived received a general chorus of approval when the measure came before the House for a third reading, and the House was committed, at all events, to the acquisition of that site. In the course of the winter, after the Act became law, he was advised by the professional advisers of the Department and by Sir Henry Hunt that it was desirable at once to give notice to the freeholders that it was the intention of the Government to take the site. The object was to prevent the freeholders from making arrangements with their tenants which might enhance the value of the property if delay occurred. Acting in accordance with that advice, he had given notice to the freeholders of the Government's intention to take the property, and the result was that the Government were now under a legal liability to take it. He believed if that course had not been taken, and the purchase of the property had been delayed, the Government would have been involved in the end in a very much larger expenditure of money. He had reason to know that his action in the matter had already saved the Government several thousands of pounds. If the Committee rejected the Vote it would not be possible to get out of the bargain which had been made; and it was his firm belief that the Government would eventually be involved in a very much larger expenditure than was now contemplated for the purchase of the very same property. The Government proposed to make provision for the purchase of the freehold; and it was calcu- 594 lated that the purchase of the freehold interest of the property would involve an expenditure of about £100,000. That was the sum which the Committee was asked to vote now. Next year the Government would ask for power to purchase the leasehold interest of the property, which would involve a farther expenditure of about £65,000; and that, as far as was at present calculated, would be the whole sum in the shape of purchase money required for the site. Then came the question of the building. He proposed very shortly to invite a competition of the architects of the country for erecting the new War Office and Admiralty. That would take some months; and after the competition was completed and the designs were selected, some more months would be occupied in arranging as to working drawings, &c. Then would come the competition of the contractors; and before any money was spent in actual building a considerable time must elapse. It was his belief that, even next year, it would not be necessary to ask the House to vote any money for the buildings. If matters proceeded as they were likely to proceed, it was not until the year after next that they would be asked to vote any large sum of money. No Vote would be taken for building purposes until the whole of the designs had been submitted and the House had had an ample opportunity for discussing them. It was calculated that the total cost of the buildings for the new Admiralty and the War Office would be about £600,000. ["Oh!"] Some hon. Members seemed to be surprised; but it must be borne in mind that the War Office employed something like 900 persons, and the Admiralty about 700 persons; and he should not be surprised if the cost of accommodating these two great Departments came to something like the figure he had mentioned. It would be necessary to erect these two great buildings in blocks, in order that there might not be two removals of the staff. Consequently, one block would be completed and occupied before the next block was commenced, and the work of construction would be spread over a considerable period. Indeed, he should not be surprised if it took something like 10 years to complete the building of these two great Offices. If that proved to be correct, the total annual sum necessary for 595 the House to vote for building purposes in any one year would not exceed £60,000. Therefore, the Vote this year was probably the largest that would be asked for for some time. Next year the Vote would be £65,000, and for some years there would be an annual Vote of about £60,000 required. That did not appear to him to be a very great strain upon the finances of the country. If they were ever to have the War Office and the Admiralty under the same roof—an object which every Minister and every economist had long considered to be a desirable one—it was right that a beginning should be made with the work. The Committee of last year unanimously reported in favour of the Bill, and the House subsequently passed an Act founded on the Report of the Committee. It was to give effect to the recommendations of the Committee that this Vote was now proposed, and he thought the Committee would do well to pass the Vote. It was quite certain that if the Vote were not passed the Government, in the end, would be involved in a much larger expenditure than was now contemplated. He would venture, therefore, to conclude by saying that in the course he had taken in this matter he believed he had acted in the true interests of economy, and also in the general interests of the public, in connection with the two great Departments which were involved in the matter. It must be borne in mind that when these new buildings wore completed a rental of £16,000 a-year which they were now paying for the buildings at present occupied would fall in, and in addition there could not be a doubt that there would be considerable economy of men in bringing the staffs of both of these great Departments together. The disadvantage of the arrangement by which a large part of the staff of the great Public Departments was scattered in a considerable number of private houses—he believed about 50 altogether—had long been recognized. Any person who had anything to do with the administration of the Public Departments must admit that there was a great want of economy in the way in which the staff was now spread, and it was obvious that there could be no proper and complete supervision until each staff was congregated together in one place.
MR. GORSTsaid, the right hon. Gentleman who had just sat down, and the hon. Member for Salford (Mr. Arnold), had spoken as if the House were committed by the legislation of last year to the erection of these gigantic Public Offices; but both the right hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for Salford knew very well that, as a matter of fact, the question had never been considered by the House at all. The Bill introduced last year was dealt with as a Hybrid Bill, and was smuggled through the House in the small hours of the morning, when nobody had the slightest opportunity of discussing its provisions, and everybody knew that even the present discussion was a mere formality and a sham. They were only assisting in giving effect to a foregone conclusion. There was not a single Cabinet Minister on the Treasury Bench. Where was the Chancellor of the Exchequer or the Secretary of State for War? There was not a single person present upon the Treasury Bench who was in a position to explain the views of the Government in regard to a question which they were told involved the expenditure of £1,000,000. He should have thought that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, or the Secretary to the Admiralty, or the Secretary of State for War, would have paid the House of Commons the compliment of being in his place to explain the necessity of this expenditure. He was amazed at the innocent confidence of the hon. Member for Salford, who, although having now actually had a seat in the House for four Sessions, really believed, or professed to believe, that the House of Commons would have an opportunity of considering the plans and specifications of these buildings hereafter, and would have the power of nipping in the bud any extravagance on the part of the Government. Nobody ought to know better than the hon. Member for Salford that this discussion was a complete sham as regards the public, and that if they were ever to nip these extravagances in the bud it must be done that night. That was the first and the last opportunity the House of Commons would have of protesting against this expenditure of £1,000,000, for the necessity of which not a single argument had been adduced by the right hon. Gentleman the First Commissioner of Works. It must also be recollected that this extravagant expenditure was 597 about to be incurred at a time when they were loudly complaining of the inefficient condition of the Army and Navy. They had been told that the finances of the country were in so straitened a condition, and their circumstances were so difficult, that they were obliged to out down the shipbuilding of the Navy to the lowest possible point consistent with safety. A good many persons thought they were cutting it down very much too low for safety. Probably there were hon. Members present who were in the House the other night when a debate took place upon the Navy Estimates, in the course of which the noble Lord the Member for Chichester (Lord Henry Lennox) laid before the House many remarkable facts to show that the Navy of this country was almost in a state of inferiority to that of France, and that unless great efforts were made to improve it, it would very soon be in a relative position of inferiority. To that speech no answer had as yet been given, and no answer could be given, because the statements contained in it were true; and yet the Government came down to the House of Commons at a time when the Navy was in this complexed and starved condition without the Chiefs of the great spending Departments being present to explain why such an expenditure of the public money was necessary, and asked the House to take the first step in the career of extravagance which would land them at least in the expenditure of £1,000,000. He did not know what the Committee of Supply was inclined to do in this matter. Personally, he was in favour of real economy. It was said that there would be a great saving in respect of the salaries of clerks; but it could not be pretended that that saving would amount to the interest of £1,000,000. "Were the Government prepared to say that the interest of £1,000,000 would be saved in clerks' salaries by the re-organization of the staff of the Admiralty and the War Office? If they were unable to do that, what was the use of their coming down to the House and saying that this expenditure would produce economy in the Public Services? There was no Department of the State over which the House of Commons exercised less control than that of the Office of Works. The Office was surrounded by a large number of architects, surveyors, and others, who had an 598 interest in bringing about a large expenditure of the public money, and it was a Department which did not undergo the scrutiny which all the details in connection with War Office and Admiralty expenditure underwent. In point of fact it was a Department of the State by means of which monstrous extravagance could creep in, unless it was summarily checked by the Committee of Supply in the House of Commons. If it was a real Committee of Supply, if they had the power they were supposed to have of stopping this expenditure, he would appeal to the Committee to nip the extravagance now contemplated in the bud. At all events, let them put the Vote off for a year, so that the Government might have an opportunity of revising their plans, and seeing what amount of saving they could effect. They would then be able to come down with more information and detail to justify the House of Commons in assenting to their proposals. They all knew that, at the present moment, they were engaged in a mere empty performance. In point of fact, they were assisting the Government in enacting a play that was simply intended to throw dust in the eyes of the public. He believed that three-fourths of those who had been present and had taken an interest in the question, and who had listened to the arguments which had been adduced, were convinced that the proposal of the Government was a most extravagant one. But what would be the practical result of a division? As soon as the Government rang the Division Bell, a large number of their ardent supporters, who were at present in the Smoking Room, the Lobbies, and the purlieus of the House, would come in and vote away £1,000,000 with the lightest of hearts at the dictation of the Government Whips. It was because the Government knew that this would be the result that they could afford to laugh at people who, in the real interests of economy, objected to the expenditure of £1,000,000 for which no necessity had been shown. This was the first Vote for this new building, and if the Committee could nip it in the bud, he firmly believed that great public advantage would be secured. He would, therefore, follow his hon. Friend the Member for Swansea (Mr. Dillwyn) into the Lobby, in order to enter his protest against so extravagant an expenditure of the public money.
§ MR. LABOUCHEREsaid, he was unable to discover, in the long speech of the hon. and learned Member for Chatham (Mr. Gorst), that he had assigned any real and substantial reason against the Vote. The only reason, good or bad, was one which might be urged in reference to every Vote, and it would be impossible in that ease to get through the Estimates—namely, that these new buildings were not required for the Admiralty and the War Office, because the necessities of the Government demanded more ships. He (Mr. Labouchere) would like to ask the First Commissioner of Works what he was going to do with all the property close by the House of Commons in Delahay Street? It appeared to him, at first sight, that it would be much more reasonable to build upon property which they already possessed, if it could be made available for Public Offices, than to go on purchasing more property. With respect to the present Offices, he believed Sir Henry Hunt's estimate was that if the War Offices were removed there would be a clear saving of £250,000. There was another question he should also like to ask the right hon. Gentleman—namely, with regard to the system adopted for paying the surveyors. Were the surveyors paid by the job when a certain property was bought and other land was sold, or were they paid by percentages? He was told that these surveyors made a very good thing, and that it was their custom to charge for surveying property intended to be bought, and then to charge again for surveying that which was to be sold. The natural consequence was that, in their opinion, all the property belonging to the nation ought to be sold and other property acquired, because they derived a large profit from the transaction. He wished to know, in regard to these charges, whether the surveyors were paid by salary or by valuation? He thought the Committee ought to have a clear explanation also in regard to what was proposed to be done with regard to the vacant spaces which already belonged to the nation, before they embarked in this large expenditure. At the same time, he thought there was no doubt as to the necessity of building a new War Office and a new Admiralty.
§ MR. MUNTZagreed with the remarks which had been made by the right hon. 600 Member for the University of Cambridge (Mr. Beresford Hope), with whom he had the honour of serving on the Committee to which this question was referred last year. The Committee found that there were so many difficulties in the way of conducting the affairs of the War Office in a satisfactory manner, under the present conditions, that it was absolutely necessary to provide a new building. In point of fact, the whole of the business of these two Offices was in a state of chaos. He could not state from memory how many Offices there were; but the number was very considerable, and there was but one opinion among the Committee—namely, that a new Office must be built for the Admiralty and another for the War Office. It was also felt that this was a convenient time for undertaking the work. Prices were low; and if it was a matter of consideration that they should only undertake work of this character when it was wanted, he had no doubt whatever that these buildings were really wanted now.
§ SIR BALDWYN LEIGHTONsaid, he agreed with the statement of the right hon. Gentleman the First Commissioner of Works, which was clear and businesslike, and he should certainly support him on a division. He thought even he might have made his case stronger than he had by explaining the saving in present rents by the alteration. He believed there was a site at present existing in Delahay Street, which was perfectly waste; and he would venture to urge on the right hon. Gentleman that he ought at once, after obtaining this Vote, to get the designs for the new buildings, and proceed with their construction without further delay. He quite agreed with the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere) that a great deal of saving might be effected in the manner in which the work was conducted. Surveyors' charges were very costly, and they constantly saw new buildings erected in the most wasteful style of architecture, which involved considerable annual expenditure in the shape of repairs. For instance, the style in which the Houses of Parliament had been erected rendered extravagant repairs necessary, in order to maintain them in a substantial condition; and the same mistake seemed to have been repeated in the New Law Courts. When they 601 came to the question of design, he hoped all these matters would be carefully considered, because he believed that was whore the saving could be effected. He hoped, also, there would be no waste of money in adopting a superfluously ornamental style of architecture.
§ MR. BIGGARsaid, his hon. Friend the Member for Queen's County (Mr. Arthur O'Connor) had raised a question which had not been answered by the First Commissioner of Works—namely, why £100,000 should be paid for the purchase of the freehold now, and £65,000 be paid for the purchase of the leaseholders' interest next year? It appeared to him (Mr. Biggar) that there was no real ground why the freehold should be bought at one time and the leasehold at another. If they really required the ground, it would be better to ask not for £100,000, but for £165,000, which would enable them to purchase at once both the feeehold and the leasehold interest. He did not see why they should pay £100,000 for the freehold of the property, and leave the tenants still continuing upon it. The only practical result of adopting that course was that they would lose the interest upon £100,000 for one year without gaining any corresponding advantage. He agreed with the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere), that before purchasing new property it would be better to utilize the ground which already belonged to the Government. He remembered last year that the Government bought some land from somebody or other that was not clearly explained; but the House were told that by making the purchase the Government would save money at some future time, because property was increasing so much in value, and it was certain that this particular property would be required some time or other. He certainly thought it was a singular policy to buy land in one position and then to inform the House that it would be more satisfactory to erect the new public buildings in another. If it was absolutely essential to erect the new Public Offices for the War Department and the Admiralty upon this particular land, he thought the work should be proceeded with as rapidly as possible, and that instead of waiting for another year the Government should take the whole sum of £165;000 in one year, and go on with 602 the work at once. He was afraid that what they were now doing would only afford an opportunity to the lawyers for manufacturing costs.
§ SIR WALTER B. BARTTELOTsaid, there was one question which was a very important one—namely, what was the number of clerks that were to be reduced in the great Offices of the Army and Navy? The right hon. Gentleman the First Commissioner of Works had stated distinctly that if this money were granted he intended to issue tenders for the new buildings. But before he put out tenders he ought to show what accommodation would be required, and there was no one on the Treasury Bench, neither the Secretary of State for War nor the Secretary to the Admiralty, who was able to answer the question. The First Commissioner of Works stated that great reductions were contemplated, in the first place, in the War Office, which now contained about 900 clerks, and in the next in the Admiralty, in which there were also nearly 800 clerks. He thought the country ought to know what reductions were going to be made, for he had no doubt that to-morrow great dismay would be created in these two great Departments when it was found that it was intended to reduce the staff. He might go one stop further, and would suggest that, together with these reductions in the staff, it would be advisable to get rid of some of that red-tapism which the recent investigation proved to exist to so large an extent in connection with the services of the Medical Department in Egypt.
§ MR. SHAW LEFEVREsaid, his hon. Friend the Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere) asked what the Government intended to do with the property they had acquired in Delahay Street? Now, the Government had acquired property in Parliament Street, in King Street, and in Charles Street, the total value of which was about £270,000. If the Admiralty and the War Office were placed on that site, it would be necessary to spend about £1,200,000 more, so that the cost of the site would be more than £1,400,000. In consequence, however, of the determination to rebuild the War Office and the Admiralty Office in Spring Gardens, the property just referred to, and which had cost about £270,000, would not be required for the purpose. He was in- 603 formed by Sir Henry Hunt that the property had been bought upon reasonable terms, and was well worth the money given for it. A portion of the site was vacant, the rest being occupied by houses, which paid rent amounting to between £6,000 and £7,000 a-year. He was in the hope of being able to enter into an arrangement with the Metropolitan Board of Works, who were considering a scheme for the widening of Parliament Street, for the disposal of some part of the Government property. He was at present in negotiation with them in connection with the scheme, and he proposed to offer the property to the Board with a view of facilitating their operations. If the Board of Works should not enter into the arrangement, it would be necessary for the Government to realize the value of the property already acquired; and in either case the proceeds would go in aid of the cost of building the new Offices. The hon. and learned Member for Chatham (Mr. Gorst) had repeated more than once that these buildings were to cost £1,000,000. Now, the outside cost which he anticipated at present would be £165,000 for the site, and £600,000 for the building, making a total of £765,000, the interest upon which would be £23,000. But, on the other hand, there would be a saving of £16,000 a-year from the rental of the buildings now occupied by the War Office and the Admiralty. The purchase money of the property in Parliament Street, King's Street, Charles Street, and Great George Street, was £270,000; and therefore, irrespective of the saving accruing from the diminution of the staff, he believed the operation would be financially a good one for the Government. The hon. and gallant Member for West Sussex (Sir Walter B. Bart-telot) asked what would be the saving in regard to the reduction of clerks? It was quite impossible at present to say what it would be. He had been in communication on the subject with Mr. Hamilton, the late Secretary to the Admiralty, who was for a long period Accountant General to the Admiralty. That Gentleman assured him that it would be possible to reduce the staff in the Accountant's Department very considerably when adequate and proper buildings were erected, and all the Offices were centered in one large build- 604 ing, instead of being spread over a number of small ones. He had asked Mr. Hamilton how many men would be saved, but Mr. Hamilton could not state the number. All he could say was that there were very good grounds for supposing the Government would not be deceived in this matter, and that when the entire staff was gathered together in one large building it would be easy to make considerable reductions. The reductions, of course, must be tentative, and he could not say in advance exactly what they would be; but all who knew anything about the subject must come to the conclusion that new buildings were required to meet the necessities of the case, and that when they were provided the staff of clerks could be considerably reduced.
§ SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFFsaid, he was astonished at the line taken by his right hon. Friend. He did not complain of what the right hon. Gentleman said; but he thought it indecent on the part of the Government to ask the Committee to spend this large sum of money when not a single Cabinet Minister had taken pains to be present during the discussion. All the Committee had before them was upon hearsay evidence. When he had put a Question upon the subject a short time ago, he had been told, in an off-hand, easy manner, by the Secretary to the Admiralty, that some economies would be insured by the Treasury. Why were not the Secretary of State for War and the Secretary to the Admiralty in their places to explain what the economies would be? He did not complain of the absence of the First Lord of the Treasury, because it was well known that that right hon. Gentleman did not interfere in these details; but there were other Members of the Government who certainly ought to have been in their places. The First Commissioner of Works told them that the estimated cost of the building of the new Public Offices was likely to be diminished by the sale of the property in Delahay Street; but that sale could be effected anyhow, whether this additional outlay were incurred or not. The right hon. Gentleman said the cost of the present proposal would be £600,000, in addition to the purchase of the site, which would bring the total cost to £750,000. He thought his right hon. Friend had had enough experience to enable him to 605 know that a rough estimate of that kind was never kept within bounds, and that when the time came to pay the bill it would be found to have fully reached the £1,000,000 mentioned by his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Chatham (Mr. Gorst). [The Marquess of HARTINGTON here entered the House.] He was glad to see the noble Marquess in his place, and he thought it was a pity that he had not been there sooner. He (Sir H. Drummond Wolff) agreed with the remarks of his hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Gorst) as to the manner in which the expenditure upon the Navy was stinted; and when they found the recruiting for the Army neglected, owing to the stinginess of the Government, and the shipbuilding of the Navy much below what it ought to be, it was perfectly monstrous that the Committee should be asked to incur this unnecessary and extravagant expenditure.
MR. GORSTremarked, that now the right hon. Gentleman the First Commissioner of Works had condescended to give figures, he entirely failed to show that any economy at all would be produced by adopting the proposals of the Government. According to the right hon. Gentleman's own estimate, the interest upon the outlay would amount to £25,000 a-year, and towards that the Government would save the rental of the Admiralty and War Office, so far as the present buildings were concerned, and which amounted to £16,000 a-year. That left a sum of £9,000 still to be accounted for, and he wanted to know if it was to be saved by economies effected in reducing the staff of these two great Departments? Would the right hon. Gentleman show, or could he point out, what number of clerks would be dismissed, both in the Admiralty and in the War Office, because it was quite evident that it would come to that unless the Committee rejected the Vote?
§ VISCOUNT FOLKESTONEsaid, he understood the First Commissioner of Works to say, in connection with the site in Delahay Street, that it was proposed to allow the Metropolitan Board of Works to have part of that site for the purpose of widening Parliament Street. [Mr. SHAW LEFEVRE: No.] If that was not the case, it would not be necessary for him to go further into the question. He had certainly understood the right hon. Gentleman to say that 606 he proposed to allow the Metropolitan Board of Works to have some portion of the site the Government had purchased in Delahay Street for the purpose of widening Parliament Street, and he thought it would be satisfactory for the country to have an assurance that no portion of that site would be parted with to the Metropolitan Board of Works unless they paid a sum equal to that which had been given for it. He did not think that the taxpayers of the country, who did not come up to London, and never set their foot in Parliament Street in the course of their lives, should be called upon to contribute any sum of money for the purpose of benefiting the property of that neighbourhood.
§ MR. SHAW LEFEVREsaid, there was no intention, on the part of the Government, of giving the property to the Metropolitan Board of Works. The only offer he had made was that the Metropolitan Board should purchase as much of the property as was thought necessary for the widening of Parliament Street at a fair valuation.
§ SIR HENRY PEEKsaid, he represented a division in which a great many of the gentlemen employed in the War Office lived, and he quite agreed that many of these gentlemen would be placed in a difficult position when they heard that it was proposed to reduce the staff of that Establishment. For instance, how many of the 900 clerks, which at present formed the strength of that Establishment, did the right hon. Gentleman anticipate he would be able to dispense with when the new building was completed? If the number to be reduced was at all large, it would be a matter of great interest and great importance to a good many of his (Sir Henry Peek's) constituents.
§ MR. DILLWYNsaid, he thought that a clear statement on these subjects from the Government, in the first instance, would save a great deal of time. He believed that in this instance a great deal of time would have been saved if the right hon. Gentleman the First Commissioner of Works had, when introducing the Vote, made some of the statements he had made subsequently. He was of opinion that, in all cases where the Government proposed any new expenditure, the House had a right to expect from them a fair explanation of 607 the Vote. He thought, after the explanation which had been given by his right hon. Friend, that the Government had probably made the best arrangement they could, under the circumstances, in securing the property which it appeared would be required; and, of course, as it would be wanted, it was better to secure it at a reasonable rate. At the same time, he hoped his right hon. Friend would not take upon himself the responsibility of carrying out any plan in regard to the building proposed to be put upon this property without coming first to the House of Commons for its sanction. It would be hardly possible to discuss the matter before the plans and specifications were agreed upon; and he thought the House ought to insist upon all the plans being fully discussed. In this instance, in consequence of some words which fell from his right hon. Friend, he gathered that the property was looked upon as an artistic site. Now, for his own part, he had a perfect horror of artistic sites and buildings. What the country wanted was a utilitarian and not an artistic building. What they required was that which any good commercial house or railway company would provide—namely, a good commercial office, useful for the business it was intended to carry on in it, and not great lofty rooms, ill adapted for the transaction of public business in consequence of their height, and in consequence of their being constructed with the view to artistic effect. There was certainly too much artistic desire expressed by his right hon. Friend; and he hoped the Committee would receive the assurance that full and ample opportunity would be afforded to them of forming a judgment upon the plans, and of stating whether they approved of their artistic merits. He certainty hoped his right hon. Friend would qualify his artistic fancies before he eventually settled the plan. He should like to know whether the surveyors would be paid by salaries or by percentage? Having said so much, and his right hon. Friend having now given the explanation which he ought to have given in the first instance, he (Mr. Dillwyn) would, with the leave of the House, withdraw his Amendment.
§ MR. SHAW LEFEVREremarked, that the surveyors would be paid by salaries.
§ MR. WARTONsaid, he quite understood the meaning of the comments which had been made by the hon. Member for Swansea (Mr. Dillwyn). He had no doubt that the hon. Member never intended to do anything by the Motion he had made; and he agreed with the hon. Member that it was an unfortunate fact that, whenever those Votes were brought on, the Ministers in charge of them did not condescend to afford any explanation, or even to answer the questions that were put to them. Cabinet Ministers seemed to think that it was quite sufficient for them to give the Committee the benefit of their presence, without condescending to answer questions that were put to them in regard to the matters under discussion. He suspected that the observations which had been made by the First Commissioner of Works were rather general observations in regard to future possibilities in the way of economy, rather than in connection with anything that had yet been decided upon. He did not think any Estimate had been made which involved the reduction of a single clerk in either of these two great Offices; but vague general statements were made, in order to induce them to believe that the Government were contemplating more economical measures. He failed to understand the principle upon which the Government prepared the Estimates. They appeared to make a great fuss about salaries paid to ratcatchers, amounting to £8 a-year, or to the washerwomen attached to the Public Offices, who received some 15s. a-week, while they lumped hundreds of thousands of pounds together without affording any information in regard to the purposes to which they were to be applied.
THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTONsaid, that as he had not heard the beginning of the discussion, he was afraid he did not understand correctly the question which had been put by the hon. and gallant Baronet opposite (Sir Walter B. Barttelot), and therefore he could not throw much light upon the matter. He believed, however, that some question had been addressed to him as to the number of clerks which it was thought it would be possible to dispense with at the War Office when the new building was erected. He thought it was obvious to the Committee that it was impossible at the present moment to form any correct estimate upon the matter. His 609 right hon. Friend the First Commissioner of Works had already explained that the new building would take from eight to 10 years to complete; and it was difficult, if not altogether idle, to attempt to make any estimate as to the reductions it might be possible to effect at the end of that time. What he was able to state was that some years ago, when he was at the War Office, the accommodation was insufficient, and he believed that the inconvenience had been greatly added to since. It was well known that inconvenience and bad accommodation had involved a waste of money; and he had no doubt that if the War Office and the Admiralty were accommodated in buildings more suitable to their wants it would be quite possible to make a reduction in the number of clerks. At the same time, no reduction on that ground could possibly take place for a considerable time; but he was satisfied that whenever they increased the accommodation they would be able to secure greater economy in the Departments.
§ SIR HENRY PEEKsaid, that his hon. and gallant Friend the Member for West Sussex (Sir Walter B. Barttelot) had asked a simple question upon the statement made by the Chief Commissioner of Works—namely, what reduction was contemplated in the number of clerks? He (Sir Henry Peek) was glad to find, from the remarks just made by the Secretary of State for War, that what the right hon. Gentleman had stated in regard to economy in the number of clerks was only one of those general statements which they all knew how to appreciate.
§ MR. BIGGARwished to say one word in regard to economy in the Public Expenditure. The Chief Commissioner of Works submitted that these new buildings would be completed for £765,000, including the purchase of the site. Now, a somewhat similar Estimate was given in regard to the erection of the Law Courts. They were told, in the first instance, that the cost would be £600,000; but, instead of that sum, the expenditure had already amounted to £938,000. If the expenditure, in reference to the new Public Offices, was to be in anything like the same proportion to the Estimate, the total cost would be at least £1,000,000. There was also another item of which the right hon. Gentleman had not taken any account—namely, 610 the interest accumulated from year to year on the total outlay as the work proceeded. It was stated that 10 years would elapse before the buildings were completed, so that the item of interest would in the end be a very considerable one. No doubt it was fairly argued that it would be much more convenient to substitute new buildings for the present defective accommodation; but the Government were not justified in alleging that the work proposed to be carried out would effect a saving of expenditure to the ratepayers. It was quite clear that there would be a heavy additional expenditure rather than a reduction.
§ MR. SHAW LEFEVREremarked that the Estimate for the Foreign Office was not exceeded.
§ Vote agreed to.
§ (2). £14,730, to complete the sum for Furniture of Public Offices, Great Britain.
§ MR. LABOUCHEREsaid, he should like to have some information upon one small point in regard to this Vote. One of the items was for furniture for Diplomatic Buildings. But it appeared from, the Estimates that there was another sum for that purpose included in Vote 27, and he did not quite see how it came to be inserted in the present Vote.
§ MR. SHAW LEFEVREsaid, that it had been included in the second Vote by mistake.
§ MR. LABOUCHEREsaid, there was another item for furniture in connection with the Metropolitan Police Courts, which, as a matter of principle, he thought ought to be objected to. Many hon. Members were altogether opposed to the expenses of the Metropolitan Police Courts being paid for out of the Public Exchequer; but as he believed the expenditure provided for in the Vote amounted to a very small sum in regard to the Metropolitan Police Courts, it would, perhaps, be better to contest the principle upon Vote 11, which was a specific Vote for the Metropolitan Police Courts.
§ MR. SHAW LEFEVREsaid, that if his hon. Friend would refer to the note attached to this Vote, he would see that the furniture included in other Votes did not form part of the present Vote.
§ GENERAL SIR GEORGE BALFOURremarked, that this was a special Vote for furniture for all public buildings; but, 611 nevertheless, under several other Votes there were items also for furniture. The practice adopted of including the cost of different items of furniture for public buildings in different Votes for the separate Departments, besides having this special Vote, was most inconvenient, and rendered it very difficult for hon. Members to understand the matter. In addition to the sum contained in this special Vote, there was about £166,000 spread over other Votes, next to the one now under consideration, and like charges for furniture were included in many Votes throughout the volume In point of fact, no sort of system appeared to be adopted to enable the Committee to understand what the total expense of this one item really was. It would be better, he thought, to confine the whole expense for all furniture to one Departmental Vote, so that hon. Members might know what they were about. It was most objectionable to have two kinds of Estimates, one for one thing purely, and one set of Votes for another made up of a variety of items. He hoped the Government would in future endeavour to bring all the accounts into one Vote.
§ Vote agreed to.
§ (3.) £279,312, to complete the sum for Revenue Department Buildings, Great Britain.
§ SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFFsaid, he wished to know the meaning of the large increase of expenditure on Inland Revenue Buildings. He found that the Vote included £10,000 for Glasgow, £3,000 for Sheffield, and £900 for Stockton-on-Tees. Was it contemplated that all this amount was to be expended in new works during the present year? The Vote showed an increase of £5,000 over that of last year. No explanation was given of the reason why they required new offices at Glasgow, Cardiff, or in connection with the Inland Revenue Department at Somerset House. He thought it was perfectly monstrous that they should be having new buildings erected in different parts of the country for the Inland Revenue Department, at a large increase of expenditure over that of last year, without any explanation being given to the Committee with regard to them.
§ GENERAL SIR GEORGE BALFOURthought the charge in respect of new buildings for the Revenue Departments 612 was this year again very large, and pointed out that it was increasing every year, nearly £500,000 having been expended on new buildings in the course of the last five years. In addition to that sum, a large sum, amounting to something like £300,000, had been expended in repairs. The Memorandum he held in his hand showed that, in 1879–80, the House voted £184,334 for the buildings, and in this year the amount was £334,412. No doubt, the Post Office and Telegraph Buildings needed enlargement to meet the wants of the increasing Service; but the necessity for new buildings for the Customs and Inland branches was not called for. The fact was that the Vote for the charges of the Postal and Telegraphic branches should be separated from the charges of the Inland and Customs. Instead of the practice of exhibiting the Postal and Telegraphic Charges, there should be a distinct account for each, showing the capital invested, and the results of the great trade so usefully and successfully carried on at a great profit.
§ MR. SCLATER-BOOTHsaid, his hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth (Sir H. Drummond Wolff) had drawn attention to certain items of increase in the expenditure for new buildings in connection with the Inland Revenue Department. He himself wished to make an observation in regard to a very large item of expenditure for new works at the back of the Post Office building. He believed that no less a sum than £75,000 was an increase due to alterations and additions in respect of the coming services for the delivery by the Post Office of parcels. He had been under the impression that the Committee would have had some special statement or some special Vote detailing the whole of the expenditure that would be required, in order to bring that very important change in the Post Office administration into practical operation. When he found that £75,000 was to be spent for buildings alone in carrying out the change, he regretted that it was simply given as a lump sum, because they all knew very well that a much larger expenditure would be required for delivery, carriage, horses, &c.; and, in addition, there must be a considerable amount for contracts and sub-agencies in populous places for the delivery of these parcels. There 613 was a good deal of anxiety felt in the country as to whether the new scheme might not prejudicially affect the efficiency of the present Post Office Service in the punctual delivery of letters with which the public were happily familiar. He thought the Postmaster General had ample evidence of the feeling of the House and the country in that respect; and he (Mr. Sclater-Booth) was not disposed to take up the question in any carping spirit. He only wished to say that there was a considerable amount of anxiety felt out-of-doors lest the Post Office should have embarked on a too complicated business, which might endanger a Service they had all of them reason to be proud of, and in regard to which the greatest possible satisfaction was felt. The existing Post Office arrangements were not only satisfactory to Members in that House, but to every person who was engaged in business in the country. This sum of £75,000 was the increase due to the introduction of the new business in connection with the Parcels Post; but no details were given to show the way in which the money was to be expended. He wished to know, therefore, whether the amount was only a rough estimate of what was likely to be required all over the Kingdom, or whether it applied only to a limited number of Post Offices throughout the country; also, what proportion this sum bore to the whole cost of the Service, which could not but be very considerable. He thought the Committee were entitled to know a little more in detail what the opinion of the Postmaster General was. At present there was great celerity and regularity in the despatch and delivery of letters, and there was a fear that the Post Office might be about to enter upon an undertaking of too elaborate and complicated a nature.
§ MR. SHAW LEFEVREsaid, that his hon. and gallant Friend (Sir George Balfour) had complained of the continual increase of this Vote. All he could say was that it was likely to go on increasing as long as the Post Office business went on increasing at its present rate. The work of the Post Office could not go increasing without these charges increasing also. If the cost of telegrams was to be reduced to 6d., and the Post Office facilities of all kinds were to be increased, it would neces- 614 sarily follow that there must be a larger staff and more extensive accommodation. The increase of the Vote this year was almost entirely due to the introduction of the Parcels Post, which amounted to £75,000. In addition to that, there was a further sum of £25,000 taken out of the savings of the Vote of the previous year, and which had been expended in consequence of the urgent necessity of making provision for carrying out the Parcels Post. Therefore, the total increase of expenditure in respect of the Parcels Post would amount to about £100,000. For that sum of money about 200 post offices were being added to, and there would be a greatly increased amount of work thrown upon the Department. In reference to the increase for buildings in connection with the Inland Revenue Department, there was a sum of £15,000 required for the new building at Glasgow. For some years past great complaints had been made in regard to the defective accommodations of the Revenue Offices in that city. It had been found necessary to obtain a new site; but when the new building was erected the old site would realize a large sum of money. There would, consequently, be a large sum of money coming in in aid of expenditure. Then, again, there was an item of £4,200 in respect of the Inland Revenue Building at Sheffield. Great complaints had been made of the insufficiency of the existing accommodation. [Sir H. DRUMMOND WOLFF asked who made the complaint?] The Government had certainly no interest in expending the public money in erecting buildings of this kind unless they were absolutely required; but so strong a case had been made out in these instances that it was felt impossible to refuse the claims pressed upon the Government.
§ SIR HENRY PEEKsaid, that for two Sessions he had sat upon the Water Supply Committee, to which was relegated the duty of inquiring into the question of the Metropolitan Theatres, and the best means of clearing them in case of fire. He mentioned that, because he understood that it was proposed to enlarge the telegraph accommodation at St. Martin's-le-Grand by putting an additional story on a building which was already excessively high. They were told by the Postmaster General that no less than 2,600 people 615 were to be employed at an elevation of 60 feet above the level of the street.
§ MR. FAWCETTsaid, the hon. Baronet was under a misapprehension. What he had said was that the whole number of persons employed in the building was 2,600; but he went on to explain that the whole of these persons were not employed at the same time, and they would not all of them be engaged at an elevation of 60 feet above the level of the ground.
§ SIR HENRY PEEKsaid, the fact was not altered by the statement of the right hon. Gentleman. He should like to tell the Committee what the Government proposed to carry out. Although the existing upper storey was 40 feet above the level of the street, the idea which the Government had of prudence and economy was to put another storey upon the top of that. If, by any accident, that building was destroyed by fire, as it was very nearly destroyed by a fire opposite in Paternoster Row a few weeks ago, the business of the country could hardly be carried on; and almost every person throughout the whole of the United Kingdom would be put to inconvenience by the interference in his every day transactions. He undertook to say that no sensible man carrying on such a business as the Telegraphic Department of the Post Office would have all his machinery in one place. If, by any accident, the telegraph floor were destroyed, he was satisfied the business of the country could hardly be carried on. No doubt, the Government would be able speedily to pull themselves together; but, for a very much longer time, they would be placing every person in the country in a position of inconvenience and disadvantage. He was speaking as a Member of the Select Committee to which the question of theatres was referred. They might or might not go to theatres, just as they thought fit; but a Government employé must go where he was sent, and if the telegraph clerks were sent in such large numbers—considerably over 2,000—into a lofty storey like this, in the event of fire, or a panic of fire, the loss of life would be immense. He had taken the liberty of writing to the Chancellor of the Exchequer upon the subject, and had used these words, which he did not think one atom too strong— 616
That the proposal for economical, or, more tersely expressed, for cheeseparing reasons, to put another floor on the telegraphic headquarters, was, in his opinion, nothing more nor loss than criminal.He wanted to know if the cost of erecting this floor was covered by the present Vote?
§ MR. SHAW LEFEVREsaid, the cost of this floor at the Post Office was included in the Vote now under discussion. It was not included in the sum of £75,000 required for the Parcels Post; but his hon. Friend would find it in another part of the Vote. The total cost of the additional story would be £30,000, and there was no doubt it was a most economical arrangement. It would provide great additional accommodation, and if the same extent of area had been secured by the purchase of another convenient site elsewhere tire cost would have been enormous. He did not think his hon. Friend need be under any alarm as to danger from fire. That subject had been carefully gone into before the plans were decided upon, and all possible means had been taken to prevent danger. There were four very wide staircases leading up to this storey, and the whole storey could be cleared in the course of a few minutes. There would also be a bridge thrown across at the rear of the building to another block of buildings, which the Government had recently purchased. His hon. Friend, therefore, need be under no apprehension in regard to danger from fire; because, wherever a large body of persons were employed, there was much less danger from fire than where a building remained empty during the night time. Should there be any danger from fire there was not the slightest doubt that the whole of the telegraph staff could be cleared out in a very short time, without running the slightest risk. He would remind his hon. Friend that there were very few buildings in London where a large number of persons were employed that were not more than four stories in height.
§ SIR HENRY PEEKsaid, there might be buildings more than four stories high; but not one in which one-tenth of the numbers now mentioned were employed at such an altitude. He remembered a large fire on the other side of London Bridge, where there was stored a con- 617 siderable amount of tea—an article in which he was personally interested, It had been positively stated that tea could not be destroyed by fire; but, notwithstanding, it was totally destroyed, and the fireproof building too. In regard to this particular telegraph building, the pressure of water was so much diminished for several hours each day by filling the cisterns in the East Central District, that at such time there could not be a sufficient supply of water to bear upon it, and he ventured to point that out as a great danger. No doubt, the building an additional floor was, in one sense, an economical proceeding; but there were such things as true economy and false economy, and he was certainly of opinion that so important a business as this ought to be duplicated in some way. No business man would have the whole of his machinery—in the case of the telegraphs of immense value—in one building, but he would have it in duplicate, in order to meet any emergency. He trusted that what he had said would be duly weighed by the Government. It was a very important matter. The addition of this storey would not be nearly sufficient to supply the whole of the wants of the Telegraph Department under the 6d. rate; and he thought the Government were committing a great mistake if they continued the construction of this floor. They might, of course, save money by adopting a cheeseparing policy; but they were not effecting that judicious economy which his right hon. Friend the Chief Commissioner of Works talked about in regard to a previous Vote.
§ MR. RAMSAYsaid, that reference had been made to the new building at Glasgow. The old building had long been felt, by the merchants who went to conduct their business there, to be a disgrace to the city; and it was only due to the persons who required to go there that increased facilities should be provided. At present those who went there were detained for a considerable time, and it was frequently the case that anyone passing along the street saw many persons waiting, although their only business was to pay their Income Tax and get relieved of their money. He thought, in the absence of any other explanation of the Vote for the new Office at Glasgow, that it was only fair to say that it was due to the taxpayers to have proper 618 facilities given them for the despatch of their business in connection with the Revenue Department. While he gave the Government credit for the efforts they had made to secure economy in carrying out the necessary arrangements in Glasgow he was bound to say that the old Office was a discredit to any Government.
§ MR. FAWCETTsaid, he could assure the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Hampshire (Mr. Sclater-Booth) that, so far from objecting to any remarks he had made in reference to the Post Office, he thought they were not only extremely reasonable, but well timed. It was only due to the House and to the Committee that they should have, as far as could be prepared, a detailed Estimate of both the expected revenue and the expected expenditure in connection with the Parcel Post. That Estimate was being most carefully prepared at the present moment by the officials, on whom the preparation of the Parcels Post devolved; and he could assure the right hon. Gentleman and the Committee that there would be no delay whatever in placing it on the Table. He must, however, say that although every care would be taken to give the Committee the very best Estimate possible, yet he felt that, after all, it must in certain respects be an Estimate only, because no two persons seemed to agree as to the amount of business that was likely to be done when the Parcels Post came into operation. He believed that business men generally considered the Post Office authorities had made an extremely moderate Estimate of the amount of business they would have to transact. The authorities had estimated so many parcels; but when they mentioned the number to men of commercial experience, like his hon. Friend the Member for Mid Surrey (Sir Henry Peek), it was generally allowed that they had much underrated the amount of business that would be done. He could only say that if it turned out that their Estimate was too moderate the financial result would be much better than they anticipated. He did not want to anticipate the Estimate which he hoped would shortly be laid before the House; but, as far as he was yet able to judge, he saw no reason to alter the opinion he had expressed, some time ago, in reply to a Question addressed to him by the 619 right hon. Gentleman the Member for Westminster (Mr. W. H. Smith), that in the first year the receipts from the Parcels Post would cover the expenditure. If that result was scoured it would be, he thought, very satisfactory; because, as always happened in regard to the expenses of the Post Office, a great deal of expenditure would be incurred which, in an ordinary business, would be put down, not to income, but to capital. He would not now go into that question; but, no doubt, it was one of the utmost importance. It was, however, one which ought to be raised by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and not by himself. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Hampshire (Mr. Sclater-Booth) had referred to another question. The right hon. Gentleman said that a certain feeling of uneasiness was evinced as to the effect which the introduction of the Parcels Post would have upon the letter service of the country. Of course, it would be unreasonable not to anticipate that on the first introduction of a great change like this there might be difficulties to overcome. But he had been told that in other countries—in Germany, and even in India—experience did not justify the uneasiness referred to by the right hon. Gentleman. The Postmaster General of India told him, a few days ago, that in that Empire much heavier weights were carried than were proposed in this case; and in reply to a question the Postmaster General told him that the Parcels Post worked with the utmost smoothness, and without the slightest difficulty. In Germany, also, the system worked well; and if, both in Germany and in India, that was found to be the case, he saw no reason why it should not soon get into good working order in England. As far as the letter service in the rural districts was concerned, he could only say that he was of opinion—and he know that that opinion was shared by many practical officers of the Post Office, who could speak with more authority on the point than he could lay claim to—so far from expecting that the introduction of the Parcels Post would interfere with the letter service in the rural districts, one of the chief advantages he anticipated from the new system was that in a short time after its introduction it would tend materially to improve the letter service in those districts. It was ob- 620 vious that, in many instances, foot messengers would have to be replaced by mounted messengers; and the result would be that letters might arrive in the country districts one or two hours sooner, and be dispatched one or two hours later, than at present. This was one of the great reasons which had always made him so anxious to see the Parcels Post brought into working order.
§ MR. SCLATER-BOOTHsaid, he was gratified to hear the rosy anticipations of the right hon. Gentleman, and the conclusions he had drawn in regard to the advantages which would be derived in the rural districts in the shape of a quicker delivery of letters. He understood the right hon. Gentleman to say that a statement of the expenditure necessary to defray the cost of the introduction of the new system would shortly be laid upon the Table, and that he anticipated the receipts of the first year would be sufficient to cover the increased expenditure. That statement was satisfactory, and he hoped that the anticipations of the right hon. Gentleman would be realized. The estimated cost of providing for the new service in the present Vote for Buildings was £75,000; and the First Commissioner of Works told them that it would be necessary to enlarge some 200 Post Offices. Surely that was a very small number in comparison with the number of post offices existing throughout the country, and which must amount, he thought, to 20,000 or 30,000. Were they to understand that that was all the sum that would be taken this year for the construction and enlargement of Post Offices? [Mr. SHAW LEFEVRE: Yes.] Then he would say no more in regard to the Post Office question. In regard to the Inland Revenue Buildings, he should like to ask the Secretary to the Treasury a question he had put to him previously in the discussion of the Estimates—namely, a question in regard to the Vote for the River Shannon. They were told that the cost of new works to which attention had been drawn would be set off by the sale of old stores. Now, in the case of the Shannon, the Estimate was a very large one, and the Government said it would be met, to a great extent, by the sale of plant and machinery at the conclusion of the work. In the case of the 621 new Inland Revenue Building at Glasgow, they were told that the cost would be met by the sale of the old building; and he wanted to ask the Secretary to the Treasury how he proposed to account for the sums receivable in diminution of them, and other like Votes in the Civil Service Estimates, and why the gross, instead of the net amount only was voted? A new system had been introduced into the Army and Navy Expenditure. The Government proposed to expend certain sums of money, and expected to receive over sums of money year by year; but the net amount only was inserted in the Votes. That was a considerable change from the old practice, and one against which he had lifted up his feeble voice, because he believed that it might interfere with the control which the Treasury ought to have over the Expenditure. He would not, however, raise that question now. It seemed to him that it would be consistent, on the part of the Government, either to ask for the net amount they required under the present Vote, or else to inform the Committee how they proposed to account for the outlay hereafter.
MR. JOSEPH COWENsaid, he was sure the Committee would have received with satisfaction the statement of the right hon. Gentleman the Postmaster General with regard to the Parcels Post; any further discussion of the subject would, therefore, be unnecessary. He would, however, be glad to know whether the arrangements were so far advanced as to permit the carrying out of the scheme at an early date?
§ MR. FAWCETTIt will begin to operate on the 1st of August.
MR. JOSEPH COWENsaid, he was glad to hear the statement of the right hon. Gentleman. With respect to the buildings, it appeared to him and other hon. Friends, notwithstanding the sum of £100,000 was to be voted for this purpose, that the right hon. Gentleman had formed a very moderate estimate of the total sum which the country would be called upon to pay. He had himself some acquaintance with the system operating in Germany and other countries; and, in his opinion, the amount of the present Estimate would prove to be out of all proportion to the sum that would eventually be required. He said this, having regard particularly to the amount 622 of building space that was found necessary in Germany, and he could not but think that the country must be prepared to meet a very much larger expenditure under this head. The Committee should bear in mind that the Parcels Post system was likely to extend much more rapidly than was the case with the ordinary letter post; and that was another reason which made him think that the right hon. Gentleman had altogether an inadequate conception of the outlay that would be required both for buildings and for other expenses. This, however, was a matter of speculation, and he would not detain the Committee at any greater length upon the subject. There was one point that had been raised when this subject was before the Committee last year to which he would again invite the attention of the right hon. Gentleman. As a matter of fact, a large number of letters were posted in the pillar-boxes after the hours of collection, and it very often happened that the subsequent collection took place later than it should do. He thought if a notice were placed upon the pillar-boxes showing when the box would be cleared, that this would prove of great service to the public. He believed that it had been done in some cases, and he trusted that the right hon. Gentleman would see his way to having the hours of collection indicated on the pillar-boxes throughout the country generally.
§ MR. FAWCETTsaid, it was his intention that all the letter-boxes should have the indication of the hour of collection to which his hon. Friend had referred. He was under the impression that it had already been done; but if his hon. Friend would direct his attention to any district in which this was not the case, he would give instructions to have the notices placed there at once.
§ MR. SHAW LEFEVREsaid, he had omitted to state that the £75,000 asked for under the present Vote did not represent the whole of the expenditure that would be necessary, inasmuch as a considerable amount would fall within the following financial year. Considerable increase of accommodation would be required in some of the London districts, and that would be the case, to a certain extent, in other parts of the country; but with respect to a large number of the rural post offices no alterations would be necessary.
§ MR. WHITLEYsaid, he wished to call the attention of the right hon. Gentleman the Postmaster General to the fact that there was no place in the Kingdom where the Post Office accommodation was so utterly inadequate as it was in Liverpool. The portion of the building in which the girls did their work was, besides, in a most unsanitary condition; and representations had been made to the authorities, by deputation and in other ways, for the purpose of obtaining an improvement in the condition of that Department; but nothing had been done. He believed no one could be more convinced of the necessity of improvement than the Postmaster in Liverpool himself; and, that being the case, he was bound to say that he viewed with considerable regret the fact that the paltry sum of £5,000 was asked in the present Estimate for the purpose of the Post Office at Liverpool. He regarded this small expenditure as tending only to make things worse, and as being simply a waste of money. The Post Office arrangements at Liverpool had been for years in its present unsatisfactory condition; and this had been the subject of complaint on the part of merchants, shipowners, and, indeed, of every class. The present Post Office had been in existence for nearly 50 years, and its position was most inconvenient, having regard to the requirements of the classes to which he had referred. He observed, by the present Estimates, that the Post Office at Manchester was going to be rebuilt at a cost of £108,000; and he must express his regret that no ample provision had been made in the case of the Post Office at Liverpool. He repeated, that the outlay of this small sum of £5,000 would, as he feared, give great dissatisfaction, and lead to an extension of the present state of things. He appealed to the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury, because he believed that it was the Department which he represented that stopped the way, to take this matter into his consideration; and he ventured to express a hope that next year they might see upon the Estimates a Vote for a new Post Office at Liverpool.
MR. GORSTsaid, the interesting discussion that had taken place on the subject of Post Office Buildings had rather led the Committee to forget the question of the increased expenditure on account 624 of the Customs and Inland Revenue Buildings. He rose for the purpose of reminding the right hon. Gentleman who was responsible for this Vote that he had not furnished any reply to the argument of his hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth (Sir H. Drummond Wolff). That hon. Member had asked for an explanation with regard to the new Inland Revenue Buildings that were being constructed at Stockton-on-Tees; and he (Mr. Gorst) considered that the item was certainly one which demanded a full explanation. The first item was—Stockton-on-Tees; moiety of cost of erection of new Inland Revenue and Customs Offices on land adjoining the County Court, and belonging to the Government, £900. It would appear from this statement as though the Government had suddenly found itself in possession of the land and thought it necessary to build some Offices upon it. But the question was, how did the Government come to be possessed of the land, and what necessity was there to erect new buildings on this vacant space at a cost of £1,800? Again, in the neighbouring town of Middlesbrough a precisely similar transaction had taken place; but here he found that the cost was £4,000 for the purchase of the Corporation Hall, and there was a further charge of £4,500 for the purpose of joint Customs and County Court officers. He and his hon. Friends would like to know why, with regard to these two places, this extraordinary zeal for new buildings should have manifested itself. There was another question that he would put to the right hon. Gentleman. How was it that in both the Customs and Inland Revenue Departments there was a greatly increased charge for the rents of premises? There was an increase of rent in the case of the Customs Department of £900 a-year, and in that of the Inland Revenue Department of £1,200 a-year, notwithstanding the fact that these Departments were not doing a greater, but, on the contrary, a less amount of business. Unlike the Post Office, there was a falling-off of trade, and consequently less activity in the two Departments. The point that he wished to bring clearly before the Committee was that, although the business of the Customs and Inland Revenue Departments was decreasing, the rents were 625 increasing by a considerable amount—that was to say, by the amount of £900 a-year in the case of the Customs, and £1,200 in the case of the Inland Revenue Department. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury would be able to throw some light upon these points.
§ MR. SHAW LEFEVREsaid, the explanation with regard to the proposed building at Stockton-on-Tees and Middlesbrough was very simple. In both places the Government had an opportunity of acquiring a site for the buildings in question, which had been availed of for purposes which were indispensable. The rent previously paid at Middlesbrough was something like £250 a-year. He could not at the moment give a full explanation with regard to the increase of rents in the Customs and Inland Revenue Departments, to which the hon. and learned Gentleman had referred, but would inquire into the matter.
MR. GORSTsaid, he did not think that the explanation of the right hon. Gentleman the First Commissioner of Works was very satisfactory. The statement was that the rent previously paid for the premises at Middlesbrough was £100 a-year; but the Government were going to spend £4,500, which, according to his calculation at 3 per cent, amounted to £135 a-year, so that, in order to save £100 a-year, they were going to pay £135.
§ MR. SHAW LEFEVREsaid, he had omitted to state, in reply to the hon. and learned Gentleman, that the building now occupied by the Department at Middlesbrough was inadequate for the purposes for which it was intended.
§ MR. J. LOWTHERsaid, they had put their hands to the plough, so to speak, in adopting the Parcels Post system, with regard to which he did not feel it necessary at that moment to express any opinion. He might state, however, that it was usual, when the House of Commons was asked to commit itself to the alteration of any system, that full Estimates of the probable cost of the change to be carried out should be submitted to Parliament. The right hon. Gentleman the Postmaster General intimated, in the course of his speech, that it would be premature to take the present opportunity of enlightening Parliament on this matter; and, in fact, he 626 went on to say that this was a duty which more properly came within the province of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
§ MR. FAWCETTI was speaking with regard to the question raised by my hon. Friend behind me in connection with the capital expenditure of the Post Office. I said that required the attention of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
§ MR. J. LOWTHERsaid, he was about to add, if he had been allowed to continue his sentence, that the right hon. Gentleman was quite right in the remark which he made; but that he thought the Committee was entitled to some authoritative statement on the part of the Government as to what would be the probable cost eventually incurred under the new system. The system might be an excellent one, and, probably, when they came to discuss it, it would be approved; but it was an almost unheard-of thing that they should be asked to involve themselves and the country in a serious expenditure, without having any intimation afforded them as to the ultimate limits they might be called upon to reach. He observed that the Estimate for Buildings in the present year was £75,000; and this, he understood, only to cover the necessary structural alterations in about 200 Offices. But he thought, from all that had transpired during the present discussion, and what they had heard on other occasions, that the Government could not possibly contemplate that this sum of £75,000 could be a very appreciable proportion of the amount they would eventually call upon Parliament to sanction. Now, the right hon. Gentleman the First Commissioner of Works had just now alluded to the item for hiring rooms and buildings, a subject which appeared to open up a very wide branch of expenditure for the future. They knew perfectly well that, in the ordinary transactions of life, anyone having temporarily to adapt a structure to a special use would have to incur an expenditure which represented no value to any future occupant, and therefore could not be considered to increase the letting value of the property. It would be seen that a good deal of expense must necessarily be incurred in connection with the Parcels Post; and this matter of hiring, to which the right hon. Gentleman had alluded, opened up, 627 as he had already pointed out, a large question of expenditure, a good deal of which might hereafter be found to be due to the timidity of the Government in neglecting to come to Parliament with the whole of their scheme, and ask the House of Commons to sanction, in the first instance, an adequate Vote for the entire probable outlay to be incurred. It was of no use attempting the discussion of Estimates that were not upon the Table of the House; but he thought that the Committee would like to hoar from some Member of the Government what this scheme would probably cost the country. The right hon. Gentleman the Postmaster General had intimated the substitution of mounted messengers and vehicles in place of the walking post in rural districts; and he understood the right hon. Gentleman to refer to that as constituting a probable addition to our present expenditure, although he had introduced it not in that way, but under the guise of a provision to increase the efficiency of the Postal Service for the accommodation of the public. He thought the whole system ought to be fully explained to the Committee at its inception, together with the probable total expenditure which Parliament, from time to time, would be called upon to incur; otherwise, when they again referred to and criticized the future Estimates in connection with the proposed system, they might be told that it had already been assented to and approved by the House of Commons; that it was then too late to ask what was the cause of the expenditure; and that such questions would have been more properly addressed to the Minister in charge of the original Estimate at the time when it was first introduced to the House of Commons. Therefore, merely by way of entering a caveat against being told on a future occasion that they were too late, he thought it right to make the few observations he had addressed to the Committee. He had listened with great satisfaction to one part of the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Postmaster General. It was that in which he said that the Post Office administration of India was working with the most complete smoothness and without any appreciable difficulty, for he was extremely glad to hear that there was any Department in the Indian administration in that happy condition. 628 The statement of the right hon. Gentleman had produced a very good effect upon his mind, and it would, no doubt, be received with great satisfaction by the country. He feared that the Post Office Department was, unfortunately, in that respect, unique amongst its fellows. He trusted that the debate would not be allowed to close without the Government affording some reasonable assurance as to the demand that would ultimately be made upon the public purse on account of the Parcels Post.
§ MR. MOLLOYsaid, he would again ask the right hon. Gentleman the Postmaster General a question which had been put, but not answered, on a former occasion. He trusted the right hon. Gentleman would be able to state whether any step had been taken to provide a system of insurance in connection with the Parcels Post. A great number of persons were very anxious that an arrangement of this kind should be carried out.
THE CHAIRMANsaid, he must point out to the hon. Member that the question of insurance was not included in the Vote before the Committee.
§ MR. MOLLOYsaid, he thought the subject was quite relevant to the Vote for the Parcels Post.
THE CHAIRMANsaid, the Vote was entirely confined to the buildings required by the Post Office Department.
§ MR. MOLLOYsaid, his remarks were precisely connected with this subject. He had no wish to disregard the ruling of the Chair.
§ MR. BIGGARsaid he was surprised that the Government had not given the Committee some information with regard to the proposed new buildings—that was to say, they had not pointed out what were the defects in the present offices, and the reasons why new buildings were required. He would like to know why the present site had been selected, and the probable cost of the proposed alterations?
§ SIR ANDREW LUSKsaid, that as the system extended the number of parcels sent by railway would be very large, and for these warehouses would be required. He thought, if the Post Office authorities encouraged this kind of business, that they should be careful not to 629 interfere too much with persons who were already engaged in the delivery of parcels. The tendency of the scheme would be, undoubtedly, to displace the business of a number of people; and he had a strong objection to anything like meddling with these interests on the part of the authorities. It was difficult to draw a line at any particular weight to be carried, because it was easy to advance by small steps—from, say, 7 lbs. to 14 lbs., and thence to 28 lbs. He trusted that the right hon. Gentleman the Postmaster General and the Government would keep within bounds in whatever they did for the establishment of the Parcels Post.
§ MR. RAMSAYsaid, that instead of joining with the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Sclater-Booth) in urging upon the Government to give a definite Estimate in regard to the Parcels Post, he thought that, if the right hon. Gentleman would consider the magnitude of the subject, he would see it was impossible for the Government, on account of the lack of experience, to estimate, with any degree of accuracy, what the Parcels Post might cost. The Government were taking the best possible course they could take—namely, to provide the requisite sum for the current year. He (Mr. Ramsay) felt that, whatever might be the opinions of some Gentlemen, that the Parcels Post would be one of the greatest boons the public had received for a long time past. His right hon. Friend the Postmaster General was entitled to great credit for having brought this scheme so far to maturity; and the only mistake, in his (Mr. Ramsay's) judgment, which his right hon. Friend had made was, that he had agreed to pay the greater percentage of the total earnings to the Railway Companies for the carriage of the parcels. He thought that Parliament ought to have given power to the Postmaster General to have fixed the carriage at a much less rate; and he fully believed that at that moment the managing bodies of the different railways throughout the Kingdom would agree to carry the parcels for one-half of the present rates from the Land's End to John o' Groats. As a rule, parcels would only be conveyed short distances; and, although it was a wise principle to convey all parcels at a uniform rate, yet he could not conceive that the growth of the Parcels Post, and the development of the advantages 630 that the country would derive from it, quite warranted the Postmaster General in the rate he had agreed to.
§ MR. COURTNEYsaid, a question was raised some time ago by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Hants (Mr. Sclater-Booth) to which he wished to make a reply. The right hon. Gentleman had asked why they had not introduced, in the case of the Civil Service Estimates, this system of voting money in the net, as was done in the case of the Army and Navy. The system of voting money in the net had been introduced into the Army and Navy Estimates after much deliberation. It would have to be watched, and they proposed to extend it, step by step, into the Civil Service Estimates. He was bound to say there would be considerable difficulty in introducing it into the Civil Service Estimates; for instance, in a case like the present, where the receipts could not be realized until the expenditure had been completed.
§ MR. SHAW LEFEVREsaid, the hon. Member for Liverpool (Mr. Whitley) had spoken about the desirability of erecting a new Post Office in the town he represented. The subject came under his (Mr. Shaw Lefevre's) attention some time ago; and, although there was a strong feeling in Liverpool in favour of a change of site, the Government had come to the conclusion that, looking at the great demands that had been made from other parts of the country—such as Bradford or Manchester, for instance—where there were much more serious causes for rebuilding the post offices, they could not hold out a hope that such a great undertaking would be commenced at Liverpool. The building at Liverpool was not, at present, inadequate for the service. It might not, perhaps, be so well placed as the people in Liverpool could wish; but the Government did not think that that was a sufficient cause for embarking upon such a large expenditure as the erection of a new post office would entail.
MR. GORSTsaid, he thought that the Committee would like the right hon. Gentleman to say why the receipts anticipated by the sale of the Inland Revenue Office at Glasgow had not been formally inserted in the Estimates. The estimated extra receipts were put down at £3,000; but the right hon. Gentleman had said that it was estimated £20,000 631 would be realized by the sale of the present Inland Revenue Office at Glasgow. Why did not that appear on the Estimates?
§ MR. SHAW LEFEVREsaid, it would not be possible to sell the Inland Revenue Office at Glasgow until the now Offices were completed; and, therefore, the proceeds of the sale of the new Offices would not come within the present financial year.
§ MR. WARTONasked on what principle the Estimates for the Maintenance and Repairs of Buildings was made up; whether there was any inquiry in the case of the different buildings; and whether there was any Estimate made out as to what would be required? No matter what item they took, whether it was "B," or "H," or "N," or "T," and added them all up together, they found that they amounted, in the two years 1882 and 1883, to precisely the same figuro—namely, £80,775. the maintenance of the Customs Buildings were estimated at £400 less this year; but that was balanced by the Estimate for the Revenue Buildings being £400 more than it was last year. For the Post Office and Telegraph Buildings, the sum required was the same for both years. The matter looked exceedingly suspicious. He desired to know whether any trouble was taken to check the accuracy of the Estimate? He would not go over the old ground, as to what money would be required by the alterations necessary in the Post Offices for the Parcels Post, although he should have thought that, in some places, the cost of alterations would have been much larger than they appeared to be. Maintenance and repairs were put down yearly at £51,000. He supposed they might gather that, whether the buildings increased or not in number, or size, the alterations and repairs would cost precisely the same amount year after year. It seemed to him as if no Estimate at all was made in the matter.
§ MR. SHAW LEFEVREsaid, that the Estimates were made up after careful calculation of the works it was actually intended to perform. Of course, as regarded maintenance and repairs, they could not make an Estimate in the usual way; but it must be done, to some extent, upon the basis of the Expenditure of the previous year. It was not reasonable to suppose that, on the ave- 632 rage, the cost of repairs would be the same year after year.
§ MR. J. LOWTHERsaid, the right hon. Gentleman the Postmaster General had not answered his question concerning the Parcels Post.
§ MR. FAWCETTsaid, it would be extremely difficult and inconvenient if the House were to say that it would not sanction the Government entering into an arrangement until they knew what was likely to be wanted. He told the House at the time when the Parcels Post Bill was being passed into law that the reason that they did not give an Estimate then was that it was extremely difficult to frame one. It was an entirely new sort of business, and if they asked one person how many parcels they would be likely to carry in the course of a year, he would probably say 50,000,000, while another would say 100,000,000, and perhaps a third, 150,000,000. The Estimate for the Department was a very moderate one; and if it turned out that they were wrong, and that those who estimated that a very much larger number of parcels than the Post Office had calculated upon would be carried were right, he could only say that the result would be financially much more favourable than the Post Office had anticipated. The reason why he was not prepared to give such an Estimate as that asked for by the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. J. Lowther) was this—that at the very moment the Parcels Post Bill was passed they commenced making preparations for it. Those preparations were necessarily of a complicated kind. In many instances they had to negotiate for the erection of fresh buildings; and they were not now in a position which would justify them in laying an Estimate before the House. He hoped, however, that before the close of the Session they would be able to give an Estimate, which, though it might contain many elements of doubt, would give to the House a good idea of the probable expenditure and revenue from the Parcels Post.
§ Vote agreed to.
§ (4.) £29,150, to complete the sum for County Court Buildings.
§ SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFFdesired some explanation on this Vote. There was no explanation given of Subheads B, C, D, E, and F. They had 633 only got the details as to the new works, additions, and purchases. Under the head "Birmingham, Purchase of Site," there was something which apparently required explanation. In the first place, the estimated total cost was £20,000, and the purchase of the site was estimated at £15,000. Last year £15,000 was voted for the site, and apparently £2,000 for the building. This year there was no Vote taken for the building at all. They had spent £15,000 apparently; but they were not going on with the building. The same thing occurred at Edmonton last year. £1,030 was then voted for the enlargements at Edmonton, and yet nothing was to be voted this year. What was the use of mentioning the sum in the Estimate at all? In the case of Middlesbrough they had, moreover, put down £2,000, and in the case of Nottingham £2,500.
§ MR. SHAW LEFEVREsaid, that, in order to show the expenditure last year, it was necessary to put the amounts down in this year's Estimates, and to show what work had been done. It was not necessary to take any Vote this year.
§ SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFFbelieved that they had put down £2,800 for a building, the estimated cost of which was £20,000.
§ MR. SHAW LEFEVREsaid, that the remainder of the sum had been voted in previous years.
§ SIR ANDREW LUSKdesired to ask why they should be called upon to pay from the Consolidated Fund for County Court Buildings, as all his hon. Friends who found fault with the Metropolis said that the Metropolis should pay for itself? Presuming that that was the proper view to take, why should the County Courts not be kept up at the expense of the particular districts in which they were situated? Why was Birmingham to have £35,000 of the nation's money any more than London? The Committee would see that Metropolitan Members could find fault or pick holes just as well as Provincial Members. He hoped some authority would tell him on what grounds £35,000 was to be given to Birmingham, and a certain amount to Nottingham, a certain amount to Middlesbrough, and to other places as well.
§ MR. SHAW LEFEVREsaid, that the County Courts all over the country 634 had been built and maintained at the cost of the Government. Exception had been taken to the Metropolitan Police Courts being paid for out of the National Exchequer, because the Police Courts in the other parts of the country were maintained by the local authority. He was, however, not aware that any objection had been taken to the payments made for County Court Buildings.
§ MR. J. LOWTHERsaid, he did not understand why Birmingham should have this Vote at all. The point raised by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Portsmouth (Sir H. Drummond Wolff) was a very legitimate one.
MR. GORSTsaid, the right hon. Gentleman the First Commissioner of Works had not at all answered the question put by the hon. Member for Portsmouth (Sir H. Drummond Wolff). The question was one which certainly ought to be answered. The estimated total cost of the County Court at Birmingham was £20,000, in addition to the £15,000 for the site. The site was purchased, and then the Government proceeded to spend £20,000 in building. Were they to understand that the Government had paid £15,000 for the site, and had erected upon it a building estimated to cost £20,000, and that they had also spent £2,000 they estimated last year for work. As the matter stood at present it was totally unintelligible.
§ MR. SHAW LEFEVREexplained that the £15,000 was spent last year. The expenditure for the cost of the building was paid for in previous years. It was a fact that the building had been commenced, and no more money was required this year.
§ MR. J. LOWTHERasked why, in that case, the amount appeared on the Votes?
§ MR. SHAW LEFEVREsaid, it was put in to show how the money was spent last year.
§ MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORsaid, it appeared to him that there was something that required explanation about this Vote. He heard, with very considerable surprise, that the estimate of £20,000 was so perfectly accurate that neither more nor less was spent on the building. He wished to ask the right hon. Gentleman if it was the intention of the Government to propose hereafter a Supplementary Vote for County Court Buildings, in consequence of the increased business which would be imposed 635 upon County Courts by the now Bankruptcy Law?
§ MR. WARTONasked why they were not favoured with an explanation of the other sub-heads of the Vote? For instance, under Sub-head "C," why should they not know what rents were paid for the different County Courts all over the Kingdom? There was not a single word said about rents, and yet, in other Estimates, they went into ridiculously minute particulars. In this instance, £14,000 was simply unaccounted for. He wished to ask the Law Officers of the Crown if there was any account of what the rents were that were paid for the County Courts of the Kingdom?
§ MR. SHAW LEFEVREsaid, the item was composed of an enormous number of small figures. If the hon. Member wished to obtain details, there would be no objection to his having them.
§ Vote agreed to.
§
(5.) Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a sum, not exceeding £4,675, 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 1884, for the Metropolitan Police Court Buildings.
§ MR. J. LOWTHERsaid, the estimated Extra Receipts included, for 1883–4, an. item of over £3,000 payable by the Receiver of the Metropolitan Police, in respect of the new Bow Street Police Station. He should like to know whether this was a new receipt, or whether it had been received in previous years; because, if it was a customary one, it would more properly appear as a set-off against the gross sum.
§ MR. COURTNEYsaid, he did not think it would be in accordance with practice to set this receipt off as against the gross sum. The item arose from the fact that the building in Bow Street was not merely a Police Court, but also a Police Station. The Police Court was provided for out of Imperial funds, whilst the Police Station was paid for out of the Police Fund of the Metropolis. This item was a repayment from the Police Fund, on account of the cost of the new station. The Police Fund was furnished partly by a rate levied over the Metropolitan area, and partly by a contribution from Government.
§ MR. LABOUCHEREsaid, he proposed to take a division on this Vote, not on account of its specific amount, but on account of its principle. The hon. Baronet the Member for Finsbury (Sir Andrew Lusk) asked why the inhabitants of Finsbury should be called upon to pay for the Courts of Law in Birmingham? It might be as fairly asked—"Why should the inhabitants of Birmingham pay for the Courts of Law in Finsbury?" It was no use going into a discussion of any length upon the matter, as it had been frequently dealt with. No one on the Treasury Bench had pretended to give a satisfactory reason why the country generally should pay for the Police Courts in London. The Government had been frequently asked for a reason, but had never given one, although there had been an implied promise that they would look into the matter at some future time. The hands of the Government would probably be strengthened by a division.
§ MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORsaid, it seemed to him that there was a great deal of disadvantage in the method of proceeding recommended by the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere) in this matter. The hon. Member seemed to propose that all hon. Members who were not Metropolitan should oppose this Vote for the Police Courts in the Metropolis, and that all the Metropolitan Members should oppose the Votes for Liverpool and other Provincial Police Courts. If that course were adopted, and the principle were carried out still further, by all the Scotch Members voting against the grant to England and Ireland, and the Irish Members against that to Scotland and England, and the English Members against that to Scotland and Ireland, it was difficult to say what would be gained. There was a Vote for County Court Buildings in the country, and one for Sheriffs' Court Houses in Scotland. It was hardly worth while to go to a division on this Vote; and he (Mr. Arthur O'Connor) would propose to the hon. Member for Northampton that he should reserve his energy and resources for some of the Votes which they would come to later on, which were much more objectionable, and would be found much more worthy of opposition.
§ MR. LABOUCHEREsaid, the hon. Member for the Queen's County (Mr. 637 Arthur O'Connor) had referred to the County Court Buildings, and these were all paid for by the country. That, however, was not the case in regard to Police Courts. The Courts in London were the only ones which were paid for by the State, and that was why he opposed the Vote.
§ MR. WARTONsaid, he desired to make two observations upon this Vote, which was one of a general character. One observation was that, though the rents of the Police Courts were given, those of the County Courts were not. This matter had been slurred over by the Government, as he had already pointed out. The other suggestion he wished to make was in regard to Wandsworth County Court. It had been his duty, year after year, to call the attention of the Ministry to the disgraceful state of this Court.
§ MR. WARTONsaid, he had meant to say Police Court. The rental of the Court to which he referred was £50, and that appeared to him to be an exceedingly large amount for this most beggarly building which could ever be associated with the idea of a Court of Justice. This place was not a Court of Justice at all, but a very inferior house, worth nothing like £50 a-year. It was a wretched room, into which, with the greatest difficulty, some 15 or 20 persons could be stuffed at the peril of their lives. He used these words, "peril of their lives," advisedly, because people who were compelled to breathe the air of such a miserable place as this every day must soon find their vitality considerably vitiated. He had drawn the attention of the right hon. Gentleman the First Commissioner of Works to this subject year after year; but, in spite of that, nothing had been done, the excuse tendered from time to time being that before long a commodious Court would be built somewhere else—at Clapham Junction, if he was not mistaken. On behalf of the magistrates, the dismal policemen, and the wretched criminals brought up there, he appealed to the Government to do something to improve the condition of this Court. He entreated the right hon. Gentleman the First Commissioner of Works to visit the building, and ventured to say that, if he did so, he (Mr. 638 Warton) would never have to open his mouth again on the subject. It was simply disgraceful that this miserable little cottage, than which hardly a mechanic in the country lived in a worse, and in which it was hardly possible for policeman, prisoner, and prosecutor to squeeze up together, should be used for the administration of justice. It was not only disgraceful, but disgusting—he was now obliged to use strong language, having used mild language without success. Were they, he asked, to be put off from year to year with these excuses? He found the rentals of other Police Courts came to such sums as £265 and £106—he was sure they would not find one so low as that at Wandsworth. It was surprising, seeing that they now lived under a reforming Ministry, that this miserable Police Court had not yet been reformed. He was under this difficulty—that, being a private Member, he could not move to increase the Vote. If he could do so, he should move an addition of at least £60 a-year, in order to provide something like a decent Court for business to be carried on with due regard to public health and public convenience. He would not move the reduction of the Vote, as a reduction was not what he wanted. All he could do was to urge the Government, in the interests of decency and of the lives of the policemen and the public, to provide a Police Court at Wandsworth large enough to accommodate two or three prisoners, a policeman or two, and a magistrate at the same time.
§ MR. SHAW LEFEVREsaid, it was usual to send complaints on such matters to the Home Office; and he must say that no representation on the subject had been made to him from that Office. He would point out that the item for Hammersmith was only £40, and Hammersmith was a more important district.
§ MR. WARTONsaid, that last year £2,000 was spent on the Hammersmith district, and he would only ask that half as much should be spent on Wandsworth. The reply he had received was a fair sample of the official way of looking at these matters—it showed how carelessly officials treated the subject.
§ Question put.
§ The Committee divided:—Ayes 50; Noes 15: Majority 35.—(Div. List, No. 91.)
639§ (6.) £6,520, to complete the sum for the Sheriff Court Houses, Scotland.
§
(7.) Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a sum, not exceeding £42,013, 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 1884, for the Purchase of a Site, Erection of Building, and other Expenses for the New Courts of Justice and Offices belonging thereto.
§ MR. CAVENDISH BENTINCKsaid, there were several points in connection with this Vote to which he wished to draw the attention of the right hon. Gentleman the First Commissioner of Works in regard to the items in the Vote, and some of the arrangements which had been made in the interior of the Law Courts. He would, in the first place, draw the right hon. Gentleman's attention to the item of furniture. In former days, he (Mr. Cavendish Bentinck) had taken a great deal of interest in the arrangements made for the construction of a new building for the Law Courts. He had had many contests with the First Commissioner of Works on the subject, and had always ventured to point out that if it was thought fit to employ such an architect as Mr. Street, not only would the result be unsatisfactory as to cost and to the public at largo, who viewed the building from the outside, but that it would be unsatisfactory to those who had to administer justice in the interior. With regard to cost, he was sorry to say that his prophecy had been realized, inasmuch as the cost had been half as much again as the original Estimate. It was not his intention to go into the question of the tastefulness of the design of the New Courts, as the time for the discussion of that matter had long gone by. They had only now to turn their attention to that which they saw before them, and to endeavour to make the best of it. With regard to the item for furniture, he did not say it was too much; but he would ask the right hon. Gentleman how it was obtained—that was to say, whether the furniture was obtained by contract; whether it was all new; upon whose recommendation were the contracts given; who furnished the designs? Would the right hon. Gentleman give them all these, and the other particulars 640 which had not, up to the present time, been supplied? A short time ago, whilst returning to Loudon from the country, he (Mr. Cavendish Bentinck) had found himself in a railway carriage with a learned Judge, whose duty it was to administer justice in one of the New Courts. He had said to the learned gentleman—"How do you find the Court?" The reply was—"I feel very much as if I was on the top of one of the old-fashioned pulpits, and was preaching a sermon to the world below; and, as regards my own officials, the distance between us is so great, that it is with great difficulty that I can speak with them at all." That learned Judge was not the only person who had made such complaint. Complaints of this kind had been reported in the newspapers as having been made by many of the learned gentlemen who presided at the Courts. The right hon. Gentleman the First Commissioner of Works would, perhaps, explain to the Committee—and it would be to the advantage of the country generally if he would—who was responsible for the great defects in the New Courts. They all knew it was not the right hon. Gentleman who was to blame. Then, was it the deceased architect (Mr. Street), or, if not, who was it? Were the defects admitted? He had seen it stated in the public Press that the right hon. Gentleman had, with that courtesy and attention which always distinguished him, attended to some of the complaints which had been made. Some of the defects complained of he had remedied as well as he could, with the assistance of the able officers connected with his Department. There was no one more ready than he (Mr. Cavendish Bentinck) to acknowledge the ability of the officials of the Department, and especially to recognize the ability of the architect himself, who was referred to the other night, and whose opinions wore, no doubt, worthy of more attention than were those of many of the people who found fault with him. He (Mr. Cavendish Bentinck) did not wish to east blame on this gentleman or on any other official; and he felt that the right hon. Gentleman would gladly avail himself of that opportunity of making a clear statement of the precise position in which the matter stood in regard to these defects—if the right hon. Gentleman ad- 641 mitted any defects to exist. He also desired the right hon. Gentleman to give them some explanation as to the furniture of the Courts. In the course of his life he had had a great deal to do with contracts for the purchase of furniture; and it had always seemed to him that in furnishing new offices a great deal of money was thrown away by the Government in always insisting upon buying new furniture. Old, thoroughly good, second-hand furniture might be obtained by the First Commissioner of Works on his own discretion. In this way a great deal of money might be saved. [Laughter.] Hon. Members might smile at the proposal; but it did not deserve to be dismissed without full consideration. With regard to free admission to the Great Hall of the New Law Courts, they had always been accustomed—he had been, from his earliest youth—to going into Westminster Hall as a sort of regular, he would not say lounge, but place of assembly or meeting for all those connected with the law. He did not like to use the French, term; but they all knew there was a Hall in Paris—and, no doubt, the right hon. Gentleman was acquainted with it—where lawyers and their clients met and walked up and down discussing their business. Westminster Hall had been used in the same way for centuries, and admission to it had always been free. No one had been opposed; but all this had changed since the legal genius of the country had removed from Westminster to the Strand, The new Hall was practically sealed. He had read in a newspaper the other day that the Prime Minister himself, notwithstanding all his eminence, had had some difficulty in passing the Cerberus on guard at the entrance to the Hall. So it was with other persons; everyone who was not known had to give his name and business. The Hall of the Courts no longer remained a place of meeting for lawyers and their clients. Even on off-days, he was not sure that the public could get into the Hall with anything like ease. He would ask the right hon. Gentleman whether that was so; and he would also ask what were the orders as to admission to the Courts? Were the public to be always excluded? He could understand stringent regulations being laid down at first, for the Courts were like a new toy to a child. Everyone wished to go to them, merely 642 for the sake of seeing them; but, now that the new gloss had worn off, he could not see why the public should not be admitted as freely as they used to be in Westminster Hall.
§ MR. MONKsaid, that, before the right hon. Gentleman the First Commissioner of Works replied, he should like to ask him a question on another point. He did not agree with the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Whitehaven (Mr. Cavendish Bentinck) that the right hon. Gentleman the First Commissioner of Works should have put second-hand furniture in the new Law Courts, but believed the wisest course had been adopted in obtaining new furniture.
§ MR. CAVENDISH BENTINCKbegged the hon. Member's (Mr. Monk's) pardon. He had not said that the Courts should have been supplied throughout with second-hand furniture, but that the right hon. Gentleman should have exercised his discretion in buying secondhand furniture if he saw a favourable opportunity.
§ MR. MONKsaid, he quite appreciated the æsthetic taste which had prompted the suggestion; but he would not pursue the matter further. He would call the attention of the right hon. Gentleman to page 39 of the Estimates, where it would be seen that the expenditure on the New Courts—that was to say, the purchase money for the land, the direct and indirect compensation of the dispossessed owners of the property, and so forth, had been £835,000; and that, out of that, the charge for vendor's costs, legal expenditure, surveyor's charges, accountants and clerks, amounted to the enormous sum of £99,453. It was almost incredible that more than 12 per cent of the purchase money should have been spent in the legal work of acquiring the land on which the Law Courts were erected. He was afraid the right hon. Gentleman would not be able to give a satisfactory explanation of that circumstance; but the fact remained that nearly £100,000 had been paid for law expenses. He should be glad to know whether Her Majesty's Government had any reply to make on this subject.
CAPTAIN AYLMER,said, he wished to know what was the position, at the present time, of the contract made with the contractor for these buildings. Had he 643 been paid in full—was the contract finally closed?
§ MR. SHAW LEFEVREsaid, he thought his right hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Cavendish Bentinck) had been rather harsh in the judgment he had passed upon the construction of the Law Courts. The right hon. and learned Gentleman quoted some learned Judge whom he appeared to have met in a railway carriage. Well, he (Mr. Shaw Lefevre) had been in communication with a great many of the Judges on this matter; and although, at first, their criticisms were, in some respects, not altogether favourable—they having complained of draughts, of the absence of curtains, and other minor defects of that kind—he was bound to say that now, after they had had some experience of the Courts, their judgment was almost uniformly favourable. Some of the Judges had even gone out of their way to express to him a favourable opinion, and had said that they did not know any Courts in the country—including those of Manchester—which were supposed to be the best and most complete—which, on the whole, were so suitable for their purpose. As to the criticisms of the Bar, he could not say that they were quite so favourable. They complained of many little defects. They said their desks were not wide enough, that their papers slipped off, and he had had to authorize various improvements from time to time. He hoped that further complaints which might be made would not be serious. On the whole, from what he could gather from the Bench, the Bar, and the public, there could be no doubt that the Courts were suitable for the purpose for which they were designed, and the general verdict had been a favourable one; and he could only say that, so far as his Department was concerned, they were only too glad to make those alterations which were possible, and which would add to the comfort of the Bench and the Bar. When the alterations which were being made and were in contemplation had boon completed, there would be no serious cause for complaint, and the Courts would be found to answer the purpose for which they were constructed, and compare favourably with any other Courts in the country. As to furniture, he agreed with the hon. Member for Gloucester (Mr. Monk), that it would not have been desirable to purchase it 644 second-hand for a building of this description. The furniture in the rooms occupied by the Judges, and in all the principal rooms, had been designed by Mr. Street, the architect, and had been made by several cabinet-makers of the Metropolis. The furniture of the Old Courts had been removed into the offices of the New Courts. It had been necessary to add to it, and there had been a great deal of new furniture bought. The hon. Member for Gloucester had also asked a question about the legal expenses of the purchase of the property. These expenses had been incurred many years ago, before he had had any control over the cost of the Courts; but, so far as he could make out, they had been occasioned by the purchase of the land and of the houses which were demolished to make way for the Courts. The land and houses were acquired compulsorily; and when such a course was adopted, and the properties taken were large in number, the legal expenses were always very heavy. He was not surprised, looking at the extent of the property purchased, the large number of the interests involved, and the various inquiries which had to be made, that the legal expenses were considerable. The interests involved, indeed, had been so diverse, that it had been extremely difficult to purchase them all up. The hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Maidstone (Captain Aylmer) had asked what was the present position of the contract. The question was one which it was rather difficult to answer. The contractor was not satisfied with the payments made, and had commenced legal proceedings against the Government. He (Mr. Shaw Lefevre) had not, however, yet learnt what was the actual claim made. When the contractor recently got into commercial difficulties, he (Mr. Shaw Lefevre) had seen that, at a meeting of his creditors, most exaggerated statements were made as to the probable claim; but, as yet, no definite demand had been made by the contractor or his assignees. They had commenced legal proceedings in respect of an item of £10,000, which, under the contract, was to have been paid on completion of the work; but the contention of the Government was that full payment had been made whilst the work had been going on, and that they were now under no legal liability whatever. 645 However, that was a legal question, which he did not think the House would expect him to enter into more minutely. All he could say was that, beyond this special demand to which he referred, they had no information of any definite claim of the exaggerated nature described in some of the newspapers. As to free admission into the Hall, on completion of the building it was handed over to the Lord Chancellor,; and, as it was believed that a large number of persons would want to visit it, it was thought desirable to put the admission under some sort of regulation. Whether the regulations which had been laid down, however, would continue for the future, he could not say; but he thought it probable that when the novelty of the tiling had worn off, and the discipline was more perfect, the regulations would be altered. The public were admitted to the Courts themselves by a separate entrance, and not through the Hall; therefore, there was not the same obvious reason for admitting the public into the new Hall which there had been in the case of Westminster Hall.
§ SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFFsaid, he wished to ask some question about the legal expenses, which appeared to him to be of a most exaggerated character. In the first place, there was the item, "Vendor's costs, £39,000." That amount, he supposed, represented legal expenses. The Government's own legal expenses were £29,000, the two sums making £68,000. Parliamentary expenses—that was to say, expenses of Parliamentary agents and of the Royal Commission—were £17,000. These, again, were legal expenses. Altogether, the legal expenses, with the surveyor's charges—which, he supposed, ought to be grouped with legal items—came to £94,000—a very large percentage upon an expenditure of, say, £2,000,000. Some explanation should be given on this subject. He could understand the vendor's costs coming to a large amount, irrespective of the costs of the Government; but when they came to the expenses of the purchasers, and when it was remembered what a large staff they had at the Treasury, it seemed to him that the charge which was made was beyond all reason, and ought to be closely looked into. He saw an item of £25,000 put down as the architect's commission. Did he get 5 per cent com- 646 mission? [Mr. SHAW LEFEVRE: Yes.] How much more was he to get? He had got £25,000 already, and something out of Vote "B" this year which was not specified; and, as far as he (Sir H. Drummond Wolff) could gather, he was entitled to £47,000, which would be the ordinary sum given to an architect, and they might have no right to complain about it. He did, however, think they had a right to complain of this enormous sum for the legal expenses of the Government, seeing that the Government had permanent officials, who were bound to carry on the work of the Government at a much lower rate than this. The legal items appeared to have swelled up enormously.
§ MR. SHAW LEFEVREpointed out that the legal expenses in question had been incurred 12 years ago, so that it was too late now to take exception to them. No doubt they had been commented upon year after year; but if any serious fault was to be found it should have been found years ago with the Government of the day.
§ MR. GREGORYsaid, he could give some explanation of the items for legal expenses. These arrangements—which were carried out years ago—were of a very complicated nature, the titles to the property being various, and every tenement having its owner, its occupier, and its lessee. Titles had to be investigated; claims for compensation for disturbance had to be gone into. A learned friend of his, and a large staff of clerks, were occupied for two years in going through the titles. The vendors' costs had to be paid by the purchaser, which accounted for the item of £29,000 referred to. [Mr. SHAW LEFEVRE: The vendors' costs were £39,000.] Well, £39,000. That amount had to be paid. All these expenses were necessary. Of course, they could be taxed, and he believed they had been taxed by his late friend, Mr. Field, who was not a man to admit extravagant claims against his clients. The claims for compensation were very numerous, and a large staff of clerks were engaged in investigating them. To make room for the Courts, a mass of small properties had to be acquired, and anyone who recollected these properties would not be surprised at the items for legal expenses. He himself had a very lively recollection of the properties, and their owners and occupiers, and of the 647 immense number of assignments, leases, mortgages, and so on, which had to be considered. He could very easily understand that a largo sum was required for investigating the titles and acquiring the properties. The transactions in respect of which these items were submitted took place years ago, and had been sanctioned by the House over and over again, although he had no doubt they could be well defended independently of any considerations of that kind. To his mind, the Government had got good value for the money they had expended. With regard to the furniture, he could not agree with the right hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Cavendish Bentinck) that there had boon undue expenditure in that respect. All the old furniture which it was possible to take to the new building had been used. There was only one point to which he would venture to call the attention of the right hon. Gentleman the First Commissioner of Works, and that was the provision for accommodation in the Courts. The accommodation was not sufficient. The jury boxes, in particular, ought to have been more commodious, and better adapted to the proper performance of the duties of the jury. Juries had to be in attendance day after day, and while engaged in trying a case had to have all their faculties alive. They had to take notes of the evidence and observations of the conduct of a case; and, above all things, it was necessary that they should have a comfortable place in which to perform the duties they were called upon to discharge. In the jury boxes of the new, as well as of the old, Courts they found 12 men, in a narrow compass, sitting as close together as it was possible to sit, and with no means of writing or taking notes. He had hoped that when the New Courts were constructed, some better accommodation would have been provided for the juries than was given in the Old Courts. He could not help thinking that if the right hon. Gentleman gave a little consideration to the matter, he would find it possible, without much trouble, to greatly facilitate the administration of the duties of the juries—to give them that which was really their due in the performance of those duties which had to be gratuitously undertaken, and which, generally speaking, were so well performed.
§ MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORsaid, it appeared to him they had hardly had a sufficient explanation of the item "C," which was £15,000 for furniture. If hon. Gentlemen would turn to page 26, under Vote "8" for furniture of Public Offices of Great Britain, they would find a note to the effect that the Estimate "provided for the furniture of the Public Offices and the Courts of Law in London and Edinburgh, with some exceptions, as stated below." Amongst the exceptions "stated below" he did not find the New Law Courts and Offices; and it struck him as strange that after the Government had made a demand under Vote 8 for the cost of the furniture of the Offices and Courts, they should in this Vote make a separate demand for £15,000. When the question had been before the House on a previous occasion, he had endeavoured to elicit a certain amount of information from successive occupants of the Treasury Bench, either as officers of the Board of Works, or of the Treasury; but had never succeeded in obtaining anything of a satisfactory nature from them. He would move to reduce the Vote by £15,000, as a protest against the system under which this furniture service was conducted, and in order to enable the right hon. Gentleman to give them some information on the subject. He should like to know whether any furniture was made by the Board of Works; and, if it was, where it was stored? Had the Board of Works any store of furniture at all; if the furniture was not made by the Board of Works, how was it procured? Was it bought ready made, or was it made to order? They know very well that some of the furniture of the House of Commons, particularly the small lockers, had been made to order at a most extravagant price. It was absolutely impossible to conceive how anyone could conscientiously have determined to spend so much on these lockers. It seemed to him very probable that the person who made the lockers for such an enormous sum had supplied some of the furniture to the New Law Courts. There was a great similarity of character in the furniture and the lockers. If the furniture had been bought ready made, from whom had it been procured; and, if it was made to order, who were the favoured individuals who, year after year, got the orders? Was the furniture made by 649 contract; and, if so, were tenders invited by advertisement? If tenders were invited by advertisement, where could the advertisements be seen? He had inquired for advertisements inviting contracts published by the Government, but had never been able to find a single one; and he had more than once heard that there was a great deal of jobbery in connection with this matter. It was impossible for hon. Members to ascertain how much was spent on furniture. Furniture was charged for in driblets, under 20 or 30 Votes, besides Vote 8. The right hon. Gentleman said this Vote was to cover the whole charge for furniture for the Courts of Justice in London; but there seemed to be a separate charge of £15,000 under the Vote they were discussing. He could not say how many Votes there were which ought to be covered by Vote 8, but were not. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman would give them some information on the point. He (Mr. Arthur O'Connor) had said enough to show that there was something ridiculous in the way the furniture system, was administered at the present time. He begged to move the reduction of the Vote by the sum of £15,000.
§
Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a sum, not exceeding £27,013, 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 1884, for the purchase of a Site, Erection of Building, and other expenses for the New Courts of Justice and Offices belonging thereto."—(Mr. Arthur O'Connor.)
§ MR. SHAW LEFEVREsaid, it appeared to him that many of the observations to which the Committee had listened on this subject would have been more properly made on Vote 8, which was passed when the hon. Member who had just spoken (Mr. Arthur O'Connor) was not in the House. The present Vote simply had reference to the New Law Courts, and did not raise the question of the furniture. He had already stated that the furniture for the Law Courts was not bought ready made, but was designed by the late Mr. Street, the architect, and that for its supply tenders were asked for and received from the principal furniture makers in the Metropolis. It had not been thought desirable to invite all the world to tender. The ordinary rule was followed, which was to ask the leading members of the trade 650 to tender. A great deal of furniture was repaired in premises attached to that House.
§ MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORasked whether the Government manufactured furniture for themselves anywhere else?
§ MR. SHAW LEFEVREreplied, that furniture was also made in premises be-longing to the Board of Works. All he had to say, in reply to the observations of the hon. Member on this subject was, that it was necessary to supply furniture for this enormous building. The sum of £6,000 was spent in December, £8,000 between January and March, and a further expenditure had become necessary. This money had been spent on furniture absolutely supplied. He could only say that any hon. Member who went round the Courts and examined the furniture in the Judges' Booms, and in the other rooms of this great building, would go away thoroughly satisfied that the sum which had been spent was a reasonable one.
§ GENERAL SIR GEORGE BALFOURsaid, he was of opinion that all the sums required for the furniture of Public Offices should appear under one Vote— Vote 8—instead of being scattered over many Votes, or else that the whole charges for each Department for furniture and buildings should be arranged under the special Vote for the Departments concerned.
§ MR. SHAW LEFEVREsaid, he ought to have stated that the new furniture supplied to the Law Courts was paid for under the present Vote. Next year there would be no occasion for repeating it, for when the building was complete the cost of maintaining and repairing old furniture and supplying now furniture would come under Vote 8.
§ SIR ANDREW LUSKsaid, he wished to know how they stood with the contractor—that was to say, he desired to have a little more information on the point than had been given by the right hon. Gentleman the First Commissioner of Public Works. He had read in the newspapers—and they generally had some reason for what they stated— that the contractor was going to make a large claim. He was claiming £10,000, which was a very small sum in regard to such an enormous building. If the claim were for £100,000 or £200,000 it would be a different thing. Who was working on the building now—the old 651 contractor or a new one? The Government, of course, had plenty of money to pay, although, naturally, they did not wish to pay unless they were morally and legally bound to do so.
CAPTAIN AYLMERsaid, he was glad the hon. Baronet opposite (Sir Andrew Lusk) had introduced the question of contracts. He (Captain Aylmer) wished to refer to a subject which he believed was the cause of considerable difficulty to hon. Members, and certainly to himself—that was to say, the extraordinary manner in which the charges for similar items were spread over a number of Estimates. In Vote 8, which had been passed, there was a charge for the supply of furniture to the Courts of Law; and here again, under the present Vote, there was another charge for the supply of new furniture to the main building. To his (Captain Aylmer's) mind, there was no distinction whatever between the "supply of furniture" and the "supply of new furniture," as it was expressed in the Estimates, unless the former was intended to refer to secondhand furniture. The right hon. Gentleman the First Commissioner of Works had explained that the maintenance of furniture would always appear under Vote 8. Now, he wished to know whether in the £30,000, the total sum asked for, was included the supply of furniture for the New Law Courts? It ought to be stated why there was a difference between the original Estimate column and the revised Estimate.
§ MR. SHAW LEFEVREsaid, Vote 8 related to the supply of furniture to the Courts of Law in every part of the country, the whole of it being included under that Vote. With regard to the furniture for the New Law Courts, that was treated as a special item, and was included in one Vote as "New Furniture." It was quite impossible that the supply of new furniture to such an enormous building as the New Law Courts could be included in the sum of £30,000 to which the hon. Member referred. He would repeat to the Committee what he had already stated upon the subject of the contracts. All he knew was that the contractor, at a meeting of his creditors, had made a statement of an exaggerated kind with regard to his claim upon the Government. It was only within the last two days that he learned that his demand 652 amounted to £10,000. He was, however, advised that the Government had already paid the contractor the full value of the work done. He was bound to say that the late Mr. Street, one of the most careful men of business he had ever been in contact with, and who had made an estimate of the first cost of the building, which proved to be most correct, shortly before his death stated that the contractors were rather overpaid than underpaid. He (Mr. Shaw Lefovre) had the greatest confidence in the opinion of Mr. Street, and had never seen any reason for altering that view. The main contract was completed; but he should point out that there were certain subsidiary contracts for fittings and other matters, which remained to be fulfilled. Some of those were being carried out by the assignees of the contractor, who would be paid for the work out of the sum now asked for. The view of the Government was that the main contractor had been fully paid, and that he had no further claim. That, however, was a legal question, and it might turn out that the contractor was entitled to something.
§ MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORsaid, he was somewhat disappointed at not having succeeded in eliciting from the right hon. Gentleman the First Commissioner of Works the information for which he had asked. The right hon. Gentleman had said, very truly, that the proper Vote upon which to raise the general question with regard to furniture was Vote 8; but, seeing that the furniture item for the Law Courts ought to have been included in Vote 8, but was not, it seemed to him that all the reasons which would have been pertinent upon that Vote were pertinent upon this. At any rate, this Vote was one which had gone on for several years, and even now it did not cover the total sum that would be asked for. Therefore, it would be continued next year. If it did exhaust the total amount, it was well that he should make such remarks as he wished to make upon it now, instead of deferring them till next year, when they might be too late. He would, therefore, repeat the question he had already put, as to furniture not having been supplied to the Law Courts. Where was the stock of furniture which was under the control of the Board of Works? If there was no such store, what became of the 653 enormous quantities of furniture which year after year became unfit for further use? What would become of the refuse furniture from the Old Law Courts? Where would it be stored, and into whose hands would it fall? Did the right hon. Gentleman not know perfectly well that there was a great deal of public money spent over furniture, year after year, which ought not to be spent; and that there was a great deal of public money wasted—that tradesmen had, year after year, got power to supply furniture to Public Offices, and then charged monstrously high sums for what could have been got in the open market very much cheaper? There was a monstrous waste of public money, and no adequate check was exercised. Unless he got a more satisfactory answer he must persist in his Motion.
§ MR. SHAW LEFEVREsaid, he must decline to be drawn into a general discussion on furniture. The Committee had, a short time ago, had this question before it; but the hon. Member was not present, and he was now attempting to raise the whole question of the general furnishing Department of the Government. Into that he must decline to follow the hon. Member, the only question before the Committee being the furniture for the Law Courts; and he had explained, over and over again, that that had been supplied by contract from designs by Mr. Street.
§ MR. CAVENDISH BENTINCKsaid, the explanation given by the right hon. Gentleman was a reason why he should vote for the reduction of the Estimate, although he thought the reduction proposed was rather too large. By the admission of the right hon. Gentleman the Department had made a great mistake. They had made a mistake—first, by allowing Mr. Street to have anything to do with the furniture. He was not an upholsterer; but he was well known to have peculiar ideas on Art, and he had endeavoured to carry out those ideas in furnishing this new building. The notion that an architect was to furnish the building which he himself had erected and designed according to his own view was entirely opposed to all the ideas of the olden masters, however much it might be in harmony with modern ideas. No case was known of in which the old masters in architecture furnished the buildings they 654 erected. Sir Charles Barry had erected and furnished the Houses of Parliament; but he (Mr. Cavendish Bentinck) should say the furniture was decidedly uncomfortable. It was enormously expensive; but it was not more sightly or comfortable than much less expensive furniture would have been. Another point was that when an architect was allowed to design the furniture he had to receive commission upon it; and the right hon. Gentleman would not say that Mr. Street had not received commission upon the designs for furniture. Much more comfortable and better furniture might have been bought, and by that he did not mean that the furniture should not be ornamental. Then he wished to know whether chimney pieces were included in this Vote, because they were formidable items? During the construction of the Law Courts, he had ventured to point out that there were a number of fine chimney pieces, 250 years old, coming into the market, which could be bought cheap; and he had suggested to the right hon. Gentleman's Predecessor that they would be a very desirable purchase, as they were in every way suited to these Courts. The then First Commissioner said he would inquire into the matter; but, of course, if he spoke to Mr. Street, that gentleman would naturally throw cold water upon the suggestion. He would naturally object to putting old things into a new building, for the simple reason that he would not receive any commission. By keeping a constant look out, the First Commissioner might save a great deal of money; and there was surely nothing so extravagant as giving commission to an architect to design any furniture he pleased, and then have it made by somebody else. It was because he thought that system was entirely erroneous that, although he thought the reduction was too large, he should vote for it as a protest.
§ MR. ARTHUR ARNOLDsaid, he should like to state, in reference to the remarks just made, that in the Law Courts at Manchester, the largest legal building in the country, next to these New Law Courts, the furniture was designed by the architect, Mr. Water-house, and the furnishing was carried out by him in the same manner as that here proposed. He regretted that the general question of furniture could not 655 be now raised, for here was a proposal to take nearly £50,000; and he was sure that if that question could be gone into it would be found that the right hon. Gentleman the First Commissioner of Works might reasonably be asked to effect considerable economy. But, as they were now on the furniture for the New Law Courts, and those Courts must, of course, have furniture, he hoped the hon. Member opposite (Mr. Arthur O'Connor) would not press his Amendment.
§ MR. WARTONsaid, he greatly regretted to see that the Government seemed to treat the Committee in a seesaw manner, for when one hon. Member asked for a general explanation no answer was given him; and then, when furniture came up again in another Vote, hon. Members were told they were too late. They were always either too soon or too late; and the moral to be drawn was that they must not pass Votes hastily. He was certain, however, that he was not too late to raise the question of the architect's commission. They wore told that the architect was paid 5 per cent; but there were still £22,000 or £23,000 more to be paid him, and why had that not been cleared off? They hoped to come to an end of these Law Court expenses some day, and there ought to have been some estimate for the architect's commission. Why was there no Estimate this year? When was the commission to be paid off? With regard to the furniture, it seemed to him to be dangerous to trust an architect, who had peculiar ideas with respect to furniture, with the designing of furniture in such a case as this. It would have been far better to have some of the good old sound sort of furniture, which would have been a good deal more useful than any that would now be supplied. He should have liked some opportunity of protesting against this system; and he hoped that next year there would be a far more exhaustive discussion on this point.
§ MR. SHAW LEFEVREsaid, the architect in this case was paid 5 per cent up to £35,000 on a total estimate of £700,000; but it was arranged that he should not receive more than that amount in any case. Mr. Street had been paid already £25,000, and about £10,000 remained to be paid. He had received one-third of the amount when 656 one-third of the buildings was complete, and that accounted for the small amount paid; but the total would not exceed £35,000, and that included the commission on the furniture and everything else.
§ MR. J. LOWTHERsaid, he was always reluctant to differ with his right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Whitehaven (Mr. Cavendish Bentinck); but, without laying claim to being an export in these matters, he must say that he was very much disposed to agree with the policy of allowing the responsible architect, in cases of this kind, to undertake the furnishing. The question of commission might, perhaps, fairly be a subject for comment; but commission was obtained by someone, whether it took the nominal form of commission, or of profit to the upholsterer. He thought the Government would greatly facilitate Business if they would afford full information at the earliest possible moment. The hon. Gentleman behind him (Sir H. Drummond Wolff) had endeavoured to elicit some information with regard to this Vote; but the Government had omitted to supply information which was very properly demanded, and what was the result? The same questions had been repeated; and, no doubt, during the present Session, frequent occasion would arise for the same questions being again asked. The right hon. Gentleman said the hon. Member for Queen's County (Mr. Arthur O'Connor) was out of Order in asking for information involving the whole question of furniture on the Vote now under discussion; but he (Mr. J. Lowther) misunderstood the hon. Member to distinctly limit his remarks to this particular Vote—simply to the arrangements made for the renewal of furniture, and for storage of the old furniture. It seemed to him that the Government could have disposed of that matter in a couple of sentences. According to his experience of public buildings, when any article of furniture became unfit for use therein, it was high time that it was finally disposed of. He thought the Government would expedite Business if they gave full information at the earliest possible moment, and would answer the questions put to them, and so clear up points of difference, instead of leaving them to be repeated over and over again.
§ MR. FIRTHsaid, he could not support the Amendment, because the question of storage had not yet arisen.
§ MR. LABOUCHEREsaid, it seemed to him that it was admitted that this furniture had cost a good deal too much; but then, he imagined, from what he had seen in that House, that furniture almost always did cost too much. He would suggest to the hon. Member opposite (Mr. Arthur O'Connor) to reduce his Amendment to £5,000. Even £10,000 would be too large an amount; but the hon. Member went too far when he proposed to strike out the whole amount. Even a prisoner had a chair and table in his cell; and, of course, there must be some furniture for the Law Courts. The question was not whether the Courts should have been furnished, but whether the amount was more than it should have been. He had no doubt it was in excess, and the Government knew that the furniture might have been bought by a private individual for very much less. What he wanted to bring to their minds was that, as public officials, they must practise the economy they would practise in their own houses. He did not object to paying for furniture; but he did object to paying too much for it. There was one other item to which he wished to call attention, and that was the commission, amounting to £35,000, for the architect. They were about to have some further large buildings erected; and, therefore, it was desirable that they should come to an understanding that the architect was not to have a commission of 5 per cent upon the amount spent. In the case of private buildings, when an architect received 5 per cent he was required to find his own clerks of works; but, in this instance, clerks of works were provided for the architect by the State, The architect, therefore, received 5 per cent clear. Moreover, in the case of an erection of a large private building, the person building it invariably made a bargain with the architect for some lump sum. Five per cent was very seldom given, and then only in the case of small buildings. His right hon. Friend the First Commissioner of Works (Mr. Shaw Lefevre) knew quite well that if he himself were building a house which was estimated to cost £1,000,000 sterling, he would not give to an architect anything like 658 5 per cent commission. He (Mr. Labouchere) hoped his hon. Friend (Mr. Arthur O'Connor) would assent to his suggestion, and, instead of proposing so large a reduction as £15,000, would propose a reduction only of £5,000.
§ MR. SHAW LEFEVREsaid, the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere) had not been in the House during the whole of the discussion, and, therefore, had not heard what he (Mr. Shaw Lefevre) had said during the earlier part of the evening. It was necessary, therefore, that he should repeat that, in the case of furnishing the New Law Courts, tenders] were invited from all the leading members of the trade, and what was considered the most satisfactory tender was accepted. With regard to the architect's commission, the hon. Member further appeared not to have heard what he had said, which was that a limitation was put upon the amount of the commission. The architect did not receive 5 per cent upon the total amount—his commission was 5 per cent up to the sum of £85,000. Had he received 5 per cent upon the whole amount, his commission would have amounted to something like £42,000 or £43,000.
§ SIR. H. DRUMMOND WOLFFsaid, that, under Sub-head C, page 38, there appeared for the supply of new furniture for new buildings the sum of £30,000, of which £15,000 was voted last year. On page 39 there was another item for fittings and furniture of £15,093. Might he inquire whether the latter sum was in addition to the £30,000, or was it included in that item?
§ MR. SHAW LEFEVRE,in reply, said, the sum mentioned on page 39 was part of the sum voted in the past year.
§ SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFFdoubted the accuracy of the figures, and thought that the amount ought to be £45,000 instead of £30,000.
§ MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORthought there was a good deal of force in what the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere) had said; and, therefore, he would ask leave to withdraw his Motion to reduce the Vote by £15;000. He, however, considered that £15,000 was too much to pay for furniture; and, therefore, he should propose to reduce the sum by £1,500.
§ Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
659§ Original Question again proposed.
§
Motion made, and Question put,
That a sum, not exceeding £40,513, 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 1884, for the Purchase of a Site, Erection of Building, and other Expenses for the Now Courts of Justice and Offices belonging thereto."—(Mr. Arthur O'Connor.)
§ The Committee divided:—Ayes 30; Noes 79: Majority 49.—(Div. List, No. 95.)
§ Original Question put, and agreed to.
§ (8.) £192,500, to complete the sum for Surveys of the United Kingdom.
§ MR. WARTON,rising to Order, said, this was a Vote which related to Ireland as well as to England; and he believed it was generally understood by the Committee that Irish matters would not be taken that night, in consequence of the absence of Irish Members.
THE CHAIRMANThe hon. and learned Member for Bridport raises a question of Order. It appears to me no question of Order is involved at all.
§ GENERAL SIR GEORGE BALFOURsaid, he felt bound to raise his annual objection to the Vote, which provided for a portion of pay and allowance of the military officers and men employed on the Survey being borne by the Army Estimates. So long as the Survey was carried on under the War Office, and the whole expense borne by the Army Votes, this mode of showing the pay of officers and men was unobjectionable; but, now that the Survey was under the Chief Commissioner of Works, it was only just that the Army should be freed from this financial demand. There were 500 men of the Army employed in the surveying of the United Kingdom; and he objected to any charge in regard to Surveys being placed on the Army.
CAPTAIN AYLMERsaid, that, having pressed on the Government last year the necessity of hurrying on the Survey of Great Britain, he was glad to observe there was an increase in the Estimates. He thought the Committee would be glad to hear what advance had been made in the Survey; they would be pleased, he was sure, to be told that more had been done during the past year than in the previous year. There was one point particularly to which he was anxious to call attention, and it was a very important matter indeed to the 660 Service. The amount of money voted for extra pay and allowance for noncommissioned officers and sappers had remained the same—that was, £17,500; but the amount for the pay, &c, of civil assistants, meresmen, and labourers had been increased from £167,307 to £190,637—anincreaseof £23,330. There were 323 sappers employed, and during the year their number had not been increased, though they did not cost per head more, or even as much as the civil labourers, in regard to whom the Vote had been increased by £23,330. He desired to know why the Government had not employed more sappers in the Survey? They, no doubt, would be told that the war in Egypt had taken a good many sappers away; but he believed that nothing so much promoted recruiting or respect for the Army as the way the sappers had behaved in the surveying of land all over the country. The civil assistants had been increased in number from 2,600 to 2,920. In his opinion, it would have been a very wise step had the greater part of the increase consisted of sappers.
§ SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFFsaid, he wished to revert to the point of Order raised by the hon. and learned Member for Bridport (Mr. Warton). It was distinctly understood, on the assurance of the Prime Minister, that no question would be taken that day which referred to Ireland. Now, this Vote was quite as much an Irish one as an English one. There was an increase in the Vote, and that increase was undoubtedly caused by the proceedings before the Land Judges in Ireland; and he would merely put it to the Government whether, considering the strict pledge given by the Prime Minister that no Irish question would be taken until next Monday, they were still inclined to proceed with this Vote that night?
§ MR. COURTNEYsaid, the promise made was that no purely Irish Vote would be taken that night, and that promise would be observed. This Vote was not an Irish Vote, although, certainty, it had some reference to Ireland. If any Irish Member were to get up and object to the Vote being taken, there would be no objection whatever to its postponement.
§ MR. J. LOWTHERsaid, he fully agreed that this Vote hardly came under the category of an Irish Vote; but he would 661 observe it contained an item referring to a matter of an extremely controversial character in connection with Irish affairs —namely, an item for maps used by a tribunal which certainly did not stand very high in the estimation of a large number of hon. Gentlemen in the House, nor, he believed, in the estimation of a large majority of the people of the country. He referred to the Land Court. The Government were running considerable risk of unfavourable comments being made upon the unsatisfactory character of that tribunal, though he (Mr. J. Lowther) did not intend to go into that matter. What, however, he wished to ask was, whether the Government could afford them any reliable information as to the progress which had been made in the Survey? The Survey had now extended over a very long period of time; and he must own to having some doubt as to whether any practical progress had been made. He had himself seen small bodies of men—no doubt very industrious persons—engaged in endeavouring to carry out these Surveys. A great portion of the Survey of the United Kingdom was still incomplete; and he was sure the Committee would like to learn exactly what progress had been made, in what counties the Survey was complete, in how many it was in progress, and in how many counties a practical commencement had been made. Perhaps, if an answer could be made to these questions, the discussion would be very much shortened.
§ MR. SHAW LEFEVRE,in reply, said, the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. J. Lowther) could not have taken the trouble to read the Report very recently laid before the House by Colonel Cooke, who was at the head of the Survey Department. In that Report there was a detailed statement of the progress made in consequence of the acceleration in the Survey in the last two years. During the last two years there had been surveyed 2,174,000 acres, as compared with 1,070,000 acres in the two previous years. That was a very great acceleration of work, and he (Mr. Shaw Lefevre) considered it fully accounted for the increase of the Vote. The fact was, the Vote was increased in consequence of a general desire expressed by the House two years ago. He believed that the Survey would, under the altered circumstances, be com- 662 pleted by 1890, 10 years sooner than was originally contemplated. That would be a satisfactory return for the large increase of money which had been voted in the last few years. He could not give much information regarding the employment of sappers; but lie thought the hon. and gallant Gentleman (Captain Aylmer) would discover that the War Office could not, during the past year, spare a larger number of sappers for surveying than had been employed. He thought there had been some difficulty in obtaining sappers; but he would inquire further into the matter and acquaint the hon. and gallant Gentleman with the result. As to the work of Survey in the particular counties, the right hon. Gentleman opposite would find a full and detailed account in the Report of the Survey Department, which was laid last year on the Table of the House. That Report showed when the work would be commenced and completed in each county. He was sorry to say that the county which the right hon. Gentleman himself represented was one of the last on the list—that was to say, the completion of the Survey for Lincolnshire would be somewhat late. He believed that, on the whole, it was wise to leave the determination of such matters to the head of the Department. The work had been regulated entirely with reference to the public interest, every regard being had to economy as well as to the efficiency of the work. He could not let this Vote pass without expressing his regret that Colonel Cooke had ceased to be head of the Survey Department, and to say how much the Public Service had benefited by that gentleman's labours. He had effected great reforms in the Department itself, which had led to a great saving of the money of the country.
§ MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORsaid, that unlike the hon. Members to whom the right hon. Gentleman the First Commissioner of Works had just replied, he had taken the trouble to read the Report of the Ordnance Survey Department; and on page 10 he found that for the uncultivated districts of Wales, Scotland, and Dartmouth, the larger scale on which the maps were drawn was six inches per mile, and for the rest of Great Britain the scale was 25 inches. The latter scale was one which was exceedingly useful. Unfortunately for Ireland, 663 he observed that the large scale they had was C inches per mile. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman the First Commissioner of Works would inform Irish Members how large the scale would be for Ireland? There were other questions with regard to the price of the maps, which might be taken up; but he would not go into such details at the present time. With regard to the Land Courts, he asked last year what the Government intended to do, in order to secure the repayment by the Land Court of the expenses which they throw on the surveying parties; and he was told—he believed by the Financial Secretary to the Treasury—that though there had been reason to complain of arrears of payment, the amount of arrears was very considerably reduced. Now, since that time, he found that the arrears had arisen from £10,700 on the 31st of March, 1881, to £11,300 on the 31st of March, 1882. That was to say that, at the very time the hon. Gentleman stated the amount of arrears was considerably reduced, the reverse was the fact. He would ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he could inform the Committee how the accounts stood between the Landed Estates Court and the Treasury?
§ MR. COURTNEY,in reply, was understood to say that he could give no satisfactory answer to the question of the hon. Member. In spite of the utmost pressure they had been unable to obtain payment from the solicitors to whom the maps were supplied; and he should be very glad if any hon. Member could tell them how they could obtain payment.
§ MR. BIGGARthought that the maps, so far as Ireland was concerned, should be on as large a scale as possible. Many of the properties were very small; and, seeing that now a large number of the tenants held their farms for 15 years certain, it was desirable that there should be no controversy as to the extent and boundaries of the different holdings. If the maps were on a small scale the result must be that the boundaries could not be clearly denned, and a large amount of litigation and difficulty would arise. A map on a small scale might do very well for a year or two, when the parties to an arrangement who knew the facts of the case were still alive; but at the end of 15 or 30 years, as the case might be, the fact of having no map on 664 a large scale might lead to a great deal of inconvenience and controversy. One peculiarity of the Irish Landed Estates Court was this—it held that the last title was the best; so that if a mistake was made in the transfer, and notice was not given of it by one party to the other, there was no opportunity subsequently of rectifying it. There were some cases in which it had been clearly shown that land had been conveyed to people who had no right to it.
§ MR. MOLLOYsaid, the answer of the hon. Gentleman the Financial Secretary to the Treasury was most extraordinary Last year the hon. Member stated that the arrears were actually being collected; but to-night he informed the Committee that, so far from that being the case, the information he then gave—and which it was to be presumed he obtained from the officials of his Department—was incorrect. At the moment the hon. Member made his statement last year the amount was being increased by £1,000; and the hon. Gentleman now stated that they had made every endeavour to obtain the arrears, but without success, and that he would be glad if any hon. Member would tell him how to get the money. Surely, it was a most extraordinary thing for a Financial Secretary to ask the House to help him to recover debts of this kind, not from poor persons, not from tenantry in a starving condition, but from gentlemen who belonged to what was generally believed to be a lucrative Profession— namely lawyers. Surely it was most extraordinary for him to be obliged to say that he had given these gentlemen credit to the extent of £11,000, and was unable to collect a farthing of money. He (Mr. Molloy) did not wish to say anything discourteous about the hon. Member's Office; but it was obvious that there must be something rotten in his state of Denmark. Did the Financial Secretary mean to abandon this claim altogether? If so, and the attorneys of Ireland were to be allowed to take £11,000 of Government money without objection, the precedent was one which would be followed to a very large extent. The attorneys should be compelled to repay to the Government the money they had received in the shape of maps. He (Mr. Molloy) would put this to the Financial Secretary distinctly—was it the fact that he abandoned his claim to the £11,000, and his 665 Office was in such a state that he was obliged to appeal to the Committee for advice as to how he could collect the money?
§ MR. COURTNEYwas understood to say that the hon. Member opposite (Mr. Molloy) had added a good deal to his statement. He did not remember having made the observations attributed to him last year, at which time he was new in his present Office, and could have known very little about the matter. He had been in communication with the authorities in Ireland on the subject of recovering the money; but he was bound to admit he did not see any prospect of obtaining payment. The matter had been on foot for some years, the debts having arisen through the supply of maps to litigants, on the order of the Judges, to facilitate the decision of cases in the Land Court. The maps were to be paid for by the parties interested; but the lawyers had been unable to obtain the money from their clients, and said, when applied to to discharge the obligation—"It is hard to expect us to pay, when we cannot get the money from our clients." He admitted the force of the observations of the hon. Member opposite as to the policy of recovering the money; but it must always be borne in mind that, in many cases in which maps had been supplied, there had been no sale, and that, therefore, there was no one to pay the cost.
§ MR. J. LOWTHERconsidered this a most extraordinary statement. The hon. Gentleman (Mr. Courtney) told them that an order had been given by a so-called judicial tribunal for maps to be supplied to litigants before these Courts.
§ MR. COURTNEYsaid, he had not referred to political litigants. He knew what the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. J. Lowther) had in his mind; but these maps were not supplied to litigants in the Land Court constituted a few years ago, but to litigants in the Landed Estates Court.
§ MR. J. LOWTHERsaid, the hon. Gentleman had said "the Land Court;" and it was, therefore, to be presumed that he referred to the political Court constituted a short time ago, as, if he had used the term Landed Estates Court, everybody would have at once known what tribunal he alluded to. The Committee, then, were given to understand that the Landed Estates Court 666 ordered the maps, without holding one any prospect that they would be paid for. Surely that was a most extraordinary method of procedure; and he hoped that in the future no similar order would be allowed to issue from the Land Court, or, at any rate, that the public Treasury would not allow any maps to be distributed in that way. He (Mr. J. Lowther) cordially re-echoed what had fallen from the right hon. Gentleman the First Commissioner of Works, as to the claim on the public consideration of the late Director of the Ordnance Survey, and in his expression of regret that the public were about to be deprived of the active services of that gentleman. The right hon. Gentleman would afford valuable information to the Committee and the public if he would state the arrangement which had been made to fill the place of the Director of the Ordnance Survey.
§ MR. SHAW LEFEVREColonel Stoddart has been appointed by the War Office to supply the place of the late Director of the Ordnance Survey.
§ SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFFsaid, that, apparently, this Vote not only applied to the Landed Estates Court in Ireland, but seemingly to the surveys in connection with the Land Commission. In the Report that had been referred to on page 23 there was an item referring to that Commission for the survey of two estates containing 916 acres, and of three glebes. Seemingly, a great many maps were supplied last year to the Land Commission; therefore, he would ask the right hon. Gentleman whether, in this year's Estimate, anything had been included for the surveys supplied to the Land Commission; if these surveys had been supplied; had they been paid for; and, was there any further provision made in the Estimates for this year's expenses for surveys of the same kind? It appeared to him that if there were no Estimate for similar surveys, it was a thoroughly Irish question which should be considered under an Irish Vote.
§ MR. MOLLOYsaid, the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Courtney) declared that he had been unable to get the money from the lawyers, because they had been unsuccessful in their endeavours to obtain it from their clients. At any rate, some hon. Members had had experience of the Landed Estates Court, and they knew perfectly well that the lawyers had secured their 667 costs. No doubt, if any expense had been incurred in regard to maps, the lawyers had been recouped; and that was the reason why the Government should insist upon the full payment of these arrears. If the arrears were not paid, then the names of those solicitors who were in default should be made public, so that people who had had dealings with the Landed Estates Court might know whether or not the attorneys they had employed had handed over to the Government the money which they had received from their clients.
§ MR. BIGGARsaid, the hon. Member (Mr. Courtney) had stated that these maps were only supplied on the order of the Judge in the Landed Estates Court; but it now appeared that they had also been supplied in connection with the Land Commission. Well, the two cases seemed to him to be entirely different. The Judges in the Land Court, under the Act of 1881, had had pressure brought to bear upon them, in order that they might discharge their duty as rapidly as possible; and if they had had recourse to the maps of the Government Survey they might be excused, and excuse might also be made to those who, in this matter, had given credit to the solicitors. There might be some cases in which the solicitors had not yet received their costs; but none of these arguments would apply in the case of the Landed Estates Court. In regard to that tribunal things were very different, because clients had bad to pay their full costs. Whoever went short, the costs had to be paid; it being necessary to pay the purchase money into Court, and the Court having power to charge these individual amounts with any costs which had accrued, owing to the order of the Court itself. The costs were fixed before the money was paid. It seemed to him that the suggestion of his hon. Friend (Mr. Molloy) was an exceedingly reasonable one—namely, that the names of those attorneys who had not paid for the maps that had been supplied to them should be made public; because, in that way, the litigants who had paid for maps would see whether or not the money they had parted with for that purpose had been refunded to the Court. Under the circumstances, seeing that these maps were supplied by order of the Judges of the Landed Estates Court, if the attorneys refused to pay, the Courts 668 should be empowered to strike their names off the rolls.
§ MR. COURTNEYwas understood to say that, as he had already stated, where there were no results—that was to say, where no sale followed upon the proceedings in the Landed Estates Court —no money passed; and, therefore, the attorneys had nothing wherewith to pay for the maps supplied by order of the Court.
§ MR. J. LOWTHERsaid, that in the document the right hon. Gentleman the First Commissioner of Works had called his attention to a short time ago, he saw an item under the head "The Land Commission," which the hon. Member for Portsmouth (Sir H. Drummond Wolff) had just pointed out, in which details were given as to the supply of plans and reports relating to the survey of two estates. Could the hon. Gentleman the Financial Secretary to the Treasury give them an assurance that if maps in the future were required by the Land Commission they would not be supplied without fee?
§ MR. COURTNEYwas understood to say that he did not believe any maps had been supplied to the Land Commission; but he would make inquiries to ascertain whether that really was so or not. If maps had been supplied without being paid for, the practice ought to be discontinued.
§ MR. BIGGARpointed out that if all the arrears to which reference had been made were due some three years ago, debts might be accruing in respect of these cases even now, because, as they were aware, the Landed Estates Court was a very tedious tribunal. Debts might even yet be accumulating.
§ Vote agreed to.
§
Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a sum, not exceeding £21,379, 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, 1884, for erecting and maintaining new Buildings, including Bents, &c, for the Department of Science and Art.
§ MR. CAVENDISH BENTINCKsaid, he wished to be furnished with some explanation of an Estimate of £3,000 for frescoes.
§ MR. SHAW LEFEVREsaid, that of the item of £3,000 only £1,000 was to be paid this year. The Estimate was in 669 regard to a fresco, The Arts of Peace, which was to occupy a position in South Kensington Museum, similar to that occupied by Sir Frederick Leighton's fresco, The Arts as Applied to War. This last-named fresco was a most valuable one, and was placed on one of the principal walls of the Science and Art Exhibition; and the new fresco, which would also be by Sir Frederick Leigh-ton, would be a fellow one on the opposite wall, and when it was finished the decoration of the building would be complete.
§ MR. CAVENDISH BENTINCKsaid, that, after the statement the right hon. Gentleman made the other day with regard to mosaics, it was extraordinary that the Government should rush into an expenditure of this kind. It appeared to him that if it was inexpedient to spend money in the embellishments of the House of Commons, it was equally wrong to do so in the "Brompton Boilers." He would not disparage the South Kensington Museum of Works, which would not only do honour to this country, but to any country; but if their object was to instruct the people —if, indeed, they were capable of doing so—in the Arts and Sciences, they should be satisfied with as good a Museum as it was possible for them to create, and without wasting money upon extravagant embellishments of master work. The Museum, as he had said, had been established at an economical cost to the country; but when they embarked in an expenditure for frescoes of this kind, they seemed to him to have launched upon a perilous adventure. In proof of that, it was only necessary to call the right hon. Gentleman's attention to matters of fact; and facts, as every one knew, were stubborn things. The hon. Member for Gloucester (Mr. Monk) had accused him (Mr. Cavendish Bentinck) of being an æsthete; but that impeachment he must repudiate. He knew nothing about these matters from an æsthetic point of view; but there were certain truths which were brought home to him, as to anybody else who was interested in this matter, by experience, and one of these was the perishable nature of frescoes. Thirty years ago it was proposed to decorate the House of Commons with frescoes, and some attempt had been made to carry out that proposal; and he would ask any hon. 670 Member present, whether, as shown by the result, that attempt had not been a complete failure? What had become of the frescoes? Many of them could hardly be said to exist. In the House of Lords they were in a deplorable state; it was found out that the frescoes would not do within the building, consequently the water-glass system was adopted. In Lincoln's Inn Hall there was a fine design, executed by Mr. Watts; but that had begun to fade. In Carlton House Terrace some excellent frescoes had been put up, also by Mr. Watts; but they, too, were perishing. A Committee of experts was appointed by the House to consider this question; and they, he believed, unanimously pronounced against frescoes, declaring that they could not be successfully executed in the trying atmosphere of London. The other day, when the right hon. Gentleman the First Commissioner of Works addressed the House in answer to a speech in which the use of mosaics was advocated by the hon. Member for Poole (Mr. Schreiber), the right hon. Gentleman had admitted that frescoes were a failure. He (Mr. Cavendish Bentinck) did not think the right hon. Gentleman would depart from that opinion now, although, notwithstanding all these expressions of opinion, the House of Commons was now asked to vote £3,000 for a fresco to be painted in the "Brompton Boilers." He did not wish to say a word as to the merits of the designs by Sir Frederick Leigh-ton, because, as he had frequently said, these things were merely matters of taste. No one could say what taste was; it was an abstract idea; therefore, he would not express any view as to the merits of this work by Sir Frederick Leighton, which, for aught he knew, might be superior to a similar work by the late Mr. Raphael, Mr. Michael Angelo, or Mr. Pordenone, or anybody else. There was also a large expenditure taken out of the pockets of the British taxpayer for Art purchasers; he did not say the amount was too large; but he did believe that they had arrived at a time when it was desirable to bear in mind that these extraordinary expenditures were always incurred when they had an advanced Liberal Government in power. He did not wish to say anything derogatory to Sir Frederick Leigh-ton's work; but, before embarking on 671 investments of this kind, they ought to seriously pause; and, in the interests of economy, he would urge the Government not to purchase this second fresco. Last year he had asked whether it was the intention of the Government to propose a Vote for a painting by Mr. Herbert, R. A., and the answer was "No;" and if the right hon. Gentleman had declined to spend that for completing the Chamber in which Lord Kedesdale now sat, he ought not to have asked the Committee to embark in the expense now proposed. He did not intend to propose a reduction of the Vote; but he protested against this policy.
§ MR. DILLWYNwished to know what the total cost was likely to be?
§ MR. MONKsaid, there wore not many occasions on which he agreed with the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Whitehaven (Mr. Cavendish Bontinck); but on this occasion he did agree with him entirely. He did not think frescoes were suitable for this climate. There were very few frescoes in this country which had not faded within a few years. The right hon. and learned Member had said a great deal about these frescoes; but why did he not move to reduce the Vote by £1,000? He considered it undesirable to give £3,000 for a fresco which, in 20 years, nobody would be able to make anything of; but as the right hon. and learned Member did not intend to move a reduction of the Vote, he did not in any way know that he was called upon to do so. If, however, the right hon. and learned Member had moved a reduction he would have supported him.
§ MR. LABOUCHEREsaid, he thought there was a strong feeling in the House in favour of a reduction of this Vote; but there was considerable delicacy in regard to proposing a reduction. Under these circumstances, he would himself move the reduction. It seemed to him that there were two items in this Vote which were altogether objectionable. One was the sum for the fresco by Sir Frederick Leighton. The right hon. Gentleman the First Commissioner of Works said he had ordered that, because there was some sort of conditional promise when Sir Frederick Leighton painted The Arts of War. He supposed that gentleman received £3,000 for that fresco as its value; and he did not see why, because that gentleman received 672 £3,000 for that painting, he should receive £3,000 for another fresco. He himself did not profess to be an authority on this subject; but those who were authorities entertained a strong feeling as to whether these frescoes were adapted for this climate, and therefore he thought it would be as well not to order this new fresco. The other item to which he objected was that for the erection of a south-east wing, for which the cost was not ascertained. The Department seemed to be always building something at South Kensington. The Vice President of the Council, if he had been present, would have told the Committee that there never was an establishment so well managed and so economically constructed; but, whether the building was cheap or dear, there was not only always a large sum of money wanted for repairs, but also for building something new. He should, therefore, propose the reduction of the Vote by £6,000—£1,000 in respect of Sir Frederick Leighton's fresco, and £5,000 for the new wing, the total cost of which was not ascertained. The cost ought to be ascertained before any expenditure was entered upon.
§
Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a sum, not exceeding £15,379, 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 on the 31st day of March 1884, for erecting and maintaining new Buildings, including Rents, &c, for the Department of Science and Art."—(Mr. Labouchere.)
§ VISCOUNT FOLKESTONEasked whether the now fresco had been ordered or not? If it had been decided that these frescoes were not suitable to this climate he should say the Vote ought to be struck out. He observed that in Scotland the Geological Survey cost £45 per annum, while fuel and lighting cost £820. That seemed to him to be an extraordinary contrast.
§ MR. CARTWRIGHTsaid, he thought that the proposed Vote for a new wing at South Kensington might be fairly questioned, as the cost had not been ascertained; but it was undesirable to mix that up with the question of the fresco. The fresco could stand upon its own merits. The hon. Member for Gloucester (Mr. Monk) had taken exception to any Vote for the fresco, because frescoes could not stand the weather in this country. He did not at all 673 think that that was proved; and the only frescoes to which the hon. Member had referred were those in this House. He ventured to call attention to the fresco painted by Sir Frederick Leighton at Lyndhurst House in the New Forest, which had stood the test of many years' wear and tear.
§ MR. SHAW LEFEVREsaid, he quite agreed with the hon. Member that it was inconvenient to mix up two questions of such a different nature. With regard to the first of these items—the fresco—he hoped the Committee would vote the money. The right hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Cavendish Bentinck) had endeavoured to show that he had been inconsistent in this matter; but he had never expressed any opinion against frescoes. He certainly had stated that he did not propose to give Mr. Herbert a commission for another fresco in the room in the House of Lords. Mr. Herbert had already painted two pictures which had each cost £5,000; but it did not appear to him necessary to give that gentleman another order. With regard to the frescoes in the Central Hall of the House, the question was not as to frescoes, but as to mosaics. He had never expressed any opinion against frescoes; and when the right hon. and learned Gentleman spoke of experts having condemned frescoes, he was entirely mistaken. They had approved of the frescoes in this House, but had condemned the mosaics, and proposed that frescoes should be placed in lieu of the mosaics. It might be a question whether it was desirable to have frescoes in the Central Hall. He had consulted the authorities at South Kensington, and they said there was no doubt that the fresco painted by Sir Frederick Leighton would last. Sir Frederick Leighton originally produced two do-signs, the "Arts of War" and the "Arts of Peace." The "Arts of War" had been completed, and it appeared to be reasonable to give Sir Frederick Leighton the other commission. With regard to the other matter—the south-east wing —he was unable to give the further details for which the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere) asked. It was not certain yet what the nature of the new addition at South Kensington would be; and, considering the views expressed by hon. Members on a recent occasion, he did not think it 674 would be wise to press that part of the Vote. He should, therefore, withdraw the item for the new wing now, and bring it forward later in the Session, when he might be in a position to state what the cost would be. He would withdraw that item of £5,000, and he hoped the Committee would agree to the other Vote.
§ MR. SCLATER-BOOTHsaid, he thought the Committee were indebted to the right hon. Gentleman for the candour with which he had met their wishes with regard to the new wing. With regard to the fresco, he had been very much disappointed with the non-success of previous experiments, and he could not conscientiously advocate the expenditure of any more money for frescoes. It was true that Sir Frederick Leighton's picture at Lyndhurst was in good condition; but the atmosphere of the New Forest was very different from the atmosphere of London. When the hon. Member for Oxfordshire (Mr. Cartwright) twitted the hon. Member for Gloucester (Mr. Monk) with his imperfect appreciation of these frescoes, he was not aware that the hon. Member for Gloucester had, perhaps, the most painful experience in regard to frescoes of any hon. Gentleman in the House, on account of some famous frescoes executed by relatives of his own in a church in Westminster, which had become obliterated in 25 years. The right hon. Gentleman the First Commissioner of Works had not said how far the works of Sir Frederick Leighton had progressed. Frescoes were expected to last 400 or 500 years; but there was no reason to believe that there was a single fresco in London which would last for anything like that time.
§ MR. LABOUCHEREsaid, that after the statement of the right hon. Gentleman he would ask leave to withdraw his Amendment, and would move to reduce the Vote by £1,000. There had not been time to judge whether frescoes in this part of the town would stand not the atmosphere, but the air at South Kensington. The "Arts of War" had only been painted four or five years; but everybody expected a fresco to last longer than that.
§ Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
§ Original Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
675
§
(9.) Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a sum, not exceeding £16,379, 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 on the 31st day of March 1884, for erecting and maintaining new Buildings, including Rents, &.c, for the Department of Science and Art.
§
Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a sum, not exceeding £15,379, 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 on the 31st day of March 1884, for erecting and maintaining new Buildings, including Rents, &c, for the Department of Science and Art."—(Mr. Labouchere.)
§ MR. R. BIDDULPH MARTINsaid, lie was aware that modern frescoes did not last long as a rule; but that was not always the case, for anyone inspecting the frescoes in some of our old churches would, beneath the whitewash, find the colour as brilliant as if they had been painted only a few days. Therefore, there was no reason to suppose that the art of fresco painting could not be revived. There was a great deal to be said in favour of making an experiment with this £5,000 at Kensington. If, in the course of a few years, it was found that the colours had faded it would be shown that it was useless to apply frescoes to any public building. It must be remembered that the whole use of South Kensington was to give a commercial value to the Art of the country, and money laid out there must be regarded as an investment for the good of the country, and not as expended in an amusement for the benefit of a few sightseers. He entirely disagreed with what had been said as to mosaics, because he believed mosaics had not been sufficiently cultivated, and that a good deal of useful decorative work might be done with mosaics; and he therefore hoped to see mosaics executed in public buildings, so that they should become an acknowledged form of decoration. It was not only that the thing itself was of use and value to the country in an economical sense, but these frescoes and mosaics would tend to improve the general Art of the country. He hoped the Committee would not reject this Vote for the fresco, simply because the fresco itself might not be of ready money value.
§ MR. GEORGE HOWARDsaid, he believed this picture was not a fresco in the true sense, and was not executed as frescoes usually were. There was no reason at all, therefore, to assume that it would be a failure. It was painted, he understood, on dry walls, and not on wet plaster; and he believed there was no reason to suppose that it would fade. It was an interesting experiment, and for that reason he thought the Vote should be granted.
§ MR. DILLWYNasked whether the contract had been settled with Sir Frederick Leighton? [Mr. SHAW LEFEVRE: No.] He was glad to hear that; but he could not agree in the view that because Sir Frederick Leighton had had another commission, he should, therefore, have this, and he should support the Amendment.
§ MR. SHAW LEFEVREsaid, Sir Frederick Leighton had been asked to prepare two designs, and when an artist was requested to make designs for two pictures, it was generally understood that he would paint both; but no promise had been given to Sir Frederick Leighton that he would receive an order for the second. If, however, there was reason to believe that the work would not perish, it was reasonable to give him the order for the second picture. The £3,000 asked for was very much less than the picture would fetch in the open market. If the "Arts of War" were sold in the market, it would fetch at least twice what the Government had given for it.
§ MR. CAVENDISH BENTINCKsaid, he did not wish to use any un-Parliamentary expressions; but hon. Members had been asked to vote a sum of money for a fresco, and then the hon. Member (Mr. George Howard) stated that the picture was not a fresco at all. Why did not the First Commissioner of Works know that? He thought the Vote should be either withdrawn or postponed. His objection was that, having regard to the state of public finances, the Committee should not be asked to embark in this extravagant expenditure. He believed the First Commissioner of Works would agree with him that the value of an article was exactly that which it would fetch in the market; and if this interesting experiment, the "Arts of War," were taken down and exposed for sale in any public auction room, the picture, on account of its size, would not be very saleable, and 677 would probably be knocked down at a very low price. He had known that to occur often during recent years. The question they had to consider was whether the Committee should devote a definite sum of money for an indefinite experiment; and whether, having regard to the extraordinary Expenditure of the present Government, it was desirable that an outlay should be incurred for anything that was not absolutely necessary.
§ SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFFsaid, lie would ask the right hon. Gentleman the First Commissioner of Works whether any arrangement had been made with Sir Frederick Leighton with regard to the copyright? Was this to remain with the Government, or with Sir Frederick Leighton? [Laughter.] Hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway opposite seemed somewhat amused at this inquiry, probably because they did not understand the question involved. He reminded the Committee that, at the present time, there was a Bill before the House of Commons for the purpose of securing copyrights to the owners.
§ MR. SHAW LEFEVREsaid, he had not supposed that any arrangement of the kind was necessary in this case. It would be hardly possible to take the fresco down and frame it.
§ SIB H. DRUMMOND WOLFFThat is perfectly true; but it might be copied.
§ MR. BIGGARsaid, the present instance of patronage on the part of the Government would have appeared to more advantage before they became mixed up with the military operations in Egypt. For his part, lie thought that the Government should take time to reconsider the question, and bring forward a Vote at a future time—that was to say, when the experiment had been brought to a conclusion. He regarded the whole outlay as perfectly useless, because all the authorities were agreed that frescoes would not endure in this climate. The Committee, however, were told that this was a very interesting experiment on the part of Sir Frederick Leighton to ascertain the durability of frescoes; and he could not help thinking, if that was so, that it would be well if Sir Frederick Leighton conducted the experiment at his own expense. He certainly disapproved of the course taken by the Government in coming to Parliament to ask for 678 a sum of money in order to carry out doubtful experiments of the kind in question. It might be that this new experiment on the part of Sir Frederick Leighton would prove to be a great deal worse than the last. He was strongly of opinion that they should wait for a few years to see whether the "Arts of War" would stand the test of the English climate before they involved themselves in any further expense, because, if the first went wrong, it was only natural to suppose that the second picture would be a failure also.
§ MR. CAVENDISH BENTINCKsaid, the Committee wore asked to vote a sum of money for a fresco; but the hon. Member for Cumberland (Mr. George Howard) had just stated to the Committee that the work in question was not a fresco in the true sense of the term. Under these circumstances, he thought that the Committee were entitled to know from the Government whether it was or it was not a fresco for which the money was now asked. If the latter were the case, then he thought that the Government ought to withdraw the Vote.
§ Question put.
§ The Committee divided:—Ayes 53; Noes 104: Majority 51.—(.Div. List, No. 96.)
§ Original Question again proposed.
§ MR. CAVENDISH BENTINCKasked whether the right hon. Gentleman the First Commissioner of Works would be able to state the exact nature of this experiment on Report?
§ MR. SHAW LEFEVREsaid, he was unable to state whether the painting was executed upon a dry or wet wall.
§ MR. MOLLOYsaid, the Government had, year after year, stated that they were going to do something towards the enlargement of the Patents Museum at South Kensington. The building was uttlerly useless for the purpose for which it was originated. It was, undoubtedly, the worst Museum of its kind in Europe; it contained scarcely an example of a modern invention, and the cost of it to the nation was so much money wasted. Whenever the question of expenditure upon this useless building had been raised in that House, the Government had met it by the promise that something should be done at another time; that they were waiting for the passing of the new Patents Bill; then, that they 679 had not time to consider it; and, finally, that the matter should receive their attention in the course of the coming year. Nothing, however, had been done, and this room, filled with old lumber, remained unaltered at a considerable expense to the country. Perhaps, the right hon. Gentleman could state how many people visited the Patents Museum, which cost the country so much money; because, unless he were wrongly informed, no more than 50 persons entered it on the last public holiday? He trusted the Committee would not suppose that he was objecting to the principle of providing a Patents Museum for the instruction of the people; on the contrary, he believed that nothing would be more beneficial than an honest expenditure upon such an Institution. He believed the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Edinburgh (Sir Lyon Playfair) would agree with him, whether he approved of the course he was now taking or not, that a Museum of a practical character was much required. He should move the reduction of the Vote by the sum of £500, in order to give the right hon. Gentleman the First Commissioner of Works an opportunity of assuring the Committee that effective steps would be taken, without delay, to make this old lumber room of some use to the nation; and unless the right hon. Gentleman was able to make a satisfactory statement upon the subject, he should feel it his duty to take a division upon that Motion.
§ MR. SHAW LEFEVREI cannot find any item having reference to the Patents Museum in this Estimate.
§ MR. MOLLOYsaid, it came under the item for Fuel, Rates, Taxes, and other charges. But if the question could not be raised under the Vote now before the Committee, he ventured to ask the right hon. Gentleman under what Estimate the question could be raised?
THE CHAIRMANsaid, it had been already pointed out to the hon. Member that the discussion on the Patents Museum was not relevant to the Vote before the Committee.
MR. GORSTsaid, the right hon. Gentleman the First Commissioner of Works had remarked that the Vote bad nothing to do with the Patents Museum; but he (Mr. Gorst) pointed out that the Patents Museum was a part of the buildings at South Kensington. It was a public 680 building, and, therefore, the Vote for its maintenance ought to be amongst the Votes for Public Buildings.
§ SIR LYON PLAYFAIRsaid, if hon. Members would turn to Vote 10, they would find the general charges for the Patents Office included therein.
CAPTAIN AYLMERasked the right hon. Gentleman the First Commissioner of Works, under what head they would find the cost of the Geological Survey in Ireland?
MR. GORSTasked under which Vote for the maintenance of Public Works and Buildings in the United Kingdom they would find the charge for the maintenance of the Patents Museum at South Kensington? Unless he received a satisfactory answer he should feel it his duty to move the withdrawal of the Vote.
§ SIR LYON PLAYFAIRThe hon. and learned Member will find it in Class II, page 19.
§ MR. BIGGARsaid, it was satisfactory to see the right hon. Gentleman coming to the rescue of the Government on this question of the Patents Museum; but he wished to point out that no reply had been given to the question of the hon. and gallant Member for Maidstone (Captain Aylmer) on the subject of the Geological Survey of Ireland. As the Government appeared indisposed to give any explanation, he should move the reduction of the Vote by the sum of £220, the charge for the Geological Museum in Jermyn Street. The contention of himself and hon. Gentlemen near him was that some provision ought to be made in the Estimates for extending the Geological Survey now going on in England and Scotland to Ireland. They thought it would only be fair that some public money should be paid for the purpose of ascertaining whether there was any hope of support for the poople of Ireland in the undeveloped resources of that country.
MR. GORSTsaid, he had referred to Vote 19, and he ventured to say that not a single item related to the maintenance of the Patents Museum at South Kensington. There were items for salaries and expenses, and for the purchase of models for the Museum, but not for the maintenance of the building.
§ MR. CHAMBERLAINsaid, the hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Gorst) was perfectly correct in what he had just 681 stated. Vote 19 provided for the personnel of the Patents Office, and was charged upon the Patents Office. But the arrangement for the Museum was, as perhaps the hon. and learned Gentleman was aware, an entirely temporary one; and so long as the present arrangement continued the Patents Exhibition might be regarded as part and parcel of South Kensington. The Patents Commissioners had, however, received notice that the building could not be permanently devoted to the exhibition of patents; and in the Patents Bill, which had passed the second reading, there was a provision that the Patents Museum should in future be intrusted entirely to the charge of the South Kensington authorities, and should be worked in connection with the Industrial Exhibition. He hoped that when that arrangement was made, much better provision would be found than at present for the Exhibition of Patents.
§ SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFFsaid, he thought it right to point out that the absence of Ministers during the evening had led to considerable difficulty. His right hon. Friend the First Commissioner of Works knew nothing about this Vote, the Secretary to the Treasury knew nothing about it, and when the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Edinburgh University (Sir Lyon Play-fair) came forward to the rescue of the Government he made a mistake; and unless the President of the Board of Trade had dropped in, having neglected his duties for the whole afternoon— ["Oh, oh!"] He would not repeat the words if they were offensive, but their sense he certainly should maintain. It was clear that unless the President of the Board of Trade had dropped in when he did, the Committee would have been kept in ignorance of the real facts of the case. It was impossible for the Committee to transact its Business properly when subordinate Ministers of the Crown did not know the Estimates they were defending, and were obliged to depend upon the assistance of private Members until a real Minister turned up.
§ MR. MOLLOYasked if it was correct in supposing that the Patents Museum came under this particular Vote? If it came under another Vote, of course he need not now press his point. He did not desire to miss his chance of raising his objection; and therefore he desired 682 to be informed as to whether this was the proper Vote or not upon which to discuss matters regarding the Patents Museum?
§ MR. CHAMBERLAINsaid, the hon. Member was correct in supposing that, at all events, any cost of repairs for the Patents Museum was involved in this Vote; but there was another Vote in which provision was made for the whole of the personnelof the Exhibition. The hon. Gentleman desired to raise the question of what future provision would be made for the Patents Exhibition; and he (Mr. Chamberlain) had already replied that in the Patents Bill a clause had been introduced transferring the control and the whole management of the Patents Museum at South Kensington. It was intended, he had already explained, that the Patents Exhibition should be worked in connection with the Industrial Exhibition of the Science and Art Department.
§ MR. MOLLOYsaid, that if the Patents Museum was to be made more useful for the inventive faculties of the people, that was all that he desired to obtain. If it was to be understood that the Exhibition would be of some value to the country he should not press the matter further.
§ MR. CHAMBERLAINsaid, it was a matter of degree. All he could assure the hon. Gentleman was that if the proposed transfer of control were approved of by the House, it was intended by the Government that there should be a better provision made for the Exhibition of Patents, and an attempt would be made to secure that the Collection should be much more thoroughly representative than at the present time.
§ VISCOUNT FOLKESTONEsaid, that supposing the Patents Bill did not pass this year, would the right hon. Gentleman take some steps that the Patents Exhibition would be improved; because, under the circumstances, it would be strictly unfair to call upon the people to wait until the passing of the Bill.
MR. GORSTsaid, his noble Friend had asked a very proper question, and if they allowed it to pass without receiving any answer, they might just as well take up their hats and go to bed, ["Hear!"] That was evidently the idea the Liberal Party had in discussing the Estimates; but he and his hon. Friends considered that they ought, in duty bound to their 683 constituents, to ask questions upon the Estimates, and to receive explanations and replies from Her Majesty's Government. It had been pointed out by the hon. Member (Mr. Molloy) that the Patents Exhibition as it existed was wholly useless, and that was not denied by the Government. Public money was being spent upon an Exhibition which the Government admitted was absotutely useless. The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade had said that if the Patents Bill became law an alteration would be made by Government, by which this expenditure of public money would become useful; and then the noble Lord asked, supposing the Government Bill did not pass, were they going to spend the money which they were now asking the House of Commons to vote in the maintenance of a building which they themselves admitted to be useless? Surely they were entitled to an answer to that question before they voted the money. Of course, it might be a part of the Liberal creed that they ought to vote money blindly. Such, however, was not part of the creed of the Opposition.
§ MR. CHAMBERLAINsaid, the hon. and learned Gentleman who had just spoken, whose objects were perfectly intelligible to the House, had put into his (Mr. Chamberlain's) mouth language which he entirely disclaimed. He did not say, on behalf of the Government, that the present Patents Museum was useless. On the contrary, he believed that in its present form it was extremely useful, although it might be improved and made more complete. He really thought the noble Viscount (Viscount Folkestone) was hardly serious in the question he put; but he was anxious to reply, if it was considered necessary he should do so. The noble Viscount asked what the Government would do in the event of the Patents Bill not being carried? the Government had introduced the Patents Bill, and he did not think they were called upon to answer hypothetical questions, and say what they would do if one of the great Bills of the Session—which the Government had introduced, and which had passed its second reading—were not carried. He hoped it would go forward, in common with all the other measures of the Government which they bad introduced.
§ MR. BIGGARsaid, it seemed to him that the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade was rather hot in the replies he made. It was stated, over and over again, by Members on the Opposition side of the House, that the Patents Museum, as it existed at present, was perfectly useless, and no Member of the Government, so far as he had hoard, had expressed any contrary opinion. In fact, they allowed judgment to go by default. The noble Viscount (Viscount Folkestone) had a perfect right to put his question to the Government, and it seemed to him perfectly reasonable to ask the Government whether any attempt would be made to improve the Exhibition, supposing the Patents Bill did not pass into law this Session? They all knew that it was by no means certain that that Bill would pass this year. Indeed, it was very probable that the Patents Bill would not pass into law during the remainder of the present Session.
§ Question put, and agreed to.
§
(10.) Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a sum, not exceeding £6,338, 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 1884, for the Maintenance and Repair of the British Museum and Natural History Museum Buildings, for Bents of Promises, supply of Water, Fuel, &c, and other Charges attendant thereon.
§ MR. JUSTIN M'CARTHYdesired to move a reduction of the Vote, and his object in doing so was to get rid, if possible, of the unsightly railings and walls which now surrounded the British Museum. He did not know any city in the world in which such magnificent buildings were surrounded by such unsightly stone walls and hideous railings as London. He supposed the railings and walls surrounding the British Museum were intended to give more security to the building. But St. Peter's, at Rome, was not surrounded in the same way, neither was the Louvre in Paris, nor the great Museum at Berlin. England alone made its Museum positively unsightly, because of an over-wrought alarm about its safety. He had long had a strong objection to this way of spoiling public buildings. He wanted to level the railings if he could; and he would move to reduce the Vote by £500, being 685 roughly the cost of keeping in repair the hideous and useless walls and railings around the Museum.
§
Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a sum, not exceeding £5,838, 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 1884, for the Maintenance and Repair of the British Museum and Natural History Museum Buildings, for Rents of Premises, Supply of Water, Fuel, &c, and other Charges attendant thereon."—(Mr. Justin M'Carthy.)
§ MR. SHAW LEFEVREsaid, that that was the first time the question had been mooted. ["No!"] He certainly had never heard of it before; and he could hardly express an opinion upon such an important subject without consulting the Trustees of the Museum. If they had regard to the value of the property in the Museum, it was only reasonable and proper that they should be properly protected; and he presumed it would be necessary, in the opinion of the Trustees, that the walls and railings should be allowed to stand.
§ MR. R. N. FOWLERsaid, bethought the remarks of the right hon. Gentleman must remind the Committee of the very unfortunate position in which they stood. On many former occasions a right hon. Friend of his—Mr. Spencer Walpole —whose retirement from the House they all regretted, was always ready to give the House any information on the Estimates concerning the British Museum. The British Museum was still represented by a very eminent man —the hon. Member for the University of London (Sir John Lubbock)—and it would have been for the advantage of the Committee if the hon. Baronet had been in his place to have assisted the right hon. Gentleman in giving the Committee his views with regard to this question. He did not know whether it was a matter of sufficient importance to postpone the Vote; but, certainly, the Committee was placed in an unfortunate position owing to the retirement of one Gentleman and the absence of the other.
§ MR. CAVENDISH BENTINCKsaid, he happened to be one of the Trustees of the British Museum, and therefore it was not altogether unrepresented in the House. He did not know whether Mr. Walpole, or the hon. Gentleman the 686 Member for the University of London (Sir John Lubbock), was now in charge of the Estimates for the Museum; but whichever of the two might have this honourable office cast upon him, he (Mr. Cavendish Bentinck) did not think it was necessary he should be present on this occasion. He (Mr. Cavendish Bentinck) had not the slightest hesitation in giving an answer, on behalf of the Trustees, to the question raised by the hon. Member for Longford (Mr. Justin M'Carthy). He could conceive no circumstance under which it would be desirable to remove the railings and walls around the British Museum. He had already said that night twice, that he did not pretend to be a man of taste; and, therefore, when he offered the opinion that the railings were not so unsightly as had been made out, the assertion would be taken for what it was worth. Apart from the question of taste, he ventured to submit to the Committee that the observation of the right hon. Gentleman the First Commissioner of Works was absolutely conclusive. The right hon. Gentleman had said that the British Museum contained important and valuable property, therefore it was absolutely necessary that it should be properly protected. He (Mr. Cavendish Bentinck) did not think the Trustees of the British Museum would for one moment agree to the removal of the railings.
§ MR. BIGGARsaid, that buildings quite as important as the British Museum were left unprotected. He did not know that Westminster Abbey was protected by railings. Even some very important parts of the Houses of Parliament were not protected; and he was not aware that they had ever suffered any substantial injury from the action of the public. He (Mr. Biggar), like the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Whitehaven (Mr. Cavendish Bentinck), did not pretend to be a man of taste; he did not know whether or not the taking away of these railings would be advantageous from an artistic point of view; but he could not understand why the railings should not be removed, because public buildings having quite as valuable contents as the British Museum were as unprotected as the Museum would be if the railings were removed.
§ Question put, and negatived,
687§ Original Question again proposed.
§ MR. BIGGARasked for some explanation of the item "C"—rent of rooms. It appeared to him that it would be as well if those antiquities were packed up in boxes. If a house were taken in the neighbourhood of the British Museum, there might be some excuse; but the system carried out appeared to him to be a waste of money. Either the British Museum should be extended, or premises should be taken near it.
§ MR. SHAW LEFEVREsaid, that, as soon as the geological specimens were removed to the Natural History Museum, these specimens would be taken to the British Museum.
§ Original Question put, and agreed to.
§ SIR WALTER B. BARTTELOTsaid, that, as it was now half-past 12, the Government ought to agree to Progress being reported.
§ MR. SHAW LEFEVREagreed that Progress should be reported.
§ Resolutions to be reported To-morrow.
§ Committee to sit again upon Wednesday.