THE SCOTT MEMORIAL. (Hansard, 5 August 1913)

§ EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON
My Lords, I should like to ask the First Commissioner of Works the Question that stands in my name. Perhaps I ought to explain that I gave notice of the Question on Saturday, but owing to the intervention of Sunday and of Bank Holiday it only appeared on the Order Paper this morning. My Question runs as follows: "To call the attention of the First Commissioner of Works to the Report of the Mansion House Committee of the Captain Scott Fund, in which it is proposed that the National Memorial to the late Captain Scott and his four companions shall be erected on the edge of the Park, opposite the house of the Royal Geographical Society in Kensington Gore, and to ask whether His Majesty's Government will sanction this proposal."
Your Lordships will, perhaps, have read in the newspapers that a sum of from £70,000 to £80,000 was subscribed by the public in this country and in all parts of the Empire to the Captain Scott Fund, and out of that total a very large sum, amounting to several thousands, was earmarked for a memorial to Captain Scott and his comrades. The Mansion House Committee, of which I was a member, considered what form that memorial might profitably take, and in their report they recommended, with the consent of the Dean and Chapter, that a tablet, which would not be a very large or costly memorial, should be erected in St. Paul's Cathedral, and that the bulk of the money ear-marked should be devoted to erecting a more imposing structure in some other part of London. They considered very carefully the question of a site, and they could not think of any better place for the purpose than the one which they 1628 mentioned in their report—namely, a site inside the railings of Hyde Park immediately opposite the house hitherto known as Lowther Lodge, which was bought a year ago by the Royal Geographical Society for their future headquarters. It would be possible there to place the monument on the narrow strip of ground that intervenes between the railings of the park and the road which runs up in the direction of the Albert Memorial. No sacrifice of trees or of space available to the public would be involved. At the same time, of course, the Committee are unwilling to take any steps in the matter unless they are reasonably confident that official or public objection would not afterwards be raised. They are aware that the public is very sensitive—I may say very properly and reasonably sensitive—of any encroachment on our public parks. I entirely share those views myself. But in the present case the sacrifice of space inside the park would be so infinitesimal as scarcely to deserve the name of sacrifice. And I think it is fair to say of the Captain Scott tragedy, which, after all, touched the public heart more than any event we can remember in recent times, that the public who subscribed so handsomely, both to the relief of the bereaved families and to the erection of a memorial, would be disappointed if the memorial raised by their generosity is not placed in some position easily accessible to the public, easily visible by them, and worthy of the great and noble incident which it commemorates.

§ THE FIRST COMMISSIONER OF WORKS (EARL BEAUCHAMP)
My Lords, I am obliged to the noble Earl for having given me adequate notice of his intention to put this Question. I hope he will realise that the decision which has to be come to in this matter is not a decision which affects any one particular case so much as it is guided by the general principle which is laid down by the Department. We do not lag behind any one else, either in our admiration for Captain Scott and his comrades or for the heroic spirit which animated them during their expedition to the Pole. But we find ourselves barred by the jealous dislike which has been shown on more than one occasion by the public to any additions being made to the memorials in the Park, and in this matter I am pledged to the House of Commons not to allow any additional statue to be 1629 put up. If, however, there was a vote in the House of Commons upon this question in the sense of demanding or approving a site being given in one of the Royal parks it would then be my duty to provide one. But the noble Earl knows that this is not a new question. Over and over again we have refused similar requests which have come to us from different people; and, indeed, there are, as the noble Earl knows, a good many people who regret very much that in times gone by the Department was not more hardhearted and did not prevent the erection of some of the memorials which are now to be seen in our parks. There seems to be—and it is not altogether unnatural—a certain sensitiveness with regard to the use of the parks in this way. People say, "Why should you always come to the Royal parks and expect a site there? Are there not plenty of other spaces in London?" For a city of the size of London there are curiously few sites available for a purpose of this kind. But if the noble Earl would see me privately in the course of a day or two I should be glad to take the opportunity of making to him one or two suggestions in the matter. For the present, however, I am sorry not to be able to meet the noble Earl's request. Without such a vote as that to which I have referred, I cannot see my way to sanction the proposal.

§ EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON
I hope I must not take the reply of the noble Earl as a refusal of the suggestion that I have made. I do not imagine that the 1630 noble Earl would like to assume the authority, upon the ipse dixit of Ins own Department, of giving an absolute refusal to the idea. I might mention to him that since the report of the Mansion House Committee was made public—and it has been published in every newspaper in the Kingdom—so far as I know not a single expression of opinion hostile to the suggestion has been made. Certainly none has reached us, and I should be very much surprised if any such hostile opinion had reached the noble Earl. I think he used the word "jealousy" with regard to the attitude of the public on the matter of the use of the parks for this purpose, but such an attitude, which I admit to be reasonable to some extent, would not to my mind cover a Wholly exceptional application like this for the allocation of a site so relatively insignificant, and away from the stream of public usage of the Park and remote from the other parts of the Park of which the noble Earl spoke. I hope he will not make up his mind at the moment. For my own part I should be quite willing to submit the matter to the judgment of the House of Commons at a later date, and to give an undertaking to take no definite steps in the interval. In the meantime, if the noble Earl will make any suggestions of his own to me or to the Mansion House Committee, we shall be only too glad to consider them.