HC Deb 22 March 1889 vol 334 cc519-21
MR. LABOUCHERE (Northampton)

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether Mr. R. Anderson submitted the letter signed by him, and published in the Times on the 21st instant, to the Secretary of State, and obtained his permission to publish it; what position Mr. Anderson occupied in the Civil Service when he joined it, and what was his official salary; whether he fulfilled the duties of this office whilst employed as a detective of the Home Office; whether there are any other instances of Civil servants receiving a public salary for specific services in a public department and being employed as detectives without the knowledge of the head of the department, and receiving a secret salary; whether Mr. Anderson was handed over by the Secretary of State for the Home Department the moneys which were paid to Beach for his communications; and whether the doctrine laid down by Mr. Anderson, in his letter of 21st March, that communications paid for by the taxpayer, and received by a person receiving a salary on account of their receipt, are the property of the writer or of the person to whom they are addressed if they are kept at the private residence of the latter and not "filed" in a Government Office?

MR. MATTHEWS

The answer to the first paragraph is in the negative. Mr. Anderson joined the Civil Service as Secretary to the Prisons Commission, at a salary of £600 a-year, and fulfilled the duties of that office continuously until he was appointed Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police in September last. With regard to the fourth and fifth paragraphs of the hon. Member's question, it would be contrary to my duty to give the hon. Member in the House of Commons any information as to the manner in which, or the persons to whom, secret service money has been dispensed by my predecessors or by myself beyond this—that the rules laid down by the Treasury Minutes (April 19 1886, and April 12 1888) on that subject have been and will be observed by me. As to the last paragraph, the doctrine stated in that paragraph does not appear to me to represent accurately the effect of Mr. Anderson's letter of the 21st of March, nor am I prepared to lay down any general rule applicable to all secret service documents.

MR. LABOUCHERE

Allow me to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether, in view of the fact that he blamed Sir C. Warren, the late Chief Commissioner of Police, for publishing in the newspapers his views upon matters in general connected with his office, he will inflict some sort of blame upon this gentleman for publishing this letter?

MR. MATTHEWS

I shall deal with the matter with a due sense of my own responsibility in relation to the great office which I hold; but I am not prepared at present to state what course I shall take.

MR. T. M. HEALY

I beg to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether it was by his sanction that Mr. Anderson, as stated in his letter yesterday, furnished Mr. Macdonald, of the Times, with the name of a confidential person to support the Times in what is called the American branch of the case; and, if not, on whose authority did Mr. Anderson proceed? I wish also to ask whether Inspector Andrews, whom he admits to have been sent out to America since the Act forming the Commission was passed, was the confidential person who helped the Times with the American part of the case at the suggestion of Mr. Anderson?

MR. MATTHEWS

The question with respect to Mr. Andrews does not in any way arise out of the question on the Paper. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will put it down. With regard to the first part of the question, my answer is in the negative.

MR. T. M. HEALY

I should like to ask whether it was regular on the part of Mr. Anderson to give a private individual—Mr. Macdonald, of the Times—secret assistance with regard to the American branch of the Times' case, which knowledge must have come confidentially to Mr. Anderson?

MR. MATTHEWS.

When the hon. Gentleman asks me whether it was regular, I presume he means to ask me whether it was contrary to any rule of the Civil Service. I am not aware that any rule has been broken.

MR. T. M. HEALY

Are we to understand that it is at the option of the Civil Servants to supply private litigants with such secret or confidential information as may be in their hands, and which has come to them as Government officials from persons who were in receipt of State pay?

MR. MATTHEWS

The hon. Member is not to understand that.

MR. BRADLAUGH

In consequence of the answer of the right hon. Gentleman, and of the evidence of Le Caron, I beg to give notice that on the Secret Service Vote I shall draw attention to the facts of the case, and move the rejection of the Vote.

MR. GILL (Louth, S.)

Will the right hon. Gentleman say at what date Mr. Anderson joined the Civil Service?

MR. MATTHEWS

That is not in the question.