so. that question had been in agitation for be right to say to the people of that many years, but that one of the main metropolis and the public generally, reasons for the abandonment some time" Whatever facilities of access or otherago of the idea of an indefinite extension of the institution on the present site was the great cost of the ground, and that a body of the Trustees which considered the matter framed an Estimate which put the expense of such an extension at about £50,000 per acre for the land. These facts being notorious they had certainly no indication of any disposition on the part of the great neighbouring proprietor to accept less than the fair market price for his land if required for the purposes of the British Museum. Nor, indeed, had the public the smallest claim upon him to do True, his hon. Friend thought the extension of the Museum would enhance the value of the rest of his Grace's adjacent property; but that was only an opinion, the truth of which was not at all self-evident. At any rate, if the House decided that there should be a large addition to the British Museum on the present site, they must not assume that they would be able to purchase the ground under the exceptionally favourable circumstances imagined by the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets. But the question was not one that could be wisely opened at that moment; and, moreover, he was inclined to be altogether sceptical as to the doctrine intimated on that and other occasions by his hon. Friend namely, that, in the case of an establishment like the British Museum, originally of moderate dimensions, and comprising a great many branches, some of them not bound by any very natural or close relations to each other, no matter what might be the increased population or the altered circumstances of that metropolis, they were to go on making vast and indefinite extensions on the present site. He was not going back to any question about South Kensington, which was not then before them. They had contracted engagements as to South Kensington, and at the proper time the House would have to consider whether any and what measures should be taken in respect to those engagements. But he now contested the doctrine of an indefinite extension of that institution on that one spot, and thought it extremely doubtful whether by that plan they would give the greatest command of those collections to the vast and growing population of London and to the increasing stream of visitors constantly flowing into it. He did not believe it would The Chancellor of the Exchequer wise may be given to another site which may not be partaken of by the present site, whatever may be the future extension of London-an extension which, though long begun, is probably far from ended whatever changes time may produce, we shall tie you down to this particular spot, and if you want to see an establishment containing antiquities, works of art, and specimens of natural history, hither shall you come, and hither only, be your place of abode three, or five, or seven miles distant." The principle of diffusion, reasonably applied, within certain proper and well defined limits, appeared to him on the face of it a more rational principle than that laid down by his hon. Friend. With regard to the question put by the hon. Member for Galway (Mr. Gregory) as to whether it was in the power of the Government to submit a proposal to the House for affording increased accommodation for the Natural History Collection, the Department over which his right hon. Friend near him (Mr. Cowper) presided had not yet been able to arrive, in communication with the Trustees of the Museum, at such an understanding with reference to any building to be erected on a new site as would justify the Government in coming with plans before the House. It might be possible, physically speaking, for them to do so before the present Session ended; but he did not think it would be convenient to have a question of that kind decided at any period except when the House was fully attended, and able to give it that amount of attention which it undoubtedly required. They had not made any overtures to the Duke of Bedford, and he was very doubtful about the expediency of making them. A plan by which the Government should purchase property covered with houses and remain the owner or lessor of those houses, applying from time to time such portions of their sites as might be thought fit for the purposes of the British Museum, was one of the worst species of administrative arrangements he had ever heard proposed. Whatever plausible arguments might be urged in its favour would not stop with the case of the British Museum; but if the Government were to become speculators in house property, buying up houses before it actually wanted them, in order to get them cheaper there would not be ten, or twenty, or even fifty instances only in which they would have to consider the application of that principle. No doubt the State might often make economical investments of that kind; but he did not think it desirable that it should assume the position of temporary landlord without having a fit organization for discharging such duties. In his opinion the best and wisest course was for the Government, as a general rule, to buy the land which it wanted and at the time when it wanted it. With respect to the figures adduced by the hon. Member for Stockport (Mr. Watkin) as to the decreasing attendance at the British Museum, he confessed that they were not without significance in another point of view besides that from which the hon. Gentleman had quoted them; but the fact that there was such a falling off in the numbers resorting to that institution at a period when the Trustees were showing every anxiety to improve the general arrangements for the convenience of the public, and when, moreover, the visitors to the metropolis were increasing in a rapid ratio from year to year, in his mind did something to qualify the very sanguine estimates formed by some hon. Gentlemen as to the paramount and extraordinary advantages of the present site of that establishment. MR. WALPOLE said, he entirely concurred in what had fallen from the Chancellor of the Exchequer as to the inexpediency of bringing forward at the end of an expiring Parliament any plan for the decision of the important question as to the future distribution and management of the collections at the Museum, which must raise a good deal of discussion. The Government, he thought, had acted wisely in postponing the consideration of what should be the mode of providing that accommodation until the commencement of next Parliament. Meanwhile, he hoped the Trustees and the Government would arrive at some definite plan. Whatever his own individual opinion might be, he should feel it his duty to support the plan which might be agreed upon by the Trustees. The hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets had very naturally returned to the charge which he has often made before-namely, that the working classes in the metropolis should be enabled to see more of the collections at the Museum than they could now do. Similar observations had been made the other night with respect to the National Gallery, and the Chief Commissioner of Works then made what he (Mr. Walpole) thought a very sensible, pertinent, and forcible observation, which was equally applicable to the British Museum. He did not despair, he said, among all the improvements going on in this age, that means might be found to prevent the deleterious effects of the effluvium from gas; but till those means had been discovered he thought the Trustees would be guilty of a breach of duty if they consented to expose the valuable collections intrusted to their care to such peril as it was admitted they would incur by being exhibited in gas light. Nor is it to be forgotten that the risks of fire would be dangerously increased. The time might arrive when they would be enabled to reduce these risks to a minimum, and he should then be extremely glad if the hon. Member's views could be realized with safety. He must also warn the House, that if the Museum were lit by gas, they would have to consider the necessity of doubling the expense. His own notion was that, looking to the early closing movement on Saturday, and the holyday usually taken on Monday by many of the working artizans, arrangements might be made on those two days for more effectually enabling such persons as were employed in hard labour during the greater part of the week to go and see the Museum than they could by opening it on the Sunday evening, or at a later hour on weekday evenings. Three or four years ago the experiment was tried of keeping open the Museum till eight o'clock on Saturday night in the belief that great numbers would attend; but the failure was complete, and it was not worth while to continue the experiment. opening the Museum on Sunday, this was not the time for offering any opinion upon it. That was a question for the House to determine, in connection with a variety of important considerations which could not be overlooked. The hon. Member for Galway (Mr. Gregory) had referred to the subject of duplicates, a matter undoubtedly of very great importance. The hon. Member said we had got plenty of duplicates ; but the fact was that if by duplicates were meant identical articles, we had hardly any duplicates at all. There might, perhaps, be some duplicate volumes of books; but not so many as would at first sight appear. The supposed duplicates are often new editions; and it was of paramount importance to possess all the editions of interesting With respect to works, and the National Museum was the proper place where they ought to be collected. With regard to duplicates of sculpture we had very few of them; none of the fine works. There were, however, a good many things that might, perhaps, be parted with. The difficulty in doing so was the stringent character of the present Acts of Parliament. The Chancellor of the Exchequer would, he hoped, turn his mind to this point, namely, how far it would be advantageous to alter the present Acts so as to give, within certain limits, greater power of exchanging, selling, or parting with duplicates, or with things which were not wanted. That would be a very proper question to take up in connection with a Bill having reference to the management of the collections in the Museum. He did not know that he had omitted to notice any topic which had been suggested, and he hoped the House would now accede to the Vote. Vote agreed to. REVENUE DEPARTMENTS. (2.) £773,009, Customs Department. (3.) £1,284,157, Inland Revenue Department. (4.) £2,121,478, Post Office Depart ment. COLONEL SYKES complained that many districts in the country were at present insufficiently accommodated by the Post Office. It appeared to him that the public requirements ought to be met before any revenue derived from the Post Office was considered disposable by the Exchequer. THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER quite agreed with his hon. and gallant Friend that the wants of the public should be considered and that only the surplus should be treated as revenue; but those wants must mean the reasonable wants of the public. This was not so easy and simple a matter as might appear at first sight. It was necessary to do justice as between town and country. It was all very well for gentlemen who lived out of the way to say nothing was done for thinly peopled districts. But that must be taken with some limits. They levied taxation on the towns and spent it, not for the benefit of the thickly but of the thinly peopled districts. There was something in the sound, and, he might say, the flavour of his hon. and gallant Friend's observations that required a word of caution. Mr. Walpole MR. SCOURFIELD hoped the Chancellor of the Exchequer would take into consideration what he had urged at an early period of the Session-the expediency of stating clearly in the little annual Abstract the exact amount of revenue and expenditure of the Post Office one year with another. There was a general idea that the revenue was much larger than that actually derived, and hence arose the increased applications which were made to Government on that account. THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER understood the hon. Gentleman to refer to the quarterly Abstract laid on the table setting forth the Revenue and Expenditure of the country, and what was asked was that the revenue, instead of being stated in lump for all the Departments, should be separately exhibited at its actual amount for each. He thought the suggestion a useful one, and might tend to prevent misapprehension in the public mind. Vote agreed to. Motion made, and Question proposed, "That a sum, not exceeding £841,867, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the Charge of the Post Office Packet Service which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1866; no part of which sum is to be applicable or applied in or towards making any payment in respect of any period subsequent to the 20th day of June 1863, to Mr. claiming through or under him by virtue of a cer Joseph George Churchward, or to any person tain Contract, bearing date the 26th day of April 1859, made between the Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty's Admiralty (for and on behalf of Her Majesty) of the first part, and the said Joseph George Churchward of the second part, whatsoever of the said Joseph George Churchor in or towards the satisfaction of any claim ward, by virtue of that Contract, so far as relates to any period subsequent to the 20th day of June 1863." MR. CRAWFORD said, he wished to ask the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of the Treasury for some information with reference to an application made to the Postmaster General by merchants and other persons connected with Eastern commerce upon the subject of the despatches conveyed from this country to the Eastern part of the world. That representation of the inconvenience attending the present system was made in the month of January last. The mails were now despatched, as regarded Marseilles, on the 3rd, 10th, 18th, and 26th of each month; but as those days fell, of course, on different days of the week, on some of which communi with the defects of the present system and the necessity for a re-organization that he had given notice for the appointment of a Committee to inquire into the subject; but owing to the delay which attended the furnishing of the requisite papers and other circumstances, he had been unable to bring the subject under the consideration of the House. Even now, when the matter was mentioned in the House, he was sorry to find that the Secretary of State for India was in such a condition that he was unable to attend, and that they were, therefore, deprived of the opportunity of giving the subject that attention which it deserved. Though the remarks of the hon. Member for the City of London (Mr. Crawford) were perfectly just, he hardly thought that they went deep enough, for the whole system of communication was, in his opinion, eminently deficient from beginning to end. The communication was so slow as to be exceedingly discreditable to the Post Office and the Government. The communication between England and Bombay ought to be accelerated until the mails were conveyed in sixteen days. Every additional day only exhibited an incapacity on the part of the Government to grapple with the case. The right which some Continental States exercised of intercepting and levying tolls upon communications between neighbouring countries could not be viewed in any other light than as a remnant of the Middle Ages, when the barons regarded the pillage of merchants from their castles on the Rhine as their especial privilege. In this case no service was asked nor was any rendered. The utmost cost of conveying letters from Ostend to the remotest port of Europe must be less than a halfpenny per ounce, and that was the utmost sum which the Post Office ought to pay for the transport of letters from England to the shores of the Mediterranean. If the Post Office conducted its affairs in a spirit of intelligence, such as had marked some recent transactions in other public Departments, as in the case of the Commercial Treaty with France, negotiated by Mr. Cobden, the other States would not be allowed to levy a toll upon the boxes of letters passing through their limits. The present state of things was an illustration of the unsatisfactory condition of the Post Office Department, and how unfit it was to deal with great subjects. It was true that at present we were in a transition state as regarded our Indian communications, because of the changes which were occurring in the open cations could not be advantageously for- MR. AYRTON said, he had been so struck 2 Y nection with that subject, he might mention one matter which had an important bearing. While the Post Office was subsidizing a line of steamers to India, the Secretary of State for India was about to set up a rival line, and, of course, all the military and other servants of the Government, who would be passengers by those steamers, would be lost to the Peninsular and Oriental Company, who consequently would require a large amount of subsidy for the conveyance of the mails. Although prevented from pursuing this subject further in the present Session, he hoped that in the next Parliament a searching inquiry would be instituted, and he had no doubt the result would be to prove that the wishes of the hon. Member for London might be gratified without any loss to the country. ing up of new Mediterranean ports; but he did not find that the Government had attempted to deal with the subject in a serious spirit. He might proceed to point out other defects, but he felt that the Government by delaying the production of papers had practically prevented the House from instituting that searching inquiry which was absolutely necessary, and he feared that they were endeavouring to stave off the difficulty for a time by arrangements which would ultimately be found to interfere with a permanent and satisfactory settlement of the question. When the Committee were told that the extravagant and almost prohibitory rates of postage to India which had been mentioned were necessary, he was convinced that the Government was not dealing with the subject in a satisfactory manner; as he was convinced that if it were considered in a comprehensive spirit a reduction and not an increase in the rates of postage would be practicable. As long as the present sys-invalids and time-expired men. The hon. tem of making arrangements of a limited character was adhered to so long the service would be costly and inefficient. Although they were daily hearing of vessels constructed to run sixteen or seventeen knots an hour, the vessels employed in the Bombay and Suez line, where speed was urgently needed, did not average above nine knots. That showed the necessity for inquiry; and although he had been foiled in the present Session, yet if he had the pleasure of sitting in that House in the next Parliament he would propose the Motion for a searching inquiry into the whole of this important subject. In con COLONEL SYKES said, the Government had to provide transport to India for 7,000 troops annually for reliefs, and for a similar number returning home, besides and gallant Member was proceeding to comment upon the Secretary of State's plan for sending out troops to India by Government transports vid Egypt when Notice taken that 40 Members were not present, Committee counted, and 40 Members not being present: Mr. Speaker resumed the Chair :House counted, and 40 Members not being present : Ilouse adjourned at Nine o'clock, till Monday next END OF VOLUME CLXXIX. [APPENDIX. |