§ THE EARL OF DERBY—My Lords, when a charge has been made in your Lordships' House affecting an individual or a public body, your Lordships are always willing to afford an opportunity of explanation. If it be true that the greater the authority from which the attack proceeds the greater is the injury done, I feel certain that I need not further apologize for adverting to a statement which was made in this House, by no less an authority than the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack, with reference to a breach of faith 555 alleged to have been committed by the University with which I have the honour of being closely connected—the University of Oxford. I am quite aware, and the University gratefully acknowledges, that the noble and learned Lord has been, on all occasions, actuated by the kindest feeling towards the University, and they recognize this feeling in the effort he has made to provide for the endowment of the Regius Professorship of Greek, and thus relieving the University from an embarrassing difficulty. For that reason I the more regret that the noble and learned Lord should have let fall expressions which went further than the impression he intended to convey, and which were certainly highly disparaging to the University of Oxford. The noble and learned Lord's words were—
The best mode would undoubtedly be for the University to do that which justice and reason pointed out, and which, in fact, good faith dmanded, for the University had received great gifts from the Crown, with the understanding that the duty of endowing public Professorships should be fulfilled on their part.On the second reading of the Bill, the noble and learned Lord is reported to have said—The University of Oxford had received certain pecuniary exemptions on the understanding that it would make proper provision for its Professors. It had got an exemption from stamp-duties on its degrees; it had got an exemption with regard to patent fees to the amount of £12,000 or £14,000 a year.Now the latter part of that paragraph is a manifest error, and upon referring to The Standard of the same date I find the following passage:—Their Lordships were aware that the University had received great pecuniary benefits on the understanding that they would make proper provision for the Professors. First of all, they enjoyed an exemption from stamp duties on degrees; the University was also exempted from the patent of the Queen's Printer—a benefit amounting in value, he was informed, to £12,000 or £14,000 a year.I think the noble and learned Lord is mistaken as to the amount, though there is no doubt that the privilege of being exempt from the patent of the Queen's Printer has been very valuable. The question is whether the grants which have been made to the University have been made on the understanding or for the purpose of empowering the University to endow Professorships and pay salaries. I may remind the House that it is only within a comparatively recent period that the professorial system has 556 come into actual operation. When I was an undergraduate, although there were Professors for various branches of education, the whole business of the University was carried on by the tutorial and not by the professorial system, and I will undertake to say that at that time not one undergraduate out of a hundred was aware of the existence of a Greek or Latin Professor. I do not deny that the Universities have accepted great emolument from the Crown; but what I complain of is that they have been charged with not fulfilling the engagement or understanding upon which they accepted that emolument. The noble and learned Lord certainly gave an explanation which could not be offensive to the University; but certainly it was not the impression made on your Lordships and on the public; and in order to show the impression produced elsewhere, I will, with your Lordships' permission, quote an extract from an article which appeared in The Times—It is scarcely sufficiently remembered in discussing the question that the University is actually bound as a mere matter of good faith, as it has been put by the Lord Chancellor without contradiction, to provide the endowment for this Regius Professorship. The Crown some few years ago abandoned stamp duties on giving degrees and other occasions to the amount of more than £12,000 a year, and the reduction was made on the clear understanding that the University would undertake the endowment of the Regius Professorships still insufficiently paid.… The Crown, in point of fact, has given the University a large sum of money on the understanding that a portion of it shall be applied to this purpose; and to refuse to supply it is, to say the least of it, a breach of faith.I do not complain of this article, provided the facts are correctly set forth; but I deny that they are correctly stated, and with your Lordships' permission, I will proceed for a very few moments to point out how the case actually stands, and what are the engagements which were entered into by the Universities in consequence of the endowments from the Crown. The exemption was originally made in the time of Charles I., and has continued ever since in both the Universities. Up to this hour, however, I have never understood that the grant was made subject to any obligation for the endowment of any Professorship whatever. That disposes of the largest part of the charge of the noble and learned Lord. By confounding two things, the noble and learned Lord has given a colour to the charge — that, inasmuch as the University has not endowed a certain 557 Professorship, therefore they are liable to the imputation of breach of faith, because in the cases of other endowments where there has been a distinct engagement, that engagement has been acted upon. The facts as to the remission of the tax upon matriculations and degrees are these. In 1815, when every possible subject for taxation was eagerly sought after, a stamp duty was for the first time imposed upon matriculations and degrees. After enduring for forty years, the tax was remitted in 1854, upon the recommendation of the University Commissioners. The tax only produced about £2,400 a year, and it was then remitted. But there was a great difference between presenting to the University a sum of £2,400 a year, and simply taking off a tax with which the University had been burdened for forty years. This remission of taxation has been put forward as a gift to the University, in consequence of which that body undertook to perform certain engagements. It is quite true that when that tax was taken off, the University did accept certain conditions, and did consent to be charged again with certain fees. The University was to pay certain sums to certain Professors. Those sums were originally charged upon the Civil List, but were subsequently placed in the annual Votes made by Parliament. The total sum voted by Parliament for those Professors was £953 a year. The first act of the University after the remission of the stamp duty, was to make a corresponding reduction in the amount of fees payable upon matriculations and degrees, thus deriving for itself no benefit from the remission of the tax. But the University also undertook the duty of providing the £953 a year to the Professors, and in the Act of Parliament passed in 1854, it was provided that the stamp duties should be remitted as soon as due provision had been made for the payment of the Professors of the University. That was a distinct obligation, subject to which the stamp duty was given up. The University in fulfilment of that obligation, has, in addition to the £953 which it undertook to provide, actually paid to the Professors a sum of £1,250 a year, thus more than doubling the contribution they had undertaken to make. The University has also endowed other Professorships to the extent of £1,750 a year. We have the clearest evidence, that of Parliament, that the University has fulfilled the obligation which it took upon itself. In the 558 preamble to the Act of the 18 & 19 Vict, c. 36 it is declared—And whereas by a statute of the said University adopted by Convocation the 31st day of day, 1855, provision has been made for the payment out of the University chest, of the salaries and allowances to certain Professors of the said University, mentioned in the schedule to this Act (being the same salaries and allowances as were heretofore annually voted by Parliament to the same Professors), and the Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury are satisfied that such statute is a due provision in lieu of the moneys heretofore voted annually by Parliament, as intended by the said Act; be it enacted," &c.I think I have shown your Lordships that there was no understanding, engagement, or condition as to the endowment of this, that, or the other Professorship—that there was never any obligation, except the generally implied obligation of supplying a University education. I have shown that when the stamp duty was remitted, the duty which the University took upon itself has been more than fulfilled. It is, therefore, hard upon the University that the noble and learned Lord, with his high position and great authority, should have used expressions—stronger, perhaps, than he intended, but which conveyed a wrong impression to the House, and to the public through the columns of the newspapers, and especially of that journal which I believe has a wider circulation than any other in the world; and this has given to The Times ground for introducing into a leading article a specific charge against the University of having received money upon the promise of performing certain acts, which acts they have not performed. If such a charge could be substantiated, I should not be so proud as I am now of my connection with that University; but I think your Lordships will agree that the statement I have made relieves that body of an imputation of bad faith which, coming from so important a source, could not fail to produce a very bad impression upon the public mind.
THE LORD CHANCELLORMy Lords, I would be the last person to desire to bring any charge against the University of Oxford. Even if a charge were well founded, I would rather cast a veil over the offence than expose it to the public view. I am sorry that the noble Earl has entered into this matter at such length, because it might have been sufficient to have withdrawn the words attributed to me — I cannot tell why or wherefore—as imputing to the University of Oxford that they had violated a distinct understanding. I cer- 559 tainly did not use any such words. It is difficult to rely upon words spoken in debate; but, subject to correction of the noble Earl's recollection and the reports in the newspapers, I may say that it never entered into my mind that in respect to any of the gifts to the University there had been anything like a distinct understanding or compact with the Government or with Parliament. But if the noble Earl means to put it that because there was no understanding therefore there was no obligation, I must take the liberty of saying that a greater error cannot exist. The understanding in these matters would be the obligation to do that which it is the duty of the University to do. I speak upon this matter with some anxiety, and desire, if possible, to speak with the same care as though I were speaking from the bench of the Court of Chancery. The nature of the obligation, and the manner in which it has been carried out by the University, can be gathered from the statement of the noble Earl. The University has fulfilled its duty by endowing every Professorship but one — the Professorship of Greek. Has the University recognized no duty in making those endowments? Has the University any justification for not endowing that Professorship? and, if so, on what does that justification rest? Is it a right thing to have a Professor performing his duties in an eminently satisfactory manner, and yet to endeavour to starve him out of the University? Is it a becoming thing in the University to say we will punish you for your heterodoxy by refusing you a just remuneration for your labour? Is it a becoming thing in the University to take advantage of the labours of a Professor in instructing the youth committed to its care, and be obliged to acknowledge that those labours are performed in a manner unexampled for industry, "care, and success, and yet to refuse him the common rewards of his toil? Now, let me show your Lordships what is the nature of the obligation into which the University has entered. The noble Earl has stated quite correctly, that the original gift to the University was by patent enabling them to print every description of hook, and that this has been considered by courts of justice to operate as an exception to the patent of the Queen's Printer, and to give the University the power of printing the Bible and Prayer Book. By the law as it now stands for the general security of the commonwealth and for the security of 560 religion, what I may denominate the copyright of the Old and New Testament is vested in the Crown. The Crown is in the habit of granting it to the Queen's Printer; but in the time of Elizabeth a grant was made to the University of the right of printing and publishing every description of book. I think the words used are, omnimodum librum. A Question subsequently arose between the Queen's Printer and the University of Cambridge, as to whether the antecedent patent to the University was overruled by the patent of the Queen's Printer, and there was a remarkable letter in the first volume of Burns' Ecclesiastical Law from Mr. Justice Foster, one of the Justices of the King's Bench, to Sir William Blackstone, who was then Vinerian Professor of Common Law at Oxford, in which he explained the reason of the decision then given. He says—
I thought it would be agreeable to you to know the issue of the cause. The word 'intrusted' was inserted by way of intimation to the University, that we consider the power given by the letters patent as a trust reposed in that learned body for public benefit, for the advancement of literature, and not to be transferred upon lucrative views to other hands.Now, if the University has received what the noble Earl states to be £12,000 a year—
§ THE EARL OF DERBYI said, on the contrary, that the amount had been exaggerated.
THE LORD CHANCELLORI beg pardon. I do not mean to fasten anything on the noble Earl; but the amount is generally supposed to be £12,000. But we will take it at £10,000. If the University has received £10,000 a year for the advancement of literature upon trust for the public benefit, and refuses to remunerate the labours of a Professor in order to starve him out of his heterodoxy, as it is called—that heterodoxy not at all interfering with his appointment — is it to be said that injustice has been done to a public body acting thus? I grieve to say so—because it was stated that what it had done was inconsistent with good faith, with justice, and with reason. Now, let us examine this a little. If you violate a trust, do you net with good faith? Will the noble Earl give an answer to that question? If the trust which attaches itself to all these benefits be violated, has the University preserved good faith? Are we to have the University vindicated on the special pica that there was no understanding? 561 If I receive money for performing a duty and say nothing, am I exempted from duty on the special plea that there was no understanding? Is that the language, feeling, and conduct of a man of honour? Is this the ethical lesson to be taught by the University charged with the duty of educating and instructing the youth of England? Is that to be the doctrine held up for the sanction of this House, the great court of appeal of the nation? I am sorry the defence of the University rests on no better ground. There is an old proverb that we should abstain from stirring up quod non bene olet, I wish the University had thought of this before they came here with such a defence. There is no greater duty of the University than that they should so conduct themselves as to impress those who come to them for instruction with a sense of their justice and their earnest desire to reward the instructors of youth. There is not a single Professor who is not endowed except this, There is not one who has so great a claim, And yet what does the University do? It drives young men in crowds to the chambers of this Professor, who are all most deservedly attached to him, and one of the greatest bonds of union between them is the sense of injustice with which he has been treated by the University. Is that consistent with reason? Let me for one moment call your attention to the manner in which this matter was put to the University itself. I have here an argument used before it, and with your Lordships' permission I will adopt a few words of it as a portion of my answer to the noble Earl. "But if we are told," says the speaker, "that a person who takes an office, ill paid (or rather not paid at all), yet having attached to it great, useful, and important functions (as a Professorship of Greek in this University has, for it is a disgrace and a blot on the University that it has never yet had a properly endowed chair of Greek); if we are told that such a person undertaking and discharging those functions and doing us thereby great, useful, and important services, doing for the University that which is really necessary should be done, has no claim on us whatever—if that is justice, I say that it is a kind of justice which may do for an attorney's office perhaps, or for a Government Department, but which is so narrow, so technical, I must add so ungenerous, that any man would be ashamed to act on it in private 562 life, and I hope we should be ashamed to insist upon it here," And that is good faith. You would be ashamed to refuse a man the reward for his labour, and take shelter in this, that you had employed him, but there was so understanding between you. That is what the University has done. Now, I leave the issue to your Lordships. But of this I am confident, that we do no injustice to the University in holding it up in its proper colours; because I am sure there are within and without the University faithful and devoted sons, who will see her rescued from this reproach. The noble Earl will permit one word more, and that is, to do an act of ordinary justice. When I brought forward this measure, let me assure you, I had no communication whatever with the Professor of Greek. I go farther—when that learned gentleman saw the Bill after it was brought in he wrote, through the medium of a friend, to me; and said, "I do not desire that this measure should be prosecuted. I would rather trust the University. I am content to go on labouring as I now labour; and I will trust to the University doing me justice in the end." The right rev. Bench will tell me whether that is not language conceived in a more Christian spirit than the proceedings on the part of the University. I am happy to add this remark to the unanimous testimony which is borne to the excellence of the learned Gentleman. I have thought it right to mention this, in order that your Lordships should not suppose that a measure, intended for the good of the University, had been brought forward on the authority, or with the sanction and for the benefit of that individual Professor.
§ THE EARL OF DERBYI did not state that the measure was not introduced for the advantage of the University. I did not enter into the question how far it was desirable that the University should make a grant to the present Professor of Greek. I only said it was quite sufficiently known on what grounds they had, whether wisely or not, decided. But what I did complain of was the statement made by the noble and learned Lord; and though he says he did not make use of the expression, it is singular that, in the reports of two successive debates, papers not at all connected with each other should have attributed it to the noble and learned Lord — namely, that there had been a 563 distinct understanding on this subject, which had been violated by the University.
§ THE EARL OF DERBYI am quite satisfied now that the noble and learned Lord has withdrawn the words as publicly as he made the charge. I only regret that he should have taken the occasion of the University wishing to protect themselves against what they felt to be a most unjust imputation, to make a fresh attack, and by implication repeating the charge which he in so many words repudiated. I cannot help thinking that the noble and learned Lord would have done better if he had frankly stated that he had not charged the University with any violation of an engagement or understanding.
THE LORD CHANCELLORThe noble Earl will pardon me for a moment. I distinctly charged the University with a violation of trust, but I certainly did not use the word "understanding."
§ THE EARL OF DERBYWith all respect, I must say that the noble and learned Lord has failed to show that the University has been guilty of any violation of trust. The words which the noble and learned Lord read to the House specified what was the kind of trust in question, and then the noble and learned Lord assumed, that because for particular reasons a certain Professorship has not been endowed, therefore the University has violated the general conditions of that trust, which referred to the promotion of literature and science, and the education of the young men committed to its care. I say the trust was so general in its terms, and the University has carried out its conditions so fully and literally, that the University ought to have been free from the censure which the noble and learned Lord has thought himself justified in passing upon it while professing to withdraw words which have naturally given great dissatisfaction, and which have led to representations in the public press that I hope the present conversation will satisfy the country at large were unfounded, and that certainly exaggerated even the view expressed by the noble and learned Lord, and, still more, I am willing to believe the real opinion entertained by him.
§ EARL GRANVILLEMy Lords, I entirely dissent from the rebuke which the 564 noble Earl has thought fit to bestow upon the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack. In the opinion expressed by the noble and learned Lord, that the obligations of justice have not been fulfilled by the University, I am sure most of your Lordships will concur. I think that this debate will lead to some practical benefit. My noble and learned Friend brought forward a measure which your Lordships have decided to postpone; hut I am glad to perceive that the debates which took place upon it have encouraged the University authorities to make a further attempt, which I hope will be successful, to do a mere act of justice to a very learned and eminent man, the present Professor of Greek. How does the case stand? Here is a distinguished Greek scholar, teaching, with singular energy and industry, and in a manner peculiar to himself, nearly all the ablest young men at the University; and while other Professorships are largely endowed—some with £600 a year, some with £900, and some even with £1,000—none with less than £300 a year, the amount of the remuneration granted to the Professor of Greek does not exceed £40 per annum. Several efforts have been made to increase that remuneration, and have been supported by the great majority of the teaching and intellectual residents at the University; hut, nevertheless, up to the present moment, they have been unsuccessful. What are the reasons urged—most conscientiously, no doubt—by the majority of the University against increasing the endowment of the Greek Professorship? One is that Professor Jowett is supposed to hold certain opinions on doctrinal matters which are not the opinions of the majority of the Oxford constituency. It appears to me that, as a matter of policy, it would be advisable for the University to hold itself neutral in these discussions on doctrinal points; but, apart from that, I cannot help thinking that the line adopted by the University is the most inconvenient and illogical that any learned body could assume. In the first place the University has not exercised the powers which it has of depriving Professor Jowett of the degrees which alone enable him to teach Greek; and, in the next place, not a single head of a College has ventured to prohibit any of his students from regularly attending the lectures of a man whose influence has naturally been increased by the students rightly thinking that he has been subjected to an unjust persecution. The University, while 565 not prohibiting its students from receiving anything baneful which Professor Jowett may be thought capable of imparting to them, and while enjoying the great advantage of having its ablest young men taught in the best possible manner a critical knowledge of Greek, tries, forsooth, to save its conscience by refusing a modest remuneration to the Professor. It appears to me impossible to stand upon that plea. There is another reason, which seems at first sight much more plausible; it is that the Greek Professor being nominated by the Crown, it is the business of the Crown, and not of the University, to find funds for his remuneration. That plea also cannot hold water. There are other Professorships which, if not wholly, are partially endowed by the University, and the endowments of which have been recently increased by the University; and yet the Professors are nominated by the Crown. Besides, I utterly dissent from the principle that the right of nomination or of election should necessarily, and, under all circumstances, rest with whoever supplies the endowment. In considering this question as between the Crown and the University I think the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack was justified in pointing to some of the pecuniary advantages which have recently been conferred upon the latter. I am not sure of the amount derived by the University from the privilege of printing the Bible and Prayer Book, but I know that in 1852 the average sum was about £11,000, and I should be surprised to hear that it is less in 1864. A considerable sum—£500 a year—was also granted to the University by the State as compensation for the abandonment of the monopoly of printing the Almanacs, and your Lordships will recollect that the University has been relieved when purchasing land from the provisions of the Mortmain Act. Within a comparatively short period, in fact, a large addition has been made to the income of the University.
§ THE EARL OF DERBYThere was a remission in 1854 of a tax imposed on the University in 1815, in the shape of a stamp on matriculations.
§ EARL GRANVILLEAnd that amounted to £2,400 a year; and when it was; remitted it improved the income of the University by that amount. When it was made, the endowment of the Professorships was in contemplation, and I cannot help thinking that at a time when the University was increasing the endowment of Professor- 566 ships it should not have entirely passed over one of the most successful, most eminent, and most deserving of its Professors. I should be sorry to say anything that might irritate or offend, and I have made these observations, not with any wish to wound the feelings of any man, but because I think they relate to matters that ought to be taken into consideration when this subject is next discussed at Oxford itself. The feeling of your Lordships undoubtedly is that the Greek Professorship should be properly endowed, and one of the reasons which induced a majority of your number to vole against the Bill of my noble and learned Friend was that it was clearly the duty of the University itself to provide the requisite funds. I trust that deliberately expressed opinion of your Lordships will have its due weight at Oxford and elsewhere.