It person came to live in a town he must | upon to dip their hands still deeper into make up his mind to be without a gar- the public purse, and hand over a further den. But certainly a person with a gar- sum of £6,000 for the purchase of addiden worth £1,000 a-year might be sup- tional land, in order that our Represenposed to rest content without requiring tative might throw it into the existing more land to add to it at the expense of garden and prevent the inhabitants of the State. But not so the Ambassador the houses which were being built in at Rome. The land, which was at pre- the neighbourhood from occasionally sent a wood, was proposed to be built having a peep into his grounds. He over. Through the middle of it it was asked if it was considered necessary that proposed to run a road, and on one side every diplomatist employed by the counof that road to erect a number of houses. try should be able to surround himself Well, the country was now asked by with a species of secrecy even in his own Her Majesty's Government to buy one- garden? He (Mr. Labouchere) cerhalf of this wood-that was to say, the tainly could not understand why an Amhalf of it which would bring the Am-bassador, more than any other person, bassador's garden down to the proposed new road. The reason assigned for the purchase was actually stated in the Vote, "in order to maintain the privacy of the British Embassy grounds in Rome." That was to say, that the people of this country were to pay £6,000 in order that no house should be built in Rome which should look, not into the residence of the Ambassador, but into this large garden, which the State had already provided for him, and which was worth something like £1,000 a-year. Now, what would anybody in that House do if he had a garden and somebody proposed to build a house that might overlook it? If he were a man of common sense, would he dream of spending £6,000 to shut it out? Nobody, unless he was able to put his hand into the public till, would ever dream of any extravagance of the kind. He would build a wall or plant some trees, and shut out the obnoxious building by that means. This was the ground on which he appealed to the Prime Minister on the subject. He (Mr. Labouchere) knew that social influences had been at work in order to induce the Chief Commissioner of Works, not alone the right hon, Gentleman now upon the Treasury Bench (Mr. Shaw Lefevre), but others who had held the same position, to induce him to agree to these jobs; and he knew how difficult it was to resist them. But he would appeal to hon. Members on either side of the House whether he had not fairly made out his case, and whether it was not amply sufficient for Her Majesty's Ambassador at Rome to have given to him by the country, not only a house to live in, but a garden and land worth £1,000 per annum, without being called VOL. CCLXXIII. [THIRD SERIES.] was not to be looked at. He contended MR. ARTHUR ARNOLD said, he agreed generally with the remarks which had been made by his hon. Friend the Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere), but feared it was pretty certain that the Committee would not support the proposition of his hon. Friend and reject the Vote. He knew something about the particular locality referred to, and in regard to this and other instances he had observed the great pressure which was brought to bear upon Her Majesty's Government by our Representatives abroad. He remembered a case which occurred some time in 3 E ago Majesty's Representative, he had to go a long way round before he could find the Embassy; and then, after going up three pairs of stairs, to ring a bell for half-an-hour before it was answered; and it certainly struck him that it was not a place that accorded with the dignity of a British Minister, as he was not then Ambassador. Whatever the expenditure might be now, there must be a large credit to the Embassy of Rome for the penuriousness of former days. MR. SHAW LEFEVRE: I must repudiate altogether the remark of the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere) that there has been any which a little difficulty arose. It was a case in which a Minister lately representing Her Majesty in a distant part of the world had become so Oriental in his habits that when the Ambassador of the Porte thought proper to erect an Embassy at a distance of half-a-mile from the British Embassy in Teheran, he at once appealed against any such interference with the amenities of the English Embassy, and applied to the late Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs to relieve him from the dreadful oppression and indignity he was likely to suffer in consequence of some objectionable Turks being able to look over his grounds from a distance of half-a-job in this matter. I am quite sure mile. He (Mr. Arthur Arnold) believed the matter was inquired into, and that the claim was rejected. He thought the House had become somewhat lax in regard to its acceptance of Supplementary Estimates. Members on both sides of the House were, perhaps, to blame for having been too ready to adopt the Estimates which had been presented, at all events without making a due investigation. He was of opinion that on this occasion they ought to unite in making a protest. that, on reflection, the hon. Member will say that the word was not used in the ordinary sense of the term, and that, in the observations he has felt it necessary to make, he had no real intention of accusing Her Majesty's Government of having perpetrated a "job." I can assure my hon. Friend that it was with great hesitation that the Government consented to this expenditure. For my own part, I may say that when I came into Office I found that an agreement had already been arrived at by the Government, authorizing the expenditure of even a larger sum of money, for the purchase of a larger piece of SIR HENRY HOLLAND said, he thought it was necessary that for the future expenditure of this nature should be looked into in the hope that some re-ground than it is now proposed to purduction might be effected. This was not the case of a very large expenditure; but he certainly thought it ought to be saved. He knew the locality well, and he could not conceive why, if the Minister wished to walk about in his garden, he did not put up a palisade. That was all that could be really necessary to secure privacy, and he could not help thinking that the proposed expenditure was throwing away the public money. MR. DICK-PEDDIE said, he should like to know what was the size of the present garden, and how far the house of the Ambassador was removed from the piece of garden it was proposed to purchase? MR. R. N. FOWLER said, he was glad to hear from the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere) that Her Majesty's Embassy in Rome was now suitably located. He remembered being in Rome at the time when Lord Derby was Foreign Secretary in 1874, and, having occasion to call upon Her Mr. Arthur Arnold chase. The plot of ground it was originally intended to obtain would have cost £10,000, and that expenditure was agreed to by my Predecessor, on the application of the Foreign Office, and with the concurrence of the noble Lord the Head of the Treasury (Lord Beaconsfield.) I found the negotiations in that state; but they fell through, and then it was suggested that a smaller piece of land, that would cost £6,000, should be purchased. The state of the case is this. As my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere) has pointed out, the site of the Embassy was bought for £80,000; and I think it is hardly fair to speak of it as a garden, because it is the site of the Embassy, including the house. MR. LABOUCHERE: But it is a garden. MR. SHAW LEFEVRE: No doubt part of the site consists of a garden. Beyond the garden is a piece of ground which has been used by the Embassy; but recently the owner determined to lay it out as building ground, and then came the question whether a portion of it should be bought as an addition to the garden of the Embassy. The argument which weighed with the Government was this-that the addition of this piece of ground to the garden of the Embassy would considerably add to the value of the Embassy as a property. On the other hand, if it were not added to the Embassy, and were allowed to be built upon, the property of the Embassy would be very seriously depreciated in value. My hon. Friend has alluded to the fact of its being possible to build a wall at the end of the garden. That is quite true. The Government is under an obligation to the owner of the adjoining land to build a wall; and I am told that a wall sufficient to keep out of view the houses on the adjoining land will be erected, and will probably cost no less than £1,500. Therefore the whole of the £6,000 would not be devoted to the purchase of additional land, and the sum asked for is reduced accordingly to £4,500. Her Majesty's Ambassador at Rome has protested in the strongest possible terms against the building of houses-and houses, too, of an inferior class, which will be built very high, in accordance with the custom of Rome, and which will look into the gardens of the Embassy. He states that they would be of great detriment to the property, that the drainage from them will possibly flow through the Embassy gardens, that people will hang out their dirty linen within sight of the residence of the Ambassador, and that the amenities of the place will be so destroyed that it will be impossible to enjoy the garden in future. I may also mention another fact-that when houses are built in Rome, there is a municipal regulation that they should not be inhabited for a year; and this would also have a deteriorating effect upon the property of the Embassy. It has, therefore, been proposed to make an addition to the land already acquired, and which has cost a sum of £82,000. The land proposed to be purchased will add very materially to the value of the existing property; and, if not purchased, the value of that property will be seriously depreciated. The amount is not a large one as compared with the cost at Paris and other places. I think no one can doubt that, had it been foreseen that these building operations would have taken place so close to the land belonging to the Embassy, the Government of the day would have sanctioned a much larger purchase. The Government have entered upon the present transaction with great circumspection, and not until the most pressing representations had reached them as to the desirability of making this addition to the grounds of the Embassy. MR. DICK-PEDDIE said, he judged, from the figures which had been stated in the course of the discussion, that the size of the Embassy garden must be a very large one. He thought it was unreasonable that the country should be called upon to pay this additional sum of money for the Embassy at Rome. MR. LABOUCHERE said, as they were about to divide, it was only right that the Committee should understand what they were going to divide on. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Commissioner of Works had stated what were the reasons why they were to vote the money now asked for. In the first place, he said it would be an exceedingly good speculation to invest £6,000 in land in order to increase the value of the residence of the Ambassador at Rome; and, secondly, that representations had been made that it was very desirable to make this addition to the grounds of the Embassy. He called it a job when an Ambassador suggested that his garden ought to be enlarged, and a Chief Commissioner of Works assented without any reason to the proposition that the garden ought to be enlarged. However, when the amenities of a garden were before the Committee, he was most unwilling to say anything contrary to the amenities of debate. MR. ALDERMAN W. LAWRENCE said, that the Government were only doing what any prudent owner of a mansion and garden would do whose property was situated as the Embassy at Rome was situated-namely, take advantage of the opportunity of purchasing adjoining ground, which would enhance the value of the property, and prevent a nuisance being created which would deteriorate it. That being so, he thought there should be no hesitation on the part of the Committee to grant the money asked for. Question put. tenance for the preceding year. In the case of roads in the Metropolis and Quarter Sessions boroughs, one-fourth of 24.-(Div. the estimated annual cost of the main The Committee divided :-Ayes 49; Noes 25 Majority 24. (Div. List, No. 328.) (13.) £250,000, Disturnpiked Roads. MR. DODSON said, it would be in the recollection of hon. Members that in the month of February last the hon. Member for Oxfordshire (Mr. E. W. Harcourt) called attention to this subject, and gave Notice of an Amendment on going into Committee of Supply, which was accepted by the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government. That Amendment was in the form of a Resolution to the effect that, in the opinion of the House, some relief ought to be afforded to the body of ratepayers from the incidence of rates for the maintenance of disturnpiked and main roads in England; and his right hon. Friend stated at the time, or a little while afterwards, that his intention was that Scotland should be dealt with in a corresponding manner. Now, that pledge of his right hon. Friend on behalf of Her Majesty's Government was made conditional on the Government being unable to carry out what they intended to donamely, to deal with county government, and to endeavour to place grants in aid on a better footing. That, as the House was aware, they had not been able to effect; and they were, therefore, called upon to redeem the pledge given by the right hon. Gentleman on the occasion referred to. He would briefly state how it was proposed to distribute this grant in aid of disturnpiked and main roads, and then explain the reasons for that mode of dealing with them. The Vote was taken by way of a contribution to be paid in the course of the financial year ending on the 31st of March, 1883, in aid of payments by local authorities for the maintenance of the disturnpiked and main roads in the preceding year ended at Lady Day in England and Whitsuntide in Scotland. Now, the proposal with regard to England and North Wales was to give for roads in respect of which repayment had been made during the year ending March 25, 1882, by the county to the road authority of a moiety of the cost of maintenance according to the Highways and Locomotives (Amendment) Act, 1878, to the extent of one-fourth of the cost of such main tenance understanding by maintenance, materials and labour—of the roads disturnpiked since 1870; and in the case of Scotland for the roads disturnpiked since 1860 one-fourth of the cost of maintenance that was, of materials and labour-during the local financial year ending at or before Whitsuntide, 1882. He now came to the case of main roads in South Wales, and to these, following as far as the nature of the case would allow the precedent adopted in respect of the roads in England and North Wales, Her Majesty's Government proposed to give assistance at the rate of half the average amount which each county had been required to pay towards the maintenance of such roads since the year 1870. As the House was well aware, the cause of the complaint in respect of disturnpiked roads in England was the abolition of the tolls by which they were supported. It was complained that the maintenance of roads which were not merely local roads, but great highways of communication through the counties, and which were formerly paid for by the public by means of tolls, had been, by the abolition of tolls, thrown exclusively on the rates of the parishes or districts in which they happened to lie. The Act of 1878 recognized that there was a grievance on the part of the districts and parishes through which these roads ran, and charged half the cost of the maintenance of the roads disturnpiked since 1870 upon the county rate; it also gave discretion to the county authorities to relieve the local rates in the same manner in respect of those roads which had been disturnpiked before 1870, and in respect of highways which, from the general character of the traffic carried upon them, the county authorities might consider entitled to relief-those roads being called in the Act "main or disturnpiked roads." Thus the claims of roads disturnpiked since 1870 had been expressly recognized and compulsorily provided for by Parliament; and of the 15,000 miles of "main or disturnpiked roads," under the Act of 1878, in England and North Wales, upwards of 12,000 miles represented roads within that category. Well, in redemption of the pledge given by his right hon. Friend The pulsorily reduced the tolls, and might thus be said to have disturnpiked the roads to a certain extent, and it expressly imposed on each of the six counties the burden of making good the deficiency which resulted. That deficiency having been created by Parliament, Her Majesty's Government thought it right that the rates in the six counties of South Wales should be likewise assisted, and accordingly they proposed to assist the county rates to the extent of half of the average annual deficiency which had occurred since 1870. reason why they took, instead of the deficiency of last year, the average annual deficiency since 1870, was because the deficiency in respect of the various counties oscillated from year to year; and, therefore, to take the deficiency of a single year as a basis in calculating the assistance to be given would not effect the equitable distribution which they desired to carry out. Taking, however, the average deficiency since 1870, they arrived at what they believed to be a fair distribution over the different counties. He hoped he had made to the Committee an intelligible statement upon a subject which it was, perhaps, not easy to make clear in a short space of time, owing to the circumstance that the position of the various portions of the Kingdom, in respect of the roads to be maintained, was in each case different. The Government had endeavoured to apportion the assistance they had to give fairly and equitably to the circumstances of the different localities; and in that sense, he believed, he might commend that proposal to the Committee. again reminded the Committee that the arrangement was provisional, and for one year only, because they still retained the hope of being able to carry out the intention they wanted to have fulfilled this year of placing main roads and grants in aid upon a more satisfactory footing. The Government had not proposed legislation on this subject; they simply asked for a sum of money for the purpose he had described, which he trusted the Committee would grant; and it would then rest with the Local Government Board to take upon itself the labour of distributing to each road authority its proportion of the grant. at the head of the Government that some further help should be given to the parishes and districts on which the burden of maintaining these roads had been thrown, they proposed, as he had already stated, to give half the amount received from the county rate-that was to say, an amount equal to one-fourth of the total cost of their maintenance, the word maintenance being understood in the sense in which it was used in the Act of 1878. The effect of that would be that the parishes and districts through which " disturnpiked or main" roads passed would be assisted, on the whole, to the extent of three-fourths of their maintenance half of that assistance proceeding from the county rate, and one fourth from the subvention now proposed. He ought to have stated to the Committee at first that his proposal was essentially and distinctly provisional, and that it was made in redemption of the promise of the Prime Minister given in regard to this financial year only. With reference to the Metropolis and Quarter Sessions boroughs, they would, as he had stated, receive in respect of their disturnpiked roads aid to the extent of one-fourth of the estimated annual cost of maintenance of those roads which had been disturnpiked since 1870. He believed that in Scotland the process of abolition of tolls had been going on since 1863, by means of local Acts in the first place; and, secondly, by the operation of the Roads and Bridges Bill passed in 1878, certain counties having adopted the powers given under the Act for the abolition of tolls, in anticipation of their compulsory extinction. Where Scotch counties had taken upon themselves the consequences of the abolition of tolls, the Scotch rates had a similar claim to assistance as the rates in England and Wales; and it was accordingly proposed to give them assistance to the extent of one-fourth of the cost of the material and labour for the maintenance of the roads. It now remained for him to speak of the case of the six counties of South Wales, which, as compared with others, was the most peculiar. Those counties had been since 1844, or at least for a long series of years, placed under an exceptional form of legislation. The roads in these counties were formerly maintained by tolls alone, the ratepayers being at no cost for their maintenance. But some years ago Parliament com He SIR BALDWYN LEIGHTON said, that there were some points in the statement of the right hon. Gentleman which |