The Sun.
London, England, 1861-07-26 00:00:00

SUPPLY.

The house then went into committee of supply.
On the vote of £25,000 for civil contingencies,
Mr. B. OSBORNE took objection to the item for colonial
bishops, to the item for granting patents to Lord Brougham,
and the Duke of Argyll as Postmaster-General, to the item
for erecting galleries in Hyde-park for the volunteer review,

which came to £1,400, and to the item of £944 for the commis-
sion appointed for encouraging the fine arts in connectionwith
the Houses of Parliament. He believed Lord Brougham
had entitled himself to the gratitude of his country, and
if the patents of great men were to be paid for by the pub-
lic, that of Lord Brougham ought not to be left unacknow-

ledged. He would divide the house upon the £1,400 for
erecting the galleries in Hyde-park, because he thought it
disgraceful that the house should be called upon to pay for
such a purpose. He protested against the payment of £944
for encouraging the fine arts in connection with the Houses
of Parliament, because, in the language of the Chancellor
of the Exchequer, the Commissioners had ludicrously over-
done the matter of ornamentation with regard to the Houses
of Parliament. The frescoes were in a decaying state, and
were rapidly disappearing from public view—a fact that was
not to be regretted, seeing that many of them were not of a
very seemly order. The statues were feur in number, but
the Commissioners now recommended that statues toWilliam
IV., George IV., Charles 11., and James I. should be erected,
and that each of these should be seven feet high. (Laughter.)
He moved that the vote be reduced by £2,000, believing
that this profligate waste of the public money ought imme-
diately to be checked.
Mr. COWPER quoted a portion of his speech on a former
evening in reply to Mr. Osborne. He took for granted that
hon. members had read the report of the Fine Arts Com-
mission, which had been on the table of the house some time.
That report distinctly stated that it was proposed to divide
the chronological series into three departments. The first
12 were to be in the Royal Gallery, a certain number in
another place, and a further number somewhere else. The
monarchy and the history of the country were to be repre-
sented, at the same time encouragement was to be given to
art such as no private individual could Rive. (Rear.) St.

Stephen's Hall was filled with the statues of men who had
achieved distinction in the House of Commons, and, that
being's°, the House of Lords was to represent the Sove-
reigns of the country. Hon. gentlemen might criticise the
durability of the frescoes, but means were being taken to
make them durable ; indeed some were now so hard that the
hon. member might wash them with soap and water as long
as he liked, and rub them with a towel as long as he liked,
without affecting them. (Laughter, and cries of " Oh, oh.")
He trusted they would last 300 years. (Cries of " Oh, oh,"
and laughter.) With respect to the statuary, it was ne-
cessary to have a State grant to complete it properly.

Those that bad been done were dressed in the costume of

the day. Something had been said about the building of
the house itself, but nobody could deny that the external

decorations were an honour to the country. (Cheers, laugh-
ter, and ironical cheers.)
Mr. GREGORY said, after listening to the statement of
the right hon. gentleman, he (Mr. Gregory) thought that
he should have been either more laconic or more communi-
cative. When the question was formerly before the house to
erect 38 statues of British monarchs, the whole feeling of
the house was against it. (Hear, hear.) He objected to the
imaginary statues of Saxon kings. The house had never
had the opportunity of selecting what Sovereigns to select.
The noble lord at the head of her Majesty's Government
had spoken of the difficult of selection—whether they were
to have Alfred, which of the Edwards, &c.—at the same
time they, the noble lord and his friends, knew perfectly
well that four statues had been already selected. (Loud
cheers.) They shifted and they shuffled the whole matter.
(Cheers.) Last year there were only to be four statues ; now
they had gone back to the original 38, which would cost
the country £BOO a piece. (Cheers.) Why did they not
tell the house what they had done, and ask the house
whether it would support them or not? The hon. member
for Sheffield said, the other night, that members of the Go-
vernment were educated in the same way that barbers
brought up their apprentices—they were shave-beggars.
The apprentices tried their hands on beggars, first of all,
until they learned their trade. If we were to hold our
own before the nations of Europe in the statuary of the
house, they ought to have the very best men the country
could afford, and not mediocrities to try their 'prentice
hands on marble. (Cheers.)
The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER defended
the course taken by the First Ccmmissioner of works with
respect to those statues of the English Sovereigns, and
contended that if there had been a change of opinion, it
had been in the committee of the house, and not in his
right hon. friend. With respect to the patents of Lord
Brougham, of Viscount Hardinge, Lord RaglaniLoid Can-
ning, and Lord Elphinstone, in those cases the amount of
the charges was defrayed by the public. In the case of
Lord Brougham the charge was £5OO odd, but the• sum ac-
tually paid by the public was not more than £l5O. These
peerages were all granted for civil services.
Sir G. BOWYER complained of the injudicious selection
of the subjects of painting and sculpture, and gave as in-
stances the funeral of Charles 1., in which a soldier is repre-
sented as insulting the remains of the dead King, and the
murder of Rizzio—an event not creditable to any of the
painters concerned.
Mr. A. SMITH referred to a speech of Mr. Cowper in
last session, in which he stated that there Ns ere to be but
four statues of Sovereigns—one in each corner of the Royal
Gallery.
After a few words from Mr. Cumws,
Mr. H. SEYMOUR asked whether the Government in-
tended to erect statues to George IV., William IV., Charles
11., and James I ?
Mr. COWPER replied ih. the affirmative. At the same
time it would be in the power of the house to express its
decision upon the subject next session.
The discussion was continued by Mr. Gregory, Lord J.
Manners, Mr. F. Peel, Mr. Wyld, Mr. Dillwyn, Sir G. C.
Lewis, and Lord W. Lennox.
Mr. B. OSBORNE withdrew his amendment. He would
not put the house to the trouble of dividing on the items
respecting the colonial bishops or the gallery
in Hyde-park,
but he would divide on the items for the patent to Lord
Brougham and the commission on fine arts for the Houses
of Parliament. He therefore moved now that the sum of
£1,456 165., being the amount of these two items, be de.
ducted from the vote.
The CHAIRMAN said the omission of the items must
be moved separately,
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Mr. B. OSBORNE them moved that the sum of £944
4s. Bd. for the Fine Arts Commission be deducted from the
vote.
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and then followed the question
of tne fees. The Govern-
ment thought that, in consequence
of the eminent public
services renderel by Lord Brougham to the cause of edu-
cation and the abolition of sl
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avery, the fees ought to be paid
by the country, It Was to be hoped that no remnant of