§ 3. £329,579, to complete the sum for Stationery and Printing.
§ CAPTAIN NORTON (Newington, W.)Before this Vote passes I desire to ask the Secretary of the Treasury whether he can make any statement with reference to the course he proposes to take as to the payment to the reporters of The Official Debates of the sums they have lost owing to the bankruptcy of the late contractor.
§ MR. LEWIS (Flint Burghs)I should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman as to the desirability of allowing every Member of this House, as is the case in almost every other Parliament in the world, to have a copy of the proceedings of each day on his breakfast table the following morning. In the case of Canada each Member of Parliament finds on his breakfast table an official report of the Parliamentary proceedings of the previous day. Why cannot the Imperial Parliament give to its Members what the Dominion Parliament gives to its Members? In what respect do the circumstances of the two Parliaments differ? When we last discussed this, the hon. Member who spoke on behalf of the Government seemed to be under the impression that the hours of the Dominion Parliament were very different from our own; but I have found, on careful inquiry, and by an examination of the official reports, that the Canadian Parliament sits quite as late as our own—and, indeed, very much later. Yet, notwithstanding this fact, and the additional fact that the proceedings are conducted in two languages, Members get the official report of the proceedings on their breakfast-table the next morning. If this can be done in Canada, why cannot it be done in London? Are our printers less enterprising? Is it a matter of expense? Then, surely, if the Dominion Parliament can afford it, the Imperial Parliament should be able to do so. It would be a great advantage to hon. Members to be able to secure the answers to questions, and to keep themselves au courant with the proceedings of the House. Are there not other directions in which economies might be made? Certain Papers, for instance, are printed under the regulations of the House which need not be printed. Cannot it be possible to hold such Papers. 1309 as unprinted and let them be seen in the Library? Let economy be practised as far as possible in the Stationery Office. No one has done more in that direction than the Gentleman who is now responsible for it; I know that he has done his utmost in connection with these contracts to save the country unnecessary expense in the printing department. In asking the right hon. Gentleman to spend a little more money, I am only asking him to act in a direction which would be useful, and I hope the right hon. Gentleman will take this question into serious consideration. In regard to the question asked by my hon. friend in reference to the reporters who have somewhat unfortunately been deprived of what must, in some cases, have been considerable sums of money, I wish to say that the sympathy of hon. Members on both sides of the House is universally with these reporters, and if the Government can see their way to do anything in the direction of helping them, nobody in this House, or outside it, would raise any objection.
* MR. MCLEOD (Sutherlandshire)I wish to join the hon. Gentlemen who have just spoken in their appeal to the Secretary to the Treasury on behalf of the reporters of The Debates. I think the reflection should not lie on this House that the work on some of these volumes of Debates is not paid for. It may be perfectly true that the Treasury are not directly responsible, but they were responsible for accepting the contractor they did, and they should have seen to it that the security they got was thoroughly adequate, and that it was impossible for such circumstances to occur as they did in this case. There is another point I wish to refer to, and on which I wish some information. I must confess that when the reporters parted with their manuscript without an understanding that they would be paid for their arrears, they showed a simplicity not usually exhibited by the members of the Press. I am told that the officials held over them a threat that if the reporters refused, on any consideration, to give up their manuscript they would not be employed in future on The Debates. That is a reflection which ought to be removed if there is no ground for it. But, apart entirely from that consideration, I do think that on the broad ground that these men are not in a position to stand the very serious loss of 1310 not being paid for their labour, and on the ground that, after all, we were responsible for accepting the contractor, and that the sum involved is comparatively a small one, the Treasury should see their way to pay the gentlemen, and in that way remove a very considerable reflection on this assembly.
* MR. CARVELL WILLIAMS (Notts, Mansfield)There are two points in connection with this Vote to which I wish to call attention—I mean the quantity of printed matter poured in upon us, and the character of the reporting of The Debates. I lately, through a question, called the attention of the Secretary to the Treasury to the immense quantity of printed matter delivered to us—a large portion of which is of no interest to the general body of Members; and the right hon. Gentleman was good enough to promise to see if there could not be a reduction of that amount. I call attention to only one class of Papers—the Amendments to private Bills—that come down to us. I remember on one occasion there were 112 pages of Amendments to private Bills, and quite lately—within the last few days—forty pages of Amendments were delivered, and this morning twenty pages. With regard to the reporting of the Debates of the House, a great improvement has taken place since the new contract was entered into, in the speedy delivery of the reports, but with regard to the character of the reporting I am not able to express so favourable an opinion. The right hon. Gentleman said in June that the new contract was on precisely the same conditions as the preexisting contract. I was rather sorry to hear it, and my regret has been increased since, because we have still to complain of the inaccurate character of much of the reporting. It is a moot point whether condensed reports would not in the majority of cases be preferable to reports which are verbatim. Condensed reports, however, require a great deal of skill, and skill must be paid for. If we could always ensure that our Debates should be reported in the intelligent and admirable manner in which they appear day by day inThe Times newspaper, we might be more content with condensed reports than we are at present. The most irritating part of it is that reports which pretend to be verbatim are not verbatim at all. They are given in the language of the reporter 1311 and not in the language of the speaker. I know some Members who say they cannot take the trouble, in revising the proofs of their speeches, to restore something like the original language they used. I do not know how long this contract is to run. I assume there is no opportunity of making an alteration at the present time, but I hope, if the right hon. Gentleman should be in office when the change is made, that he will see that it is made in the right direction.
§ CAPTAIN SINCLAIR (Forfarshire)There have been in the last few years several changes in the contractors who have undertaken the reporting, and that has led to a change in the system of indexing more than once. I hope that in future there will be greater uniformity in the indexing of the discussions. At the present time there are not a sufficient number of copies of the early Hansards of this year to supply hon. Members who want them. I wish to ask whether the Stationery Office would not reprint some of these earlier numbers.
§ MR. PIRIE (Aberdeen, N.)I express a hope that before the Vote comes on next year the Government will see their way to follow the example set this session by the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and have duplicate type-written answers to all questions placed in the library for the convenience of Members.
§ THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. HANBURY,) PrestonAn hon. Member below the Gangway seemed to raise some question with regard to the treatment of the reporters by the Stationery Office in reference to the handing over their manuscripts. I do not think there is any justification for that complaint. What happened was this. Under the circumstances the Stationery Office were most anxious to assist these reporters in every legitimate way, and therefore they took two steps. In the first place they asked the new contractor to take the reporters on. I do not know how far they were wise in doing so, for I think there is some justification for the complaints of the reporting by the hon. Member opposite. I am bound to say that the condensation 1312 of the speeches is not by any means done as well as the House has a right to expect. The reports which profess to be verbatim are not verbatim as a matter of fact. They are in the words not of the speaker, but of the reporter, and in that sense are misleading. It was a very difficult thing to interfere during the present session, as the Stationery Office was anxious that these reporters should be allowed to continue during the remainder of the session. But I am bound to say that the Stationery Office will have to take steps another year to see that the reporting is better done. We have a right to have it done well, because it is a fairly lucrative contract. I believe that with the exception of a few speakers we do not want the speeches at full length or verbatim. In the majority of cases the speeches should be condensed, and in order to get proper condensation we would have to employ reporters capable of doing that work well. With regard to the question of compensating the reporters who have been referred to, I hope the Committee will bear in mind that we ought not to run the risk of creating a very dangerous precedent. In the first place, so far as the contractor himself goes, I do not know that his contract stands in a different position from any other contract made on the part of the Government. It is not pretended that it was not a remunerative contract. It is not pretended that it was not a contract under which the contractor could very well afford, not only to pay good salaries, but to pay them punctually. I do not disguise from the Committee the fact that I believe that the contract is worth £3,000 a year to the contractor. If it is said that the late contractor took it at a price very much below the other tenders, I will tell the Committee exactly what happened. Under the last contract we had paid a subsidy of about £300 a volume for Hansard. To my astonishment, when the tenders were sent in I found that the large firms—whether they had combined together or not I cannot say—but, at any rate, it was a remarkable fact that the tenders of the principal firms were £900, £1,000, and £1,100 per volume. Well, the late contractor, being a foreman engaged by one of these firms, and who had been thoroughly well acquainted with the working of the contract, tendered on his own account at a low rate. We took sureties for the due performance 1313 of the contract, and, as I have said, in tendering for a subsidy of £300 per volume, he had admitted that he was able to make a large profit. That was sufficient justification in our case for not accepting the absurd tenders of £900, £1,000, and £1,100 per volume. Now, the new contractors are Messrs. Wyman's, a very responsible firm, who have got very large contracts with the Government, and they have taken over the contract on the same terms as Mr. Bussy. It is a very serious step indeed for the House to say that the responsibility must fall upon the taxpayer and not upon the contractor for the payment of his servants. That is not a rule which would be applied in the case of any other contract, so far as I know, and I therefore ask hon. Members, however anxious they may be to do justice in the case of these men, to recollect that there is no difference between this and any other contract; and if the bad precedent were once set of the Government making good wages and payments due by the Government contractors we should be saddled with an unlimited responsibility. I hope that anything which the Committee in its good nature may wish to do will not be of such a character as to set such a dangerous precedent. After all I believe what was in the minds of many hon. Members who signed the memorial asking that something should be done for these men, was perhaps the thought that these men were brought more closely into relations with the House than the employees of other contractors. There may be something in that view. But even if there is, I cannot see that that would be sufficient justification for such a step. The real question is—and this will have to be treated as an exceptional case—how far these reporters bonâ fide believed they were in the personal service of the House and not of the contractor. That is a question of evidence; and so far as the Government and the Stationery Office are concerned nothing has been said, written, or done which would lead the reporters to take that view. But I will undertake to see these reporters and find out what evidence they are able to afford the Government which would indicate that they had any just reason for supposing that they were in any sense in the employment of the Government. If they establish that case, then it is only right that the House should do something for them. The House is always 1314 very generous to those in its employment, but I ask the House to pause before creating a very dangerous precedent. The only ground for doing this is that these men thought they were in our employment. I will see them and go into the facts of the case; and the House may trust me that, if any reliable evidence is brought forward to show that these men had any sound ground to believe they were in the employment of the Government, I will make good what was due to them. But I cannot admit claims without scrutiny. If we are to pay anything, the proper course will be to see what claims are established against the estate in bankruptcy, and to recognise those claims; for I fear that nothing will come out of the estate. With regard to the point raised by the hon. Member for Flint, I do not know that there is any burning anxiety on the part of the House to get the reports of the previous night's debate on the breakfast table each morning, and unless there is a very strong desire on the part of hon. Gentlemen to have these reports produced so early I do not see any advantage in it. As to the Canadian Parliament, I do not think the hon. Member is quite accurate. The Canadian Parliament does not sit so late as the House of Commons, and I am told that the Members of that House do not receive their reports next day. But, however that may be, I cannot meet the hon. Member's views until the House displays a greater disposition to agree with him in the desire to have the reports furnished next day. I think myself that there is a great deal of waste in the printing of the House, that a great deal of printing is done that is not necessary, whether in the Orders of the Day or otherwise, and before next session I will consult with the authorities to see whether it is not possible to prevent some of this unnecessary printing. With regard to the earlier copies of Hansard's Debates for this session, I am afraid the late contractor's bankruptcy may create some difficulty. What we have done is this. We were afraid that, as there were only a limited number of copies, they might be bought up by outsiders and offered at prohibitive prices. Therefore I instructed the Controller of the Stationery Office to arrange with the Receiver in Bankruptcy to buy up all the printed copies, and these will be distributed in the ordinary way. 1315 There are more than enough to meet the claims of those who had given orders in advance: but the full extent of the demand cannot be gauged until the end of the session. I do not think it would be right that Members who have kept Hansard's Debates for a series of years should have to go without their copies: and, therefore, a reprint might be necessary.
§ * SIR CHARLES DILKE (Gloucestershire, Forest of Dean)We know by the examples in our library that it is very difficult to index our own Parliamentary papers; still, allowing for all the difficulties, the indexing of the Hansard Debates is extremely perplexing. But I rise with regard to one or two matters mentioned by the right hon. gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury. With regard to the official reporters, the right hon. gentleman has, I think, gone as near giving a promise to do something for the reporters as it is possible to do. He is disposed to do something if it is not brought up as a precedent in any other contract, and I accept his words as being virtually a promise that he will not only look into this matter but redress the grievance. He asks for evidence that these reporters believed themselves to be in the employment of the House. It seems to me that the use of the phrases during the last four years of "official reporters" and "official reports" is quite sufficient to justify the reporters in the belief that they were in the service of this House, and that was the main point in the mind of the Leader of the Opposition when he signed the memorial on behalf of these persons. With regard to the contract itself, the right hon. Gentleman spoke of its being so much a volume. Did the Treasury make any stipulation as to what should be the contents of a volume, because I notice in recent years some volumes have been brought down to such a size as to be less than a quarter of the size of the earlier volumes.
§ MR. HANBURYIn the contract there is a definite minimum number of pages per volume fixed. The smallness of these volumes may be due to a difference in the spacing. There has been no alteration in the terms of the contract in respect to the number of pages.
§ * SIR CHARLES DILKEWith regard to the suggestion of my hon. friend that we should have the official report of the proceedings delivered the morning after those proceedings have taken place, I do not think there is any assembly in the world which sits anything like such a length of time as we do; and in those places where they circulate the official report the next day it is essentially an inconvenient practice, because hon. Members are kept up half the night to correct their speeches for the Press. I am quite sure that any such institution here would be entirely alien to our habits. With regard to the last suggestion, that the amount of printing should be reduced, no doubt it might be reduced; but there is a certain danger in reducing it. All the Members of the House would have to be informed by some careful index as to what the documents were which would not be printed. Even in the large amount of printing concerning private Bills, occasionally matters of considerable public importance are incorporated.
§ MR. LEWISThe right hon. Gentleman has expressed some doubt as to the hours of the sittings of the Canadian Parliament and as to the time that members receive the official reports. If the right hon. Gentleman would take the trouble to go to the library, he would see from those official reports the hour at which the Speaker takes the chair and the hour at which the House rises, and he would also see—I dare say very much to his surprise—that the Dominion Parliament very often sits as late as the Imperial Parliament, especially towards the end of the session. In spite of all these difficulties, however, the Dominion Parliament is able to produce the reports at the time I have mentioned. With regard to the time that the members receive proofs of their speeches, I may say that my authority is the hon. Member for South Longford, who occupied a very leading position in the Canadian Parliament for many years, and who may be supposed to know better than anyone in this country what the customs of the Canadian Parliament have been in this respect. I have thought it right to make this explanation, inasmuch as my statement has to some extent been traversed.
§ Vote agreed to.
1317§ 4. £3,454, to complete the sum for the Lunacy Commission, Scotland.
§ 5. £2,829, to complete the sum for the Registrar-General's Office, Scotland.