shown by this statement that the task the Government had to perform was one of no ordinary difficulty, and that though dictated by the most conscientious desire to do justice their decision could not fail to cause much heartburning. There was an embarrassing number of different awards-namely, that of the Judges and Officers of the Courts, in favour of Messrs. Waterhouse and Scott; that of the Commission and its sub-Committees, in favour of Mr. Waterhouse; and that of the Judges, in favour of Messrs. Barry and Street. And, finally, there was a Report of Messrs. Shaw and Pownall, drawn up before they were appointed professional Judges, which was strongly in favour of Mr. Barry. Doubtless the Government, on looking into the cases of the four gentlemen-Messrs. Barry, Street, Waterhouse, and Scott observed - 1. That Mr. Barry's designs exceeded the given area, had no system of ventilation, and, according to Mr. Gardiner's Report, immensely exceeded his own estimate of cost-namely, by some £400,000; and that his claims rested on the award of the Judges, which was well-known not to have been unanimous, and on Messrs. Shaw and Pownall's Report, of which the Lord Chancellor had said- pre-eminence and been named singly, the competition had failed, and the Government were at liberty to appoint any architect they chose. And, accordingly, by a Treasury Minute, dated the 30th May, 1868, they appointed Mr. Street-an appointment to which, for various reasons, some of the competitors objected. One would have thought that this was complication enough, but there was more, for other tribunals had been appealed to. The Commission had appointed two sub-Committees, one of barristers and the other of solicitors, to consider the designs. They soon amalgamated and presented a joint Report which was subetantially in favour of Mr. Waterhouse, and which gave the next place to Mr. Scott. This Report was subsequently confirmed by the Commission. Moreover, the Commission passed a Resolution in favour of a central hall, such as Mr. Waterhouse and Mr. Street had provided; whereas Messrs. Shaw and Pownall, who first drew up a Report as mere ordinary assistants, and were subsequently appointed professional Judges, disagreed with this Resolution, and especially found fault with Messrs. Waterhouse's and Street's central hall. Nor was this all. There was yet a further complication; for the Judges and Officers of the different Courts and Departments to be lodged in the new building had been requested by the Commission to report on the accommodation provided for them, and out 2. That Mr. Street's design was not wantof sixty-four such Departments, forty- ing on the points just referred to; that three reported. They gave in twenty- his internal arrangements were defective; eight cases the first or second place to Mr. and that his claims also rested on the Scott, and in twenty-nine the first or award of the Judges. 3. That Mr. Watersecond to Mr. Waterhouse; whereas to house's designs were approved by the Mr. Lockwood they gave sixteen, to Mr. Commission and its Committees, and by Street nine, and to Mr. Barry also nine. the Judges and Officers of the various Now twenty-one offices did not report; Courts; that his estimate of cost was exand Messrs. Shaw and Pownall gave, in ceedingly accurate; and that he had shown seventeen out of these twenty-one, the his powers by building the Manchester palm to Mr. Barry, which, is most extraor- Assize Courts. 4. And lastly, that Mr. dinary, considering the relative numbers he Scott's plans were commended by the Offi obtained in the other offices. And it must cers of the Courts; and that he had been be added that subsequently the Commis- successful in much former public work. sion refer to the decision of Messrs. Shaw Now, as I have stated, the Government and Pownall only to disagree with it. must have been greatly perplexed, actuated Moreover, in two remarkable instances as I am sure they were by an earnest dethe opinion of the Judges and their offi-sire to act fairly towards all the competi cers was decidedly against all the com- tors. As a way out of their difficulties, petitors except Mr. Waterhouse. The they adopted what would appear to the cases were those of the Probate and Divorce Courts and the Courts of Appeal. With regard to the former Sir J. Wilde says that the only admissible plan is Mr. Waterhouse's. Now, Sir, I think I have "That it was disagreed with by all the various bodies of the profession, who after all were those best qualified to decide with respect to internal accommodation." public to be a system of compensation, by making the four appointments I mentioned at the commencement of my statement. But the announcement of these appointments was not correct; for that of Mr. Waterhouse was made by the late Government in 1866. Consequently, as far as he was concerned, it was no compensation. Mr. Barry says, through the right hon. Member for Calne, that he has an equitable claim to build the new Law Courts; and others will doubtless through other friends in this House put forward their rights. Now, Sir, I do not quarrel with the appointment of Mr. Street; but as it has been stated that the public faith has not been kept, I think it is a question the House of Commons ought to investigate; and if, as I believe, the Government have endeavoured to act fairly between the competitors, they can only court such an inquiry. In whose favour soever may be the result, I hope that a building worthy to be called our great Palace of Justice and one of the greatest ornaments added in modern times to the metropolis may be erected; and at the same time, that there may be no well-grounded reason for complaining that the public faith has not been kept with the competing architects. For these reasons I beg to move"That a Select Committee be appointed to inquire into the recent appointment of Architects for the New Public Buildings in the Metropolis." MR. GREGORY seconded the Amend MR. GLADSTONE said, that having been one of the Judges of Design, he was not disposed to give a vote on the Motion, but he could not absolve himself from the duty of expressing an opinion on the subject. His hon. Friend had stated the case very luminously and impartially, but he was inclined to demur to the proposition of his hon. Friend that there was sufficient reason why a Select Committee should inquire into the matter. His hon. Friend had pointed out the great difficulty the Government were placed in with respect to the decision they arrived at, and every one must admit that it was impossible for the Government to arrive at any decision which would not be open to plausible, and even more than plausible, objections. In his opinion the Government were perfectly free from blame in the course they had taken with reference to the difficult question with which they had to deal, and he could only express his regret that he and those who acted with him had so entirely failed in rendering effective aid to the Government in this matter. He was persuaded that, upon the whole, the Government had come to a recommendation which the House would do no good in endeavouring to disturb. The House in this matter was, if he might so speak, a rude instrument for a delicate process. To appoint a Committee upon this subject would be to re-open from the beginning an operation which had been found to be extremely laborious and complicated, and to re-commence the labour with even less chance of arriving at a satisfactory conclusion than they had when the matter was first started. The only prudent course was to leave the matter in the hands of the Government, for them to act upon their own responsibility. MR. LOWE said, he wished, in the first place, to state that he had not the honour of the acquaintance of Mr. Barry, except with respect to this matter, and he had no intention of expressing himself or of asking the House to express any opinion upon the respective merits of the different Gentlemen whose names had been connected with this subject. He agreed with the right hon. Gentleman who had just spoken (Mr. Gladstone) that it would be most improper to re-open this question from its commencement by appointing a Committee to inquire into it. The only charge that he intended to make against the Government was that under very difficult circumstances they had missed their way, and had not adopted the best course which was open to them. They had put too violent a construction upon the failure of the Judges to make an award, and they seemed to think that the whole proceedings were rendered void ab initio, and they therefore set at nought the contract which they had entered into with the architects. In making this statement he had no desire to cast reproach or blame upon the Government, his object being simply to point out to the House that there was a course now before the Government which they might adopt without re-opening the question from the beginning. It had been stated by the Lord Chancellor in "another place that Messrs. Shaw and Pownall were not appointed Judges, but in making that statement the noble and learned Lord was inaccurate. There was no dispute about the facts of the case. There was, most undoubtedly, a contract of some kind or another entered into between the Government and the competing architects, and when it was found that the Government, in consequence of the course taken by their agents, could not carry into effect the terms of that contract, the Government should do all in their power to carry into effect the spirit of that contract. The Treasury determined to appoint certain eminent per sons as Judges, and caused Instructions to be prepared for the competing architects, the number of whom was limited to twelve. Out of these twelve one was to be selected on account of the design, and not upon any other consideration. The Government, however, were not pledged to adopt the design, but the successful architect was to prepare another for actual use. A copy of the Instructions, signed by Lord Cranworth, the then Lord Chancellor, was sent to each of the competing architects. One of the provisoes in the rough draft of these Instructions was that, in the event of none of the designs being adopted by the Judges, the Government would be quite unfettered in the selection of an architect, and though this was subsequently with drawn, in consequence of an objection raised by Mr. Barry, the fact of its being originally inserted was a proof that the In structions constituted a contract of some nature or other between the Government and the architects. He maintained that the Judges were not arbitrators, but rather agents and delegates of the Government, exercising a duty which the Government could, if it had chosen, have exercised itself. The Judges could not agree upon an award, and they therefore certified to the Government that Mr. Barry's design was the best as regarded the interior, and Mr. Street's the best as regarded the elevation. The Attorney General was there upon consulted, and advised the Government that the Judges were not authorized to appoint two architects, and that consequently no architect had been appointed at all. This opinion being communicated in due course to the Judges, they replied that, unhappily, they could come to no other conclusion, and so the matter terminated. Now, as far as the Government were concerned, he had no fault whatever to find with their conduct up to this point, and he believed the Attorney General had given them good advice; but it seemed to him that they were wrong in arriving at the conclusion that they were set perfectly at liberty by the failure of the Judges to make an award, and that the whole proceedings had been rendered void ab initio, What he contended was that, although the Judges had not given such a decision as was expected of them, that fact did not relieve the Government from all the obliga tions they had entered into with the architects, who, it should be borne in mind, had incurred great expense, and who had been guilty of no fault. Under the circumstances it was the duty of the Government to fulfil the contract as far as possible, or, as a lawyer would say, cy près, because they were bound by what they had done themselves as well as by what the Judges had done within their legitimate authority. It was true that the failure of the Judges did not give Mr. Barry a right to bring an action at law against the Government, but, at the same time, the Government were bound in good faith, and in some degree also by law, to stand by their contract. Of course the view he took of the matter excluded all the competitors except Messrs. Street and Barry. The professional Judges (Messrs. Shaw and Pownall) made out a table containing the number of marks they gave to the competitors on the different matters of arrangement. The total number of marks was eighty-eight, and of these Mr. Barry gained forty-one, or nearly half; Mr. Gilbert Scott, who came next, obtained twenty-five; while Mr. Street obtained only three, and these were upon tramways and upon comparatively unimportant matters. In all the principal things which the Instructors contemplated-namely, ample and uninterrupted communication; light, air, and quiet-Mr. Barry was thought by these professional Judges to have succeeded. But, although the Judges did not give effect to this Report by recommending Mr. Barry's plan, the Government would have done rightly and wisely if they had selected it, because the points upon the selection was to turn had been best accomplished by Mr. Barry. The Lord Chancellor, in "another place," said that the competition having failed or miscarried, it became the duty of the Government to undertake the responsibility of saying who should be the architect. But how did the competition miscarry? Not through the fault of those who were prejudiced by the selection of the Government. The effect of what had occurred would be not only to throw discredit upon the Government, but to put an end to the system of architectural competition. The object of competition was to get the best man, but the effect of which what had occurred was.to prevent the best man from coming forward. The very highest authority on this subject, Lord Cranworth, who, as Lord Chancellor, signed the Instructions to the architects, stated in "another place" that the Instructions were to attend almost exclusively to matters of internal accommodation, convenience, and arrangement. Lord Cranworth, like himself, was personally unacquainted with Mr. Barry, but, like him, argued this subject not on the question of merits but of Government faith. SIR ROUNDELL PALMER said, he had the misfortune to be one of the Judges of these designs who were appointed to render what assistance they could to the Government; and he should feel it unbecoming in him to express any opinion as to the architects except this, that many of them manifested very great merits. His right hon. Friend who had just addressed the House, had taken an entirely different view of the duties of the Judges, and of the meaning of their award, from that which the Judges themselves took. No doubt it was a main and leading point in the Instructions to the architects that they were to attend to the important uses of the building, and that so far as these might conflict with architectural beauty the internal accommodation was to be preferred. But it was never considered that the competition was to be decided by reference to internal matters only. On such a principle, there would have been no elevations wanted at all. The contract of the Government with the architects was to submit their plans for a consideration of their relative merits to the appointed Judges, who were in no sense agents of the Government except in the event of their reporting in favour of one particular competitor; and if they failed to report one competitor as better than all the rest they had no power to bind the Government by any opinion which they might have expressed, and in common sense, as well as in law, the matter was wholly at large. To argue that the void award which had been made took out of the hands of the Government the respon sibility of making the appointment seemed to him perfectly wild and extravagant, and it might involve the greatest possible injustice to other architects whose names the Judges had not mentioned. You could not for a particular purpose detach a particular opinion from its context, and adduce it for a purpose for which the Judges never brought it forward; you could not base anything upon the unauthoritative expres as sions of opinion of those who had failed in their character of Judges. If all the Judges had been of the same opinion as Messrs. Shaw and Pownall it might then no doubt have had great effect; but it was not so ; and the barristers and solicitors, who were the best judges of what was wanted, preferred to the plans of Mr. Barry those of nother gentleman who was not named by the Judges. The Officers of the Courts, he believed, either concurred in this opinion, or preferred the plans of Mr. Scott. These gentlemen were well qualified as Messrs. Shaw and Pownall to form an opinion as to the nature and character of the accommodation to be provided in the building, and, of the arrangements by which the transaction of business might best be facilitated; and other architects might just as well say that the Government was bound to accept the opinion of the lawyers and Officers. It was not the opinion of the Judges that Mr. Barry had by his internal arrangement placed himself upon such a pinnacle, that they, without taking into consideration other things, could recommend him; and it was a fallacy to say that, because of the Report of Messrs. Shaw and Pownall, Mr. Barry ought to be appointed the architect. MR. BERESFORD HOPE begged to take part in the discussion as representing a class which not yet been heard—namely, the entire art-loving public. He had devoted many hours to the study of the designs when they were exhibited at Lincoln's Inn, and he felt justified in begging the hon. Member not to press his Motion to a division. He was satisfied that the appointment of a Committee would only lead to further complication. It would unsettle the little progress that had already been made, and come to no result, working out, as it would have to do, against the grain, within the few hours still left of the active life of the last old Parliament, a most perplexed problem. Those who had preceded him in the debate had spoken as if the question would only lie between four given architects; but, in fact, if it were re-opened at all, it must be re-opened completely, and the claims, not of those four only, but of all the eleven would have to be considered. His hon. Friend had dropped the name of Mr. Brandon. Well, the grandiose design of that architect would have to be considered, so would the striking one contributed by Mr. Seddon; so also would the design which all who were not lawyers, but experts in architecture, with a singular unanimity pronounced to be a model both of learned labour and of vigorous genius-that of Mr. Burgess. Mr. Street's design was no doubt a very good one, by a most competent and distinguished architect, and it would, of course, in its remodelling be materially improved. Against his friend, Mr. Barry, he was very unwilling to say a word, but he feared that if that gentleman succeeded in obtaining the inquiry which he was seeking, other reports, as authentic as those of Messrs. Shaw and Pownall, and not so favourable, might come out; one, for instance, from the Probate Department, which as he had heard rumoured, would virtually put Mr. Barry's entire plan out of court. On the whole, then, he said "Let well alone.' That "well" no doubt might be better, but it might also be worse, and as he was convinced that the only result of a Committee would be completely to throw back the whole scheme of re-building the Law Courts for an indefinite period, he hoped the Government would not consent to it. mise in the matter should be arrived at, and what he would suggest was that, as the present site was declared by competent authorities to be too small for the erection upon it of all the Courts of Chancery and Common Law, the land reclaimed from the Thames should be turned to account. If that were done, the new Chancery Courts might be built on the present site, and Mr. Street might be appointed as the architect. There would not be the least difficulty in making a communication by a gallery between those Courts and the new Common Law Courts which might be erected on the Thames Embank ment, and the erection of which might be committed to the hands of Mr. Barry. The enormous expenditure requisite to extend the existing site would thus be avoided, and a tolerably satisfactory arrangement arrived at; for two architects had been more than once known to work conjointly at the same building with per fect success. wholly unable to solve the problem which would be submitted to it. If they selected the design of Mr. Street, a truly noble design would be chosen, in which, according to the opinion of Judges, members of the Bar, attorneys, and suitors, all the requirements for Courts of Law would be well provided for; but the Committee, if unfit to decide the problem proposed to be submitted to them, would be still more unfit to determine the question of law, and he thought that the House should abide by the decision of the Law Officers of the Crown. MR. POWELL said, he hoped the House MR. TITE said, that the Government would abide by the decision to which it had having selected eleven of the best archi- already come with reference to the site of tects in England he might say in Europe the new Courts. The often contemplated -to enter into a competition for designs project for the fusion of law and equity for the new Courts, it was a great misfor- would be likely to be indefinitely postponed tune that they did not find themselves in if the new Chancery and Common Law a position to adhere faithfully to the bar- Courts were to be kept separate in the gain which was made. He had the highest way which the hon. Member who had just possible opinion of the four gentlemen whose spoken suggested. The proposed Comnames had been introduced into this discus-mittee would, in his opinion, find itself sion. They were an honour to the country. It was much to be regretted that some architects had not been placed upon the Commission, which was composed almost entirely of lawyers. After a long discussion, the names of two of the competing architects Messrs. Street and Barry-had been bracketed together. It was very unfortunate that when the Judges had bracketed two gentlemen together, as of equal merit, one excelling in interior arrangement and the other in the exterior design, and when a course had been agreed upon acceptable to those two gentlemen, that course had not been carried out. The right hon. Gentleman opposite, as a man of honour and desiring to act fairly between them-the system of joint architects having been objected to-gave the erection of the National Gallery to Mr. Barry; but he adjudged the enormous prize of the erection of the new Palace of Justice to Mr. Street. On account of this great inequality, it was most desirable, he thought, that some compro MR. WINTERBOTHAM said, he did not attribute to the Government any object but the appointment of the best architect they could find; but he considered, at the same time, that, desiring to get rid of a very complex subject, they chose rather hastily to cut the knot, and did not show the patience necessary for untying it. He should not have objected if, in the first instance, the Government had appointed an architect and given no reasons for the appointment; but it was important that strict |