HL Deb 08 December 1953 vol 184 cc1012-29

2.51 p.m.

Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee read.

THE PAYMASTER GENERAL (THE EARL OF SELKIRK)

My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.

Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(The Earl of Selkirk.)

LORD SALTOUN

My Lords, on the Motion now before your Lordships, I should like to ask Her Majesty's Government one question. On the Second Reading, a point on subsection (3) of Clause 1 was raised by my noble friend Lord Kinnaird. The effect of that subsection would seem to make this Bill into a Hybrid Bill. I should like to ask Her Majesty's Government whether the Bill has been examined by the Examiners with reference to my noble friend's objection and, if it should prove to be a Hybrid Bill, whether they would be willing to send the Bill to a Select Committee in the usual way and re-commit the Bill later, after the Committee's Report had been received.

THE EARL OF SELKIRK

My Lords, those who advise the House in this matter have advised that this is not a Hybrid Bill, and accordingly it is proper to take it in Committee stage here in the ordinary way. While it is not for me to interpret their findings, it is, I think, quite clear that there are no private interests in this particular trust. The only interest is the public interest, and for that reason it seems appropriate that the Bill should be taken in Committee in the ordinary way.

On Question, Motion agreed to.

House in Committee accordingly:

[The EARL OF DROGHEDA in the Chair]

Clause 1:

Transfer from National Gallery Trustees to Tate Gallery Trustees of responsibility for Tate Gallery collection

(2) There shall vest in the Tate Gallery Trustees all the pictures and other works of art which on the said date form part of the collection at the Tate Gallery and which immediately before that date were vested in the National Gallery Trustees.

(3) The funds representing the bequest made by the will of Miss Margaret Helen Knapping to the National Gallery Trustees (under Which the income of those funds is to be applied for the purchase for public exhibition of paintings or sculpture by artists of any nationality living at or within twenty-five years before the time of purchase) shall on the said date vest in the Tate Gallery Trustees.

LORD MOYNE had given notice of two Amendments, the first being to add to subsection (2): except for the group of thirty-nine Continental Pictures which were bequeathed by the late Sir Hugh Lane. The noble Lord said: In rising to propose this Amendment, and that which follows, I think I should make it clear that I am speaking as a British citizen and subject, closely connected with Dublin but not on behalf of anyone but myself, and that the only interest I have to declare is a lifelong interest in pictures and in the picture galleries of London and Dublin. I can claim to speak with some rather exceptional impartiality, as I divide my life about equally between Dublin and London, or anyway, England.

Before coming to the Amendments which stand in my name, I should like to say a few words on the clause as drafted. I would point out that it would permanently divide the legal ownership of the thirty-nine Lane pictures. Renoir's "Parapluies" and about nine others are, I believe, at the National Gallery, while the rest either hang at the Tate or are stored in the cellars there. Since the introduction of this Bill some have been turning in their cellars, and are to be moved from one Gallery to the other. I suggest that it is almost as serious an offence against the wishes of Sir Hugh Lane to divide up the group of thirty-nine pictures as to retain them in London. In the disputed codicil, Sir Hugh Lane talks of the thirty-nine pictures and certain others, formerly in Belfast and now in Dublin, being housed together. But if the codicil is rejected, the will stands; and the will says that he bequeaths a group of pictures to found a modern collection of Continental art in London.

Now a collection is a gathering together of works of art, not the dispersal of them. A collector selects one picture to set off against another, and his collection cannot be truncated without marring his achievement. If anything would make Sir Hugh Lane turn in his grave it would be to know that his collection was spit up, and especially to know that some of it was not displayed at all. He is known to have bitterly resented in 1914 the refusal of the London National Gallery Board to hang more than fifteen out of the thirty-nine pictures. I feel that if these pictures are retained in London, we owe it to the memory of this great collector, endowed as he was with sensitiveness, imagination and generosity, to show his collection, in the way that he would have wished, as a whole. The question before us reminds me of the decision that Solomon had to make. London has cut the baby into small pieces, and hidden some away, while Dublin has a special cradle (I mean the empty room) in which the pieces can be brought together and made to live again as a collection. I argue, following the precedent of Solomon, that Dublin is the rightful mother; even though London has begun to dig up some of the pieces, it still proposes to keep the baby cut into two portions, with one in the National Gallery and one in the Tate. My Amendments, which I think it will be for the convenience of the Committee to take together, are designed to return the whole collection to Dublin.

I must begin by giving, as shortly as I can, a summary of the events which led to the sad controversy which I desire to end. Sir Hugh Lane, an Irishman by birth, a nephew of the celebrated playwright and woman of letters, Lady Gregory, and himself keenly interested in the Irish artistic and literary movement, established in 1907 a municipal gallery of modern art in Dublin. He later proposed the building of a permanent modern gallery to house the collection, which contained his own thirty-nine continental pictures on loan, as well as others presented by many eminent people. Various sites have been considered, but eventually Lane insisted that the gallery should be built on a bridge across the Liffey and be designed by the late Sir Edward Lutyens. Disagreement with the Dublin Corporation was finally reached in 1913, and some £11,000 collected from the public was returned to the donors. Lane then, in 1913, brought his thirty-nine continental pictures away from the municipal collection to London and lent them to the London National Gallery. He bequeathed them to the London National Gallery on October 3, 1913, by will. In February, 1914, the Board of the London National Gallery changed their minds while Lane was in America—not the time he did not get back, but on a previous journey—and they refused to hang more than fifteen out of the thirty-nine. Among those they rejected were Renoir's "Umbrellas" and Daumier's "Don Quixote." A stipulation was also made by the Board, in their letter of February 15, that the pictures should be given or bequeathed to the Gallery. Lane, on his return from America replied: I should never have dreamt of submitting my pictures for selection to the Board who, however distinguished in other respects, have no competence as experts in modern painting; the omissions and exclusions prove that I am right in that view. They certainly did. Lane then went on: You ask my intentions as to the ultimate destination of the pictures. The question it seems to me should have been asked before the offer was accepted. I refuse any definite promise, as I do not intend to act hastily. It is noteworthy that he refused to commit himself for the future, even though his will leaving the pictures to the London National Gallery was already signed. The pictures were accordingly taken down from the wall during the spring of 1914 and stored in the cellars.

On February 26, 1914, Sir Hugh Lane was elected a director of the National Gallery in Dublin. On February 3, 1915, in anticipation of a journey which he was to make under war-time conditions to the United States, he drew up a codicil and left the thirty-nine pictures to the City of Dublin, on condition that a suitable spot was provided within five years of his death. The codicil was written on the notepaper of the Irish National Gallery, was signed, and an alteration in the date was initialed; and he left it in a sealed envelope on his desk in the National Gallery in Dublin. It is perhaps relevant that I should mention that the journey on which Sir Hugh Lane lost his life was made on behalf of an insurance company against which the late Lord Duveen had made a claim. There was no love lost between these two great men, Sir Hugh Lane and Lord Duveen, as is evidenced in a letter by Mr. Alec Martin in the Burlington Magazine of June 18, 1948.

Sir Hugh Lane was drowned in the "Lusitania" on his return journey from America the following May. Although he did not mention the codicil as such to anyone, several affidavits, as to the intentions which he expressed during his last days in England and Ireland testify to his decision that the pictures should come back to Dublin. Most noteworthy is that of his close friend, Sir Alec Martin, of Christie's, who travelled with him to Liverpool before he sailed on his last journey to America. Sir Alec, who would himself have preferred Lane to give the pictures to London, is quite categoric in saying that Lane told him on the journey to Liverpool that his mind was made up that they should go to Dublin. Affidavits by A. E. (George Russell) and three others are to the same very definite effect. Mr. James Quinn, the distinguished American lawyer and art collector, who was the last person in America to see him has given the same account of his intention. I hope the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, will agree, in due course, that this is a factual and accurate account of events which are not in dispute. I have to apologise to the Committee for saying on the Second Reading that the codicil was not signed, when it was only not witnessed. Otherwise, there would be nothing to discuss. It was not only signed, but an alteration was initialled and the whole thing is in Lane's own handwriting. As it stands, it is without legal effect in England, although it would, I understand, be perfectly valid in Scotland. I hope that this Scottish consideration may appeal to the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, in particular, to illustrate how narrowly the codicil as drawn misses having any legal effect.

In 1924, the British Government set up a Committee of three to report whether, first, Sir Hugh Lane thought he was making a legal disposition when he signed the codicil; and secondly, whether in view of the international character of the matter at issue the legal defect should be remedied by legislation. The Committee found by a majority that Lane did think he was making a legal disposition. No minority Report is given, and no reasons are advanced for the minority view. The Committee went on to reject the remedy of legislation, except to propose a short Act to enable the pictures to be lent within a lesser period than fifteen years. Now such an Act was never passed, though Lord Carson made some attempt to introduce one in your Lordships' House. It was disqualified by the Examiners a sit had not been published in London. Major Jack Hills, one of the Committee of Inquiry, also made an unsuccessful attempt in the same direction by suggesting an amendment to the National Gallery Overseas Loans Bill in 1930.

The Committee's reasons for not recommending the absolute return of the pictures by Act of Parliament were that Lane would have been so much impressed by the Tate Gallery, then being enlarged, that he would have changed his mind. This seems to be an unwarranted assumption in itself, in view of Lane's dislike of the late Lord Duveen, but it is preceded by the extraordinary assertion that … on the assurance that possession would be in perpetuity the London Gallery had secured the gift of a gallery in which the pictures were to be housed. That is taken from the Committee's Report. If any such assurance was given by the Trustees of the National Gallery, which I frankly do not believe of them, it was as much as to say that they were prepared for a price to do something which they might feel in honour bound not to do. The facts regarding the codicil were already public knowledge and the argument simply cannot be entertained.

Another reason against legislative action advanced by the Committee was that they knew of no case in which a legal defect in a will or codicil had been removed by Act of Parliament to give effect to the true wishes of a testator. Well, it so happens that within four years of their deliberations a private Act of Parliament was passed to give to London certain pictures which my own grandfather had intended for Ken Wood but which he had in fact left to my father. I suggest that we ought not to have a one-way traffic in such things, and that what is permissible to bring pictures to London ought to be permissible to bring pictures to Dublin. If it be argued that the Trustees of the National Gallery cannot, owing to the terms of their Trust, be consenting parties, as was my father and the rest of us, I would suggest that the national conscience rests ultimately in Parliament, and that this is essentially a question for Parliament to decide.

There is one more hurdle to be faced before I come, as quickly as I can, to my concluding remarks; I have been much too long already. The hurdle is this. The gallery was not provided within the stipulated time. First there was the War, and then there were what we call "the troubles," and then people said, "It is enough for us to pledge ourselves now to build the gallery if and when the pictures come." But there were men and women of faith in Dublin: men and women who believed in our sense of equity and who were prepared to cast their bread upon the waters. At the suggestion of that inspiring and determined lady the late Miss Sarah Purser, herself a painter of great talent, that lovely building Charlemont House, designed in the eighteenth century by Sir William Chambers, was by 1932 converted into an admirable picture gallery; and there, in the midst of the municipal collection founded by Lane, the collection of which he remained an honorary director till the end of his life, the empty room for his thirty-nine Continental pictures is waiting for them.

Speaking on the Second Reading of this Bill, the noble Lord, Lord Rugby, implied that rather than see his pictures in a Republic, Sir Hugh Lane, if he were still alive, would turn in his grave. The "bull," I may say, is mine, not his, and is deliberate. Bulls are expected of Irishmen and I should not have liked to disappoint your Lordships. But I do not think these sepulchral speculations are really relevant. We must bear in mind the principle underlying the law of wills and testaments. That principle is to look to the last formally expressed wish of the testator. He has the right to revoke such a wish up to the moment of his death. The formality in this case was not complete. But the question remains one of his last intentions, not what he would have felt yesterday, when the Duveen Galleries were built, or to-day when frontiers have been re-drawn.

My Lords, I think the pictures ought to go back, not to get anything in return, not as a political gesture, not for any ulterior motive, but simply as a matter of justice, simply because I believe the evidence shows that Lane, at the time of his death, wished them to go to Dublin. There has been talk of lending or giving a part only of the collection but, as a British citizen, I should feel ashamed of that kind of offer. A distinguished art critic remarked to me some years ago: "Oh, let them have everything, but not 'The Umbrellas.'" My mind does not work that way. If I think something is owing, I want to give the whole of it, and not to keep back the bit I like the best. I feel sure that, whatever view noble Lords take as to Sir Hugh Lane's last wishes, and therefore as to where our duty lies, they will not feel that obligations of honour can be matters of compromise, or that we can do right by halves. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 1, line 13, at end insert the said words.—(Lord Moyne.)

THE EARL OF SELKIRK

I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Moyne, for the moderate way in which he has moved this Amendment. I confess that I am sorry that he found it necessary to move it, because it is entirely outside the scope of this Bill and has nothing to do with anything else in the Bill. The subject, as your Lordships know, has already been in the courts, as far back as 1917. It has, I imagine, been considered by every Government over the last thirty years. It has been the subject of a report by a special committee dealing with this subject, which was composed of three senior Members of Parliament, men with long Parliamentary experience and drawn from each of the three major Parties. I should like to read their second finding, which is very clear: It would not be proper to modify Sir Hugh Lane's will by Public Act of Parliament. To do so, would, in addition to constituting a legal precedent of the utmost gravity, not justified by the facts, have the effect of bringing about a result contrary to the real spirit of Sir Hugh Lane's intention. Our reply to the second question is therefore in the negative. There is no question at all of the legal position here. The noble Lord appealed to justice or to the moral argument. If we are going to talk about the moral argument, let us pretend for the moment that there is no law at all. It is no use taking, a lump of moral right in one hand and a lump of legal right in the other hand and mixing them together into a sort of pate de maison. It does not get us very far. If we are going to argue this in the framework of abstract justice we have to take the whole picture into consideration. The noble Lord has given your Lordships a substantially factual story—if he will allow me to say so, with one or two omissions—of what has happened. Sir Hugh Lane was born in Cork, the son of a Protestant minister. He came to London in the early 1890's with little backing, and made his way as an art dealer, in which he showed considerable ability. He not only collected together some valuable pictures of a high order but seems to have made a good deal of money. For a time these pictures hung in Dublin, as the noble Lord said, and I believe Sir Hugh Lane hung other pictures in Belfast; but in 1912, he made a resolute effort to persuade Dublin Corporation to build a modern gallery of art, and, as the noble Lord has said, with this object in view, he enlisted the support of Sir Edwin Lutyens as architect. The scheme, however, fell through and resulted in a violent disagreement between Sir Hugh Lane and the Dublin Corporation. The result was that he took most of his pictures away and lent them to the National Gallery in London.

Thereafter, he made a will, in October, 1913, in favour of the National Gallery, though it is fair to say that he left the residue to Dublin. After that, his mind seems to have changed from time to time; it seemed to turn on whether London or Dublin would treat him best. He allowed the promise of his pictures to be instrumental in securing the Duveen Galleries. That is a matter which is well established by three witnesses with affidavits.

LORD MOYNE

Could we have the names and the details?

THE EARL OF SELKIRK

The noble Lord wants to go into a debate on this matter, but it has been discussed at great length. Mr. Aitken is one, Sir Robert Wick is another, and there is a third whose name I have not in my list; but those affidavits are all available. I agree with the noble Lord that at the time Sir Hugh Lane also told other people that it was his intention that his pictures should go to Dublin, but, as the noble Lord has so properly said, to none of those people did he mention that he had made a codicil. That remained most obscure. But what runs through all the discussions way back when he first went to Dublin, way back through the wills, as noble Lords who have the report on Sir Hugh Lane's pictures can see, is the one idea, and that is to create a modern picture gallery. It is perhaps worth noting that none existed at that time, and I am certain that Sir Hugh Lane would be delighted to find that there are to-day galleries both in London and in Dublin. Frankly, what he wanted on May 7, 1915, when he was drowned, is, I think, anyone's guess, but what is clear is that his mind was swinging from one side to the other as to whether it was in Dublin or in London that his ideas would best be fulfilled. I think it is impossible to maintain that the will in effect did produce a result which was directly contrary to anything which he wanted.

In these circumstances, I suggest that, so far as the moral honour is concerned, the case is about even, but what I do say strongly is that the moral case is not so overwhelming that you can completely disregard the law in every respect. I have been talking as if we were living in a world of abstract justice in which there is no law at all, but we know that we are living in a world where law does exist, and I think we must lake that into consideration. Are we really going to consider expropriating the property of public trustees which they have held for forty years and which has been their undoubted legal right for thirty-five years? What view would they take of it, particularly in regard to their clients, the general public, if Parliament were suddenly to take such an action? I do not know. Are we, in the second place, to change the direction of a will by Statute, without the agreement of the beneficiaries? I suggest that that is not only an unparalleled but a very dangerous precedent indeed.

The noble Lord took the case of his grandfather whose will had been changed. I understand that his grandfather put in a codicil which was in some way defective, leaving his own pictures to the nation. It is typical of the generosity of the noble Lord's father that he should have been a willing agreer that a measure of that sort should put forward and agreed to in Parliament; but it is quite a different thing to ask us to do such a thing with regard to a public body such as the Trustees of the National Gallery.

LORD MOYNE

I did make the point that the Trustees cannot do such a thing; that the Trustees cannot have consciences outside the terms of their trusts; that it is really for Parliament to take action. I suggest that the conscience of the nation lies in Parliament as a function of the general will.

THE EARL OF SELKIRK

I do not want to get into a discussion on the general law on this moment, but if we have charged trustees with a task it is a very high-handed action indeed, forty years later, for Parliament to step in and take it away from them. Sir Hugh Lane was undoubtedly a great Irishman and I feel a certain regret that his pictures have not been shown in Dublin for forty years. I should like to recall to the Committee what Lord Baldwin, as Prime Minister, said in 1926. On behalf of the Trustees of the National Gallery, he said that they would be prepared to lend a substantial number of pictures for a substantial period. This offer was not accepted. I cannot say whether or not the Trustees would be willing now to make a similar offer—the decision is one for them—but I do suggest that at the present time we should be most unwise to overturn the present situation by Act of Parliament.

LORD PAKENHAM

The noble Earl who has just spoken is a man of justice; so is the noble Lord who moved this Amendment, and so are we all; I think there is no difference in that respect between us. Also I think that, apart from the noble Earl, we are all speaking in this matter as individuals. The noble and learned Earl, Lord Jowitt, informs me that he will not take it amiss if I express my own point of view. I think that anybody hearing this case deployed for the first time, and after the two speeches to which we have listened, will sympathise very strongly with the noble Lord, Lord Moyne. If the noble Earl will forgive my saying so quite bluntly, I think that that will be the general effect of the discussion. This is not a Party matter; it is a matter of justice; and I do not think that the fact that the various inquiries on this subject will have come to nothing will influence us too much this afternoon. We are all anxious to arrive at what is a fair result. The noble Earl made a legal point with which I certainly would not be competent to deal effectively without advice, but I gathered that he was admitting that it would be possible from a legal point of view to do what the noble Lord, Lord Moyne, suggested if the moral case were clear; it is, however, the essence of the noble Earl's argument that the moral case is obscure and equally balanced. There I am bound to say that I thought the noble Earl fell a long way below the usual standard of argument we expect from him—no doubt, again, acting on the best advice open to him.

He submitted that there was no clear indication of the final intention of Sir Hugh Lane in respect of these pictures; that his mind was swinging about and that it was impossible to say whether, during the tossing of the Atlantic, it might have swung this way or the other way. Is there any noble Lord here who seriously believes that there is any prospect whatever that Sir Hugh Lane altered his opinion whilst out on the Atlantic? On his journey to Liverpool he told Sir Alec Martin, a gentleman of the highest repute, who I understand has given an affidavit to this effect, that he wished to leave these pictures to Dublin. I do not believe anybody will take seriously the argument that he might have swung away from that before he passed away from this life. So the argument that he was swinging about seems to me, with great respect, to be frankly absurd. I would submit that there is no doubt whatever of Sir Hugh Lane's intention: he wanted to leave these pictures to Dublin. That was his clear intention, whatever you may argue about the past. His intention was frustrated simply by a slip, and all these years this country has been taking advantage of and exploiting most unworthily a technical slip. Therefore, I being like the noble Lord, Lord Moyne, someone who is of Irish extraction who works and lives in this great country, I would say that if we continue in this way any longer we, the British people, shall be doing something that is mean and "mingy" and, above all, un-English. And because I believe that the course submitted by the noble Lord, Lord Moyne, is the one course worthy of England, I support him heartily and hope that he will take his Amendment to a Division.

EARL JOWITT

I rise merely to say that I disagree with the speech which has just been made. I am attracted by the way in which, as good Irishmen, both Lord Moyne and Lord Pakenham have put their case. It seems to me, however, that the fallacy underlying the whole argument is this. Let it be assumed that Sir Hugh Lane had finally made up his mind to leave these pictures to Dublin—let that be assumed; you cannot ask more than that. Then, what were the conditions of his bequest? The bequest in his codicil was: "I now bequeath these pictures to the city of Dublin, on condition that a suitable building is provided for them within five years of my death." This was no absolute gift; it was a gift subject to a condition. Ten years after that codicil the Irish had taken no practical steps whatever to provide any gallery, suitable or otherwise, for these pictures. Why, I do not know. It seems to me quite plain that if, in fact, this codicil had been witnessed, the result would have been that in the absence of any suitable gallery the gift could not become effective. Therefore, I cannot think that we are being mean, "mingy," despicable or anything else, in saying that, in the circumstances, there is no earthly reason why, in good morals, good sense or good law, these pictures should go to Ireland, when they did not take any step whatever to provide a gallery which was a condition of their getting the pictures.

VISCOUNT SWINTON

I do not wish to occupy the time of the Committee but I think we are all grateful to the noble and learned Earl for the observations he has just made. I do not think any of us would wish to part with this subject in an atmosphere of trying to get out of some proper obligation. We, in the British Parliament, as in the British people, have a tradition of our word being as good as, or better than, our bond. But, in addition to what the noble and learned Earl has said, surely in a matter like this Parliament has to be careful of the precedents it creates. Let us assume for the moment that noble Lords from Ireland are right and that the noble and learned Earl is wrong—and on a matter of legal construction I am bound to say I would rather take the view of the noble and learned Earl than that of a layman, particularly when it seems also to coincide with common sense. Would it not then come to this: that although a majority in Parliament might think that a form of trust was not a good trust and that they would rather the trust had taken a different form, whether the trust be a private trust leaving £1 million to one of my noble friends instead of to another (Parliament might think that one noble Lord was more deserving than another) or a charitable trust, surely it would be for the testator to decide and for the law to prevail. Surely the testator is entitled to leave the thing as he pleases, and the law must construe his bequest. I hope we shall not hear any more about being "mingy," because if there is one thing more than any other that Parliament has to do, it is to be extraordinarily chary of interfering with the legally expressed wishes of testators and with the established law of the land.

THE EARL OF HUNTINGDON

It seems to me that in our discussion two points have emerged: one, that there is no legal doubt whatsoever that these pictures belong to us; and the other, which is not so clear, is whether a moral right would give them to Dublin. I suggest that it might be possible to reach a compromise solution, perhaps on the lines of Lord Baldwin's suggestion—namely, to make a gesture by giving these pictures to Dublin, subject to the understanding that the Irish Government shall agree to lend, say, half of them permanently back to us. On the one hand, more people will see these pictures if they are hung in the Tate Gallery than if they are hung in Dublin; on the other hand, we must recognise that there is a great feeling of moral injustice by the Irish, that they have, by a technicality, been deprived of these pictures. If we could find some compromise which would satisfy Irish feeling and yet allow the English public to go on seeing a large section of these pictures, we might remove a lot of bitterness from Irish and English relations on this subject, and perhaps satisfy our consciences with the thought that we have done a moral right.

3.30 p.m.

LORD MOYNE

I understand that I have a right of reply, and there are one or two matters with which I should like to deal. The noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, has replied with his customary patience, care and good humour. But I do not feel that he gave me any answer to my case. He spoke of affidavits. I think he will find they were either by trustees or by people closely connected with those who wanted to keep the pictures in London, and that they were not in the least impartial witnesses, like Sir Alec Martin, whose conscience made him feel, and led him to state on oath, that he knew that Sir Hugh Lane intended these pictures to go to Dublin. It is to be remarked that the Committee, by a majority, found that Sir Hugh Lane did intend this to be a legal disposition. The noble Earl made one assertion with which I do not agree. He said that Sir Hugh Lane was concerned in the building of the Duveen Rooms; I do not think that is so. The point which is made by the other side, so to speak, is that a promise was given to Sir Joseph Duveen on June 9, 1916. I quote from an article which appeared in the Burlington Magazine of June, 1924: On June 9, 1916, Sir Joseph Duveen being on the point of returning from America, Mr. MacColl saw Lord D'Abernon about the project and the latter secured a definite promise from Sir Joseph Duveen which turned upon the possession of the Lane pictures as a nucleus. I say that no trustee had a right to give such a promise. Lady Gregory had been seeing Lord Curzon, the most active of the London National Gallery Trustees, and had been assured that the whole matter was in the hands of legal advisers.

I think I should quote from a speech made by Mr. W. B. Yeats in the Irish Senate on July 14, 1926. This is what he said: On September 15, Lord Curzon wrote as follows: 'It seems to be a matter on which the executors will have formally to approach the Board who will no doubt consult their solicitors.' A year later I was in London and heard privately that the National Gallery intended to have a gallery built for modern French pictures and to put the Lane collection into it. I told lady Gregory of this, and she wrote to Lord Curzon who answered as follows, on October 10, 1916: 'The matter is not in my hands nor at this moment even in the hands of the Board. They are waiting to be advised by their legal advisers, and in the interim it would not be right for any individual trustee to intervene.' The date of that letter was October 10, 1916.It contains a promise which had already been given on June 9. The Duveen aspect of the matter was never argued before the Committee, or was never argued in such a way that those who were putting the case for bringing the pictures to Dublin were told. They had letters and evidence, but they were not told of that aspect and they did not argue it. They had no chance to do so.

There is one other point upon which the noble Earl did not answer me. That is about the division of the collection which is legally envisaged by the Bill, and has actually been in practice for a long time. The noble and learned Earl, Lord Jowitt, mentioned that the City of Dublin had failed to build a gallery within ten years. As I pointed out, there was the war and there were the troubles, and these people had been told that the pictures were not coming. So they pledged themselves to build a gallery. Legally, they are out of court anyway. It is only because some of them took a bold course and cast their bread upon the waters that the gallery was built. It was out of date; I have already conceded that. The noble Viscount, Lord Swinton, has said that on a matter of legal construction he would naturally agree with the noble and learned Earl, Lord Jowitt, rather than with an ordinary barrister like myself. I would do the same. But the whole force of my plea was that there was no legal case—that it was purely a moral case.

Feeling that no answer has been given to my case, feeling that the Committee has to decide on the facts before it; and feeling also that if there are other facts which Lord Selkirk has not been able to produce, they can be produced in another place, when we have passed my Amendment (for the matter will have to be considered in another place), I think that I should divide the House. The noble Earl promised during the Second Reading debate that he would look into the matter. He has done so with great care, but he has found nothing new. I welcome what the noble Earl, Lord Huntingdon, has said, but that was a compromise suggestion, and compromise suggestions can be followed up afterwards. If they are followed up I think they should be publicly followed up in such form that the matter may be generally known. It is best that the whole intention should be known to the public, as sometimes in these cases it does not become generally known, with the result that nothing happens and everything fades out. I prefer the solution of an out-and-out transfer, and I think that is what we are in honour bound to do, however much it hurts. As I have intimated, I am disposed to press this matter to a Division.

THE EARL OF SELKIRK

There are just two points upon which I should like to put the noble Lord right with regard to these pictures. We know that the will makes no reference at all to keeping the collection together. There is no question of disagreeing with the terms of the will. Then, as the noble and learned Earl, Lord Jowitt, has pointed out, in the final paragraph of the codicil we find this: If within five years a Gallery is not forthcoming, then the group of pictures"— at the London National Gallery— are to be sold and the proceeds go to fulfil the purpose of my will.

LORD MOYNE

I have answers to these two points, if I may speak again.

A NOBLE LORD

No.

House resumed.