HC Deb 26 July 1889 vol 338 cc1436-534

Committee thereupon.

Order read, for resuming Adjourned Debate on Amendment to Question 25th July], "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."

And which Amendment was— To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, respectfully setting forth that, in the opinion of this House, the funds now at the disposal of Her Majesty and of the other Members of Her Family are adequate, without further demands upon the taxpayers, to enable suitable provision to be made for Her Majesty's grandchildren, and that such provision might, if it be desired, be increased, with the approval of Her Majesty, by the withdrawal of many salaries in Class 2 of the Civil List, and by other economies in Classes 2 and 3, and this without trenching upon the honour and dignity of the Crown, and without inconvenience to Her Majesty,"—(Mr. Labouchere,) —instead thereof.

Question again proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."

Debate resumed.

* MR. BRADLAUGH (Northampton)

In rising to resume this Debate, I am perfectly conscious of the difficulty that rests upon anyone who supports the Amendment moved by my hon. Colleague, first, because such a one has naturally against him that esprit de corps which in every nation prompts men, without distinction of party, to rally together for the purpose of resisting anything which may seem like an attack upon the head of the State, and the difficulty is increased because, as was pointed out by the Under Secretary for India last night, everyone supporting this Amendment has to encounter the marvellously eloquent expression of opinion in favour of the Report of the Committee, and therefore of the proposals of the Government, which extorted ungrudging applause from all divisions of the House last night. The difficulty is still further enhanced by the language of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle-on-Tyne (Mr. J. Morley), who stated last night that he had no mind for being a party to receiving the Message from the Throne, his words intimating that that Message ought never to have been sent to the House. The Amendment before the House is not of such a nature; and I suggest that the House pays the respect due to any Message from the Throne in referring the Messages to the consideration of a Committee. It is perfectly legitimate, the Committee having pronounced an opinion with reference to those Messages, to move an Amendment directly negativing the Committee's opinion. The journals of the House in times when the House was less representative of the people show many occasions on which Messages from the Crown have been answered in language which, while perfectly respectful, intimated that in the opinion of the House the Messages ought not to have been sent. There is, indeed, one remarkable instance of the answer of the House of Commons having been torn out of the journals of the House by the King himself. With regard to a Message from the Crown relating to finance, hon. Members must remember that they are the guardians of the public purse. I regret that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle has attributed personal discourtesy to hon. Members who believe that they are performing a solemn duty. The difficulties are rendered greater by language used on the previous evening by the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland (Mr. A. J. Balfour) whom I am sorry not to see in his place. It is difficult to discuss the question calmly in the face of such language as has been used by Chief Secretary, one of the leading Members of the Ministry, a man who knows the value of words, a trained speaker, and one who has no inducement, except that which could not weigh with a man like him, though it might with a man like myself, to merely draw momentary applause from ignorant hearers. The right hon. Gentleman is reported in the Times to have said— I watch their controversies about Royal Grants with pain and disgust.… A mere feeling of chivalry should have checked these sordid and ill-timed attempts to protect what they are pleased to term the interests of the British taxpayer. The right hon. Gentleman is a scholar and used to occupy his leisure with historic researches; and he belongs to the Tory party. I am glad that there are Tories present, because the Tory Party was not always on the side of Royal Grants since the present reigning family took the Throne. I find that 60 years after the glorious Revolution of 1688 Tory Gentlemen, with an abundance of epithets at their service equal to those of the Chief Secretary, used them in a very different fashion. Leading Tories of that time made speeches in the House of Commons against the men who were supporting the Royal Grants of that day, and they spoke of those men "as the hired slaves and the corrupt instruments of a profane and vainglorious administration." When, therefore, we are flinging hard words at one another, the Tory vocabulary of days gone by will afford plenty of weapons for the warfare. Another noble Lord of the Tory Party of that day, speaking in the Debate on the Civil List, and on the Grant of £500,000, was not restrained by any feelings of chivalry from saying that "the national funds were being avowedly and openly plundered." But I do not wish to use any words which have only the justification of Tory precedent. I would ask the Chief Secretary, and, in his absence, the Ministry, who must be identified with what he says, whether it is thought that it adds to the calmness of the Debate if Members of the Government are to denounce as sordid and ill-timed objections which, even though inaccurate and ill-founded, my hon. Friends and myself have just as much right to urge in respectful lan- guage as their Tory predecessors had to use coarse language against the Royal Family and its supporters. The First Lord of the Treasury last evening said that the Civil List was an Act of Settlement for the reign, that it was a compact between Parliament and the Sovereign for her lifetime; and the right hon. Gentleman complained that it was suggested by my hon. Colleague that there was a wish to compulsorily revise it. Assuming that the Civil List Act of the present reign was a compact in all its parts, I ask the right hon. Gentleman where he finds the justification for the application now made to the House? There is not a word to justify it. In Section 9 of the Civil List Act there is a provision that if upon any class, save one, there is a saving such saving "may by the Lords of the Treasury for the time being be applied in aid of the charges or expenses of any other class." It is clear, therefore, from the account furnished to the Committee that there has been no necessity for applying these savings in aid of the expenses of any other class. The Act also provides that the Lords of the Treasury may apply the savings in aid of any charge or charges upon Her Majesty's Civil List Revenue. But the Treasury has done nothing of the kind. They have handed the savings over to Her Majesty without any authority, while the money should really have been applicable to such a claim as that the House is now considering. I will assume that the House must be governed by the doctrine that Parliament is bound to provide a sufficient sum for the maintenance and support of the Sovereign and of the Royal Family. I regret, however, that in the Report and Appendices there is no statement whatever of what the actual cost of the Royal Family has been in any one of the years of the present reign, or even what it is at the present time. But surely this is a material point. The statements in the Report, though not untrue, are misleading, because they only state a part of the cost. The information in the hands of the Government has been repeatedly and obstinately withheld from the House. I suppose, however, that my hon. Colleague in the discussions in Committee must have asked for it and have been refused; and this fact becomes material in view of the position of the First Lord of the Treasury that the Civil List is a compact when year after year the compact has been broken by Government after Government, by the right hon. Member for Mid Lothian, of whom I wish to speak with the respect which I honestly feel for him, as well as by the Ministers of the day. The compact has been an illusory one, and I charge the Treasury with having neglected their duty to the nation in making payments which have been applied to the Privy Purse of Her Majesty. It would appear from the Report of the Committee that the national expenditure was only £385,000 charged on the Consolidated Fund, and £162,000 for annuities to members of the Royal Family, or in all £537,000. But there can be no question as to the incomes from the Duchies of Cornwall and Lancaster. Some hon. Members speak of the Duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall as if they were private properties, but the First Lord of the Treasury and the Chancellor of the Exchquer know that Chancellors of the Duchy of Lancaster have contended, within a limited period of time, that it is the property of the nation, only receivable by the Sovereign as part provision for the maintenance of the Sovereign. Therefore, adding £50,000 as the income of the Duchy of Lancaster and £62,000 as the income of the Duchy of Cornwall, a total is produced of nearly £649,000. Up to this point the matter is clear; but now the question begins to be difficult and obscure-and it is not possible to be quite exact. It is necessary to wade through the Civil Service, the Army, and Navy Estimates in order to find out the sums which the Royal Family cost year by year, and those sums ought to be added to this £649,000. Taking an average right through those Estimates the sum must always be over £100,000; so that I make the income of the Royal Family from property of the nation to be not quite. £800,000. In the reign of William and in the reign of Anne the Duchy of Lancaster and the Duchy of Cornwall went into the Civil List. In the reign of the Georges the Duchy of Cornwall was taken out of the Civil List Act by the existence of the Prince of Wales, and later, not by a draftsman's error but by a draftsman's cleverness, words were introduced which took to some ex- tent the Duchy of Lancaster out of its applicability. To put the matter in another way, instead of taking a minimum sum of £100,000 to be added to the sum of £648,971, I say, without fear of contradiction, that the accounts show an addition to the revenues of Her Majesty of from £70,000 to £100,000 a year. I will not trouble the House at this moment with the whole of the detailed figures which go to make up this sum, but I take £35,000 or £40,000 for other members of the Royal Family.

LORD R. CHURCHILL (Paddington, S.)

Is that in addition?

* MR. BRADLAUGH

Yes, quite in addition.

LORD R. CHURCHILL

Is that of Her Majesty?

* MR. BRADLAUGH

I was dealing with Her Majesty alone. I would take two illustrations to show what I meant. One item, which is fairly debateable as part of the expense of the Royal Family, an item which certainly formerly formed part of the Civil List expenditure, varied from £13,000 to £30,500 was for the repairs of the Royal Palaces in the personal occupation of Her Majesty. The noble Lord the Member for Paddington (Lord R. Churchill) will, I trust, in the course of the evening give the House his views as a financial reformer, and will respond to the appeal I now make to him as I responded to an appeal which he made to me, a long time ago, in an eloquent speech which he delivered at Wolverhampton. Another item which I have written in as part of the expenditure of Her Majesty is a sum of a little under £35,000 a year for the cost of the Royal yachts, without reckoning any kind of sinking fund for the original cost approaching something like £300,000. The same kind of variation applies in relation to the Prince of Wales, the repair of Marlborough House, for example, varying from £2,000 to about £8,000, and shows that it is impossible to take a fixed sum each year, and put down that as the actual cost. Altogether I estimate that it is fair to state the cost of the Royal Family year by year at the amount I put the other night, when I stated that it was something approaching £800,000. But supposing I am wrong, why have not the Government and the Committee reported what the figures are? If they will not tell what the figures are, ignorant men are apt to exaggerate them. It would be very easy for the Government to avoid the possibility of blunder by making a clear and distinct statement. In 1887 the hon. Member for the Leith Burghs (Mr. Munro Ferguson) moved for a Return showing the various offices and places of emolument held by members of the Royal Family. The First Lord of the Treasury refused to assent to that Motion on the ground that to give any such details would be invidious. That answer was a blunder. I believe that every one of these Royal persons fully earns his various emoluments—I am sure he would not take them if he did not—and the invidiousness, therefore, lies in refusing to give the information. In the Estimates, when any person holds more than one office of profit, there is a star placed against the name, and a footnote stating what such person is entitled to receive, and on what account. There is, in fact, a statement at the bottom of the page which gives the charges upon the Consolidated Fund, and from these footnotes it will be found that some of these personages are in the receipt of Naval or Military pay? Why is that not done here? There can be nothing to conceal, and the very possibility of concealment amounts to a blunder in regard to these points. The curious ignorance which has been shown in this Debate was marked, above all, in the speech of the hon. Member for the Uxbridge Division (Mr. Dixon-Hartland), who gave a number of careful figure and dates which have the merit of being an entire blunder from beginning to end. The hon. Member said that in the reign of George I., and in the reign of George II., the Civil List was £1,000,000 a year, and the hon. Member sought to show that the present Civil List is more moderate and economical than the Civil Lists of Georges I. and II., being only £385,000. I hold in my hand the second volume of the invaluable Financial Return of 1869, for which we are indebted to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian (Mr. Gladstone), and it gives the income and expenditure from 1688 to 1868 year by year. If the hon. Member for Uxbridge had looked at it he would have seen that it shows that, although the Civil List of George I. was a million and more, it omitted a large number of items which to-day were represented, most of them in the Civil Service Estimates, because the Civil List of William III. and Anne, and George I. and George II., did not mean the cost of the Royal Family alone, but the whole supposed Government of the nation—everything except the Army, Navy, Ordnance debt charges and special expenditure, which was dealt with by special Vote or special legislation. So that the justification of the attack of hon. Members on the Radicals who sit on this side of the House is their absolute unacquaintance with the history of the country in which they live. On the face of it, the Report of the Committee implies, in the 6th paragraph, that the Crown Lands and small branches of the Revenue were the only things that were the private property of the Monarch, and that these were surrendered to the State in lieu of the Civil List. I listened to the speech of the Under Secretary of State for India with great admiration, because it showed that he was by no means ignorant, and showed, further, how accurate and careful his researches must have been. The hon. Gentleman was good enough to tell the House that he shuddered. Now, it takes a good deal to make me shudder at statements which are made from the Ministerial Bench; but, at the same time, I feel bound to protest against some of them. The Report of the Committee states that the revenue from the Crown Lands and other sources is surrendered. Well, that is not true. I hold in my hand the Civil List of William, which has at least the merit of being explicit. I admit that I am precluded by the words of the statute of the present reign and by the words of the Statute 1, William IV., c. 25, from protesting that there was no surrender; but I will say that, except for those words, there was none, and that the legal consequences were far more reaching than what was enacted. All the revenues, which include the Post Office and the Excise, are carefully set out in the Return presented at the instance of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian, and there is an account of everything alleged to be the private property of Her Majesty. A large number of things are included besides those under the head of "Small branches" as well as the Crown Lands, and no one will dare to contend that these things were ever dreamt to be the private property of Her Majesty. What, then, becomes of the doctrine of surrender? I allege that I can prove, beyond the possibility of a doubt, that the present Royal Family never surrendered one farthing's value to the country. I am sorry to see that the superior knowledge of the noble Lord the Member for Paddington enables him to contradict me.

LORD R. CHURCHILL

I did not contradict you. I only smiled.

* MR. BRADLAUGH

I hope that it was a smile of approval. I can understand that the noble Lord appreciates the position I am about to take up, and with a smile endorses it, even before I have mentioned it. A passage in the rejected Report says that the Committee examined into matters as far back as the accession of the present Royal Family. I quite agree that the last three Civil List Acts—the Acts of George IV., of William IV., and of the present reign—contain very specific words. It is absolutely necessary, therefore, that I should show how those words came there, because I submit to the House that, beginning with the vague paragraph containing the recital of the Civil List Act of George III., the draftsman step by step manufactured a title to property which, in point of fact, never belonged to the Monarch at all, and never could be surrendered. I shall have to ask the House to go back to 9 and 10 William III., c. 23, the first Civil List Act, so far as I am aware in this country. I suppose that no one will contend, that when William III. came to this country he had any property to give up, or, if he had, that he had the smallest disposition to give it up. I am not saying that jestingly, but as a matter of fact, which everyone who is conversant with the history of that time well knows. What happened was that the House of Commons voted to King William for his life certain items for Civil List income. The statute was not passed until eight and a half years after that vote. The Grant to William for his life was not a Grant to the Royal Family—it was a Grant to William alone, for his life, and there is no pretence that he surrendered any- thing for it. This Grant for life shows that the nation held that it had its property in the revenues granted. So also, coming to the first and second of the Georges, there is no shadow of a pretence of a surrender, or that anything was vested in George I. or George II.; there was never one farthing surrendered by either of these Monarchs, for there was nothing left to them to surrender, the Grants to them being only for life. Each kept his private property as Elector of Hanover, and the legal compact by which the First Lord of the Treasury wishes us to be bound shows that not a solitary farthing was abandoned by either of these Monarchs. When we come to George III. I admit that a change of words occurred; but it was a very peculiar change. The change was not in any enacting part, but only in the Preamble of the Act. In the Preamble the King signified his consent to such disposition of his interests in the Hereditary Revenues of the Crown as would be for the public benefit. But his interests were not the Crown Lands and the small branches. They were interests which he had yet got to acquire. The Grant to George II. for life was no Grant to George III., his grandson, and therefore he had nothing to surrender when the Act was drawn. He had not one farthing of money, or one foot of land to cede. In the Civil List of George IV. curiously enough there do come in enacting words, but I defy the Government to adopt them, because they were so strong, and gave to His Majesty during his life the produce of all Hereditary Rates and Revenues paid and payable to the King's Majesty and his servants. It applied not only to the Crown Lands, but to the Post Office and Excise Revenues and to various other things. If it is contended that those words apply now, then I say that that is a doctrine which I, as a Representative of the people, will resist. The Civil List of George III. was a very wide Civil List. It not only took in the expenditure of the Royal Family, but I find in a letter of the King to Lord North, dated February 3, 1791, a passage in which reference is made to a subsidy to the Court of Sweden which "may be taken from my Civil List." There were consistent Tories at that time sordid enough to help to burden the taxpayer by receiving payments out of the Civil List. I ask the Government, when any Member of it rises to reply, to say why it is that they have made a pretence of limiting the vesting and surrender of property to the Crown Lands and small branches, when the principle must apply to the whole or not at all. The Government say that they obey a compact in this matter, but there is no compact except the compact to maintain the honour and dignity of the Crown; and so long as I am subjected to a Monarchy in this country, so long will I, by vote and speech, ask that that compact shall be carried out. I protest that there is nothing disloyal in the objections I am taking now, and I was a little grieved to hear the Mover and Seconder of the Amendment making a protest of their personal loyalty to the Sovereign. I make no protest of my loyalty, and I suffer no charge of disloyalty in submitting the arguments I am submitting. I now come to one passage of the Amendment to which I desire to call special attention—namely, that which declares that the funds now at the disposal of Her Majesty and the other members of her Family are adequate, without further demand on the taxpayer, to enable a suitable provision to be made for Her Majesty's grandchildren. It is clear that the sum of £385,000, fixed by Parliament in its wisdom at the beginning of the reign, has left in certain classes the possibility of savings. The savings may have amounted to £824,000; but the refusal of the First Lord of the Treasury to state whether the amount is more or less seems to me to justify much of the feeling which exists against the Grants in the country. But this does not exhaust the possible means of saving. They may have been savings from the income of the Duchy of Lancaster, and from the Privy Purse. Probably, however, there has been no excess in the latter. The Paper which has been handed in implies that Her Majesty was put to great expense in connection with the Jubilee. Most likely there has been heavy expenditure; but the lesson from that is that during the whole reign, with the exception of years of special expenditure, there has been a large surplus left. I contend that under the Act 1 and 2 Vict., cap. 2, section 9, it was not the duty of the Treasury to have handed over the savings in any class for the private enjoyment of Her Majesty. The statute gives them no such authority. Parliament in its wisdom has apportioned some particular classes, and as there might possibly be excess in one class and savings in another, to prevent constant applications to Parliament, Parliament has given th9 Lords of the Treasury power to balance one class by the savings of another, and if there were an excess in any class then the statute gives to the Treasury the right to apply to Parliament as to its application. I contend that Parliament should be allowed to pronounce its opinion in this case. I am bound to say as to the answer given by the First Lord of the Treasury last night as to whether the total of Her Majesty's savings was more or less than £824,000, that it was with pain and regret I heard him decline to give the information, and I am sure it will have been read with apprehension outside. The Chancellor of the Exchequer indignantly contradicted an item hazarded by a Member of this House, who said he had ground for the belief that the savings of Her Majesty amounted to a very large sum indeed. The First Lord of the Treasury said emphatically that it was untrue that the amount was several millions; but why, when Her Majesty is dealing with her people, who have been more loyal than any other people in the whole world, of the 50 years of her reign, have not her Representatives met the House of Commons fairly and frankly? Niggardliness ha3 never been one of the features of the British Parliament—I wish it had been, the burden on the nation would then be less; and I regret that the Government have thought fit to make these half confidences and half denials and evasive statements instead of dealing frankly with the House. Now, I will take the liberty of telling the House one or two small reasons why there is so much feeling outside on this question. In addition to the sum of £385,000, Her Majesty receives from the taxpayers a sum of £803 in lieu of butlerage and prisage, which, according to Sir R. Welby, meant the right the Monarch formerly had to take as much wine as he liked, at such price as he liked to pay, out of every vessel coming into any English port. Some of these rights have been conceded to various noblemen, who have no doubt made good advantage out of them. Yes; I mean good advantage for the nation. I think that this amount is a survival which Her Majesty's Advisers would do well to erase from the burdens of the people. Now, reverting to this special right, I learn from the Journals of the House that the wine merchants used to say that when their crews were weak and the King's collectors were strong a great deal of wine was taken and a remarkably small amount of cash paid. The merchants, with that want of legal knowledge which makes the Under Secretary for India shudder, called this lawful taking of wine robbery—there is a great deal of difference between taxation and robbery—and they petitioned the House of Commons on the matter, with the result that the House said that only one tun of wine out of every 10 tuns should be taken. This £803 is a commutation of that right: it is a survival of a barbarous right which was always wrong; it was aright of robbery by right of force; and I repeat I think Her Majesty's Advisers would do well to erase the charge from the burdens of the people. These are little things, but they catch the public mind. Then there is a sum of £100 10s. 10d., capitalized in 1883 for £2,709, which represents every third penny of the fees taken by the Earls of counties in old times for holding Courts of Justice. For the manner in which that has been dealt with I do not blame the Government, because I made my protest against it while the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian was in Office. The commutation took place in 1883. This third penny of the fees was levied in the Counties of Essex, Lincoln, and Derby, and I cannot understand how the responsible Advisers of Her Majesty could have allowed this money to be received year after year without any other right than this survival of feudal times. Another item which affects the Prince of Wales specially is the sum of £16,216 15s. a year in lieu of king-coinage, white-rents, and post-groats in the Counties of Cornwall and Devon. As a sample of how this commutation was effected, I would mention that £630 14s. 2d. per year for ever was the compensation for what was let on lease at £10 per year. On the close of the lease William IV. voluntarily surrendered the right to take this sum, and that surrender has been endorsed and repeated by Her Majesty, no doubt by the advice of her responsible Advisers. In accordance with this the Treasury, by a Minute never revoked, ordered the £630 14a. 2d. to cease on 5th April, 1841, but it is still paid without a shadow of legal authority. These are only small things, but they very much move the country. In the reign of William IV. Earl Grey stated that the feeling against these Royal Grants existed strongly not only amongst the democratic classes but among the easier classes also, and Earl Grey writing at that time says he "has even received letters from Tories expressing a hope that he would resist the Grants." So it is to-day. There is no desire on the part of the bulk of the people to make any change whatever in any of our institutions, but they do resent these small burdens. I submit there is no such compact as that upon which the First Lord of the Treasury relied, and there is money enough in the possession of Her Majesty to meet these demands, and upon these grounds I do, on behalf of the people, oppose these demands, which I regard as unfair, upon them.

LORD R. CHURCHILL (Paddington, S.)

It seems to me, Sir, that so long a period has elapsed since I had the honour of addressing this House, that in now obtruding myself upon its notice I almost feel as if I might ask for that indulgence which it usually accords to a new Member. I feel that the subject now under consideration is one of great public interest and importance, and I shall begin by admitting that I have always held an opinion, amounting to an absolute conviction, as to the indisputable right of the Crown to apply to Parliament to make provision for the Royal Family and to rely upon the liberality of Parliament in regard to such applications. The present applications are being made in respect of two children of the Prince of Wales, and we have in the Report of the Committee information as to what were the original proposals of the Government. I take the opportunity of saying that I hold strongly the opinion that the original proposals of the Government wore in strict conformity with precedent; and, so far as one can judge from the meagre account of the proceedings of the Committee with which we have been furnished, it does not appear that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian took immediate exception to those proposals which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle has since described as stupefying and preposterous. That does not seem to have been the view at first taken by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian, who only placed on record a formula as to the manner in which the Grants should be paid should those proposals be accepted, and I take it, it is extremely probable that if Her Majesty's Government had adhered to their original proposals, they might have secured the support of the right hon. Gentleman. While I regret that Her Majesty's Government did not do so, I cannot blame them. The First Lord of the Treasury says that he made concessions in order to secure unanimity and avoid controversy; but the right hon. Gentleman must now realise that he was engaged in the hopeless task of trying to conciliate those who are absolutely irreconcilable, and that in seeking to avoid controversy he stimulated it. The hon. Member for Northampton has alluded to me as being ambitious of the character of a financial reformer. I have done what I could to give practical proof that financial reform is to me a matter of considerable importance. But I hope to show before I sit down that financial reform has been applied very thoroughly to the provision made for the Royal Family, and that financial reform is more concerned in maintaining the national and Parliamentary credit in the relations between the Crown and the people than in making those alterations in those relations which some hon. Gentlemen opposite suggest. It cannot be denied that the action of the Government and of Parliament, and especially of the Government, in advising the Crown and Parliament, and in allowing the Crown to take upon itself and its own private resources the provision for a considerable number of the Royal Family, has placed on the Sovereign a burden that was not contemplated when the Civil List was framed, and therefore, if I am correct in this, it does amount to some extent to a repudiation by Parliament of an arrangement between the Crown and Parliament, a repudiation which so far would impair Parliamentary and national credit. The hon. Member for Northampton said that it was never contemplated, when the Civil List was revised at the commencement of this reign, that Parliament should be asked to provide for the Royal Family.

* MR. BRADLAUGH

I said, in reply to the phrase used by the First Lord of the Treasury, that there was not one word in the compact as to such provision.

LORD R. CHURCHILL

It is on that very fact, that there was not one word in the compact as to this provision for the Royal Family, that I rely as showing that it was understood at the time that such provision should be made. There was no trace in the Report of the Committee or the discussions in Parliament at the time of any idea that Parliament should thereafter be relieved from providing for members of the Royal Family. The argument of the First Lord of the Treasury that no notice has been given to the Crown of such discontinuance is unanswerable both positively and negatively. It is all very well for hon. Gentlemen in the free air of the Benches below the Gangway to scoff at precedents; but when they take their places on the Treasury Bench their views on this point will probably change, and they will find they will have to a great extent to be guided by precedent. Not only has no notice been given of any intention on the part of Parliament to refuse such provision, but notice may be taken as having been given to the contrary. I invite the attention of the House to a comparatively recent precedent in the present reign. In 1850 a reformed and distinctively Liberal Parliament was asked by Lord John Russell to grant an allowance of £12,000 a year to the present Duke of Cambridge. That was opposed by some very distinguished Members of the House—among others by Mr. Bright and Mr. Roebuck, the latter of whom was one of the most determined Radicals the House has ever seen. But upon what ground did they oppose it? They did not assert that the Crown had no right to apply to Parliament to make provision for the junior branches of the Royal Family. They objected to the amount, and Mr. Bright took the strong point that provision would have to be made for other members of the present Royal Family. Could there be a stronger notification that the Sovereign would not be called upon to provide for the junior members of the Royal Family? I now come to another precedent, and an interesting one—that of 1871. The Parliament of 1871 was elected under the influence of a great Reform Act, and contained an overwhelming Liberal majority. I have always held that this country has never seen a Parliament so capable of doing good work, and one that did so much. In that Parliament the right hon. Member for Mid Lothian had to ask for a Grant for the Duke of Connaught; and, referring to the general principle upon which Grants were demanded, he stated, in the most positive manner, that there never was the slightest expectation that savings to provide for junior members of the Royal Family could be made by the Queen; and he proceeded:— The general plan waived all attempts to make a general provision at the commencement of each reign for the possible issue of the Sovereign, and we leave it to Parliament to deal with each particular case as it arises, and according to what it may consider that the circumstances of the case demand.… Of all the methods by which you can proceed to secure a provision for members of the Royal Family, it is the one by far the most agreeable to the spirit of the Constitution; for its effect is to establish a considerable degree of moral control which Parliament would probably lose if any other method were adopted. Some hon. Members may not agree with this; but it is most important coming from a Prime Minister with an overwhelming Liberal majority. It was a clear and an unmistakeable intimation to the Crown that, in the present reign, Parliament would not expect the Crown to provide for the junior members of the Royal Family. I am sure the right hon. Member for Newcastle, who is a just and, on many subjects, an impartial man, will not feel that the line of argument of the First Lord of the Treasury and others that no notice was ever given to the Crown is one unworthy of attention. I believe it to be an unanswerable argument. I now come to the speech of the junior Member for Northampton, who favoured the House with many statistics and some things that were extremely irrelevant. In all courtesy I would admitatonce that his knowledge is wide and far exceeds in its general range that of other members of the House; but the hon. Member gave his information to the House in rather too pedagogic a manner to secure from the House the full advantage that he ought to secure. It may be that hon. Members on this side of the House are hopelessly buried in unfathomable depths of ignorance; but it would be more diplomatic if he did not tell us that quite so plainly, and if he were, for the purposes of debate, to credit us with knowing something. The hon. Member has a most singular way of dealing with the past. He has exhibited such a knowledge of law—amateur knowledge—as to suggest that he must have fallen a victim to one of the most abominable and pernicious books ever published in this country, "Every Man his Own Lawyer," and must have forgotten the popular saying which is well known in the Courts that "a man who is his own lawyer has a fool for a client." I am quite ready to admit that the hon. Gentleman does possess legal knowledge, and has done his beat to qualify himself by legal research; but surely he will be prepared to admit that, just as "there were brave men before Agamemnon," so there were great Radical lawyers before the hon. Member. If the great Radical lawyers who have existed have never been able to detect a flaw in the title of the Crown to its estates, are we not justified in assuming that no such flaw is to be found? The title to the Crown estates has been held by Parliament to be a perfectly clear one. I will not enter into a legal controversy with the hon. Gentleman; but I should imagine that he might submit his arguments to a Court of Law so that we might have an authoritative decision. He might instal himself in one of the Royal Palaces, and, after having been ejected, he might bring an action for assault, and might plead that the Royal Palaces and all the revenues of the Crown had been obtained by the grossest fraud. Until he does something of that kind or persuades some great lawyer to adopt his view and challenge the title of the Crown, he must not be surprised if the great majority of the House differ from him. The hon. Member and his colleagues declare that it is an error to speak of Crown estates, and that they are in no sense of the word Crown estates, but are really the property of the people.

* MR. BRADLAUGH

No; I have never said that. What I have said is that they were originally given to the Monarch for life as part of the Civil List, given with other revenues which are equally and neither more nor less applicable to the purposes for which they were given.

LORD R. CHURCHILL

Well, that is much the same sort of thing, so far as I can see. The hon. Gentleman disputes the personal right of the Crown to the full and free possession of the Crown estates. I found myself on an authority which is good enough for me, and that is a speech on this subject by Mr. Disraeli, who spoke of The large real state which Her Majesty possessed by the laws of this realm with as clear a title and as complete possession as any of the Peers hold their estates. Did Mr. Disraeli make this statement without authority? On the contrary, if hon. Gentlemen will turn to the Report of the Committee of 1831—as strong a Committee as could have been formed—they will find these words made use of:— The House must recollect that the principle on which the sum is allotted by Parliament for the purposes of the Civil List is that it is a payment for the personal advantage of the Sovereign and for the support of the dignity of the Crown in lieu of the hereditary revenue which, at the commencement of each reign, the Sovereign sacrifices for the benefit of the public. "Sacrifices!" Could this Committee have used a word more calculated to recognise in all its fulness the complete personal title of the Crown to these estates than the word "sacrifices"?

* MR. BRADLAUGH

Perhaps the noble Lord will permit me to point out that the Committee said the "hereditary revenue," which included very much more than either the Crown Lands or the small branches.

LORD R. CHURCHILL

It did not include anything beyond what is mentioned in the Appendices to this Report. Again, in 1837, a strong Committee appointed to settle the Civil List repeated and endorsed this statement. There were on the Committee two very distinguished and famous Eadicals—Mr. Hume and Mr. Grote. Does the hon. Member imagine that if they had been able to detect any inaccurate expression made use of by the Committee with reference to hereditary revenue, they would not instantly have pointed it out? Not one word of exception was taken by either of those two representative men against the strong assertions of both Committees as to the personal, full, and complete title of the Crown to the hereditary revenue. I do really submit that, until we have the assertions of the hon. Member for Northampton supported by great and recognised legal authorities, it would be almost better if he did not make them, for he cannot expect the House to pay the smallest attention to them. I pass on to another challenge which has been very freely thrown down. The hon. Members for Northampton and the hon. Member for Sunderland (Mr. Storey) directly challenged the title of the Queen to the balances of excesses which have arisen. The hon. Member for Sunderland assumed a most solemn tone and asked, "Are these savings the Queen's, or are they ours?" He might just as well ask, "Is this purse [The noble Lord held out his right hand with a purse in it] his or mine?" It would be quite as reasonable and quite as moral. Hon. Gentlemen do not appear to realise that by this challenge they are accusing Ministers of the Crown, including Sir E. Peel and the right hon. Member for Mid Lothian, and Secretaries of the Treasury like the eagle-eyed Chairman of Committees, and the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, of having encouraged and connived at embezzlement and misappropriation by the Crown of public money. That is what it comes to, and therefore it would be more honest to put it in words and then the public would understand it. The argument of hon. Gentlemen opposite is that these balances ought to be paid into the Exchequer. Where do they find in the Act of Parliament a single syllable that warrants such an assertion? There is not a word in it that would justify such a contention as that. The hon. Member for Northampton evidently imagines that the Parliament of 1837 were a body of such incompetent persons that they allowed the Crown to set up a title by their loose phraseology to a sum of money which it was not intended that the Crown should have. That is his contention.

* MR. BRADLAUGH

No; I said that the section of the Act did not authorise the issue except for certain purposes.

LORD R. CHURCHILL

My contention is that Parliament, which went with extreme care into the matter, had it desired that the excesses of the Civil Lists should be paid into the Exchequer, would have so stipulated in the Act. Now there have been in the Treasury for very many years past traditions of extraordinary rigour with respect to every penny in the public accounts; and it is to be assumed that if it had ever occurred to any Treasury official from that day to this that there were improper practices in paying over to the Crown these excesses, the Treasury would either have arrested those practices or a Bill would have been introduced into Parliament for that purpose. But it was clearly the intention of Parliament that the Civil List was voted for Her Majesty's use, and that the Privy Purse had a right to the excesses which might arise. That was the practice in the reign of George III., and successive Parliaments followed it. On November 23, 1837, Mr. Spring Rice, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, said— During the 33 years reign of George II. the Civil List was fixed at £800,000 per annum, and it was provided that if the duties granted to produce it did not in any one year produce £800,000, the deficiency was to be made good. If the produce exceeded £800,000 the excess went to the Crown. That was followed by the Treasury when there were excesses at disposal; it was rightly followed by the Governments and Parliaments in all the years of this reign; and it is not consistent with reason or common sense to impugn the title of the Sovereign to these excesses. In connection with this subject I cannot help alluding to certain remarks, by no means characterized by a great abundance of charity, which were made by hon. Gentlemen opposite in respect to the savings of the Crown. The hon. Member for Sunderland made a statement last night which cannot be too strongly reprehended. He gave the House to understand that from his own knowledge he was able to assert with confidence to the House that the savings of the Sovereign amounted to £3,000,000. On what authority did he make that statement? What right has the hon. Member, in order to give that statement a popular colour, to put a question to the First Lord of the Treasury and ask him to say whether it is true or not? Has he any private knowledge of his own, and to which the public have not access, which would justify this statement? If he has, he ought to produce it. If he has not, he ought to withdraw the statement and admit that he was mistaken.

MR. STOREY

So far from withdrawing what I did say I repeat it, and I shall take means to substantiate as far as I can what I said; and if I fail I shall demand proof from the Treasury which will enable me to show that what I said was right.

LORD R. CHURCHILL

A very novel practice. You are to make a most extraordinary statement, to refuse to substantiate it, and to demand arrogantly of the Government that they should say whether the statement is true or not. I think that the statement of the hon. Member was one which he made without the smallest justification. It was a statement made with the design of creating popular animosity, and one which the hon. Member never would have made if he had been in possession of information that lie ought to have possessed, and information of which the public are in possession. In the year 1885 the hon. Member for Maidstone took notice of a statement made by another loose speaker as to the savings of the Crown, and he wrote to Sir H. Ponsonby to inquire whether there was any truth in it. Sir H. Ponsonby replied in these terms on September 18, 1885:— There is no foundation for the statement that the Queen has purchased ground in the City of London. You may make any use you please of the above contradiction. The Queen has bought nothing and possesses nothing in the City of London. She has invested no money in ground-rents, and she does not possess a million to invest. I think the best course for the hon. Member for Sunderland to have taken before making such a statement would have been to ask Sir H. Ponsonby, an extremely courteous and fair-minded man, whether it was consistent with the facts. I do think, Sir, it is very wrong of hon. Gentlemen, although they hold strong opinions on the financial aspect of this question, not to confine themselves to rigid accuracy. In alluding to the savings of the Sove- reign, I may observe that all that we know of them is that there have been excesses on the Civil List, amounting to £800,000 odd. Part of that amount—we know not how much, and we have no right to know—has been invested in a permanent form; and more than that, I think, we have absolutely no right to know. But in this connection I cannot fail to notice that Her Majesty has now consented or offered of her own free will to place on these savings the burden and charge of providing for all the junior branches of the Royal Family, except the children of the Prince of Wales. And I observe on referring this morning to the proper sources of information that that would involve, without including the children of the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Edinburgh, in all probability a provision for not less than It members of the Royal Family. And looking at the amount of the savings which you may reasonably anticipate will accrue, I think you will find that the Sovereign has taken upon herself as much as could possibly be expected from her. If I am not dwelling too much on this matter, I should like to refer to another point. The hon. Member for Sunderland, in the suggestion that did not abound in generosity, which naturally came from him, spoke of the accumulations of income to which His Royal Highness succeeded as Duke of Cornwall, and wanted to know what had become of them. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian pointed out that a large portion of them were spent in the purchase of the Sandringham estate, and another large portion in setting up an establishment for his Royal Highness on the scale which was suitable to his position. But I can give the hon. Member and the House a little more information as to the application of those accumulations. The House is aware that the estate at Sandringham was bought for His Royal Highness at a first cost of something like £220,000. The land since purchased cost £13,500, making a total of £233,500. At the time of the purchase the estate was almost a desert, and so bad was the purchase considered to be that there was much comment and criticism on the subject at the time it took place. Well, in addition to the cost of the land—namely, £233,500, the capital outlay upon the development of the estate, which is not larger than 8,000 acres, amounts to no less a sum than £290,000. How has that money been spent? It has been spent in carrying out what I hold to be a great public object; in setting up in Norfolk what might be a standard of excellence in the management of an estate for the surrounding landowners. Since the estate was purchased every farm building has been restored or rebuilt; 100 new cottages have been built—and the word cottages is almost a misnomer for such houses; 200 acres have been planted; 15 miles of new road have been made; and churches, schools, and clubs have been set on foot and supported, not only with the design of showing to the landlords of England what a model landed estate should be, and of inducing them, as far as possible, to conform to that standard and to be desirous of emulating it; but also there was this object, in which the Prince of Wales has succeeded perfectly—that the lot of everyman, woman, and child dwelling on the Sandringham estate should be in every sense of the word a happy lot. This I speak of from my own knowledge, and I thought the House would allow me to mention those facts, because a more excellent expenditure of money, which is in a sense public money, has, I think, rarely been made, and because of the ungenerous and extremely ill-natured allusion of the hon. Member for Sunderland. I turn to other points, and I cannot help noticing, in passing, the sole support and authority which the hon. Member for Northampton and his friends are able to adduce in favour of the doctrine that the Sovereign ought to provide for her own children. I suppose that they have searched through the pages of history and Parliamentary Debates, and what is the sole authority? Why, Lord Brougham. The House may have noticed that the date of Lord Brougham's utterance, which the hon. Members have quoted, is 1836. At that time Lord Brougham occupied a peculiar relationship to the Government of Lord Melbourne. There was absolutely nothing which he was not prepared to do or say to upset Lord Melbourne's Administration. This is a fact which cannot be contradicted, and which destroys any Constitutional value which may attach to the authority of Lord Brougham's utterances at that period. The hon. Member for Northampton and his Colleagues assert that the Radical Party are now committed inflexibly to opposition to all Grants to the Royal Family. The Radical Party is committed to no such thing. There are many stout and sturdy Radicals who by no means admit the contention of the hon. Gentleman, and I will take as an instance the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Sheffield. ["Oh!"] It seems to me that if the hon. Gentleman denies the title of the right hon. Member for Sheffield to be a stout and honest Radical he is in danger of becoming so particular and eclectic that his following will soon be reduced to infinitesimal proportions. In 1885 the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Sheffield addressed his constituents on the subject of Royal Grants, and he was questioned by one of them. The question was:— Did you vote for the allowance to Princess Beatrice? And the right hon. Gentleman answered— I did vote for the Grant for the Princess Beatrice, and I did the right thing. If it had to be done again I would do it again; and I say if you do not approve do not vote for me. The Princess Beatrice is the last and the youngest of the Queen's children, and I will make no distinction between one and another. I believe that the bargain made with respect to the Crown property was a very good bargain for the State, as I am told that the Crown property in the future will more than pay all the expenses of the Royal Family. The next question was— Do you not think the allowance to the Prince of Wales is excessive? The right hon. Gentleman replied— There is no greater mistake, in my opinion, that many working-men make in supposing these personal allowances to Royalty are such a tremendous burden on the nation. They are a flea-bite as compared with some bad legislation, some miserable war, or some irregularity. Well, as I told my constituents once in Paradise Square, there was more money stolen in New York by the Municipal Council within a few years than would have paid the expenses of Royalty to the end of eternity—if it should last so long. The mere interest of it would have done it. I do not want you to consider that is a thing that burdens you. You are straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel. It may be possible, therefore, that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Sheffield will not follow the lead of the hon. Member for Northampton to-night. There is another matter on which I wish to touch, and that is the popular feeling which is supposed to exist against these Royal Grants. We heard of it from the hon. Member for Northampton, who spoke last, and from the hon. Member for Sunderland who spoke last night. And, no doubt, I should say that the wish with them was to some extent father to the thought. But we also heard of it in a remarkable speech by the hon. Member for Leicester, who spoke as a warm and earnest friend of Royalty. He said that the feeling of the people on this question was one of indignation—indignation which might, as he appeared to think, at any moment develop into fury, and that fury would be manifested by nothing less than the impeachment and exile of the Royal Family, and possibly even the bloody butchery of the classes at the hands of the exasperated masses. I noticed quite clearly in this necromantic, geomantic, and thaumaturgic harangue that the imagination of the hon. Gentleman even pictured himself as marching boldly and proudly to the scaffold, the martyr of Constitutional moderation to the excesses of a reign of terror. But, after all, what does the portentous and ecstatic prediction of the hon. Gentleman amount to? He declaims against the intolerable burden of the Monarchy—the growing burden—and the repeated applications to Parliament for money. This is a serious matter, which I suppose he has been very careful to examine. As to the growing cost of the Monarchy, I will give some figures as to whether the Monarchy is a growing or a reduced burden. I take the item of Special Grants to members of the Royal Family in this reign and in that of George III. In the reign of George III. the Special Grants to members of the Royal Family were nearly £1,000,000. [Cries of "Oh!"] Yes; the hon. Gentleman is quite right to be shocked at that figure. I was shocked myself. I find that whereas the Grants to the Royal Family from 1763 to 1802, a period of 39 years, amounted to nearly £1,000,000, the Special Grants to members of the Royal Family in this reign—that is, from 1837 to 1889, or a period of 52 years—have amounted only to £189,000. Therefore, at any rate on that source of cost, we get a reduction of £800,000. If I take the annuities to members of the Royal Families—and I do not go back to the days of the middle of last century, but only to the last year but one of George Ill's reign, 1819—the annuities in that year amounted to £430,000 a year. In the present year they amount to only £152,000; therefore, that is a reduction of £280,000 a year since 1819. Now I take the Civil List of William IV. This, in 1830, amounted to £510,000 a year; while the Civil List of the present Monarch is only £385,000 a year. I give this as showing the reduction of annual cost. But I must take the increased amount which the nation receives from the Crown Lands. The nation has more in hand to meet the cost of Royalty than it ever had; and the increase of revenue from Crown Lands in the present reign amounts to £220,000. Therefore, I get a reduction of cost since 1819 of the Monarchy to the people of no less than £650,000 a year. I take the cost of the Monarchy and compare it with the cost of the Monarchy under William IV.; and though I am very anxious to do all that I can to assist the hon. Member in selling this pamphlet from which he quotes, and which he is no doubt anxious to advertise, I must decline to accept the catalogue of charges which it states ought to be added to the cost of the Monarchy. There is not one of these charges which can be fairly added, unless it is the item for the Royal Yachts, upon which much might be said. As to the cost of the Monarchy under William IV., I take the Civil List and annuities together, which amounted to £760,000 a year. The net revenue from the Crown Lands was £150,000, so that the total cost of the Monarchy then was £610,000 a year. The present cost of the Monarchy, including the Civil List and annuities, is £532,000, and deducting the net receipts of the Crown Lands, £404,000, I get a total net cost of the Monarchy to the people of £128,000; showing a reduction of cost to the people, compared with the reign of William IV., of £482,000; this net cost of £128,000 to the people meaning the intolerable, vexatious, unbearable impost of three-farthings per head of the population. It is often said that little events produce great movements; but I fear I cannot agree with the hon. Member for Leicester in thinking that a charge per head of the population like this for the support of the Monarchy is likely to bring about that world-wide bloodshed which he has predicted. When hon. Gentlemen are addressing their constituents on this subject they ought, in common justice and in common fair-play, to give the exact figures such as I have given to the House. I cannot myself treat the Amendment of the hon. Member for Northampton with that tenderness and that respect which naturally the right hon. Member for Mid Lothian, from his position as his Party Leader, is inclined to extend to it. I own frankly that I cannot find in the action of the hon. Gentleman any real or sincere zeal for the public welfare. I notice, on the contrary, an exhibition, greedily sought for, of cheap-Jack Republicanism, and I observe that this action is dictated and animated by a desire by no means concealed to degrade and lower the Monarchy in popular estimation, and, however unjustly and however unscrupulously, to excite popular clamour and discontent against those who occupy, surround, or are near the Throne. Against such sentiments, and against such motives so expressed and so applied in this Debate, I gladly give my vote.

SIR H. HUSSEY VIVIAN (Swansea, District)

As a member of the Committee I may be allowed a word or two. I entered that Committee with an unprejudiced mind, and I may refer to what actually took place in that Committee. On our first meeting Resolutions were put before the Committee, not formally but informally, for the purpose of guiding our considerations and of explaining to us the views of Her Majesty's Government. I very much regret that the Government departed from those original Resolutions by the draft Report they put before the Committee. I believe that if the Government had adhered strictly to the form of those Resolutions they first proposed it might have been possible to come to some compromise. I am well aware that some Liberal Members could not have voted for some of these Resolutions, but at the same time they did not commit us to any very serious assertion that we could not have found some means of accepting. When we met on 2nd July, a Draft Report was handed to the Committee which contained paragraphs of a character which we could not for a moment agree to. There appeared to be, at the commencement of our deliberations, two essential points; one was, provision for the children of the younger children of the Sovereign, and the other was provision for the children of the Prince of Wales. Now, if these had been strictly adhered to, I think that we might possibly have come to some agreement, but when the Draft Report was placed in our hands it became at once evident that it was not likely we should arrive at a unanimous vote on paragraphs 13 and 14 introduced into that Draft Report for the first time. The first of these paragraphs contains the statement that no notice had been given to the Queen that she must prepare to make provision for the children of her younger children. Now I deny altogether that any notice of the kind was required, I cannot conceive that it ought to be required from Parliament, because Parliament has to deal with questions as they arise, and it would be most improper for any Minister of the Crown to propose a Resolution to the effect that the Queen should have notice that in future no Grants should be made to her grandchildren other than the children of the Heir Apparent. There is no precedent for such a notice, and I fail to see on what ground it could be called for. I could not see what was the use of this paragraph, it was altogether imperative and merely declaratory, and it was as an apple of discord introduced into the Committee, and had no bearing on our deliberations. Then the 14th paragraph was to the effect that Her Majesty would have a claim on the liberality of Parliament if she should think fit to apply for Grants in support of the Royal Family. Now that opened a very wide door, for it is difficult to say to what extent the younger grand children of the Sovereign may increase, and a very large sum indeed may be involved in the admission of such a claim, and it would be fettering the free action of future Parliaments. There was no hope of securing unanimity upon such a clause as that. Her Majesty was graciously pleased to intimate to us that she waived all claim during her reign for Grants for children of her younger children, but still Her Majesty felt it necessary to insist on this paragraph 14, and we could not accept it. We have the high authority of my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Lothian that these claims cannot be revived, and we must defer to his great authority and experience; but I certainly should like to receive a clear and definite reply from the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether those claims of the grand children are ever again to be set up. At present the question is in a somewhat ambiguous position. Let a responsible Member of the Crown say whether it will be open to a Sovereign in the future to make this claim. I am bound to say that unless we do not have such a declaration much will be said on the subject when we come to stand on the platform before our constituents. The Liberal Members on the Committee were unanimous in voting against these two paragraphs in the Draft Report; and apart from the Unionist Members—for whom I cannot speak—I do not think there is any Liberal Member would vote for these. Then comes the question of applications on behalf of the children of the Prince of Wales, which appeared to me, from the first, to be an altogether separate question; and I cannot see why it should have been mixed with the other question of the claims on behalf of the younger children. It reminded me of my school boy days where one boy would say to another, "If you do this, I'll do that." But after all it does not appear that these things have anything to do with each other. My object has been to get rid of what I thought might be an enormous charge on the country, if it were called on to provide for the grandchildren of the Sovereign other than those of the Heir Apparent. The question of providing for the children of the Heir Apparent appears to me to be a wholly different matter. Some of my colleagues, however, take a different view, and they say to the Government—"Unless you propose the abnegation, or, at any rate, the non-assertion of the claims of the Sovereign, we cannot vote for you." In this I cannot coincide. It appears to me that the provision for the children of the Prince of Wales is absolutely necessary and just, and that we cannot properly avoid making it. I have great respect for the opinion of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Bedford and also for that of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle, and I listened with attention to the speeches of both those Gentlemen last night, and I should have liked to have heard argued out by them the question as to where the money is to come from by which the children of the Prince of Wales are to be supported. They are both practical business men, and they probably know how exceedingly difficult it is to provide such a sum as £40,000 or £36,000 a year. I think that a definite scheme should have been put before us by those Gentlemen as to how that sum should be provided; for I do not suppose that any one would contend that it ought to come out of the income of the Prince of Wales. I have listened to almost everything that has been said in this Debate, and I have heard no one assert that the income of the Prince of Wales is more than sufficient to enable him to uphold the honour and dignity of his position. The Prince has very numerous calls on his purse. He does an enormous amount of extremely good work all over the country, and in addition to this during the unfortunate retirement of the Queen the Princess of Wales has done her best to perform those functions which are usually performed by the Sovereign. Now, the discharge of all these functions on the part of the Prince and Princess of Wales costs money. They cannot go here and there and everywhere to perform ceremonial duties in all parts of the kingdom without having to expend large sums of money. I do not hesitate, therefore, to say that, under these circumstances, the income of the Prince of Wales does not suffice for the putting away of money for the benefit of his children. If that be so, then it is clear that the money must come out of the revenues of Her Majesty the Queen. Now, I at once admit that, in my opinion, the Civil List and the revenues of the Duchy of Lancaster are large enough to provide for all the needs of the Crown, and on this point I agree in the main with the statement made by the senior Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere). But we are not at the present moment dealing with that question. It is one that must be relegated to the re-settlement of the Civil List at the conclusion of this reign. Her Majesty has taken upon herself very heavy charges in pro- viding for the children of her sons and daughters other than those of the Prince of Wales. That would be probably as large a charge as in the present condition of the Civil List she would be able to take upon herself. The enormous amount of £131,000 a year which has to be paid for the salaries of officials attached to the Court must, as I feel sure no one can deny, admit of a very serious reduction; besides which I think there can be little doubt that the cost of the Royal Household admits of great retrenchment. I am also ready to admit that the amount of the Civil List, coupled with the revenues of the Duchy of Lancaster, making together £436,000 a year, ought to be sufficient to maintain the honour and dignity of the Crown and to provide for the Royal Family; but that is not the question here. I am not prepared, seeing the time of life at which the Queen has arrived, to force upon her the enormously difficult problem of providing between £30,000 and £40,000 a year for the children of the Prince of Wales. After due deliberation, Parliament passed the Civil List Act, in which the various items are scheduled, and that in reality constitutes a bargain between Parliament and the Crown. We cannot, therefore, force upon the Crown at the present moment the necessity of such retrenchments as would provide an adequate sum for the children of the Prince of Wales. Her Majesty the Queen has already taken serious burdens on herself, and she has no doubt lived prudently and made considerable savings. For my own part I regret that the First Lord of the Treasury did not feel himself in a position to say what those savings were. The hon. Member for Sunderland (Mr. Storey) has stated that gross exaggeration exists throughout the country on this subject, and I myself am of opinion that it would be much betterif the whole of the case had been fully stated. If this bad been done, these misunderstandings and exaggerations would not have existed; but I am bound to say that, as far as I can see, Her Majesty could not have taken upon herself the additional burden of supporting the children of the Prince of Wales. These are grounds upon which I shall vote against all future claims in the first place, and then vote for the provision which is proposed to be made to the Prince of Wales. I must say that I shall have no hesitation, if called upon, to justify the vote I am about to give. I do not know what exact form the Amendment may take in this House next week; but whatever the form may be, I shall follow out exactly the same course I now announce—namely, I shall vote to limit, as far as possible, all future liabilities, to extinguish all claims which might be set up in regard to the grandchildren of the Sovereign other than the children of the Heir Apparent; but to make such Grants as I believe in my conscience to be necessary for the support of the family of the Prince of Wales.

* MR. S. HOARE (Norwich)

I was a Member of the Select Committee appointed to consider this question, and in this capacity I may claim the indulgence of the House while I address to it a few observations upon the question under discussion, although if that indulgence be accorded, I will promise to trespass upon its patience a very short time. There is only one point to which I desire to address myself, and that is one that has been forced upon the House by hon. Members opposite, in reference to a word used in the Report of the Select Committee. I allude to the word "surrender." I cannot help thinking that the use of that word constitutes a very material point in this issue. Instead of the word "surrender" being used in the Committee's Report, the word "sacrifice" ought to have occurred. I think, if the House had become fully acquainted with the circumstances of the case, they would differ from both the hon. Members for Northampton and say that the word "sacrifice" ought to have been used. The two hon. Members for Northampton have implied that practically there are no hereditary revenues—that what comes under the heads of "woods and forests" are not in reality revenues. The junior Member for Northampton made allusion to the Report of 1869, and I wish he had made fuller reference to that Report, because it would have thrown a great deal of light upon this subject and have put a very different complexion upon it to that which he has put forth. I will quote one clause in that Report which says— Although the land revenues have been surrendered to the public use, yet the surrender has been made only for the lifetime of each Sovereign, and the public stand with respect to the Crown Lands in the position merely of a life tenant. I do not stand on the question of the Crown Lands, and would rather apply myself to the point on which the hon. Member for Northampton so much enlarged, and that was that, in the reign of William and Mary and of George I. and George II., there was no surrender of hereditary rights. I have striven, as far as I can, to see whether those hereditary duties continued since the time they were instituted, and perhaps the House will allow me to read a clause in the Act of Charles II. as regards hereditary Excise Duties—12th Charles II. c. 24:— That there shall be paid unto the King's Majesty, his heirs and successors for ever, hereafter in recompense as aforesaid, the several rates, impositions, duties, and charges hereinafter expressed, and in manner and form following," &c. Then came the list of duties. Now, we have been told that these were never surrendered. We have been told that in the reign of William and Mary there was no surrender of these duties, and that there was no acknowledgment by Parliament that they were entitled to those duties. But those who study these questions will see that the circumstances were absolutely different. William and Mary came to the Throne in exceptional circumstances, and several Acts of Parliament were necessary which would not have been necessary in ordinary circumstances. In one of the earliest Acts, however, of that reign, these very hereditary duties were handed over to them distinctly. In the earlier Acts of the reign of Queen Anne these duties were alluded to, and provision was made for the management of the Crown Lands and hereditary duties. Again, in the Act of Settlement of George I. the same duties were mentioned and in no way surrendered. So, again, in the case of George II.; so that it will be seen that in every instance of accession to the Throne the right to these duties was acknowledged. Therefore, I maintain that the word "surrender" in the Act of William IV. was the right word to use in the Act of Victoria, if it was not right to use the still stronger word "sacrificed." It is interesting to realise what amount the hereditary duties would have reached had they been carried on by the Monarchy. In the 11 years of the reign of George IV. they would have amounted to £21,500,000, or an annual average of £1,955,000 a year. During the seven years of William IV. they amounted to £21,913,000, or an annual average of £3,100,000. I quite agree that when the Hereditary Revenues amounted to so large a sum there were many more demands upon them; still, I cannot conceive how, because certain portions of revenues were given up, some by Act of Parliament in the reigns of George I., II., and III., the title of the Crown to the Crown Lands and to the smaller branches of the Hereditary Revenues is in any way altered. It must be remembered that those monarchs who did not surrender these Revenues had a totally different arrangement as to expenses of the Civil List. Before the time of William IV. they received considerable portions of those revenues, and these revenues were supplemented to George II. in order to make up the sum to £800,000 a year. I myself feel that, independently of any other consideration, we are bound by a distinct and clear understanding—more than that, by law—to make such provision as is necessary for the honour and dignity of the Crown. For the reason that I believe it is just and right, I shall support Her Majesty's Government in this proposal. We are told by those on the other side of the House that the feeling of the people of England is against the proposal, and that when we return to our constituents we shall find they disapprove of the course we are taking. I do not profess to represent the political opinion of all my constituents; but on one point I should look for their unanimous approval, and that is, that when they judge my action in this matter, they will believe that I have voted according to my convictions.

* MR. OSBORNE MOEGAN (Denbighshire)

I should not have taken any part in this Debate, but for the statement of my hon. Friend the Member for Glamorgan as to the opinion of the working men in Wales. That statement I believe to be grossly exaggerated. I myself am not a working man in the same sense in which my hon. Friend—to his honour be it said—is or was a working man. But I have represented a working men's constituency for 21 years, and it is my pride that at the last Election I was returned by a purely working men's vote. My hon. Friend is completely mistaken in his estimate. [Mr. ABRAHAM: No.] I will give my reasons. Only a few weeks ago it was announced that Her Majesty was going down to Ruabon, and I went down to attend a public meeting convened to make arrangements for the reception of Her Majesty. At that time it was not known exactly what amount of Grant the Government would ask for, but it was perfectly well known that some application would be made to Parliament for the purpose. Surely that would have been the time when if it were to be made at all a protest by the working man would have been made. Instead of that there was not a whisper on the subject, and it was on all hands agreed that the reception the Queen was to receive on that occasion should be emphatically a working man's welcome. It may be said that that is flunkeyism. All I can say is that it was nothing of the sort. It proceeded from the feeling, generally entertained by the working classes, that the Queen is their best friend, and that if a calamity happens in the neighbourhood, as unhappily they do occasionally, the first expression of sympathy that comes to the stricken heart or the empty home is a message of sympathy from the Queen. Working men do not forget these things, and I cannot help thinking that they would not thank my hon. Friend for having represented their views as he has done. To come to the question immediately before the House, I must remind it that it is not the amount of the Grant we are considering, but whether there shall be any Grant at all. Disguise it as we may, the question is whether the Message of Her Majesty shall be flung back in her face; whether, in fact, we should consider it at all. For my own part, I protest against this mode of haggling over every item of the Civil List, as if we were taxing an attorney's bill. The speech of the junior Member for Northampton, if it showed anything, went to show that the Queen ought to have nothing at all, and that she is, in fact, a debtor to the State. And as to the argument of the senior Member for Northampton, it is based on two grounds—first that money was carried to the Privy Purse which never ought to have been so carried, and that Her Majesty had received £16,000 which never ought to have been paid to her. I was a little staggered when I heard that. I have been in the habit of construing Acts of Parliament for 30 or 40 years; though I may not have the legal knowledge of the hon. Member (Mr. Bradlaugh), and I have most carefully considered the 1st and 2nd Vic, c 2, and I have come to the conclusion that there was not the slightest ground for the hon. Member's (Mr. Labouchere) contention. His contention was this, that no year's surplus could be carried over to the Privy Purse from any other branch except to fill up a deficit in bad years. I cannot find a word to justify that construction of the Act of Parliament. If Parliament had intended that particular moneys not used for the particular branch in question should go back to the Exchequer surely Parliament would have said so. My hon. Friend simply relies on the words "in aid," but I venture to say there is no-foundation whatever for his contention. Then, in the second place, my hon. Friend says that reductions should be made in the Civil List. Probably there is no branch of the Public Service in which some reduction might not be made. But if they are to be made, is this the proper time to make them? Consider the Queen's age. She was 70 last birthday. Is it decorous—is it decent to go to a lady of 70 and ask her to revise her whole establishment, and dismiss her old and trusted servants? Of course, in time, in the course of nature—God grant a long time hence—we or our successors will be called upon to deal with this question. But surely we can wait for that time, especially when we have what is practically a guarantee that within certain limitations this application will be a final one. There has been in the course of this Debate a good deal said about the Prince of Wales—and it has been stated that he performs the duties of the reigning Sovereign without receiving the income of a Sovereign. I am sorry that my hon. Friend below the Gangway spoke of these duties in the way he did. He said they consisted chiefly in dining with the Lord Mayor.

MR. ABRAHAM (Rhondda)

I said nothing of the kind. I gave a quotation from the London Daily News, and if the right hon. Gentleman will do me the kindness to read what I said, he will find that he is entirely wrong.

* MR. G. O. MORGAN

Surely the hon. Member did say that the Prince of Wales dined with the Lord Mayor as part of a hard day's work. Well, I must say that if I were given the choice of a hard day's work and dining with the Lord Mayor, especially if it meant a speech alter dinner, I should prefer the hard day's work. We all know that the duties of public life are by no means easy, and that the Prince of Wales for some years past has never neglected any opportunity of furthering any non-political, charitable, or philanthropic object, and those are things which cannot be done for nothing. The senior Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere) referred to the American Republic, and pointed to the economies practised there. Well, talking to an American friend the other day, he said to me— You complain about the cost of your Royal Family, but if you come to Washington and see what goes on there, you will think you get your Monarchy cheap at the price. A man may be a Republican if he likes, but I protest against the statement that a Republic is necessarily cheaper than a Monarchy. The senior Member for Northampton is very well acquainted with France. What about that country? We all know that since France has been a Republic she has never in any single year paid her way, and at this moment her debt is greater than those of Monarchical England, Germany, Italy, Austria-Hungary, and Greece put together. If I wished to treat this question as one of £ s. d., I might remind the House that the burden which this Motion creates comes to one farthing per head. But I do not wish to put this as a question of money. I desire to put it on the wider and more generous ground stated by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian last night, and I rejoice to think that if I err to-night in voting for the Government, I shall err in the right hon. Gentleman's company. I am sure that the great speech he delivered last night will be read with favour, not only by the upper and middle classes of the country, but by thousands of working men, whatever Gentlemen below the Gangway may say to the contrary, and I am certain that there will not be a single person in England, Scotland, Ireland, or Wales who will be shaken in his allegiance to the right hon. Gentleman on account of the course he has taken on this question. The working men of this kingdom, whether they agree with him or not on this question, will not forget that if the right hon. Gentleman has rendered splendid service to the Crown, he has also rendered splendid service to the people.

* MR. CREMER (Shoreditch, Haggerston)

If any proof were needed of the remarkable change which has come over the spirit of the dream, of the opposition and hostility which our countrymen are manifesting to the proposals of the Government, we should find it, I think, in the fact that former Debates on similar subjects occupied the attention of the House for only a few hours, that those who attempted to address themselves to the question then under consideration, and who had the courage—and it required on those occasions no little courage, judging from the reports of the Debates which we read out of doors—to oppose the Grants proposed by the Government of the day, were howled down by Members on the Opposition Benches, and even by Members sitting around them. They could scarcely make their voices heard, or their influence felt in this House. Their influence, however, has been felt out of doors, and since then the opposition to increased Grants for the Royal Family has gone on increasing in such strength and volume that instead of a few hours being devoted to the consideration of this important question—important, at least, as the people out of doors believe it—this House, judging from present appearances, will devote, not four or five hours to the consideration of the question, but as many days, and the leading Members of the House on both sides are using their best efforts to convince the people that the Grant proposed by the Government ought to be acceded to. Well, Sir, to me that is most remarkable evidence of the change which public opinion has had upon this House During this Debate a great deal has been said about the feeling out of doors, and over and over again it has been asserted by Members sitting on the Benches opposite—and I am sorry to be compelled to admit that even some on this side of the House have deluded themselves into the belief—that there is no strong feeling on this subject on the part of the people out of doors. So far as I am concerned, I am prepared to leave that point to be decided at the next General Election, being perfectly satisfied in my own mind what the verdict of the country will be. A few days ago, when the Committee was being appointed, and you, Sir, called me to order, I was on the point of saying—and perhaps I may be permitted now to conclude the sentence which you, Sir, very rightly cut short—that, so far as I can judge—and I have taken some pains to collect information on the subject—there is no difference of opinion in regard to these grants between the Radical democracy and the Tory democracy—and I admit that there is a Tory democracy, although I have never been able to understand the extraordinary being. There is, however, no doubt about the existence of the Tory democracy, or there would not be so many Gentlemen sitting on the Benches opposite. I challenge hon. Members opposite to ascertain for themselves what the feeling of the Tory democracy is with regard to the proposal now under consideration, and I venture to say that they will find it as strongly opposed to the proposals as is the Radical democracy. If you are prepared for the time when you will learn the unpleasant truth for yourselves, that is a matter for your concern and not mine. As to my constituency, which is probably the most democratic in London—it would not have sent me here if it had not been—I have been to the pains of ascertaining the views of my political opponents, and, except in a few instances, I do not find the Tory Party of Haggerston in favour of these Grants. That feeling I believe to be practically universal in the East End of London. Amongst the toiling masses this antagonism to the proposals of the Government is deep and great. If you come to the West End of London—and let me ask hon. Members opposite who have plenty of opportunity of proving the truth or falseness of my assertion to go amongst the West End tradesmen and ascertain what their feeling is—I say, if you go to the West End of London you will also find there deep dissatisfaction at the absence of the Court from London, and at the absence of that splendour which generally accompanies Royalty, and to which reference has been so repeatedly made during the progress of this Debate. Amongst the West End tradesmen the grumbling and dissatisfaction is very great at the absence of that splendour which used to characterize the Court, and at the absence of the Court from London. I admit that it would be difficult to induce these people to attend a public meeting to formulate the views which they privately express, but there is no doubt that they are opposed to these Grants. If that is denied let me ask Gentlemen like the hon. Member for North Kensington (Sir Roper Lethbridge) who, last night, waxed very valiant, though I could not help remembering during the time he was showing his Dutch courage, that he had announced his intention not to face the electors of North Kensington again, and that, consequently, he could afford to express himself in the way he did. The hon. Member's valour was, however, very like that of Bob Acres, for as soon as an enemy faced him his courage oozed out at his finger's ends—that is to say, it evaporated the moment he was challenged to test the accuracy of his statement by calling a public meeting in North Kensington. I say let hon. Gentlemen who doubt my statement test its accuracy by calling a public meeting, free and open, not packed, and I venture to say that it will be impossible to get a verdict in favour of the proposals of the Government. The hon. Member for Sunderland yesterday made a statement to the effect that there are Republicans in this House, and that they are even to be found on the Front Opposition Bench. Well, I do not know what warrant the hon. Gentleman has for making that assertion. It is quite clear that the right hon. Gentleman sitting on the Front Opposition Bench (Mr. Osborne Morgan), who has just addressed the House, is not one of those to whom the hon. Member referred. But I cannot help thinking that if there be Republicans in the country and in this House Her Majesty's Government have earned their gratitude, because these proposals, formulated within the last 10 days, have made more Republicans than the Republican Party could have made in 10 years. These proposals lead the people to drift away from the position they formerly occupied, and lessen their loyalty to the Throne. I have recently returned from Paris, where I noted the wonderful success of the Exhibition. It has been my privilege to attend three Exhibitions in that city, and this one, I believe, is far and away the best Exhibition that the world has ever seen, and people are noting the fact that this country, and other Monarchical countries, have boycotted that Exhibition. That was an act of folly by which you have taught the people this lesson, that the smiles and presence of Royalty are not necessary for the success of an Exhibition. [Laughter.] Hon. Members may laugh; but they cannot deny that up to the present time more people have attended that Exhibition than ever attended any other. The Government made a mistake in refusing to countenance the Paris Exhibition, and they are making another mistake in increasing these Royal Grants. The people out of doors have been told repeatedly in the progress of this Debate that they must be bound by some compact—whatever it is—made at some period of our history, by some Parliament. Granting, for the sake of argument, that there is such a compact, I ask whether this Parliament, this generation, are to be bound by a compact made 50 or 100 years ago by a Parliament which did not neglect the feelings and wishes, the interests and the wants, of the people, but what that Parliament did 50 or 100 years ago the present Parliament, which is more representative of the people—not completely representative, but more so than the old one—has a right to undo. Therefore, we and the people out of doors do not consider ourselves bound by this compact. We had a remarkable speech made last night from the hon. Gentleman the Member for the Uxbridge Division of Middlesex (Mr. Dixon-Hartland), a district in which the masses of the people are not largely located. He undertook to enlighten the House as to what the real feeling of the people is, and he said that the lower classes—to which I myself have the honour to belong—do not begrudge what is paid to the Crown, because the expenditure tends to the prosperity of the masses of the people. Surely that is a most extraordinary doctrine. It is an entirely new reading of the science of political economy; and I am looking with considerable anxiety for a new treatise on that science from the hon. Member, as it is clear he must have studied the matter very closely to have arrived at such a novel conclusion. He seemed to have at his fingers end the Civil List of every country, civilised and uncivilised, on the face of the globe, but the one to which he particularly drew attention for purposes of contrast wag that of America. Hon. Members are fond of pointing to the large expenditure which takes place in the United States; but they always forget to point out, that that country is ten times greater than the little Island on which we live, and that its population, instead of being 30,000,000, is upwards of 60,000,000. Taking into consideration, therefore, the size of the country and the population, the Civil List in the United States, relatively speaking, is less than our own. But even if that were not the case the Civil List in America is devoted to the payment of men who work. In this country it is devoted to the payment of people who do not work; that is the distinction and the difference which we, and the people out of doors, understand between the Civil List of the United States and that of the United Kingdom. Hon. Gentlemen on the other side of the House, and, unfortunately, too many on this side, are doing their best to exaggerate the difference which exists between Dives and Lazarus. The social distinctions between the people of the United Kingdom are already too great. Many of us deplore that they should exist, and are doing our best to bridge them over; but you, by your legislation, or your proposed legislation, appear determined to bring into more painful relief the difference between rich and poor. This question of Royal Grants was sleeping; but you have aroused it in the minds of hundreds of thousands of men and women in this country who have to toil hard for their 15s., 20s., or 30s. a week. These people are now asking if it is right that in a country boasting of its Christian civilisation one family should have nearly a million of money a year to divide amongst them, whilst other families should have to toil for 15s. a week, and others should starve. It is idle to forget these things. They are broad facts that stare us in the face, and which are daily driving the people more and more into the ranks of the Republican party. In conclusion, I would merely say that I should be wanting in my duty to the men who did me the honour to send me here if I neglected giving expression to the feeling that exists on their part in regard to the proposal of the Government. There is almost universal opposition to these Grants on the part of the working classes; and I will ask hon. Members who are most loud in their professions of loyalty to the Throne and devotion to the Institutions of the country, to pause and seriously consider whether their action in pressing these additional burdens on the people may not produce the very opposite effect to that which they desire. I have discharged a duty I owed to my conscience and to my constituents. I feel that I should have been wanting in my duty if I had not endeavoured, as far as I was able, to enter an emphatic protest against the proposals of the Government, and I feel myself bound at every stage of the proposals to enter the Division Lobby against them.

* MR. BARTLEY (Islington, N.)

I will not criticise the Report of the Committee. It seems to me that if the Government have erred in any way they have—as the noble Lord most eloquently pointed out—erred somewhat in trying very naturally to induce the Committee to give a practically unanimous vote on the subject that they had before them. But I can support the recommendation of the Committee, because it seems to me that so long as we do have a Constitutional Government, consisting of three Estates of the Realm, we are bound to maintain the Sovereign and her family, as the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian yesterday pointed out, in a position not only of sufficiency, but of splendour. Had it been distinctly laid down in connection with the Civil List that the Crown and the Prince of Wales were to provide for their families when they started in life for themselves it would have been a fair argument against these grants. But the right hon. Member for Mid Lothian showed clearly that that was not the case. Therefore, that reason for opposing the Grant is cleared away. Another reason which might induce the House to stop the supplies would be a belief that the Constitutional Sovereign had not performed her duty to the State. But there has not been a shadow of an idea of that sort in this House or anywhere else. The only danger of the Queen's reign will be that she has raised such a standard of moral and political rectitude that it will be difficult for her successors to come up to it. The third objection is that we have already supplied a sufficient amount to maintain the children of the Prince of Wales. But the sufficiency of the amount is a very difficult question to decide, despite the comparisons which have been made between families with a few shillings a week and those which have their hundreds of thousands a year. That sort of argument has been completely destroyed by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian. The great cost of the Crown must be part and parcel of the cost of the State. Reference has been made to the cost of the President in America, which is put at £10,000, but it must be remembered that the cost of electing the President every four years, to say nothing of the disturbance of trade and commerce, amounts to something like £4,000,000 sterling. For the simple privilege of electing the Head of their Government the cost per year to the Americans is twice that of our Royal Family. Objections to Royal Grants may be honestly and fairly entertained; but what I do protest against, in the strongest language I can use, is the publication of false reports and statements concerning the Royal Family in certain newspapers which are a disgrace to the Press. It seems to me monstrous to take advantage of the present occasion to placard London with statements concerning His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales and other members of the Royal Family—statements which no one would dare to make against private individuals. I have not the honour of knowing His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, but I have read papers which are a disgrace to the Press, and which contained statements that, had they been made against a private individual, would have at once induced an action for libel with heavy damages. But we know perfectly well that it is impossible for His Royal Highness to take steps against the scurrilous proprietors of these papers as could other persons, and it is because these men feel secure in their cowardly position that they venture to do these things. It is a sign of the times which is very much to be regretted, and I am sure hon. Gentlemen will agree with me that statements have been published in this way that are a credit neither to the Press, to London, nor the country. But we know who these persons are, and we know that their statements help to sell their papers. They live on such vile slander; they grow rich upon it; but I think the time has come when public opinion ought to put a stop to their practices. It is a remarkable thing that while nobody treats these editors and proprietors of such newspapers with any possible respect, yet respectable persons subscribe thousands of pounds to carryon these scurrilous prints, which should be brought within the law by some means or other and put a stop to. It must not be supposed that I am alluding to any Member of this honourable House. I am simply protesting against these cowardly and disgraceful attacks. I have no hesitation in supporting the present Vote, notwithstanding that the constituencies are held up as a cause of fear. I have worked many years among the working classes, and as much as most people, and I know that the one thing they object to is anything stingy and niggardly. They do not mind a really proper expenditure to maintain the honour and dignity of the Crown. I am perfectly prepared to face my constituents, knowing well that whatever I did I should be abused by a certain section of the community. But I do not think my action will affect half a dozen votes in my constituency; but whether it be half a dozen or half a dozen hundreds, the right principle on which to deal with working men is to tell them exactly what you intend to do, because you think it is right, and you will find them voting for you, even if they disagree with you on a particular subject. I am sure when the next Election comes those hon. Members who think with me will have nothing to fear, for we will have done what is right and proper for the maintenance of the honour and dignity of the Crown.

* DR. CAMERON (Glasgow, College)

I am not going to follow the hon. Gentleman into his disquisition on journalistic or electoral ethics; nor shall I enter into the comparative cost of Republicanism and Royalty. What I wish to point out is the gross inaccuracy of some of the statements of the noble Lord (Lord R. Churchill). He compared previous Civil Lists with the present Civil List, and he argued that a great economy had been effected. Had he read the Appendix to our Report, he would have seen that it contained the Report of the Commission of 1837; that when pensions were dealt with, half were left on the Civil List and half were placed on the Consolidated Fund. They considered the amount of the pensions on the Civil List much larger than it ought to be, and recommended its reduction from £170,000 a year gross or £145,750 nett, at which it stood on the demise of his late Majesty, to £75,000 transferring the other £80,000 to the Consolidated Fund. That shows one little error of £80,000 in the noble Lord's calculations. I have no doubt were I to follow him into elaborate details, I could disclose greater inaccuracies in his figures. The noble Lord spoke of the Report of 1837 as having been produced by the most eminent and distinguished economists—Hume and Grote—and led us to imagine that they were satisfied with the Report. The Committee fixed the Civil List for the present reign. What was Mr. Hume's opinion of the way in. which it did so? Had the noble Lord read the Appendix to the Report, he would have found on page 36— Amendment proposed by Mr. Hume, to insert at the end of the Report—'As the Committee have not had sufficient details before them to enable them to judge either of the number of officers and servants in the Departments of the Lord Chamberlain, the Lord Steward, and Master of the Horse, or as to the estimates produced for these several Departments, the Committee do not consider themselves called upon to offer any opinion as to the adequacy of the details of the estimates.' The Question was put and negatived. So much for the noble Lord. On the matter immediately before the House, I should not have considered it necessary to say one single word in explanation of my position, had it not been for the conclusion at which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle arrived, after a speech setting forth, I think, in a most able and clear manner, the reasons which induced him in Committee to take up the position which he did. Had the right hon. Gentleman been content to sit down, without intimating what he was going to do, his speech would have been an exact explanation of my position, and I should have been content to have remained silent. But the right hon. Gentleman, after explaining the whole course of matters in Committee, said he was going to vote for the Government. As I am going to vote with the hon. Member for Northampton, I consider it necessary, after my position has been so accurately described by the right hon. Member for Newcastle, that I should explain why I propose to take an opposite course from the right hon. Gentleman. The right hon. Gentleman explained that he and certain other Liberals on the Committee were strongly imbued with the desirability of a unanimous recommendation. I was one of those who did not desire to have argumentative discussions on this Grant, and were anxious to effect a compromise. The hon. Member for Northampton had acknowledged the great services which had been rendered by the right hon. Member for Mid Lothian. But my hon. Friend greatly underrated those services. Their value is represented by the difference between annuities of £40,000 a year on young lives, and one of £36,000 payable on the joint lives of a Queen whose age we all know, and a Prince in middle life. The capitalised value of this charge to the nation could not be put at much less than £1,000,000. I think that Radical opinions in this matter are progressing, and that when another Civil List is arranged many of the present parasites of the Crown by which its means have been crippled and impaired would be cut away. The terms of that compromise were distinct and clear—that there must be a repudiation of any further claims. Then came the substitution for the original proposal of the Grant to the Prince of Wales to enable him to provide for his family. But the Member for Mid Lothian's Amendment did not negative those claims, but proposed to leave them an open question. Even to that I was willing to agree, because with the proceedings of the Committee entered on the Report, the inferential negativing of the claim would have stood on record. The right hon. Gentleman's (Mr. Gladstone's) Amendment having been rejected, I and the majority of Liberals on the Committee voted against the Grant, and having done so, I cannot see any disrespect to the Crown in the Amendment of the hon. Member for Northampton. I see no distinction, as the people outside the House will see no distinction, between raising the question at this time and raising it in Committee. The constituencies will expect their Members to express their opinion, whether for or against the Government, at the earliest possible stage; and I therefore intend to record my vote for the Amendment.

* COLONEL BLUNDELL (Ince)

The tenour of all the utterances of Ministers in the early part of the reign was to advise the Sovereign to leave the financial affairs of the Royal Family unreservedly in the hands of Parliament. The country has taken on itself a parental responsibility in respect to the Royal Family in the matter of finance.

Notice taken, that 40 Members were not present; House counted, and 40 Members being found present,

* COLONEL BLUNDELL

proceeded: I would point out that Her Majesty has entertained a number of Foreign Sovereigns without applying to Parliament for funds for that purpose, which is, I believe, contrary to precedent in this country. Among others Her Majesty has entertained the Emperor and Empress of the French, the Sultan of Turkey, the Shah of Persia, on this and on another occasion, and other Foreign Princes, and had the Queen been made aware by the Ministry that she was expected to save money to make provision for her grandchildren, it is hardly likely she would have expended large sums in the entertainment of Sovereigns who were, in reality, political visitors. In such cases it is probable that the Queen would have followed the course taken by former Sovereigns and applied to Parliament for the necessary funds. I think this House would have done well to have assisted Her Majesty in making provision for the younger branches of her family. I do not suggest a large provision, but something should have been done under all the circumstances. It must be recollected that the Royal Family do a great deal of work in the country. His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales has done his duty nobly, but the younger branches of the family have also been called on to foster and promote benevolent and utilitarian objects throughout the country. The performances of these functions involves considerable expenditure, and I should have liked to have seen the House assist Her Majesty in making some provision for the younger branches of the Royal Family. There is to my mind a want of chivalry in entirely throwing overboard the younger children. There is such a thing as worshipping the rising sun. The brilliant speech we heard last night is a legacy to this and every Constitutional country as regards the future, but we have to deal with the present reign.

MR. A. L. BROWN (Hawick, &c.)

I interpose in this Debate with considerable reluctance. I do not very often speak here. When one rises in a public meeting one can always hope to convince or to convert to one's views at least one or two of the audience; but I have long ago seen that that is an absolutely hopeless task here. But, though I do not rise with the ambitious intention of trying to change any man's vote, I think I can give a very reasonable cause for asking a few minutes' attention from the House. Some of us here represent what are popularly called Gladstonian constituencies; and if there is one constituency which deserves that name it is the Border Burghs. When any of our Tory opponents choose to call us Gladstonian, we generally say, "We are proud of the name. We are so convinced of the good judgment of our great leader, and of his capacity to manage affairs, that we are quite willing to commit to him our political souls, to do with them whatever he likes." Now we Gladstonians are going to vote to-night against our great leader. Friends and foes alike have pronounced the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian to be a very great speech. I suppose the right hon. Gentleman was never more eloquent and never more skilful. He seized on the weak points of his opponents; he held up the high character of the Royal Family, and as to the useless offices connected with Royalty, he employed that wonderful sentence about the splendour of the Court. He alluded to the advanced age of the Queen, and to the pain it might give her if any change were made in her surroundings; and he concluded by saying he had been a loyal servant of the Crown all his life, and he was proud to be so in his old age. While we listened to the voice of the charmer we felt there was something which broke the charm of his words. The right hon. Gentleman was cheered vociferously by hon. Gentlemen opposite, more especially by those sitting below the Gangway, and we could not help remembering that those Gentlemen who so applauded him are the men who, in season and out of season, have denounced our great leader as a traitor to his Queen. He is a patriot this week, and will also be next week; but when they get the money we know very well they will go down to their constituencies—to their Primrose League meetings—and begin their old game of denouncing the right hon. Gentleman as a disunionist and a disintegrator, and as an enemy of his Queen and country. Personally, I greatly regret that into this matter the personal element must enter. We Radicals will be compelled to speak of things we would rather not speak of, but I hope we will not speak in anyway offensively. Those of us who have sat upon Town Councils and School Boards and other Boards know well that the most unpleasant debates are those connected with the salaries of servants; but, as very often happens, whatever blame there be does not rest upon the servants themselves, but upon the injudicious friends of the servants. And so now we have no fault to find with, the Queen or the Prince of Wales—it is the men who have advised them—the Government, and the Government alone—whom we hold to blame. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian said that neither the Queen nor the Prince of Wales has been at all precipitate in this matter—that it was generally on the coming of age of the eldest son that this claim was put forward, whereas the eldest son of the Prince of Wales is now 24 or 25. It is quite true that this claim has not been made precipitately. Why? Because, no doubt, five years ago the Queen and Prince of Wales were better advised. A Liberal Government was in Office five years ago; and though it is true Liberal Governments have proposed Royal Grants, Liberal Governments are beginning to recognise that a great change is coming over the country, and that they have a very different set of men to reckon with than they had formerly. We cannot forget history teaches us that it has always been the Tories who have brought the Crown into danger, who have driven Kings and Queens into exile, or caused them to be taken to the scaffold; and so it is that though this claim has not been made precipitately, it is natural it should have been delayed until a Tory Government is in power. What we wish to emphasise is that we have no hostility to the Royal Family. We recognise the Queen as a great and good woman, and nowhere is her greatness and goodness more recognised than in Scotland, the country from which I come. We recognise the amazing tact with which the Prince of Wales discharges the duties of his office. In the different crises through which the country has passed during the last 20 years the Prince of Wales has never once slipped; and I have seen it stated in one of the gossipy newspapers that His Royal Highness brings up his family in the belief that it is quite possible he may be the last King of Great Britain and Ireland. If he does so I can only say the probability is that not only his son, but his son's son, will sit upon the Throne of the British Empire. But though we say all this, though we admit that the people are loyal, the people's loyalty is very different to your loyalty. Yours is a kind of loyalty that is attracted by the splendour of the Court, and if there is any curtailment of that splendour, if there are too few balls and receptions, you at once begin to show your disloyalty. The loyalty of the common people is real loyalty, it is founded not on the splendour of the Court, but on the great services done to the State by the Queen and the Prince of Wales and the other members of the Royal Family. If any one in a public meeting, attended by what you call the lower classes, speaks disrespectfully of the Royal Family, his remarks are listened to in silence or met with loud cries of shame. That is very right. But if the speaker attempts to talk of the Hereditary Grand Falconer, or the Master of the Buckhounds, or the Mistresses of the Robes, he provokes the laughter and derisive cheers of his audience; and that, surely, is quite right too. The Report of the Grants Committee sets before the ordinary English and Scotch voter the broad fact that there is some£500,000 or £600,000at the disposal of the Court to keep up its dignity and splendour—£380,000 on the Civil List, £110,000 from the two Duchies, and £152,000 from annual Grants. What the common people say is "This is perfectly sufficient to keep our Royal Family in any degree of splendour that any one can indulge in; it is perfectly sufficient to enable them to compete successfully with the Courts of any nation of Europe." There is no cry of "Down with the Royal Family;" the cry is, "Down with the parasites who cluster round the Throne." We have a right to complain that the Report of the Committee does not give us the sort of information we want. It tells us about certain great officers—about the Lord Chamberlain, the Lord Steward, Lords in Waiting, First Ladies of the Bedchamber, and Maids of Honour, but what we want to know is, what are the names, and addresses of these people in order that we may know whether they are people likely to render service to the Court, or to be merely ornaments. I find from a pamphlet printed by the Financial Reform Association that some years ago the offices of Lord Chamberlain and Lord Steward were held by noblemen. They received £2,000 a year each. I find that the Mistresses of the Robes were Duchesses who got £500 a year each. I find that the Ladies of the Bedchamber were Countesses who got £500 a year each, that the Maids of Honour were Ladies and Honourables who got £300 a year, and that Bedchamber women were actually Viscountesses. Amongst the daily waiters were Admirals and Honourables who drew £150 a year, and amongst the quarterly waiters were Colonels, Lieutenant Colonels, Majors and Esquires who did not think it beneath them to draw salaries of £100. The country believes that you are supporting this Grant not for the sake of the Royal Family, but for the sake of the offices in connection with the Court. This is a Vote not between the people and the Crown, but between the people and the aristocracy. I appreciated the remark of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian as to the advanced age of Her Majesty, and as to the effect a change in her surroundings might have. But ought not the advisers of the Queen to have considered that point before they brought forward this proposal? Ought they not to have ascertained from the representatives of the Tory Democracy of which we have heard so much from the Members of the Opposition Front Bench, and even from Members below this Gangway, what the people would say about this proposal? If any words spoken in this Debate give pain to Her Majesty, no one will regret it more than Radicals like myself, but we do not consider ourselves to blame. You are to blame; you do the deeds and your unrighteous deeds find us the words. It is said that the Government knew perfectly well that this proposal would not be popular. Her Majesty requested Parliament to make provision for Prince Albert Victor, the eldest son of the Prince of Wales, and for Princess Louise of Wales on the occasion of her marriage. Well, but that would only have taken about £18,000 a year. Why is it we are asked to vote £36,000 a year? I suppose it is because you know that the proposal is a disagreeable one, and that you think you will by asking for a large sum get rid of the subject. Reference has been made to the necessity of savings on the Civil List, and I ask you, are you not tending to bring the Crown into disfavour in the country, simply because you do not care to offend those high officers and ladies who have got posts about the Court? As to the splendour of the Court, there is a great deal in what the right hon. Member for Mid Lothian said. It is quite true that the Court might do great good in the country, and if the Court is a good example to the country, the people say it is owing to the exceptional character of the Queen herself. But we cannot expect to see a similar Monarch on the Throne always. The influence of the Court is a malign in- fluence; I do not speak of the Court's moral influence, but of its influence on politics. I have been at very few of your displays and receptions, but I confess they have had a very bad influence upon me. I have felt that if I wanted to keep my Radicalism intact I had better resign my Membership of Parliament. [A laugh.] I am glad to see it is recognised that Radicalism and the influence of the Court cannot very well go together; if we give in to the influence which we find round about us here, then so far as we are concerned, "Good-bye to Radicalism," and "Good-bye to the cause of the people." There is one point at which we Radicals come into decided conflict with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian, and that is, when he says we are servants of the Crown as well as of the people. That is not the case with us. I am not a servant of the Crown. I am a servant of the people alone, "No man can serve two masters." Who am I sent here by? By my constituents, and if my constituents ask me to do a certain thing, and the Queen asks me to do another thing, as an honest man I must resign my seat and make room for another man if I cannot stand by my constituents. Our great leader is going to Vote against the Motion of the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere.) That was expected from the very beginning. The country has already discounted that, and it would have seemed to us Radicals unnatural if the right hon. Gentleman did anything else. We all know his great services and the close way in which he has been connected with the Crown; we all know the essential conservatism of his character, and how his endeavour always is not to cut anything through, but to piece the new to the old. He has decided that he must Vote in favour of further Royal Grants; but he will not lose one single supporter, he will not lose a little bit of our confidence by be doing. We do not know how our friends from Ireland are going to Vote. We recognise that they are in a very peculiar position. I was present at the great meeting on the Carlton Hill, at which the hon. Member for Cork (Mr. Parnell) spoke. In the course of his peroration the hon. Gentleman said that the working men of Scotland might be sure that in the Division Lobby of the House of Commons they would find no more faithful servants than the Members from Ireland. I do not know how he has decided to vote upon this occasion. I know with what affectionate admiration and gratitude he regards our great leader, and it may be that he finds it necessary on this occasion to vote with the right hon. Gentleman. I do not suppose it will make much difference to his cause in the long run. But there are certain Gentlemen who have not the same excuse as the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian and the Members from Ireland for voting for this Grant, and the way in which they give their votes will be watched with considerable interest in the country.

MR. KERANS (Lincoln)

The hon. Member who has just spoken commenced his observations by a sneer at hon. Members on this side because we cheered the great speech delivered by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian last night. We did appreciate that speech, coming from a statesman who has passed half a century in public life, and who in his time has done the State some service. We recollected this, and remembered it was the day on which he celebrated his golden wedding, and we were only too glad to recognise what seemed to us a return to the time of his intellectual strength. Hon. Gentlemen opposite have differentiated between the Crown and the Government in regard to this question. The hon. Gentleman says of the Royal Family that he blames them not at all, but of the Government that he blames them completely, all in all, and, as I understand him, he assumes that this Resolution is brought forward without the assent of the Queen and the Royal Family; or, if that is not so, I utterly fail to see the relevancy of his remarks.

MR. PICTON

Sir, I rise to order. I ask you whether it is in order for the hon. Member to introduce the name of Her Majesty as approving or disapproving any measure whatever.

* MR. SPEAKER

There is an old rule, and a very salutary one, that the name of the Sovereign should not be introduced for the purpose of influencing debate.

MR. KERANS

If that is so, Sir, I beg to apologise very sincerely. I thought I had noticed in the course of the Debate allusions of this character made. ["Order!"] I bow entirely to your ruling, Sir; but I thought that, when the hon. Gentleman chose to make a pointed contrast between the Royal Family and the Government, the Rules of the House might have permitted me to make a reply. The hon. Member has talked of this side of the House as being representative of aristocratic influence; but surely he ought to be aware, although he is not much in the House, and cannot, therefore, have intimate knowledge of the subject, that what he calls the aristocratic element exists as much on one side of the House as the other. Certainly I can make good my claim to have been elected on a purely democratic representation, and I can further say that there is no man in the House who looks with more jealousy on any increase of aristocratic influence than myself. If the exigencies of the Public Service demand that a man shall be placed in a certain position because his means and manners are superior—I am only contrasting such with myself—if it is considered that such a man is the best person to occupy a certain position, I cannot complain of the selection made by the Government, nor do I see how hon. Members can complain, when they have declared that they could not accept the uniform and salary of State service. Hon. Gentlemen opposite should be the last persons to complain that positions which they declare would be derogatory to their manhood and independence, and so on, are filled by gentlemen who belong to the aristocratic class. The hon. Gentleman has talked of the malign and corrupting influence of the Court, but I confess I do not see much evidence of such a thing. It reminds me of an accusation that was once made against the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy, that in consequence of having accepted an invitation to a luncheon at Rome, he gave a vote in this House against his conscience. And now a few words in reference to the general character of the proposal before us. We have had precedent after precedent cited, but the hon. Member for Northampton and his friends refuse to be influenced by these. The hon. Member, though not a solicitor or barrister, has had considerable experience of the law, and I should have thought would have recognised the binding effect of contracts, of debts of record, and of debts of honour. Between private individuals a debt of honour is recognised as binding in the highest degree, and I cannot conceive of any higher obligation of honour than that which was cast upon the nation by the compact between Parliament and the Sovereign. Over and over again it has been asserted that there was no such compact between the nation and the Queen, but I have listened in vain from first to last for any single word in corroboration of that assertion. The absence of any limitation upon the Grants to be applied for would show to any reasonable man that no limit was intended. As the question of the savings of Her Majesty has been introduced, I presume I may refer to that matter. I conceive there are a certain number of Gentlemen in the House—I hope I am doing them no wrong—who would prefer that a Minister should come to this House and ask for a sum of money to pay the Queen's debts, instead of asking for an allowance for the children of the Prince of Wales, and they regret that the Queen has made savings. [Cries of "No!"] I am glad to have that disclaimer, and I hope it will be repeated in the country. I do not wish to attempt to introduce anything invidious, but the hon. Member who last spoke did undoubtedly misinterpret the motives of his political opponents, declaring that the Ministry were afraid to come to the House and ask for £18,000 for Princess Louise, and for Prince Albert Victor, because they know these sums would be granted. But the reason why the Government made their proposal as they did was there might be some finality about the demands. It was perfectly well known that right hon. Gentlemen opposite had declared they could not acquiesce in further Grants unless the whole matter was concluded at once. Last night we had an admirable speech from the youngest Member of the House (Mr. Birrell) who declared he came from a constituency where this matter had been thoroughly canvassed, and that his constituents were utterly opposed to the Grant, and he treated West Fife as fairly representative of the Scotch constituencies. He put the question on very broad grounds, and he argued it remarkably well. But what I want to know is this, was the hon. Member returned to this House by a larger majority than his predecessor or was that majority smaller? It is obvious that the views of the constituency must have undergone considerable modification if he was returned by a decreased majority. Now, in conclusion, let me ask are hon. Gentleman opposite very strict guardians of the public purse? I recollect not long ago we had a remarkable demonstration in this House upon the occasion when it was proposed by an hon. Member opposite that Members of this House should receive salaries of £275 or £375 per annum. In support of this hon. Members trooped into the Lobby with the greatest alacrity, and when they returned and found there was only a majority of 40 or 50 against them, loud and continuous was the cheering. But how does this accord with the sentiments expressed by the hon. Member for Sunderland (Mr. Storey) as he commented in his most bitter way upon the contrast he drew between the condition of Court and cottage. Well, what is good for the Court ought undoubtedly to be good for Members of this House. If hon. Gentlemen claim to represent the class whose average earnings are 25s. or 30s. a week, what do they mean by coming here and attempting to secure for themselves comfortable annuities? I consider that in all respects the application made by the Government is most reasonable, and I thoroughly believe that when the matter is placed before the constituencies in the speeches of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian and the noble Lord the Member for Paddington, the people will endorse the judgment the House will pronounce.

MR. PICTON (Leicester)

Many hon. Members on the other side have expressed enthusiastic admiration for the marvellous speech delivered last night by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian. To us who are consistent admirers of the right hon. Gentleman's genius and services to the country it cannot but be a pleasure that on any ground his genius should be appreciated by the Party opposite, but it is remarkable the difference that is made by the point of view from which an artistic oratorical performance is considered. The same right hon. Gentleman when discoursing on other great Imperial principles has been ridiculed as speaking only vague mysticism, as having no definite ideas, as soaring in the clouds and having no relation to practical politics, but the moment he happens to speak in partial support, and only in partial support, of the policy of the Party opposite, he is seen to be a statesman of marvellous acumen, profound historical knowledge, and keen appreciation of the constitution of the country. Well, I hope the lesson will not be lost, and that when the time comes to consider matters quietly hon. Members will arrive at the conclusion that the right hon. Gentleman who on this occasion has shown such profound knowledge, and keen appreciation of the historical development of his country, cannot be such apolitical lunatic as he has been represented to be on there matters. The hon. Gentleman who last addressed us informed us that he was not an aristocrat. I should not have thought the disclaimer was necessary, but he thought it necessary to give us the information, and I suppose he intended to intimate his sympathies with the democratic masses of the country. He has shown his sympathy by defending liveried officials, as I think he called them. I do not know whether he was quoting the phrase.

MR. KERANS

I did not so designate them.

MR. PICTON

I understand he was surprised that we should object to these offices which involve certain courtly attendances that are not considered identical with the highest statesmanship. I think I am right in interpreting his meaning. Well, we do not object at all to the offices of any noble Lords, right hon. or hon. Gentlemen if they like to fill them. What we do object to is paying salaries for these offices. The hon. Gentleman went on to speak, I presume from legal knowledge of various kinds of debts, debts of record, and other kinds of debt, and has placed above all a debt of honour. Well, the expression "debt of honour" is very often used to describe a debt that cannot be legally enforced, because it arises out of an illegal transaction, so that the association of the phrase was a little unfortunate as bearing upon the question before the House. In the view of the hon. Gentleman a certain sentiment of honour should lead Members of this House to vote any sum asked for by a Minister in support of the honour and dignity of the Grown. Now there are debts of honour, so called, to which no particularly binding character attaches beyond legal debts, and I do not think that the debt of honour resting on the action of a Committee of this House at the commencement of the reign has that binding character the hon. Gentleman seems to imagine it has. Then the hon. Member went on to speak of the speech of one of the newest and in our opinion most welcome additions to the Members of the House, the hon. Member for West Fife, and he said it must be borne in mind the majority with which that hon. Member was returned, and he wished the House to infer that the smaller majority compared with the last election by which the hon. Member was returned showed a diminution in the force of Liberal opinion in West Fife. But ha altogether ignored the fact that the hon. Member for West Fife was not opposed by a Tory at all, that he was opposed by a Home Rule candidate, who, if he had been returned, would have voted against this Royal Grant and expressly said so. The difference of the majority in that constituency, therefore, has no bearing at all on the question before the House. But I turn to the more important speech of the noble Lord the Member for Paddington. I should like to say something in reply to the noble Lord, who thought it necessary to make to a considerable extent a direct personal attack upon so humble an individual as myself. I regret that the noble Lord is not now in his place, but although he is absent, I am sure he will allow that that does not preclude me from saying a few words in reply to him. The noble Lord came down to the House this evening having evidently familiarised himself on good authority with the agricultural economies of Sandringham, doubtless one of the most admirably managed estates in the country; but I could not exactly see the bearing of his references to the Sandringham estate on the question at present before the House. The argument seemed to be that because an illustrious personage was an excellent landlord and managed his estate well, and with a view of bringing out its productiveness to the utmost extent, therefore the House of Commons should at once accede to the claims of the Ministry and vote this Grant. Now, I confess I do not see the relevancy of that argument at all. But though the noble Lord had made himself familiar with the economies of the Sandringham estate, he did not show himself equally familiar with the sources of historical information drawn upon by the junior Member for Northampton. I could not but think that as an attempt to meet that grave and well sustained charge against the advice given by Her Majesty's Ministers, the speech of the noble Lord was an exceedingly weak one. It struck me as rather strange that the noble Lord waited until the hon. Member for Northampton had spoken. I remember the occasion in the House when the noble Lord proposed personally to perform that somewhat dangerous office of drawing the badger, and perhaps hon. Members will remember how he drew the badger, but on this occasion the noble Lord waited judiciously until the badger retired, and afterwards tried to make as light as possible of the badger's teeth. As I have said, I do not think the speech of the noble Lord was at all effective as a reply to that of the hon. Member for Northampton. I would like to refer to one or two items in that reply. The noble Lord said that in the settlement of the Civil List the burden of keeping children or grandchildren of the Royal Family was never contemplated at all, and he said that because it is not expressly mentioned in the Civil List Act. Well, I should have supposed that Royal persons are liable to the ordinary incidents of humanity with other persons; and, everyone knows that children are the usual consequences of marriage in palace and cottage; and surely when the Civil List was drawn, having in prospect such events as marriage, it may well be supposed that if it had been intended that extra Grants should be made, some provision would have been made for the purpose. From the silence of the Act, we are asked to argue that the intention was that these Grants should be made; but I lather take the opposite view, that from the silence we should argue that it was intended no more Grants should be made, and especially as we were reminded by the First Lord of the Treasury in introducing this Motion, that on the occasion of the settlement the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Spring Rice, distinctly said, he hoped the settlement would be such that there would be no recurrence of appeals to Parliament for additional Grants. What was intended by that, unless it meant that the Grant then being made was sufficient for the maintenance of the dignity and honour of the Crown? Then the noble Lord said that no notice had been given to the Queen of any change in the course that had been followed in preceding reigns—in a few instances. No notice given! But I do not know what would be considered notice. If the noble Lord means that no legal notice has been given, that is true. But we are not considering the terms of a leasehold, or a tenure under which a definite legal notice is prescribed. The settlement of the Civil List has been made from time to time in different reigns, on different methods, from age to age with no indication whatever that precedents were being established for future time. As times have changed—and upon this I shall say a word or two more presently—as times have changed, I say, it has been made manifest to Her Majesty's Ministers, and most emphatic notice has been given to all that were responsible, that a large Party was growing up which would not tolerate these demands for money any longer. It is well-known, that even with regard to the children of Her Majesty difficulties have arisen, and those difficulties have increased as additional Grants were asked for. I have not had the misfortune to be present at more than one of these somewhat discreditable Debates, but I know that on the last occasion when a Grant was asked for a considerable difference of opinion was shown, and strong evidence of increasing dissatisfaction displayed, and surely right hon. Gentlemen must have understood this as indicative of notice that a change must be made in the method of supporting the honour and dignity of the Crown. And I think the Government are to blame for not having sufficiently estimated the notice given. No one can deny that it is given now. I have heard hon. and right hon. Gentlemen get up and say we misrepresent the opinions of our constituents on this question, and that we represent only a small section of them. Well, I invite any hon. or right hon. Gentleman opposite to go into any market-place in any large town and there hold an open meeting in favour of these Grants. They know they dare not do it. They can go and hire a hall and issue tickets of admission, and by so doing ensure a nearly unanimous vote, but at a large open meeting I defy them to obtain a vote in favour of these Grants. It does not do to trifle with this question. Hon. Gentlemen know quite as well as I know that amongst those in this country who have supreme power in their hands, but who have not yet exercised it as they ought to do—I mean the household voters—this subject is one which excites more popular feeling than any other. The noble Lord the Member for Paddington stated that the title to the Crown estates is absolutely indisputable. In a certain sense no doubt it is; but the legal title is of such a character as to be quite inconsistent with the moral use which is made of it by hon. and right hon. Gentlemen on the Ministerial side of the House. No doubt since the accession of George IV., the Act passed at that time has rendered the title of the Monarch to the Crown Lands legal. By an accident or, as my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton suggested, by some cleverness on the part of the draftsman, this clause was introduced and, I suppose, as a matter of statute law, it stands. Now suppose we were to have a new Monarch—which heaven forfend—it would be held that these estates would instantly revert to him as of right. Now, I ask this; before any new Civil List is passed, or any "surrender," so called, is made, would the new Monarch sell this patrimony of the Crown? Would any Monarch attempt to sell Hyde Park or deal with the Crown estates as any one might deal with property of which he had full and legal possession? I do not believe any Monarch would be so foolish as to attempt it. Could a new Monarch leave these Crown estates by will to any person? Evidently it would be impossible for him to do so, and whatever may be the legal description of the title, it is clear it is not one from which we can draw any moral argument as to the claims of the Crown. The fact is, the possession is merely formal and not substantial. Then with regard to the savings on the Civil List, it may be thought rude to ask whether these savings of the Crown are the savings of the nation or not, but the responsibility for that must rest with Ministers who allowed this accumulation of property. I should be sorry that any rude question should be asked in this House, especially about a matter so delicate as this, but really I think this is a question which ought to be answered. It is urged that if savings are made the Ministers of the Crown may devote them to the personal use of the Sovereign at their discretion, simply because it is not forbidden in the Act of Settlement. Well, no doubt the Act of Settlement provides that a deficiency in one class may be met by a surplus in another; but it was never said that a surplus on the Civil List as a whole might go into private possession. It is a straining of the law on the part of Ministers to advise the devotion of any surplus in such a way as that. It should be remembered that the money voted is the money of the nation, and if there is a surplus it seems to me that it ought to be returned to the Exchequer. On the whole, I cannot but think that the Member for Paddington has made out a very weak case against the junior Member for Northampton. Taking a more general view of the matter, I do not think there has been a sufficient appreciation on the other side of the House of the disastrous effect of the failure of the Government to give an impartial Committee to consider this question of the support of the honour and dignity of the Crown in accordance with their promise. It is now many years since that promise was first given by a Liberal Administration. The promise was taken up by the present Ministry. From time to time we were told that the matter was under consideration and would certainly be attended to. We were told this year that there was no immediate need for appointing the Committee, the matter not being a pressing one; and now, at the very end of the Session, when we are all tired out, the question is suddenly pressed on our attention, and a Committee is suddenly summoned to deal with two entirely different matters— namely, the general system to be adopted in supporting the honour and dignity of the Crown and the special Royal Message. The two things are entirely different, and ought to be separated the one from the other. We have not had an inquiry. It cannot be supposed that this Committee meeting for two or three days went thoroughly into the subject. Their Report, in fact, shows that they did not go thoroughly into the subject any more than the Committee did in 1837 at the time of the accession of Her Majesty. There was no thorough inquiry into the necessities of the Crown at all, and in place of an inquiry we now have a wholly irrelevant appeal to sentiment. We are called upon by our loyalty, by our chivalry and patriotism, to vote this money without any consideration at all, and all, it is said, for the honour and dignity of the Crown. Well, Sir, I do protest that we are not indifferent to the honour and dignity of the Crown on this side of the House. Whatever may be our opinion as to the abstract theory of Republicanism or Monarchy we, as Englishmen, venerate the Throne of this country as an ancient institution, surrounded with a certain halo of glory from its centuries of rich associations. We are anxious for the honour and dignity of the Crown, and the only difference between us and Gentlemen opposite is as to in what the honour and dignity of the Throne consists. In obedience to your ruling, Sir, I desire altogether to avoid mention of the name of the reigning Sovereign. I think it in the highest degree inexpedient that it should have been introduced even to the extent that you, Sir, have seen your way to allow. I do not desire to speak of any personal occupant of the Throne, but merely of an institution, and I ask what tends to the honour and dignity of the Crown as an historic institution? Surely the honour and dignity are not kept up by empty palaces, by servile Binecuros, by gold and silver sticks in waiting, or by masters of hounds; they are best supported by adequately filling the post of Hereditary President of this British Commonwealth; they are best sustained by impersonating the living characteristics of this country in each age and in each generation through which we pass; and it is a great delusion to suppose that the dignity and honour of the Crown are necessarily dependent upon external show. It should be remembered by hon. Gentlemen opposite—and it has not been sufficiently remembered in the course of this Debate—that the Monarchy is not merely the head of society with a capital "S," but the head of the whole State and the Commonwealth. The Crown in a very proper sense belongs to the people, and they are anxious, therefore, that the honour and dignity of the Crown should be sustained in a way that appeals to the millions of the population. The other side say they desire this just as much as we do. Yes, they do. They desire that the Crown should represent the nation, but they a little undervalue or altogether ignore the modernising process that must affect all the most venerable institutions of our country—the Crown as well as the Church and even the Lord Mayor of London. You cannot resist it. We have modernised the Crown in successive generations. The Crown used to undertake the whole business of the country with only occasional aid granted by Parliament, which used to meet very seldom—only, in fact, when need of money arose. Ages afterwards the sustentation of the Military Force of the country was placed entirely on the shoulders of Parliament, the Civil Government being still maintained by the Hereditary Revenues of the Crown. Then, gradually, the Crown resigned some of its duties, and with them the revenues that were to support the discharge of those duties. I suppose, for instance, that in the reigns of the early Georges there were certain gratuities paid to the Lord Chancellor and higher Judges, all of which came out of the Hereditary Revenues of the Crown. Afterwards the whole of the expense of the administration of law was placed on the shoulders of Parliament, and the Civil List was confined to what were considered the personal requirements of the Sovereign. But notwithstanding all this change the same antiquated forms have been gone through in making Grants to Her Majesty. The Monarchy is no longer a sacred caste, or the representative of a sacred caste, as it used to be in days gone by. The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House in his speech referred to "sacred institutions." Well, Sir, I have heard the Church spoken of as a sacred institution, but I have never heard the Monarchy regarded as anything more than a secular institution—a venerable institution if you like, but I think that to use the word "sacred" is to use an epithet which, in connection with such an institution, savours somewhat of superstition. The Monarchy is not the representative of a sacred caste. It represents rather a great office, and the sooner we come to understand that clearly the better. We pay our high officers of State by salary, but we do not undertake to provide for their children or grandchildren. We pay a fair amount annually for the work done, and we expect the dignity and honour of the offices to be maintained thereby. Whether or not the time has arrived, at any rate it is soon coming, when the same rule will have to be applied to the Monarchy. Before long a lump sum will have to be given year by year to sustain the honour and dignity of the office, and there must be no talk about any extra amount to support children or grandchildren. It is such an arrangement as that, and that alone, which will satisfy the people of this country. We are told that the Crown of this country ought to be surrounded by a certain amount of splendour. No one doubts it. We all like to see splendour at the Horse Guards, and else where—it gives a certain amount of enjoyment to a great many people. But we imagine that if present resources were now used as they ought to be used there would be ample funds for all the splendour that we need. That is our view. The Party opposite regard themselves as especially loyal. They look upon themselves as in a special manner the supporters of Crown. Now, I ask them, how are they succeeding? Are they making the people of this country love the Crown more than they formerly did? I ask them to note the demonstrations of opinion on every hand throughout the country at the present moment. I ask them whether the signs they see show that they are succeeding in supporting the dignity and honour of the Crown by the method they are now adopting? I have been reproved more than once, even amongst my Radical friends, for speaking of the Republican tendencies of the people. Well, I will give my own experiences. Only a fortnight ago there was an open air meeting in the market place of Leicester. I told the people there that I had been accused of misrepresenting their opinion. Well, although there were thousands present, there was but one response. I was assured that, so far from misrepresenting the people, I had under-represented them. And there is this strange thing to be noted in my experience—namely, that when I am in Leicester I am regarded as an extremely moderate, almost a Conservative, person, whereas in this House I am looked upon as a wild and unreasonable Radical. I think the people of Leicester are fair representatives of the kind of democracy that is growing up in this country, and I can assure the House that out of a multitude of about 7,000 people who assembled in the market place of Leicester there were certainly not 1,000 people who were supporters of a Monarchy as distinguished from a Republic. That is an actual fact which the House ought to bear in mind in coming to a decision upon the matter. They look upon Royalty as a convenient system for the present, to be continued until public opinion has so ripened that without any of those horrors pictured by the noble Lord opposite a reasonable change may be brought about. Therefore, we think we are the truest patriots and the best interpreters of our country in insisting upon it that the time has come when no Monarch should apply for an additional grant, but should, like other great officers of state, receive ample payment, and out of that maintain the requisite honour and dignity.

MR. AINSLIE (Lancashire, N. Lonsdale)

I only venture to take part in this Debate, as there have been one or two omissions in the defence offered for this Grant. At the outset, I would observe that it was stated the other day that some 40 Members on the other side would assail this Grant. Well, if there were 80 or even 100 Radical Members who desired to address the House in opposition to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian they would not destroy the effect of the great speech delivered by the right hon. Gentleman last night. But I will not dwell upon that. With regard to the form of this Resolution, I regret that it was not divided into two parts so that we could distinctly separate the proposal of the Government from the proposition of the senior Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere) that we should economise and cut down certain expenses in the Civil List. The country is committed to the latter proposition, and I think it need not have formed a topic of debate in this House last night or tonight. On the other subject, I hope the verdict of the House will be clear and deliberate and unanimous. To draw attention to another matter, I am somewhat surprised that no reference has been made to the larger population outside these Islands, which is waiting anxiously for the decision of this House. No reference has been made to that large population which annually sends its thousands over here from the Colonies to see what the old country is like. Nor has any reference been made to the still greater nation—the United States of America—who, I believe, are listening in wonderment and something like amusement to the language which is being employed in this House in derogation of that Monarchy which they admire, I believe, even more than we do. I believe you will find it the unanimous verdict of travelled Americans that our Monarchy is an institution worthy of the greatest admiration. An objection has been raised this evening that no Commission of Inquiry has sat before now to consider this subject. Well, it appears to me that those interested in this question must have had in mind the probability of an early appeal from the Crown and the necessity which would arise for making a final settlement. I hope the House will not decline to recognise the claims of the Crown in this matter, and I venture to think if the speech of the hon. Member for Leicester (Mr. Picton) be considered in contrast with that of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian, the House will have very little difficulty in arriving at a verdict on the subject. An hon. Member, the latest arrival from Scotland (Mr. Birrell), who spoke last night, stated that he had the verdict of his own constituency with him, and he spoke of having received a mandate from that constituency. But I put it to the House, is it not sometimes the duty of an hon. Member to act in accordance with his own view rather than with that of his constituency? In my opinion, any mandate he had received should have been used by him more in the direction common both to Englishmen and Scotchmen of seeing that due honour is paid to the Crown, and in that case he would not have come here to say "no" to this Grant, which, as the House is aware, is intended to be a final one.

* MR. LAWSON (St. Pancras, W.)

It is with great diffidence that I rise to intervene in this Debate. I do not propose to follow hon. Gentlemen who have spoken from those Benches either in scriptural prophecy or the parallels drawn from stories of Roman history; and, although I fear that many of the speeches made in the course of this Debate are open to the charge of containing a good deal in the way of personal explanation, I feel bound to state why it is my intention to vote against the Amendment proposed by my hon. Friend (Mr. Labouchere) and seconded by the hon. Member for Sunderland (Mr. Storey) who generally sits behind me. I am quite aware that in the course I propose to take I ought to have the fear of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Sunderland before my eyes. We all listened, I suppose, with admiration to the grandiloquence of the hon. Member's speech, and he informed the House that we who take this course of action will be met by two parties-in our own ranks—one which will look up to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian as its Leader, the other looking to himself. But, Sir, I confess that although impressed, I was not intimidated. I take, with a grain of salt, the assertion he made, that he was the Representative of all the honest and decent people in the country. The hon. Gentleman drew a nice distinction between them and the common people, to whom he kept referring throughout the whole course of his speech. He is, no doubt, a democrat of the democrats, and if I might advise him I would not talk so much about common people and their common homes as he did. For my own part, I confess that I should be quite ready to face my constituents and protest against the notion that I was ever returned to this House to be one of the Storeyite following. Mr. Speaker, it would, perhaps, be well to recall the attention of the House to the Amendment we are now discussing. We have already wandered a good deal from it, and the hon. Gentleman the Member for Northampton actually got upon the subject of perpetual pensions. What the House is asked to do by adopting this Amendment is to meet the Royal Message with a curt, a blank, and even a rude refusal to allow it to be considered by Parliament. According to my hon. Friend (Mr. Labouchere) the more curt we are the more courteous we are; but I do not think that is an axiom which my hon. Friend applies in his own private relations. My hon. Friend and his Colleague were not happy in the examples they gave in justification of the course they are taking; they seem to me to be what the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle termed "rather prior facts than precedents." The hon. Gentleman the junior Member for Northampton (Mr. Bradlaugh) said "This was the conduct of Parliament in 1621."

* MR. BRADLAUGH

The hon. Member is not within a century of it.

* MR. LAWSON

Well, I wish to recall the hon. Gentleman's own words. He spoke of the time when the people tore out a page from the annals of Parliament at the beginning of the struggle between the Stuart Kings and Parliament, and I think, as a matter of fact, I am perfectly correct in my references to his history, although the hon. Gentleman has interrupted me. He went on to quote some of the strong language used by the Tory Party at that time, when the Tory Party were Jacobites. I, however, am not a Jacobite. I know, Mr. Speaker, that no one would be more surprised than my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere) if this Amendment were adopted by a majority of the House. I give my hon. Friend too much credit for the undoubted sense and shrewdness for which he is famous to suppose that he entertains any such expectation. I suppose, also, there is no Member of this House who will contend that he is not responsible for his vote, if it is effective in carrying the Resolution for which it is given; otherwise a certain air of unreality is given to the Debate. I do not believe that any hon. Member, wherever he sits, would wish to inflict the rebuff upon the Throne which the passing of this Amendment would mean. I cannot imagine that it is to the interest of any part or section of the House. Certainly it is not to the interest of hon. Gentlemen who sit on these Benches. Some of us might be, as my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester (Mr. Picton) has stated, genuine Republicans in theory; but if they are opposed to the idea of an Hereditary Kingship, it is far better for them to declare their opinions boldly than to gain all the credit and escape all the odium by a side-blow. That is not the position of the great majority of the Liberal Party. I would remind hon. Gentlemen on this side of the House that they are continually emphasising the political importance of the Crown as the golden symbol which binds together the Imperial system with the fullest application of the principle of local self-government. This is particularly the case in the Debates on Ireland, when the fact of the existence of the Crown as the real and effective bond of union is brought forward as an argument for the extension of local freedom. If that be so, I do not believe it is to the interest of hon. Members on this side of the House to try and inflict an affront on the Throne, because if the question is to be raised let it be raised fully and fairly; let it be raised on quite distinct grounds. Insufficient weight has been given by hon. Members on this side of the House to the argument and line of action of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian, who on this question has just the knowledge that ought to guide the House, because, above all things, this is a Constitutional problem, and is not being approached as a financial question. Let us not deny to a Message from the Crown that courtesy which is extended to any application of everyday life, and I am bound to say that those who follow the lead of the right hon. Gentleman will be wrong in not taking advantage of the Constitutional wisdom of which he has given so many splendid examples to his Party. At the same time, I am astonished that the Government have not thought fit to appreciate that advice by accepting the Amendments the right hon. Gentleman proposed in Committee. The Government have found in him a champion whom it is impossible for them to discover on their own Benches. It is said that the dispute between them was one of words only, and that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle was only beating the air in his argument last night. If it is believed that this Grant is to be absolutely final for all time, the clearer that fact is stated the better. I could hardly believe that in any part of the House an hon. Member would now advocate the extension of the obsolete precedents of giving grants of money to the grandchildren of the Monarch other than the children of the Heir Apparent. I myself can say that I am not in favour of extending it one inch beyond the Heir in direct succession to the Throne. I dare say there are other Members on this side of the House who may take that view. If that be so, I want to ask the Government whether there is any object really in fighting over words, and what object there could have been in rejecting the Amendments which were put up stairs by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian, and adhering to the phraseology which they themselves have put forward I am bound to say that I do not entertain the same fears which have been expressed by Members on this side of the House. I cannot imagine, from the assurance given in the 14th paragraph of the Report, that any Minister can have the effrontery to come to this House and ask for any further grant of money for members of the Royal Family. I am perfectly prepared to believe that this pledge is a genuine one; and it is admitted that when there is a re-settlement and a re-arrangement of the Civil List the whole matter will have to be re-considered, with a view to the surplus on charges now shown. I myself am entirely with my hon. Friend in believing that there is immense room for economy and saving in the Civil List. But I would point out to him some of the difficulties. It would be easy enough to gain a certain amount by the abolition of high political offices about the Court which are given to the supporters of the Government of the day, but directly you get below the first rank you have to solve some very awkward problems of superannuation and compensation claims. I have seen something in the last two years of the work of re-organising the Government Offices; but I believe the re-organisation of the Household would be a much slower and more complicated and more expensive business than some Members of the House are apt to think; and if that be so, the Government should try as early as possible to appoint Committee—as the right hon. Gentleman himself thought was advisable before the last moment came upon them —in order that there may be a full and careful investigation of the whole of the charges upon the Civil List with a view to their retrenchment for the sake of the public purse. Happily there have not been during this reign those appeals in respect of debt so common in the time of George III. Sir Erskine May said that the condition of the Civil List at that period was one of hopeless debt, the whole paid by Parliament during the reign amounting to £3,398,000. I am not one of those who are inclined to blame the Royal Family for having husbanded their supplies well. I think it would be a pity if the Government were to leave this matter so that they would have to adopt the same hurried course of procedure as they have followed in the present instance. They have placed this House and the Crown in a somewhat unpleasant position. I hope they will be wise in time. They must now see the folly of having postponed the appointment of the Committee so late, and they should certainly take advantage of their experience in the present instance, and as soon as possible appoint either a Royal Commission or a Select Committee that can carefully and deliberately investigate the subject, in order that such a saving may be effected as will assuage what my hon. Friend the Member for West Fife called the "fever of the public mind." Mr. Speaker, I do think that the importance of this subject has all through been somewhat exaggerated. I cannot believe with my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester that the popular mind is so deeply stirred that everything will turn upon this in the future, and that we are really condemning ourselves and vacating our seats by the course of action which those who think with me are about to take tonight. It is really a small matter magnified into the proportions of a large and critical one. It seems to me to illustrate most admirably the peculiar faculty of this House for straining at gnats and swallowing camels. When it is a question of changing a Legation into an Embassy, or of establishing a new Department of State which involves at one fell swoop an expendi- ture of far more than is sought in these Grants, the House takes no notice of it beyond spending its time in futile and irrelevant criticism in Committee of Supply. But undoubtedly this question does possess capabilities for self-advertisement such as are not presented by ordinary topics. [Cries of "Oh!"] I am not saying it with regard to one side or the other. I fully believe that it would be used by the other side at election times in order to present a political issue, such as the question of a Republic versus the Monarchy. I am not levelling this at the heads of my hon. Friends. But undoubtedly this is a sort of question which possesses so much public interest as to admit of a good deal of self-advertisement. That, perhaps, is the reason why the controversy is to be prolonged to such a length in this House. While I think it is absolutely necessary that there should be an early inquiry into the charges on the Civil List, with a view to their thorough readjustment and reform, still if it is worth while to keep the Throne, it is worth while to treat it with respect. It is not merely a refusal to consider the Royal Message, it is not merely a question of respect to the Throne, it is a question of the self-respect of this House, and for that reason I am going, strange though it may seem to hon. Gentlemen sitting around me, to follow my Leader into the Lobby tonight to give a vote against the Amendment of the hon. Gentleman who sits here.

THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON (Lancashire, Rossendale)

I entirely agree with the hon. Member who has just sat down in the opinion that too great importance has been attributed to the question we are now discussing. It does not appear to me to be a question of such intrinsic importance, or one which so greatly excites the public mind, as has sometimes been represented to me. It seems to me not a very large issue, and for that reason the speeches which have been delivered upon the side of the question I am going to take by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian and by the noble Lord the Member for Paddington this evening, appear to me not only to have pretty nearly exhausted all that is to be said on that side of the question, but to have furnished a very ample and sufficient reply to anything that has been urged against it from the other side. I concur with the noble Lord the Member for Paddington in the opinion that a great deal absolutely, or, at all events, relatively, irrelevant has been introduced in the course of this discussion. The hon. Member for Northampton, who spoke this evening, has devoted a great deal of time to the examination of questions which do not appear to me to be relevant in any degree to the issue immediately before us. The question whether there has been an actual transfer by the Crown of the Crown Lands and other revenues, in consideration of the granting of a Civil List, will be a question which will be very fit and proper for discussion when another Civil List is under the consideration of this House; but it does not appear to me a question bearing immediately upon the issue before us. I do not intend, Sir, to enter upon a discussion of that question, but I must say it appears to me a feat that would tax the ingenuity and legal acumen of the greatest lawyer in this House to prove that there has been no surrender of the Crown Revenues, and that no surrender is involved in that Act. Whatever may be the historical researches which the House may obtain to convince it on other cases, I do not understand how the two hon. Members for Northampton, when it has been specifically enacted in two Acts of Parliament that the surrender has been made of certain revenues of the Crown, can deny that the Parliamentary title to those revenues has been established, and that something in the nature of a transaction or a bargain in the return of the Civil List has been entered into between the Crown and Parliament. Sir, the noble Lord the Member for Paddington has complained that the hon. Member for Northampton assumed in his address to-night an attitude of a somewhat pedagogic character. It appears to me that the hon. Member has assumed not only an attitude of a somewhat pedagogic character, but also an attitude of a somewhat minatory and dictatorial character. The hon. Member has introduced topics into his speech tonight which not only appear to me to be irrelevant to the issue before us, but which, if his arguments and assertions are to be made good, would go very far beyond the contentions which he was engaged in supporting. If it be true, as the hon. Member has asserted, that the present Ministry and former Ministries have been guilty of a contravention of an Act of Parliament in permitting surpluses which have accrued on certain classes of the Civil List to be devoted to the aid of the Privy Purse of the Sovereign, that contention would go a great deal beyond the refusal of the Grant asked for on this occasion. It would go a long way to establish a case for the impeachment not only of the present Ministry, but of former Ministries who have permitted such a misappropriation of the public revenues. If, again, as it has been contended by the hon. Member for Northampton who moved this Amendment, there is a right to go behind the Act of Parliament which settled the Civil List for this present reign, if there is a right to inquire into the propriety of the expenditure on the Civil List of various branches of the revenue, that seems to me to go a very long way beyond the subject of our present discussion. The hon. Member himself has admitted that in the present Parliament we have no right to interfere with the Civil List as established in the first year of the reign of her present Majesty. He says that so long as the present reign continues we are pledged to the payment of £385,000 a year, and I do not understand that he contends for a moment that Parliament has a right to interfere with the various classes into which the expenditure has been distributed. What is the nature of the hon. Member's demand? He admits that Parliament has no right to interfere with the Civil List as at present settled. He wished us to tell the Sovereign that unless Her Majesty, in the 52nd year of her reign, and the 70th year of her life, chooses either to initiate or become a party to the vast and sweeping changes in the expenditure of the Civil List, Parliament will refuse to do that which Parliament has done during the whole period of the Hanoverian dynasty —that which Parliament has done during the 50 years of Her Majesty's reign—and will refuse, if Her Majesty does not consent to such a revision of the Civil List as he thinks possible, to make that provision for the other branches of the Royal Family which Parliament up to now has never refused to make. The hon. Member for Northampton who spoke to-night has also reproached the Government for not placing before the House and the Committee adequate information as to the total cost of Royalty. If that charge can be sustained it might justify censure on the Government, but it in no degree justifies the opposition to the demands which are at present made. Now, in the observations I am going to make, I am not going to refer to the subjects which have been made the most prominent features of this Debate; I am going to speak mainly as a member of the late Committee which inquired into this question, and I am afraid the topics on which I shall have to deal will be of a far less interesting character than those raised by the hon. Member for Northampton to-night, and dealt with in his brilliant reply by the hon. Member for Paddington. Fault has been found with the Committee because it did not make any recommendation to the House which would insure finality in regard to all these matters. My hon. Friend the Member for Bedford said last night that the recommendations of the majority had no finality—the only proposal they laid down was the absolute right of the Crown to demand Parliamentary provision for the younger branches of the Royal Family. It is no doubt true that the Committee which has recently sat was directed to inquire, amongst other matters, as to the principle of the provision for members of the Royal Family which it is expedient to adopt in the future. I maintain that the Committee have inquired into that part of the Reference, and have made recommendations upon that part of the Reference in so far as it is necessary or desirable under present circumstances. On this point of view it may be useful to inquire what was the origin of the idea of the appointment of a Select Committee at all. I believe the first reference to the appointment of the Committee on this subject was contained in a speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Lothian on the occasion when he felt it his duty to move for a Grant to Her Royal Highness the Princess Beatrice. My right hon. Friend on that occasion said — In the time when Sir Robert Peel was Minister the first of the proposals within my recollection was made; and, undoubtedly, it was made at the time simply on a Resolution of the Cabinet. In the time of Lord Palmerston a step in advance was made. A Minute was drawn up with care, and a scale of annuities, and, in certain cases, of dowry, was proposed and submitted, and pains were taken to ascertain that there should be such a concurrence of view among the leading men of the House of Commons who had been connected with the Office, so that something like system might be introduced into the grant of those provisions; but no provision was made then, or has been attempted since, for the reference of this portion of what has been, for a century, one subject to a Committee of the House. Method and unity of proceeding were secured, but nothing was done. We have considered this matter, Sir, and we are of opinion that it would be decidedly a public advantage, and most consistant with the important considerations attaching to this subject, if henceforth Parliament were to apply to these secondary provisions, if I may so call them—as compared, of course, I mean, with the provision for the Crown and the Heir to the Throne—if Parliament were to apply the same principles as have been applied in the case of the Royal Civil List; and before the House Commons hear of these proposals, a system on which they may well henceforward be founded should have been submitted by the Government to a Parliamentary Committee, and should have received the approval and sanction of that Committee. Well, Sir, that was the initiation of the idea of referring this question to a Select Committee of the House of Commons, and I think the reference in that statement to the action of Sir R. Peel and the further step taken by Lord Palmerston and the other references in the passage show that what was in the mind of my right hon. Friend at that time was not the appointment of a Select Committee to consider some final settlement of this question which would once for all decide it, but mainly the appointment of a Committee which would consider a scale on which these allowances were in future to be granted by the House of Commons. That, I think, was the view of my right hon. Friend at that time, and that that was the view of the Government is shown by the proposals which they submitted in the first instance for discussion. Undoubtedly since the appointment of a Committee on this question was first proposed the opinion has gained ground in the country and in the House—and I do not say unreasonably gained ground—that in the future, and in view of the opposition now always offered to proposals of this kind, and the Debates and the differences of opinion which, perhaps, are not calculated to reflect credit on the dignity of the Crown or even on the dignity of Parliament itself, it would be desirable if some method could be discovered by which the necessity for repeated applications on this subject should be avoided. Well, the Committee have considered the subject from that point of view. I do not say that they have exhaustively considered it from that point of view; but when we are told that the Committee have not made proposals of absolute finality, I maintain that the Committee have made a proposal and have gone as far in the direction of finality as it is expedient or possible to go at present. I say that this question has not been exhaustively discussed and considered by the Committee, and it has not been exhaustively discussed by this House. There are two sides to this question, and I think I can show as late as 1882 what the view of my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Lothian was as to this point. In 1882, in moving for the Grant on the marriage of the Duke of Albany, my right hon. Friend distinctly expressed his approval of the present system of making application to Parliament as necessity should arise. On that occasion my right hon. Friend used these words:— This proposal is founded on a deliberate policy. That policy rests upon this principle— that it is a wise course, and a course accordant with the principles of a popular representative Government, that instead of endowing the Crown upon the accession of the Soverign with all the sums which may eventually be found necessary in case that Sovereign should be blessed with a numerous progeny, instead of making that large endowment which might prove to be superfluous, that proper course is first to endow the Sovereign, if unmarried, in reference to the expenses of an unmarried Sovereign, and then from time to time to enlarge that endowment, as circumstances may require such enlargement. I am not quoting that at all in a controversial sense; circumstances may have arisen since that period which may have induced my right hon. Friend and many others to change the opinion they then held to an opinion that it would be desirable that these constant applications should be given up; but I think that if the House will consider the vast variety of circumstances under which it is possible that a Sovereign may accede to the Throne, they will see at once that it is not possible, or if it were possible that it is not desirable, to lay down any hard- and-fast rule which shall be necessarily applicable to all occasions. We need not go further back than to the circumstances of the accession of her present Majesty in order to illustrate the truth of this. Her Majesty ascended the Throne as an unmarried woman of 18, and it is very difficult to conceive what general rule could have been laid down before that period which would have enabled the House to make a fitting provision in that case, a provision which would not have been excessive in the case of her remaining unmarried or not having issue, or which would have been sufficient in the event of her marrying and having a numerous issue. Take again the case which might arise in the case of the accession of His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales. The circumstances under which the Sovereign may be called upon to act will be entirely different in that case. He would ascend the Throne at middle age or past middle age, when the circumstances of the family for which in reasonable probability he would be called upon to provide are accurately known, and the circumstances will be as different as it is possible to conceive from those in which her present Majesty ascended the Throne. Therefore I claim that it is not possible, or if it were possible that it would not be desirable, for the Committee to recommend to the House any fixed principle which should be laid down to govern invariably cases which must of necessity vary as much as those differences which occur in the cases I have mentioned of her present Majesty and the Prince of Wales. I maintain that all the Committee could do, and what it has done, is to lay down a principle and to suggest to the House a proposal which will secure a limited and reasonable finality, and which may be expected to prevent a recurrence of these discussions and these Debates. If the proposals of the Committee are accepted, finality for the present reign will be obtained. No proposal of this kind can be made for the children of His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, and no proposal is to be made for the other grandchildren of Her Majesty, and when another Sovereign ascends the Throne it appears not to be difficult to make such arrangements when the Civil List is settled as to prevent the recurrence of similar applications. When the House is engaged in the settlement of the next Civil List it can either provide that that Civil List shall be framed on the basis of providing for the State and personal expenditure of the next Sovereign, and funds created for the provision of such sum as may be required for the maintenance of his children and their descendants, or if the wisdom of Parliament shall decide that the next Sovereign shall be held responsible for those expenses, the money would be allotted to him. But there would be no difficulty in either case in preventing the recurrence in the next reign of applications of this character. I maintain that that limited finality which we have sought to obtain is all that can reasonably he expected—all that the House can expect to attain to, and we should have gone beyond the necessities of the case if the Committee had laid down any rule which should be final and inflexible in the case which I have mentioned. Now the Committee—the majority of the Committee—may be asked why, if Her Majesty has been pleased to waive the claim asserted in the case of her grandchildren, the claim should be asserted and repeated in the Report of the Committee. My answer to that question is that in my judgment the Report and finding of the Committee accurately represents the real state of facts. I maintain that that claim was a claim which might rightly be made and which was justified. Some of the grounds upon which such a claim might be put forward have been given in the Report, and a consideration of these will further support the validity of the claim. The grounds upon which the Civil List of the last two reigns has been settled have been fully and completely set forth in the Reports of Parliamentary Committees. Those Civil Lists were evidently framed to provide for certain State expenses, divided into certain departments, and also for a large personal expenditure of the Sovereign. If it was contemplated at the time when those Civil Lists were framed that, in addition to those State and personal expenses, the Sovereign was expected to make provision for any number of possible descendants, it seems to me hardly credible that such possibility would have found no mention in the Report. But the evidence in support of this claim is not confined to mere negative evidence. Her Majesty and the Advisers whom Her Majesty is bound to consult upon this question have seen that, without a single breach, the precedent, throughout the reign of the Hanoverian dynasty, is established of making provision from Parliamentary sources for the younger members of the Reigning Family, and that has not been confined to reigns anterior to the present, but during Her Majesty's reign provision has been made not only for her own children but for the grandchildren of a former Sovereign. In that state of facts Her Majesty and her Advisers were bound to hold that in the absence of any notice or intimation to the contrary Parliament would do in her case and in the case of her children that which Parliament had done with unbroken regularity in the case of all the others. In my opinion, it was due to the Sovereign, in the interests of truth, in the interests of the public, that the true state of things should be made known to the public at large. It would not have been fair to Her Majesty nor creditable to the honesty and straightforwardness of the House of Commons if it had been allowed to be supposed that a claim had been put forward by Her Majesty and refused by Parliament when the real state of the case was that a claim had been asserted on her behalf by Her Majesty's Advisers and had been voluntarily withdrawn and waived by Her Majesty. I have not heard what the grounds are on which my right hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle is going, as I understand he is going, at a subsequent stage, to contest the validity of that claim which the majority of the Committee asserted. My right hon. Friend did not dwell upon that part of the subject. He appeared to be alarmed at the consequences, in the present or in a future reign, of the assertion of such a claim. He seemed to suppose that even in the present reign a claim might be made for the great-grandchildren of Her Majesty. Notwithstanding what he has discovered, and in the face of the declaration which has been made to the Committee by the First Lord of the Treasury, the House may rest assured that, during the reign of her present Majesty, no such claim will be urged on behalf of any of her grandchildren. When the Prince of Wales ascends the Throne I presume it will be admitted by most hon. Members of this House that provision will have to be made in some way and by some persons, not only for the children, but also for the grandchildren of the Sovereign. [Cries of "No."] Well, I suppose it will have to be made. I am not assuming that that provision will necessarily have to be made by Parliament; but I am assuming it is admitted that either by the head of the Family or by Parliament provision will have to be made for the future descendants of the King of England. It does not appear to be unreasonable, therefore, that when the Civil List comes to be settled it will be a subject for the consideration of that Parliament which is to regulate the scale of that Civil List whether Parliament is going to undertake in any form or shape a provision for the descendants of the Sovereign, or whether it is to be understood that the allowance which is to be made to the Sovereign shall be such as will enable him to make the necessary provision. I do not see that there are any consequences following on the assertion of the principle declared by the majority of the Committee which will, in the slightest degree, embarrass or hamper a future Parliament in regard to the decision it will come to. It seems to be generally agreed that this would be a not inconvenient opportunity for discussing this subject at large. Many questions, including some of those to which I have been referring, cannot be discussed on the vote which we are called upon to give to-night. They will have to be discussed, though I hope they will not be discussed at any great length, at future stages of these proceedings. But, as to the vote which we are called upon to give tonight, I cannot conceive that there can be in the minds of very many hon. Members any great difficulty in arriving at a conclusion. We are asked by the senior Member for Northampton to give a vote which I believe would be wholly of an unprecedented character. We are asked to refuse to consider a Message from the Crown; we are asked to refuse to consider the results of the deliberations of a Committee of this House. We are asked to refuse, not only to consider and discuss the recommendations made by the majority of that Committee, but we are asked also to refuse those recommendations which were made by the minority. What we are asked to do to-night is to accept conclusions which a minority of the minority in the Committee have arrived at, and to refuse altogether to take into consideration the Message from the Crown and the recommendations of the Select Committee. I believe, Sir, that in view of the unprecedented disrespect which such a vote would show to a Message from the Crown, in view of the unprecedented disregard which such a decision would imply of the recommendations of a Committee of our own House, the vast majority of the Members of this House will feel no doubt or hesitation in the vote they will give to-night at least, and that, whether those claims be well founded or not, they will agree at any rate in considering them to be claims which are worthy of receiving, if not the favour, at any rate the respectful consideration of the House; and that they will therefore without any hesitation give a decided vote against the Amendment.

SIR W. LAWSON (Cumberland, Cockermouth)

It appears to me that the speeches in this Debate have been of a very peculiar character—for instance, the speech of the noble Lord the Member for South Paddington, delivered from the Benches opposite, consisted very much of an eulogium of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian. Then we have had the Member for North Lancashire expressing an opinion that the Americans are very much in favour of a Monarchy in this country. If so, it is curious that they do not themselves establish one. Following the hon. Gentleman we have had a speech from the hon. Member for St. Paucras, who did not do much credit to his honoured name, at any rate he made a speech with which I did not agree at all. He told us first of all that he was not a Storeyite, and that he was not a Jacobite. I concluded after he had finished his speech that the real name for him was a Toryite. He also stated that this question was a Constitutional question, and not a finan- cial one. For my own part, I say it is simply and solely a financial question as to what we shall vote when the Ministry ask us to vote. Not long ago I happened to be with one of the gentlemen who sit on the Front Opposition Bench—I would not mention his name for worlds. This gentleman said that he was asked to go on the Committee on the Royal Grants, and declined for two reasons—"First, because I think the Committee is a sham; and, secondly, because I am a Republican."[Loud laughter, and cries of "Name!"] I assure the House that the story is quite true, but wild horses would not draw the name from me. Both statements are true. The Committee was a sham, and the gentleman I refer to is a Republican. But that was no reason for not going on the Committee. The great duty of a politician is to try and turn shams into realities. It was no reason for his not going on the Committee that he was a Republican, because we are all Republicans. [Laughter and "No!"] Yes. I consider this country is a Republic which chooses to have at its head a hereditary Monarch. Not at all a bad sort of Constitution either. It works very well, and will work for a good many years to come. But we are constantly told, "If you have a Monarchy, you must pay for it." That is the universal remark, and it is perfectly true. I quite agree that if we have a Monarchy we must pay for it. But the whole question is how much we are to pay for it. It is said this is a paltry, sordid question. But all questions about money are sordid and paltry in a sense. The Leader of the House has talked about the Monarchy being a sacred institution. I quite differ from him. I do not think any human institution is sacred. If you worship institutions it is no better than worshipping stocks and stones, and I cannot help telling the right hon. Gentleman that he is a political heathen. I repeat that the whole question is whether we pay too little, or too much, or just enough for keeping up the Monarchy. If we pay too little we are acting a mean and shabby part; if we pay too much we are unfaithful stewards of the public money entrusted to our charge. Monarchy nowadays has no political function whatever to perform. The political part of the business is carried on by that row of gentlemen I see sitting opposite. The Queen can do no wrong; but the Ministry can do wrong, and does do wrong. The Queen can do no wrong, because she knows the Constitution and obeys it. That is the reason why she is, perhaps, the most popular Sovereign in Europe. The people are loyal to the Queen because the Queen has been loyal to the people, and long may she be so. But as this is an entirely financial question we have to consider what are the duties which Royalty has to perform, and for which we are called upon to pay. They are ceremonial duties which the people of this country wish to have performed—levees, drawing rooms, balls, the patronage of philanthropic institutions, laying foundation stones, charity dinners, driving on to racecourses, entertaining distinguished strangers and barbarians like the Shah. [Cries of "Oh!" "No!" and "Withdraw!"] I do not understand what hon. Gentlemen object to. Is there anything wrong? These things are called in the political jargon of the day "maintaining the splendour of the Throne." The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian (Mr. Gladstone) maintained last night that the Court is to be looked upon as the school of morals for the whole country. I have nothing to say against the Court; but my opinion is that it is the morality of the country which has made the Court moral, not the morality of the Court which has made the country moral. I have no desire to minimise the duties of these ceremonial institutions, nor to say that they have been badly performed. I think all the ceremonies have been performed in a manner quite equal to the Lord Mayor's Show. The duties of Monarchy and the duties of Royalty are well paid for now. It is calculated that they are paid for at the rate of £700,000 per annum. ["Oh!"] I have been told so by the experts, and the sole question before the House is, why is there to be an additional Grant made now for carrying on these ceremonies. The cost of living and so forth is not more now than it has been. The Royal Family is growing, but I cannot see why more public money is to be voted on that account, for my doctrine is that public money should only be paid for public services; and I do not see that these marriages add to the splendour of the Throne. Now, it is said there is some impropriety in discussing this matter and that it should be treated as what the right hon. Gentleman calls "sacred." This is a strange doctrine to come from the Party which, to their honour, 50 years ago opposed the Grant of a large sum of money to Prince Albert. I do not see why we should not speak freely on these matters. I will tell you what the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham (Mr. Chamberlain) stated in 1874, when the Prince of Wales went to Birmingham. He was then Mayor of Birmingham, and in a letter which was published he said that his responsibility in the event was limited to representing the Corporation on the occasion, but the Prince of Wales would be sure to be well received by the crowd and would be as popular as the Tichborne claimant. A letter has appeared from the hon. Member for the City of London (Sir R. Fowler) in which he says he is going to vote for the Grant because he is a loyal subject. Well, what right had he to say that, implying that we are not as loyal as he is. Loyalty consists in doing our duty [Au hon. MEMBER: "To whom?"] to the country, to the law, to the people who make the law. I cannot see that it is scandalous to discuss a Vote of money to the Royal Family any more than it is to discuss a Vote to the Army and Navy. I am sure that Her Majesty would be as anxious as any one that her faithful Commons should properly discuss this expenditure. It is not wonderful that there should be an outcry on this subject. What does the Government do, and do very properly, if somebody gets up in this House and says the postmen do not get enough wages? The Chancellor of the Exchequer says, "My first duty is to the taxpayers, and I will not grant an increase unless you show me it is necessary." It is perfectly true that excitement and agitation arise from the disparity which people perceive between the way in which the poor are treated and the way in which a rich family is treated. Well, Sir, for my part I am exceedingly glad that the hon. Member for Northampton has taken the action he has taken in this matter. I am getting to be an old Parliamentary hand, and I remember that in the year 1873 my right hon. Friend the Member for one of the Divisions of Glasgow (Sir G. Trevelyan) formed one and I formed another of the Tellers of those who, to the number of 13, voted against a similar Grant to the Duke of Connaught. Tonight we shall probably have 10 times that number voting in the minority—yes, and that minority will contain the flower of the Liberal Party. Of course, we shall not have the Liberal Unionists nor the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Birmingham (Mr. Chamberlain), who used to talk so much about "those who toil not, neither do they spin," but who now is going to add to their revenues by getting all he can out of the toilers and spinners. I am sorry to hear that our Irish friends are going to vote for this large Grant of public money. It is a sad thing that they have so little sympathy with the democracy of this country. The Liberals are their only friends, and I am sorry that the Irish Members think that this is the way to promote the union of hearts between the two countries. But never mind what happens to-night; it is only the beginning of the fray. The noble Lord the Member for Rossendale (the Marquess of Hartington) said that too much was being made of this question; but the Leader of the House and the Leader of the Opposition said it was a most important subject. It is, I say, a question on which the country will look with interest at the votes of Members. This is the first Grant that has been proposed since we have had household suffrage; and that makes all the difference. The Grant will be carried by the votes of all sorts of people—it will be carried by what I may call the swell-mob of politics. "Society" is with the majority—the nobility, clergy, and all idle people of the country—the noble army of place hunters, the hordes of beefeaters and taxeaters. At the Crystal Palace, the other night, the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary (Mr. A. J. Balfour), in an interval between the performing elephants, the ballet girls, and a man in a trap, said that the Unionists and the Primrose League were going to save the country—I suppose by this vote. But let hon. Members opposite remember they will have to reckon with the democracy. We have not yet gone to a General Election when the heart of the democracy has been thoroughly stirred—["Home Rule"]—no, not on Home Rule; the people did not understand it as they do now. When the time comes, I hope the democracy will have sufficient intelligence, independence, and manliness to visit with their condemnation all those who vote for this wilful, wanton, and wasteful expenditure of the resources of the country.

THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. GOSCHEN,) St. George's, Hanover Square

Mr. Speaker, the House will think it but respectful, after the Debate which has taken place, that a Member of the Government, even at this late hour, should intervene and answer some of the questions which have been put to us in the course of the discussion. I hope that in a very few minutes the House may escape from the influence of the speech which we have just heard. I only ask hon. Members opposite to contrast the tone and taste of that speech with the great speech to which we listened last night from the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Gladstone). One would have thought that the speech of the right hon. Gentleman would have had some influence even in restraining the merriment of the hon. Member who has just sat down. The hon. Member says it is "the swell-mob of politics" who are going to vote for this Resolution, and against the Amendment of the hon. Member for Northampton. I hope that the constituencies will analyse the list of this Division; and they will then see amongst those who vote against the hon. Member for Northampton some of those to whom they most look up in the Party opposite. I do not know to what extent hon. Members mean to stand by their cheers. I wish to know to which speech do they pay most honour, not only in their cheers, but in the course they are going to take to-night—to the speech of the veteran statesman who leads them, or to the speech of the hon. Member whose taste, I presume, represents what they consider to be the views of the present democracy? I believe that the hon. Member utterly misrepresents the democracy if he believes that if we had a body of working men in this House they would have shown any admiration or respect for the speech to which we have just listened. Sir, the time at my disposal is so short that I know hon. Members will be anxious that I should occupy it by replying to some of the questions which have been put in serious and respectable speeches, and which deserve an answer. The hon. Member for Northampton made this evening an antiquarian speech, but lam relieved from a great portion of the duty of replying to it by the observations that fell from the noble Lord the Member for Paddington (Lord R. Churchill). In fact, it would be perfectly possible, but for the questions which have been put to us, to leave this Debate as it stands after the speeches which have been made by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian (Mr. Gladstone), by the noble Lord the Member for Paddington (Lord R, Churchill), by my hon. Friend the Under Secretary of State for India (Sir J. Gorst), and by the noble Lord the Member for Rossendale (Lord Hartington). We are perfectly content with the result of this Debate; but there are some delusions to which currency has been given on this occasion, and which it would perhaps be right to dispel by a few words. The junior Member for Northampton has resuscitated this evening his views with regard to the title of the Crown to the hereditary Crown Lands and as to the question of surrender. I am sorry that time does not permit me to answer, as it could be answered, the historical part of the hon. Member's speech. But let me, in two or three sentences only, point out the fallacy which underlies the whole argument in that respect. I know that the contention of hon. Members opposite—of the new school of Eadicals—is that there is no title for these Crown Lands. What is the position of the hon. Member for! Northampton? He finds a flaw in the title, as he believes, in the reign of William III., and consequently holds that the Crown Lands which have been attached to the Crown since William the Conqueror are to be no longer regarded as the property of the Crown. He has been answered on the question of the Parliamentary title. It has been pointed out that time after time the proprietary rights of the Crown in these revenues have been allowed and asserted by Parliament. I might leave that part of the defence to the noble Lord the Member for Paddington. The fallacy which underlies the argument of the hon. Member as regards the surrender, which he says was made for the first time by an audacious draftsman in the Civil List of George III., lies in the question why did previous Monarchs not surrender as George III. surrendered? Why, because they kept and spent the revenues. The hon. Member asks, time after time, why did not other Monarchs surrender, as George III. did, and the hon. Member argues that because previous Monarchs did not surrender therevenue3 therefore they were not vested in the Crown. He ought to know that they were not surrendered, because they were kept and used. Let the House understand the exact position. When a composition was made, and a given sum was taken by the Sovereign in lieu of the hereditary revenues, as was the case for the first time in the reign of George III., then the surrender was announced in the Civil List. But when the hereditary revenues remained in the Monarchs' hands, and were spent by them, and were supplemented by Votes in Parliament, then they were not surrendered because they formed a portion, of the income of the Sovereign supplemented by Votes. These were the two systems. There was, first, the system of the enjoyment of the revenues supplemented by the Votes of Parliament, and when that came to an end the surrender took place, and a composition was made by the Crown. Then the hon. Member says that there were other revenues which were attached to the Crown besides those Crown Lands and with that usual somewhat uncharitable manner which he has in dealing with his opponents, the hon. Member declares that the passage in the Report which asserts the surrender of the Crown revenues and small hereditary branches of revenue is based on ignorance or dishonesty, because it does not state other revenues attached to the Crown. But those stood on a perfectly different footing. One of the hereditary revenues —the Excise Duty on beer and cider— had not been levied for sometime and was consequently not giving a return, and the amount of it could not be entered in the account which was presented. But the hon. Member says, "If you had in- cluded these revenues there would have been scores of millions which would have been surrendered, and we should have seen the reductio ad absurdum of the Queen surrendering revenues the place of which could not possibly be supplied." The hon. Member spoke of scores of millions. He appears not to have seen an interesting Return which shows the Crown Revenues surrendered, including the duty on Excise in 1829, and all those duties to which he alluded did not amount to more than £800,000. I can show him the various items of which the Return was composed, and prove to him that his reductio ad absurdum argument was a mere figment of his brain, an exploded fallacy. I regret that I have not time to go into this matter in detail. Another fallacy of the hon. Member's, and one which I believe has made some impression upon hon. Members opposite, has been answered, partially answered, to-night by the noble Lord the Member for Paddington. It is the fallacy with regard to the surplus funds of the Civil List, the saving which the hon. Member maintains has from year to year been diverted from the use of the public, to which it ought to have been turned, and which has been paid over to the Sovereign. The hon. Member relies upon a section in the Act which states that these savings ought to be paid over in aid of one particular class. Do not let it go forth that there is the slightest justification for one moment in maintaining that any of the surplus paid over to the Privy Purse from the £385,000 which was assigned to her Majesty—that there is any portion of that which does not belong absolutely to Her Majesty. A great deal of nonsense has been talked about these alleged savings which have been paid over to the Privy Purse and which it is alleged now ought never to have been so paid. Let hon. Members generally look at the third section, of the Act by which these revenues were assigned, and they will see that it is stated in the most absolute form that the amount of £385,000 is to be paid quarterly to Her Majesty. There is no reservation as to any portion of that sum; and is it to be believed that the Parliament of 1837, with the great financiers, with the great statesmen in that Parliament, omitted to state that if there was any saving in any of the classes it should be paid over to the nation, if they had intended for one moment that it should be handed over? There is not a suggestion to that effect in any part of the Act. All that hon. Members point to is that the surplus is to be paid over in aid of a particular class, and then they slip in, or attempt to slip in, the words "to meet the deficiency in any particular class." But these words are not in the Act. It cannot be contended for one moment, looking at the Act as a whole, that there was the slightest idea in the mind of any responsible statesman that these savings were not intended to be paid over for the use of Her Majesty. The point is raised that there has been a reserve fund of £15,000 or more, and the hon. Member for Sunderland Mr. Storey) has put forward an ingenious argument, that this reserve fund was intended to meet the case of children, that children were to be endowed out of this reserve fund. This reserve fund was founded for the purpose of meeting emergencies, and I do not think even hon. Members opposite will contend that the marriage of a child is an emergency, or that the provision which must be made for children going out into the world is an emergency. I would only recommend hon. Members to read what has been said in 1837, and they will see that there was not then, and never ha3 been, the ghost of a suggestion that any portion of Her Majesty's savings should be devoted for the purpose of finding doweries or endowments for the younger children of the Queen or for any portion of the Royal Family. It ought to be known that those savings, which are supposed by the hon. Member for Sunderland to go straight to some investment to be accumulated, have in many cases been expended by Her Majesty, not on personal considerations, not only for charitable purposes, but a large portion of the money has been used for the entertainment of Royal Guests. ["No, no."] Do hon. Members doubt it? I say that we have documentary evidence that in many cases those savings have been applied, and were intended to be applied, for these special cases, when the Privy Purse did not meet the necessities of the moment. There have been Minutes in times past where the savings of a certain number of years have been applied to meet purposes which the Government of the day acknowledged might fairly have been put on Parliament, but which Her Majesty was anxious to discharge from the Privy Purse and the savings. It is right that this fact should be made known in reply to that monstrous suggestion of the hon. Member for Sunderland that £3,000,000 has been accumulated by Her Majesty out of her savings. How did the hon. Member arrive at that figure? He gave us one hint; he said it was by an actuarial calculation. His assumption was that, whenever any sum was paid over to the Privy Purse, it was immediately invested at compound interest, and taken year by year the hon. Member estimated that it would give £3,000,000. Why you might as well say you gave a man £100 10 years ago, so now he must have accumulated £500, without inquiry whether he has spent the original sum or not. We know that a great portion of the money paid over to Her Majesty has been paid for purposes, many of which may be called national purposes, and many of them charitable purposes. I would direct the attention of hon. Members to the fact that at the end of the Report there is a statement made that there was a Motion moved by the right hon. Member for Mid Lothian, stating that the Government had supplied the information which the Committee desired in the fullest manner possible, and had amply redeemed the promise they had made.

MR. LABOUCHERE

I will ask the right hon. Gentleman whether I did not state that I would not put the Committee to the trouble of a Division, but that I most emphatically said "no" to the Motion?

MR. GOSCHEN

That is perfectly true; but the hon. Member did not receive the support of a single one of the other 23 Members of the Committee to that assertion. With all respect to the hon. Member, I cannot accept his particular "No" against the assent of the other Members of the Committee to the Resolution which was spontaneously moved by the right hon. Member for Mid Lothian, stating that the Government had amply redeemed the promises they had made with regard to furnishing information to the House. I see the time is approaching when I must conclude my remarks, and I would wish to say one word upon the proceedings before the Committee, to which allusion has been made. We shall have another opportunity of dealing with the right hon. Member for Newcastle, and I will only to-night observe that among the many speeches that have been made the particular position he has taken up has only been endorsed by two hon. Members in the course of this Debate— namely, the hon. Member for Bedford and the hon. Member for the College Division of Glasgow, and of those two supporters the hon. Member for the College Division says he will not vote in the same Lobby with the right hon. Gentleman. Something has been said with regard to the firm attitude which we took up in insisting on two paragraphs in the Report, one declaring that notice had never been given to Her Majesty of any intention whatever to depart from all precedents, and the other affirming that if Her Majesty had made a claim on the liberality of Parliament to provide for the children of Her Majesty's younger son, we believed that would have been a fair claim. We maintain the view that no notice whatever has been given to the Queen. No extracts read to the House can convey to hon. Members the strong impression they would get from reading the Debates, that, so far from any notice being given to the Queen of any intention to induce the country to make a departure from precedent, every word uttered in those Debates would strengthen the impression which must have been upon Her Majesty that Parliament would not look to the extent of Her Majesty's savings to provide for the family of Her Majesty. That runs through every Debate. It has been pointed out over and over again by the right hon. Member for Mid Lothian that if the Queen had to provide for the family of the Heir Apparent, her savings would not enable her to meet one-tenth part of the demands which would be made upon her. We were determined we would not flinch from the assertion of the fact that no notice had been given to Her Majesty. The hon. Member said that every Liberal would vote against that declaration. Liberals can vote as much as they like, but however great their research they cannot find that any notice has been given to the Queen that would induce her to believe that Parliament would look to her to provide for the children of her younger sons. And, again, we say that both precedent and all that has taken place establish the fact that if Her Majesty had chosen to make a demand on the liberality of Parliament it would have been the duty of Parliament to meet the claim. The right hon. Member for Newcastle says it is a shabby thing to assert a claim and not to enforce it.

MR. J. MORLEY

Hear, hear.

MR. GOSCHEN

I venture, differing from him, to say it would have been a shabby thing if at the point of the bayonet we had flinched from the assertion of a principle and a claim which we believe to be just; but it is one thing to state that a claim would have been founded and another to press for that claim, and we believe that, acting on the advice of her Ministers, the Queen has exercised a wise discretion in not pressing that claim upon the present occasion. Hon. Members have pressed us to say whether we mean that the claims are absolutely dead or not. I refer the right hon. Gentleman and his Friends to the words of the Resolution. We go to the full extent of our declaration. We do not go back from that declaration; we do not go beyond it. That is the policy which we shall defend when the right hon. Gentleman brings forward his Amendment, which has been a very considerable time in its concoction.

MR. J. MORLEY

Oh, no. We were obliged to wait until the Resolution was more or less formulated. My Amendment is already in the hands of right hon. Gentlemen opposite.

MR. GOSCHEN

Yes, about five minutes ago. It is a very interesting document. Let us realise the position of the right hon. Gentleman. The position which seems to be taken up by the right hon. Gentleman and some of his Friends is this—that in future arrange- ments with the Sovereign, no allowance is to be made for the possibility of having to provide for children. The doctrine of the right hon. Gentleman comes to this—that the Princesses of the Royal House will neither be in the position of being able to be endowed by the savings of their parents, nor will they be able to appeal to Parliament, and they will stand in a different position from that of the daughters of any nobleman or gentleman in the country; they will be utterly un provided for if the doctrine of the right hon. Gentleman is to prevail. We have heard something during the course of the Debates of the view which popular assemblies will take upon this question. For my part, I firmly believe that if this House had been filled, altogether with working men, or with a fair sample of the constituencies listening to our Debates, the speeches which have been made by the Member for Mid Lothian and others would have carried conviction to their mind. They would have convinced any popular assembly that our demands were just and founded on principles of equity, and should not be rejected by an intelligent people. What is the course of hon. Gentlemen opposite? They first endeavour to inflame the popular mind by gigantic exaggerations. They talk of millions that do not exist. They talk of doubling the revenue of the Sovereign, calling it £250,000 instead of £125,000, and then, when they have produced an impression in that way, they tell us that the mind of the public is exercised and impassioned. Let them state the case fairly on any platform, and I believe the country will decide, as this House will decide, by a large majority in favour of the proposals of Her Majesty's Government.

The House divided:—Ayes 398; Noes 116.—(Div. List, No. 260.)

Main Question put, and agreed to.