SUPPLY [18TH JUNE] REPORT. (Hansard, 5 July 1897)

§ *MR. ROBERT PIERPOINT (Warrington)
asked that the decision which had been come to in regard to the Historical Manuscripts Commission might be reconsidered. These manuscripts had been published now for 27 years, and the total cost of the parts issued during that period to anyone who bought them was only £9 0s. 0½d. There had been on an average 400 parts issued gratis to Members. Therefore during the 27 years the total amount of money that would have been paid by the Members if they had been charged for those parts was £3,600, so that the amount of money saved to the Members of the House out of the. Public Funds in this respect was £133 6s. 8d. a year. That was a very small sum when they were dealing with the works of the Commission, which were of very great interest both to Members of the House and to the country at large, and it was a great pity that either the Treasury or the Commission should come to the decision to deprive Members of having these volumes issued to them for nothing. Ever since he had been a Member of the House he had obtained those volumes, but like many others be had handed them over to the Public Library in his constituency. This deprivation would have the effect of leaving many incomplete issues of the Historical Manuscrips Commission.

§ MR. HANBURY
said he desired to explain what was really the position in regard to this first. His hon. Friend seemed to imply that Members had been deprived of a right, and that that was due to the parsimony of the Treasury. In both of these ideas the hon. Gentleman was mistaken. Many complaints had been received that under the present system those Reports were issued slowly and irregularly, and that they were not issued as a series with other public documents from the Record Office. He placed the matter before the. Master of the Bolls, asking him whether the time bad not arrived for turning the work of what was a temporary Commission over to some permanent public department, so that these documents 1189 might issue at the same rate as all other public documents. He received a reply from the Royal Commission, saying there were certain objections to handing over this work to a permanent Department, and they made the counter proposal that the Commission should continue to act, but that the papers should be issued in a somewhat different form; the work being kept in the hands of the Royal Commissioners themselves, a change being made in the mode of publication. Every one of the Commissioners was consulted as to the best form in which to issue the publications in future, and the unanimous decision was arrived at that it would he in every way in advantage to bring out as independent publications what were now called appendices to the successive Deports of the Commission, and so to avoid delay in their presentation to Parliament. The Commissioners who arrived at that unanimous Report were first of all gentlemen of great political influence, and persons whose acquaintance with literature and history gave them special importance. The President of the Commission was the Master of the Rolls, and the other Commissioners included Lord Salisbury, Lord Rosebery, Lord Edmond Petty-Fitzmaurice, Bishop Stubbs of Oxford, the Bishop of Limerick, Lord Acton, and Sir H. Maxwell Lyte. He thought it was quite clear that even over an ordinary Royal Commission the Treasury had got very little control indeed. They were gentlemen who undertook work of this kind gratuitously, and it was quite out of the power of the Treasury, and to a certain extent, even out of the power of that House, to dictate what course should be adopted by a Royal Commission. So far from any right of that House being infringed, the view the Commissioners took was this: up to the present they had been under the idea that this work would come to an end sooner than it was likely to come to an end. They had issued these very valuable historical documents in the shape of appendices to their Reports, and as long as they were issued in that form undoubtedly the House of Commons and the House of Lords—who were entitled to the Reports of Royal Commissions—were entitled to have these documents issued to them gratis. But the Commissioners had decided, 1190 chiefly for reasons of convenience, and in order to get these Reports out in a more regular and orderly series, to issue them as independent documents. They had no doubt as to their right to do this, according to the opinion of a Judge like the Master of the Rolls. This, therefore, was not an attack of a parsimonious Treasury upon the rights of the House; if anything it was rather an attack on the rights of a Royal Commission, very influential and capable, who were perfectly unanimous in the step they proposed to take. These papers, after all, had nothing of the ordinary Parliamentary paper about them. They were very valuable historical documents, but they had nothing to do with the ordinary work of Parliament, they were of no advantage to Members for their work in the House, and the Committee had properly decided that since it was only by an accident that these documents had hitherto been published in the present shape, they should go back to the more regular procedure in cases of this kind.

§ MR. SERJEANT HEMPHILL (Tyrone, N.)
submitted that it was quite immaterial whether these Reports were called appendices to the Royal Commission or separate publications. The right hon. Gentleman's argument was rather a quibble. The Members of this House were entitled to be furnished with copies of the Report of any Royal Commission issued, and these publications were nothing but a portion of that Report.

§ MR. HANBURY
said that was not so. They would continue to issue their Reports as hitherto, but they were under no obligation to issue these appendices to Parliament; they could be treated as entirely independent documents.

§ MR. SERJEANT HEMPHILL
contended that the Report would be an imperfect document unless the appendices were included. He thought it would be a very great public loss if the right hon. Gentleman persisted in his determination; it was not so much the price that one would have to pay, but that the documents would escape notice and be buried in oblivion.

§ SIR THOMAS ESMONDE
said that the Financial Secretary to the Treasury complained of the irregularity that was permitted in the giving of copies of the Reports of 1191 the Historical Manuscripts Commission to Members gratis, but the irregularity had gone on now for some 27 years, and was anyone injured by it? The Financial Secretary said that the new proposal would lead to uniformity, but the House would remember that the Reports of this Commission were already issued in two sizes, the first issues being issued in a larger size than the remainder, which was already an inconvenience to librarians. If a change were now made, and the publication brought out in a new and third shape, the inconvenience would be greater still. In this matter there were two points of view to be considered. It was all very well for the Commissioners to give their views of the situation, but seeing that the House supplied the money for publication, Members had fair ground to claim that their wishes should be consulted. The Reports of these historical manuscripts were unquestionably the most interesting of all Parliamentary Papers issued, and he was sorry to have to confess they were the only Parliamentary Papers he ever read. It was a monstrous thing that after their work in the service of the country, Members should be deprived of this small perquisite. The Secretary to the Treasury had made but a half-hearted defence of the Commission. If the right hon. Gentleman had read these Reports he would take the view expressed, that the Commission had not acted quite fairly. He was not a sufficiently experienced Parliamentarian to know, but it seemed to him there was something approaching to a breach of privilege in this attempt to withhold these publications from Members. For a long time Members had had them, and under the arrangement, the Commission had carried on their work. He did not think the Commission, however learned and influential, were competent to interfere with arrangements deliberately made by Parliament and carried out for a long series of years. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would reconsider the question. He would say nothing about the parsimony of the Treasury, it remained to be seen what the Treasury would do, but he pointed out, that however unimportant and obscure, each Member had a means of avenging himself on the Treasury. They had an easy means of showing their sense of this proceeding and making it an ex- 1192 tremely expensive one for the Treasury. Every Member of the House was entitled to two copies of Reports during the time he remained a Member of the House, hitherto he himself had taken, only one copy, but if this proposal was carried out he intended to apply for another copy, and he was quite satisfied that other Members would do the same. There were a number of Members who had not realised the importance and value of these Reports, but who were entitled to two copies, and would immediately apply for them, and the full assertion of their rights would materially add to the expense to be borne by the Treasury. They could give the Treasury trouble in another matter. They were entitled to all Parliamentary Papers, and what he proposed to do, if this project was carried out, was to apply for every Parliamentary Paper published. Probably other Members would do the same thing, and in the end it might possibly be found that the gain to the Treasury had not been very great.

§ MR. HANBURY
said this was certainly not it matter in which the Treasury was deeply concerned. It was only a very few pounds a year—[cheers]—and there was evidently a feeling on both sides of the House that the present arrangement should continue. ["Hear, hear!"] He had, as he had said, no control over the Commissioners, and had really no right to suggest to them what should be done in the way of issuing their own publications; but still he thought he should be justified, after hearing the Debate, in representing to them his view with regard to the feeling in the House that the present system might be allowed to go on. [Cheers.]

§ MR. WEIR
asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury if he could state the result of inquiries he had promised to make into the expenses of the Colonisation Board?

§ MR. HANBURY
said he had made inquiries and had tried to get some independent information with regard to this Vote. Although this year it was absolutely necessary to place these sums on the Estimates, he hoped that by next year the Vote would be considerably reduced, if not done away with altogether. ["Hear, hear!]