I beg to move, in page 1, line 13, at the end, to insert:

"save for such of the pictures bequeathed by the late Sir Hugh Lane as are now in the possession or control of the Tate Gallery Trustees, which, with those now in the possession or control of the National Gallery Trustees, shall be handed over to the National Gallery of Ireland."

This Amendment deals with the Clause which directs the legal ownership of certain pictures in certain directions, and it seeks to alter that direction. The facts of the case, which I shall hope to argue very shortly, are probably very well known to most people in this Committee, but just in case there should be some hon. Members who are not familiar with the the details, perhaps it would not be inappropriate for me to recount them again.

Forty years ago, an Irishman, who was not undistinguished in the world of art, made a will in which he left 39 continental pictures to the National Gallery. Shortly afterwards, being about to set out on a then hazardous journey to the United States of America in the middle of the First World War, he made a codicil in which he purported to leave these same pictures not to the National Gallery any more but to a Dublin art gallery. He set out upon his journey, having in the few days before leaving made it perfectly plain that his real intention was to leave these pictures to the Dublin gallery. Unfortunately, on his way back from the United States, he went down in the "Lusitania."

But for one unfortunate fact, no one would ever have questioned where he intended these pictures to go, nor would anyone have doubted that the legal right to these pictures was with the Dublin gallery mentioned in the codicil; but, unfortunately, he did not have that codicil witnessed. It was written in his own hand with great care, it was carefully fastened in an envelope, which was placed in a drawer of his desk in the gallery in Dublin of which he was one of the directors, and it was addressed to his sister, who was his confidante in all matter of personal business. That was a very strong reason for supposing that what this gentleman really intended should be done was what was stated as his last wish in the codicil.

11.15 a.m.

Of course, the codicil had no legal effect, not having been witnessed, so the pictures have remained with the National Gallery, by which they were held on loan before the will bequeathed them to the National Gallery trustees. They were, in fact, in the Tate Gallery, although the National Gallery trustees have the legal ownership of them.

Nobody questions that, according to law, these pictures are rightly in the possession and ownership of the trustees in London, but some people argue very seriously that, upon moral grounds, the possession and ownership of these pictures should be in the Dublin gallery, to which city, according to the codicil of the testator, they should and would have gone had the full formalities been complied with and the codicil been witnessed.

Can my hon. and learned Friend say whether the fact that the codicil is in the handwriting of the deceased has ever been questioned?

Never. None of the facts I have so far mentioned has, as far as I am aware, ever been questioned. So far as I know, nobody suggests that the trustees, who have the legal ownership and possession of the pictures, are in any way wrong in having refused to hand them over. It is not for them to hand them over, because they are bequeathed to them, and that would not be in accordance with their trust; but my submission to this Committee is that, although the trustees would be quite wrong to give effect to what they may believe to be the true intention of the testator expressed in the codicil, that does not apply to this House of Commons, which is or should be the expression of the conscience of the nation.

What I would urge most strongly is that here in Committee we have to try to express the conscience of our people, and some of us argue very strongly that the testator, having quite manifestly intended at the time when he made the codicil—and here I am on completely uncontroversial ground—that these pictures should go to Dublin, we should now give effect to that intention.

This is by no means a new story. Indeed, this matter has been before the House on many occasions before, and I am well aware that one has every appearance of trying to flog a dead horse in bringing it up again. I would mention that my main object in putting it to the Committee again is to recall that a committee was set up, consisting of Members of all parties in this House, and reported in 1926. The committee reported by a majority—one Member had some qualifications—that it was the fact that when Sir Hugh Lane made the codicil he thought that it was a legal disposition of the pictures; in other words, he did not think that the codicil had to be witnessed. He thought that he had done everything which he had to do to ensure that these pictures should go to Dublin.

Was the original will properly witnessed?

Yes, it was.

If he knew that the will had to be witnessed, he should have known how to witness the codicil.

Prima facie, I concede that point, but, without going into too long a story, I feel there is a good deal of evidence, taken at one time or another——

With regard to the interjection just made by my hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge (Mr. G. Williams), I think it is right to point out that, when the will was drawn up by Sir Hugh Lane and he did not propose to sign it in the presence of witnesses, it was only the presence of his sister, who pointed out the necessity for witnesses, that caused him to obtain the witnesses to his signature. He was very careless about this sort of thing.

He did not learn a lesson from his first mistake.

I was coming to that very point.

As the hon. Member stated, it is true that he made this mistake originally. His sister subsequently stated in evidence that it was just the sort of idiotic thing that he would do in his own private business affairs and that although he had been told of the necessity for having the original will witnessed, it was just like him to believe that because that original will had been signed and properly witnessed the codicil was, therefore, legal without being witnessed. That was the evidence given by the person who knew him best.

In my submission, the evidence given by the sister and others shows that the failure to have the codicil witnessed is not a substantial argument against the general view that he intended what he wrote in it. The fact that he had made a mistake once did not mean, according to those who knew him best, that he would learn the lesson and know what he should do on the next occasion. Anyhow, the committee reported that he did intend these pictures to go to Dublin when he made the codicil. There was a dispute as to whether he would have intended them to go there subsequently, but there was no dispute about his intention at the time of making the codicil.

The major obstacle to my argument is that the committee, having found that fact, proceded to say that it could not advise the Government of the day to alter the situation by legislation. It did so because, having looked into all the evidence of the supposed intentions of Sir Hugh Lane over a period of years, it came to the conclusion that in the circumstances which obtained in 1926 he would not have wished the pictures to go to Dublin.

Is it not an established fact that the last expressed intention of Sir Hugh Lane was that these pictures should go to Dublin, which is the intention expressed in the codicil?

Yes, I have already made that plain. In the two days previous to his setting out for America he left no doubt, at any rate in the mind of one person, that he intended the pictures to go back to Dublin.

Was that Sir Robert Witt?

No.

Would my hon. and learned Friend tell us who the individual was?

There were two individuals—Lady Gregory and Sir Alec Martin.

That is so. And there was Freeman-Smith, with whom Lane travelled just before sailing. Anyhow, the committee found against me on the main point, so it is that to which I wish to address my remarks this morning. It found against the proposal to send the pictures back, and it did so on two main grounds.

The first was that it is an extremely difficult thing to reconstruct the mind of a man long since dead. We can all sympathise with the Committee in that difficulty, but it then proceeded to attempt to do that very thing. It examined alleged expressions of opinion on the part of Sir Hugh Lane, made over a period of two years before his death, and said that, having regard to these informally expressed opinions, it did not think that at the time of making their report he would have wished the pictures to go to Dublin.

I submit that it is a fault upon the very face of the report that the committee should first have complained so bitterly of the near impossibility of reconstructing the mind of a man long since dead and then have gone on to base its findings upon a finding arrived at in the face of just that very difficulty. In my submission, that is a patent absurdity. The committee further says:

"No case has been brought to our notice, nor have our own enquiries revealed an example, in which a legal defect in a will or codicil has been removed by public Act of Parliament in the public interest in order to gave effect to what is alleged to have been the true intention of the testator."

That is also a manifest absurdity.

Wills have been altered by Act of Parliament again and again. The will of the artist Turner was completely altered by Act of Parliament. The will of Rhodes was altered and, subsequent to the publication of the report of this committee, the late Lord Iveagh's will was altered. He intended to leave pictures to the nation and wanted them housed at Ken Wood but, unfortunately, like Sir Hugh Lane, his fellow Irishman, he did not obtain a witness for the codicil, which consisted of a list of pictures which he intended to be housed at Ken Wood. On that occasion, Parliament found no difficulty whatever in legalising that schedule of pictures, although it had not been properly witnessed.

When it is a question of pictures coming into the national bosom it seems that we are not too hesitant about legalising the position; and I think we ought not to be hesitant when it is a matter of pictures going out. Indeed, we should be all the more hesitant about attempting to frustrate the formally expressed last wishes of a testator if, by doing so, we stand to benefit. To me, this is a plain question of conscience. I am not suggesting that anyone who does not agree with me on this point has no conscience; far from it. There are opinions about matters of conscience, and to me, my hon. Friends and, I hope, the committee, this is purely a matter of conscience.

Augustine Birrell, writing in the "Nation and Athenaeum" a long time ago, when this controversy first came out into the open, said that if a testator had left a diamond ring to a friend in England and had subsequently, by a codicil which happened to be unwitnessed, said that he wished a friend in Ireland to have that ring, what would be the conduct of the friend in England? Would he hang on to the ring or give it to the friend in Ireland? If he did hang on to the ring would his conduct be that of a gentleman or a cad? I do not think that the matter can be put better or more simply.

It would be more apposite to the question of a ring if the friend in England were not a "he" but a "she."

I thought that myself, but decided that it was best to keep to the original question form of the author. Augustine Birrell was thinking of gentlemen wearing diamond rings which, in the old days, were seen flashing on their hands.

This is a simple matter of conscience. Are we to do the right thing even though no one here can derive the slightest benefit and the Government certainly can win no immediate electoral credit? I ask the Committee to consider the matter very carefully. It is one of those small things which can exacerbate feelings between this country and our sister across the water. It is a small irritation which we can remove, and, above all, by doing so we can set our own consciences free.

Lieut.-Colonel Hyde. I think it would be convenient if, in discussing this Amendment, we considered also the hon. and gallant Member's Amendment to the First Schedule, in page 5, line 8, at the end, to insert:

"The National Gallery of Ireland."

I am greatly obliged, Sir Rhys.

I should like to reinforce very briefly the plea that has been advanced so lucidly by the hon. and learned Member for Brigg (Mr. E. L. Mallalieu) for the return of the Lane pictures to Dublin, which many people feel is their rightful home. The hon. and learned Member set out the case very clearly, and I wish only to supplement it by a very few details.

It is important to remember that the pictures were originally exhibited in Dublin. They were lent by Sir Hugh Lane for exhibition in Dublin in the gallery in which he was interested. Because of difficulties over accommodation he lent the pictures to the National Gallery in London, and then, because of either the reluctance or the dilatoriness of the Dublin authorities in providing suitable accommodation for the pictures, he made the will in 1913 of which we have heard. In the two years that followed he changed his mind, and, as we have heard, on the eve of his ill-fated voyage he drew up the codicil leaving the pictures back to Dublin—the codicil which was unattested.

This matter was considered by a Select Committee of the House in 1926. That Committee brought in a Report which in some ways was an unsatisfactory compromise because in the first of its recommendations it found that Lane did intend to make the disposition which appeared in the codicil. I would quote the relevant passage from the Report because it reinforces this point. Paragraph 6 of the Report of the Committee, appointed to consider certain questions relating to the 39 pictures bequeathed under the will of the late Sir Hugh Lane, and published by the Stationery Office in June, 1926, says:

"The unusual care with which Lane drew up the codicil, and the precautions he took to ensure its falling into the right hands in the event of his decease, leave little room for doubt that it was no mere draft or memorandum for his awn use, but a document to which at the time of signature he attached the greatest importance. The fact that he appears to have mentioned its existence to no one disposes of the conjecture that his object in drawing it up was merely to satisfy the wishes of his Irish friends and relatives."

This last sentence is not strictly accurate. He mentioned it to Lady Gregory who was a relative, his aunt, and also to Sir Alec Martin, who, on the face of it, would be more interested in the pictures being retained in London. We have the evidence of Sir Alec Martin, who is still alive, on that point. The paragraph continues:

"His omission to secure witnesses to his signature is in no way inconsistent with the general impression which we have formed of his mental habits and temperament; and in this connection we would draw attention to the statement made to us by his sister that, although on the occasion of his making an earlier will she had explained the need for witnesses, he had proposed to sign the will of the 3rd October, 1913 (which she had written out for him), without witnesses, and had again to be reminded of the necessity."

The next paragraph, paragraph 7, of the Report, says:

"In the absence of any conceivable alternative purpose for which Lane might have intended the document to which he attached such importance, we are led to the conclusion that at the time of signature he thought he was making a legal disposition, which should take effect in the event of his not returning alive from the dangerous voyage which he had immediately in contemplation."

If that was his intention, why should not effect be given to it even at this comparatively late period? It may be felt that it would be inappropriate to alter by legislation a will that has been wrongly drawn up, but the hon. and learned Member for Brigg has very clearly shown that there have been many occasions on which wills have been altered in this way.

This is not a matter of party politics at all. It is a matter on which Unionists and Nationalists in Ireland were agreed. The late Lord Carson was a protagonist in the case for the return of the pictures to Ireland, and exerted himself to secure the return of these pictures, and the late Mr. John Redmond also worked in the same direction. This is something which, as the hon. and learned Member has said, is a matter of conscience. Here is an opportunity afforded by this Bill for providing for the return of these pictures to what Lord Carson called their rightful home, "as a valuable memorial to a great Irishman."

If that cannot be agreed to in the form the hon. and learned Gentleman has proposed by his Amendment, then I submit that my Amendment to the Schedule should be accepted, which would authorise the Tate Gallery trustees to transfer the pictures either outright or on loan to the appropriate authority in Dublin. That may not be, perhaps, such a drastic method of dealing with the matter as that which the hon. and learned Member has proposed, and for that reason I would commend it to my hon. Friend and to the Committee.

I intervene for a few minutes only to submit certain facts that so far have not been put to the Committee. It would appear from what has been said by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Brigg (Mr. E. L. Mallalieu) and by the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Belfast, North (Lieut.-Colonel Hyde) that this country has very unjustly, in the face of all the evidence and purely on a technical point, kept these pictures from going to Eire.

That really is not in accordance with the facts. I remember when this matter was discussed in the House a few years ago. It emerged then, in my view, at any rate, quite clearly, that the matter is not quite as simple as we have this morning —though I am not complaining about it—been led to suppose.

Sir Hugh Lane was rather eccentric. There seems to be little doubt about that. Although he was a good business man, and although he had, as we have heard this morning been warned that a codicil to be valid must be witnessed and had had the fact underlined for him when he made his will, he did not have the codicil witnessed. The date was 1915, during the First World War; he knew he was going to make a voyage to America and that submarines were very active.

It therefore seems to me strange that he did not then, if his mind was entirely made up, see to it that the codicil was witnessed. He did not do so. Having been warned over his will, it seems hard to believe he could have forgotten this when he made the codicil. The surrounding circumstances leading up to his last voyage do not make it at all plain that, even having made the codicil he was at that moment definitely, finally and irrevocably decided to leave these pictures to Dublin.

He had changed his mind several times before. As the hon. and gallant Member for Belfast, North has reminded us, the pictures were for a time in Dublin, then, because the Irish did not provide a gallery which he thought fitting, he brought them over here and eventually gave them to the National Gallery. But, even then, because in his view the trustees did not give proper wall-space to them, he got annoyed. When he went off on his final voyage to the United States, it is obvious that his mind was again in a state of flux. He had been seen by Mr. McColl and Lord Curzon, and both gave evidence be-before the Committee set up later in1923——

Is my right hon. Friend's argument that Sir Hugh Lane wrote this codicil in his own hand, signed it in two or three places and did not, in fact, mean it to be a gift to the people?

I have not committed myself to an assertion of that kind, I am willing to admit he did write it out and signed his name in more than one place. What I am pointing out—in order that this country should not be accused of being unjust and flying in the face of the evidence is that there is another side to this matter. I am anxious that in this discussion we should take a balanced view and not consider simply only one side.

The facts are that Mr. McColl saw Sir Hugh Lane just before Sir Hugh sailed and informed Sir Hugh of the fact that he was then negotiating with Sir Joseph Duveen to provide a gallery for these pictures. It seems strange that Sir Hugh went to America knowing these negotiations were practically completed and that a gallery would be provided to house his pictures without letting Mr. McColl know that there was no point in going on with the negotiations or arranging to erect a gallery because he had made up his mind definitely to leave the pictures to Dublin.

We cannot now enter the mind of a man long since dead, or for that matter, the mind of a man still living. But it does seem that Sir Hugh Lane was playing off Dublin and London one against the other. He was anxious—I do not blame him—that his pictures should be shown, and at that moment, so far as one can tell from the evidence, he had not made up his mind irrevocably as to which city these pictures should go.

Having said that, and having thus tried to put the other side of the case, let me add that at that time in the early 1920's an attempt was made to solve this difficulty to satisfy all concerned. It was then suggested that perhaps half the pictures might be given to Dublin and half left in London or, alternatively, all shown in Dublin for a period and then brought here. But Mr. Cosgrave turned down that suggestion. The Irish Government would have nothing to do with either suggestion. I hope, however, that the Government will reconsider the possibility that, after the Bill is through, an approach might again be made to the authorities in Eire to see whether at long last we cannot came to terms.

The great difficulty is that if these pictures had not gone to the National Gallery the National Gallery Trustees would have bought other pictures in their place. If all these pictures leave this country, it means that there will be a big gap in the National Gallery of the 19th Century French School, and that would be unfair to students and picture lovers here as well as to the Trustees of the Gallery who, down the years, have been trying to build up a comprehensive collection. Therefore, it would be well if the Government would consider approaching the Government of Eire once again to see whether some compromise is not possible; after all, we are grown-up, sensible people, and we do not want to rob anybody of their rights. It surely should be possible, with 39 of them, for some sort of arrangement to be come to so that both countries can be satisfied and those who want to see the pictures in the course of time see them.

The right hon. Gentleman was mentioning that because Sir Joseph Duveen was about to provide a gallery in which to house the pictures, Lane would, at the time of his death, have wished to leave the pictures in Dublin. Sir Hugh Lane was on the worst of terms with Sir Joseph Duveen. If there was one thing more than another which would have made Sir Hugh Lane send his pictures away from London, it was the thought that it meant that they would be housed in Duveen's Gallery. Even if the suggestion had been put to Sir Hugh there is no real evidence on that point, as the pictures are not now housed in that place but were taken away to the gallery. So I submit this is irrelevant to the main point.

Without being patronising, I think the right hon. Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Glenvil Hall) gave an extremely fair account of this very difficult controversy. I approach it from the point of view of what is artistically desirable and not in a national or political spirit that should not really enter into it. On balance, it seems to me to begin with that the purpose which Sir Hugh Lane had in mind in this codicil, or at least the purpose expressed in the codicil, was a highly desirable purpose, that of establishing a national home for art in Dublin. From the purely objective artistic point of view, the majority of these pictures can serve a better purpose in Dublin than they can in London. We can more easily spare them from London than we can from Dublin.

But I entirely agree with the right hon. Gentleman that it does not necessarily follow from that that every single one of the pictures should go. We have a very good case, that, as a result of the bequest, we have refrained from buying other pictures we might have bought. But, in general, the pictures could be displayed today to much better advantage in Dublin than here in England where no very good use is made of them. The galleries have no space to display all of them. There is difficulty in seeing some of them, and one has to get special leave to go underground to look at them. From the artistic point of view, they will be better displayed and serve a more useful educative purpose in Dublin than in London, as far as the majority is concerned.

Then, of course, it would be open to hon. Members to say it may be desirable that Dublin should have a good picture gallery but, since Dublin is not under the jurisdiction of this House, it is no business of ours. Obviously, if there had not been this question of the will, that would be the line this House could be expected to take. Sir Hugh Lane was, indeed, a changeable and somewhat erratic man in some of his business habits. But, I think, to put it mildly, there is sufficient doubt about Sir Hugh Lane's intentions to make it perfectly proper for us in this House at least to say—I would not put it quite as positively as the hon. and learned Member for Brigg (Mr. Mallalieu)—that we in no kind of way commit a breach of this trust if we allow these pictures to go to Ireland.

I therefore join with the right hon. Member for Colne Valley in hoping that some arrangement for a compromise can be reached with the Eire Government by which these pictures, at any rate for a time, or at any rate a considerable number of them, can be sent to Ireland on proper terms. It seems to me that the argument about what Sir Hugh Lane would have thought in 1926 is quite meaningless. How anybody can tell what a changeable man would have thought 11 years after his death I do not know; it is as if I were asked whether, had I been a horse, I should have run in the Derby—a meaningless proposition.

The fact remains that all that is relevant when we are considering this matter is what was in his mind at the time of his death, and it is clear that the state of his mind at the time of his death— to put it mildly—was such that we could not pretend in any way to be flouting his wishes by allowing some of these pictures to go to Dublin.

The question is, therefore, how we are to do that. It seems to me that there are two ways of doing it. The first is by accepting the Amendment which we are considering at the moment. If it were accepted, the legal ownership of the pictures would at once be transferred to the National Gallery of Dublin and the British would no longer have any interest in the pictures at all. I suppose that is what is meant by the phrase "shall be handed over."

But if, as I imagine, right hon. Gentlemen on the Front Bench are not willing to go as far as that, I would join the right hon. Member for Colne Valley in suggesting that we should take such a step as that of accepting the later Amendment which would add "The National Gallery of Ireland" to the Schedule. This would give the authorities here power to send these pictures to Ireland on terms of loan and it would also give them power to send other pictures there, on terms of loan, if they wished to do so. I urge that some compromise arrangement along the lines suggested by the right hon. Member for Colne Valley should be reached with the Irish Government.

I agree with almost every word said by the hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Hollis), except his conclusion. To accept the Amendment to the Schedule would not merely enable the authorities to do what he suggests; it would enable the trustees to transfer the ownership of pictures—not only these pictures but any pictures—which raises the very important point of whether they should be allowed to transfer ownership not to a Gallery within the United Kingdom but to a Gallery outside the United Kingdom, and not only the Lane pictures but any pictures.

Nevertheless, I agree very much with the hon. Gentleman's main contention. The strongest argument for returning these pictures to Dublin is that on the whole, as far as we can tell, there is at least no reason to suppose—putting it negatively, as the hon. Member said—that we should be committing any breach of trust by doing so. We must have slight twinges of conscience about the whole story of Sir Hugh Lane's will and codicil. Secondly, these pictures are much in demand in Dublin and would be greatly used in Dublin.

There is one point which should be cleared up. In an excellent suggestion that there should be a compromise, the right hon. Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Glenvil Hall) said that the removal of these pictures would leave a gap. No doubt the removal of any picture of that class, of any important picture, from our National Gallery or the Tate Gallery would leave a gap, but am I not right in saying that for long periods some of these pictures have never been shown? I do not think we should stress too much the argument that their removal would leave a large gap.

All. I meant to say was that if they all went it would leave a gap in that period in the gallery.

I entirely accept that. Like the hon. Member for Devizes and the right hon. Member for Colne Valley, I should like to see a compromise reached. Leaving the legal argument aside, it seems to be more satisfactory either that for certain periods all these pictures should be shown in Dublin or that at least certain of them should be sent to Dublin.

May I point out that if Sir Hugh Lane had had the good sense to be domiciled in Scotland, his codicil would have been perfectly effective? The fact that it was not witnessed is a very narrow legal point and I do not think we should rely entirely upon it.

I should like to hear the Government's views on another powerful point made by the hon. and learned Member for Brigg. The hon. and learned Gentleman spoke of a parallel case, the Ken Wood pictures, in which this House intervened and regularised the will of the late Lord Iveagh. If that is true, it seems a strong argument indeed, because one point which has weighed with me is that it is undesirable for Parliament to try to interpret wills and to make good legal deficiencies. If there is a parallel case, that seems to me to remove a great deal of the force of that argument.

It is almost unanimously agreed that Sir Hugh Lane was a volatile man, but I remind the House that on this occasion he took the trouble to make the codicil and to see that it fell into hands which would treat it in the way in which he wanted it treated. There is, therefore, strong argument that, on the whole, he meant these pictures to go to Dublin. Although I foresee certain dangers in removing the only grievance upon which the North and South of Ireland are united, and on which even the hon. Members for Belfast are united, I recommend the Committee to come to some arrangement, although not the arrangement which would be made by the alteration in the Schedule, for sending these pictures, or at any rate some of them, back to Dublin.

In the first part of his speech, the right hon. Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Glenvil Hall) made great play with the fact that Sir Hugh Lane was an eccentric man whose mind was in a state of flux. I do not think that is relevant to the issue. I have seen the right hon. Gentleman's mind in a state of flux on more than one occasion when he was Financial Secretary. Indeed, in his speech this morning he did not come down on one side or the other until near the end.

It is what happens at the end that matters. If Sir Hugh Lane had had his codicil witnessed and had then written another codicil unwitnessed, leaving the pictures to the National Gallery, I would take up the cudgels on behalf of the National Gallery. If, further, he had written some letters or left a scrappy piece of paper diverting the pictures back from the National Gallery to Dublin, I would take up the cudgels on the part of Dublin. It is the state of mind of the testator at the time of his death, as far as it can be ascertained, which is important.

I do not think that the full majesty of the law should decide in a matter of this kind, particularly at this stage, 20 or 30 years after the event. The relationships between this country and Southern Ireland are very much better today than they were at the time this committee found in favour of the National Gallery. Do not let us leave out of account the climate of political opinion in which this committee sat. I do not suggest that they did not take a judicial view and come to a high legal and at that time sensible suggestion, but I imagine that if they had reported otherwise at the time there might have been a very serious howl from large sections of opinion in this country.

I rise principally to make it clear why my name appears on the Amendment dealing with the Schedule and not on the principal Amendment which we are discussing. It is because I think it is a little dangerous for Parliament to legislate forthwith to transfer the pictures to the Gallery in Dublin. I do not think that public opinion in the artistic world is fully worked out on this subject. It has been discussed early this year and it arose again last week on Second Reading, but not much has been said about it. We have not yet had the opinion of the art critics and lovers of art, ranging through the national Press and the weekly Press.

Before we have had this opinion and before public opinion has been formed in universities and elsewhere, it would be wrong for us forthwith to transfer these pictures. I therefore prefer the suggestion of my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Mr. Hollis) of adding the Gallery of Ireland to the Schedule. That gives the authorities the appropriate power to direct that these pictures should be returned to Ireland. They could exercise that power at the appropriate time, possibly a year from now, when public opinion has formed and manifested itself and the problem has been settled one way or the other.

12 noon.

I do not seriously support the contention of the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond) that this is a dangerous provision because it would mean that the Treasury could dispose of not only the Hugh Lane pictures in the Tate Gallery but a great many others, and send them to Ireland. As we are conferring this power on the Treasury and giving by this Bill greater facility for directing works of art about the world, we can expect that they would, in fact, transfer to Dublin pictures other than the Hugh Lane bequest pictures.

I seriously commend this alternative of the Schedule to my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary, and I hope very much that he will take advantage of it. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Colne Valley, in the second part of his speech, refused this compromise suggestion, but he did not make at all clear how, if this Bill is passed, these pictures are to be legally transferred. Under what authority, under what previous Act, will it be possible to achieve this compromise and transfer the pictures? If he will make that clear to the Committee, I think that it would help us.

Perhaps I did not make myself clear, and I am grateful to the noble Lord for allowing me now to state what I had in mind. I had in mind that if we wanted, in the light of this discussion, to alter the Bill to make it possible to come to some compromise with Dublin, that that should be done if necessary.

That is an important statement by the right hon. Gentleman. It means that he is approaching some suggestion of the kind which is now before the Committee. It may be that we have not got the right words. The Amendment may be wrong, and even the one attaching to the Schedule, but it would seem that the right hon. Gentleman is prepared to put into this Bill some sort of provision to enable the pictures to be transferred and is not relying on the passage of the Bill in its present form and some further Act of Parliament.

I found the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Glenvil Hall) singularly unpersuasive. I think that it will have little weight in the Committee today. He said that it was difficult to reconstruct the mind of a man long since dead, but there are certain criteria by which his testamental intentions can be ascertained. I submit that among these are his express desires or will when set out in writing as they are here.

Another point made by my right hon. Friend is that there is no case of a will of a private person being altered by a public Act of Parliament. I am sure that the Committee will agree that the House is omnipotent in matters of that sort. If the House sees fit, it can implement the will or codicil of a deceased person according to its inten- tion, and that is what we are asking the Committee now to do.

The right hon. Member for Come Valley did not explain why, in his view, Sir Hugh Lane executed the codicil at all, if he did not intend it to be implemented in accordance with the words expressed in his codicil. What was the intention of Sir Hugh Lane? Did he intend the codicil to be effective or not effective? He went to the trouble of writing it out in his own hand and signed it in three places. The right hon. Gentleman did not explain any of these things because they are inexplicable except upon the basis of this Amendment.

Then my right hon. Friend talked about a conversation with Mr. McColl. That, in my submission, is quite irrelevant to the matter we are considering now. He also mentioned the gap there would be in the National Gallery if these pictures were taken away; and that seems to me also a consideration which should have no weight in our discussion today on the question of Sir Hugh Lane's intention.

As to his compromise plan, does he suggest, as I thought he said, that it should be incorporated in the Bill or was it just an airy suggestion in order to get rid of this Amendment? I do not think that the suggestion about a compromise should have any weight with the Committee.

If my hon. and learned Friend will look at Clause 4, he will see that in subsection (1) paragraph (a), line 4, that there is complete power to display for an indefinite number of years or for ever without any alteration in this Bill at all, if so desired.

I agree that there is that power, but this is a question of implementing the intention of the testator and transferring the ownership of the pictures. It is ownership and not merely a matter of display.

My submission is that the criteria which should actuate this Committee are all at present here. They are not legalistic, they are cultural and humane, and they are designed to implement the will and the expressed desire of Sir Hugh Lane. The case made today is put, not on legalistic grounds, but on ethical and moral grounds. On these grounds, my submission is that this Amendment should commend itself to the Committee.

There is one point which I should like to concede in fairness, and that is that the pictures are at present held by the National Gallery or the Tate Gallery as a statutory body. They cannot part with them without the stautory authority of the House, and that is why the supporters of this Amendment seize this opportunity to ask the Committee to give statutory authority to part with these pictures.

There are four other points which I should like to put before the Committee. One is that the reasons actuating this Amendment are based on ethics, morals, good sense and decency which are, in my submission, the qualities which should actuate our deliberations in the House. The second point which has been put by hon. Members opposite is that people in the north and south of Ireland are in favour of this Amendment. There is no border in this matter. This is not a political question. It is purely a question of ethics, morals and decency.

If there is this complete agreement between the north and south, how does my hon. and learned Friend reconcile the two Amendments on page 4040 of the Notice Paper?

The hon. Member cannot anticipate the other Amendments.

I do not want to confuse the issue before the Committee, which is a simple one. Here we have Ireland, north and south, united, a small nation asking this great nation to do what appears to be right and just in this matter, to be truly great in magnanimity by implementing the codicil of Sir Hugh Lane. In my submission, to attempt to retain these pictures in the face of the facts would be a greedy thing, and it seems to me that art and greed go ill together.

This Amendment is designed to marry legal ownership to moral ownership so that henceforth they can walk hand-in-hand. The facts are simple. There are some that should be emphasised. One is that Sir Hugh Lane was a director of the National Gallery of Ireland who naturally would wish his pictures to go to Ireland.

The intention and wish expressed in the codicil would naturally be the desire of Sir Hugh Lane that his pictures should go to Ireland. He was a world-famous collector of pictures, a connoisseur. The one thing that has not been sufficiently emphasised is the actual terms of the codicil, which is very short. It should be on record. It is written on the notepaper of the National Gallery of Ireland. It is dated 3rd February, 1915, and is signed at the top and at the bottom by Sir Hugh Lane. It is all in his own handwriting and is in the following words:

"This is a codicil to my last will, to the effect that the group of pictures now at the London National Gallery, which I have bequeathed to that institution, I now bequeath to the City of Dublin, provided a suitable building is provided for them within five years of my death. The group of pictures I have left at Belfast I give to the Municipal Gallery in Harcourt Street"—

which is in Dublin.

"If a building is provided within five years the whole collection will be housed together. The sole trustee in this matter is to be my aunt, Lady Gregory. She is to appoint an additional trustee as she may think fit. I also wish the pictures now on loan at this the National Gallery of Ireland to remain as a gift. Hugh Lane."

There are a further short few lines:

"I would like my friend Tom Bodkin to be asked to help in the obtaining of this new gallery of modern art in Dublin. If within five years the 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 purposes of my will. Hugh Lane, 3rd February, 1915."

Whatever may be in doubt about this case and this argument, there can be no doubt that that document was an expression of the intention of Sir Hugh Lane. It is very important for the Committee to realise that the whole of the document which I have just read was in Sir Hugh Lane's own handwriting, was in due legal form, was signed by him in three places and was put safely in his own desk in the National Gallery of Ireland just before he went to America. On his return journey as we have heard, he was in the "Lusitania" which was, unhappily, torpedoed. Surely these are dominating considerations that the Committee will bear in mind in determining whether or not to accept the Amendment.

There is no suggestion of any other irregularity—except the absence of a witness—of any impropriety, of undue influence, or of duress. Those things have never been suggested, yet two statutory bodies, because they are statutory bodies, are unable to part with these pictures. I ask the Committee to accept the Amendment in order to give those bodies statutory power to hand over the pictures to the gallery which Sir Hugh Lane obviously intended to have them. On all those grounds, I ask the Committee to pass the Amendment.

The Committee may be feeling a little confused. Some hon. Members may have the impression that the proposal in regard to the National Gallery of Ireland is an alternative to the plan that some of us want accepted in regard to the pictures of Sir Hugh Lane. There are two separate issues involved. Hon. Members should do everything possible to let Sir Hugh Lane's pictures be handed over to Ireland, but loans of other pictures should also be made to the Dublin National Gallery. My noble Friend the Member for Dorset, South (Viscount Hinchingbrooke) made a very good point when he said that in 1926, when the committee reported, there was considerable ill-feeling against Southern Ireland and there would have been much anger if the pictures had then been handed to Ireland. These feelings have long since passed and today the situation is completely different.

The noble Lord said he thought that feeling on this subject was not yet sufficiently roused and there was not sufficient interest. Last Friday I was not able to be in the House because I was in Dublin. Although I read the English newspapers next morning there was practically no mention of the speeches of the two hon. Members for Belfast, but these were very much headlined in all the Irish papers. There is certainly very strong feeling over there on that side of the Channel. It is not ill-feeling at the moment, but an irritation. We ought to forget as much as we can of the legal side of this matter and think of it as a matter of friendship between the two countries. Some people may think it is silly to have all this feeling about a matter of 39 pictures, but it is very serious because it irritates and so involves the friendship between the two countries.

Ireland is much more interested in art than in military problems, and is at present extremely worried and unhappy that this matter cannot be cleared up. I am not at all sure that the Irish would be happy about the alternative of lending the pictures to their National Gallery. They really want the matter settled so that they can own them. We have very much art in this country, but there is a very small amount of it in Ireland and it is difficult for the Irish student, who finds that there is not very much to see in Dublin. There is so much more in London and he cannot afford to go there. The Amendment would be of great assistance to the Irish student.

There is very keen interest in this matter in Ireland. This is a gesture which should not be left to a time when anything is going wrong; it should be now, when we are on the friendliest of terms. To say that wills cannot be altered by Parliament is wholly inaccurate. What about the will of the late Sir Ernest Cassel? What about the Mountbatten case, which was dealt with under the last Government? That was certainly not carrying out the intentions of the Cassel will. I am sure that what was done then can be done again, and it ought to be done. If my hon. Friend feels that it is impossible, then we must fall back on the new Clause which has been tabled, but the Clause should not be dealing only with the Lane pictures but with the possibility of lending other kinds of pictures.

We are not dealing with a new Clause. We are dealing with the first Amendment on the Order Paper and also with the second Amendment to the First Schedule.

Thank you, Sir Rhys. I made a mistake. I am speaking about the second Amendment to the First Schedule.

We should agree that the Tate Gallery should be permitted to lend pictures to the National Gallery of Ireland, if necessary, permanently. It is absurd to talk of Southern Ireland as a completely alien country. In the arts, literature and in suchlike matters, the associations are practically the same between Southern Ireland and Northern Ireland and between England, Scotland and Wales. We go backwards and forwards, but we are closely associated in many of these things; and art should know no borders.

We have been able to make it quite clear that when we want people for the Armed Forces we make Southern Ireland the only country outside the Commonwealth that is not considered alien. We can do the same thing in art. The National Gallery in Dublin is also, in a sense, the National Gallery of the whole of Ireland. It was started like that and it was considered as that. If things can be lent to other parts of Great Britain and to Northern Ireland, why cannot we lend to Southern Ireland? I think we are becoming a bit confused on this issue by talking only about the Lane pictures and not remembering that some of us are extremely anxious to have loans made to the National Gallery of Ireland of other pictures as well.

First, I should like to express my appreciation for the moderate and reasonable way in which this Amendment has been discussed. I do not know whether ever in the history of Parliament a controversial question affecting Ireland has ever been debated with such restraint. Certainly, if hon. Members have had strong emotional feelings on the matter they have kept them under control, and I think we all owe a great deal to the very moderate terms in which the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Brigg (Mr. E. L. Mallalieu) moved his Amendment.

As to the present whereabouts of the pictures, the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond) suggested that many of them were not available to be seen for long periods.

I am sorry—had not been.

I do not think it is true, except in wartime, that the Lane pictures have been subject to large-scale withdrawal from view, but, at any rate, the present situation is that of the 39 pictures 24 are on exhibition in the Tate Gallery, nine in the National Gallery and there are only six which are not at present exhibited. I am sure the Committee will understand that the 39 pictures are not all of equal merit.

Secondly, I should like to assure the Committee that the only point at issue here is the ownership of the pictures. My hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Mr. Hollis) and possibly one or two other hon. Members seemed to me to be suggesting that there was some argument about the loan of the pictures and that the acceptance or non-acceptance of either of these Amendments might affect the powers of the trustees to lend the pictures to Dublin. That is not so. There is no difficulty whatever about lending the pictures, and, indeed, it is well-known that the trustees of the National Gallery have, in the past, offered to lend many of the pictures to Dublin. The question at issue is simply their ownership.

A point made by the hon. and learned Member for Brigg and by some other hon. Members was that there were plenty of precedents for altering the terms of a will by an Act of Parliament. I have investigated that so far as I am able to, and I confess I have not been able to discover any precedent for altering by an Act of Parliament a will where the beneficiaries were not in agreement that it should be altered. There is a distinction between an Act of Parliament endorsing an agreed settlement between the beneficiaries of a will and what is proposed in this Amendment, that is to say, Parliament intervening and determining, contrary to the legal terms of a will, a highly controversial matter about a certain bequest.

I think it might be for the convenience of the Committee if I dealt first with the Amendment which proposes to include in the First Schedule

"The National Gallery of Ireland."

My difficulty about inviting the Committee to accept that Amendment is this. The First Schedule lists those national institutions to which it is suggested that the Treasury should have the power to direct bequests or that the Tate Gallery should have the power to transfer pictures which they no longer require. Since 1949, Eire has not been a part of the British Commonwealth, and if hon. Members will examine the list in the Schedule they will see that there is no gallery or institution outside the United Kingdom mentioned in it.

The effect of this Amendment, if it were accepted, would be to introduce into that list a national institution outside the Commonwealth while not including in the list great picture galleries which are within the Commonwealth. This is a United Kingdom Bill and I could not advise the Committee to write into it such an anomalous change as that.

I return to the main Amendment which has been moved, concerning the future of the Lane pictures. I must apologise if I keep the Committee for a little time, but we have debated this from many points of view and I think that hon. Members will probably wish the Government to explain the main facts on which we have to come to a decision.

Before the hon. Gentleman leaves that part of his speech, would he say a word about precedent? He said he could find no precedent, but does he not agree that the House is sovereign and is not bound by precedent?

I entirely agree that the House is sovereign and I am coming now to discuss the issue of the Lane pictures; but I think it was right at the outset of my speech to deal with that one point which was a general argument raised by the hon. and learned Member.

If I may remind the Committee of the facts, they are these. In 1907, Sir Hugh Lane founded a gallery of modern painting in Dublin. In July, 1913, Sir Hugh informed the Director of the National Gallery that, as the Dublin Corporation was reluctant to carry out his conditions as to building a permanent gallery to house the collection, he had decided to offer as a temporary loan to the National Gallery in London a group of 39 pictures. Those pictures were deposited with the National Gallery in London in September of that year and on 3rd October he executed a will bequeathing the 39 pictures to the London National Gallery.

12.30 p.m.

May I say, in parenthesis, that we all agree that this was his legal testament. There has been no argument as to the legal position; the argument has centred entirely around the moral issue. On 3rd February, 1915, Sir Hugh Lane drew up and signed a codicil to his will bequeathing the 39 pictures to the City of Dublin. Three months later, on 7th May, he was drowned in the tragedy of the sinking of the "Lusitania."

This unhappy story has given rise to very strong feelings, and it is fortunate that we can debate it now in a calmer atmosphere. In 1924, the then Labour Government appointed a committee—it was not a Select Committee as has been suggested—to consider two questions relating to the Lane pictures. The committee was composed of one hon. Member from each of the three main parties in the House. So what we are doing this morning is, in effect, reviewing the work that was done with great care by three of our former colleagues 30 years ago. The Government asked those three hon. Members to report, first whether Sir Hugh Lane, when he signed the codocil, thought that he was making a legal disposition; and, secondly, if so, whether it was in their opinion proper that in view of the international character of the matter at issue, the legal defect in the codicil should be remedied by legislation.

The committee went into the matter carefully and they presented a report which was published subsequently and which I have read with great thoroughness. Their findings were these on the two questions: first, that Sir Hugh Lane, in signing the codicil, thought he was making a legal disposition. It is true that of the three hon. Members one desired it to be placed on record that he felt unable to associate himself with the unqualified reply of his colleagues on that matter. To the second question their reply was unanimous. They said:

"…nevertheless, 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 intentions. Our reply to the second question is, therefore, in the negative."

I should like to be allowed to say a few more words about that, so as to give an indication to the Committee of the way in which that conclusion was reached. I do not like quoting at length, but this White Paper is not readily available now, being 30 years old, and if I have the permission of the Committee, therefore, I will read four or five sentences from it. These come from the earlier part where they are examining the second question put to them:

"Nothing stands out more clearly from the record of Lane's acts and conversations during the years 1913 to 1915 than the instability of his attitude towards the rival claims of the Dublin and the London Galleries. The friction in which he found himself unfortunately involved with the authorities of either institution in turn bent his thoughts now to London, now to Dublin, as the possible recipients of his gift. A mood of annoyance with the one or the other caused him to vacillate with a frequency and suddenness which appear remarkable, until it is realised that underlying the rapid and impulsive changes of his attitude there was one steady purpose ever present to his mind. The establishment, under worthy conditions, of a Gallery of Modern Continental Painting, ultimately perhaps to be comparable with the great modern galleries of the capitals of Europe, was the goal to which Lane's activities seem constantly to have been directed.

"Whether this Gallery should be in Dublin or in London was, in our view, a matter to which he was relatively indifferent; a hint that either city was in a position to provide a building commensurate with his idea seemed enough to turn his mind in its favour. In his conversations he was careful to avoid any commitment so definite as to hamper his future discretion; even during the period between the signature of the codicil and his departure for America we find that he expressed himself in contrary senses to the one party and the other, making it clear to the dispassionate observer that not until he was finally assured of the prospect of a Gallery did he intend to commit himself irrevocably."

As far as can be ascertained, that is the fact of the matter as reported upon by a committee of our former colleagues 30 years ago. We have to consider this morning whether or not it is desirable to over-ride and set aside those findings and reach another conclusion. I think it was the noble Lord the Member for Dorset, South (Viscount Hinchingbrooke) who said that the committee took a very judicious view. On the other hand, my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Belfast, North (Lieut.-Colonel Hyde) described the report as an unsatisfactory compromise. So even among those who have spoken today in favour of some transfer of the Lane pictures, there seem to be some who accept and some who question the strength and cogency of that report.

I cannot allow to pass the suggestion made by the hon. and learned Member for Brigg that there was any patent absurdity on the face of the report. I feel sure the Committee must accept that report as a serious contribution which was made in the light of all the known facts. The noble Lord said that it is what one says at the end that matters. What I feel bound to say at the end is this: if this Amendment were passed, what we should be doing, after a debate of 1½ hours, would be to set aside the careful findings of three of our colleagues specially appointed for the purpose 30 years ago, nearer the time of the original events; and findings of theirs which have stood for 30 years, in the sense that successive Parliaments have had the opportunity in that period, if they wished, of over-riding the findings of this report and have not done so. That being so, I must advise the Committee that it would be wrong to accept the Amendment.

I hope the last word that has just been uttered is not the last word as far as action is concerned. I would commend to the Committee and to Her Majesty's Government the suggestion that was thrown out by my right hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Glenvil Hall). During the last 10 years, although it is true that Southern Ireland has left the British Commonwealth, there has been a welcome softening of the relationships between us. On two or three occasions when I was Home Secretary, I had to say to the House of Commons with regard to certain practical matters, such as the level at which water should be kept in a lake and whether poaching should be allowed in a river at a place where nobody was quite sure of the boundary, and issues like that, that the two parts of Ireland had reached a working arrangement.

Surely that is precisely the sort of thing that ought to happen here. I am surprised that my hon. and learned Friends the Member for Brigg (Mr. E. L. Mallalieu) and the Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hector Hughes), both Her Majesty's counsel learned in the law, should say that whether the codicil was signed or not really did not matter. I am sure that if I had instructed a solicitor to go to them and ask if this codicil was binding and they had not known there was any politics in it, both would have said "No" straight away.

We do not want to get into legalistic considerations in a matter like this. I sincerely hope that Her Majesty's Government will find some way by which these pictures, which ought to be for the enrichment and improvement of the two nations, shall be available in such a way that perhaps not the strict letter of the law but a reasonable working arrangement between two sister nations can be secured.

Would it be right for the Financial Secretary to give the names of the three members of the committee to which so much importance is being attached?

I am sorry that my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) should have thought that anyone sought to introduce legalistic considerations into this matter. I thought that I was very explicit in my remarks in pointing out that there was no legal case whatsoever. In short, I argued on the contrary, that it was purely a case of morals with which we had to deal.

In view of the interjection of my right hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Glenvil Hall) during the speech of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hector Hughes), it might be for the convenience of the Committee if I added a few words about the statement in the codicil that if within five years a gallery was not forthcoming in Dublin the thing was to fall. In what circumstances was it to fall? Let us consider the exact words of the codicil. They are:

"If within 5 years a gallery is not forthcoming, then the group of pictures at the London National Gallery are to be sold,"—

and these are the operative words—

"and the proceeds are to go to fulfil the purpose of my Will."

If we turn back to the will we find that the pictures were to be sold and all the residuary estate was to go to another Dublin Gallery. In any event, therefore, whether the gallery was built in five years or not these pictures were intended by Lane to go to one or other of the Dublin Galleries.

Therefore, to suggest that because the gallery was not built within five years in Dublin the codicil should not be enforced is nonsensical. Yet it was on that ground more than on any other that in the debate on this Bill in another place their Lordships found against the return of these pictures to Dublin.

In a most reasonable and persuasive speech, the Financial Secretary said today that there was no precedent for altering a will. Was not the Rhodes will altered by Act of Parliament? In any event, nobody is suggesting altering the last will and testament of this testator, Sir Hugh Lane. What is suggested is that effect should be given to the will. He expressed his will, as indeed a Committee of the House of Commons stated, in a way to put it beyond all doubt, expressing his intention at the time of the codicil. All that is being asked is that it should be validated and given effect in spite of the absence of the legal requisite of witnessing.

12.45 p.m.

This Amendment does not attempt to alter the will. It would give effect to it, not frustrating the testator's wish as in the cases of Rhodes and the artist Turner and many others. Since the report of this committee was made, there has been the case of Lord Iveagh whose schedule of pictures which he wished to leave to the nation was not witnessed and therefore not valid. The pictures therefore went to the heir. The heir was willing that effect should be given to the real wish of the testator and the pictures went, by Act of Parliament, to Kenwood Park, for the nation.

The Financial Secretary seeks to say that this case is not on all fours with Lane's because the possible claimants are not at one in his case. Who are the beneficiaries in Lane's case? Are they really, as the hon. Gentleman pretends, the trustees of the National Gallery and some other trustees? They are not. The contending beneficiaries are some trustees in Dublin and the House of Commons. If, therefore, we are agreeable to these pictures going to Dublin the possible alternative beneficiaries are in agreement, and it is a legal fiction of the worst order—I do not say that in any way offensively—to call in aid the fact that the pictures are nominally left to the trustees of a particular gallery when the real intention was to leave them to the nation: and we are here to express the nation's conscience. I hope that the Committee will take a strong view and will vote in the Division Lobby in favour of the Amendment.

I must correct a misapprehension which may arise from what was said by my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) when he suggested that if I were asked for a legal opinion on this codicil I should have to pronounce against it. That will introduce an element of confusion into consideration of this matter——

I do not think that what opinion the hon. and learned Member would give if he were asked is relevant to the Amendment.

I do not know whether the Committee realises how serious is the position. The Bill was passed in another place and we are due to take the Third Reading today. If these Amendments are negatived, this will be the last chance that this Parliament will have of doing anything about this issue for years to come because, as far as I know, there is no other legislation under which this transfer can be made and these pictures will be sealed in the Tate Gallery after four o'clock this afternoon. [An HON. MEMBER: "A loan."] I do not think it is clear from the Bill that a loan can be made to the art gallery in Dublin.

May I again give the noble Lord an assurance on that? If this Bill is passed there will be complete power for the trustees of the National Gallery and of the Tate Gallery to lend, to Dublin or elsewhere, any of the Lane pictures.

I support the noble Lord in his contention. I do not think that this is a matter on which the Committee should divide. May I also say that I think Sir Hugh Lane was absolutely justified in playing off the two sides, or the two galleries, the one against the other? If there is one thing quite certain it is that when a collector is about to give away his collection, he is ruthless in his desire that the pictures shall be seen to the best possible advantage and by as many folk as possible. As the Financial Secretary has said, this Bill has within it all the machinery by means of which, after discussion, such as has been suggested——

I am not suggesting discussion.

I am sure that the suggestion made by my right hon. Friend will be carried out, that the Financial Secretary will take note of it, and that we shall be able to display, frequently backwards and forwards this collection and any other pictures we may wish to lend.

But how does my hon. Friend know that the suggestion is to be carried out by the Government? After the Financial Secretary's speech, what reason have we to suppose that?

I am hoping that he will give us such an assurance.

I should like, with permission, to give the information for which the hon. Member for Ealing, North (Mr. J. Hudson) has asked. The report of 1926 was signed by J. W. Wilson, as Chairman—a Liberal; George H. Barnes, Labour; and John W. Hills, Conservative.

I have only this to add. We are debating solely the ownership of the pictures. There is no reason whatever why, if the Bill goes through, some happy arrangement should not be reached whereby these pictures can be seen in Dublin as well as in London. I hope that the general view of the Committee will be that, on matters such as that, we can place reliance in the trustees, who have shown willingness to lend in the past and, I have no doubt, will show willingness to lend again. I hope that the Committee may now feel disposed to come to a conclusion.

The difficulty I feel is that already, in 1920, 1922 and 1923, efforts were made to reconcile the different views of the people of Eire and ourselves. We failed. If we fail again then, in my opinion, there is no opportunity whatsoever for us to come to a decision on it. No one knows whether any agreement can be reached between the Eire Government and ourselves. I feel, therefore, that we should make a decision today, when the matter is absolutely alive in our minds.

Might I appeal to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Brigg (Mr. E. L. Mallalieu)? If he and others who are like-minded proceed to a Division it will put some of us in a quandary. We are anxious that Ireland should enjoy the pictures, but were we forced to vote against the Amendment it would appear that we were against anything of that kind happening. That is absolutely contrary to what we do want. We want both countries to share these treasures. The assurance of the Financial Secretary is sufficient, at any rate for me, to establish the fact that so far as the Government are concerned they are very willing to make every effort to come to terms with the present Irish Government.

Much though I should like to meet any wishes expressed by my right hon. Friend, I do not feel able to meet this one. For me at any rate, even if for no one else, this is a matter of conscience. If it is desirable that the people of both countries shall view these pictures—and I should subscribe to that most willingly—let us hand them to the Eire Government, and let that Government lend them back. That could be done equally well. To me it is a matter of conscience. This man wanted these pictures to go to Dublin, and that is the end of it.

In view of the feeling which has been expressed this morning, I appeal to the hon. and learned Member for Brigg (Mr. E. L. Mallalieu). The Amendment to the First Schedule, standing in my name, is likely to provoke some feeling, so perhaps he could agree to concentrate on that. After all, that is designed merely to give permission to the Treasury to authorise the use of the powers mentioned, whereas the Amendment of the hon. and learned Member is designed to effect the immediate transfer. Would he not agree to withdraw his Amendment and support the Amendment to the Schedule?

Why does the Financial Secretary place such reliance upon the three men who subscribed to the report 30 years' ago? They were ordinary Members of the House of Commons. Why should their dicta remain for 30 years and inhibit the Committee from deciding on this today?

The Question is——

The Minister was about to rise to answer by question, Sir Rhys. Will you allow him to answer?

If the Minister rises I shall call him.

I have no desire to quarrel with the hon. and learned Member, although we might have a difference of opinion as to whether, in certain matters, a will need be witnessed or not.

My reason for speaking as I have done is this. Three reponsible Members of this House, chosen by the Labour Government of the day as people well suited to conduct an impartial inquiry of this kind, reached unanimous conclusions. They went into the matter nearer to the time in question, and with far greater thoroughness than any of us can possibly have done in the last few hours.

In view of the decision to which the Committee has just come, may we now please have some indication from the Financial Secretary as to what is proposed to be done? As I understand it, the Committee has now reached a decision on the right of possession of these pictures. During the discussion on my hon. and learned Friend's Amendment, a number of suggestions were made by the Financial Secretary—in urging my hon. Friends and others not to carry the Amendment to the Division Lobby—as to what he proposed should happen. I think that my hon. and learned Friend was quite right to put the matter to the vote and to give the Committee the opportunity of

Having heard the discussion which took place on the Amendment, I hope that the Financial Secretary will at least bring that discussion to the attention of the trustees on whom, I understand, the responsibility will now rest, for I do not think that any doubt was expressed by any hon. Member on the desirability of working arrangements being made whereby, on occasion, some or all of these pictures should be available in Ireland.

We have decided that these pictures shall remain vested, as far as ownership is concerned, in the trustees of the Tate Gallery. Therefore, it is now up to them in regard to what is to happen in the future. There can be no doubt as to the feelings of the Committee, and we can only hope that the trustees of the gallery will find means of implementing what is the evident desire of the House, and I say that as one who voted with the Government against the Amendment.

I will gladly respond to what the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) has just said, and I will bring to the notice of the trustees everything that was said in the discussion on the Amendment, as well as what the right hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for Islington, East (Mr. E. Fletcher) have just said on the Question now before the Committee. I will ask them to consider it all, not only carefully but sympathetically.

If I cannot go any further and indicate what will actually happen, the hon. Member for Islington, East will recognise that I have to be careful not to anticipate the decision of the Committee on any other Clause of the Bill, because we are to proceed to discuss their powers. I feel certain, however, that the trustees of both galleries will wish to inform themselves thoroughly of the feelings of the Committee, which I think are already clear or will be made clear in the course of the debate.

This Clause deals with three matters. Subsection (1) deals with the responsibility for the collection, subsection (2) is the vesting provision, and subsection (3) provides that the Tate Gallery Trustees shall have like powers to those which were vested in the Trustees of the National Gallery before this Bill was introduced. I think the Minister should give us some definition of these powers, and I think he probably has some instrument in writing which sets out these powers and responsibilities. If so, I think the Committee should know what they are before it agrees to the Clause.

May I have an answer to a specific question, which is based on an instrument in writing which the Minister now has, or, if he has not got it here, ought to have?

The purpose of subsection (3) is to make it quite clear that the Trustees of the Tate Gallery take over the existing powers and duties of the National Gallery Trustees. The powers and duties of the National Gallery Trustees were originally laid down in the National Gallery Act, 1856, which I should be prepared to read to the Committee, if desired. I think, however, that we have a good deal of business to get through, and that, on the assurance that no new powers are being created, the hon. and learned Gentleman might allow us to proceed.

The next three Amendments in the name of the hon. Member for Bournemouth, East and Christchurch (Mr. N. Nicolson) may be discussed together.

I beg to move, in page 2, line 24, to leave out "from among themselves."

An important question now arises concerning a difference of opinion between the two bodies of trustees on the question of the transfer or loan of pictures from the one to the other. Subsection (1) provides such powers of interchange or loan between the Tate Gallery and the National Gallery, and the provision which is the subject of the first of the three Amendments standing in my name is that in subsection (4), which allows the setting up of an ad hoc committee to adjudicate between the two bodies of Trustees should a dispute arise.

It is immediately evident, on looking at the Clause, that except for the chairman, the ad hoc committee will be composed of exactly the same people who have hitherto failed to agree, and any dispute, instead of being referred to neutral arbitration of the committee, will be once more fought out by a committee composed almost entirely from the two bodies at disagreement.

It will be a great pity if no new point of view was able to be introduced in a dispute such as this, and my Amendment would simply have the effect of making it possible for the trustees to appoint to the committee outsiders who are conversant with their point of view but who are not as closely associated with it as would be the trustees themselves. If the Clause is accepted as it stands, an intolerable burden would be placed upon the chairman, the only neutral member of the committee, and I believe that the trustees themselves would welcome an outside and fresh point of view to aid their deliberations.

1.15 p.m.

The second Amendment is purely consequential upon the first, but the third Amendment deals with an important point. If my third Amendment is not accepted and the Clause remains as now drafted, it will not be possible for another person except the appointed chairman to take the chair at the meeting of the committee. In fact, the committee would be unable to function if the chairman either died, was ill or was temporarily absent abroad. If my third Amendment is accepted, one of these neutral outsiders will be able to take the place of the chairman as acting chairman, and in no way will the neutrality of the chairman be compromised, because the acting chairman will be in exactly the same position.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, East and Christchurch (Mr. N. Nicolson) for the interest he is taking in the provisions which we are making here for resolving any disputes which may arise. At the outset, I should like to repeat what I said on Second Reading, that it is greatly hoped that no dispute will ever arise and that the committee will never have to be set up.

I notice that my hon. Friend referred to it as an ad hoc committee. What we are therefore seeking to do here is to ensure that there is some machinery which will bring the two bodies of trustees together when, meeting separately, they cannot agree. It would be somewhat invidious to leave out these Words "from among themselves," because in all probability the best way of reaching a decision will be for some of the trustees, as laid down here, to meet some of the trustees from the other gallery, under a neutral chairman acceptable to both bodies of trustees, and to have a thorough talk about the matter. I hope it would not be necessary for the neutral chairman to give a casting vote, but that an accommodation may be arrived at.

As to my hon. Friend's third Amendment. I should like to stress again that this body is regarded as an ad hoc committee, and not as a standing committee which will be in constant existence. In view of the fact that it will be an ad hoc committee, if the independent chairman fell ill, I have no doubt whatever that the committee would not wish to meet until the chairman was well enough again to preside at the meeting.

I therefore would advise hon. Members that there is no need for the third Amendment, and I hope the Committee will be prepared to leave this subsection as it is. I should like to inform my hon. Friend that, when I saw his Amendment on the Notice Paper, I took steps to consult the chairmen of both bodies of trustees, and both have assured me that they were entirely satisfied with the composition of this committee as laid down in the Bill and were not asking for any Amendment of it. In these circumstances, as the matter is acceptable to both chairmen of the trustees, I hope my hon. Friend will feel able to withdraw his Amendment.

In view of what my hon. Friend reports of his conversations with the people most affected, I can only agree to do what he asks. I hope that any acts of violence will be confined to social occasions outside and will not spread to the committee room. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

I should like to ask for an assurance from the Financial Secretary. In another place there was a good deal of discussion as to what significance there was in the division of paintings and works of art between the two institutions. One gathered that there was some misunderstanding, and assurances were given. We should have the assurance given to us, also, that the original conception, which dates back at least 100 years to the Select Committee of 1853, should be borne in mind and that the collection in the National Gallery which is mentioned in subsection (2, a) should remain as it existed until 1939, when it was temporarily dispersed for reasons of safety. It was a collection of paintings not only of "established merit or significance," as the Clause says, but of great beauty; it represented the history of art in the Western world, including post-classical art.

A good deal of feeling has been created by reason of the fact that many of the galleries in the national institutions are still not in use, having been rendered unfit for use during the war. The term "elbow room" has been used, and we were happy to hear from the Financial Secretary during the Second Reading debate that Lancaster House is to be used as a kind of annexe to the National Gallery as soon as the Bill is passed. I believe the hon. Gentleman said that six paintings would go across at once and another 10 later. Sixteen paintings are not a very substantial part of our national collection, and we should like an assurance that the collection as a whole is going to be made easily available to people who come to London, and that it will be as comprehensive as it was before the war.

Although we entirely accept that it is desirable to hang paintings discretely, so that they can be seen in the best context and be appreciated most easily, we must insist that enough space should be made available in the centre of London—whether in the National Gallery, or the National Gallery plus Lancaster House and other buildings—so that everything that was on view before the war shall be on view again.

In broad terms, I willingly give the assurance for which the hon. Member has asked. It will be the aim of the Government and the trustees to ensure that a magnificent collection of works of art shall be maintained at the National Gallery, untrammelled by the wartime difficulties which, by degrees, we are managing to remove. I assure the hon. Member that the words to which he has drawn attention are not intended as a comprehensive definition of the kind of pictures which could be included in the collections at the National Gallery. The words are inserted as principles of guidance when the two bodies of trustees have to decide whether a certain picture should be in one institution or the other.

I beg to move, in page 2, line 34, to leave out from "or," to "and," in line 35, and to insert:

"any gallery or museum which is regularly open to the public and which is deemed appropriate for its retention and exhibition."

If the Committee agree, this Amendment might be considered with the Amendment in Schedule 1, page 5, line 18, and the Amendment to leave out Schedule 1.

I think that would be convenient, Mr. Thomas. The last of the three Amendments is consequential upon the one which I have just moved.

This Clause has nothing to do with loans. There seems to have been some slight confusion in our previous discussion on that point. Loans can be made under Clause 4, but this Clause arises from Section 3 of the Act of 1856. Under that Section, if pictures or works of art are left or given to the nation without it being clearly indicated to what gallery they should go, the trustees of the National Gallery have power to vest them in that gallery. This Clause makes it possible for the Treasury, presumably on the advice of the trustees, in such cases where bequests are made to the nation, to vest such works of art in the galleries which are set out in the First Schedule, or in such other institutions as may from time to time be added to that Schedule. It is clear from that that this Clause will be applicable only to comparatively minor works of art. If any major works are bequeathed, it is fairly obvious that they should go either to one of the national galleries or to the Tate.

Secondly, it is intended that the powers conferred by this Clause should be exercised, if at all, as soon as the bequest is made. I asked a question on this point during the Second Reading debate, because I saw the possibility of applying it to the Lane Collection, but I do not think that it is intended under this Clause to give power to the Treasury or to the trustees of galleries to part with the ownership of pictures which have been in their possession for some time and pass them over to some other gallery. Thirdly, the Clause is permissive. It does not lay an obligation upon anyone.

My Amendment simply strikes out the list, which is given in the First Schedule, of institutions to whom the Treasury may pass bequests or gifts which are made without specifying which gallery should benefit. The reason for the Schedule being included in the Bill was given by the Financial Secretary during the Second Reading debate, when he said:

"The institutions listed in it are, in fact, the institutions which are at present represented on…the Standing Commission on Museums and Galleries…the final words of the First Schedule…give power to the Treasury, by order, to include other institutions and to add to the Schedule."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 29th October, 1954; Vol. 531, c. 2351.]

I submit that that is not a valid consideration in this matter. What we have to consider, surely, is that if some works of art or paintings are bequeathed to the nation they should be exhibited in the most suitable gallery. Any major works of art would be sent to the National Gallery or to the Tate, or to the National Gallery of Scotland; but if we must have a list, it is very strange to exclude the art galleries of Glasgow, Liverpool and Birmingham and, indeed, Belfast, as the present list does, although it includes the National Library for Scotland, the National Library for Wales, the Imperial War Museum and the Maritime Museum. I have nothing at all against those institutions. They are extremely important institutions in their own way, but as art galleries they are certainly not more important, or better places in which to exhibit pictures and other works of art, than some other of the galleries I have mentioned.

1.30 p.m.

The Financial Secretary may say that we can add at any time any gallery that appears the obvious place for a particular picture to be exhibited. Then one wonders why there should be a list in the First Schedule at all. Why not leave it to the Treasury, in consultation with the National and Tate Gallery Trustees, to decide where a picture should be exhibited, and whether or not it should be exhibited in this or that gallery. Surely they are perfectly competent to do that, and surely we can trust them not to have a picture exhibited in some totally unsuitable place.

Moreover, if we are to have this list and the power to add to it, it seems to me that the list becomes indefinitely extensible. There may be good reasons why a work of art should be sent, say, to Aberdeen where there is an excellent gallery or to Exeter. For instance, a picture may have a local interest; or a gallery may have an almost complete collection to which the picture in question naturally belongs; or the picture may be a duplicate of one already exhibited in the National Gallery or the Tate Gallery and so could be passed on to another gallery.

We have just been discussing the sending of pictures to the Dublin Gallery. At first I was opposed to that, because it seemed to me a serious matter in principle to establish the power of the Treasury to allocate bequests outside the United Kingdom or outside the Commonwealth. However, I was a little bit moved by the argument for the inclusion of the Dublin Gallery and particularly by the argument that Great Britain and Ireland are in one tradition in art. I have, therefore, an open mind on that proposal, as also, of course, I have an open mind on the drafting of my Amendment. It may not be correctly drafted, but I do think that to lay down a firm list as in the First Schedule will raise difficulties.

Subsection (1) of the Clause talks about the "power of selection." By the 1856 Act a power of selection is given to the Trustees of the National Gallery in cases where, for instance, someone leaves 12 pictures to the Gallery. They can select one or two and return the rest to the residue of the estate. I am not quite clear what happens about this power of selection.

If the bequest is passed over to the National Gallery of Scotland for instance, the power of selection apparently will pass, too, and it will be for the National Gallery of Scotland to decide how many of the pictures they want to take and, if they do not want to take all, to return the rest of the pictures to the testator's residual estate. But it may be convenient to the Treasury to exercise the power and retain some pictures for the National Gallery in London and to give some to the National Gallery of Scotland. I am not quite clear whether this matter is covered by the present drafting of the Clause, and I should be grateful if the Financial Secretary would explain it, if not now, then at some other time.

I support the Amendment, but I shall not detain the Committee for more than a minute or two because the hon. Gentleman has covered the ground. The comparatively small point we have in mind is quite clear. Our feeling about the First Schedule as it is at present is that it contains a list that is slightly odd for its purpose. We find in the list of museums some which are slightly odd in this context, and the omission of some others whose names, if a list is to be drawn up, it would seem highly desirable to find in it.

At the end of the Schedule appear the words:

"Such other institutions in the United Kingdom as the Treasury may by order under this Act add to this Schedule."

So no very great harm can come if the Schedule is passed in its present form, but it seems to the hon. Member and me more convenient, instead of trying to make up a precise list, to insert some general words into the Bill similar to those we have suggested.

I do not want to waste time going back over the Irish question again, but I do feel that there is something quite wrong in treating an Irish institution as though it were a foreign institution in a Schedule to a Bill of this kind.

My right hon. and hon. Friends and I have tabled an Amendment to the First Schedule that we consider should be called, in page 5, line 18, to leave out from "as," to the end of the Schedule, and to insert:

"are regularly open to the public, and are deemed appropriate by the Trustees."

By this Amendment any provincial art gallery could be considered with the national institutions that are at present in the list in the Schedule. The Amendment expresses our view that the Schedule is too tightly drawn.

We recognise that the 13 institutions listed are listed because they all receive Treasury grants and are almost entirely supported by money from the Exchequer, whereas, by and large, provincial galleries and museums, however notable, are supported by the rates, and the only national income they ever derive is an indirect one, a trifling amount from the Ministry of Education in grants if there is teaching of children in those institutions.

We have heard a good deal about the functions of the trustees of the National Gallery, and we make it quite clear that we think their discretion is quite sufficient to enable us to trust the trustees. We feel that to list four Scottish institutions, two Welsh and seven London ones, even with the proviso that some other institution may by order under the Bill be added, is not good enough. The time has come when there should be an expression of opinion from the Treasury on the subject of a better form of liaison between the great provincial collections and the national institutions here listed. The time has come when there should be more co-ordination and co-operation. Some, of course, exists. We know that, but we should certainly like it to be very much more manifest.

Ever since the Arts Council has been functioning—and it functions very well—it has been establishing a piece of machinery for the display of works of art. It has its offices in the regions, in the great cities. Machinery, at least skeleton machinery, is already available by means of which our treasures could and should be shown more than they are at present. I am not criticising the magnificent work regularly done by the Arts Council in displaying some of our treasures in this way.

I cannot help but say at once that their energy and their work in having here in London under the roof of the Tate Gallery the very marvellous collections in the last two or three years has been of a very high standard indeed.

We think the Metropolis gets a very large bite out of the cherry and a rude phrase has been used—Metropolitan log-rolling—about this matter. After all, we are responsible throughout the whole of the country for taxation and we outside London bear a fair share of it. We know full well that the best of our treasures must be housed here in London for obvious reasons, just as we recognise that the expenditure of money on the arts must, in the main, be here, because it is here that the true standards have to be set. If we do not have enough money or material to be able evenly to spread it through the whole country, London must take the greatest share and have the best. All that we recognise, but we feel the time is now coming when liaison should be better and we consider that the Treasury might ponder the possibility of specialisation not only here in the Metropolis, but in the provinces themselves.

As things stand, I imagine that if a bequest were made under Clause 3 which was not in paintings or sculptures, but, for argument's sake, a great collection of pottery, it would be bound to go to the Victoria and Albert Museum. I wonder whether I am not right in saying that the Victoria and Albert Museum already cannot show one-third, one-fifth, perhaps even one-eighth of its great collection of pottery.

Would it not be more reasonable if there were powers to send it, without special resolution of this House or the Treasury having to be informed to Stoke-on-Trent, for example, which has the fourth or fifth greatest collection in the world and which is building a new gallery? Manchester has a great reputation with the Whitworth Gallery, which is technically a private gallery but accessible to the public, in which there is one of the greatest collections in the world of water colours. It would be the logical centre for the circulation of water-colour painting. Birmingham has a very fine collection of oil paintings and would be the logical centre for sending to and receiving from small towns and boroughs oil paintings or sculpture or both.

We want to draw this matter to the attention of the Treasury. We think the schedule as drafted is too tight and old-fashioned. We know how this list came to be drawn up. We have heard the explanations but we so no reason why there should not be cameradie from the Treasury and money we spend in the Provinces from rates. We are all citizens and we all pay taxes.

I should like to support my hon. Friend's arguments. I entirely agree with the hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Hollis) that the list seems to be very odd. I cannot understand the basis of it except in so far as it is a financial basis. If it is a financial basis it is understandable. But what we should be concerned with is not purely finance, but getting the pictures seen by as many people as possible.

We can all agree that the pictures would be properly preserved at the best provincial museums and if it were thought that any museum was not able to preserve them, obviously, under this Clause, it would be possible for the Treasury to say the pictures should not be sent to that particular museum. If one is considering the prictures and not the people who should see them, the view may be taken that the only thing that matters is how they are preserved. There was an interesting case—I think it concerned an assistant curator at the National Gallery—during the war when the pictures were under a mountain in Wales. He was so impressed with the excellent state of preservation there that he thought it might be unfortunate if the pictures were taken back to the National Gallery, where they would not be kept in such an excellent state of preservation.

We need to consider where the pictures will be seen by people. There is a concentration of people in London—some would say too great a proportion—but it is very hard for people living, for example, in the Midlands or in Cornwall to be able to come to London when they want to see the pictures. I think we must pay due regard to these people. They pay taxes and cannot be considered as people just receiving gifts when they contribute to the taxes which pay for these pictures and for the upkeep of museums generally. It would be really insulting to some of our great provincial museums—I mention one close to my constituency, the Birmingham Art Gallery—to say they would not be able to preserve and look after pictures as well as the National Maritime Museum, for example. It would be wrong also to say that people in Birmingham would not be as interested in seeing the pictures as would the people in London.

For those reasons, I hope we may extend this list in the way proposed.

It is so seldom that anybody moves to extend the powers of the Treasury that the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond) constituted himself my friend straight away when he moved this Amendment.

But in all seriousness, I would say there is an important issue here and it is right that the Committee should spend a few minutes examining it. The hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland asked what would happen if one of these institutions did not want a picture or did not want some of the pictures. As I understand—indeed, I can give this assurance—the intention of the Treasury in using these powers will be to ascertain beforehand whether an institution wants to have a picture. The Treasury will not, as it were, throw the picture at the National Maritime Museum without having first assured itself that the National Maritime Museum wants to accept.

This is a very small point, but it arises from the Act of 1856 which empowers the trustees of the National Gallery to select from any collection bequeathed to them. It is a drafting, point as to how this would be affected by this Bill because under the Bill it does not seem to be possible for the Treasury to advise the National Gallery to split up a collection and select from it.

The Treasury would find an institution which would accept the collection as a whole or the greater part of it, but I think I am right in saying that if one or two pictures were not acceptable to the institution they would revert to the residual legatees. But the object of the Treasury would be to find institutions that would be prepared to accept the whole or greater part of the collection.

I must remind the Committee of what we are seeking to do in this Clause, namely, to solve the problem which arises when a picture is left to the nation without any distinctive words indicating which national institution is to have it. The trustees of the National Gallery have had this power ever since 1856 and in recent years they have frequently allocated to the Tate Gallery some picture which, without further specification, has been left to the nation.

I think it will be agreed that all these Amendments cover the same point. They would widen the Treasury's discretion so that, when a picture was left to the nation, the Treasury would have power to direct it to be sent not only to one of the national institutions but to

"any gallery or museum which is regularly open to the public and which is deemed appropriate for its retention and exhibition."

Sympathetic though I am towards the general desire of ensuring that pictures are exhibited where they can be most appreciated, I cannot advise the Committee to accept the Amendment. If it were accepted, we should find ourselves alienating from the nation some pictures which the testator desired to give to the nation. We all wish that testators should consider very carefully what they were doing when drawing up their will and that they should obtain the best legal advice.

And they should be witnessed.

Yes. If a donor or testator wishes his picture to go to a local museum, there is no difficulty in his arranging accordingly. If a testator leaves a picture to the nation, we must presume that that was what he truly desired to do. The inference is that he gave thought to the matter and that he did not wish to leave it to Glasgow, Liverpool or Birmingham—although no doubt any of those galleries would have excellent and suitable opportunities for exhibiting the picture—but wished it to go to the nation.

Will the Financial Secretary bear in mind that in 1856 Liverpool and Manchester had very poor collections compared with those which they hold today and that such places as Stoke-on-Trent had none at all? The picture is rapidly changing.

I do not think we shall be dealing with many wills drawn up in 1856 or thereabouts and I grant that this problem will grow easier as time goes on.

I remind the Committee that, to whichever of these national institutions a picture may be directed, the decision will be taken only after the most careful consideration by the Treasury as to whether that is the most suitable place. If it is the Tate Gallery, as might well be the case, the Tate Gallery will have the lending powers mentioned later in the Bill.

While I yield to nobody in my desire that pictures shall be exhibited where they can be most suitably seen, I must put it to the Committee that if we accepted the Amendment we should be interfering rather seriously with the expressed wishes of testators.

The hon. Gentleman has said that a list has been drawn up of the appropriate galleries and museums and that that has been done for a definite reason. How is it possible to have these words in the Schedule:

"Such other institutions in the United Kingdom as the Treasury may by order under this Act add to the Schedule"?

That gives the Treasury fairly wide powers, which seem to go outside the principle which the Financial Secretary has just laid down.

I am not quite sure how far I may go in discussing the First Schedule, although presumably it will be in order to do so. The purpose of those words at the end of the First Schedule is to cover the possibility that other national institutions may come into existence in the future. If some other institution were made national by statute, so to speak, then presumably the point would be covered in that statute, but it might well be that no statutory action was required in a certain case, and these words are intended to cover the very slender possibility that on some occasion an institution might become a national institution and there might be no other means, except a Treasury Order of this kind, to bring it within the scope of the First Schedule.

In adducing arguments why the Committee should not accept the Amendment, the Financial Secretary directed himself entirely to Clause 3. He used the argument that we might be setting aside the wishes of a testator if we accepted the Amendment. But the Schedule applies also to Clause 5, and in my view it is very important that the trustees of the Tate Gallery should have wider powers of transfer than are at present permitted in the Schedule. Is there not some way in which the Government can accept the Amendment as applicable merely to Clause 5? None of the hon. Gentleman's arguments could be held to apply in that instance.

I should like to support what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for St. Pancras, North (Mr. K. Robinson), but, first, I must say that the Financial Secretary, who is usually so convincing, did not convince me at all by his argument for rejecting the Amendment in its application to Clause 3. His argument was that if somebody leaves a picture or a collection of pictures to the nation, it follows that the picture or collection must be exhibited in some museum which has the word "national" attached to it. I do not find that logical.

Surely, if somebody leaves a collection of pictures to the nation, he intends that those pictures should be seen by the people of the nation in the best and most appropriate way and where they will be most appreciated. That does not necessarily mean that they must be exhibited in a gallery which has the word "national" attached to it. There are other museums in the country which are visited by large numbers of people, perhaps many more than the number who visit some museums which are described as "national." It seems to me to be a false argument to say that the Amendment should be rejected because a picture given by a testator to the nation must go to a museum or art gallery which has the word "national" attached to it or that we should be acting contrary to the testator's desires.

May I give an example? I have a few pictures, none of them very great, and when I die I might leave them to the nation. Among them is a picture by a man, who is a very well-known provincial artist and who specialises in painting the back streets of one of our largest provincial towns. It might well be that the right thing for the Treasury to say would be, "Obviously this picture would be best appreciated and most enjoyed in the art gallery of the city concerned or one of the other provincial art galleries." Such a decision would be possible if the Amendment were accepted, but it would not be possible under the principles laid down by the Financial Secretary. Under his principles it would be necessary to show this picture and all the others in a gallery in London or one of the other galleries which has the word "national" attached to it.

I do not find the hon. Gentleman's argument at all convincing and I ask him to think again. He has not much time in which to think again because he wants the Commitee stage and all remaining stages of the Bill to be completed today, but perhaps he can reconsider the matter at a later stage. All the large galleries in this country, we are told, are, in fact, national galleries in the broader sense of that word. I cannot imagine that any testator who leaves his pictures to the nation could possibly object if the Treasury, acting on the best advice, and having regard to the testator's general wishes, said that it would be better if some of these pictures were exhibited in the provinces rather than in London.

I, too, found the answer of the hon. Gentleman unconvincing. I cannot believe that a testator in Northern Ireland who leaves a picture to the nation would think that his wishes had been adequately carried out if it went to, say, the Science Museum in London. A testator in Scotland or Ireland who leaves works of art to the nation may well mean the Scottish or Irish nation, not some London institution, even if called "National."

If the Financial Secretary has in mind that bequests to the nation should only be exhibited in institutions called "National," he did not seem to say so on Second Reading. He drew attention to the final words of the First Schedule which

"will give power to the Treasury, by order, to include other institutions in the United Kingdom and to add to the Schedule."— [OFFICIAL REPORT, 29th October, 1954; Vol. 531, c. 2351.]

He never said that only in the event of these institutions being made national they might be added to the Schedule.

I ask him to look at this matter again. Even in the Schedule itself there is nothing about, "Such other national institutions." It says:

"Such other institutions in the United Kingdom…"

and I am seriously alarmed by the construction which he has put on it, which greatly narrows the powers of the Treasury and makes it impossible for them to accept things of great local interest for exhibition in Northern Ireland or any other part of Great Britain.

I should like to draw a parallel with Germany before the First World War. Then, in Dresden and Munich there were infinitely greater museums and picture galleries than ever there were in Berlin. People went to Munich and Dresden to see the pictures. It was one of the great things to go to Dresden to see the Sistine Madonna, and there was a much broader establishment of art in Germany outside the capital than in the capital itself.

This is a very puzzling situation, because I thought that the purpose of the Bill was to remove the rigidity which surrounds so much of the work of the museums, so as to enable them to lend freely to one another, lend pictures abroad, and generally make it possible for various collections to be shown to the public in various parts of the world and not only in this country in particular.

How odd it is that the Government should insist on this particular piece of rigidity which compels particular pictures to be kept in one of the museums listed in the Schedule, although other pictures in the galleries listed in the Schedule may be lent to galleries not listed in the Schedule. We may lend pictures to galleries not listed in the Schedule, but not permanently. They may be put in one or other of the galleries considered responsible to look after loans, but they may not be lent permanently to them. May this not conflict with the wishes of the testator? He may think that they have some local significance.

Surely, if the Minister is very carefully discriminating against galleries which are not listed in the Schedule in any matters pertaining to the lending of pictures, and he now comes to the conclusion that they are fit to take exhibitions from our galleries and look after the pictures adequately, why is he insisting that they are not able permanently to look after pictures which might appropriately be put in one of the other galleries?

I think we must get clear in our minds the distinction between loans and ownership. We are dealing here with gifts to the nation and we must be careful lest we translate that into the words, "Gifts to a local museum."

The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Vauxhall (Mr. G. R. Strauss) mentioned the possibility that one of his pictures might be appropriate to a provincial town. I would certainly hope that in drawing up his will he will specify that he wished that picture to go to that particular place. Surely what we have to do is to try to have as much regard as possible to the views expressed by testators.

I was asked by one hon. Member to give special attention to Clause 5 as well as to Clause 3. All the works which, under Clause 5, may be transferred will be works that were originally either given, bequeathed or bought for the national institutions and I question whether it would be appropriate for works of that kind to be subsequently vested, not lent, to private or municipal institutions.

It is not a question of where works are exhibited; it is a question of who is to own the works. I should like Members of the Committee to cast their minds forward and ask themselves whether, in the future, people will be so much inclined. as many generous people in the past have been, to leave their pictures or works of art to the nation, if, in fact, they discover that that may mean that the picture or work of art may go to a provincial gallery to which they could have given the picture directly but decided not to do so.

Surely if someone particularly wants a picture to be in one of our national or public galleries or the National Gallery of Scotland, he should definitely specify that in his will. If he leaves a general collection to the nation, surely the right thing to do would be to send a particular picture to that part of the country where, in the opinion of the Treasury's advisers, it would best be shown.

I do not think that that degree of discretion ought to be given to the Treasury or to anybody. I think that one must have regard to the words that have been expressed in the will. It will not be impossible for these pictures, if, in fact, they are directed to the Tate Gallery, to be lent to any of the great provincial art galleries where they may be exhibited. I am sure that is the right way to deal with this matter, and that we should be acting unwisely if we were persuaded by our feelings into accepting this Amendment.

We are disappointed with the Minister's reply because we had hoped to find him, for once in a way, although he is a Conservative, rather advanced in his views.

I think he forgets that there are now, and are likely to be more in the future, a very large number of pictures, both at the Tate and at the National Gallery, which will never be able to be shown, although they can, of course, be shown in rotation. After all, when a picture is painted and the nation buys it or the testator gives it, the purpose is not that it should lie in a cellar of one or other of the galleries but that it should be on view.

In these days, although London is a great cultural centre, it is not the only cultural centre, and if local authorities or people who are publicly-spirited have helped to form collections in various parts of the country it seems to me not unnatural that London should help and the Government should make it possible through legislation that they should be helped to enjoy the nation's treasures.

The hon. Member was courteous and good enough to send me particulars of a number of pictures which are not on view at the National Gallery and the Tate Gallery. This was in response to a query which I put to him on the Second Reading. I am very much obliged to him for going to that trouble. There are, apparently, 866 pictures in the reference sections, that is to say not on view, at the National Gallery. Only 717 are on view, so more are stored and not on the walls than can be seen by the public. Many of those stored pictures might be used in the way which my hon. Friends desire. We had the figures for the Tate Gallery last time. My recollection of them is that roughly the same percentage obtains there.

I would ask the Financial Secretary to have second thoughts on this matter. We do not know whether we shall reach the Report stage of this Bill today; possibly we may not. If not, there will be an opportunity for the Financial Secretary to discuss with the Treasury and other interested people whether he can meet us by inserting the words proposed in the Amendment.

I beg to move, in page 2, line 46, to leave out subsection (4).

I called attention on the Second Reading of the Bill to the interest taken in this matter in another place and suggested that it had taken them so far as to cause them to import into the Bill some rather unnecessary Parliamentary control. In subsection (4) of the Clause we find that the draft of any Order that the Treasury may make placing an additional gallery in the First Schedule shall be laid before Parliament, for an affirmative Resolution of each House of Parliament.

I have been looking with some care over previous legislation about these galleries, and I cannot find any precedent for this kind of proposal. Indeed, when we get to Clause 6 and to the Second Schedule we shall take away from previous legislation the only other Parliamentary control that there is. By Section 1 of the Act of 1856, when there is to be a sale of pictures sanctioned by the Treasury, a list of them or copies of the Order effecting the sale must be laid on the Table of both Houses of Parliament for six weeks immediately preceding the sale. Unless subsection (4) remains in, there will be only the negative Resolution procedure of Clause 4.

The other place may wish to debate at very great length in the early hours of the afternoon a question such as whether the Walker Art Gallery should be added in a few years' time to the Schedule by a Treasury Order. The other place has leisure to do so. I cannot imagine this House, in view of the spate and pother of public business, and the narrow divisions between the parties, wishing to devote a special debate to an affirmative Resolution late at night on a question of that kind.

I beg the Government, at this late hour, to say that on Report, in half an hour or an hour's time, they will move a manuscript Amendment to substitute for subsection (4), which we might now omit, the appropriate words for a negative Resolution procedure. I have not put such words in myself because the Statutory Instruments Act, 1946, expresses them in a number of different forms. I have not thought it appropriate to put in a particular form in case it was unsuitable. The Government have all the knowledge and experience in these matters. Indeed, referring to page 3, I suggest that it might be put in the form of a draft. Clause 4 (2) there states:

"A draft of any such statutory instrument shall be laid before Parliament."

That would meet the case.

I support the noble Lord's Amendment. The arguments in support of it are valid, and are made all the more so by the recent remarks of the Financial Secretary, who has now made it clear that there is no intention whatever of adding to the Schedule unless another institution becomes national, which would involve legislation. Opportunity would be given to anyone who wished fully to discuss the matter when that legislation came before us. That is no argument for making an addition to this Schedule by Statutory Instrument on an affirmative Resolution basis.

I should explain to the noble Lord and to the Committee how the subsection comes into the Bill. It refers back, of course, to subsection (3), which provides for additions by Statutory Instrument to the list of national institutions in the First Schedule. I have said that the intention was to use that power for adding national institutions, but a future Government might use that power much more widely. I cannot bind a future Government or a future Parliament.

Doubts and fears were expressed in another place that the Treasury, if entirely free from Parliamentary control, might make additions to the First Schedule wholesale by making orders that would authorise the transfer of pictures, not merely to galleries of high repute and to galleries that were not national, but even, as one noble Lord said, to a Borstal institution. Very careful consideration was given in another place to the Clause, and it was in an effort to secure unanimity about these provisions that an Amendment was moved and accepted there to include subsection (4), which secures Parliamentary control.

If the Committee were to accept the noble Lord's Amendment it would, I am advised, leave the Treasury free at its sole discretion to make additions to the list of institutions in the First Schedule. There would be no requirement whatever for a draft to be laid before Parliament, and the matter would pass entirely out of Parliamentary control. As we are dealing with national possessions, that would not be right.

I noticed carefully what my noble Friend said about the possibility of establishing a negative Resolution procedure and I see the force of that argument. Nevertheless, the subsection as it stands is the outcome of an agreed settlement in another place, and I should be sorry to upset it. It is an agreed settlement which secures unanimity on these provisions at the cost of a little extra Parliamentary time in the future. I think it is desirable to retain this full Parliamentary control.

The Financial Secretary has produced a very odd argument. As I understand it, an agreement was reached in another place and, therefore, no alteration can be made here. Does that mean that we are to be prevented from making any alteration to this Bill because an agreement has been made in another place?

I personally strongly support the line taken by the noble Lord the Member for Dorset, South (Viscount Hinchingbrooke). I think it is desirable that there should

I share the view of my right hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich (Mr. Dugdale) about the Financial Secretary's speech. He was less happy than he normally is when trying to put a case. The argument he used was that because agreement has been reached in another place, we have, therefore, to accept it without question. That seems to me to be the negation of government, certainly government by this House.

The second argument was even stranger, and that was that we could not do it for fear the Treasury might suddenly kick over the traces. It may well be that the Treasury has become extremely revolutionary since the hon. Gentleman went there, but in the past it was usually considered the most reactionary Department of Government whatever Government was in power. If we are to try to prevent the Treasury doing something, it seems to me that either something has happened to the Treasury or the hon. Gentleman is very hard up for an argument. What the noble Lord the Member for Dorset, South (Viscount Hinchingbrooke) said has, for once in a while, a good deal it in and I am sorry that the Financial Secretary has turned it down.

I beg to move, in page 3, line 4, to leave out from "exhibition," to the end of line 5, and to insert:

"in the United Kingdom or to exhibitions of international artistic importance abroad."

We now come to the most controversial Clause of the Bill to which I have put down one or two Amendments with the same object, firstly, to make perfectly clear in the Bill the intentions of Parliament and, secondly, to prevent the trustees, or future trustees, from exceeding powers granted to them. It may be said that the intentions of Parliament are well known and that the trustees are themselves trustworthy, but in a few years intentions will be forgotten and the trustees will change. Hence this Amendment, which specifies that we shall only lend pictures to exhibitions of international artistic importance, in order to safeguard our collections from being widely distributed to exhibitions of little worth.

Not only may pictures get damaged in transit or by hanging in an unsuitable building, but the frequent change of climate or light does great harm to pictures. Therefore, we should lay it down in the Bill that it is not intended that the pictures shall go to any but exhibitions of prime importance, to instance one, the Giorgione Exhibition, which is being organised in Venice in the summer of next year. It is quite right that the National Gallery should be allowed to lend its "Adoration" by Giorgione to that exhibition, but it is wrong that either the Tate or the National galleries should be able to lend pictures to exhibitions which are nothing more than medleys of different periods and different artists.

I ask the Committee therefore to endorse this Amendment, thereby assisting the trustees to protect themselves against the exorbitant demands of foreign exhibitors. The loaning of pictures is becoming a kind of international commodity market. One foreign director says to a friend over here, "If I lend you my Rembrandt, will you lend me your Vermeer?"—just as I might be tempted to say this afternoon to hon. Gentlemen opposite, "If you will support this Amendment, I will support yours." It is quite wrong that this practice should go on, with directors looking for feathers in their caps by getting pictures from abroad which are really not necessary to the exhibition and when the exhibition itself may not be necessary.

I hope to be able to persuade the Committee that, though we all sympathise with the object of my hon. Friend, the Amendment would make no contribution to it if it were written into the Bill. It would be an instruction as to the kind of foreign lending which the trustees should permit, but, even if we included these words, it would still remain for the trustees to decide what is an exhibition of international artistic importance, and that is precisely the thing which they will have to do under the Bill as it stands. Unless the trustees are wholly unsuitable people, they would not get any guidance from the addition of these words.

There are these further points. Most of us in this Committee are agreed that we do not want to fetter the trustees unduly; that if we get good trustees, they will do their duty well, and if we get bad ones, they should be removed. I invite my hon. Friend to consider whether the requirement in the Amendment would have any effective result because, in the last resort, it would be necessary to have an independent person to judge whether the decisions of the trustees were in accordance with the statutory provision, and there certainly is no independent court and no department of that kind which could so function.

I trust, therefore, that my hon. Friend, having heard my speech and having received my assurance that the trustees intend to act reasonably in all these matters, will feel disposed to withdraw his Amendment.

It may be for the convenience of the Committee if we discuss together the Amendments to page 3, lines 8 and 9, and the second Amendment in the name of the noble Lord the Member for Dorset, South (Viscount Hinchingbrooke), to line 33.

I beg to move, in page 3, line 8, to leave out "or elsewhere."

The effect of this Amendment and the next one to line 9 is to limit loans, other than loans for public exhibition, to the United Kingdom. In moving this Amendment, I want to make it clear that on this side of the Committee we do not want to limit in any way lending for public exhibition. At the same time, we feel that the powers given by Clause 4 are too wide.

I am not altogether happy about lending pictures from national collections to public buildings or official residences in the United Kingdom, but I am prepared to agree to that, subject to certain limitations which, I hope, the Financial Secretary will accept later. However, we do not think it is a good thing that these pictures should go out of the country to embassies and governors' residences for which the Minister of Works is responsible. We have every desire that these buildings should be decorated and adorned in a way fitting to the status of Her Majesty's representatives abroad, but we say it is not desirable that these furnishings and adornments should come out of our national collections in this country.

During the 1920s and 1930s, under the Fascist régime in Italy, it was the practice for Italian masterpieces to be distributed to Italian embassies round the world purely for purposes of prestige, and I am told that the Government of Italy are looking for some of those masterpieces to this day. We order things better in this country, but that is an example of the dangers and, apart from the dangers to pictures from climatic conditions in certain tropical parts of the world, there are many other objections which could be raised.

Would any hon. Member think it reasonable if the Minister of Works were to go to the Victoria and Albert Museum and ransack it of carpets, tapestries and ceramics to ornament some ambassadorial drawing room in Cairo? I do not think that hon. Members would think it at all reasonable, but the analogy is not unreasonable. These are national collections. As far as they can be made, they are complete national collections which tell the story in terms of art and, therefore, we ought not to extract pictures from them purely for the sake of decorating an embassy.

It may be argued that the power is permissive only and that the trustees can be relied upon not to exercise it unreasonably, but I believe that the trustees ought to be protected from the attempts of some future Minister of Works, who might be particularly unfortunate in this respect, and that they should not be placed by Parliament in the position of constantly having to say "No" to a Minister of the Crown. We feel that the job of furnishing these embassies and Government residences which falls to the Ministry of Works should be done by the Minister of Works from funds provided for the purpose.

This matter was dealt with by other hon. Members during the Second Reading. On Tuesday, the Minister of Works, in reply to the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond), gave some figures of the money available to him for public buildings overseas. He mentioned the figure of £6,000. It is not clear whether £6,000 is the amount available for works of art only. The Minister's answer was a little vague in that respect. If it is for works of art only, it probably ought to be about sufficient to do what he is called upon to do. If it is not enough and has to cover many other things besides works of art, he should have more.

It is most desirable that the furnishing of embassies and official residences abroad should be mainly of contemporary British art. That is what the Ministry of Works should be buying primarily but not exclusively for this purpose. I hope that the Financial Secretary will use his influence within the Treasury to see that the Minister of Works is given money to do the job on his own and does not have to expect the House of Commons to approve his raiding national collections for the purpose.

It seems to me that the pictures which are liable to be lent abroad to embassies or Governors' residences fall into three possible categories. Either they are simply for decorative purposes, for the benefit of the incumbent for the time being, or they are to show that British painting in the past was good and give some examples of it, or they are to show that we own paintings of other countries which are also good and show examples of them.

To deal with the first category, the category simply designed to decorate pleasingly the residence of the official concerned, it is quite improper that there should be a suggestion that such decoration should come out of national art collections in this country. There is no more reason for that than that every M.P. should be issued with a number of pictures from the National Gallery or the Tate Gallery to decorate his residence. There is no more reason why an ambassador should live in this respect at the public expense than that Members of Parliament should do so.

Less reason.

I will not enter into that dispute today, but clearly this cannot be justified on decorative grounds.

To show that we have good British painting in the past may be a laudable object, but not many people go to an embassy or the residence of a Governor-General or a High Commissioner. It is a very small percentage indeed, and it may be assumed that the people who visit those residences are already aware of the fact that we have had good British painting in the past and do not need to be reminded of it. If the particular examples of British painting in the past are good enough, they ought not to be shown where they are only seen by a few people abroad. They ought to be kept here, because we have not a large number of good examples. If they are not good examples it would be more harmful to show them in embassies abroad than to keep them locked up in cellars in this country.

2.45 p.m.

The third category, that of simply demonstrating abroad the fact that we own some good pictures painted by foreign artists, also seems to me rather unnecessary and redundant. If they are good examples, they certainly should be shown to people in this country in profusion and not be restricted to the narrow circle of Governors' residences or embassies. The conclusion is that, in so far as it is justified to decorate an embassy or High Commissioner's residence abroad at the public expense, that should be done in the normal course of events by the Minister of Works.

If it is thought that it would be nice to have pictures to show that art flourishes in Britain, we ought to put up only pictures by modern artists to show that art is not dead here. We have the purpose abroad of showing that we are a dynamic country, and that is not demonstrated only by commerce and industry. It is remarkable that in the Embassy in Washington there is a very large picture of George III. That does not seem appropriate either politically or artistically. [Interruption.] I can understand the noble Lord the Member for Dorset, South (Viscount Hinchingbrooke) having a considerable affection for George III and wishing his portrait to be displayed throughout America, but I am sure that that is not in keeping with the times or the nature of the Anglo-American alliance today.

It it better than the last nine years' history of the subservience of the Labour Party to the United States?

Perhaps we had better get back to the Amendment.

I am sorry that I cannot follow up that interesting argument.

In any case, we should not be trying to show British paintings of the past which are good examples. Those ought not to be sent abroad, and neither should bad examples, which are harmful. We should show pictures by contemporary artists. I do not believe that the Ministry of Works is necessarily the right body to choose such pictures. I do not have unlimited faith in the judgment and taste of the present Minister of Works, and I do not suppose that I shall have complete faith in the judgment of a future Minister. It is far more appropriate that such pictures should be bought by some such body as the Arts Council or under its direction, because it is a body of people who are recognised for their capacity to make a judicious selection. There cannot be any justification for allowing pictures which are at present in our national institutions to go to residences abroad.

I think that the hon. Member for Aston (Mr. Wyatt) is labouring under a mistaken impression. We do not intend to spread our national treasures around our embassies, and, in any case, it would be wrong to furnish many of them with modern pictures, because they are not suitable frames for modern pictures. All that we want to do is to put some of our less good pictures which are not hung in our galleries on walls which would otherwise be bare or inappropriately decorated.

Why does the hon. Gentleman think it appropriate decoration to put less good pictures on the walls?

I was just coming to that. During the debate in 1935, it was assumed that, rather than send second-or third-rate pictures abroad, it was better to send none at all. I think the hon. Gentleman would agree that we do not take that point of view, and that it is better to have second-rate British and foreign landscapes and portraits hanging on walls which would otherwise be decorated from the slender resources of the ambassador's own purse, and which in some cases would have a much more unfortunate consequence.

I believe that this series of Amendments should not be passed. I have sympathy with them, but I wonder whether the hon. Gentlemen in whose names they stand have considered that they would not only alter the Bill as it stands at the moment, but would take away the powers which already exist under the 1935 Act. If hon. Gentlemen opposite will look at the very last words of the Bill—the last paragraph of the Second Schedule—they will read there that the whole of the 1935 Act

"save as respects loans made before the date of the coming into operation of this Act"

is repealed. If this Amendment is accepted, the effect will be that no pictures of any sort—not even fifth-rate British pictures—will be allowed to go abroad to our embassies. I think that that would be a very great disadvantage to the embassies, and that ultimately it would do serious harm to our standing in these important capitals abroad.

It is with much regret that I oppose my hon. Friend's Amendment. Having seen quite a large number of Colonial Government houses, I think that they are very badly in need of adornment. Many of them are exceedingly badly adorned, and I think that it would be an excellent thing if some of the pictures were sent out to them, particularly some of those which are at present lying unused in the vaults of certain galleries.

My hon. Friend said it was important that these buildings should be adorned in a suitable manner. It is all very well to say that, but no proposals are being made for their adornment today. The suggestion was that money for this purpose should be found from somewhere and that a fund should be set up. I am all for that, but there is nothing here about setting up such a fund.

A fund already exists. It has already been set up by the Ministry of Works, and has a balance of £600.

I do not think that £600 would go very far in the direction that my hon. Friend would wish. My hon. Friend also said—or it might have been my hon. Friend the Member for Aston (Mr. Wyatt)—that it would be most unfortunate if masterpieces were lost, or if they were damaged by climatic conditions. If that is so, then we had better have no pictures at all, even if they came from this fund. It would be far better to keep the walls completely bare, although I do not think that in many colonies they are likely to be so damaged.

Finally, I come to what has been said about it being better to have no pictures at all than to have lesser pictures. Under present conditions, we have pictures provided, maybe with great difficulty, by past governors which in many cases do not give any idea of the artistic traditions of this country. Anybody visiting those Government houses and seeing those pictures would suppose that we were a country totally devoid of all artistic traditions.

My hon. Friend compared these Government residences with the private houses of Members of Parliament. I can assure him that they are not at all the same. If I had half the number of guests that go into these houses in my house, I should be ruined in a week. Streams of guests pour into them and they have a chance of seeing these pictures. I think it most desirable that they should have that opportunity. If because of the acceptance of my hon. Friend's Amendment this opportunity were denied to them, it would be a very great loss to them and to us as a country.

In view of the time. I hope that the Committee will allow me to express the view of the Government on this series of Amendments. I wish to make it quite clear to the Committee that if these Amendments were accepted, it would have the effect of withdrawing certain powers which have been in existence for some 19 years, and which, I understand, nave operated satisfactorily and without any serious criticism.

The case put up in favour of the Amendment, so it seemed to me, was that by allowing the Bill to go through as it stands we should, as it were, be inviting the Ministry of Works to get out a lot of pictures which ought to be retained in the national collections and spread them around the world to the detriment of the British people who might otherwise have the opportunity of seeing them.

I want to address myself to that argument, though I do not think that it is as cogent an argument as might appear at first sight. I have taken the trouble to ascertain the present situation. At the present moment, there are 73 pictures belonging to the Tate Gallery which are loaned to embassies abroad. There are over 2,200 pictures at the Tate Gallery which are not on view. Therefore, if these Amendments were passed, those 73 pictures would have to be withdrawn and 73 more pictures would be added to the 2,200 not on view at the Tate.

The position at the National Gallery is that at the moment there are 866 pictures which are not on view, and only six which have been loaned to embassies abroad. Therefore, if one examines the facts, I really think that the case put forword that the people in this island are being deprived of substantial numbers of pictures must fall.

I think that the hon. Gentleman has unwittingly misled the Committee. A very large number of the pictures in the Tate Gallery which are not on view consist of drawings and water colours which cannot be lent out. I think that unless this fact is mentioned, the Committee might come to a wrong conclusion, and I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would not want that to happen.

I would not wish to mislead the Committee in any way, but I must say that I have not been made aware of any pressure from the Tate Gallery to the effect that the 1935 powers should be withdrawn owing to the fact that the gallery feel that it is being starved of pictures by these powers to tend abroad.

I now wish to refer back to what seemed to me to be a powerful speech made by my hon. Friend the Member for Windsor (Mr. Mott-Radclyffe) during the Second Reading, when he stressed the importance of cultural propaganda and urged that it should be possible to decorate British embassies abroad with the kind of pictures—both British and foreign pictures—which one would expect to see in a gracious British house in this country.

I myself think that that is a matter of very great importance. I should be extremely sorry were it made necessary to withdraw pictures that are at present abroad. I should like to give the assurance—and perhaps on this assurance the Committee might be willing to come to a decision on this—that, if the Clause goes through as it stands, there is no reason whatever to expect any spectacular increase in the number of pictures lent abroad by the trustees. As I say, there are 79 pictures abroad at present; there are some 3,000 which are not on view in the Tate and the National Galleries. Because of those proportions I trust that the Committee will agree that there will be no danger in these lending powers.

Before the Minister sits down, will he say a word about the works of living artists being displayed, and not those of dead artists only?

I think one must leave that kind of thing to the trustees of the galleries. I return to that principle. If the trustees of the Tate Gallery have no feeling for art they will reach wrong decisions, but I cannot help thinking that the trustees, who, I have no doubt, will also read this debate, will be able to reach sensible conclusions as to which pictures are suitable to be sent abroad. And that is the only point at issue.

I am very sorry that the Financial Secretary does not find it possible to accept the Amendment. I think that he should be careful not to misunderstand our feeling. In no way whatsoever do we desire that the embassies, or the houses of colonial governors, should be stripped of anything. On the contrary, we want them to have —but from the Minister's pool rather than from this source—the best available furnishings of every type, so that they should be able, in as dignified a way as possible, to reflect in the eyes of peoples abroad the dignity of our nation.

I do not think that in his answer the Financial Secretary has been as fair as he might have been. He knows that the trustees are not anxious for these powers and would welcome not being able to furnish those embassies and governors' houses from the collections. Knowing that, he should be prepared to give further consideration to the matter. The trustees have had their present powers for only 19 years, which is not long out of the 800 or 900 years during which we have been legislating in this House. They do not like those powers because they do not believe that there is true accessibility when the treasures are housed in this way.

If we are to send things out of the country—as we should and must—it should be to show abroad our way of life. That is better done by regular displays and exhibitions in the great cities abroad, under conditions governed by all the care shown in the Bill. But we must send good, not just second- and third-rate things. As for the masterpieces in the embassies and on the walls of the homes of colonial governors, why should not the Minister be entrusted, with some guidance, to buy the masterpieces of the future? If it is not enough that he should be advised by his curator —and he has one—there are other means by which he could be helped to pick the masterpieces of the future, just as Lane made his most remarkable collection before other people thought of doing it. We ask that the powers should be given to the Minister, that the pool should be made deeper and larger and that the Minister should be given money for this purpose.

Climatic conditions are important. My Steinway comes from Hamburg, but in America and Canada one cannot have that make of piano because the climate there does not suit it. In the same way, everyone knows that certain climates do not suit paintings of any type, so one has to be careful what is sent abroad. One should send sculptures, woodcarvings and tapestries.

My hon. Friend spoke so closely to a recent experience of mine that perhaps the House will bear with me, particularly when I say that, because of the lateness of the hour, I do not intend to move the two later Amendments standing in my name.

I have just visited a number of places, including the residences of two colonial governors. I went with the good wishes of the former Minister of Works, and with instructions to observe and to report. I want to tell the Committee that I am absolutely convinced, along with my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary and my hon. Friend the Member for Windsor (Mr. Mott-Radclyffe), who spoke in the Second Reading debate, that it is of vital consequence that the selection of pictures is done with care when they are sent to these places, where the effect in propaganda for the British way of life, for our unsurpassed knowledge and experience in diplomacy and good relations with other countries, will be paramount in the years to come.

They can and must be rearranged, and we must take care to select the kind of thing that interests the nationals of those countries in which these residencies are situated, because in that way a great deal can be done for the cause of Britain. I am absolutely convinced that if the selection is wise and judicious——

Is the noble Lord suggesting that we should send masterpieces abroad, or that we should only send the sort of pictures which may be in store?

In the British Embassy at Athens, there is a fine portarit of Lord Byron in Circassian dress, a full-length portrait of his daughter and a good Turner. All the Greeks who go to the Embassy, and all the Turks who go to the Turkish Embassy, where the same sort of thing is taking place, are immensely struck with the interest and importance of these pictures. I am quite certain that, provided it is not done on the scale on which Mussolini attempted to do it, it will redound greatly to our advantage.

I only want to repeat what is, in fact, the point of my Amendment, that in so far as these pictures are hung in embassies and colonial residences for the sake of improving relationships and getting local nationals interested, and though they may be exposed to some danger, it is absolutely right to provide the opportunity in subsection (5) for students to see them at reasonable times.

I ask my hon. Friend to say who is the authority mentioned in subsection (5). Is it the Minister of Works, or the gallery from which the picture goes? I would suggest that if the authority is the colonial governor or the ambassador in the embassy concerned, I do not see how my hon. Friend can possibly expect him to discharge the duty which is laid upon him in that subsection. On Second Reading, I mentioned the case of a Colony in a state of serious disturbance or an embassy in a country with which temporarily we had very bad relations, and I am seriously worried about the duties laid down of the right of inspecting, and, if there was time I should try to press this matter——

We are dealing only with subsection (5).

I understood, Sir Rhys, that you had actually called for discussion along with this Amendment the Amendment standing in my name to page 3, line 36, and I am precisely on that point.

However, I have finished what I was going to say, and there is no time to do anything more about it, but it shows what a pity it is that a Bill of this importance, which has interested the Committee so greatly, should arrive from another place ten months after it was discussed there and right at the tail end of the Session.

I join with other hon. Members in hoping that the Minister will reconsider his refusal to accept the Amendment. I am in favour of the trustees having power to lend, but those powers ought to be limited to the interests of the British public. The Minister's reply seems to be based upon a fallacy. He says that many pictures in these galleries are not on public view. The answer is to put them on public view, but not by sending them further away, so that the British public will have even less opportunity to view them. The powers granted by the Clause are far too comprehensive.

There seems to be some confusion of thought among those who resist the Amendment as to why they resist it. On the one hand, it is said that there are many surplus pictures at the Tate and National Galleries which would otherwise not be seen, and, on the other hand, it is said to be important that major works of art in our possession should be sent abroad. On which of these two aspects of the case does the Minister stand?

He says that at present 73 works of art belonging to the Tate Gallery are in various embassies. He also says that there are about 2,000 pictures in the vaults of the Tate Gallery which cannot be seen, and if the 73 pictures are brought back from our embassies abroad they will only add to the problem of the trustees of the Tate Gallery, who are so short of exhibition space that they will have to put the 73 pictures down into the vaults.

Does the Minister mean that? There is a very fine Turner in the British Embassy in Paris. Does he think that if that were brought back it would be stuck in the vaults of the Tate Gallery? Is he asking for powers to lend abroad pictures which are not major works of art, or is he asking for those powers in respect of pictures which are major works of art? He cannot rest his argument upon both cases.

The Minister has said that the powers existing under the Act of 1935 have worked smoothly and satisfactorily, but is he aware that there has arrived back into this country—or it may be that it is still on its way back—from a British embassy in a continental capital a Turner landscape which has been seriously damaged and which appears to have had a foot put through it? Does he really regard that as an example of the smooth working of these powers?

I rise only to say that we are not altogether happy about leaving this provision as it is. My mind is far from clear as to which way I should vote.

I would point out to my right hon. Friend that his name is on the Notice Paper in support of the Amendment.

I was about to refer to that fact. In association with this Amendment we are taking another in the names of my hon. Friends and myself and one in the name of the hon. Member for Dorset, South (Viscount Hinchingbrooke). It was his Amendment of which I was thinking in particular. I am not quite sure what the Committee should do for the best in this matter. I therefore rise to ask the Financial Secretary whether he will make it clear that the trustees share the view which he has expressed.

We know that the Act of 1935 is to be repealed, and that, as he said, the provisions of that Act have worked well, and there appears to be no complaint, but it would be interesting to Members on both sides of the Committee to hear from him whether this provision in the Bill was discussed with the trustees and is in the Bill because they wished it, or whether any of them expressed doubts about whether it should be in the Bill.

I hope it will be possible for us to reach a conclusion on this Amendment, because I think that the gap between us is much smaller than some people have imagined. Let me say at once in reply to the hon. Member for St. Pancras, North (Mr. K. Robinson), that I am aware that during the 19 years in which these overseas lending powers have existed one picture and one only has suffered serious damage. It is not inconceivable that pictures lent to other museums or public buildings in this country may suffer accidental damage from time to time.

I want to stress that complete power will remain with the trustees under the Clause as it stands. No one can compel the trustees to lend any picture abroad which they think ought not to be so lent. I recognise that if Parliament gives them these powers the Committee will expect that some of the pictures shall be lent abroad, and I can assure the Committee that on that matter of principle the trustees raise no objection, and that the trustees of both galleries are perfectly willing to work the Clause as it stands. What the trustees would strongly object to would be to be told by either the Treasury or the Minister of Works that they had to lend a certain picture abroad which they thought ought not to go.

I want to assure the Committee that there is no such power of compulsion whatever in the Clause. In view of the successful results of these powers during these last 19 years, and of all the expressions of opinion to which we have listened today and a week ago, and of the certainty, as I say, that no picture can be taken out of this country except with the consent of the trustees, I hope that the hon. Member may feel inclined to withdraw the Amendment, or, at any rate, not to ask the Committee to divide upon it.

I beg to move, in page 3, line 14, to leave out "by a foreign artist."

The point of this Amendment is an extremely simple one. By this subsection a Statutory Instrument must be approved by the House before a work of art executed by a foreigner before 1700 can be sent abroad. All I want to know is, why is that special protection given only to works of art executed by foreign artists? Far be it from me to be jingoistic in this matter, but surely works of art executed by British artists before that date painted on panels may suffer damage, too, and surely, also, they are of great interest and beauty? There are some works of art executed by early foreign artists which, if it came to a competition with early British artists would come off second best. I see no reason why the protection afforded to the works of foreign artists, if it is necessary at all, which is a different question which I am not arguing at the moment, should not also be afforded to works by British artists.

I wish in only two sentences to support the Amendment. I understand that the reason for this protection is that pictures painted before a certain date are peculiarly liable to damage, but, if that is so, is there any reason why those by British artists are likely to suffer less than those by foreign artists? There may be some reason for this difference of treatment, but at first sight there would appear to be none.

This is a very reasonable question that the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond) has raised. I think the Committee would be interested to know that there are only 19 British pictures painted before 1700 at the Tate Gallery and only three at the National Gallery. To the best of my knowledge, none of them has ever been lent abroad. If the hon. Member's Amendment were to be carried we should be restricting the lending powers of the trustees because, since 1935, they have had the power to lend these older pictures abroad. They have not thought fit to use those powers, and as in this Bill we are trying to extend rather than restrict, I suggest that there is no really strong case to take away any of the existing powers that have been in the hands of the trustees since 1935. I quite agree that the position looks a little anomalous and puzzling, but on the assurance that there are only 22 pictures in question, I hope that the Committee will agree to a little untidiness and to leaving things as they are.

That is a most unsatisfactory reply. The fact that there are only 22 pictures seems to make it all the more desirable, not less desirable, that the trustees of the National and Tate Galleries should not be able to send this limited number of pictures abroad without the protection afforded to pictures by foreign artists. In addition to the reasons given by the hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Hollis), it is not only on questions of artistic merit but on a question of historical importance that I should like to support this Amendment, which is most important.

This very limited number of pictures painted by British artists before 1700 has not only artistic importance but historical importance. It seems both invidious on the question of principle and contrary to all argument of historic merit that there should be this unjustifiable differentiation between pictures painted by British artists and pictures painted by foreign artists.

I thought the Financial Secretary's argument most unsatisfactory and most inconclusive. I attach great importance to this Amendment, and I urge the Financial Secretary to reflect again before trying to dismiss this Amendment in a cavalier fashion. I hope the Committee will insist that pictures in the Tate or in the National Galleries painted by British artists before 1700 are based on precisely the same position as regards pictures painted by foreign artists.

If there be a case for sending them abroad, then the provisions of the Clause, with the requirement of an order approved by Parliament, will apply. But there are only 22. Why should any of this very small number, which because of its limited number has an added historical value, be lent abroad without the safeguard of an order approved by this House? There is a much larger number of pictures painted by foreign artists.

It would be quite easy for the Government to accept this Amendment. It would put pictures painted by British artists on the same basis of equality as those painted by foreign artists. I hope that my hon. Friend and his seconder will not be content with the Financial Secretary's cursory and rather derisory argument, but will insist on pressing this to a Division.

I have sat here for 4½ hours and this is the first time it has been suggested that any of my arguments has been cursory or derisory. I have been doing my best to give full attention to the Amendments. As far as I am aware, nobody has suggested, up to this point, that we should limit the powers which the trustees have possessed for the last 19 years. As I have pointed out, to the best of my knowledge they have never lent ony of these 22 pictures. It seems to me that in a sense we should be casting a reflection on the trustees if we said, "Although Parliament has let you have those powers for 19 years and although by common consent you have not abused them, nevertheless they should now be restricted." I most strongly urge that there is no point between us on this matter.

Is it suggested that the trustees have abused their power of lending pictures by foreign artists painted before 1700?

They have never had power to lend abroad such paintings by foreign artists.

I think the Financial Secretary agrees that the position which arises under the Clause is anomalous. We all accept that. He says he does not want to alter it because it might appear to be an insult to the trustees.

I spoke about tidiness.

I want to protest to the hon. Member: he has been exceedingly courteous and helpful in the way in which he has addressed the Committee, but the fact is that if we do what the Government ask we cannot make any Amendments to the Bill. The Government want this Bill through all its stages today, Report as well as Third Reading, and this puts the House in an unfair position.

It is because of his desire to follow that time-table, which he cannot control and which his Whips have asked him to follow, that the hon. Member has been so resistant to many of the Amendments, including this Amendment, which I regard as a reasonable Amendment. The other House discussed this Bill for something like 12 hours and were very interested in it. We are very interested in many aspects of the Bill. We should like to see some Amendments which have been moved, and others which will be moved, properly considered by the Government and accepted, as were so many Amendments in another place.

I ask the Financial Secretary to consider this and other Amendments as reasonable and proper Amendments which will make the Bill far more tidy. The shape of the subsection as it appears at the moment arises from the manner in which it was discussed in another place. As a consequence of the way in which these matters were discussed, we have a messy situation with a number of corn-promises. I suggest that it is very unsatisfactory and I appeal to the Financial Secretary to reconsider the matter in order to help make the Bill more tidy. If we take this step to make the Bill more tidy it will not be an insult to the trustees. I appeal to him to reconsider the question and to tell us, possibly on Report on another occasion, whether he will accept some of the Amendments.

I want to support the Financial Secretary on this, because his point of view is supported by all those who have an interest in retaining as many pictures as possible in this country. The art experts do not think it necessary to alter this Clause in the way in which hon. Members have suggested. Perhaps I may give the reasons.

The main distinction is between the materials upon which those pictures are painted—the distinction between canvas and panel. Panel rapidly deteriorates through climatic change, whereas canvas does not. Of the 19 pictures mentioned by my hon. Friend, only four in the present national collection are painted upon panel and one is the Wilton Diptych. No trustee in his senses would ever send that or any of the other three pictures abroad to a foreign exhibition, because he must know that they would immediately deteriorate. The others are canvases by Sir Peter Lely and other British artists, who, to be frank, are not in the same class.

He was a Dutchman.

We regard him as an Englishman unlike, for example, Vandyke and Holbein. Sir Peter Lely and others like him are not accepted as artists of first rate and, in any case, their canvases could safely be sent abroad. That is why I support my hon. Friend's view.

I am sure that no one would suggest that the Financial Secretary is not trying to assist the Committee, but his argument gets less convincing each time he speaks. We were told earlier that we must not alter the Bill because another place would not like that, and later, that we must not alter the Bill because it would involve altering an Act of Parliament passed 19 years ago. Now we are told that we must not do so because it would hurt the feelings of the trustees of the Tate Gallery.

This is not merely an artistic point. There is a point of Parliamentary procedure. A very reasonable suggestion has been made to the Financial Secretary, and the more we hear about it the more reasonable it seems to be. He has now explained that the issue is really concerned with four pictures for which there are special reasons against lending them abroad. What we are saying is that these pictures, which by the fewness of their number are exceptionally precious, should not be lent abroad without special Parliamentary procedure.

The hon. Gentleman said that people expert in artistic knowledge did not consider such a provision necessary, but, with great respect, I say that this is not a question on which the opinions of art experts are relevant. This is a question of Parliamentary procedure. When we propose to give to anybody, a Minister of the Crown or anyone else, the power to do something which is of great importance, the House considers what safeguards should surround it. How many times have we heard that argument advanced when it has been proposed by Act of Parliament to give powers to a Minister?

Always, such proposals are scrutinised most carefully by this House. We make haste to explain that we have the very highest opinions of the particular Minister in office at the time, but that Parliament finds it necessary to safeguard against there being in the future somebody in that position in whom they might not have confidence.

The Financial Secretary has repeatedly said that if ever we should have persons administering the affairs of the Tate Gallery who were not suitable to do so, they ought to be removed. But it is just conceivable that such a situation might arise and a foolish judgment might be made about some of these very few pictures. It would then be too late for the House to deal with something which had been neglected.

There is an additional reason why this is not a reflection on the trustees of the Tate Gallery. We do not legislate on these matters every week or every month. It is only very rarely that Parliament has to do the job of considering what the law shall be, and when such an opportunity comes it ought to consider every reasonable contingency that may arise during the next two or three decades.

It may be urged that we are perhaps being a little over-cautious in this matter —but is that a fault? If this Amendment were accepted by the Financial Secretary, it might prevent harm being done, and it could not possibly do any harm of itself. If a situation arose in which the Tate Gallery wanted to lend any of these pictures abroad, it would have to go through the safeguard provided by this House, just as Ministers of the Crown have to do on certain other important occasions.

Is it too much to ask that they should have to do that? We know the Financial Secretary's difficulty, but surely he sees that no possible harm could be done to the purposes of the Bill and that some harm might be diverted if he would accept the Amendment.

I am anxious to be absolutely fair in every way to the Committee. I have listened to the debate with great interest and attention. I should be the last to question the supremacy of Parliament in any matters, whether artistic or otherwise.

This is not the first occasion when Parliament has considered this matter. Parliament considered in 1935 this whole question of lending the British pictures overseas and came, I believe, to a unanimous conclusion that there was no need to put in any restriction of this kind in respect of the older pictures. If there had been some movement of opinion in the artistic world between 1935 and 1954 I could see a powerful reason for altering the law now and imposing a restriction.

I can say—and the expert evidence of my hon. Friend the Member for East Bournemouth and Christchurch (Mr. N. Nicolson) supports me—that there is no demand from the artistic world or from the connoisseurs of art that any such statutory restriction should be imposed. The powers have not been abused, and nobody believes that they will be abused. My hon. Friend has explained that there is a difference in the nature of the old pictures by reason of the material on which they are painted.

I am in no sense trying to hasten or push the Committee against its will, but am simply asking that a decision of Parliament, taken with open eyes, 19 years ago, should not be now changed seeing that there is no artistic pressure whatever or pressure of public opinion in favour of any such change.

May I call the attention of my hon. Friend to the fact that the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond) and I have an Amendment next on the Notice Paper to alter the word "seventeen" to "sixteen." Would he consider that Amendment along with the one we are now discussing?

The Parliamentary Secretary says that he does not want to impose any new restriction. I cannot understand him. The whole Clause is an imposition of a new restriction and it is an exception to that restriction that we are discussing. When he says that he does not want to impose any restriction which has not existed since 1935, he is really, I say with all respect, talking nonsense. The subsection is a restriction.

I am not sure whether the right hon. Gentleman appreciates that Clause 4 gives entirely new powers as regards the lending of foreign pictures abroad, powers which have never existed before. Complete powers for the lending of British pictures have existed before.

I have listened to the discussion on a number of these Amendments and on most of them I have found it rather difficult to make up my mind. Now I am completely puzzled by the Minister's defence. I am not at all satisfied with what he said. He talked about resentment in ant circles to Parliament's imposing restrictions.

There are no restrictions.

Then I do not know what the hon. Gentleman was talking about. He said that there would be resentment in art circles if we imposed any such restrictions.

I said that there had been no demand from art circles for such restrictions.

The hon. Gentleman indicated that there would be resentment against the imposing of any restrictions. If that is not his argument I shall be very pleased. It was that which brought me to my feet. What is proposed in this Amendment is, in fact, merely that we should recognise a situation which has been accepted by the Tate Gallery trustees and art circles generally, because the Minister himself said that for a long time they have possessed these powers to lend ancient British masterpieces abroad. That has not been done, and the reason given by those more qualified to speak on art than I am is because of the small number of these treasures that we have it would be unwise to allow them to be sent abroad inasmuch as they might deteriorate or for some other such reason. Therefore, they have not done it.

I can hardly see how any one of the Tate Gallery trustees or anyone else could resent the fact that Parliament took note of that view and attitude and, therefore, tidied up the Clause. Why the Minister, in the light of the fact that the trustees have not seen fit to exercise powers which we gave them many years ago, should insist on the Clause remaining, in his own words, untidy, I cannot appreciate. Unless a more satisfactory reason is given I hope my hon. Friends will press this Amendment to a Division in order to express our dissatisfaction.