Special Report. (Hansard, 2 May 1887)

§ SIR. CHARLES FORSTER (Walsall)
Perhaps it will suit the convenience of the House if I state the course we propose to adopt under the altered circumstances of the case. Since I presented the Report from the Committee on Public Petitions on Monday last, the matter has assumed a much more serious aspect. We cannot doubt, from the information we have received, that frauds of the most barefaced and extensive character have been perpetrated against the authority and privileges of Parliament. Under 532 these circumstances, the Committee on Public Petitions are prepared to accept the suggestion of the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Bradlaugh), that a thorough searching and exhaustive inquiry should be instituted into the matter. The Committee are prepared to institute that inquiry themselves; and, therefore, I have to move that the Order for resuming the Adjourned Debate on the Special Report of April 25 be discharged. At the same time, we think that it would not be wise for the House to part with the Petition. All I can say is, that I regret that this necessity should have arisen; but we shall endeavour to discharge, to the best of our ability, any duty which the House may impose upon us. I beg to move, after the discharge of the Order— That the Report be referred back to the Committee, with an Instruction that they do inquire into the circumstances under which, and the parties by whom, the names appearing on the Petition referred to were thereunto appended.

§ MR. BRADLAUGH (Northampton)
I think that the words which have fallen from the Chairman of the Select Committee on Public Petitions fully justify the action I took last week in moving the adjournment of the debate. I was then of opinion that if the Order that the Petition should lie on the Table was then discharged, the House would have lost its hold upon that Petition. I hoped that the Committee might be able to do something to identify the person who had forged the Petition and the signatures attached to it, and to identify further the person who had employed him to forge the signatures. If I am right in my conjecture, the gentleman—if that be the proper term by which to designate him—who employed the person who forged this Petition is a gentleman whose name will appear whenever the Committee which is now sitting upstairs makes its Report with reference to the chargest against the Corporation of the City of London. He is the gentleman whose name appears in the City Accounts. I am not at 533 liberty, Sir, as you decided last week, to refer to any of the evidence which has been given before the Committee upstairs. My mouth is closed in that respect; but I am entitled to say that I am speaking now of a gentleman whose name appears in the City Accounts as having been employed by the Special Committee which is now taking action to obtain the renewal of the Coal and Wine Dues. I am sure that I shall be able, and that the Committee on Public Petitions will be able, to ascertain that there are several Aldermen and members of the Corporation of London who have expressed an opinion that the obtaining of signatures by the payment of money is a praiseworthy proceeding under the circumstances. I believe the Committee will be able to ascertain that within the last three and a-half months one gentleman alone has received more than £400 from the City of London for procuring such Petitions. In addition to the particular Petition reported on last week, I believe the Committee will be able to ascertain that there have been other Petitions presented every signature of which is forged. One of them, I am told, contains such signatures as Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, Joseph Biggar, and W. H. Smith, of the Strand. Of course, it may be that at the address which is given of "the Strand" there is another Mr. W. H. Smith, or otherwise that signature will certainly turn out to be a forgery. It may be that "Joseph Biggar," described as a pork merchant, is not the hon. Member of that same name who has a seat in this House, or otherwise that also will turn out to be a forgery. If I am rightly informed, the Committee on Public Petitions will be able to ascertain that one of these Petitions which have been presented purports to be signed by no less than 13 race horses. I believe that the hon. Baronet the Member for the University of London (Sir John Lubbock) has paid some attention to the development of mind in animals; but this is a new phase in that development, which has never come within my experience before. I do not think, however, that the matter is one upon which I ought to jest. The whole subject of Petitioning to this House is one which requires to be dealt with as a question of exceeding gravity. I undertook, four years ago, if an inquiry were granted on a Petition in 534 which I was very much interested, to prove that the signatures of children of two, three, four, and six months old had been attached to a Petition; and, even allowing for the spread of education since the Act of 1870, it certainly requires a strong effort of imagination to suppose that those signatures were genuine. The right of petitioning this House ought to be regarded as a right, and a duty exercised by citizens with a view of bringing before this House matters which they cannot otherwise bring forward; but if the canvassers for Petitions are to be paid for obtaining signatures, the whole thing is rendered corrupt at once. In many instances, I am afraid, means have been resorted to for manufacturing signatures, and the whole matter of petitioning has been reduced to a monstrous absurdity. I thank the Committee on Public Petitions for the action they have taken in the matter; and I believe that this is a very proper Petition upon which to take that action. I should not have interposed last week if it had not been that I wished to prevent the Chairman of the Committee on Public Petitions from contenting himself with passing the matter over by merely moving the discharge of the Order directing the Petition to lie on the Table, because I was anxious to see that in a case of this kind, where a deliberate fraud has been perpetrated on this House, the persons who have been guilty of that fraud should, if possible, receive the punishment they deserve. I trust that the Committee will have power to examine witnesses on oath, so that they may be prosecuted if they give false evidence, and that they shall also have power to send for persons and papers. I trust, further, that the Committee will not be content with the punishment of the tools, but that they will bring to the knowledge of the House those by whom such tools have been employed, so that they also may be punished.

§ MR. WEBSTER (St. Pancras, E.)
There is no one who more deplores than I do the fact that any Petition presented to this House should not be what it purports to be—namely, the Petition of the individuals whose names are attached to it. It must, however, be apparent to the House, as has been alleged by the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Bradlaugh), that not only are Petitions 535 got up on this particular subject upon one side which purport to be signed by persons who have not really signed them, but there is every reason to believe that in this instance there have been Petitions of a similar nature presented against the continuance of the Coal and Wine Dues. I would, therefore, express a hope that the inquiry of the Committee may be extended to all Petitions which may have been presented on this subject, and that the parties may be represented by counsel. I certainly think that the Committee on Public Petitions should be required to examine—and carefully to examine—all the Petitions which, have been presented against the Coal and Wine Dues as well as those which have been presented in favour of their continuance. Perhaps I may be allowed to mention a fact which occurred only on Wednesday last. On that day all the Metropolitan Members were flooded with Petitions against the Coal and Wine Dues. It appears that an individual named John Lloyd, who resides at Lancaster House, Savoy, and was at one time, and I believe is at present, the Secretary of the Municipal Reform League, was the collector of these Petitions, and I think some step ought to be taken to ascertain the character of those Petitions. Probably the Petitions to which I refer are called into existence by some organization—may be of coal merchants, or of gas company proprietors, or of some league of London Municipal Reformers. I trust that this inquiry will take place, and that it will be a searching one. I, for one, do not in the slightest degree deprecate its taking place; but I think it ought to be an equitable inquiry, and that it should deal with the allegations which have been made all round. I would, further, express a wish that the Committee also include within the inquiry, how it has happened that certain political meetings which have been held in the Metropolis have been recently broken up? All I can say is that at very many meetings I have addressed in London I have curiously enough recognized a small knot of the same faces and heard the same noisy voices who have done their utmost to disturb the proceedings, but have not succeeded in their object owing to the good sense of the majority of the audience. All that I ask is that the 536 inquiry, when it takes place, shall not be confined to one side, but that it shall include the facts equally on the one side and the other. With regard to the hon. Member for Northampton, the constituency he represents appears to be a very lucky one, seeing that the two hon. Members who represent it are not only able to attend to the wants of the 50,000 inhabitants of that town, but have ample time to devote to the affairs of other people.

§ MR. BRADLAUGH
Perhaps the the hon. Member will excuse me for reminding him that I am a citizen of London.

§ MR. WEBSTER
I presume that the hon. Member speaks in this House not as a citizen of London, but as a Member of Parliament. [Mr. BRADLAUGH: Hear, hear.] I would venture again to express a hope that the Inquiry which, I presume, will be entered into, will be an inquiry all round, and that the Committee will carefully investigate not only how the Petitions in favour of the continuance of the Coal and Wine Dues have been got up, but also how the Petitions against almost every municipal institution in the Metropolis have been got up.

§ MR. HOWELL (Bethnal Green, N.E.)
It seems to me that the matter before the House is the Petition which has been called in question by the Committee on Public Petitions, and not whether some other Petitions which may have been presented to the House are of a similar character. I say this without any fear as to the result of any investigation which may take place. I trust that the Committee will be able to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion as to who has paid for the getting up of these Petitions, and who has been at the bottom of the bogus meetings which have been held in the Metropolis in favour of the renewal of the Coal and Wine Dues.

§ MR. DONALD CRAWFORD (Lanark, N.E.)
As a Member of the Committee on Public Petitions I should like to say, in reference to one observation which fell from the hon. Member for East St. Pancras (Mr. Webster) that at the meeting of the Committee to-day a decision was arrived at that the Inquiry should embrace the Petitions both for and against the continuance of the Coal and Wine Dues.

§ MR. BRADLAUGH
Perhaps the House, by its indulgence, will permit me to say that as the hon. Member for East St. Pancras has pledged himself to a knowledge of fictitious signatures attached to Petitions presented on the other side he will feel it his duty to attend the inquiry of the Committee and give evidence.

§ MR. TOLLEMACHE (Cheshire, Eddisbury)
I understand that the Petition has been referred back to a Committee which already exists, and of which three form a quorum. I would suggest that in an important matter of this kind the quorum should be increased to five.

§ MR. SPEAKER
If it is the pleasure of the House that the quorum should be increased, the House has the power of increasing it.

§ VISCOUNT LYMINGTON (Devon, South Molton)
I am certainly of opinion that it is of the utmost importance that the Committee should have the power to examine witnesses on oath.