LORD HOUGHTON,in asking the Minister for Foreign Affairs to lay on the Table of the House any correspondence that might have taken place between the Government and the Representatives of Foreign Powers on the question of the conferring of decorations on British subjects not in the service of the Crown, said, that the noble Earl's answer might throw some light upon an erroneous public opinion as to the interference of the State with the wearing of Orders when conferred by foreign Governments upon English subjects. In 1873, previous to the Great International Exhibition at Vienna, he called the attention of the noble Earl the then Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Earl Granville) to the subject, and the noble Earl, in a less conclusive reply than he generally made to Questions addressed to him, failed to bring forward any Statute, Proclamation, Order in Council, or Public Act which could place any private Eng- 1264 lishman under restrictions in this matter. He wished that the object of his Question should not be misunderstood. He did not desire to interfere with the right of any Department, military or civil, to inhibit any person in that Department from receiving any marks of distinction from a foreign country except with the consent of the Sovereign. What he wanted to know was whether it was in the power of any Department of the State to inhibit any private Englishman from receiving any Order or decoration from a foreign Government unless he had the express permission of the Crown? The noble Earl's (Earl Granville's) reply to his Question two years ago was so inconclusive that it did not prevent the Austrian Government from giving decorations to the Commissioners, the jurors, and others interested in the Vienna Exhibition. Similar decorations were also given and accepted on the occasion of the great French Exhibition—in fact, no notice whatever was taken of the noble Earl's views on the Continent, and decorations had been given just as freely as if it never existed—it was in the prospect of similar Exhibitions in future that he asked the Question. Philosophers, no doubt, might say that the whole question of Orders and decorations was extremely frivolous; but as their Lordships were themselves the most decorated portion of the British public, it was not from them that such an objection should come. No doubt, these decorations were principally important to persons engaged in commerce who were brought into intercourse with foreign Governments—such as scientific discoverers, English mechanicians, chemists, &c. There were, however, foreign Orders and marks of favour bestowed upon men of letters and men of science, such as the Prussian Order Pour la Mérite, which comprised the most powerful intellects of the civilized world, and had been conferred upon Lord Macaulay, Mr. Carlyle, Professor Owen, Sir Henry Rawlinson, and other Englishmen. Yet he believed, that the bestowal of even that Order had been objected to by a public Department that could have nothing to do with the matter. Their Lordships must recollect an interesting debate raised by the late Lord Stanhope on the subject of decorating Englishmen eminent in science and letters. It was then stated that there was nothing in 1265 the present regulations which would prevent the Order of the Bath from being bestowed on men of eminence in science and letters, and it had been stated that the offer of the G.C.B. had been made by the present Prime Minister to Mr. Carlyle. He considered that it ought to be made clear whether there was any right on the part of the Foreign Office to prevent these Orders and decorations from being accepted and worn in this country. Upon the present occasion, however, he would confine himself to asking whether and to what extent the State could interfere with a mark of favour bestowed by a foreign Power upon a private Englishman?
§ THE EARL OF DERBYsaid, that his noble Friend had asked a Question which was not included or even necessarily involved in the Notice he had put on the Paper. That Notice had really been to ask for Papers, and as there were no Papers bearing on the general question of the conditions under which British subjects were entitled to receive and wear foreign Orders, he had been prepared to give his noble Friend that reply. There had, no doubt, been some correspondence with regard to individual cases, but it had turned upon the single point whether the particular case under discussion was or was not included in the Regulations laid down by the Foreign Office in 1870. He did not mean that there were no Regulations of an earlier date, but that was the last occasion on which they were revised. He did not think it necessary to go into the general question of the policy to which his noble Friend had adverted. This question was raised by the noble Lord three years ago; the noble Earl who preceded him in office (Earl Granville) made a reply, in which he stated the general policy of the Regulations in a clear and satisfactory manner, and with the general purport of that reply he entirely concurred. The question of policy was not now raised by the noble Lord; what he said was he would not rest until he had ascertained what were the rights of any Department of the State as to the acceptance by a British subject of Orders or decorations from a foreign Government given for scientific or other services. That, however, was not the Question he had put upon the Paper, and if he had desired an answer to it would have been simpler to have given Notice of a Ques- 1266 tion on the point to which his observations had been addressed. He could only answer the noble Lord off-hand; but he was ready to say this much—he apprehended the interference of the State with the acceptance of foreign decorations by private persons rested wholly upon the Regulations issued upon the authority of the then Secretary of State three years ago, which were only a repetition of former Regulations dated February, 1870. The first Regulation was to the effect that no subject of Her Majesty should wear such a decoration without having previously obtained Her Majesty's permission under the Royal sign manual. Subsequent Regulations stated certain exceptions to the general scope of the first. As to the question, What was the authority upon which the Regulations rest?—it was clear that they were laid down upon the authority of the Crown, and that any person in the service of the Crown would be fairly punishable for breaking through a rule which it was his official duty to observe. If his noble Friend asked what legal penalty any person not being in the service of the Crown rendered himself liable to if he chose to contravene the regulations and to wear a foreign Order, he could only say he believed that if the noble Lord or anyone else chose to wear such an Order, he might do it without any fear of the consequences, for he did not believe the Regulation rested upon any Act of Parliament, and he did not believe it could be enforced by any legal process. If a man wore an Order of this kind—even if he wore a decoration purporting to be a decoration from his own Government which he was not entitled to wear—he much doubted if such a proceeding was in any way punishable at law. The Regulation meant simply that the Crown did not authorize or recognize the acceptance of such marks of honour fromma foreign Government except under certain conditions which were laid down. It was intended that, in all but the excepted cases, these foreign Orders and decorations should not be worn at Court, and any person holding a public situation and wearing one of these Orders when in the performance of a public duty would be guilty of a gross breach of public decorum. He did not think the Regulations were, or were ever meant to be, legally enforceable, and that 1267 seemed to be the point on which the noble Lord desired information.
LORD HOUGHTONsaid, that what he wished to have decided was what were the legitimate powers of the Foreign Office, whether the Regulations issued applied to any other persons than those who were in the service of the Crown, and what power there was to apply these Regulations generally to the subjects of Her Majesty. He contended that the word "subjects" did not and could not mean private persons, who were not under the administrative authority of the Secretary of State; and he now inferred from what the noble Earl had stated that there was no legal authority to prevent the assumption and wearing of these Orders in this country.
§ EARL GRANVILLEsaid, there was a great distinction between those who were in the service of the Crown and the general public. The noble Lord (Lord Houghton), having taken three years to reply to his speech, had forgotten some things he had said, and had misquoted what he (Earl Granville) said about the opinions of two Sovereigns. It had never been historically accepted that Elizabeth said she "would mark her own sheep;" that remark was attributed to George III. What Elizabeth said, with somewhat of despotic coarseness, was—"I will not allow my dogs to wear any collars but my own." As he was not in office now he did not feel it incumbent on him to add anything to what the noble Earl (the Earl of Derby) had said, but he agreed in what had fallen from him. He felt regret that it was necessary to maintain the Regulations, because he knew many individuals who would like to wear foreign decorations. There was one argument the noble Lord did not use in support of the views of those who wished to wear them. When some one applied to Lord Melbourne for an Order, he expressed a doubt whether the applicant had established any claim to it; and the answer was—"The fact is, he is a very dressy man, and would show it off exceedingly well." In his own case, before he had the Order which he was proud of wearing, he had the offer of several European Orders, not for any merit of his own, but because he held certain offices of State; but under the Regulations he had refused them. He knew no one who was so likely as 1268 the noble Lord (Lord Houghton) to receive Orders from many countries, for he was well known on the Continent and beyond the Atlantic; and he was quite sure that honours would be most cheerfully given to him, and that they would become him very much. The only thing was, they would make him too cosmopolitan, for he already called the noble Earl the Secretary of State the "Minister" for Foreign Affairs; in his speech he had quoted French, and he was not quite sure he did not detect some Gallicisms. However, the occasion was not now so opportune for a discussion as it was the last time the question was raised. That was just before the opening of the Austrian Exhibition, when it was anticipated that Austria would desire to offer decorations in connection with that event. It was true there was now a great Exhihitionacross the Atlantic; but the Government of the United States as resolutely refused to allow foreign decorations to be worn by its citizens as it absolutely refused to dispense such decorations on its own account.
LORD ORANMORE AND BROWNEreminded their Lordships that last year he had brought the subject of the assumption of foreign titles before the House. This was more important than the wearing of foreign Orders, for if a British subject had gone to the recent Royal reception at the Guildhall covered with foreign decorations he would only have rendered himself ridiculous; but if a British subject claiming to hold a foreign title had been invited by that title, and had been accorded precedence in virtue of that foreign title, that would have been an acceptance and endorsement of it of considerable importance. An eminent individual in this country (Cardinal Manning) bore a title giving a precedence above an English Duke, conferred on him, a British subject, by a foreign Sovereign, and in virtue of that title he claimed the right to exercise what was formerly considered to be the absolute prerogative of the Crown, the granting of charters to Universities: he thought that if a restriction were put on British subjects as to their receiving foreign Orders some regulation ought to be made with regard to their acceptance of foreign titles. To make a rule applying only to decorations and to leave out titles appeared to him to be 1269 straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel.
LORD HOUGHTONwas understood to say that persons in the service of the United States could not receive or wear such Orders; but there was nothing to prevent persons in the service of other States going to America from wearing them.