HC Deb 08 March 1898 vol 54 cc1052-9
MR. LEWIS

Mr. Speaker, I beg to move the following Resolution— That, in the opinion of this House, it is unjust that Wales should receive no share of the Museum Grants of the United Kingdom; and that it is expedient to make provision, similar to that made for Scotland and Ireland, for the expenditure of a due share of the Museum Grant in Wales. The Motion itself is in precisely the same terms as the Motion which has appeared in my name from time to time during the last five years. The effect of the Motion is that a due share of the Museum Grant should be voted to Wales. I may inform, the right hon. Gentleman, who is in charge of this matter, that both political parties are absolutely united in regard to this question, and not only the Members from Wales, but all the educational authorities in Wales as well. Fortunately, Mr. Speaker, it is not necessary for me on this occasion to argue the principle which underlies my Motion. The right hon. Gentleman's predecessor has admitted, in his time, the validity of that principle, but, of course, the right hon. Gentleman is not bound by his predecessor's promise. When this question was brought forward two years ago the only objection the right hon. Gentleman himself made was that Wales had no educational capital, as he described it, and he told us that we must, first of all, have an educational capital, and then the Government would take into its very serious consideration the question of a Museum Grant. The right hon. Gentleman concluded by saying that he hoped the assurance would be satisfactory to the hon. Members who had raised the Debate, and that, of course, shows what the character of that assurance was intended to be. Moreover, he said that it would be impossible to adopt the Resolution, because it would necessitate a revision of the Estimates. Well, of course, that is an argument which we, on this side are bound to accept on that occasion and at any other time. Still, at the same time, what we do ask the Government to consider is that some promise should be given that in the Estimates of some future year they will be good enough to grant us what we have asked for so often and with so much unanimity. The right hon. Gentleman urged the argument that we ought to find our capital first and ask for the Grant afterwards. I would remind the right hon. Gentleman of what has been said by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has said that, if the interest is guaranteed in commercial matters, as a general rule you have very little difficulty in finding the capital. Well, Sir, if the right hon. Gentleman will guarantee us the interest, we will find him the capital. I would refer him, as another Member referred him, to the case of the Welsh University Colleges in 1882. When it was a question, at that time, where the colleges should be established, the Government very wisely made the Grant for their maintenance, and then left the site to be determined by arbitration. The arbitrators gave their decision, and that decision has been accepted loyally throughout the Principality of Wales. That is what we ask the Government to do upon this Bill. We ask the Government to definitely give us an assurance that a Museum Grant shall be given to Wales, and we will undertake, on our part, to solve the difficulty, if there is a difficulty, arising out of the want of capital. Whether, by locating the Museum in one town, or by adopting the suggestions which were thrown out in the course of the Debate—that the Museum, for instance, should be in one centre, the National Library in another, and the Art Gallery in a third—that is, of course, a question which will be left practically to the ultimate decision of the Government, in their wisdom, to decide. We would not presume to decide a question of that kind. Sir, we find—though we do not grudge it, for a single moment—that £17,000 a year is paid to Scotland, by way of Museum Grants, and that £31,000 a year is paid to Ireland for Museum Grants, including, of course, the Grant to the Royal Hibernian Academy. It is in face of these facts that we make this request. The right hon. Gentleman will correct me if my figures are wrong, but, at all events, the Grants given to Scotland and to Ireland are very large. As the right hon. Gentleman knows, our educational system has lately in Wales been approaching completion. In fact it is almost complete with the exception of this one grant. We have our intermediate schools and University colleges, but we have not that necessary adjunct to complete the system of education—a National Museum. We have no national storehouse of any kind whatever. Our treasures of art and antiquity are scattered up and down the United Kingdom, while, wherever there are sales of objects of interest to Wales, there is no authority to purchase them for the sake of a Welsh Museum. The right hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well the sacrifices which have been made in Wales of recent years in the cause of education. I know, myself, in the case of thousands of working-men, that they have contributed out of their slender means towards the completion of the Welsh educational system—thousands of men who have absolutely no direct interest of any kind whatever in University colleges, and in intermediate schools—they have, I say, contributed liberally out of their necessities towards those schools. Sir, we cannot expect very much from the Government on those great questions on which we in Wales differ from them; but we have appealed to them time after time to do something for us in regard to this question, on which we are united with hon. Gentlemen on the other side of the House. I hope that the Government are not this year again going to turn a deaf ear to the voice of Wales, and we appeal to the right hon. Gentleman to give a favourable reply to the appeal that we make on behalf of our fellow-countrymen.

MR. S. SMITH (Flintshire)

I beg to second the Motion.

THE VICE PRESIDENT OF THE COMMITTEE OF COUNCIL ON EDUCATION (SIR JOHN GORST,) Cambridge University

I am rather disappointed that the hon. Member has couched his Resolution in exactly the same terms in which he has frequently brought it before the House, for I was in hopes that the speech I made two years ago would have convinced the hon. Gentleman and his friends who represent Welsh constituencies that it is rather an exaggeration to say that no share of the Museum Grants for the United Kingdom is spent in Wales. I told you then that Wales, in common with other parts of the Kingdom, had a considerable share of the Museum Grants. I have on this occasion fortified myself with some details as to the manner in which Wales does share in the Museum Exchequer. I find there is a very excellent museum in Cardiff, which, I suppose, I must not quite call the metropolis of Wales, but which, of all Welsh towns, is most likely to become the centre of Welsh education and Welsh industry. Well, Sir, that museum has every year large loans and objects granted to it. In the year which has just expired there were 142 different objects lent to that museum, and eight paintings. Not only are the loans more every year, but last year there was held in Cardiff an exhibition of Welsh interest generally, and to that exhibition an independent and separate loan was made from the South Kensington Museum. I also find that, out of the very small sum which is annually voted by the Science and Art Department for giving financial aid to provincial museums, Cardiff has twice within the last few years received a small amount. It received a grant in 1891, and it received a grant in 1896.

MR. LEWIS

How much?

SIR JOHN GORST

£26 a year. I quite agree that the amount is small, and I would laugh, too, if Ministerial etiquette permitted me. But the House must remember that the whole of the grant to all the museums in England and Wales, is only £500, and, therefore, £26 is not the very small sum it would otherwise appear. The grant was also made to Cardiff again in 1897, but, unfortunately, the amount was spent in what I think a wrongful way, and that is in giving to the different museums a reproduction of casts. It is far better, in the case of good sculpture, to have a good copy than some rubbishy original. Well, then, besides this I find that museum objects were loaned to schools of art in Wales, and to Aberystwyth, to Cardiff, Carmarthen, Denbigh, Swansea, and Wrexham—that was during 1897—and there are scientific apparatus and scientific objects lent to Cardiff, Llanrwst, Wrexham, and other places. Therefore it is not quite fair to us to say that Wales receives no share whatever of the museum expenditure. It receives pretty much the same sort of share as the towns of Lancashire, Yorkshire, the Midlands, and other places. I am perfectly ready to admit that that share is less than I should like it to be, but the Department were doing everything that was possible at South Kensington to increase not only the objects circulating among the country museums of art, but also to improve their quality and their class, and I think that if the hon. Member will go down to South Kensington and speak to the officers there, he will find that much progress has been made in what I consider to be the real function of a museum like that at South Kensington, and that is to infuse a knowledge of art by using artistic objects as much as possible amongst various classes in various parts of the country. South Kensington is the Central museum at which objects are collected for the whole country, and these objects are, as far as possible, disseminated and circulated amongst the various museums and schools of art throughout the country. With regard to the future, I am quite certain that the Members for Wales thoroughly understand what is the object of maintaining a museum by the Department with which I am connected. It is not like the British Museum. It is not a collection like the National Gallery, consisting of magnificent pictures, but it is a collection which is very much humbler, but, perhaps, even more useful—namely, to furnish the schools and places of education in the country with those objects which are necessary to complete education in either art or science. That is the object, and it is part of the function of that Museum to provide Welsh schools of art, Welsh colleges of science, and Welsh centres of higher education with that kind of assistance in their education which a properly constituted system of exhibition of works of art will give. Well, I can assure the hon. Member for Flint Boroughs that every effort shall be made to meet the growing education of Wales by an increased distribution of objects of this kind. I do not quite understand what the hon. Member wishes. Does he wish to establish in Cardiff a sort of rival museum to the Cardiff Museum?

MR. LEWIS

I might explain that the right hon. Gentleman said two years ago that he would consider the possibility of having a distributing centre in Wales. I believe that he said that last year. I say we are entitled to such a centre, in face of the fact that a grant like £31,000 is made to Scotland, £17,000 to Ireland, and about a quarter of it million to England.

SIR JOHN GORST

The figures are not correct. The Scotch grant is £12,000, and is for the maintenance of the Edinburgh Museum, which is a branch of the Science and Art Department established in Edinburgh, and which is kept up at the public expense, like they are at South Kensington and Bethnal Green. Then there is another museum in Dublin which has a grant of £22,000. It might be a question whether it might not be desirable hereafter to establish some branch of the South Kensington Museum in Wales, but, as I said before, when speaking on this subject, there is no centre of Welsh education in any particular place. But I do not know whether, if I were to establish a museum to-morrow, I should go to Cardiff. In the first place, it is not the head of Welsh education; and, secondly, there is already a most excellent museum there, and it would be far better that any fund available should be spent in improving the existing museum than in setting up a museum which would overlap the existing one.

MR. LEWIS

What about antiquities?

SIR JOHN GORST

I cannot say anything on that point. We keep up our educational museums for other objects. With regard to the other grants, the right hon. Member spoke of about a quarter of a million, but that is not for museums, but for grants for schools of art and science; and of that quarter of a million Wales gets exactly the same share that England, Scotland, and Ireland get. It is distributed exactly the same in and art, and every science class, and every art class which is established. It is distributed to exactly the same in Wales, and the amount of the grant depends entirely upon the amount of local effort made by the Welsh classes; and if the Welsh people wish to have a larger share of that grant they can easily get it by extending science and art teaching in Wales. I am quite sure in a very few years the Welsh people will get a very much larger share, proportionally, of that grant than the people of England do, because they are now making great efforts in secondary education, and spending a great deal of their own money in establishing schools of science and art and various other schools for higher education, and if they have not a greater grant to-day they will certainly have it in a few years. I think every effort should be made by those in charge of the education of the country to encourage the people of Wales in developing the faculties which they possess, by providing museums, and every means for encouraging secondary education ought to be given to Wales.

MR. WYNFORD PHILIPPS (Pembrokeshire)

The supporters of this Motion do not want to have in Wales what the right hon. Gentleman has offered them—a perambulating museum of scientific instruments and curiosities. They are asking for something very much different, and the right hon. Gentleman professes not to understand the Motion, but it is plain enough. It states that it is— expedient to make provision similar to that made for Scotland and Ireland, for the expenditure of a due share of the Museum Grant in Wales. These are the words of the Motion, and, I venture to say, nobody can misunderstand them, and I am sure the right hon. Gentleman does not misunderstand them. He has told us that he is willing to send round plenty of casts from good objects, and that good casts from good objects are better than bad originals. I am sure he may be right, but we do not want to have an increased number of plaster casts like Italian boys carry about the streets. That is not the object of my hon. Friend's Motion. What we want in Wales is a national museum for Wales; a museum that will comprise every department of Welsh life, Welsh history, and Welsh antiquity. We want to have a museum in Wales that will do for Wales what the British Museum does for England. That is what we want for Wales, and that is what my right hon. Friend the Member for Flint Boroughs is asking for in language which nobody can misunderstand, and it is met by the right hon. Gentleman coming forward here and saying that five years ago £26 was given to Cardiff. That is the way this Motion is answered. You give £31,000 to Ireland and £17,000 to Scotland.

SIR JOHN GORST

I beg the hon. Gentleman's pardon, I corrected these figures. It is £22,000 for Ireland.

MR. WYNFORD PHILIPPS

All right then. It is £22,000 for Ireland, £12,000 to Edinburgh, and for Wales—you gave £26 five years ago to Cardiff. Well, I think £26 five years ago to Cardiff is not enough, and that is why my hon. Friend has brought forward this Motion, and that is why I hope it will be accepted by this House.

Question put.

The House divided.—Ayes 56; Noes 85.