HL Deb 01 July 1884 vol 289 cc1770-80
THE EARL OF CARNARVON

, who had given Notice of his intention to move to resolve— That the terms of the agreement between Her Majesty's Government and the Government of France, as indicated in the correspondence recently presented to Parliament, are such as in the opinion of this House will not lead to the establishment of tranquillity and good government in Egypt, and will fail to produce results adequately corresponding to the sacrifices which England has made and may be called upon to make in that country, said: My Lords, before the business of the evening begins, I wish, to ask the noble Earl the (Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs a Question of which I have given him private Notice; and it is necessary that I should accompany it with a very few observations. Your Lordships are aware that there stands in my name, on the Paper for to-night, a Notice of a Motion, condemning the preliminary agreement which Her Majesty's Government have come to with the Government of Prance in respect to Egyptian matters; and your Lordships must also be aware that a somewhat similar Motion was intended to be moved last night in "another place." My Lords, we have the Votes of the House of Commons before us; and inasmuch as I can hardly otherwise make myself intelligible with regard to what occurred in the House of Commons I may be permitted to refer to the ordinary sources of information, and to remind your Lordships of that which is reported to have occurred in that place. You will remember that last week my right hon. Friend (Sir Stafford Northcote), on the part of Mr. Bruce, gave Notice of a Motion, and said he would ask Her Majesty's Government for a day on which the Vote of Censure there might be brought forward. A day was afterwards asked for, and a day was accorded at once by the Prime Minister; and, as far as I know, there was no intimation given, or a doubt expressed, of any objection on his part. Last night, when the other House met, the Prime Minister is reported to have moved for the postponement of the Orders of the Day in order to give effect to his promise; but scarcely had he resumed his seat, when certain other Members of the House of Commons alleged that it would be inopportune and injurious at this moment to raise the particular question involved in the Notice of Motion of Vote of Censure. My Lords, the Prime Minister, while admitting and implying that he was bound by the promise which he had given, used words so remarkable, if they are correctly reported, that I must refer to them; and I am not surprised—indeed, I think no one can be surprised—that they produced a very great effect upon Members of the House of Commons. Mr. Gladstone said— With respect to what has fallen from my right hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, I wish him to understand that I am a most reluctant party. I have to say, on the part of the Government, that, so far from coming down here in the glee with which we may very often contemplate Party conflicts when we feel we are in the right, on this occasion I come down here with a deep sense that I am, under the pressure of circumstances, and as the choice of evils, giving facilities for bringing forward a Motion which we feel to be most inopportune and most injurious to the public interests. Your Lordships will not be surprised to hear that, when the House of Commons went to a division, those words of Mr. Gladstone largely influenced Members on the Liberal side of the House. Certainly, a most remarkable scene took place. The whole Treasury Bench voted with the Opposition; and I believe I might almost say that the whole Liberal Party, including Mr. Gladstone's personal Friends, voted against him and the Government in the other Lobby. My Lords, the House decided that the Orders should not be postponed, and the Vote of Censure consequently fell to the ground. It was a decision which has been welcomed by many persons. Some have said that it was inopportune and injurious to bring forward this question at this time. Now, being responsible for a somewhat similar Motion, I desire to give the most formal and emphatic denial that I can to such a statement as that. I do not believe that, handled with common prudence, such a question need have been injurious to the public interests. The questions with which we, at all events, should have had to deal were questions which were not before the Conference. They were preliminary to the Conference; and if they had been handled with common discretion and prudence, I can conceive no objection to discussing them; and certainly no possible mischief to the public service as likely to arise, or arising from them. The Conservative Party, as a whole, in both Houses, have already shown their emphatic reprobation of the course which has been pursued in this matter. But, my Lords, the course, on the other hand, taken by the Prime Minister was, I venture to say, utterly unprecedented in the annals and the traditions of Parliamentary practice. It is perfectly true that the Vote of Censure was shelved; an undesirable object was removed out of the way; the word of promise was kept to the ear; intentionally, or unintentionally, it was broken to the hope. Mr. Gladstone, I see, has been complimented on his extreme dexterity and adroitness. I think his Friends would do well to reflect before they offer him such compliments as this. They seem to me to be very left-handed. He is plainly in this dilemma—either this great and powerful Minister was unable to secure the adhesion of a single follower, or there was, or was believed, at least to be, a wish for defeat on his part. My Lords, whether it was an accident, whether it was a manœuvre, whether it was Party tactics, I repeat, deliberately, whatever it was, I will leave him to reconcile the fact that on Friday he made no opposition to granting a day for this discussion; and that on Monday evening, at the eleventh hour, he comes down to the House and tells it that it is most inopportune and most injurious to the public interests. I do not care to press this point further; but your Lordships may be sure that there are many persons out-of-doors who will speak of it in far rougher and plainer language than I have used. Now, the last point I have to put is an important one, and it is this. The real question is, is this statement made by the Prime Minister in the "other place" on his own responsibility and couched in words of greatest gravity? He believes a discussion of this question to be most inopportune and most injurious to the public interests. I am placed in a difficult position this evening, whether or not to go on with the Motion that stands in my name; but I remember what has been the practice—I might say the invariable practice, I believe, of this House—of deferring to the judgment of a responsible Minister when he tells us that it is dangerous to the public interests to discuss a particular question. My Lords, I trust it will be very long indeed before in this House we ever have reason to doubt the word of any Minister who makes such a statement to us; and, therefore, I ask the noble Earl opposite now whether he adheres to the statement of Mr. Gladstone; and, whether he will assure the House that, in his opinion, the discussion of this question would be fraught with danger, and even with public inconvenience? If the noble Earl answers this Question in the affirmative, I shall be consulting, I believe, the feelings of your Lordships' House on the one hand, and I shall be doing right, I believe, on the other, if I abstain from pressing the Motion at present.

EARL GRANVILLE

My Lords, I rise to answer the Question which the noble Earl opposite (the Earl of Carnarvon) was good enough to give me private Notice of—a Question which he has prefaced with some statements that appear to me to show some soreness on the part of the noble Earl, both with regard to what passed last night and with regard to the obligation which he feels in not bringing his Motion before your Lordships to-day. As usual, the noble Earl managed to make something like a personal attack on the Prime Minister. In the most unwarrantable manner, he twice made insinuations that there seemed to be something of a manœuvre in what took place last night. I observe that a right hon. Friend of mine, in answer to a similar insinuation, answered that there was nobody but the person who made the insinuation in or out of the House of Commons who would have done it; but as I happen to have heard that a Member of your Lordships' House made a similar remark, I took the liberty of writing to Mr. Goschen to ask him to clear up the matter, and I will venture to read to your Lordships the answer which Mr. Goschen has given; and I cannot conceive its not being regarded as absolutely conclusive as to the charge of manœuvre which the noble Earl brings forward against us. Mr. Goschen says— My dear Granville,—In reply to your question, you may assert in the most unqualified manner that no one connected, directly or indirectly, with the Government has had the slightest inkling of any idea on my part to oppose the postponement of the Orders of the Day, and, indeed, I had abandoned the idea myself. The whole action taken was taken in entire independence of the Government; and, as far as I am concerned, was simply giving effect to the opinion which I had expressed to the House when Sir Stafford Northcote gave Notice that some Motion would be proposed by the Opposition—namely, that any debate and Division on the French Agreement would be most injurious to the public interests. I trust now we shall not hear anything more of manœuvres and understandings between the Government and any of their followers. My Lords, the noble Earl has reproached Mr. Gladstone, because he said his Friends had complimented him on the adroitness of the course which he had taken. As far as my observation goes, I am not aware of any Friends having complimented Mr. Gladstone on any such supposed merit; it was entirely from his opponents, who tried to fix this charge of adroitness on Mr. Gladstone. The noble Earl says nothing would induce him, after a responsible Member of the Government declared that there would be injury caused by a certain Motion to the public service, to press that Motion. I am afraid that is a little indirect reproach on the Leader of the Conservative Party in the House of Commons; because he did press and vote for the Motion after that assertion had been made by Mr. Gladstone. Either he or the noble Earl cannot consistently be right in the principle they lay down. My Lords, with regard to the Question which he has put to me, I have no hesitation in saying that I agree with what Mr. Gladstone has said. More than that, I wonder the noble Earl ever had any doubt whatever as to this House proceeding with this Vote of Censure after what passed in the House of Commons last night; but, beyond that, I say this opinion of the inexpediency and the disadvantage was one which I have held ever since the Notice was given. We considered it most carefully. We all thought, not for any private reason, but for reasons obvious to all persons who had considered the subject, and which, of course, influenced instinctively the majority in the House of Commons yesterday, that it must be a disadvantage that a deliberate Vote of Censure should be proposed; that there should be a discussion begun, the House being imperfectly informed on all the questions more or less connected together; and that at the moment when the Conference was opening, and when the most difficult and delicate negotiations were going on. There is nothing more incumbent upon a Government than to show great sensitiveness whenever a Vote of Censure is bond fide brought against them, and to give the earliest opportunity for that Vote to be decided one way or the other. We considered it most carefully whether we ought to give a day. Here, no day is required; and we came to the conclusion that we were bound in honour to give a day as soon as possible in the other House, and that was done. Yesterday, the whole thing, as Mr. Goschen's letter shows, was a complete surprise. In truth, Mr. Gladstone did not refrain from giving expression to what was felt, and the result was a majority of 40. When you come to compare all the people who voted, against their opinions, in favour of the question of suspending the Orders of the Day, it will be found that a very large majority of the House of Commons was agreed as to the utter inexpediency of going on with the Vote of Censure.

THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY

My Lords, I am glad that the noble Earl opposite (Earl Granville) has had the opportunity of reading the letter from Mr. Goschen; because, undoubtedly, the circumstances, as they appear in this morning's newspapers, rather remind one of those valient duellists who are punctual to appear on the field, but who take care that a magistrate shall have private information of what is going to take place. Even after that explanation, while I should say that it entirely clears away any suspicion that Mr. Goschen had any kind of previous intimation, it is impossible to deny that the whole circumstances are very curious and unprecedented. The noble Earl and the Government appear to have felt that this discussion would be most injurious to the public service. Well, it has happened again and again in Parliamentary practice, that when a Government has been of opinion that a discussion upon foreign affairs would be, at a particular moment, inexpedient, they have always immediately stated their opinion to Parliament, and, according to the invariable rule of Parliament, an appeal of that kind has been listened to. But the noble Earl, having this strong belief that the Motion was dangerous and inexpedient, carefully kept that belief to himself; and if it had not been for the accidental speech of Mr. Forster, which, as it were, drew the statement out of Mr. Gladstone, we should never have known that it was inexpedient. It is very odd that in spite of the perfectly accidental character of that avowal of Mr. Gladstone there was a division; and it is curious that Mr. Gladstone's personal influence and example should not have been able to draw any of his followers after him into the Lobby. The contagion of mad rebellion seems to have seized them all; and those who never rebelled before on this occasion lifted up their heels against their master. It is very mysterious to those who only look on the reported circumstances of the case. There will be recorded, I have no doubt, for the benefit of future historians, circumstances, not of a private, but of a less public character, which may throw some light on the facts. I am told, on very good authority, that the two Gentlemen whose duty it is to marshal the forces of the Government were, during that division, at the door of the Lobby into which the Government and the Opposition went, and that, when asked by Liberal Members which way they were to go, instead of replying with enthusiasm, as might be expected, "Of course, you are to follow Mr. Gladstone," they immediately replied—"The bulk of the Party is going the other way." And it is remakable that after that, the Party voted against Mr. Gladstone in sufficient numbers to neutralize his formal vote, and to give effect to his expressed opinions. My noble Friend (the Earl of Carnarvon) has been attacked for speaking of a "manœuvre." Well, we will not use any big words; we will call it a contrivance; but, at all events, it was very ingenious and exceedingly successful. It has had this effect—that Mr. Gladstone has kept his promise, entirely freed from the inconvenience that that promise might have brought upon him. It is impossible to conceive a more striking example of a strict adherence to principle, combined with a complete enjoyment of the advantages of setting all principle at defiance. Why the Government are anxious to avoid a discussion on this subject in the House of Commons—that is, of course, a matter upon which speculation will be rife; but some people will have it that the Government have had a diplomatic rebuff in the Conference, and that the Conference will disappear. I should not like to entertain such a gloomy view. I. myself, am inclined to believe that the Prime Minister has had information, as many of us have had, as to the probable results of a Division; and that the prospect of gaining even that moderate majority which he secured on a late occasion appeared to him more problematical that most of his Friends were disposed to assert. Under those circumstances, I think his prudence is to be commended. As for us, we are sorry not to have the opportunity of expressing our opinions tonight; but I cannot say that otherwise I regret the issue to which in this House the matter has come. I am glad that the Government should announce, in such a very distinct manner, their apprehension of the results of a full and free discussion of what they have done, and that they should show that they would like to defer it to a more convenient season, towards the middle of August. I feel, at all events, that the conduct and views of the Conservative Party on this question will record their opinions plainly before the country. No one can charge us with having touched this matter uninvited, or with having dealt with any questions not fairly placed before us. If the Government did not mean this question to be discussed, why did they depart from all diplomatic precedent by producing their Agreement in the very middle of negotiations; and why did they announce, in such a marked manner, that the Conference was to deal with no questions of policy, and only with questions of finance? The question, whether the stipulations that have been made with France are expedient or not; whether they are just to Egypt, or whether they are not; whether they are comformable or not to the honour and highest interests of Great Britain—these things are absolutely independent of any decision to which the Conference may come as to the question of the advance of a loan of £8,000,000 to Egypt, or the reduction of interest to which the bondholder may submit. The political question and the financial question are absolutely separate; and I cannot see how the discussion of the political question, how the determination of the issues which the Government themselves have placed before us in regard to the future policy of Great Britain, can affect the financial question which the Conference has to determine. But this is clearly not a matter which can guide our judgment on the present occasion. In deference to the uniform precedent and practice of this House, the announcement of the Government that this discussion would be injurious to the public service must govern our conduct.

THE EARL OF KIMBERLEY

My Lords, the last portion of the observations of the noble Marquess opposite (the Marquess of Salisbury) shows exactly what we should have had to encounter if we had refused to give a day in order to afford an opportunity for the discussion of the Vote of Censure. We should have been told, in still stronger terms, that we were running away because we were afraid to meet it. That is a position which no Government can afford to occupy. It is impossible for any Government to remain under a proposed Vote of Censure without giving to Parliament an opportunity of dealing with it. If we were to refuse, it would be inferred that the Government were not prepared to meet Parliament on that subject. The question of the noble Earl opposite (the Earl of Carnarvon) rested upon this—that he was ready to defer to the statement made by a responsible Minister that the discussion would be injurious to the public interests, and that, therefore he would not proceed with it. That has been the general rule; and I always understood that that rule meant that such statement should be accepted as decisive, and that no observations should be made, such as have now been made by the noble Marquess, the ground of injurious accusations against the Government. The noble Marquess says that the Prime Minister, having had access to the usual means of information, is acting on the principle that— He who fights and runs away, May live to fight another day; and that the Government are sheltering themselves under the statement that this discussion would be prejudicial to the public service. I protest altogether against that line of argument. It seems to me that one of two things should be done—either no such rule as that which I have mentioned should be considered at all; or, when it is stated by the Government that it is prejudicial to the public service that there should be a discussion, that statement should be conclusive, and any observations or discussion—for this is a discussion—should be reserved for the fitting opportunity when the negotiations are concluded. That seems to me to be the rule that underlies the Constitutional practice of the country, and the necessities of the case. What are the necessities of the case? It is utterly impossible for Parliament itself to discuss negotiations. Negotiations must be conducted by a responsible Government, and that Government must have the confidence of Parliament while conducting them. My noble Friend (Earl Granville) has dealt with the notion that there was any manœuvre in this matter. What occurred in the House of Commons yesterday took the Government by surprise; but it is not entirely without precedent. If the noble Marquess searches the pages of Hansard he will find that, in 1863, the House refused to agree to the Motion for suspending the Orders of the Day in order to proceed with a discussion. The circumstances may have been unusual; but the result seems to be that Parliament has wisely refused to enter into a discussion which Parliament agrees with the Government would be prejudicial to the public service.