Lords Sitting of 17 March 1873

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILL—Report—Victoria Embankment (Somerset House)* (28).
RESIGNATION OF MINISTERS.

  MINISTERIAL STATEMENT.
  EARL GRANVILLE: My Lords, on Thursday last your Lordships were good enough to adjourn this House for legislative business until to-day, in consequence of my having stated that, as the result of the vote of the previous morning, Mr. Gladstone and his Colleagues had respectfully offered their resignations to the Queen, and that her Majesty had been graciously pleased to accept them. On that afternoon the Queen sent for Mr. Disraeli; and the result of the communications between Her Majesty and Mr. Disraeli and Mr. Gladstone was, that yesterday evening Mr. Gladstone sent a communication to his former Colleagues with a view to their return to office. I therefore propose that your Lordships should adjourn again, to next Thursday, when I shall probably be in a position to give a more detailed explanation; and I trust your Lordships will abstain from coming to any conclusion as to what has occurred until you have heard that more detailed explanation.
  Moved, "That the House at its rising do adjourn to Thursday next."—(The Earl Granville.)
  THE DUKE OF RICHMOND: My Lords, I concur in the proposal of the noble Earl that this House should adjourn till Thursday; and I think your Lordships will feel that, under existing circumstances, I shall do well to abstain from saying anything with reference to the subject-matter on which the noble

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  Earl has touched. My right hon. Friend (Mr. Disraeli) will be prepared at the proper time, and in the proper place, to state the course which he has pursued.
  In reply to LORD CHELMSFORD,
  EARL GRANVILLEsaid, he proposed that the House should not sit for legislative business until Thursday; but, of course, it would meet in the mean time for judicial business.
  LORD BUCKHURSTsaid, as their Lordships had probably observed, it would not be competent to their Lordships under the existing law to deal with the scheme of the Endowed School Commissioners in respect of Emanuel Hospital, the time for interference having expired that day. He wished to ask what course it was proposed to pursue with regard to that and other schemes of the School Commissioners which were then upon their Lordships' Table.
  EARL GRANVILLEsaid, his right hon. Friend, the Vice President of the Council, had given Notice of his intention to introduce in the other House of Parliament a Bill to extend the time within which it was provided by the Endowed Schools Act 1869, that either House might present an Address against any scheme of Commissioners, which was now limited to 40 days, to four months in respect of certain schools, the schemes for which had been already laid before both Houses. These were the Emanuel Hospital, Westminster; Palmer's Almshouses, Westminster; Emery Hill's Almshouses, Westminster; and Theobald's School, Needham Market, Norfolk. As the 40 days had actually expired, the Bill was so far retrospective.
  LORD LYTTELTONsaid, he did not rise to make any objection to the proposal to defer the time for objecting to these schemes; but as the Motion of the noble Lord (Lord Buckhurst) in reference to Emanuel Hospital would also be postponed, he hoped their Lordships would also suspend their judgments with reference to certain printed circulars which had been sent to every Member of their Lordships' House except himself. Although these papers emanated from the Corporation of London he would undertake to say they were, and always had been, and would continue to be—no doubt unintentionally—full of inaccuracies. He hoped, therefore, their Lordships would not think them necessarily true, because they were issued from
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  the Corporation and were signed by the City Solicitor.
  Motion agreed to.
  House adjourned at a quarter past Five o'clock, 'till To-morrow, half Past Ten o'clock.