§ THE EARL OF WEMYSS, in rising to ask Her Majesty's Government, Whether it had been intimated to the Trustees of the National Gallery that the annual grant is to be taken away for a term of years to repay the purchase of the Raphael and Vandyck recently bought; whether the Trustees were given any option in the matter; and, whether they had made any representation on the subject? said, he did not contend that £70,000 was too large a sum to pay for these remarkable pictures. Unquestionably, if we had not given the money for them, someone else would. The question was, what course was to be pursued in consequence of the purchase of these pictures? He was informed that the annual grant was to be withdrawn from the Trustees of the National Gallery for a term of years, and that they had written to the Treasury strongly remonstrating. He would supplement his Question by asking whether the Government would have any 39 objection to lay this Correspondence on the Table?
LORD THURLOW, in replying to the Question on behalf of the Treasury, said, that, as in the case of the Peel Collection, the Treasury had come to the conclusion, after mature consideration, that they would not be justified in including any sum for the purchase of pictures for the National Gallery in the Estimates, in consequence of the very large expenditure recently incurred in the purchase of the Raphael and Vandyck from the Blenheim Collection. In making that communication to the Trustees of the National Gallery, the Treasury accompanied it with the expression of their readiness at any time seriously to consider any special opportunity that might occur to the Trustees of making any favourable purchase of works of art that might be in the market of any school, or characteristic of any school, now held not to be sufficiently represented in our Collections. In such an event, the Treasury would be quite prepared to consider the advisability of a special grant. He was not aware of the Correspondence to which the noble Earl referred; but he would remind the noble Earl that in matters of finance the Trustees of the National Gallery were subject to the control of the Treasury.
§ VISCOUNT HARDINGEsaid, that, as one of the Trustees of the National Gallery, he could state that they most earnestly deprecated the course which the Treasury had thought it their duty to adopt on the present occasion. They felt that their hands would be considerably hampered when pictures came suddenly into the market, and that there would be great difficulty in inducing the Treasury to purchase these pictures. They had accordingly made strong remonstrances to the Treasury on the subject; and he hoped that the Government would see fit to publish those remonstrances, and that they would reconsider their decision upon the matter, for it could not be said to be finally settled, seeing that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had consented to receive a deputation respecting it.
§ EARL GRANVILLEsaid, that he entirely sympathized with both the noble Lords in their desire to make this magnificent Collection as perfect as possible. He thought, however, that they would 40 not strengthen, but would rather weaken the hands of the Government, in pressing them not to show the same solicitude for the public purse with regard to works of art as was observed with respect to other things.