§ 1. Motion made, and Question proposed, "That a sum, not exceeding £7,300, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1902, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Department of His Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council."
§ MR. GODDARD (Ipswich)said he desired to move a reduction of the Vote by £1,000 for several reasons, the first of which was that of economy. In these days of very large Estimates one could not reduce the expenditure of the country by great sums, and it was therefore their duty to scrutinise the Votes, and especially the smaller ones, very closely, in order to see if there were money now being expended which could be saved. This Vote afforded a reasonable opportunity of doing that. The office to which it referred was more or less a sinecure. The President of the Council had very little work to do, and while, formerly, no doubt, it was a very important position, at the present time the duties were of a very slight character. When the last Liberal Government was in office it was held that the office was so little required, and the duties were so light, that they might be performed by the Secretary of State for India. Lord Kimberley accordingly 464 filled the two posts, but he drew no salary in respect of this particular office. That was an example which might well be followed now. He knew it was argued in 1893 that this was an ancient office and ought not, therefore, to be abolished. But that surely was no reason for maintaining it, and spending £2,000 a year on it. The Lord President of the Council was supposed to be answerable for all Orders in Council, but there was no reason why the heads of respective Departments should not be made answerable for such Orders as affected their respective Departments. The Lord President of the Council, too, was head of the Education Department. It was not at all clear what duties he rendered to the State in that capacity. Their experience in this House was that when the Vice-President was driven into a corner, he found it convenient to hide himself behind the broad back of his noble friend. But no one would maintain that it was reasonable to pay £2,000 a year merely in order to provide such a defence for the Vice-President. They ought to have some explanation of the duties of the Lord President, because really the practical work was carried out by the Vice-President. He hoped the Committee would agree to the reduction of the Vote which he advocated, on the ground that this was an unnecessary office, and that the occupier of it, having little to do, should require no salary from the State.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Item A (Salaries) be reduced by £1,000, in respect of the Salary of the President of the Council."—(Mr. Goddard.)
§ THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN,) Worcestershire, E.said the reduction of the Vote had been moved on the ground that the office of Lord President was a sinecure, and that the occupant of it did no public work in return for the salary he received. Now, whatever might be said of former Lord Presidents, he did not think it could be asserted of the present holder of the office that he was in such a position. He had, indeed, very important duties in connection with the education of the country, and the interest he had shown and the trouble he had taken in regard to that 465 were well known to all Members of the House. Besides that, the Lord President was responsible for many other most important matters to which he was compelled to give his personal attention, and he did not think, therefore, it could be seriously contended that the salary placed on the Votes in accordance with practice for an office held in connection with another high office was not deserved.
§ MR. FLYNN (Cork, N.)said the Lord President of the Council was President of the Committee of Council on Education, a body which constituted one of the greatest absurdities of the day. There was, in fact, no Committee of Council. All the work was done by the Lord President and by the Vice-President, and he ventured to assert that, in view of the great necessity for economy in these days, there were many public men in this House who would gladly fill the position with advantage to the highest educational interests of the country, without asking a salary for the performance of the duties. Why should the Lord President get £2,000 a year for carrying out merely nominal duties? Men in high places were very apt to decry the Radical idea of economy, that money should only be paid for work done. It was not surprising, for whenever there was a fat salary to be obtained without good work being done for it they were the very ones to secure the posts. He hoped that those who, sitting above the gangway on that side of the House, had during the last few weeks been loud in their demands for retrenchment, would assist the hon. Member for Ipswich in getting a reduction of the Vote for a large sum of money for an office which practically had no duties attached to it.
§ MR. WHITLEY (Halifax)said he had intended to move the reduction of the Vote in order to raise another question, but it would save time perhaps if, on the present motion, he brought forward the subject in which he was more particularly interested—an item in the second line of the Vote, as to the salary of the Clerk of the Council.
THE CHAIRMANOrder, order! It is not my business to save time. I have to see that the rules of the House are observed. That point must be reserved until the present Amendment has been disposed of.
§ MR. LABOUCHERE (Northampton)said he thought that there were a good many salaries which might be cut down with more advantage than that of the Lord President of the Council. The Financial Secretary to the Treasury had stated that the Lord President showed an interest in education. They all showed an interest in education, but they had no opportunity of developing it. He imagined that the real business of the Lord President was to look after the Vice-President. He was paid a salary because he was one of the odd men of the Cabinet who was ready to make speeches in the House of Lords and the country, and to receive deputations. An hon. friend reminded him that the Lord President was a sleeping partner—and certainly he was not a very wakeful partner—but still he fulfilled the duties expected of him by the Cabinet. There was a good deal to be said for the view expressed by his hon. friend that all these salaries should be cut down. He had, however, observed in history that, at the time of the war with Napoleon, Ministers of the Crown contributed a considerable part of their salaries to relieve the burdens of the people, and he believed that the present Ministers were doing the same. They were modest men, and did not like it known, but when he saw conscience money acknowledged in the newspapers he believed it came from one or other of them. No doubt even the Vice-President contributed a part of his modest salary in the form of conscience money to wards the relief of the taxpayers. He mew it would be an agreeable task for the Vice-President to defend the Lord President, and he would listen with the greatest pleasure to him.
§ Question put.
§ The Committee divided:—Ayes, 128; Noes, 178. (Division List No. 192.)
469| AYES. | ||
| Abraham, William (Cork, N.E. | Barry, E. (Cork, S.) | Boyle, James |
| Allen, Charles P (Glouc., Stroud) | Bayley, Thomas (Derbyshire) | Brigg, John |
| Ambrose, Robert | Blake, Edward | Brunner, Sir John Tomlinson |
| Asher, Alexander | Boland, John | Burke, E. Haviland- |
| Burns, John | Healy, Timothy Michael | Partington, Oswald |
| Caine, William Sproston | Hemphill, Rt. Hon. Charles H. | Power, Patrick Joseph |
| Caldwell, James | Holland, William Henry | Rea, Russell |
| Campbell, John (Armagh, S.) | Hope, John Deans (Fife, West) | Reddy, M. |
| Carvill, Patrick Geo. Hamilton | Horniman, Frederick John | Redmond, John E. (Waterford) |
| Cawley, Frederick | Jacoby, James Alfred | Redmond, William (Clare) |
| Channing, Francis Allston | Jones, D. Brynmor (Swansea) | Rickett, J. Compton |
| Clancy, John Joseph | Jones, William (Carnarvonsh.) | Rigg, Richard |
| Colville, John | Joyce, Michael | Roberts, John H. (Denbighs.) |
| Condon, Thomas Joseph | Kinloch, Sir John George Smyth | Roche, John |
| Craig, Robert Hunter | Lambert, George | Schwann, Charles E. |
| Crean, Eugene | Layland-Barratt, Francis | Shaw, Thomas (Hawick B.) |
| Crombie, John William | Leamy, Edmund | Shipman, Dr. John G. |
| Cullinan, J. | Leng, Sir John | Sinelair, Capt John (Forfarshire |
| Daly, James | Lundon, W. | Soames, Arthur Wellesley |
| Davies, M. Vaughan- (Cardigan | MacDonnell, Dr. Mark A. | Soares, Ernest J. |
| Delany, William | M'Arthur, William (Cornwall) | Sullivan, Donal |
| Dewar, John A. (Inverness-sh | M'Cann, James | Taylor, Theodore Cooke |
| Dillon, John | M'Crae, George | Tennant, Harold John |
| Donelan, Captain A. | Mooney, John J. | Thomas, Alfred (Glamorgan, E. |
| Doogan, P. C. | Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen | Thomas, F. Freeman- (Hastings |
| Duncan, J. Hastings | Morton, Edw. J.C. (Devonport | Thomson, F. W. (York, W. R.) |
| Dunn, Sir William | Murphy, J. | Trevelyan, Charles Philips |
| Edwards, Frank | Nannetti, Joseph P. | Tully, Jasper |
| Emmott, Alfred | Norman, Henry | Ure, Alexander |
| Esmonde, Sir Thomas | Norton, Capt. Cecil William | Wallace, Robert |
| Farquharson, Dr. Robert | Nussey, Thomas Willans | Walton, Joseph (Barnsbury) |
| Farrell, James Patrick | O'Brien, Kendal (Tipperary Md | Warner, Thomas Courtenay T. |
| Ffrench, Peter | O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny) | Wason, Eugene (Clackmannan |
| Flavin, Michael Joseph | O'Brien, P. J. (Tipperary, N.) | White, Luke (York, E. R.) |
| Flynn, James Christopher | O'Connor, Jas. (Wicklow, W.) | White, Patrick (Meath, North) |
| Foster, Sir Walter (Derby Co. | O'Donnell, John (Mayo, S.) | Whitley, J. H. (Halifax) |
| Fuller, J. M. F. | O'Donnell, T. (Kerry, W.) | Williams, Osmond (Merioneth) |
| Gilhooly, James | O'Dowd, John | Wilson, John (Durham, Mid.) |
| Gurdon, Sir W. Brampton | O'Kelly, Conor (Mayo, N.) | Young, Samuel (Cavan, East) |
| Harmsworth, R. Leicester | O'Malley, William | Yoxall, James Henry |
| Harrington, Timothy | O'Mara, James | |
| Harwood, George | O'Shaughnessy, P. J. | TELLERS FOR THE AYES— |
| Hayden, John Patrick | O'Shee, James John | Mr. Goddard and Mr. Charles Hobhouse. |
| Hayne, Rt. Hon. Chas. Seale- | Palmer, Sir Chas. M. (Durham | |
| NOES. | ||
| Acland-Hood, Capt. Sir Alex. F | Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. J. (Birm. | Gordon, J. (Londonderry, S.) |
| Agnew, Sir Andrew Noel | Chamberlain, J. Austen (Worc. | Gordon, Maj Evans- (T'rH'ml'ts |
| Allsopp, Hon. George | Chaplin, Rt. Hon. Henry | Gorst, Rt. Hon. Sir John E. |
| Arkwright, John Stanhope | Chapman, Edward | Goschen, Hn. George Joachim |
| Arnold-Forster, Hugh O. | Cochrane, Hon. T. H. A. E. | Goulding, Edward Alfred |
| Arrol, Sir William | Coghill, Douglas Harry | Grenfell, William Henry |
| Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John | Cohen, Benjamin Louis | Hamilton, Rt. Hn Lord G (Mid'x |
| Austin, Sir John | Collings, Rt. Hon. Jesse | Hamilton, Marq.of (L'd'nd'rry) |
| Bagot, Capt. Josceline FitzRoy | Colomb, Sir John Charles Ready | Hanbury, Rt. Hn. Robert W. |
| Bain, Col. James Robert | Colston, Chas. Edw. H. Athole | Hardy, Laurence (Kent, Ashfd. |
| Baird, John George Alexander | Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow) | Hay, Hon. Claude George |
| Balcarres, Lord | Cranborne, Viscount | Hayter, Rt. Hn. Sir Arthur D. |
| Baldwin, Alfred | Cross, Herb. S. (Bolton) | Heath, Arthur H. (Hanley) |
| Balfour, Rt. Hon. A. J. (Manch'r | Cubitt, Hon. Henry | Heath, James (Staffs., N. W.) |
| Balfour, Rt Hn Gerald W. (Leeds | Dalrymple, Sir Charles | Heaton, John Henniker |
| Balfour, Maj. K. R. (Christch.) | Dickson, Charles Scott | Hickman, Sir Alfred |
| Banbury, Frederick George | Dilke, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles | Hobhouse, Henry (Somerset, E. |
| Barry, Sir Francis T. (Windsor) | Dixon-Hartland, Sir Fred. D. | Hope, J. F. (Sh'ffield, Brightside |
| Bartley, George C. T. | Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers- | Howard, John (Kent, Faversh.) |
| Beach, Rt. Hn. Sir M. H. (Bristol | Doxford, Sir William Theodore | Hozier, Hon. James Henry Cecil |
| Beaumont, Wentworth C. B. | Durning-Lawrence, Sir Edwin | Johnston, William (Belfast) |
| Bhownaggree, Sir M. M. | Dyke, Rt. Hon. Sir Wm. Hart | Johnstone, Heywood (Sussex) |
| Big wood, James | Elliot, Hon. A. Ralph Douglas | Kay-Shuttleworth, Rt Hn Sir U |
| Bill, Charles | Fellowes, Hon. Ailwyn Edw. | Kenyon, James (Lancs. Bury) |
| Blundell, Col. Henry | Fergusson, Rt. Hn. SirJ.(Manc. | Kimber, Henry |
| Boscawen, Arthur Griffith- | Fielden, Edward brocklehurst | Law, Andrew Bonar |
| Boulnois, Edmund | Finlay, Sir Robert Bannatyne | Lawrence, Wm. F. (Liverpool |
| Bowles, Capt. H. F. (Middlesex) | Fisher, William Hayes | Lawson, John Grant |
| Bowles, T. Gibson (King's Lynn | Fitzmaurice, Lord Edmond | Lee, Arthur H (Hants, Fareham |
| Brassey, Albert | Fletcher, Sir Henry | Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage |
| Campbell, Rt. Hn J. A (Glasgow | Flower, Ernest | Leveson-Gower, Fredk. N. S. |
| Cavendish, V. C. W. (Derbysh.) | Foster, Sir M. (Lond. Univ.) | Lockwood, Lt.-Col. A. R. |
| Cayzer, Sir Charles William | Garfit, William | Long, Rt. Hn. Walter (Bristol, S |
| Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor) | Godson, Sir Augustus Fredk. | Lonsdale, John Brownlee |
| Lowe, Francis William | Peel, Hon. Wm. Robert W. | Simeon, Sir Barrington |
| Loyd, Archie Kirkman | Platt-Higgins, Frederick | Smith, H C (North'mb. Tyneside |
| Lucas, Col. Francis (Lowestoft) | Plummer, Walter R. | Smith, James P. (Lanarks.) |
| Lucas, Reginald J. (Portsmouth | Purvis, Robert | Stanley, Lord (Lancs.) |
| Macartney, Rt. Hn. W G Ellison | Pym, C. Guy | Stirling-Maxwell, Sir John M. |
| Macdona, John Cumming | Quilter, Sir Cuthbert | Thorburn, Sir Walter |
| Maconochie, A. W. | Randles, John S. | Tomlinson, Wm. Edw. Murray |
| M'Calmont, Col. J. (Antrim, E.) | Rankin, Sir James | Tritton, Charles Ernest |
| M'Iver, Sir L. (Edinburgh, W.) | Ratcliffe, R. F. | Tuke, Sir John Batty |
| M'Killop, James (Stirlingsh.) | Reid, James (Greenock) | Valentia, Viscount |
| Majendie, James A. H. | Remnant, James Farquharson | Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney) |
| Malcolm, Ian | Renshaw, Charles Bine | Welby, Lt.-Col. A. CE(Taunt'n |
| Maxwell, W.J.H(Dumfries-sh. | Rentoul, James Alexander | Whiteley, H (Asht'n-und Lyne |
| Mellor, Rt. Hon. John Wm. | Ridley, Hn. M. W. (Stalybridge | Whitmore, Charles Algernon |
| Meysey-Thompson, Sir H. M. | Ridley, S. Forde (Bethnal Green | Williams, Colonel R. (Dorset) |
| Moore, William (Antrim, N.) | Ritchie, Rt. Hn. Chas. Thomson | Williams, RtHnJ Powell-Birm. |
| Morrell, George Herbert | Rolleston, Sir John F. L. | Wilson, J. W. (Worcestersh, N. |
| Morris, Hon. Martin Henry F. | Rollit, Sir Albert Kaye | Wilson-Todd, Wm. H. (Yorks.) |
| Morton, Arthur H. A. (Deptford | Ropner, Col. Robert | Wolff, Gustav Wilhelm |
| Murray, Rt Hn A. Graham (Bute | Royds, Clement Molyneux | Wortley, Rt. Hn. C. B. Stuart- |
| Nicholson, William Graham | Sackville, Col. S. G. Stopford- | Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George |
| Nicol, Donald Ninian | Samuel, Harry S. (Limehouse) | Younger, William |
| Orr-Ewing, Charles Lindsay | Saunderson, Rt. Hn. Col Edw. J. | |
| Palmer, Walter (Salisbury) | Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, W.) | TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Sir William Walrond and Mr. Anstruther. |
| Parker, Gilbert | Seely, Charles Hilton (Lincoln) | |
| Parkes, Ebenezer | Sharpe, William Edward T. | |
| Pease, Herbert P. (Darlington | Shaw-Stewart, M. H. (Renfrew) |
§ Original Question again proposed.
§ MR. WHITLEYsaid he desired to call attention to an item with regard to which he thought the Committee was entitled to some explanation. He noticed in the Estimates an item of £1,250, salary for the Clerk to the Council. This gentleman was appointed at a salary of £1,200, rising at the end of five years to £1,500; but it appeared to him the Committee was being asked before the five years had expired to vote an amount of £50 in excess of his salary. Another item with regard to which he should like some explanation was "Private Secretary to the Lord President, £300." The Committee would notice that that amount was paid to a senior examiner of the Board of Education. He objected to the multiplying of offices in this manner, which he thought was most undesirable. The Estimates showed that there were nine senior examiners, but there was nothing to show which of these gentlemen was the one referred to. He understood that it was the rule when a gentleman occupied a dual appointment to put a star against his name, but that had not been done in this case. There was another item on page 56—"A temporary acting allowance of £100" For all he knew, that might be a third salary for this particular gentleman. He thought the Vice-President of the Council should give some explanation of these items, and say how it came about that this senior examiner had so little to do that he was enabled to 470 take up this additional duty. He also hoped that the right hon. Gentleman would undertake that in future the names of any persons receiving extra salaries should be properly starred. The salaries of the senior examiners were by no means small. These gentlemen started at £650, and rose to £800 a year. He moved the reduction of the vote by £300.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Item A (Salaries) be reduced by £300, in respect of the salary of the Private Secretary to the Lord President."—(Mr. Whitlaw.)
§ THE VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION (Sir J. GORST,) Cambridge UniversityThe hon. Gentleman is, perhaps, unaware that a few years ago the House of Commons sanctioned the appointment of a private secretary to the Lord President. I can assure the Committee that the office of President of the Board of Education is no sinecure. The noble Lord who at present fills that office has very responsible duties to perform, and requires the assistance of officials cognisant of the whole of the intricate system known as the Education Department of this country. For many years past the noble Lord, as President of the Council, has had a private secretary from among the examiners of the Education Department. This is not the only duty the noble Lord has to perform. A very onerous part of his duty is to preside at the Council and do such work as that con- 471 nected with the periodical examinations. He also has to read a great quantity of papers and consider minutes and questions of considerable importance, and it is absolutely essential that he should have this assistance. The gentleman referred to is one of the examiners, and, from personal knowledge, I can say he is extremely well versed in the intricacies of the Department. Without this assistance my noble friend would be quite incapable of conducting the affairs of the Board in the manner in which it is necessary to conduct them. [Ironical cheers.] I know why hon. Members cheer in that ironical fashion. It is because it has been said in comic papers that the Lord President of the Council has nothing to do as President of the Board of Education. If hon. Members opposite would take my place for a week they would find that the Lord President has a great deal to do. The position is by no means the dignified sinecure which it is the fashion to represent it to be, and it would be unfortunate for the Board of Education and for the interests of the country if this salary were cut off and the President deprived of the assistance of an expert official.
§ MR. BLAKE (Longford, S.)said he agreed that the position of the President of the Board of Education was not a sinecure. The President had to manage the Vice-President, and that was a task which, prima facie, it was difficult to perform. The gentleman who had been put in this high position, who inspired the President and helped him to manage the Vice-President, should not be allowed to blush unseen—what was his name?
§ MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINMr. Walrond.
§ MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON (Dundee)asked whether this gentleman, while acting as private secretary, continued his duties as a senior examiner.
§ SIR J. GORSTsaid he did not act as an examiner. He could not attend to two duties. There was not a Minister on the front bench who had not as his private secretary an official of the Department with which he was connected.
§ MR. EDMUND ROBERTSONThen I understand he has no other duties to perform?
§ SIR J. GORSTNo; he could not do anything else.
§ SIR BRAMPTON GURDON (Norfolk, N.)regretted that an old rule seemed to have fallen into abeyance which prohibited a senior clerk from acting as private secretary. It was not a good thing that senior officials should be allowed to act as private secretaries, and the old rule was that if they were permitted to do so, it was only upon the condition that they gave up a part of their salaries.
§ MR. GODDARDthought the reply which had been given did not meet the point of the objection. This gentleman held two positions; he appeared in the Vote under consideration as receiving £300 a year; he was "starred," and the star referred to the Education Department. In the Vote for that Department, however, he was not "starred." It might be a small matter, but it was an offence against one of the regulations which had been laid down by the House to prevent the plurality of offices which had been such a mistake in times gone by. This gentleman received a large salary as one of the examiners under the Education Department, but the Committee were now told that he did no work for that salary, because the whole of his time was taken up by his secretarial duties. The explanation was not at all satisfactory, and if the reduction was pressed to a division he should vote for it.
§ SIR J. GORSTsaid that this officer certainly ought to be "starred" in the Education Estimates, and he would take care that that was done next year.
§ MR. FLYNNcomplained that the Committee were discussing on the Privy Council Vote an item which really ought to be discussed on the Education Vote. This official was described as senior examiner in the Education Office, and he ought, therefore, to be paid by that Office. He should have thought that an intelligent shorthand writer and typist would have been very well able to do the work required of a private secretary, but if an educational specialist was required his salary should be borne on the Educational Vote. The accounts were hopelessly entangled, and the mover of the reduction would be justified in going to a division as a protest.
MR. GIBSON BOWLES (Lynn Regis)thought that as the President of the Council was also President of the Board of Education and President of the National Defence Committee of the Cabinet, he was thoroughly entitled to a private secretary. But he never had before heard of a private secretary getting as much as £300 a year on one Vote and £800 on another. A private secretary at £1,100 was too costly a luxury, and probably the Financial Secretary of the Treasury, who, as a guardian of the public purse, was always ready to prevent excessive expenditure, would be prepared, if the Amendment was withdrawn, to reconsider the ease. The usual salary of a private secretary was, at the outside, £200 or £300 a year all told, and if the salary was more than that the gentleman was not a private secretary, but an official secretary or a permanent official.
§ MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINThis gentleman is a permanent official.
§ MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINI think the hon. Member is under some misapprehension. This is the way in which on every Vote private secretaries of the same class as this gentleman appear. They are permanent civil servants of the Crown, who are taken away from the ordinary routine of office duties in order to act as private secretaries to Ministers. They are not personal private secretaries who come and go with the Ministers in the sense in which the hon. Member
§ is speaking; they are official private secretaries.
MR. GIBSON BOWLESthought the Financial Secretary was in error. These private secretaries did come and go with Ministers. If a new Lord President of the Council took office he might or might not, as he pleased, reappoint this private secretary; it was a purely personal office. He strongly objected to these dual appointments. If they had no other inconvenience, they frequently forced Members to discuss the merits of a gentleman upon a Vote to which it really did not belong. That was the case in the present instance. If this particular private secretary was a necessity for the Lord President of the Council in respect of education, the salary ought to be on the Education Vote. It was inconvenient that a public servant should be on two Votes at all, but if he had to be, he should be on the Vote to which he most properly belonged. This gentleman evidently did not belong to the Privy Council, because he did no Privy Council work whatever, and yet the Committee were discussing his salary on the Privy Council Vote. While he certainly hoped the reduction would not be pressed, he as certainly thought the Financial Secretary of the Treasury should reconsider in the first place the salary of this private secretary, and in the second place, whether this sum of £300 should not be placed on the Education Vote.
§ Question put.
§ The Committee divided:—Ayes, 141; Noes, 187. (Division List No. 193.)
477| AYES. | ||
| Abraham, William (Cork, N. E. | Channing, Francis Allston | Farquharson, Dr. Robert |
| Allan, William (Gateshead) | Clancy, John Joseph | Farrell, James Patrick |
| Allen, Charles P (Glouc., Stroud | Colville, John | Ferguson, R. C. M. (Leith) |
| Ambrose, Robert | Condon, Thomas Joseph | Ffrench, Peter |
| Asher, Alexander | Craig, Robert Hunter | Flavin, Michael Joseph |
| Barry, E. (Cork, S.) | Crean, Eugene | Flynn, James Christopher |
| Bayley, Thomas (Derbyshire) | Crombie, John William | Foster, Sir Walter (Derby Co.) |
| Beaumont, Wentworth C. B. | Cullinan, J. | Gilhooly, James |
| Blake, Edward | Daly, James | Gurdon, Sir W. Brampton |
| Boland, John | Davies, M. Vaughan- (Cardigan | Harmsworth, R. Leicester |
| Bolton, Thomas Dolling | Delany, William | Harrington, Timothy |
| Boyle, James | Dewar, John A. (Inverness-sh.) | Harwood, George |
| Brigg, John | Dilke, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles | Hayden, John Patrick |
| Brunner, Sir John Tomlinson | Dillon, John | Hayne, Rt. Hon. Charles Seale- |
| Bryce, Rt. Hon. James | Donelan, Captain A. | Healy, Timothy Michael |
| Barke, E. Haviland- | Doogan, P. C. | Hobhouse, C. E. H. (Bristol, E.) |
| Burns, John | Duncan, J. Hastings | Holland, William Henry |
| Caine, William Sproston | Dunn, Sir William | Hope, John Deans (Fife, West) |
| Caldwell, James | Edwards, Frank | Horniman, Frederick John |
| Campbell-Bannerman, Sir H. | Emmott, Alfred | Jacoby, James Alfred |
| Carvill, Patrick Geo. Hamilton | Esmonde, Sir Thomas | Joicey, Sir James |
| Cawley, Frederick | Evans, S. T. (Glamorgan) | Jones, Dav. Brynmor (Swansea |
| Jones, William (Carnarvonsh.) | O'Donnell, John (Mayo, S.) | Soames, Arthur Wellesley |
| Joyce, Michael | O'Donnell, T. (Kerry, W.) | Soares, Ernest J. |
| Kay-Shuttleworth, Rt Hn Sir U. | O'Dowd, John | Strachey, Edward |
| Kinloch, Sir John Geo. Smyth | O'Kelly, Conor (Mayo, N.) | Sullivan, Donal |
| Lambert, George | O'Malley, William | Taylor, Theodore Cooke |
| Layland-Barratt, Francis | O'Mara, James | Tennant, Harold John |
| Leamy, Edmund | O'Shaughnessy, P. J. | Thomas, Alfred (Glamorgan, E. |
| Leng, Sir John | O'Shee, James John | Thomson, F. W. (York, W.R.) |
| Lundon, W. | Palmer, Sir C. M. (Durham) | Trevelyan, Charles Philips |
| MacDonnell, Dr. Mark A. | Partington, Oswald | Tully, Jasper |
| M'Cann, James | Pease, Sir Joseph W. (Durham) | Ure, Alexander |
| M'Crae, George | Power, Patrick Joseph | Wallace, Robert |
| M'Kenna, Reginald | Rea, Russell | Walton, John Lawson (Leeds, S. |
| Mooney, John J. | Reddy, M. | Walton, Joseph (Barnsley) |
| Morgan, J. L. (Carmarthen) | Redmond, J. E. (Waterford) | Warner, Thomas Courtenay T. |
| Morton, E. J. C. (Devonport) | Redmond, William (Clare) | Wason, Eugene (Clackmannan |
| Murphy, J. | Rickett, J. Compton | White, Luke (York, E. R.) |
| Nannetti, Joseph P. | Rigg, Richard | White, Patrick (Meath, North) |
| Nolan, Joseph (Louth, South) | Roberts, John H. (Denbighs.) | Whittaker, Thomas Palmer |
| Norman, Henry | Robertson, Edmund (Dundee) | Williams, Osmond (Merioneth |
| Norton, Capt. Cecil William | Roche, John | Wilson, John (Durham, Mid.) |
| Nussey, Thomas Willans | Samuel, S. M. (Whitechapel) | Young, Samuel (Cavan, East) |
| O'Brien, Kendal (Tipperary M'd | Schwann, Charles E. | Yoxall, James Henry |
| O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny) | Shaw, Thomas (Hawick B.) | TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Mr. Whitley and Mr. Goddard. |
| O'Brien, P. J. (Tipperary, N.) | Shipman, Dr. John G. | |
| O'Connor, James (Wicklow, W. | Sinclair, Capt. J. (Forfarshire) | |
| NOES. | ||
| Acland-Hood, Capt. Sir A. F. | Cripps, Charles Alfred | Kimber, Henry |
| Agnew, Sir Andrew Noel | Cross, H. Shepherd (Bolton) | Law, Andrew Bonar |
| Allsopp, Hon. George | Cubitt, Hon. Henry | Lawrence, Joseph (Monmouth) |
| Anson, Sir William Reynell | Dairymple, Sir Charles | Lawrence, Wm F. (Liverpool) |
| Arkwright, John Stanhope | Dewar, T R. (T'rH'mlets, S. Geo. | Lawson, John Grant |
| Arnold-Forster, Hugh O. | Dickson, Charles Scott | Lee, Arthur H (Hants, Fareham |
| Arrol, Sir William | Dixon-Hartland, Sir Fred Dixon | Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage |
| Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John | Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers- | Leveson-Gower, Fred. N. S. |
| Austin, Sir John | Doxford Sir William Theodore | Lockwood, Lt.-Col. A. R. |
| Bagot, Capt. Josceline FitzRoy | Durning-Lawrence, Sir Edwin | Long, Col. Charles W (Evesham |
| Bain, Colonel James Robert | Dyke, Rt. Hon. Sir Wm. H. | Lonsdale, John Brownlee |
| Baird, John George Alexander | Elliot, Hon. A. Ralph Douglas | Lowe, Francis William |
| Balcarres, Lord | Fellowes, Hon. Ailwyn Edw. | Loyd, Archie Kirkman |
| Baldwin, Alfred | Fergusson, Rt Hn. Sir J. (Manc'r | Lucas, Col. Francis (Lowestoft) |
| Balfour, Rt. Hon. A. J. (Manch'r | Fielden, Edward Brocklehurst | Lucas, Reginald J. (Portsm'th) |
| Balfour, Rt Hn Gerald W. (Leeds | Finlay, Sir Robert Bannatyne | Lyttelton, Hon. Alfred |
| Balfour, Maj K R (Christchurch | Fisher, William Hayes | Macartney, Rt. Hon. W. G. E. |
| Banbury, Frederick George | Fitzroy, Hon. Edward A. | Macdona, John Cumming |
| Barry, Sir Francis T. (Windsor | Flannery, Sir Fortescue | Maconochie, A. W. |
| Bartley, George C. T. | Fletcher, Sir Henry | M'Calmont, Col. J. (Antrim, E.) |
| Beach, Rt. Hn. Sir M. H. (Bristol | Flower, Ernest | M'Iver, Sir Lewis (Edinburgh W |
| Bell, Richard | Forster, Henry William | M'Killip, James (Stirlingshire) |
| Bentinck, Lord Henry C. | Foster, Sir Michael (Lond. Univ. | Majendie, James A. H. |
| Bhownaggree, Sir M. M. | Garfit, William | Malcolm, Ian |
| Bigwood, James | Godson, Sir Augustus Fred. | Maxwell, W J H (Dumfriesshire |
| Blundell, Colonel Henry | Gordon, J. (Londonderry, S.) | Meysey-Thompson, Sir H. M. |
| Boscawen, Arthur Griffith- | Gordon, Maj Evans- (T'rHmlets | Milton, Viscount |
| Boulnois, Edmund | Gorst, Rt. Hon. Sir John Eldon | Moore, William (Antrim, N.) |
| Bowles, Capt. H. F. (Middlesex | Goschen, Hon. George Joachim | Morrell, George Herbert |
| Bowles, T. Gibson (King's Lynn | Goulding, Edward Alfred | Morton, A. H. A. (Deptford) |
| Bull, William James | Hain, Edward | Mowbray, Sir Robt. Gray C. |
| Campbell, Rt. Hn. J A (Glasgow | Hamilton, Rt Hn Lord G (Mid'x) | Murray, Rt Hn A. Graham (Bute |
| Cavendish, V. C. W. (Derbysh.) | Hamilton, Marq. of (L'nd'nd'y) | Nicholson, William Graham |
| Cayzer, Sir Charles William | Hanbury, Rt. Hon. Robt. W. | Nicol, Donald Ninian |
| Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor) | Hardy, L. (Kent, Ashford) | O'Neill, Hon. Robert Torrens |
| Chamberlain, Rt.Hon. J. (Birm. | Hay, Hon. Claude George | Orr-Ewing, Charles Lindsay |
| Chamberlain, J Austen (Worc'r | Heath, Arthur H. (Hanley) | Palmer, Walter (Salisbury) |
| Chaplin, Rt. Hon. Henry | Heath, Jas. (Staffords., N.W.) | Parker, Gilbert |
| Chapman, Edward | Heaton, John Henniker | Parkes, Ebenezer |
| Cochrane, Hon. T. H. A. E. | Henderson, Alexander | Pease, Herb. Pike (Darlington) |
| Coghill, Douglas Harry | Hobhouse, Hy. (Somerset, E.) | Pilkington, Lt.-Col. Richard |
| Cohen, Benjamin Louis | Hope, J. F. (Sheffi'ld, Brightside | Platt-Higgins, Frederick |
| Collings, Rt. Hon. Jesse | Howard, John (Kent, Faversh. | Plummer, Walter R. |
| Colomb, Sir John Charles R. | Hozier, Hon James Henry Cecil | Pretyman, Ernest George |
| Colston, Chas. Edw. H. A. | Hudson, George Bickersteth | Purvis, Robert |
| Corbett, A. C. (Glasgow) | Johnston, William (Belfast) | Pym, C. Guy |
| Cox, Irwin Edward B. | Johnstone, Heywood (Sussex) | Quilter, Sir Cuthbert |
| Cranborne, Viscount | Kenyon, James (Lancs., Bury) | Randles, John S. |
| Rankin, Sir James | Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, W.) | Welby, Lt.-Col. A C E (Taunton). |
| Ratcliffe, R. F. | Seely, Charles H. (Lincoln) | Whitley, H. (Ashton-u.-Lyne) |
| Reid, James (Greenock) | Sharpe, William Edward T. | Whitmore, Charles Algernon |
| Remnant, James Farquharson | Simeon, Sir Barrington | Williams, Col. R. (Dorset) |
| Renshaw, Charles Bine | Smith, James Parker (Lanarks. | Williams, Rt Hn J. Powell. (Bir. |
| Rentoul, James Alexander | Smith, Hon. W. F. D. (Strand) | Wilson-Todd, Wm. H. (Yorks.) |
| Ridley, Hon. M. W. (St'lybridge | Spear, John Ward | Wodehouse, Rt. Hn. E. R. (Bath |
| Ridley, S. F. (Bethnal Green) | Stanley, Lord (Lancs.) | Wolff, Gustav Wilhelm |
| Ritchie, Rt. Hn. Chas. Thomson | Stirling-Maxwell, Sir John M. | Wortley, Rt. Hn. C. B. Stuart- |
| Rolleston, Sir John F. L. | Stroyan, John | Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George |
| Rollit, Sir Albert Kaye | Thorburn, Sir Walter | Younger, William |
| Ropner, Col. Robert | Tomlinson, Wm. Edw. Murray | |
| Royds, Clement Molyneux | Tritton, Charles Ernest | TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Sir William Walrond and Mr. Anstruther. |
| Sackville, Col. S. G. Stopford- | Valentia, Viscount | |
| Samuel, Harry S. (Limehouse) | Warde, Colonel C. E. | |
| Saunderson, Rt. Hn. Col. Edw J. | Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney |
§ Original Question again proposed.
§ MR. SOAMES (Norfolk, S.)called attention to the salary of the chief clerk in the Judicial Department. His commencing salary was £500 a year, rising by annual increments of £20 until £650 was reached. In the last column but one it was stated that this official was to have a rise of £50 and not £20. He thought this point required a little explanation.
THE CHAIRMANOrder, order! The hon. Member is going back to an item before that upon which the Committee has just pronounced an opinion.
§ MR. SOAMESNo. Sir, it is lower down.
THE CHAIRMANI beg the horn Member's pardon. I thought he was referring to an item higher up in the list.
§ MR. COGHILL (Stoke-upon-Trent)thought £600 a year was a very large sum for the work which the chief clerk was called upon to perform. The salary of the registrar of the Privy Council was £1,500, and he did not think they could afford to pay such large salaries to the registrar, and to the clerk to the Privy Council as well. The Chancellor of the Exchequer was very fond of lecturing them upon economy, but he wished the right hon. Gentleman would carry his principles out in his own Department. Each year they cheerfully voted large sums for the Army and Navy, and as regarded the Civil Service Estimates he thought they ought to have a very considerable reduction this year. So long as they had these heavy demands made upon them by the Army and Navy he did not think they could do better than begin economising upon the Vote for the Privy Council Office. He begged 478 to move a reduction of the salary of the registrar of the Privy Council by £100; for it was clear that in the Privy Council Office there was a large number of gentlemen enjoying large salaries with very little to do.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Item A (Salaries) be reduced by £100, in respect of the Salary of the Registrar of the Privy Council."—(Mr. Coghill.)
§ MR. CHARLES HOBHOUSE (Bristol, E.)said the registrar of the Privy Council, like all other civil servants, ought to enter his name in the book when he commenced work in the morning and when he finished work in the evening. It was laid down that in any Government Department, whether it was the lowest clerk or the Permanent Under Secretary of State, he had to write his name in the book, put down the time he commenced duties at the office, and the time he finished his work. His vote would be very much influenced by the amount of time this official devoted to his duties.
§ MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINI cannot say whether that is the practice or not in regard to this official, but I think such a regulation is entirely unnecessary in this case. The registrar has entirely separate and distinct duties to perform, mostly connected with the judicial work of the Council. I think it will be apparent to hon. Members that it is not necessary for this official to record in a book the time of his arrival and departure, as is done in the case of junior clerks.
§ MR. CHARLES HOBHOUSEBut it is done in the case of Permanent Under Secretaries of State also. I believe I am right in this statement.
§ MR. JOHN BURNS (Battersea)said he did not object to the hon. Member knowing what time this official entered upon his business and left it, and he thought every State officer ought to sign the book, as every other public official did. But the mere fact of signing the book at ten or eleven o'clock in the morning, or when he left at four or five in the evening, was no indication whatever of his capacity for work in the interval. He might be reading three-volume novels or The Times, or taking a long luncheon hour. He wanted to know what the official did between signing the book in the morning and leaving at night. They ought to have a little more information from the Minister responsible to the House as to whether the Registrar of the Privy Council earned his salary. There might be a satisfactory explanation, but so far they had not received it. What did he do? If they were doing this officer an injustice unintentionally, some information should be given with regard to his duties, so that he might be reinstated in the good opinion of the House.
§ MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINThis gentleman is in attendance on the Privy Council whenever it sits as a judicial body. He is responsible for the
§ records of the court, and has to discharge duties similar to those performed in the high court by the masters. He is a very important official, charged with very important and responsible work.
§ MR. COGHILLasked what duties were performed by another gentleman in the same Department, who received a salary of £450.
§ MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINsaid these officers assisted the Registrar in keeping the records of the court, and for the performance of their duties they required some legal knowledge.
§ MR. TAYLOR (Lancashire, Radcliffe)asked how many months of the year these officials were occupied. Was the Privy Council always exercising judicial functions, and if not, what duties were these officials performing during the intervals?
§ MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINsaid they were employed only when the Privy Council discharged judicial functions. The duties attached to the offices were, in his opinion, quite sufficient to justify the salaries paid.
§ Question put.
§ The Committee divided:—Ayes, 136; Noes, 203. (Division List No. 194.)
483| AYES. | ||
| Abraham, Wm. (Cork, N. E.) | Dalziel, James Henry | Jacoby, James Alfred |
| Allan, William (Gateshead) | Davies, M. Vaughan-(Cardigan | Joicey, Sir James |
| Allen, Chas. P. (Glouc.,Stroud | Delany, William | Jones, Wm. (Carnarvonshire) |
| Ambrose, Robert | Dewar, John A. (Inverness-sh. | Joyce, Michael |
| Asher, Alexander | Dilke, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles | Kinloch, Sir John George S. |
| Barry, E. (Cork, S.) | Dillon, John | Lambert, George |
| Bayley, Thomas (Derbyshire) | Donelan, Captain A. | Layland-Barratt, Francis |
| Beaumont, Wentworth C. B. | Doogan, P. C. | Leamy, Edmund |
| Bell, Richard | Duncan, J. Hastings | Leng, Sir John |
| Boland, John | Dunn, Sir William | Lundon, W. |
| Bolton, Thomas Dolling | Esmonde, Sir Thomas | MacDonnell, Dr. Mark A. |
| Boyle, James | Evans, Samuel T. (Glamorgan) | M'Cann, James |
| Brigg, John | Farrell, James Patrick | M'Crae, George |
| Brunner, Sir John Tomlinson | Ffrench, Peter | M'Kenna, Reginald |
| Burke, E. Haviland- | Flavin, Michael Joseph | M'Laren, Charles Benjamin |
| Burns, John | Flynn, James Christopher | Markham, Arthur Basil |
| Caine, William Sproston | Foster, Sir Walter (Derby Co.) | Mooney, John J. |
| Caldwell, James | Gilhooly, James | Morgan, J. L. (Carmarthen) |
| Campbell, John (Armagh, S.) | Goddard, Daniel Ford | Morton, E. J. C. (Devonport) |
| Carvill, Patrick Geo. Hamilton | Gurdon, Sir W. Brampton | Murphy, J. |
| Cawley, Frederick | Harrington, Timothy | Nannetti, Joseph P. |
| Channing, Francis Allston | Harwood, George | Nolan, Joseph (Louth, South) |
| Clancy, John Joseph | Hayden, John Patrick | Norman, Henry |
| Colville, John | Hayne, Rt. Hon. Charles Seale- | Norton, Capt. Cecil William |
| Condon, Thomas Joseph | Healy, Timothy Michael | Nussey, Thomas Willans |
| Craig, Robert Hunter | Hemphill, Rt. Hon. Charles H. | O'Brien, James F. X. (Cork) |
| Crean, Eugene | Hobhouse, C. E. H. (Bristol, E.) | O'Brien, Kendal (Tipper'y, Mid |
| Cremer, William Randal | Holland, William Henry | O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny) |
| Crombie, John William | Hope, John D. (Fife, West) | O'Brien, P. J. (Tipperary, N.) |
| Cullinan, J. | Horniman, Frederick John | O'Connor, James (Wicklow, W |
| O'Donnell, John (Mayo, S.) | Roberts, John H. (Denbighs.) | Wallace, Robert |
| O'Donnell, T. (Kerry, W.) | Robertson, Edmund (Dundee) | Walton, Joseph (Barnsley) |
| O'Dowd, John | Roche, John | Warner, Thomas Courtenay T. |
| O'Kelly, Conor (Mayo, N.) | Samuel, S. M. (Whitechapel) | Wason, Eugene (Clackmannan |
| O'Malley, William | Schwann, Charles E. | White, Luke (York, E. R.) |
| O'Mara, James | Shaw, Thomas (Hawick B.) | White, Patrick (Meath, North) |
| O'Shaughnessy, P. J. | Shipman, Dr. John G. | Whitley, J. H. (Halifax) |
| O'Shee, James John | Sinclair, Capt. J. (Forfarshire) | Whittaker, Thomas Palmer |
| Palmer, SirCharlesM (Durham | Soames, Arthur Wellesley | Williams, Osmond (Merioneth) |
| Partington, Oswald | Soares, Ernest J. | Wilson, John (Durham, Mid.) |
| Power, Patrick Joseph | Sullivan, Donal | Young, Samuel (Cavan, East) |
| Priestley, Arthur | Taylor, Theodore Cooke | Yoxall, James Henry |
| Rea, Russell | Tennant, Harold John | |
| Reddy, M. | Thomas, Abel (Carmarthen, E.) | TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Mr. Strachey and Mr. Coghill. |
| Redmond, J. E. (Waterford) | Thomson, F. W. (York, W. R.) | |
| Redmond, William (Clare) | Tully, Jasper | |
| Rickett, J. Compton | Ure, Alexander | |
| NOES. | ||
| Acland-Hood, Capt. Sir Alex. F. | Durning-Lawrence, Sir Edwin | Lowe, Francis William |
| Agnew, Sir Andrew Noel | Elliot, Hon. A. Ralph Douglas | Loyd, Archie Kirkman |
| Allsopp, Hon. George | Emmott, Alfred | Lucas, Col. Francis (Lowestoft |
| Anson, Sir Wm. Reynell | Farquharson, Dr. Robert | Lucas, R. J. (Portsmouth) |
| Arkwright, John Stanhope | Fellowes, Hon. Ailwyn Edward | Lyttelton, Hon. Alfred |
| Arnold-Forster, Hugh O. | Fergusson, Rt. Hn. Sir J (Manc'r | Macartney, Rt. Hn. W. G. E. |
| Arrol, Sir William | Fielden, Edward Brocklehurst | Macdona, John Cumming |
| Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John | Finlay, Sir Robert Bannatyne | Maconochie, A. W. |
| Austin, Sir John | Fisher, William Hayes | M'Arthur, William (Cornwall) |
| Bagot, Capt. Josceliue FitzRoy | Fitzroy, Hn. Edward Algernon | M'Calmont, Col. J. (Antrim, E.) |
| Bain, Colonel James Robert | Flannery, Sir Fortescue | M'Iver, Sir Lewis (Edinb'gh, W. |
| Baird, John George Alexander | Fletcher, Sir Henry | M'Killop, J. (Stirlingshire) |
| Balcarres, Lord | Flower, Ernest | Malcolm, Ian |
| Baldwin, Alfred | Forster, Henry William | Martin, Richard Biddulph |
| Balfour, Rt. Hn. A. J. (Manch'r) | Garfit, William | Maxwell, W. J. H (Dumfriessh.) |
| Balfour, Rt. Hn. G. W. (Leeds) | Gibbs, Hn. A. G H (CityofLond. | Meysey-Thompson, Sir H. M. |
| Balfour, Maj. K R (Christchurch | Gladstone, Rt Hn. Herbert John | Milton, Viscount |
| Banbury, Frederick George | Godson, Sir Augustus Frederick | Moon, Edward Robert Pacy |
| Barry, Sir F. T. (Windsor) | Gordon, J. (Londonderry, S.) | Moore, William (Antrim, N.) |
| Bartley, George C. T. | Gordon, Maj Evans-(TrH'mlets | Morrell, George Herbert |
| Beach, Rt. Hn. Sir. M H (Bristol) | Gorst, Rt. Hon. Sir John E. | Morton, A. H. A. (Deptford) |
| Bentinck, Lord Henry C. | Goschen, Hon. George Joachim | Mowbray, Sir Robert Gray C. |
| Bhownaggree, Sir M. M. | Goulding, Edward Alfred | Murray, Rt Hn A. Graham (Bute |
| Blundell, Colonel Henry | Hain, Edward | Nicholson, William Graham |
| Boscawen, Arthur Griffith- | Haldane, Richard Burdon | Nicol, Donald Ninian |
| Boulnois, Edmund | Hamilton, Rt Hn Lord G. (Mid'x | O'Neill, Hon. Robert Torrens |
| Bowles, T. Gibson (King's Lynn) | Hamilton, Marq. of (L'nd'derry) | Orr-Ewing, Charles Lindsay |
| Butcher, John George | Hanbury, Rt. Hn. Robert Wm. | Parker, Gilbert |
| Campbell, Rt. Hn. J. A (Glasg'w | Hardy, Laurence (Kent, Ashf'd | Parkes, Ebenezer |
| Campbell-Bannerman, Sir H. | Harmsworth, R. Leicester | Pearson, Sir Weetman D. |
| Cautley, Henry Strother | Hay, Hon. Claude George | Pease, Herb. Pike (Darlington) |
| Cavendish, R. F. (N. Lancs.) | Heath, Arthur Howard (Hanley | Pease, Sir J. W. (Durham) |
| Cavendish, V. C. W. (Derbysh.) | Heath, James (Staffords, N. W. | Pemberton, John S. G. |
| Cayzer, Sir Charles William | Heaton, John Henniker | Pilkington, Lt.-Col. Richard |
| Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor) | Henderson, Alexander | Platt-Higgins, Frederick |
| Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. J. (Birm.) | Hobhouse, Henry (Somerset, E. | Plummer, Walter R. |
| Chamberlain, J Austen (Worc'r | Hope, J. F. (Sheffield, Brightside | Pretyman, Ernest George |
| Chapman, Edward | Houldsworth, Sir Wm. Henry. | Purvis, Robert |
| Cochrane, Hon. T. H. A. E. | Howard, J. (Kent, Faversham | Pym, C. Guy |
| Cohen, Benjamin Louis | Hozier, Hon. James Henry Cecil | Quilter, Sir Cuthbert |
| Collings, Rt. Hon. Jesse | Hudson, Geo. Bickersteth | Randles, John S. |
| Colston, Charles Edw. H. A. | Jessel, Captain Herbert Merton | Rankin, Sir James |
| Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow) | Johnston, William (Belfast) | Ratcliffe, R. F. |
| Corbett, T. L. (Down, North) | Johnstone, Heywood (Sussex) | Remnant, James Farquharson |
| Cox, Irwin Edw. Bainbridge | Jones, Dav. Brynmor (Swansea | Renshaw, Charles Bine |
| Cranborne, Viscount | Kay-Shuttleworth, Rt Hn Sir U | Rentoul, James Alexander |
| Cripps, Charles Alfred | Law, Andrew Bonar | Ridley, Hn. M. W. (Stalybridge |
| Cross, Herbert S. (Bolton) | Lawrence, Joseph (Monmouth | Ridley, S. F. (Bethnal Green) |
| Cubitt, Hon. Henry | Lawrence, Wm. F. (Liverpool) | Rigg, Richard |
| Dairymple, Sir Charles | Lawson, John Grant | Ritchie, Rt. Hn. Chas. Thomson |
| Dewar, T. R. (T'rH'mlts, S. Geo. | Lee, Arthur H (Hants, Fareham | Rolleston, Sir John F. L. |
| Dickson, Charles Scott | Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage | Rollit, Sir Albert Kaye |
| Dixon-Hartland, Sir F. Dixon | Leveson-Gower Frederick N. S | Ropner, Colonel Robert |
| Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers- | Lockwood, Lt.-Col. A. R. | Royds, Clement Molyneux |
| Doxford, Sir William Theodore | Long, Rt. Hn. Walter (Bristol, S | Sackville, Col. S. G. Stopford- |
| Duke, Henry Edward | Lonsdale, John Brownlee | Sadler, Col. Saml. Alexander |
| Samuel, Harry S. (Limehouse) | Stirling-Maxwell, Sir John M. | Whitmore, Charles Algernon |
| Sassoon, Sir Edward Albert | Thomas, Alfred (Glam organ, E. | Williams, Colonel R. (Dorset) |
| Saunderson, Rt. Hon. Col Edw J | Thorburn, Sir Walter | Williams, Rt Hn J Powell- (B'rm. |
| Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, W.) | Thornton, Percy M. | Wilson, J. W. (Worcestersh, N.) |
| Seely, Charles Hilton (Lincoln) | Tomlinson, Wm. Edw. Murray | Wilson-Todd, Wm. H. (Yorks.) |
| Sharpe, William Edward T. | Tritton, Charles Ernest | Wodehouse, Rt. Hon E R (Bath) |
| Simeon, Sir Harrington | Tuke, Sir John Batty | Wolff, Gustav Wilhelm |
| Sinclair, Louis (Romford) | Valentia, Viscount | Wortley, Rt. Hon. C. B. Stuart- |
| Smith, H C (N'rth'mb., Tyneside | Walton, John L. (Leeds, S.) | Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George |
| Smith, James Parker (Lanarks. | Warde, Colonel C. E. | |
| Smith, Samuel (Flint) | Wason, John C. (Orkney) | TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Sir William Walrond and Mr. Anstruther. |
| Spear, John Ward | Welby, Lt.-Col. A C E (Taunton | |
| Stanley, Lord (Lancs.) | Whiteley, H. (Ashton-u. Lyne) |
Original Question put, and agreed to.
§ 2. Motion made, and Question proposed, "That a sum, not exceeding £21,650, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1902, for the salaries and expenses of the Charity Commission for England and Wales."
SIR WALTER FOSTER (Derbyshire, Ilkeston)called attention to the new scheme of the Charity Commissioners for the Hospital of St. Cross, near Winchester. He said this hospital was a very ancient foundation, dating back to the middle ages. It was a foundation started in pre-Reformation times. Under the wise guidance of the trustees this foundation was becoming a scheme for giving old-age pensions to deserving persons. The policy of the Charity Commissioners in using the funds for that purpose was one which ought to receive the support of the House. For many years the Charity had been managed by a board of fourteen trustees—five of whom were ex officio, and nine of whom were co-opted. It was a growing charity; in a few years its income would be between £8,000 and £10,000 a year. An increasing number of persons were supported out of the funds in the shape of pensioners and brethren who lived in the hospital. The first fault he had to find with the Charity Commissioners was that when they drew up the new scheme, which came into force at the beginning of the year, they did not increase the number of representative trustees. The five ex officio trustees under the old scheme were the Master of the hospital, the Warden of the college of Winchester, the Dean, the Rector of a neighbouring parish, and the Mayor of Winchester. Under the old scheme the Mayor of Winchester was obliged to be a 484 member of the Church of England. A year or so ago the mayor for the time being was a Nonconformist, and so was disfranchised. That was regarded at the time as a hardship, and the town, council felt that it should be remedied for the future. Those distinctions were not only injurious to the Church of England, but entirely out of harmony with the spirit of the times, especially as the recipients of this charity were not limited to the Church of England, but were persons of any religious denomination. It would have done no harm if the Mayor of Winchester had been able to take his seat as a trustee, but there was a statute which prevented him from doing so. A Select Committee of this House in 1884 was appointed to consider these questions, and they unanimously recommended that in future the Charity Commissioners should give more attention to the representative element in drawing up schemes for the administration of charities, but in this case that recommendation had not been followed, for the scheme gave only one additional member to a body consisting of fourteen. That member was to be selected by the town council of Winchester, and there still remained nine co-opted members. He did not think that was in accordance with modern views, and it certainly was not in accordance with the recommendation of the Select Committee of 1884, who were especially anxious, in order to give the public confidence in the administration of such charities, that the representative element should be increased, so as to secure men of wide experience and knowledge of public affairs. The Chairman of the Select Committee, Mr. Shaw-Lefevre, criticised this scheme when it was first promulgated, but unfortunately his objections were handed in rather late. The Charity Commissioners practically ignored his representations by retaining 485 the scheme in the form in which it was issued. Mr. Shaw-Lefevre suggested that in a charity managed by fifteen trustees certain county and town councils should have representation, instead of retaining so many co-opted members. If this new scheme had provided five or six representative trustees—three from the county council, one from the council of the city of Winchester, and two others from representative bodies in the area of the county of Hampshire—they would have had a more efficient body of trustees. He believed at the present time the trustees elected by co-option were very good men, but if they were more representative and elected every three or four years, instead of being chosen for life, they would take a keener interest in the charity. Mr. Shaw-Lefevre had put forward another suggestion, that the Charity Commissioners should do away with the restrictions which they had put on the only new representative they gave, namely, that he should be a member of the Church of England. He thought that that restriction, embodied in a new scheme, was its second fault. In this new century we ought to rise above an unnecessary restriction which was an insult to the Nonconformist Churches. It was recognised by those who had petitioned the Charity Commissioners on the subject that it was a slight upon them, and it was also resented by the town council of Winchester as a slight upon them. It should be remembered that this charity dated back to pre-Reformation times, and it showed a petty spirit of exclusion to disqualify as trustees the very people who might claim to represent the religion of the people which prevailed when the charity was founded. They had done away as far as they could with all religious tests. These tests no longer existed in the universities or the governing bodies in the universities, which were open to Roman Catholics and Nonconformists, and which had to perform duties similar to those of the trustees of this charity, perhaps more serious, since they had to do with education. Surely, it would not have mattered very much in the administration of the charity if one Nonconformist were present in a body of fifteen, and he thought it would have been a wise concession. He spoke as a member of the 486 Church of England who loved his Church, and who had sought to do all he could or it. He believed the Church of England would have an infinitely greater chance of rising to that great position of being the Church Universal of this country if they could do away with the spirit of petty exclusiveness in the administration of bodies like this. The two faults he had to find with this scheme was that it failed to carry out the two great principles laid down by the Select Committee, namely, a sufficiently large proportion of the representative element in the government of the charity, and, in the second place, it continued the old spirit of petty exclusiveness in the qualification of trustees by requiring that the new member to be elected by the town council of Winchester should be obliged to subscribe himself a member of the Church of England before he obtained office. They had seen how the Mayor of Winchester, who had the confidence of the whole city, could not be a trustee of the charity of of St. Cross because he happened to be a Dissenter. In fact, by this rule they might put aside the best men from the office because they happened to be Nonconformists. That was a bad condition of things for the charity; and because the Charity Commissioners had not risen to take a higher, broader, and more liberal view of the scheme he moved to reduce the vote by £100.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That a sum, not exceeding £21,150, be granted for the said service."—(Sir Walter Foster.)
§ MR. EUGENE WASON (Clackmannan and Kinross)said he felt grateful to the right hon. Gentleman who had brought this question before the House. He referred more especially to the clause in the scheme that no trustee could be a Nonconformist. Now, the majority of the members of that House became Nonconformists when they crossed the border of Scotland, and when Members from Scotland crossed the Tweed southward they were equally Nonconformists. Under this very narrow action of the Charity Commissioners it might so happen that a Scotchman who went to Winchester—and he had no doubt there were Scotchmen in Winchester—might possibly become 487 mayor of that city. That man might be a member of the Church of Scotland, as established by law, and yet under this narrow clause he would not be able to give his services to the hospital of St. Cross. He spoke as a member of the Church of England, but he asked what in the world did it matter to any human being to what faith, or creed, or nationality a trustee belonged so long as he was an honest man. The Charity Commissioners spoke of heretics and schismatics, but he did not know in what category they would put a member of the established Church of Scotland. He did not say that the trustees had done anything but what was right; but he protested against the Charity Commissioners having broken the spirit of the agreement entered into in 1884, and by so doing having deprived the hospital from getting the services of possibly the best man in the place, simply because he happened to be, in England, a Nonconformist.
§ MR. GRIFFITH BOSCAWEN (Kent, Tunbridge)said he could not help thinking that the hon. Gentleman who had brought forward this most interesting question, and his supporters, were under a complete misunderstanding in regard to it. The matter looked very simple at first sight. It was all very well to say "What did it matter what faith, creed, or nationality a trustee might be"; but the whole question was, "What were the Charity Commissioners allowed to do by law?" It must be judged, not by an ideal scheme, but by the existing circumstances as to whether the Charity Commissioners had taken the right course or not. The two great points made against the Charity Commissioners were, in the first place, that they did not increase the number of representative trustees, and in the second place that they required that the one additional trustee given should be a member of the Church of England. He had a complete answer to both these points. As to the first, it was perfectly true that in 1884 evidence was given before a Select Committee of the House that it was desirable that the principle of representative trustees should be introduced into schemes, and that the Committee reported in favour of that proposal. But that evidence and that recommendation applied only to 488 local trusts. But St. Cross Hospital at Winchester was not a local trust; its benefits extended all over the kingdom, and when the hon. Gentleman said, "Why not put on local representatives?" he was advocating the localising of the trust. The hon. Gentleman said, "Put on representatives of the county council and other local bodies in Hampshire"; but if they did that they would turn the trust into a local Hampshire charity, which would be absolutely contrary to the spirit of the original foundation. There was another point in connection with this matter. The Charity Commissioners, in the case of charities of fifty pounds annual value and upwards, could not act unless application was made by the trustees themselves for an alteration of the scheme. Now the trustees in this instance did not ask for any great alteration in their trust; all they asked for were minor alterations and the consolidation of the various, schemes under which they acted. It would not have done to have forced on the trustees, against their will, a new scheme which would have entirely changed the character of the trust. He passed to the second point, which was really the gravamen of the charge, namely, that in adding one additional trustee they required that he should be a member of the Church of England. The hon. Member opposite told them that it was not in accordance with present practice to do so; but they had got to look not only to present practice in general, but to the character of the trust itself in particular. What was the character of the trust? The trust had always been held in connection with the Church of England. The Master of the hospital must, by the trust deed, be a clergyman in priest's orders; he must be the incumbent of the parish appointed by the Bishop of Winchester, and subject in all respects to the jurisdiction of the Ordinary. Provision was also made for the maintenance of the fabric of the parish church and for divine services being carried on in it according to the rites of the Church of England. In other words, a great and important part of the duties of these trustees was absolutely concerned with the maintenance of worship according to the rites of the Church of England. 489 He asked whether it was not rather a tall order that on such a trust Nonconformists should claim to have a trustee appointed? The hon. Member opposite tried to persuade them that it should not be exclusively a Church of England trust because it was a pre-Reformation trust. Well, he was not there on the present occasion to discuss religious questions with the hon. Member; but it was a new light to him to be told that a pre-Reformation trust was founded by a different Church from the Church of England. Certainly he had always believed that the Charity Commissioners, acting according to law, must follow the practice that there was a perfect legal continuity of the Church of England with the pre-Reformation Church. He passed from the question of the character of the trust, and the express provision of the trust deed, to the present practice. They were asked by the hon. Member that, in accordance with the present practice, they should allow one or more of the trustees to be people who did not belong to the Church of England. Now he ventured to say that the hon. Member, in declaring that that was the invariable present practice, had not really studied the precedents. There were plenty of precedents in connection with all sorts of charities.
§ MR. GRIFFITH BOSCAWENsaid he could not say whether they were all modern charities; but he had got the case of the Springhill College with twenty-four trustees elected in various ways. The trust deed provided that not only should the trustees be members of a particular denomination, but they had actually to sign a declaration that they belonged to the denomination of Protestant Dissenters called Independents.
SIR WALTER FOSTERsaid he knew that college. It was founded for Nonconformist students and was limited for their use. It was not like St. Cross Hospital, which was to give relief to no particular class or creed.
§ MR. GRIFFITH BOSCAWENsaid most emphatically that St. Cross was a charity founded in connection with the Church of England. It was only those 490 funds which were over—he admitted that they were large—which were to be devoted to pensioners from any part of England. What they had got to consider was, what it was legal to do. The hon. Member opposite said that they ought not to have made the provision that the additional trustee should be a member of the Church of England. He ventured to say that, if the Charity Commissioners had not made that provision, it was probable that the new scheme could have been upset by the Court of Chancery. There was a very remarkable case in the law reports in the year 1873. A voluntary school at Sandhurst-Ulph, Norfolk, had ceased to carry on its work and it was about to be transferred to the school board. In order to obtain the transference it was necessary to appoint three new trustees. These three trustees, who were appointed by the Charity Commissioners, agreed to the transfer, but they were all members of the Church of England. Objection was taken to the scheme and appeal made on the ground that the effect of it was to convert a Church of England school into an undenominational school, and that that was contrary to the expressed declaration of the original trust deed, and therefore prohibited by the 46th section of the Act of 1853. The matter came before the Master of the Rolls, Sir George Jessel, who said that the appeal would not be valid because it was not the fact that under the 46th section of the Act of 1853 there were restrictions which prevented trustees from being appointed who might use their powers to the prejudice of the Church of England, but that the real restriction was on the appointment of any trustees who were not actually members of that Church themselves, and he added that the action of the Charity Commissioners would have been invalid if the trustees had not been members of the Church of England. He ventured to say that that case was on all fours with the present. If the Charity Commissioners had not appointed trustees all of whom were members of the Church of England, their scheme could have been upset. They were bound to consider precedents, and what was the proper thing to do, quite irrespective as to whether their 491 action would be popular or approved of by hon. Gentlemen opposite. He thanked the hon. Gentleman opposite for the exceedingly courteous manner in which he had brought forward this matter, but he ventured to think that there had been a complete misunderstanding of the duty of the Charity Commissioners and of the nature of the charity; and, therefore, he thought the action of the Charity Commissioners was fully justified.
§ MR. CHARLES HOBHOUSEsaid that the objection raised to placing a Nonconformist on this board of trustees were of a double character—legal and ethical. The hon. Gentleman told them that when the trustees sent this scheme to the Charity Commissioners they did not ask for much change in the constitution of the trust. He had never yet heard of existing trustees who did want much change. They always considered themselves absolutely superior to any possible successors, and naturally they were disinclined to mistrust their own powers to deal with property. The hon. Member who was responsible for the Charity Commissioners had told them that this was a Church of England scheme, but he had omitted to tell them anything about the religion of the beneficiaries or whether any religious test was put on these beneficiaries.
§ MR. GRIFFITH BOSCAWENsaid it was true that, so far as the out-patients went, they need not be members of the Church of England, or of any particular denomination; but the in patients were obliged to attend Church of England services.
§ MR. CHARLES HOBHOUSEQuite so; but he was acquainted with that fact, for he knew something about this charity. But surely the presence of one Nonconformist on a governing body of fifteen trustees was not going to proselytise in any way the out-patients? And surely, if he might say so, the trustees or any body of this sort were more concerned with the property of the trust than with the religion of the people who received the benefits of the trust. If some local body such as the county council or the district council were represented on this trust they would always have within a short distance of 492 the trust men who would attend the business meetings of the trust, which really controlled the property, and that was the most important part of their duty. If the proposal of his hon. friend had been to include anything like a change of religion on the part of the Master of this charity, that would have been a different thing. It was the duty of the Master, and not of the trustees, to see that the religious exercises of the Church of England were properly carried out in the hospital at stated intervals; but it was not the business of the trustees to go down to the hospital to see whether the patients attended the services of the Church of England. The hon. Gentleman opposite took objection to the proposal of the hon. Member for Ilkeston on the ground that this was not a modern charity; but the whole reason for a change in these charities was to bring them up to date and make their government and administration more in accordance with modern opinion and thought. He did not know what the proportion of the inhabitants of the city of Winchester was of Members of the Church of England to Nonconformists. But say that the proportion of Nonconformists was one third or a half, why should they not allow one Nonconformist to take a practical interest in the scheme of the charity as a representative trustee?
§ MR. GODDARDsaid he joined with his hon. friends who had already expressed the opinion that the answer of the hon. Gentleman was most inadequate. He had never listened to a weaker answer to such a strong case. The hon. Gentleman said that a new scheme was not wanted, and that only one or two alterations were required, but the Parliamentary Paper referred to a new scheme, and gave the Charity Trustees an opportunity of making alterations in accordance with modern thought. Then the hon. Gentleman referred to the suggestion of his hon. friend as an attempt to localise what was now a general charity; that the charity opened its doors to people from all parts of the country, and that it was wrong to suggest that someone on the Town Council of Winchester, or the County Council of Hampshire, should be elected to the Board. But all the trustees were local men, and it would be 493 no departure from principle to appoint a representative of the people from either the county council or the borough council a trustee. He understood that under the existing scheme the trustees were limited to residents in the county. It might appear a strong point to the hon. Gentleman, but it appeared a very weak point to him that the charity was a Church of England charity. They had had that explanation before, and they knew the value of it. He himself had been elected to serve in a charity trust where formerly all the trustees were members of the Church of England. The practice had been in all modern alterations for the Charity Commissioners to open the doors so that a charity should have a more representative body of trustees not only in regard to the general population, but also in regard to the different religious denominations. The hon. Gentleman said that the charity was a Church of England charity, and that the recipients had to attend services in that Church, but there were a great many charities in the country where the recipients had to attend Church of England services, but where the trustees were not necessarily members of that Church. In these old charities bread and other things were given out at the church doors after certain services, not because the donor was an attendant at the church necessarily, but because the church doors were the only places where such gifts could be distributed. Surely the time had arrived when the old barriers of intolerance should be broken down, and when they should widen their views in regard to representation on public charities. The hon. Gentleman said that the recipients should be members of one particular Church, but no question at all was raised with reference to out-patients at the hospitals, although the in-dwellers had to attend Church of England services, but that did not make it a Church of England trust. The answer of the hon. Gentleman was altogether inadequate, and the views he expressed were not the kind of views hon. Members were in the habit of expressing when they addressed their Nonconformist constituents.
§ MR. COURTENAY WARNER (Staffordshire, Lichfield)said it was certainly not the idea of the original trust that 494 Nonconformists should be debarred, because there could have been no question of Nonconformists when it was established, as there was only one Church in the country. The comparison which had been made between this charity and a denominational school was utterly fallacious. A denominational school was established at a time when there were many sects in the country, and when money was allocated to a particular purpose, whereas this charity dated back to an epoch when the Church was the national Church of the country, and there was no question of any denominational differences at all. The charity was distinctly a local charity, because even under the revised scheme the trustees must be local men, and therefore the objection of the hon. Gentleman to elected trustees because they would be local men fell to the ground. The claim of his hon. friend was that there should be more elected trustees, and that they should not be limited to members of the Church of England. That was a very moderate demand. It was necessary to keep up the popularity of these charities, and if they were made to appear to be Church charities, which in reality they were not, they would be unpopular with Nonconformists. The charity would not be injured in the least by having a few elected trustees on the board, and he hoped some better explanation would be given of the very curious position which had been taken up by the Charity Commissioners in the matter.
§ MR. CREMER (Shoreditch, Haggerston)said he hoped the hon. Member who moved the reduction would proceed to a division, as it was the only chance they had of protesting against the proposed action of the Charity Commissioners. The charity had a singular and very interesting history. He lived in the neighbourhood when he was a boy, and he remembered very well the tremendous scandal connected with it, and the statement he was about to make would, he thought, afford conclusive evidence that where the whole of a governing body belonged to a particular denomination they had no guarantee that the recipients of the charity would be any other than members of that denomination. A clerical peer was many years ago the Master of St. Cross Hospital. 495 How he was appointed to the office no one was able to understand, and he was also the Vicar of one or two parishes. For a long series of years that interesting institution was shorn of its useful proportions, and it became a public scandal. After a great deal of agitation upon the subject an inquiry was instituted by the Government of the day, and the result was that the clerical peer was made to disgorge a great part of the funds he had been appropriating for years, and he was dismissed from his office, although he was not prosecuted, as he should have been, for the frauds he had committed. He was a member of the Church of England and a spiritual guide, and it would have been thought when a man of such distinction in the clerical world had been appointed that would have been a guarantee that the charity would be honestly and honourably administered, but it was not. He hoped the Charity Commissioners would see their way to have all sorts and conditions of men on the governing bodies of these charities, because it was the only guarantee that could be afforded them that members of all denominations who were entitled to be recipients should not be excluded. He remembered in his boyhood that every traveller who went to the hospital
§ was entitled according to the will of the pious founder to a loaf of bread and a jug of beer. Now all that was given was a piece of bread about an inch and a-half square and a tumbler full of weak beer. When the clerical peer was Master no bread or beer was to be had at all. He objected to the governing body being members of one denomination, not because they were members of the Church of England, because he believed that if they were Methodists or Congregationalists, or members of any other section, a similar result would follow. A member of the Endowed Schools Committee informed him that his experience led him to the conclusion that wherever a body of men had to administer a charity or an endowment for educational purposes, and belonged to one particular section, there was no chance of anyone getting anything out of it unless he were a member of the same sect. After all, it was human nature, and he did not complain of it at all, but he wanted to avoid it. He hoped the result of the division would be to induce the Charity Commissioners to place at least one Nonconformist in the position of a trustee.
§ Question put.
§ The Committee divided:—Ayes, 132; Noes, 157. (Division List No. 195.)
497| AYES. | ||
| Abraham, Wm. (Cork, N. E.) | Cullinan, J. | Hayter, Rt. Hon. Sir Arthur D. |
| Allan, William (Gateshead) | Daly, James | Hemphill, Rt. Hon. Charles H. |
| Allen, Chas. P. (Glouc., Stroud) | Dalziel, James Henry | Holland, William Henry |
| Asher, Alexander | Davies, Alfred (Carmarthen) | Hope, John Deans (Fife, West) |
| Asquith, Rt. Hn Herbert Henry | Davies, M. Vaughan- (Cardigan | Jones, David Brynmor (Swans'a |
| Austin, Sir John | Delany, William | Jones, William (Carnarvonsh.) |
| Barry, E. (Cork, S.) | Dewar, John A. (Inverness-sh. | Joyce, Michael |
| Bayley, Thos. (Derbyshire) | Dilke, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles | Kinloch, Sir John George Smyth |
| Bell, Richard | Dillon, John | Lambert, George |
| Black, Alexander William | Donelan, Captain A. | Layland-Barratt, Francis |
| Blake, Edward | Doogan, P. C. | Leamy, Edmund |
| Boland, John | Duncan, J. Hastings | Leese, Sir Joseph F. (Accrington |
| Bolton, Thomas Dolling | Edwards, Frank | Leng, Sir John |
| Boyle, James | Emmott, Alfred | Lloyd-George, David |
| Brigg, John | Esmonde, Sir Thomas | Lundon, W. |
| Brunner, Sir John Tomlinson | Evans, Samuel T. (Glamorgan) | MacDonnell, Dr. Mark A. |
| Burke, E. Haviland- | Farquharson, Dr. Robert | M'Crae, George |
| Burns, John | Farrell, James Patrick | M'Dermott, Patrick |
| Caine, William Sproston | Ffrench, Peter | Mooney, John J. |
| Caldwell, James | Flavin, Michael Joseph | Morgan, J. L. (Carmarthen) |
| Campbell, John (Armagh, S.) | Flynn, James Christopher | Morton, Edw. J.C. (Devonport) |
| Campbell-Bannerman, Sir H. | Foster, Sir Walter (Derby Co.) | Murphy, J. |
| Channing, Francis Allston | Gilhooly, James | Nannetti, Joseph P. |
| Clancy, John Joseph | Gladstone, Rt. Hn Herbert John | Nolan, Joseph (Louth, South) |
| Colville, John | Goddard, Daniel Ford | Norton, Capt. Cecil William |
| Condon, Thomas Joseph | Hardie, J Keir (Merthyr Tydvil | Nussey, Thomas Willans |
| Craig, Robert Hunter | Harmsworth, R. Leicester | O'Brien, James F. X. (Cork) |
| Crean, Eugene | Harwood, George | O'Brien, Kendal (Tipper'ry Mid |
| Cremer, William Randal | Hayden, John Patrick | O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny) |
| Crombie, John William | Hayne, Rt. Hon. Chas. Seale- | O'Brien, P. J. (Tipperary, N.) |
| O'Connor, James (Wicklow, W. | Reddy, M. | Tully, Jasper |
| O'Donnell, John (Mayo, S.) | Redmond, John E. (Waterford) | Wallace, Robert |
| O'Donnell, T. (Kerry, W.) | Redmond, William (Clare) | Walton, John Lawson (Leeds, S |
| O'Dowd, John | Roberts, John H. (Denbighs.) | Wason, Eugene (Clackmannan |
| O'Kelly, Conor (Mayo, N.) | Roche, John | White, Luke (York, E. R.) |
| O'Malley, William | Schwann, Charles E. | White, Patrick (Meath, North) |
| O'Mara, James | Shaw, Thomas (Hawick B.) | Whitley, J. H. (Halifax) |
| O'Shaughnessy, P. J. | Shipman, Dr. John G. | Whittaker, Thomas Palmer |
| O'Shee, James John | Sinclair, Capt. John (Forfarsh. | Williams, Osmond (Merioneth |
| Palmer, Sir Chas. M. (Durham | Soares, Ernest J. | Wilson, John (Durham, Mid.) |
| Partington, Oswald | Strachey, Edward | Young, Samuel (Cavan, East) |
| Pearson, Sir Weetman D. | Sullivan, Donal | Yoxall, James Henry |
| Power, Patrick Joseph | Taylor, Theodore Cooke | TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Mr. Charles Hobhouse and Mr. Warner. |
| Priestley, Arthur | Tennant, Harold John | |
| Rea, Russell | Thomson, F. W. (York, W. R.) | |
| NOES. | ||
| Acland-Hood, Capt. Sir Alex. F. | Gordon, J. (Londonderry, S) | Palmer, Walter (Salisbury) |
| Agnew, Sir Andrew Noel | Gordon, Maj Evans (T'rH'mlets | Pease, Herb. Pike (Darlington |
| Allsopp, Hon. George | Gorst, Rt.Hon. Sir John Eldon | Pemberton, John S. G. |
| Arkwright, John Stanhope | Goulding, Edward Alfred | Platt-Higgins, Frederick |
| Arnold-Forster, Hugh O. | Hamilton, Rt Hn Ld G. (Midd'x | Plummer, Walter R. |
| Arrol, Sir William | Hanbury, Rt. Hon. Robert Wm | Pretyman, Ernest George |
| Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John | Hardy, Laurence (Kent Ashf'rd | Purvis, Robert |
| Bain, Colonel James Robert | Harris, Frederick Leverton | Randles, John S. |
| Baird, John George Alexander | Hay, Hon. Claude George | Remnant, James Farquharson |
| Balfour, Rt. Hn. A. J. (Manch'r | Heath, Arthur Howard (Hanl'y | Renshaw, Charles Bine |
| Balfour, Capt. C. B. (Hornsey) | Heath, Jas. (Staffords N. W.) | Rentoul, James Alexander |
| Balfour, Rt Hn Gerald W (Leeds | Heaton, John Henniker | Ridley, Hn. M. W. (Stalybridge |
| Balfour, Maj K. R. (Christch'ch. | Henderson, Alexander | Ridley, S. Forde (Bethnal Green |
| Banbury, Frederick George | Hermon-Hodge, Robt. Trotter | Rigg, Richard |
| Bartley, George C. T. | Hope, J. F. (Sheffield, Brightsd. | Ritchie, Rt. Hn. Chas. Thomson |
| Beach, Rt. Hn. Sir M. H. (Bristol | Hudson, George Bickersteth | Rolleston, Sir John F. L. |
| Bentinck, Lord Henry C. | Hutton, John (Yorks, N. R.) | Ropner, Colonel Robert |
| Bhownaggree, Sir M. M. | Jebb, Sir Richard Claverhouse | Royds, Clement Molyneux |
| Bigwood, James | Jessel, Captain Herbert Merton | Sackville, Col. S. G. Stopford- |
| Blundell, Colonel Henry | Kenyon, Hn. Geo. T. (Denbigh) | Sadler, Col. Samuel Alexander |
| Boscawen, Arthur Griffith- | Law, Andrew Bonar | Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, W.) |
| Bowles, Capt. H. F. (Middlesex) | Lawrence, Wm. F. (Liverpool | Sharpe, William Edward T. |
| Cautley, Henry Strother | Lawson, John Grant | Simeon, Sir Barrington |
| Cavendish, R. F. (N. Lancs.) | Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage | Sinclair, Louis (Romford) |
| Cavendish, V. C. W. (Derbysh.) | Leveson-Gower, Fredk. N. S. | Smith, H C (North'mb Tyneside |
| Cayzer, Sir Charles William | Lockwood, Lt.-Col. A. R. | Smith, Jas. Parker (Lanarks.) |
| Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor) | Loder, Gerald Walter Erskine | Smith, Hon. W. F. D. (Strand |
| Cecil, Lord Hugh (Greenwich) | Long, Rt. Hn. W. (Bristol, S. | Stanley, Lord (Lancs.) |
| Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. J. (Birm. | Loyd, Archie Kirkman | Stewart, Sir M. J. M'Taggart |
| Chamberlain, J Austen (Worc') | Lucas, Reginald J. (Portsmouth | Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester) |
| Chapman, Edward | Lyttelton, Hon. Alfred | Thorburn, Sir Walter |
| Clare, Octavius Leigh | Macartney, Rt. Hon. W. G. E. | Thornton, Percy M. |
| Coghill, Douglas Harry | Macdona, John Cumming | Tomlinson, Wm. Edw. Murray |
| Collings, Rt. Hon. Jesse | Maconochie, A. W. | Tritton, Charles Ernest |
| Colston, Chas. Edw. H. Athole | M'Calmont, Col. J. (Antrim E. | Valentia, Viscount |
| Cook, Sir Frederick Lucas | M'Iver, Sir Lewis (Edinb'rgh, W | Vincent, Sir Edgar (Exeter) |
| Corbett, T. L. (Down, North) | M'Killop, Jas. (Sterlingshire) | Warde, Colonel C. E. |
| Cox, IrwinEdwardBainbridge | Majendie, James A. H. | Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney |
| Cranborne, Viscount | Malcolm, Ian | Webb, Col. William George |
| Cripps, Charles Alfred | Martin, Richard Biddulph | Welby, Lt. CIA. C. E. (Taunton) |
| Cross, Herb. Shepherd (Bolton) | Maxwell, W. J. H. (Dumfriessh | Whiteley, H. (Ashton-u.-Lyne |
| Dickson, Charles Scott | Meysey-Thompson, Sir H. M. | Whitmore, Charles Algernon |
| Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers- | Milton, Viscount | Williams, Col. R. (Dorset) |
| Doxford, Sir William Theodore | Montagu, G. (Huntingdon) | Willox, Sir John Archibald |
| Duke, Henry Edward | Moore, William (Antrim N.) | Wilson-Todd. Wm. H. (Yorks.) |
| Durning-Lawrence, Sir Edwin | Morgan, Dvd. J (Walthamstow | Wodehouse, Rt. Hn. E. R. (Bath |
| Fellowes, Hon. Ailwyn Edward | Morrell, George Herbert | Wolff, Gustav Wilhelm |
| Fergusson, Rt Hn. Sir J. (Manc'r | Morton, Arthur H. A. (Deptford | Wortley, Rt. Hn. C.B. Stuart- |
| Finch, George H. | Mowbray, Sir Robt. Gray C. | Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George |
| Finlay, Sir Robert Bannatyne | Murray, Rt. Hn. A. G. (Bute | |
| Fisher, William Hayes | Nicholson, William Graham | TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Sir William Walrond and Mr. Anstruther. |
| Fitzroy, Hon. Edward Algernon | Nicol, Donald Ninian | |
| Fletcher, Sir Henry | O'Neill, Hon. Robert Torrens | |
| Flower, Ernest | Orr-Ewing, Charles Lindsay |
Question put, and agreed to.
§ Original Question again proposed.
SIR WALTER FOSTERdesired to call attention to the large amount 498 of landed property belonging to various charities which had been sold during the year. He felt that land ought as 499 far as possible to be retained by the charities. The conversion of land into consols was not in his opinion in the interests of the charities or the country, which lost by the transaction. He brought the question before the Committee because he saw that last year a sum of £530,000 had been realised this way, and although that was less by a large amount than was realised in the previous year, the amount somewhat alarmed him. He would like to hear from the hon. Gentlemen responsible for the Vote how that sum had been realised, whether by the sale of town property or property in the rural districts, and what kind of charity property had been sold by the trustees to private individuals. He understood the explanation given last year was that a good deal of money had been realised by the sale of church sites and public-house property, and he would like to know whether any of the £530,000 appearing in the Report of the Charity Commission represented money derived from any such properties.
§ LORD BALCARRES (Lancashire, Chorley)called attention to the action of the Commissioners with regard to the ancient leper hospital at Cowley, near Oxford. The property belonged to Oriel College. The buildings in question were only a small group near Oxford, which were, however, not very well known, because they lay a little off the high road, but they were unusually beautiful. According to the scheme of the Commissioners the property was now being opened up for building, for the profits of Oriel College, and it was to be hoped that the buildings which were to replace this group would not be as ugly as the addition which had been made to the Charity Commissioners' office. Some of the best of the buildings of this interesting group would be destroyed. The Charity Commissioners were a powerful body, and when Oriel College came forward and asked permission for this scheme he thought the Commissioners might have done more than they did for the preservation of these interesting buildings. One rood of land and the chapel was the only part to be saved from destruction. The chapel was almost intact, and therefore valuable, 500 and although he congratulated the Commissioners on having saved that, he thought they might have gone further and preserved more than thirty yards of land and the chapel.
§ MR. GRIFFITH BOSCAWENsaid that, with regard to the sale of lands, that question was decided on its merits. In some cases it was better that the investment of the charity fund should be in land, and in others that it should be in stock. The principle on which the Commissioners acted was this—they judged each case on its merits. When a charity possessed lands which could be opened up for building, and which would realise a large sum of money, it was obviously better for the charity to sell the land for building purposes. But in all cases the Commissioners were bound to do the best they could for a charity. With regard to a question put by the noble Lord, he admitted that this was a beautiful old chapel, and he thought the Commissioners were to be congratulated on having: succeeded in preserving it, and the rood of land with which it was surrounded. The property was, as it happened, not charity property at all, but belonged! to Oriel College, which had the right to deal with it as it chose—except the chapel. Acompromise had been arranged between the Charity Commissioners and the college whereby the chapel and the rood of land were preserved for such uses as the Commissioners might direct, and it could not now be sold without the consent of the Commissioners, and there was no chance of their giving their consent.
§ MR. HOLLAND (Yorkshire, W. R. Rotherham)expressed the opinion that it was time that the item for the Endowed Schools Commission was removed from the Estimates, though the amount, £3,000, was not a large one. When the Commission was formed in 1869, Mr. Forster said he thought four years would be sufficient time to complete the work, yet the Commission still existed, although thirty-two years had expired since that time. He desired to know whether the Commission could not now be closed. He also wished to know how many schemes had been dealt with by the Commission 501 in the last year, and how many deeds revised.
§ MR. GRIFFITH BOSCAWENpointed out that very large economies had already been effected in connection with the Commission, and said there were now only three Chief Commissioners for both branches. But so long as the Charity Commissioners had a certain amount of endowed school work to do, it was necessary they should have assistant commissioners for that branch of the work and the necessary staff. It was intended shortly to transfer the work to the Board of Education, and then he had no doubt this item would disappear.
§ MR. CREMERmoved the reduction of the Vote by £100 for the purpose of calling attention to the appropriation of the funds of St. Katharine's Hospital, which, he said, had been more than once described as little short of a public scandal. He admitted that the Commissioners had a great deal of difficulty in dealing with this institution because it was under Royal patronage; but he did not believe that Her late Majesty knew how the funds were misappropriated, and he felt assured that, if the matter were brought under the notice of the King, His Majesty would decline to sanction it. Had anything been done to endeavour to get rid of this scandal since he brought the subject before the House two years ago? This charity, which was one of the most ancient institutions of the land, was founded in 1273 by Queen Matilda. For a time its funds were insignificant, and the site it occupied was the one now occupied by St. Katharine's Docks. When the promoters of St. Katharine's Docks took the site they paid this institution £127,000 for the little building which then occupied the site, and the institution immediately became a wealthy one, and was removed to the Regent's Park, where it still remained. In 1886 the income was £7,097, and since that period it had doubled. What was done with that money? Many inquiries had been made as to how the money was expended. In 1893 he asked whether any effort had been made to give effect to the recommendations contained in the report prepared by a Charity Com- 502 missioner, Andrew Skerrow. He also asked whether the master received £1,200, and lived in the house assigned to him as his official residence, or whether he let it, as his predecessor did, for £700 a year. What were the duties of his office? How many boys and girls were being educated at the institution out of the funds? How much of the fund was spent in education, and how much was spent in management, and why none of the various schemes which had been prepared by eminent men for the reform of the institution had been carried into effect. The answer he received from the Charity Commissioners was that the expenditure of the endowment in 1892 was apportioned as follows: education, £561; salaries, £3,209; gifts, £190; expenses of management; £3,193. Such a state of things appeared to him to be a very great scandal, and he had moved the reduction for the purpose of asking the Commissioners whether anything had been done to check it, and if not whether the hon. Gentleman would give a guarantee that something would be done to stop such a shameful waste of charitable funds.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That a sum not exceeding £21,150 be granted for the said service."—(Mr. Cremer.)
§ MR. GRIFFITH BOSCAWENcomplained that he had had no notice that this question was going to be asked, and that he therefore had had no chance of going into this particular case. The Committee would understand that there were 70,000 or 80,000 charities under the Charity Commissioners, and it was impossible to answer off-hand with regard to any particular one. He had, however, made such inquiries as were possible in this particular case, and he believed that an unsatisfactory state of affairs had been alleged to exist at this institution, but it was one of those charities over which the Charity Commissioners had no jurisdiction, unless the governing body applied to them for a scheme. The only other course open to the Commissioners in such cases was to certify them to the Attorney General.
§ SIR CHARLES DILKE (Gloucestershire, Forest of Dean)asked why the 503 Attorney General was not instructed in the matter many years ago, and who were the present trustees.
§ MR. GRIFFITH BOSCAWENsaid he would make an inquiry into the matter, and if the case was of the nature which the hon. Member described he would consider what steps could be taken.
§ MR. CREMERsaid he would withdraw his Amendment, having regard to what had been said, but before doing so he expressed the hope that the Charity Commissioners would inquire whether the Master of this institution received at present £1,600 a year—£1,200 salary and £400 for a house which he did not occupy; and how many sermons he preached during the year. He had inquired over and over again whether he had done anything more, and he had never got any satisfactory answer.
§ Original Question again proposed.
§ MR. WHITLEYsaid he had been looking through the Report of the Charity Commissioners, and was rather surprised to find the nature of some of the securities in which some trust funds were invested. For instance, there were investments in the Aerated Bread Company, the Bodega Company, the Calico Printers' Association, the New Zealand Shipping Company, the Mexican Central Company, Ransome and Napier, Limited, the Salt Union, Limited. He was not a financial man himself, but with a modest knowledge of business matters it did seem to him that these were very curious investments for trustees to hold. He knew that if he were a trustee he should be very nervous in dealing with such securities. He could only suppose that these securities had been left by some pious benefactors, and that there had not been time to convert them into more satisfactory securities. He hoped that as soon as possible these trustees would have their money invested more nearly in accordance with what were regarded as trust securities.
§ MR. GRIFFITH BOSCAWENsaid that the hon. Gentleman was quite correct. The Charity Commissioners never made such investments as those he 504 mentioned. These securities represented funds transferred by trustees.
§ MR. WHITLEYsaid the hon. Member must be aware that private trustees were compelled as soon as might be to convert the funds into trust securities.
§ MR. GRIFFITH BOSCAWENsaid that was perfectly true. But he had never heard of a case in which money had been lost in the way suggested through the carelessness of the Charity Commissioners, and he thought they might be trusted to look after the money. In the case of each charity they considered whether it were better to retain the investments or to change them on the application of the trustees. The matter really was whether the investments were changed in accordance with the desire of the trustees. Sometimes the trustees wished that the investments should not be changed, and if that were so, and the investments seemed to be desirable ones, they did not insist on their being changed.
§ 3. £5,019, to complete the sum for Friendly Societies Registry.
§ 4. £9,962, to complete the sum for Lunacy Commission, England.
§ 5. Motion made, and Question proposed, "That a sum, not exceeding £91, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1902, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Mint, including the Expenses of Coinage."
§ MR. WHITLEYsaid there were several matters which ought to be discussed on this motion. First of all, he wanted to know the reason for the addition of two to the clerical staff. But he wished more particularly to call the attention of the Committee to the extraordinarily complicated way in which the Estimates were presented. If hon. Members would look at the bottom of the page in the Estimates, they would see certain very puzzling references by letters from "a" down to "k," explaining how clerks, managers, chemists, etc., got additions to their salaries in all sorts of peculiar ways. He 505 must protest against the figures being presented to the House in that most unsatisfactory way. Why could they not be told, before they voted these salaries, what the total salaries were? For instance, they found in the second Vote the letter "b" attached to no fewer than six employees in this department of the Royal Mint; and the letter "b" meant "with official residence, some of which will not be continued when vacancies arise." Now, his experience had been short, but he found that the tendency was that these frequent promises were not fulfilled. Any business man who looked at that page of the Estimates must feel that there was a need for a new spirit in this Government Department. A little further down the page there was a salary for "chemist and assayer for the Mint," with two letters after his name—"b," which meant that he had an official residence, and "d," which meant that he was also the professor of metallurgy and metallurgist at the Royal College of Science at a salary of £300 a year. That was just one of the pluralists of which his hon. friend complained. It was most objectionable that these salaries should be divided in that way; and they ought to have an assurance from the Financial Secretary to the Treasury that he would look into the matter and present the Estimates in a simpler form for the future. For example, the chemist and assayer's salary began at £700, rising to £900, which was the amount he at present received. He did not know what the qualifications of that gentleman were, but he should have thought that £900 would have been sufficient salary, even if it included the lectureship in the Royal College of Science. Until they got the proper assurance that these Estimates would be simplified they ought to try and get this Vote reduced, and for that purpose he moved that it be reduced by £300 in respect of the salary of the chemist and assayer to the Mint as professor of metallurgy in the Royal College of Science.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Item A be reduced by £300, in respect of the Salary of Chemist and Assayer of the Mint."—(Mr. Whitley.)
§ MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINsaid that the hon. Gentleman was a little 506 difficult to please, hit high or hit low. He complained at one moment that he was anxious for information, and that the accounts were not explained by notes, and when supplied with notes he complained the next moment of complications, The hon. Gentleman must make up his mind as to which course he ought to run. He was very ready to receive suggestions from hon. Members as to the form in which the Estimates were presented, but it was for the convenience of the Committee that all the Votes should be arranged in the same way and on the same system. It would not tend to give the information to the Committee which the hon. Gentleman desired if one Vote were marked in one way and another Vote marked in another way. The hon. Gentleman asked in respect to the salary of the assayer and chemist of the Mint, which at the present time had reached the maximum of £900, and had moved a reduction of £300 a year in respect of his salary as professor of metallurgy at the Royal College of Science. The gentleman who discharged those duties—Sir W. Roberts-Austen—was a very distinguished man, and it was of the utmost importance that for such a position as that we should have a gentleman of the very highest reputation and scientific attainments. But while the work was of a very responsible kind, it was not such as to occupy the whole of his time, and the Government were very glad to take advantage of his services at the Royal College of Science. He did not think the hon. Member would consider the remuneration given under these two heads was too much for the work which Sir W. Roberts-Austen had done, and for the attainments which that distinguished gentleman brought to bear upon his labours at the Mint and the Royal College of Science. He trusted that the hon. Member would not press his motion to a division, and he was sure the advocates of economy would not advance their cause by moving such a reduction.
SIR WALTER FOSTERthought the hon. Member who had moved the reduction deserved credit for the careful analysis to which he had subjected the Estimates. The way to get Estimates through the Committee was to be courteous and good tempered towards critics. During his fifteen 507 or sixteen years experience of the House, he had watched the action of many Secretaries of the Treasury, and had always noticed that a kindly word turned away criticism.
§ MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINI hope the hon. Member does not suggest that I have been other than courteous. If I have been discourteous to anyone I should desire to apologise at once, as certainly it is very far from my wish to be so.
SIR WALTER FOSTERsaid it was a question of manner rather than words to which he referred. The Financial Secretary was somewhat severe on the hon. Member for Halifax, who, as a new Member of the House, ought to be encouraged rather than discouraged in going through these matters so carefully. The hon. Member had shown very fair grounds for criticism, and had studied the Estimates, not only carefully and industriously, but also very ably. He had, however, in this instance, moved a reduction in an unfortunate place. The distinguished man who filled this scientific post at the Mint was well worth the salary he was paid, and the extra £300 which he received for acting as a professor in the Royal College of Science was doubtless equally well earned. At the same time, it naturally struck as peculiar an hon. Member actuated with a desire for economy that there should be so many cases of individuals holding more than one appointment. Such things ought always to be criticised, but when a fair explanation was given, as in this instance, it was only right that the hon. Member who made the criticism should withdraw his motion for a reduction of the Vote, and he hoped that that would be done.
§ MR. WHITLEYhoped the Financial Secretary would understand that he chose this particular item merely to bring the matter before the Committee, and to get a reply to the question he had raised. The reply on this point was perfectly satisfactory, and he had no charge of discourtesy to make. With the permission of the Committee he would withdraw the Amendment, and simply move a reduction of the whole Vote 508 by £100, without referring to any specific item.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
§ Original question again proposes.
§ SIR CHARLES DILKEasked on what principle the artistic part of the work of the Mint was done. The work on the whole was disgracefully bad, as compared with that of almost any other country. Not only the great artistic countries, but even the new countries, turned out much better artistic work than our Mint. The medals were even more disgraceful than the coins. The coins had not been very successful of recent years, but the medals were absolutely beneath contempt. The medals were struck at the Mint, but the charge for them was borne by the various Departments requiring them. If the Admiralty or the War Office required medals, who was responsible, as between the Department and the Mint, for the design?
§ MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINthought the designs were prepared by the Mint and submitted to the Departments concerned.
§ SIR CHARLES DILKEsaid that every country was now beginning again to realise, as in the seventeenth century, that there was no higher form of art than the medallists' art, and the medallists' art was a specialists' art. Painters and sculptors were not medallists; they required to be specially trained. In foreign countries, especially in France, the art had revived almost to the height at which it stood in the seventeenth century, but we in this country were absolutely and conspicuously behindhand in the matter.
§ MR. TAYLOR,referring to the increase of £20,000 in regard to the loss on worn silver coin withdrawn from circulation, asked whether it was in consequence of more being in circulation, or because of the adoption of a higher standard. 509 He also alluded to the fact that this year there was undoubtedly a larger demand for coins bearing her late Majesty's imprint, and asked whether it was not perfectly legitimate for the Mint to take advantage of that fact and to issue as large a quantity as possible of coins of all kinds.
§ MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINsaid that the issue by the Mint was regulated by the demand, so that if there was the special demand to which the hon. Member had referred, it would be met, as it were, automatically. As to the loss on worn silver coin withdrawn from circulation, a larger sum was asked for on the present occasion, because last year they were not able to withdraw from circulation as much as they had expected to do.
§ MR. J. P. FARRELL (Longford, N.)asked why, when the amount in the Estimate was given as £101, the question put from the Chair was for only £91. Frequent complaints had been made as to the manner in which the Estimates were prepared, and of insufficient information being given to enable Members to understand why particular increases were asked for. He also inquired whether there was any profit on the gold and silver purchased in bulk and subsequently coined. There ought, surely, to be particulars given, so that the Committee might know whether the Mint was worked at a loss or a profit. If such information was given, it would greatly simplify matters, and frequently render unnecessary the criticism which the Financial Secretary seemed to resent. Personally, he had generally found the hon. Gentleman very courteous in his replies, and therefore he was rather surprised to find a disposition on his part to resent the criticism of the hon. Member for Halifax. Members, whether on the Government or the Opposition benches, being present as the custodians of the public purse, were entitled to the amplest information, and Ministers should be prepared to give it when asked in a fair and reasonable way.
§ MR. WHITLEYdesired to raise a point of order. The reduction of £100 510 which he wished to move was a reduction of the expenditure which, if carried, would result in a profit instead of a loss to the Mint. If the incomings of a Department were greater than the outgoings, the Committee would have no check whatever, as the Minister concerned would not require to come to Parliament for a Vote. He submitted that as a point of order it would be a very serious matter as affecting the control of the House of Commons if it was not competent to move a reduction of £100 on a total expenditure of no less than £134,000, although it was perfectly true that the incomings nearly balanced the outgoings.
THE CHAIRMANI do not think there is any point of order in that. It is the practice of this House to have what are known as "token" Votes. If the hon. Member will look at the Estimate he will see that the gross total is £134,401, whereas the amount of the appropriations in aid is £134,300. In order to bring the Vote under the competence of the House, the total Vote is taken at £101. Of that sum £10 has already been voted, and that leaves £91 to be voted. If the hon. Member objects to that sum he can vote against it, but he cannot move to reduce a Vote of £91 by £100.
§ MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINThe hon. Member for North Longford asks for some information as to whether there has been a loss or a profit upon the working of the Mint. At the bottom of page 152 of the Estimates he will find the estimated extra receipts, which are in addition to this Vote. They are set down as £665,700, and that is the estimated profit on the Mint in addition to the £134,300 which is taken to meet the expenses.
§ MR. J. P. FARRELLsaid there was not a word in the Estimate about profit. It said, "Estimated Extra Receipts (Cash)" and he could not gather from that that it was profit. Why could it not be put down as "estimated extra profit"?
§ Question put.
§ The Committee divided:—Ayes, 126; Noes, 84. (Division List No. 196.)
511| AYES. | ||
| Acland-Hood, Capt. Sir Alex. F. | Fellowes, Hn. Ailwyn Edward | Morton, Arthur H. A. (Deptford |
| Arkwright, John Stanhope | Finch, George H. | Mowbray, Sir Robert Gray C. |
| Arnold-Forster, Hugh O. | Finlay, Sir Robt. Bannatyne | Nicholson, William Graham |
| Arrol, Sir William | Fisher, William Hayes | O'Neill, Hon. Robert Torrens |
| Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John | Fitzroy, Hn. Edw. Algernon | Orr-Ewing, Charles Lindsay |
| Austin, Sir John | Fletcher, Sir Henry | Palmer, Walter (Salisbury) |
| Bagot, Capt. Josceline FitzRoy | Flower, Ernest | Parkes, Ebenezer |
| Bain, Colonel James Robert | Gordon, J. (Londonderry, S.) | Platt-Higgins, Frederick |
| Balfour, Rt. Hon. A. J. (Manc'r.) | Gorst, Rt. Hon. Sir John E. | Pretyman, Ernest George |
| Balfour, Capt. C. B. (Hornsey | Grenfell, William Henry | Purvis, Robert |
| Balfour, Rt Hn Gerald W. (Leeds | Hamilton, Rt. Hn. Ld G (Midd'x | Pym, C. Guy |
| Balfour, Maj. K. R. (Christch'h) | Hanbury, Rt. Hon. Robert W. | Randles, John S. |
| Banbury, Frederick George | Heath, Arthur Howard (Hanley | Rentoul, James Alexander |
| Bartley, George C. T. | Heath, Jas. (Staffords., N.W. | Ridley, Hn. M. W. (Stalybridge |
| Beach, Rt. Hn. Sir M. H. (Bristol | Henderson, Alexander | Ridley, S. Forde (Bethnal Green |
| Bentinck, Lord Henry C. | Hope, J. F. (Sheffield Brightside | Ritchie, Rt. Hon. Chas. T. |
| Bigwood, James | Hudson, George Bickersteth | Ropner, Colonel Robert |
| Bill, Charles | Hutton, John (Yorks, N.R.) | Sackville, Col. S. G. Stopford |
| Bond, Edward | Jebb, Sir Richard Claverhouse | Sharpe, William Edward T. |
| Boscawen, Arthur Griffith- | Johnstone, Heywood (Sussex) | Sinclair, Louis (Romford) |
| Bowles, Capt. H.F. (Middlesex) | Law, Andrew Bonar | Smith, H. C. (North'mb. Tynes'd |
| Bull, William James | Lawson, John Grant | Smith, Hon. W. F. D. (Strand) |
| Cautley, Henry Strother | Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage | Spear, John Ward |
| Cavendish, V. C. W. (Derbysh.) | Leveson-Gower, Frederick N. S | Stanley, Lord (Lancs.) |
| Cayzer, Sir Charles William | Loder, Gerald Walter Erskine | Stewart, Sir Mark J. M'Taggart |
| Cecil, Lord Hugh (Greenwich) | Long, Rt. Hn. Walter (Bristol, S. | Thorburn, Sir Walter |
| Chamberlain, Rt Hn. J. (Birm. | Lowe, Francis William | Tomlinson, Wm. Edw. Murray |
| Chamberlain, J Austen (Worc'r | Loyd, Archie Kirkman | Tritton, Charles Ernest |
| Chapman, Edward | Lucas, Col. Francis (Lowestoft) | Tuke, Sir John Batty |
| Clare, Octavius Leigh | Macartney, Rt. Hn. W G Ellison | Valentia, Viscount |
| Coghill, Douglas Harry | Macdona, John Cumming | Vincent, Sir Edgar (Exeter) |
| Collings, Rt. Hon. Jesse | Maconochie, A. W. | Walker, Col. William Hall |
| Colston, Chas. Edw. H. Athole | M'Calmont, Col. J. (Antrim, E. | Wanklyn, James Leslie |
| Corbett, T. L. (Down, North) | M'Iver, Sir Lewis (Edinb'rgh W. | Warde, Col. C. E. |
| Cox, Irwin Edward Bainbridge | M'Killop, Jas. (Stirlingshire) | Webb, Col. William George |
| Cranborne, Viscount | Majendie, James A. H. | Whiteley, H. (Ashton un.Lyne |
| Cross, Herb. Shepherd (Bolton) | Maxwell, Rt Hn Sir H. E (Wigt'n | Willox, Sir John Archibald |
| Dickson, Charles Scott | Maxwell, W J H (Dumfriesshire | Wodehouse, Rt. Hn. E. R. (Bath |
| Dilke, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles | Molesworth, Sir Lewis | Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George |
| Dorington, Sir John Edward | Montagu, G. (Huntingdon) | |
| Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers- | Moore, William (Antrim, N.) | TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Sir William Walrond and Mr. Anstruther. |
| Doxford, Sir William Theodore | Morgan, David J. (Walthams'w | |
| Duke, Henry Edward | Morrell, George Herbert | |
| Durning-Lawrence, Sir Edwin | Morris, Hon. Martin Henry F. |
| NOES. | ||
| Abraham, Wm. (Cork, N. E.) | Flavin, Michael Joseph | O'Dowd, John |
| Allan, William (Gateshead) | Flynn, James Christopher | O'Kelly, Conor (Mayo, N.) |
| Asher, Alexander | Gilhooly, James | O'Malley, William |
| Bell, Richard | Harwood, George | O'Mara, James |
| Black, Alexander William | Hayden, John Patrick | O'Shaughnessy, P. J. |
| Blake, Edward | Holland, William Henry | O'Shee, James John |
| Boland, John | Jones, William (Carnarvonsh.) | Power, Patrick Joseph |
| Boyle, James | Joyce, Michael | Rea, Russell |
| Brigg, John | Kinloch Sir John George Smyth | Reddy, M. |
| Burke, E. Haviland- | Layland-Barratt, Francis | Redmond, John E. (Waterford) |
| Caldwell, James | Leamy, Edmund | Redmond, William (Clare) |
| Campbell, John (Armagh, S.) | Leese, Sir Joseph F. (Accrington | Roche, John |
| Clancy, John Joseph | Leng, Sir John | Schwann, Charles E. |
| Colville, John | Lundon, W. | Shaw, Thomas (Hrwick B.) |
| Condon, Thomas Joseph | MacDonnell, Dr. Mark A. | Shipman, Dr. John G. |
| Crean, Eugene | M'Dermott, Patrick | Sinclair, Capt John (Forfarshire |
| Cremer, William Randal | Mooney, John J. | Soares, Ernest J. |
| Cullinan, J. | Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen) | Sullivan, Donal |
| Daly, James | Morton, Edw. J. C. (Devonport) | Taylor, Theodore Cooke |
| Delany, William | Murphy, J. | Tully, Jasper |
| Dewar, John A. (Inverness-sh. | Nannetti, Joseph P. | Wason, Eugene (Clackmannan |
| Dillon, John | Nolan, Joseph (Louth, South) | White, Luke (York, E. R.) |
| Donelan, Capt. A. | O'Brien, James F. X. (Cork) | White, Patrick (Meath, North) |
| Doogan, P. C. | O'Brien, K. (Tipperary, Mid) | Whittaker, Thomas Palmer |
| Esmonde, Sir Thomas | O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny) | Wilson, John (Durham, Mid.) |
| Evans, Samuel T. (Glamorgan) | O'Brien, P. J. (Tipperary, N.) | Young, Samuel (Cavan, East) |
| Farquharson, Dr. Robert | O'Connor, James (Wicklow, W. | TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Mr. Goddard and Mr. Whitley. |
| Farrell, James Patrick | O'Donnell, John (Mayo, S.) | |
| Ffrench, Peter | O'Donnell, T. (Kerry, W.) |
§ 6. Motion made, and Question proposed, "That a sum, not exceeding £7,107, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1902, for the Salaries and Expenses of the National Debt Office."
§ MR. J. P. FARRELLmoved a reduction of £1,000. The total Vote showed a decrease for the year of £990, but he held that the decrease should be a great deal more if the National Debt Office was managed on more economical principles. Of course, the hon. Gentleman in charge of the Vote would offer the official explanation which was always given, namely, that these officials were appointed at certain fixed salaries and that the salaries had to be provided according to arrangements made by the Treasury at the time of the appointment. But, apart from the fixed salaries, there were other expenses which required some explanation. The details given in the Vote were not at all sufficient. The sum asked originally was £13,107, of which £6,000 had already been voted. There were various sub-heads showing how the balance of £7,107 was made up, but it seemed to him that, if the Department responsible for the preparation of the Vote would give an explanatory schedule, a great deal of criticism would be obviated. The Comptroller General received a salary of £1,500, but no particulars were given as to who the gentleman was. The hon. Member had just been to the library endeavouring to get some particulars of the terms of the appointment, and to find out whether this official was appointed as the result of examination or as the nominee of some Government; but the officials of the library, who were always most obliging, could not supply him with any particulars, except the skeleton Reports. He could not find out where the office was, who the Comptroller was, or, in fact, any particulars about the office. There was an assistant with a salary of £800, rising, by annual increments of £50, to £1,000. There were four principal clerks with salaries of £550, rising by annual increments of £25 to £700, and one of these clerks, who was described as "actuary," received in addition £250 a year. There were four 514 assistant principal clerks at £400 a year, and another assistant principal clerk at £350 a year. The most extraordinary thing was that there was a "senior clerk (redundant)" who received a salary of £340 a year. He never saw such a description of an official before. In addition to his salary, the senior clerk redundant received "an allowance of £10 7s. 6d. for assessing income tax on life annuities, included in the sum taken for temporary salaries." He flattered himself that he understood the English language fairly well, but he could not understand what was meant by that explanation at all. He asked the Secretary to the Treasury to explain the meaning of the word "redundant" after "senior clerk." If the official was redundant it would be proper to say that he was altogether unnecessary. The Nationalist Members had a right to object to this Vote. The National Debt Commissioners were a body of whose existence they knew nothing at all. Ireland had no part in the creation of the National Debt, and the Nationalist Members, who were a minority in the House, were totally ignored when they opposed the national expenditure. On that ground alone they were entitled to protest against these salaries. Dealing with the question of management, he asked whether any money was to be voted for rent. They were given to understand that the public offices in London were Crown property, but there was a charge in the Estimates of £4,370, and he wanted to know how it was accounted for.
THE CHAIRMANpointed out that this sum was not in the Vote now under consideration. The hon. Member would be able to criticise that when it was asked for under another class.
§ MR. J. P. FARRELLsaid he bowed to the ruling of the Chairman. This was an evidence of how the Estimates were prepared. If this belonged to another class it was misleading. He noticed that the humble office of "temporary pensioner messenger" was held by a man who received 21s. a week and an army pension of 1s. 1d. a day. It might be said that it was a small thing to attack the salary of a man in such a position. He did not wish to do the man any harm, but he objected to the 515 policy which lay at the bottom of the appointment. That policy was being enforced in Ireland, and young men who applied to the post office for positions as rural messengers were refused, while pensioners who had been employed in South Africa and elsewhere were sent down to fill the positions although they knew nothing of the localities. The young men who knew the district had to go to America and elsewhere for employment. It was the principle which underlay the appointment of this man, or any similar appointment, which made him call attention to it. He seriously appealed to the hon. Gentleman the Financial Secretary to take a note of this objection from Ireland, and to take steps to remedy the state of things as regarded this particular grievance. He would like to know why £300 a year was paid to the Bank of England as agents for the National Debt Office and only £100 to the Bank of Ireland; and whether these sums were paid direct to the banks or to persons in their employment. He had no interest in the Bank of Ireland and did not know much about its standing except that he understood that it occupied in Ireland the same position which the Bank of England occupies in England. Was it because the volume of business in connection with the National Debt was relatively greater in England than in Ireland? On broad principle he objected, as an Irish representative, to voting this money. He was quite aware, of course, that hon. Gentlemen might reasonably maintain that English Members had a direct personal interest in the question, but Members from Ireland had no such interest. They never assented in any degree to the principle on which the National Debt had been created; but while Irish Members were out-voted when they protested against the creation of the National Debt for war on the Continent and in South Africa, they had been arguing for financial economic reform. Moreover, they had no representation on this Board. It was his duty as an Irish representative to move the reduction of this Vote by the sum of £1,000.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That a sum not exceeding £6,107 be 516 granted for the said service."—(Mr. J. P. Farrell.)
§ MR. TULLY (Leitrim, S.)wished to ask the Secretary to the Treasury two questions. He found the salary of the Actuary to the Pensions Commutation Board was £250. Was that the Mr. Dynham who was responsible for the breaking down of the National Teachers' Pension Scheme? He understood the gentleman was not now an officer; but was the gentleman who discovered the error, Mr. Finlaison, still in office?
§ MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINNo; he is retired.
§ MR. TULLYsaid he was sorry the Gentleman was retired. Was the actuary available for constructing tables in connection with the police pension scheme in Ireland as well as in Scotland? It was very important when they were asked to vote money of this kind to know the scope of these gentlemen's duties. He thought this gentleman's salary appeared to be rather small considering the great responsibility thrust upon him. Could the hon. Gentleman give him any assurance as to what would be the effect of the superannuation of the poor law officers in Ireland?
§ MR. DALY (Monaghan, S.)supported the hon. Member who had just sat down in thinking that this officer was underpaid, and that it was on account of that underpay that he was liable to make mistakes. He objected to £1,000 being paid to a broker in the National Debt Office. He did not know that Stock Exchange business was carried on in the National Debt Office, although he supposed that every man in a Government Department was more or less of a gambler. The hon. Gentleman the Financial Secretary to the Treasury might explain what duty the broker discharged. Then he saw that the Comptroller General received a salary of £1,500 a year, but he had actually an assistant secretary. He did not know whether the Comptroller General did any amount of work at all, but why should he require an assistant secretary, when he had an Assistant Comptroller, a chief clerk, an 517 actuary, and principal clerks, receiving in all £2,800 a year? It struck him that this was a most extravagantly overpaid office, and that there were quite too many officials in it. He hoped his hon. friend would be successful in carrying his motion to reduce this Vote. It would at the same time be a check on extravagance and a protest against the manner in which the accounts were placed before the Committee. It was the duty of Members on that side of the House to get the Estimates reduced as much as possible, and he thought it was unfortunate that the Estimates in the past had not been scrutinised more closely by hon. Gentlemen on the Liberal benches.
§ MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINThe hon. Gentleman who spoke first asked me who was the present Comptroller General, what was his name, and how he entered the service. His name is Hervey; he entered the service in the usual way through the Treasury. He rose after years of continuous service to the post of Assistant Comptroller, and from that post was appointed Comptroller General.
§ MR. J. P. FARRELLDid this Gentleman enter the service in the usual way by examination?
§ MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINYes; it is probable that he did not enter the service under the examination now in force, because he entered many years ago, but he entered under the examination then in vogue. The hon. Gentleman then asked me as to the senior clerk. An enquiry has been made with regard to this office, and it has been found that there has been an unsatisfactory record, and we have come to the conclusion that whenever there is a vacancy in this division we should replace the senior clerk by a second-class clerk. A senior clerk was marked "redundant" when he was in excess of the staff, and to show that when his post is vacated that a man of lower position and lower salary is to take his place. I do not think it would be economical to let this clerk retire at once, but when he does retire the office will be filled up in the way I have stated.
§ MR. J. P. FARRELLCan the hon. Gentleman say when that will be?
§ MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINI cannot say without notice; it depends upon the age and other considerations. I was further asked as to the temporary messenger. The objection, as I understand it, is that we have taken a soldier instead of a civilian, and that possibly thereby a civilian has been displaced. Is it suggested that the Government is to lay down a rule that because a man has been in the Army or the Navy he should be debarred from serving the Government? I cannot lay down any rule of that kind. Over and over again this House has expressed its opinion that it is the duty of the Government, it is obligatory on the Government, to see that men who have served in the Navy or the Army, having due regard to their ability to perform the work to be done, shall be given special preference in the Civil Service. I can hold out no hope that this Government will depart from a practice so just in itself, and which commends itself so much to the House. I pass then to the item of agents at the Banks of England and Ireland. It was formerly unnecessary to have agents in Ireland, the business being transacted in England, but in 1881 it was found necessary to appoint agents in Ireland. Their salaries are placed lower than those in England because their work is less, and we did not think it would be just to pay them at the same rate. Then as to the brokers. The hon. Member for South Leitrim asked me whether the actuary referred to in this Vote was connected with the calculation about which he asked a question the other day in this House, and whether he would be available to make the investigation. No, Sir; his duties at the National Debt Commissioners would not enable him to give any time to any such investigation. If the Irish Government think it desirable to obtain this assistance it will be necessary to obtain it altogether outside. We shall not be able to ask it of the gentleman whose salary has been referred to. The brokers to the National Debt Commissioners have to deal with the whole civil funds, and discover means of reducing the National Debt, and other matters. There is nothing of a gambling nature in their transactions.
§ MR. JOHN WILSON (Durham, Mid)said he should not have risen but for the 519 statement which had been made by the hon. Gentleman as to employing soldiers in preference to civilians. The assumption of the hon. Gentleman was too large. It was not the unanimous opinion of the House that a soldier should be employed simply because he had been a soldier; if a civilian showed himself to be qualified for the office it was unjust to pass him over and prefer a soldier as a sort of reward for his having served in the Army. Everybody admired the gallantry of our Army, but there were heroes also in our industrial life, and in the ordinary way they underwent more dangers than the class whom the Government preferred. Many lives were annually lost in the mines of this country, and upon the railways a sort of eternal sacrifice was going on every day, and there were many dangers to be faced in factories. These men also served the State by the work they did, and he thought that they should be considered and have an equal chance of any appointment which the Government had to give.
§ MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINThe hon. Gentleman on this particular point raises a discussion ranging over a wide field. But the hon. Gentleman a little misunderstood me. I do not claim that all posts should be reserved for soldiers, or that where there are two different competitors, one a soldier and another a civilian, the soldier should have the post merely because he was a soldier. The first thing that has to be considered is that a man should be got who is able to discharge satisfactorily the duties of the post to which he is appointed, and that fact alone disqualifies a soldier from filling many appointments. The hon. Member asked, Why should preference be given to the soldier? I think where a man has served his country, and another has given no service to his country, the man who has served his country should have the preference. By taking soldiers young, and by discharging them young, we make it difficult for them to get employment, and consequently more difficult for them to earn a living, than it is to a man who has always been in employment. That the civilians who labour in the great industries of this country are useful to the country nobody will deny, but their 520 labour brings its own reward. To the miner and the skilled worker the skill which they have acquired is a valuable asset which they can sell; but we take the soldier and teach him no trade which will be useful to him in after life. We require his service for the country, and he having given his service deserves some consideration of the country. It is not a great number of posts which can be offered to these men, but when there is a post which they can fill it is the express desire of this House and of the country that the Government should remember, so far as possible, the men who have served in the Army or the Navy, and upon their being found clearly fitted for the place to give it to them in preference to a civilian who has rendered no direct service to the country.
§ MR. O'MARA (Kilkenny, S.)asked for information concerning the duties of the broker referred to in the Vote. Did this gentleman advise the Chancellor of the Exchequer as to the conditions of the money market, and at what price he should issue his loans, and through whom he should issue them?
§ MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINNo, Sir.
§ MR. O'MARAWhat I really want to know is, is he what is called a bucket-shopkeeper or a; member of the Stock Exchange? I think the Committee should have a good deal more information as to the duties of this broker.
§ MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINMay I add one word to what I said just now with regard to its being the wish of the House that the Government should make all possible provision for employing Reserves and time expired soldiers. On April 1st, 1896, the House passed a resolution to that effect by 136 to 24. The name of the brokers is Messrs. Mullens, Marshall and Company; it is their duty to advise the Chancellor of the Exchequer when he requires their advice, but he does not act on their advice alone in such matters as the hon. Gentleman mentioned.
§ MR. O'MARAI should like to know whether they advised the Chancellor of 521 the Exchequer, and, if they did not, who did, with regard to the issue of the last loan.
§ MR. JOHN WILSON (Durham, Mid)contended that a vote of the House of Commons did not make the employment of soldiers by the State just, and, besides, only 160 out of 670 Members voted upon it.
§ MR. DILLON (Mayo, E.)said that the ear-marking of certain positions in the
§ Post Office for soldiers was a development of militarism which the country would protest against when the present war feeling had subsided—
THE CHAIRMANI think this discussion is going a great deal beyond the point. It arises on the employment by the Department of one temporary messenger.
§ Question put.
§ The Committee divided:—Ayes, 104; Noes, 151. (Division List No. 197.)
523| AYES. | ||
| Abraham, Wm. (Cork, N. E.) | Gladstone, Rt Hn Herbert John | O'Kelly, Conor (Mayo, N.) |
| Allan, William (Gateshead) | Goddard, Daniel Ford | O'Malley, William |
| Allen, Chas. P. (Glouc., Stroud) | Harmsworth, R. Leicester | O'Mara, James |
| Bayley, Thomas (Derbyshire) | Harwood, George | O'Shaughnessy, P. J. |
| Bell, Richard | Hayden, John Patrick | O'Shee, James John |
| Black, Alexander William | Hobhouse, C. E. H. (Bristol, E.) | Partington, Oswald |
| Blake, Edward | Holland, William Henry | Pearson, Sir Weetman D. |
| Boland, John | Hope, John Deans (Fife, West) | Power, Patrick Joseph |
| Bolton, Thomas Dolling | Jones, William (Carnarvonsh.) | Priestley, Arthur |
| Brigg, John | Joyce, Michael | Reddy, M. |
| Brown, George M. (Edinburgh | Kinloch, Sir John George Smyth | Redmond, John E. (Waterford) |
| Burke, E. Haviland- | Lambert, George | Redmond, William (Clare) |
| Caldwell, James | Layland-Barratt, Francis | Rigg, Richard |
| Campbell, John (Armagh, S.) | Leamy, Edmund | Roche, John |
| Channing, Francis Allston | Leese, Sir Joseph F. (Accrington | Schwann, Charles E. |
| Clancy, John Joseph | Leng, Sir John | Scott, Chas. Prestwich (Leigh) |
| Colville, John | Lloyd-George, David | Shaw, Thomas (Hawick B.) |
| Condon, Thomas Joseph | Lundon, W. | Shipman, Dr. John G. |
| Craig, Robert Hunter | MacDonnell, Dr. Mark A. | Sinclair, Capt. John (Forfarsh'e |
| Crean, Eugene | M'Cann, James | Soares, Ernest J. |
| Cremer, William Randal | M'Crae, George | Sullivan, Donal |
| Cullinan, J. | M'Dermott, Patrick | Tennant, Harold John |
| Daly, James | M'Govern, T. | Tully, Jasper |
| Delany, William | Mooney, John J. | Walton, Joseph (Barnsley) |
| Dewar, John A. (Inverness-sh.) | Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen) | Warner, Thomas Courtenay T. |
| Dillon, John | Morton, Edw. J. C. (Devonport) | Wason, Eugene (Clackmannan) |
| Donelan, Captain A. | Murphy, J. | White, Luke (Yorks, E. R.) |
| Doogan, P. C. | Nannetti, Joseph P. | White, Patrick (Meath, North) |
| Duncan, J. Hastings | Nolan, Joseph (Louth, South) | Whitley, J. H. (Halifax) |
| Esmonde, Sir Thomas | O'Brien, Kendal (Tipperary Mid | Williams, Osmond (Merioneth) |
| Evans, Samuel T. (Glamorgan) | O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny) | Young, Samuel (Cavan, East) |
| Ffrench, Peter | O'Brien, P. J. (Tipperary, N.) | Yoxall, James Henry |
| Flavin, Michael Joseph | O'Connor, Jas. (Wicklow, W.) | |
| Flynn, James Christopher | O'Donnell, John (Mayo, S.) | TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Mr. J. P. Farrell and Mr. John Wilson (Durham). |
| Foster, Sir W. (Derby Co.) | O'Donnell, T. (Kerry, W.) | |
| Gilhooly, James | O'Dowd, John | |
| NOES. | ||
| Acland-Hood, Capt. Sir Alex. F. | Bentinck, Lord Henry C. | Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. J. (Birm. |
| Arkwright, John Stanhope | Bigwood, James | Chamberlain, J. Austen (Worc. |
| Arnold-Forster, Hugh O. | Bill, Charles | Chapman, Edward |
| Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John | Bond, Edward | Clare, Octavius Leigh |
| Austin, Sir John | Boscawen, Arthur Griffith- | Coghill, Douglas Harry |
| Bagot, Capt. Josceline FitzRoy | Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John | Collings, Rt. Hon. Jesse |
| Bain, Col. James Robert | Bull, William James | Colston, Chas. Edw. H. Athole |
| Balfour, Capt. C. B. (Hornsey) | Cautley, Henry Strother | Compton, Lord Alwyne |
| Balfour, Rt Hn Gerald W (Leeds | Cavendish, R. F. (N. Lancs.) | Cook, Sir Frederick Lucas |
| Balfour, Maj K R (Christchurch | Cavendish, V. C. W (Derbyshire | Corbett, T. L. (Down, North) |
| Banbury, Frederick George | Cayzer, Sir Charles William | Cox, Irwin Edward Bainbridge |
| Bartley, George C. T. | Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor) | Cross, Herb. Shepherd (Bolton) |
| Beach, Rt Hn. Sir M. H. (Bristol) | Cecil, Lord Hugh (Greenwich) | Dickson, Charles Scott |
| Dorington, Sir John Edward | Leveson-Gower, Frederick N. S | Pretyman, Ernest George |
| Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers- | Long, Rt. Hn Walter (Bristol, S. | Purvis, Robert |
| Doxford, Sir William Theodore | Lowe, Francis William | Pym, C. Guy |
| Duke, Henry Edward | Lowther, Rt. Hon. James (Kent | Randles, John S. |
| Durning-Lawrence, Sir Edwin | Loyd, Archie Kirkman | Ratcliffe, R. F. |
| Fellowes, Hon. Ailwyn Edw. | Lucas, Col. Francis (Lowestoft) | Renshaw, Charles Bine |
| Finch, George H. | Macartney, Rt. Hn. W G Ellison | Ridley, Hon. M. W (Stalybridge |
| Finlay, Sir Robert Bannatyne | Macdona, John Cumming | Ridley, S. F. (Bethnal Green) |
| Fisher, William Hayes | Maconochie, A. W. | Ritchie, Rt. Hn. Chas. Thomson |
| Fitzroy, Hon. Edward A. | M'Arthur, Charles (Liverpool | Ropner, Colonel Robert |
| Fletcher, Sir Henry | M'Calmont, Col. J. (Antrim, E.) | Sackville, Col. S. G. Stopford- |
| Flower, Ernest | M'Iver, Sir Lewis (Edinburgh W | Sadler, Col. Samuel Alexander |
| Forster, Henry William | M'Killop, James (Stirlingshire) | Sinclair, Louis (Romford) |
| Gordon, J. (Londonderry, South | Majendie, James A. H. | Smith, H C (N'rth'umb Tynes'de |
| Gorst, Rt. Hon. Sir J. Eldon | Malcolm, Ian | Smith, Hon. W. F. D. (Strand |
| Gray, Ernest (West Ham) | Martin, Richard Biddulph | Spear, John Ward |
| Green, Walford D (Wednesbu'y | Maxwell, Rt. Hn Sir H E (Wigtn | Stanley, Lord (Lancs.) |
| Greene, Henry D. (Shrewsbury) | Maxwell, W J H (Dumfriesshire | Stewart, Sir M. J. M'Taggart |
| Hamilton, Rt Hn Lrd G. (Midd'x | Mildmay, Francis Bingham | Stroyan, John |
| Hamilton, Marqof (L'nd'nderry | Molesworth, Sir Lewis | Thorburn, Sir Walter |
| Hanbury, Rt. Hn. Robert W. | Montagu, G. (Huntingdon) | Tollemache, Henry James |
| Hardy, Laurence (Kent, Ashf'd) | Moore, William (Antrim, N.) | Tomlinson, Wm. Edw. Murray |
| Harris, Frederick Leverton | Morgan, David J. (Walthams'w | Valentia, Viscount |
| Hay, Hon. Claude George | Morrell, George Herbert | Walker, Col. William Hall |
| Heath, Arthur H. (Hanley) | Morris, Hon. Martin Henry F. | Wanklyn, James Leslie |
| Heath, James (Staffords, N.W. | Morrison, James Archibald | Warde, Colonel C. E. |
| Heaton, John Henniker | Morton, Arthur H. A. (Deptford | Webb, Colonel William George |
| Henderson, Alexander | Mowbray, Sir Robert Gray C. | Whiteley, H. (Aston und. Lyne |
| Hope, J. F. (Sheffield Brightside | Murray, Rt Hn A Graham (Bute) | Whitmore, Charles Algernon |
| Hudson, George Bickersteth | Nicholson, William Graham | Willox, Sir John Archibald |
| Hutton, John (Yorks., N. R) | Nicol, Donald Ninian | Wills, Sir Frederick |
| Jebb, Sir Richard Claverhouse | Norton, Capt. Cecil William | Wilson, J. W. (Worcestersh., N. |
| Johnston, William (Belfast) | O'Neill, Hon. Robert Torrens | Wodehouse, Rt. Hn. E. R. (Bath |
| Johnstone, Heywood (Sussex) | Orr-Ewing, Charles Lindsay | Wolff, Gustav Wilhelm |
| Keswick, William | Palmer, Walter (Salisbury) | |
| Law, Andrew Bonar | Parkes, Ebenezer | TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Sir William Walrond and Mr. Anstruther. |
| Lawrence, Wm. F. (Liverpool) | Peel, Hn. Wm. Robert W. | |
| Lawson, John Grant | Pemberton, John S. G. | |
| Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage | Platt-Higgins, Frederick |
Original Question put, and agreed to.
§ 7. Motion made, and Question proposed, "That a sum, not exceeding £12,938, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1902, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Public Record Office."
§ SIR THOMAS ESMONDE (Wexford, N.)said that the Vote was a very important one, and one which they had rarely an opportunity of discussing. It was some years since the interesting subjects connected with the Vote had been discussed. He desired to make a suggestion which he thought would meet with the approval of the Committee. Why should not the calendars and historical documents published by the Record Office be given to Members, as were the Reports of the Historical Manuscripts Committee? The calendars 524 did not stand on the same footing as the Reports of the Historical Manuscripts Committee because they were brought out under different auspices, and therefore Members could not claim to have them supplied free, but, inasmuch as the House of Commons voted the money for the publication of the calendars, hon. Members had a perfect right to say under what conditions they should be published, and also that they should be supplied to hon. Members as were the Reports of the Historical Manuscripts Committee. There was another point he wished to raise. These calendars were supplied gratis to a number of public institutions and to certain colleges and public libraries. He should like to know on what system the allocation was made, and what qualification entitled a public institution to obtain the calendars free. He thought the calendars ought to be given free to all college libraries, and to all schools above a certain standard. In Ireland, at all events, there was a 525 great desire on the part of a number of colleges to have the calendars, and several of them had applied to the gentleman at the head of the department to be supplied with them free, but the applications were refused. He thought that hon. Members had a perfect right to receive the calendars free, and that they also ought to be given to all public libraries. In Sub-head C a sum of money was taken for the investigation of documents in the archives of Rome. As to that he had nothing to say. An extremely able man, who worked with great industry and energy, was entrusted with the work, and the result of his labours was very satisfactory. Then there was the investigation of documents in the archives of Simancas, in Spain, for which £150 was allocated. The only complaint he had to make regarding it was that it was a very small sum indeed for the investigation of historical manuscripts in Spain, where there were many valuable collections which related to England as well as to Ireland, and he thought a larger sum should be devoted to their investigation. In the college of Salamanca there was on enormous mass of historical manuscripts which were untouched up to the present, and he thought it would be well worthy of the consideration of those responsible for the working of the Record Office whether a sum should not be allocated for their investigation. He was glad to see that a sum of £220 was allocated for the investigation of documents in the archives of Venice, and he should like to know when the next publication regarding them would be published. He observed that the publication of the State Papers of the time of William III. preceded the publication of the State Papers of the time of Henry VIII. It would be much better if the publications were carried out in sequence, so that all the information would be properly available. His principal grievance in connection with the Vote was, however, that the money allocated for the publication and calendering of Irish State Papers was extremely inadequate. Only £240 was devoted to that purpose. There was an enormous mass of most valuable historical Papers in Ireland which were not yet published. The request he would urge on the 526 Government, and he hoped the Secretary to the Treasury would consider it, was that there should be an Irish Record Commission, independent of the English Record Commission, which should have a certain sum of money allocated to it, and should be formed of men who took an interest in Irish historical documents and Irish history generally, and who would be entrusted with the work of publishing various Irish historical manuscripts and State Papers. At present Irish State Papers were only published occasionally, and the lion's share of the money was spent in publishing English records. In England there was a magnificent Record Office, where public documents were kept in an admirable way. In Ireland there was no such satisfactory arrangement, and Irish records had met with terrible losses from fire and other causes. He wanted to preserve them from similar losses in future, and he thought it was a matter of urgency that some definite steps should be taken in regard to the publication of Irish State records. He therefore urged the establishment of an Irish Record Commission, and to emphasise his request, and also his suggestion that the publications of the Record Office should be supplied gratis to hon. Members and also to college libraries, he would move the reduction of the Vote by £500.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That a sum, not exceeding £12,438, be granted for the said Service."—(Sir Thomas Esmonde.)
§ MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINsaid that everyone must recognise the interest the hon. Baronet took in the subject, as well as the interest of the subject itself, and also sympathise with his desire that these publications should proceed more rapidly. No doubt many hon. Members shared the desire of the hon. Baronet that these volumes should be obtainable in the same way as the publications of the Historical Manuscripts Commission. He was sorry that the hon. Baronet had not given him some indication beforehand of the points he intended to raise, because he would then have taken care to have prepared himself, and been able to speak with more confidence than he was. Not knowing the difference 527 between the publications of the Record Office and the Historical Manuscripts Commission, he did not like to pledge himself, but he would look into the matter. The same remark applied to the request of the hon. Baronet that the publications should be supplied free to college libraries. He would like to inquire as to the number of the volumes to be supplied. He was not able to answer the hon. Baronet's question as to the terms and conditions on which the present distribution was made, but he would inquire into that point also. The hon. Baronet would see that his demands tended in the opposite direction to all the criticisms they had heard during the evening. Hitherto the Government had been reproached for not being more economical, but the hon. Baronet's speech was the other side of the picture. He confessed he felt prima facie indisposed to establish a separate Record Commission for Ireland unless there were real necessity. He thought it would inevitably lead to greater expense for the same production. The sums allocated to the various investigations to which the hon. Baronet referred were framed so as to enable the work to be carried on on the lines on which it had hitherto been carried out. A considerable number of records had been published in recent years, and at present there were nine or ten sets of volumes, of which a
§ certain number were expected to be issued during the present year. With reference to Irish State Papers, two volumes had been published relating to the period between 1310 and 1320, eight volumes relating to the period between 1370 and 1379, eight volumes relating to the period between 1509 and 1600, and five volumes relating to the period between 1606 and 1625. He should be very glad to hear any further representations that the hon. Baronet desired to make to him on the subject.
§ SIR THOMAS ESMONDEsaid he was much obliged to the hon. Gentleman. The present system started very well in Ireland, but for some reason or other, whether it was the expense or the inability to decide on the documents to be published, it stopped short. He recognised the goodwill with which the Secretary to the Treasury had answered him, and he was sorry he had not given the hon. Gentleman notice of the points he intended to raise. In order, however, to emphasise the anxiety he felt for the establishment of an Irish Record Commission he would divide the Committee.
§ Question put.
§ The Committee divided. Ayes, 96; Noes, 166. (Division List No. 198.)
529| AYES. | ||
| Abraham, William (Cork, N. E. | Edwards, Frank | M'Dermott, Patrick |
| Allen, Chas. P. (Glouc, Stroud | Evans, Samuel T. (Glamorgan) | M'Govern, T. |
| Bayley, Thomas (Derbyshire) | Farrell, James Patrick | Mooney, John J. |
| Black, Alexander William | Ffrench, Peter | Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen) |
| Blake, Edward | Flavin, Michael Joseph | Morton, Edw. J. C. (Devonport) |
| Boland, John | Flynn, James Christopher | Murphy, J. |
| Bolton, Thomas Dolling | Foster, Sir Walter (Derby Co.) | Nannetti, Joseph P. |
| Brigg, John | Gilhooly, James | Nolan, Joseph (Louth, South) |
| Burke, E. Haviland- | Goddard, Daniel Ford | Nussey, Thomas Willans |
| Caldwell, James | Harmsworth, R. Leicester | O'Brien, Kendal (Tipper'ry Mid |
| Campbell, John (Armagh, S.) | Harwood, George | O'Brien, P. J. (Tipperary, N.) |
| Cawley, Frederick | Hayden, John Patrick | O'Connor, Jas. (Wicklow, W.) |
| Channing, Francis Allston | Hayne, Rt. Hon. Charles Seale- | O'Donnell, John (Mayo, S.) |
| Clancy, John Joseph | Holland, William Henry | O'Donnell, T. (Kerry, W.) |
| Condon, Thomas Joseph | Jones, Wm. (Carnarvonshire) | O'Dowd, John |
| Craig, Robert Hunter | Joyce, Michael | O'Kelly, Conor (Mayo, N.) |
| Crean, Eugene | Lambert, George | O'Malley, William |
| Cremer, William Randal | Layland-Barratt, Francis | O'Mara, James |
| Cullinan, J. | Leamy, Edmund | O'Shee, Jas. John |
| Daly, James | Leese, Sir Joseph F. (Accrington | O'Shaughnessy, P. J. |
| Delany, William | Lloyd-George, David | Partington, Oswald |
| Dewar, John A. (Inverness-sh. | Lundon, W. | Pearson, Sir Weetman D. |
| Dillon, John | MacDonnell, Dr. Mark A. | Power, Patrick Joseph |
| Donelan, Captain A. | Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J. | Priestley, Arthur |
| Doogan, P. C. | M'Cann, James | Reddy, M. |
| Duncan, J. Hastings | M'Crae, George | Redmond, John E. (Waterford |
| Redmond, William (Clare) | Sullivan, Donal | Williams, Osmond (Merioneth) |
| Rigg, Richard | Tennant, Harold John | Wilson, John (Durham, Mid. |
| Roche, John | Tully, Jasper | Young, Samuel (Cavan, East) |
| Scott, Chas. Prestwich (Leigh | Walton, Joseph (Barnsley) | Yoxall, James Henry |
| Shaw, Thomas (Hawick B.) | White, Luke (York, E. R.) | TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Sir Thomas Esmonde and Mr. Patrick O'Brien. |
| Shipman, Dr. John G. | White, Patrick (Meath, North) | |
| Soares, Ernest J. | Whitley, J. H. (Halifax) | |
| NOES. | ||
| Acland-Hood, Capt. Sir Alex. F. | Gordon, Maj Evans- (T'rH'ml'ts | Nicholson, William Graham |
| Arkwright, John Stanhope | Gorst, Rt. Hon. Sir John Eldon | Nicol, Donald Ninian |
| Arnold-Forster, Hugh O. | Gray, Ernest (West Ham) | |
| Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John | Green, Walford D (Wednesbury | O'Neill, Hon. Rbt. Torrens |
| Austin, Sir John | Greene, Henry D. (Shrewsbury) | Orr-Ewing, Charles Lindsay |
| Grenfell, William Henry | ||
| Bagot, Capt. Josceline FitzRoy | Palmer, Walter (Salisbury) | |
| Bain, Colonel James Robert | Hamilton, Rt Hn. Ld. G (Midd'x | Parkes, Ebenezer |
| Balfour, Rt Hon. A. J. (Manch'r | Hamilton, Marqof (L'nd'nderry | Peel, Hn. Wm Robert Wellesley |
| Balfour, Capt. C. B. (Hornsey | Hanbury, Rt. Hon. Robert Wm. | Pemberton, John S. G. |
| Balfour, Rt. Hn. G. W. (Leeds | Hardy, Laurence (Kent, Ashf'd | Platt-Higgins, Frederick |
| Balfour, Maj K R (Christchurch | Harris, Frederick Leverton | Plummer, Walter R. |
| Banbury, Frederick George | Hay, Hon. Claude George | Pretyman, Ernest George |
| Beach, Rt. Hn Sir M. H. (Bristol) | Heath, Arthur Howard (Hanley | Purvis, Robert |
| Bentinck, Lord Henry C. | Heath, James (Staffords., N. W. | |
| Bigwood, James | Henderson, Alexander | Randles, John S. |
| Bill, Charles | Hickman, Sir Alfred | Rankin, Sir James |
| Bond, Edward | Hobhouse, C. E. H. (Bristol, E. | Ratcliffe, R. F. |
| Boscawen, Arthur Griffith | Hope, J. F. (Sheff'ld, Brightside | Renshaw, Charles Bine |
| Brodrick, Rt. Hn. St. John | Howard, John (Kent, Faversh. | Ridley, Hn. M. W. (Stalybridge |
| Bull; William James | Hudson, George Bickersteth | Ridley, S. Forde (Bethnal Green |
| Hutton, John (Yorks, N.R.) | Ritchie, Rt. Hon. Charles T. | |
| Cautley, Henry Strother | Rolleston, Sir John F. L. | |
| Cavendish, R. F. (N. Lancs.) | Jebb, Sir Richard Claverhouse | Ropner, Colonel Robert |
| Cavendish, V. C. W. (Derbysh. | Jessel, Capt. Herbert Merton | |
| Cayzer, Sir Charles William | Johnston, William (Belfast) | |
| Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor) | Johnstone, Heywood (Sussex) | Sackville, Col. S. G. Stopford- |
| Cecil, Lord Hugh (Greenwich) | Sadler, Col. Samuel Alexander | |
| Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. J. (Birm. | Keswick, William | Seely, Charles Hilton (Lincoln) |
| Chamberlain, J Austen (Worc'r | Simeon, Sir Barrington | |
| Chapman, Edward | Law, Andrew Bonar | Sinclair, Louis (Romford) |
| Clare, Octavius Leigh | Lawrence, Joseph (Monmouth | Smith, H. C (Northmb Tyneside |
| Coghill, Douglas Harry | Lawson, John Grant | Smith, Jas. Parker (Lanarks.) |
| Collings, Rt. Hon. Jesse | Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage | Smith, Hon. W. F. D. (Strand) |
| Colomb, Sir John Charles Ready | Leveson-Gower, Frederick N. S | Spear, John Ward |
| Colston, Chas. Edw.H. Athole | Lockwood, Lt.-Col. A. R. | Stanley, Lord (Lancs.) |
| Compton, Lord Alwyne | Long, Rt. Hon. W. (Bristol, S. | Stewart, Sir Mark J. M'Taggart |
| Cook, Sir Frederick Lucas | Lowe, Francis William | Stroyan, John |
| Corbett, T. L. (Down, North | Loyd, Archie Kirkman | |
| Cox, Irwin Edward Bainbridge | Lucas, Col. Francis (Lowestoft | Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester) |
| Cranborne, Viscount | Tomlinson, Wm. Edw. Murray | |
| Cross, Herb. Shepherd (Bolton) | Macartney, Rt. Hon. W. G. E. | |
| Macdona, John Cumming | Valentia, Viscount | |
| Dairymple, Sir Charles | Maconochie, A. W. | |
| Dickson, Charles Scott | M'Arthur, Charles (Liverpool) | Walker, Col. William Hall |
| Dorington, Sir John Edward | M'Calmont, Col, J. (Antrim, E. | Warde, Colonel C. E. |
| Douglas, Rt. Hon. Akers- | M'Iver, Sir Lewis (Edinburgh W | Warner, Thos. Courtenay T. |
| Doxford, Sir William Theodore | Majendie, James A. H. | Webb, Col. Wm. George |
| Duke, Henry Edward | Malcolm, Ian | Whiteley, H. (Ashton-u-Lyne |
| Durning-Lawrence, Sir Edwin | Martin, Richard Biddulph | Whitmore, Charles Algernon |
| Dyke, Rt. Hon. Sir Wm. H. | Maxwell, Rt Hn Sir H E (Wigt'n | Williams, Col. R. (Dorset) |
| Maxwell, W. J. H. (Dumfriessh. | Willox, Sir John Archibald | |
| Fellowes, Hon. Ailwyn Edw. | Mildmay, Francis Bingham | Wills, Sir Frederick |
| Fergusson, Rt. Hn. Sir J. (Manc. | Molesworth, Sir Lewis | Wilson, J. W. (Worcestereh, N.) |
| Finch, George H. | Montagu, G. (Huntingdon) | Wodehouse, Rt. Hn. E. R. (Bath |
| Finlay, Sir Robert Bannatyne | Moore, William (Antrim N.) | Wolff, Gustav Wilhelm |
| Fisher, William Hayes | Morgan, David J (Walthamst'w | Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George |
| Fitzroy, Hon. Edward Algernon | Morrell, George Herbert | |
| Flower, Ernest | Morris, Hon. Martin Henry F. | Younger, William |
| Forster, Henry William | Morrison, James Archibald | |
| Morton, Arthur H A. (Deptford | TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Sir William Walrond and Mr. Anstruther. | |
| Galloway, William Johnson | Mowbray, Sir Robert Gray C. | |
| Gordon, J. (Londonderry, South | Murray, Rt Hn A Graham (Bute |
Question put, and agreed to.
§ Original Question again proposed.
§ MR. WILLIAM REDMOND (Clare, E.)asked for an explanation with regard to a footnote stating that certain officials received from £30 to £40 per annum out of the Vote for Temporary Commissions for calendaring the Cecil manuscripts. What exactly were these Cecil manuscripts, and would they give the record of the Cecil family up to date? For instance, would they show how many members of the family were in the present Government?
§ MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINreplied that these manuscripts were not modern documents. They were published by the Historical Manuscripts Commission, being Papers of great historical interest.
§ 8. £4, to complete the sum for Public Works Loan Commission.
§ 9. £36,430, to complete the sum for Registrar General's Office, England.
§ 10. £33,450, to complete the sum for Works and Public Buildings Office.
§ MR. WILLIAM REDMONDcalled the attention of the First Commissioner of Works to the accommodation provided for the telegraph department in the House. That accommodation was outrageously bad, sixteen men and boys having to live, eat, and work for the greater part of the day and night in a small room which really was not fit for the accommodation of one person.
§ THE FIRST COMMISSIONER OF WORKS (Mr. AKERS DOUGLAS,) Kent, St. Augustine'sAs a matter of courtesy, I may say that we are going to consider the matter referred to by the hon. Member.
§ Resolutions to be reported upon Monday next; Committee to sit again upon Monday next.