had not, whenever it was mentioned, been told by the right hon. Gentleman that they could not consider it, because it was beyond the limits of deviation. It was a great misfortune that the correspondence, the production of which the Committee thought so essential, was not in the hands of Members. He knew nothing of what was in that correspondence; but it did strike him that there must be in it something very bad, or something which some one was very anxious to keep concealed, or there would not have been so much difficulty in obtaining that which the Committee thought was so essential to the discussion and decision of this question.

MR. HORSMAN said, that the circumstances under which the House entered on the discussion were very unusual, and were certainly not calculated to assist them to a right conclusion. The correspondence which was repeatedly applied for, and the production of which was promised before they began the discussion, was not yet forthcoming. The plan which was issued that morning, and from which they were to judge of the different projects before the public, was entirely inaccurate in some of its most essential features. The blue-book was so far a variation from the usual practice that the evidence was not sent to the witnesses to be corrected, and now appeared in a most inaccurate and slovenly state. He would illustrate that by quoting three questions in the examination of the Duke of Buccleuch. His Grace was asked

by Whitehall, and asked them which they would use if they were going with a fare from Victoria Station to Blackfriars Bridge. The answer invariably was, that unless King Street was blocked up, they should go that way, because it was the nearest; that if it was, they should go up Parliament Street; and that if they could get up neither of those streets, of course they should be compelled to go along the road from Westminster Bridge. Sir Richard Mayne, in his evidence as to the quality of the traffic which would use the embankment, said that only two or three through omnibuses would go along it, that no cabs plying for hire would, and that it would be used by Pickford's vans and other heavy vehicles only to a certain extent. The evidence, therefore, amounted to this that it was not the public at large who would make use of this road, but only men of business who were hurrying along as fast as they could go in Hansom cabs or private broughams. Those gentlemen certainly could not be called the public; they were only a portion of it. These were the reasons which had convinced him that it would be a positive mistake to bring the traffic on to Westminster Bridge. The only reason which was given for bringing it there was the visionary scheme for having a fine promenade and roadway, supported upon brackets attached to the walls of that House and piles fixed in the river; but he did not think that there was the slightest chance that that plan would be carried into effect during the present generation. Foot passengers coming to Westminster Bridge would come on to a footpath, and would be in their right position; and therefore to the carrying of the footpath to that point the objections to which he had been calling attention did not apply. The proposal of the hon. Member for Lambeth (Mr. Doulton) to refer this matter back to the Committee, with an instruction to report in favour of He heard a friend of his say to anoa scheme which they had already con- ther, "What an extraordinary man the demned, was one of the most extraordi. Duke must be, for he walks through a nary that he had ever heard, and he hoped sewer which is a tunnel and consumes his that the House would not assent to it. own smoke;" to which the other returned, As to the Amendment which stood upon "I suspect both happened at once, and the paper in the name of the noble Lord that he consumed his smoke when going at the head of the Government, he would through the tunnel." The third question only say that he was anxious that this was one to which he regretted reference subject should be properly inquired into; had been made by the hon. Member for and so it would have been if the Com-Lambeth, who had spoken with great mittee had been allowed to examine the ability, and, considering his strong views, alternative plan of Mr. Pennethorne, and a considerable amount of candour. At the

"You have already had the inconvenience of the sewer being made upon the west side of Montague

House?-Yes."

46

You have gone through that?-Yes, that was a tunnel." Another question was

"When the wind sets from the river, is there some inconvenience from the smoke of the

steamers?"

His Grace's reply was—

"Not at all now; we consume our own smoke."

Supposing that the public interests decidedly require this roadway, your Grace would waive any further opposition ?—I do not know that I should waive any further opposition; that is asking rather a stronger question than asking a person whether he does not consider his property very considerably damaged."

end of the Duke's examination the fol- I that the Duke and the other Members of lowing question and answer were re- the two Houses of Parliament who were corded: interested had used no more personal or party influence against the Bill than any of the porters in the lobby, or the man that swept the streets; that they appeared before the Committee as petitioners on behalf of the public, who would otherwise have had no locus standi there, and that they endeavoured to use the opportunity thus obtained to convert the ill-matured, extravagant, and detrimental proposals of the original Bill, involving the misapplication of the public funds and the postponement of other much-needed measures of metropolitan improvement, into just and valuable additions to the public convenience, which could be effected with a great saving of money;-if that could be proved, he hoped the House would not only support its Committee but would do so in a manner to vindicate its own character from the aspersions which, through the Committee, had been cast upon it. With the eye of the public upon them, and with the judgment of the public pending over them, he trusted that they would go into this inquiry with the determination to ascertain the truth and to do justice to the public. The question was an old subject of Parliamentary inquiry, with regard, not merely to an embankment of the Thames, but to a great scheme of improvement which should relieve the thoroughfares while promoting the health and beauty of the metropolis. All previous attempts had, however, failed, partly from the absence of a satisfactory plan, but chiefly from a want of funds. When the project was revived two years ago by the hon. Member for Coventry (Sir Joseph Paxton), it was at once warmly taken up by the right hon. Gentleman the First Commissioner, then scarcely warm in his office. It would have been a more business-like proceeding had the right hon. Gentleman consulted all the accessible authorities on the matter, and refrained from undertaking hastily a project which had for so many years baffled his predecessors. Unfortunately, his right hon. Friend neglected to master the subject or to take counsel with those who could give him information, but threw himself at once into the hands of the hon. Member for Coventry. That was the first, but by no means the last or the greatest of the blunders by which they had been brought into an embarrassing position. When the hon. Member for Coventry got his Committee, there was some difference of opinion

That reply was so much at variance with the previous tenour of his Grace's evidence that it obviously did not bear the interpretation which had been put on it. The Duke had before stated distinctly that he would give way if it could be shown that his private interests were in conflict with those of the public. All that was meant by his last answer was, that he would not bind himself to accept the decision of the Committee as final, and not to continue his opposition in the other House. That was really a most important question. Charges had been made at which the public had been both surprised and alarmed. It had been alleged that the Duke of Buccleuch had, before the Committee, offered opposition to the embankment, and had defeated the public. Moreover, it was stated that the Committee had exhibited meanness as well as incapacity; and having been overborne by the influence of the Duke, had to suit his personal convenience, so marred and mangled the Bill that the public were deprived of a great part of the benefit which it was intended to confer, and which they had a right to expect. Whatever the majority of the House might in their own minds think, still the charges were very grave ones in the mind of the public, and deserved the consideration of the House. They had been so publicly made, and had been so frequently and widely reiterated, that the House was bound to inquire into their truth. The Bill was before them, and the evidence was in their hands; but neither the Bill nor the evidence would reach a great portion of the public, and they were called upon, in the interests of the public as well as in their own interest, to see that the charges were inquired into. If they could be substantiated, or if even good reason could be shown for suspecting them to be well grounded, he hoped the House would not hesitate to mark its sense of the misconduct of the Committee and of the proceedings of the Duke by restoring the Bill to its original pure and perfect shape. But if it could be proved that the charges were not only not true but the very reverse of the truth,

as to its constitution. It was suggested | servancy Board, who had also been exthat the Crown lessees should be repre- amined on the plan of a roadway and sented on the Committee, and his hon. embankment, and expressed himself faFriend proposed that he (Mr. Horsman) vourable to it. The first three members should be added to it. He declined the of the Commission, then, who were to honour, however, partly because he had judge impartially between the various always held that no Member should either plans which might be submitted to them, sit in a Committee or vote in the House on had already declared their opinion in faany question who was understood to have vour of one particular plan. There were a personal interest distinct from that of four other members. Mr. Hunt was the public, and also because he was un- Surveyor of the Office of Works, a paid willing to enter the Committee on the sup- servant of the First Commissioner. Sir position that because he was a Crown Joshua Jebb was Inspector of Prisons, lessee he would necessarily be antagonistic and also a paid officer of the Government. to the scheme. For a similar reason he Captain Galton was Assistant Inspector declined, when asked, to suggest to his hon. General of Fortifications, and had since Friend any changes in the constitution of been promoted to the office vacant by the the Committee, although he told him gene- death of Sir Benjamin Hawes. Mr. rally that it was one-sided. The Committee M'Lean, the last on the list, was a civil met, examined the witnesses which the engineer. So that six out of seven of Chairman called in favour of his project, the Royal Commissioners were employed and, of course, reported in its favour, in officially either in Government departaccordance with that evidence. In the ments or on metropolitan boards which following year a Royal Commission was would be affected by the work that was appointed to give effect to the same project, to be done. The Commission conducted but the terms of the reference were more the inquiry, he would not say in a manextensive. It was to combine an embank-ner which might be expected from its ment with three other great objects-the constitution, but certainly in a manner relief of the thoroughfares, the improve- which was not calculated to excite surment of the navigation, and the formation prise. They entered upon it with a foreof a low-level sewer. The embankment gone conclusion. They had the Report of was to be subsidiary. It was to be a means, the Committee of 1860 in their hands, and not an end. The House would, he thought, they would think of nothing but the plan admit that a Royal Commission for such recommended in that Report. They exlarge schemes, involving great expendi- amined no less than fifty-nine different ture and a considerable disturbance of modes of giving effect to that particular private interests, ought to have been no-project and everybody who could be affectminated with great care, so that the public ed by it. The only parties whose existshould have confidence in its high charac-ence was actually ignored until the Comter, its capacity and its undoubted impar- mission had come to their conclusion was tiality. Were those the qualifications which were looked for by the First Commissioner? The first member and the Chairman of the Commission was the Lord Mayor, who had been a member of the Committee of 1860, and who could hardly be said, therefore, to be an impartial judge between the plan he had as a member of that Committee recommended and the other plans that might be brought into competition with it. The second member was Mr. Thwaites, the Chairman of the Metropolitan Board of Works, who had been a witness before the same Committee, and recommended the same plan, for which the Committee returned the compliment, and recommended that his board should be employed to carry it into effect. The third member was Captain Burstall, the Secretary to the Thames Con

the Crown, through whose property the work would run, and the tenants of the Crown, who held the property under lease. It was, to say the least, very unbusinesslike, because in the question of compensation for the destruction of valuable houses the most reliable information could only be obtained from the Office of Woods. Mr. Gore, the head of that office, had been in it for twenty years, and had been a member of a previous Royal Commission which inquired into the same subject. Mr. Gore could have given the Commission of 1861 a greater amount of reliable information than any other witness, and yet the Commission studiously abjured all knowledge of the one witness who could have given the most assistance, and ignored the existence of the lessees whose co-operation would have effected a considerable saving

Mr. Gore has

of public money. Before, however, the porized for the occasion. | Commissioners had quite closed their pro- inherited it in his office, where he found ceedings, they thought it would be de- it recorded and recommended, partly by corous to see Mr. Gore, and they sent a the signature of Lord Bessborough in message to him that they had concluded 1835, and partly by the signature of the their evidence and were about to report; Duke of Newcastle in 1844; and he was but if he had anything to say, they would prepared to recommend it as so much prebe ready to see him and hear any state- ferable, both in the interest of the Crown ment he might have to make. Mr. Gore and the public, without reference to the did see them, and he expressed his sur- lessees, that even if the lessees desired the prise that no communication had been line of the hon. Gentleman, their desire made either to the Crown or the Crown ought not to be gratified. That longlessees. Upon that a letter was written matured and well-considered plan was to each of the lessees, informing them that propounded by Mr. Gore as the responsible if they wished to give evidence, the Com- servant and adviser of the Crown, and he missioners were ready to see them. The then told the lessees that he proposed that lessees adopted the only course open to Mr. Pennethorne should appear before the them; they had no rights which they did Commission and submit the plan, and the not derive from the Crown. They could lessees deputed Mr. Norton to represent not abandon or assert any rights inde- them and to express their acquiescence pendent of the Crown, and they took the in what the Crown recommended. Any very proper course of placing themselves hon. Member who had not read the eviin the hands of the Crown, being ready to dence could, from his daily experience and acquiesce without a word in whatever the common sense, anticipate what the plan Crown approved as beneficial to the public. was. Where, in Westminster, was the They were in a peculiar position. They greatest obstruction to the traffic, and the had a maximum of desire to aid a public greatest peril in the approaches to the two improvement, but a minimum of faith in Houses? Was it not in Parliament Street, his hon. Friend and the Royal Commission. where it crossed Bridge Street? And They knew that a specious appeal in the what was the cause of that obstruction? name of public improvement might admit Was it not the unsightly block of buildof a very elastic interpretation, when it ings between King Street and Parliament was to be carried out with public money Street? The nation had spent between by a projector of his genius and enterprise. £2,000,000 and £3,000,000 in building Consequently, instead of communicating Houses of Parliament on such a scale that directly with the Commission, they deter- every foreigner who came to see the Exmined to communicate directly with their hibition made them his second visit. But landlord, the Crown. They therefore sent how did he see them? He went along Para message to Mr. Gore, desiring him to liament Street-an approach mean, crowdcall them together to hear his views on ed, and cramped enough-but when he got the part of the Crown. They were so down to Bridge Street, matters were ten called together, and he then came to what times worse. There he might see policewas really the question before the House, men fighting with cab drivers to make a and which the promoters of the Bill and passage, Junior Lords of the Treasury and their friends had studiously kept out of Under Secretaries rushing down on the sight. Mr. Gore, having before him all stroke of four to make a House, ducking the fruits of former inquiries, and having under the noses of cab-horses, and Cabinet attentively studied the question for years, Ministers and grave dignitaries of the told the lessees that he was prepared, on Church piloted across between two policethe part of the public, to submit to the men. If he passed across late in the evenCommission a plan which should combine ing, perhaps he might see passengers run all the professed objects of the hon. over, or some other lamentable accident Member for Coventry with greater advan-occur. He would appeal with confidence tage to the public and at a smaller cost to the House to say if there was a single that was to say, it was to give greater point in the metropolis which more rerelief to the thoroughfares, with a shorter, quired improvement, or where the mode broader, and more ornamental approach to of improvement was more obvious. Any the two Houses of Parliament, and effect man of common sense, whose eyesight was at the same time a considerable saving of not blinded by a foregone conclusion, would public money. The plan was not extem- see at once that to take away that block VOL. CLXVII. [THIRD SERIES.] 2 Y