§ SIR W. MARRIOTT (Brighton)Mr. Speaker, with your permission I must crave indulgence from the House— indulgence which, I am happy to say, is always given—for a personal explanation 522 with regard to a speech made in this House on Friday last by the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for War (Mr. Campbell - Bannerman). The speech seems to have been a very amusing one, and to have caused great laughter; but the words used have conveyed an impression which I do not think the right hon. Gentleman intended to convey. I find it has been reproduced in the local papers as an attack on myself, to which importance may be attributed. The reason why this wrong impression is prevalent is that certain omissions and one mis-statement were made by the right hon. Gentleman —no doubt unwittingly. I have taken an extract of the words I object to from The Times newspaper, and will read them to the right hon. Gentleman to see whether they are correctly reported—
The late Judge Advocate General was sometimes paid after one fashion and sometimes after another; but he was now only concerned with the last year for which the right hon. Gentleman held office—the year commencing April 1 last. The arrangement made with the Treasury was that the office should be endowed with a fixed salary of £500, and that the officer should be allowed fees for business actually transacted to the amount of another £500. But the late Judge Advocate General claimed that his £500 should be paid over to him on April 1 as a retaining fee for the coming year. The greater part of the salary for the year was thus absorbed. The right hon. Gentleman was paid £500 on April 1, and he proceeded with unusual, but praiseworthy, activity to transact as much business as possible, so that when the change of Government took place in the beginning of August there was only £150 available for the distinguished public servant who should be then appointed to discharge the duties of the office.That statement created much laughter. Well, I must first call attention to the omissions made by the right hon. Gentleman. He omitted to state that for a long time the late Judge Advocate General was paid nothing at all.
§ MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANI did state it.
§ SIR WILLIAM MARRIOTTWell, he was not so reported.
§ MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANMy words were to this effect: "And sometimes the right hon. Gentleman was paid and sometimes he was not paid, and that sometimes he was paid after one fashion and sometimes paid after another fashion."
§ SIR W. MARRIOTTWell, I accept the right hon. Gentleman's explanation. But he was not so reported in The Times. I wish, however, to 523 mention a fact which should have been mentioned at the time. The impression that would be made on the mind of people who read this report is that the late Judge Advocate General was rather an acute gentleman, and that he had made more money out of his office than his predecessors. Now, the facts are entirely the opposite to that. [Ministerial, cries of"Oh!"] If hon. Gentlemen will listen with patience, they will see that this is so. The causa causans of the whole of this imbroglio was the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere). In 1887 the hon. Member for Northampton was consumed with a great fit of economic zeal, and he attacked nearly all the salaries of the hon. Gentlemen who then sat on the Government Bench. I am only astonished to find that that zeal has cooled down since the hon. Member's revered Leaders have taken the places of the Members of the late Government.
§ DR. CAMERON (Glasgow, College)Mr. Speaker, is the right hon. Gentleman entitled to continue the Debate, or do more than mention the facts he regards as necessary for his personal explanation?
§ MR. SPEAKERI do not think that the right hon. Gentleman is in Order in doing more than alluding to the mere facts, and I hope he will not go into any extraneous matter.
§ SIR W. MARRIOTTI am much obliged, Mr. Speaker, for your direction; but I think that I am bound, Sir, to go back to the root of the difficulty. In December, 1887, I was informed that certain changes were contemplated in regard to the office of Judge Advocate General, which I then occupied. That was told me by the then Secretary of State for War (Mr. E. Stanhope). At that time I only did what every gentleman in that House in the same position would have done, whatever side he belonged to. I said, "If you are going to make any change I shall not stand in the way, and I am perfectly content to resign the office." An arrangement was made by which I was to resign, and the resignation was to take effect from April 1, 1888. But when that time came round the new scheme which the War Office contemplated was not hatched, and I was asked to carry on for some months. I agreed, and as a matter of fact the arrangement went 524 through 1888–89 and 1889–90 without my getting any pay. During that time any other Judge Advocate General would have received £4,000 for the work, but I did not receive a single farthing. In the year following the then Leader of the House (Mr. W. H. Smith) thought that that state of things should not continue. The right hon. Gentleman suggested some salary, or payment by fees. I was not anxious about it, and said that I was still willing to resign, though the work, I may say, had been done without any complaint from this House or elsewhere, and if there had been any complaint to make it would certainly have been made. When Mr. Smith pressed the matter upon me I said that if I was not required always to be in the House on Government nights, but could have the freedom of a private Member, I would have no objection to be paid by fees. Here, then, is the omission which the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Campbell-Bannerman) made. He omitted to say that in those two years I received nothing. And then the right hon. Gentleman said that it was agreed that there should be a fixed salary of £500, and that the officer should be allowed fees to the amount of another £500. He said that I claimed that this £500 should be paid to me at the beginning of the financial year as a retaining fee for the coming year. It was nothing of the kind. This is shown by a letter I received from Sir R. Welby, of the Treasury, who wrote—
The Lords Commissioners having had before them the explanations and assurances given by Mr. Secretary Stanhope on your letter with regard to the remuneration of the Judge Advocate General, I am directed to inform you that they sanction the proposed payment of £l,000 for the year 1890–91.There was no question of a claim. They agreed to this retaining fee, and, I may say, agreed against my advice, for I pointed out to the Under Secretary of State for War what would happen. I pointed out that the retaining fee must be paid at the beginning of the year. [Nationalist laughter.] Yes; but when else could a retaining fee be paid? A retaining fee is always paid at the beginning of the year. I am charged with having got a good deal of money out of the office. But the House will see that the practical effect of the circumstances which I have described is 525 that in the time I was connected with the office, including the time when I got no salary at all, and the time when I was on the new arrangement, I got £6,000 less than the previous Judge Advocate General would have got. Then I come to another point. I found out in August last that there was some difficulty in regard to the work of this office. There have always been two opinions regarding the office — one that it is a political office, and the other that it is a judicial office. I take the latter view, the chief duty being to judge of the validity of Court, Martinis, on which there should be no political feeling whatever. Finding that the Government were in a difficulty, I wrote to say that I was willing to carry on the work to the end of the financial year. It was not for the sake of pay that I made that offer, and I think that the right hon. Gentleman should have mentioned the circumstances.
§ MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANI think the explanation of the right hon. Gentleman would have better come on on Report of Supply. The right hon. Gentleman will not expect me to follow him into the whole of the history of the office of Judge Advocate General. I stated the other night that the right hon. Gentleman was sometimes paid and sometimes not. But I confined my particular observations to the current financial year, and the right hon. Gentleman has really confirmed everything I said—namely, that in the year when there was an immediate prospect of a General Election, and, therefore, a risk as to the endurance of the Government, he received as a retaining fee half of the money due for the whole year and during the time which elapsed between the beginning of the financial year and the General Election, which ended in the late Government leaving Office. He transacted more business than was usually done in that period——
§ SIR W. MARRIOTTI must deny that emphatically. Absolutely no more work was done than usual.
§ MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANAt all events, he did transact a large amount of business, and the result was that there was a small modicum of salary left for any unfortunate individual who might come after. I did not say whose were the arrangements which 526 made this state of things possible. I am really very sorry if I have hurt the feelings of the right hon. Gentleman by the recapitulation of these facts, but they are facts and cannot be departed from.