HC Deb 26 March 1923 vol 162 cc138-44
Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME

I beg to move to leave out the Clause.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer explained recently that he had examined all the various considerations bearing on the matter and was prepared not to proceed with the Clause. It was the desire of the Trustees, in making the Regulations, as far as possible to deal with all the cases which had been provided for, but I think it is the general feeling in the House that when all these provisions had to be made it was really hardly worth the trouble to pass the Clause. My right hon. Friend has had an opportunity of considering all these aspects of the case and is satisfied that the exceptions he was bound to make were very numerous, and he is prepared, after the general views expressed on Second Reading and in the Committee, to ask the House not to proceed with the Clause.

Mr. FOOT

Some of us were here on the 7th of the present month when the President of the Board of Trade played the part of the Duke of York and led his army up the hill. He has to-day led his army down the hill, and we have watched the second operation with very much more pleasure than we watched the first. The Government now desire to get rid of the Clause, and, although we all express our pleasure at that, yet having regard to its history, I think something should be said by way of decent burial. The proposal contained in the Clause has had a short life and a very exciting one. It was born seven or eight months ago of an unnatural political union, and it has led a very precarious existence. The parties to that union have since separated. I do not know how long the separation will last. I believe there has been some talk, by one of the parties at any rate, of the restitution of conjugal rights. In the meantime the child had disappeared, we hoped for ever, and it was certainly a surprise to us all when the President of the Board of Trade on the 7th of this month produced the child in this House and asked us all to acknowledge that it had very sturdy limbs. We did not think so. We did not think very much of it. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade, more out of loyalty to his chief than out of admiration of the child, lavished praise upon it later in the Debate. The Noble Lord had the conduct of the Measure in the Committee. It was by his own extreme exertions that the child was saved almost at the last moment by one vote. He will remember, and I think hon. Members will remember, what happened. The child was brought back. Great attacks were made on it. I think the newly-appointed nurse, the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, just rescued it from the hon. Member for Seaham (Mr. Webb), and it was found to the surprise of us all that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, of all people in the world, who only a couple of days before patted the child on the head and called it a little ray of sunshine, snatched it from the arms of the Financial Secretary to the Treasury and put it to death. That is the end, so we are told, of this proposal. I am not surprised that the Chancellor of the Exchequer is not in his place. I think he has hardly had time to get the blood washed off his hands. All we are concerned for is that this proposal shall have a decent burial. I hope when we bury it to-night, we shall recall the touching lines which were used on the death of a newly-born child— If I was so quickly done for, I wonder what I was begun for. The Government has complained all along, and has been complaining during the last few weeks, that it was not sufficient time to deal with the affairs of the nation. It is a very strange commentary on their complaints that they should have occupied the time of the House with this wretched proposal. They occupied time on the Second Reading; they occupied time in Grand Committee and caused the outflow of large quantities of printers' ink in the newspapers, and they have occupied the time of the House in questions later. [An HON. MEMBER: "You are wasting it now."] I think not. I think it is necessary that some comments should be made, and I hope before I supply reasons why I welcome the rejection of the proposal, I may be allowed to refer the Government to a line or two that appeared in the "Morning Post." last week. It was a Limerick, and it ran in this way—:— A cheerful old bear at the Zoo Said I never have time to feel blue. If it bores me, you know, To walk to and fro, I reverse it and walk fro and to'. That seems to be the policy of the Government in occupying the time of the House with so preposterous a proposal as this. I congratulate the Government on their responsiveness in this instance to the public demand. It is very rarely that the Press has been so unanimous as it has been during the last few weeks on this matter. I think Mr. Punch shot the last arrow that killed Cock Robin. At any rate all the Press have taken a very fair attitude on this question. I should like to know if it is possible to have an assurance that not merely is the Clause withdrawn now but it is withdrawn altogether.

Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME

The hon. Member is perhaps not aware that the Report stage of the Bill is the final stage before it reaches the Statute book.

Mr. FOOT

I am not speaking, as think the rest of the House will understand, of the Bill, because the right hon. Gentleman will remember that only a few months ago this actual proposal was contained in another Bill. All I want is the assurance—and I think the House would like to have it—that this folly is not to he repeated. If it is repeated, if they have any such intention in their mind, I hope the right hon. Gentleman or the Chancellor of the Exchequer will again consult the terms of the Act of Parliament, that set up the Museum, and they will find that under the terms of the Act of 1753 not only was free access on the part of the public stipulated for, but there was this further provision: The Museum and collection shall he preserved and maintained not only for the inspection of the learned and the curious but for the general use and benefit of the public. I hope this will be a lesson to the Government, and that it will put an end once and for all to these shabby proposals. It is quite possible for a junior clerk in a Government Department, who couples a, faculty for figures with an entire lack of imagination and intelligence, to make all kinds of suggestions for increasing the national revenue. Turnstiles may be put round our public parks and commons, and admission fees might he charged for our abbeys and cathedrals, and even for the Galleries of this House. That might Ice called economy, but it would really be money received at the expense of the impoverishment of the nation. There is nothing that reconciles the taxpayer so much to the burden of taxation as letting him know he can get something for his money. Carrying out that suggestion, will the Government act upon these lines —let the people freely enjoy their own property and let the children grow up to know that great treasures like the museums and our great buildings are part of the common inheritance, and make easy the access to beautiful things. Take away the turnstiles and the high walls, throw open as much as you can, and lock up as little as you can. Seeing that the right hon. Gentleman in his speech on the 7th of this month used the illustration of the National Gallery to justify this proposal, let me ask the Government now to go on so that the National Gallery may be free, just as they insist that the Museum shall be, and instead of spending so much money to keep people out, why not spend some part of the same money to bring people in?

I will ask the House to allow me to give one quotation from someone who will command authority in this House, which was written many years ago upon a theme very similar to the one we are now discussing. Oliver Goldsmith, in "A Citizen of the World," wrote the following on his visit to Westminster Abbey: Leaving this part of the Temple, we made up to an iron gate, through which, my companion told me, we were to pass in order to see the monuments of the Kings. Accordingly, I marched up without further ceremony, and was going to enter when the person who held the gate in his hands told me that I must pay him first. I was surprised at such a demand, and asked the man whether the people of England kept a show, whether the paltry sum he demanded was not a national reproach, and whether it was not more to the honour of the country to let their magnificence and antiquities he openly seen than thus meanly to tax the curiosity which tended to their own honour. It is because I believe the proposal in Clause 9 was a shabby proposal which would have degraded the nation that I am happy to support its withdrawal, and I am glad that in this instance the Government have yielded to what is a right public demand.

Mr. RAMSAY MacDONALD

I hope the Government will profit by the experience that it has had over this Clause. This is not merely an isolated Clause. It is the expression of a policy which the Government has been pursuing in regard to what it calls economy. I would beg the Government when it withdraws Clause 9 of this Bill on principle, to remember that it should apply the same principle in various other directions. The Government cannot economise by shutting off the treasures of the nation and allowing them to be enjoyed only by a small class of the nation. The whole principle of Clause 9 is this, that the Government, possessing great treasures, finds that certain people are prepared to pay entrance fees in order to enjoy those treasures—treasures of pictures, treasures of books, treasures of art, treasures of science. A paltry £10,000 is involved. I am sorry that the right hon. Gentleman said that it was because they had discovered they were not going to get much out of it that they have decided to withdraw the Clause. For goodness sake do not let us give these pettifogging reasons for such action as this.

Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME

The hon. Gentleman must not misunderstand what I said. I said that when we had made all the provisions which we thought absolutely necessary to enable all the persons to whom the hon. Member refers to have free access, that it would not be worth while putting a charge upon those who could pay.

Mr. MacDONALD

I am afraid that that was not the statement that was made, but I do not desire to misrepresent the right hon. Gentleman, and if I have done so I willingly withdraw. I heard the Noble Lord the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade telling us about the valuable £10,000 that were to be got out of this charge for admission. Then I heard the hon. Member for Sea-ham (Mr. Webb) asking how much the turnstiles would cost, and how much would have to be paid for someone to look after the entrance, and so on. These considerations are absolutely pettifogging, unworthy of this House and unworthy of the Government, when we are dealing with great national treasures such as we have in the British Museum at Bloomsbury and the Natural Science Museum at South Kensington. I congratulate those who have opposed this Clause. It is not the kind of economy that we want. This nation is not in the Bankruptcy Court yet; very far from it. This nation is not in a position that it has to save sixpences on the culture of the people that it is its duty to look after. The intellectual and the moral condition of our people is far more important than the money resources that the Government can get. We are not in a position that we need to save sixpences at the expense of that moral and intellectual culture. I hope the Government will remember the experience that it has had in trying to get this abominable Clause through the House of Commons, and that it will take thought and not practice economy at the expense of the minds and the moral character of the people of this country.

Question, "That Clause 9 stand part of the Bill," put, and negatived.