were announced as having joined the Association :—Mr. A. W. W. Dale, Fellow and Librarian of Trinity Hall, Cambridge (reported by the Rev. S. S. Lewis); Mr. W. Hall, Librarian, Free Library, Rotherham (reported by Mr. John Ballinger, of Doncaster); Mr. John Williams Heppel, Assistant Librarian, Public Library, Worcester (reported by Mr. Samuel Smith, of Worcester). A letter from Dr. R. GARNETT expressing regret at his inability to prepare his Paper promised for the Meeting having been read, and there being no other business, the Meeting adjourned. PUBLIC LIBRARIES AND THE "PROMULGATION LIST." THE question of the distribution to libraries of public documents printed at the national expense is one to which, as most of our readers are aware, the special attention of the Council and of the Association has now been for some time directed. The important Paper contributed to our Cambridge Meeting by Mr. James Yates, the Public Librarian of Leeds, who has made this question peculiarly his own, will soon be in the hands of members. We have shown in MONTHLY NOTES for January and March of this year* what has been done in this matter, and what degree of success has been obtained by the librarians of the United States. The story there imperfectly told should assuredly stimulate us to like exertions which will, it is to be hoped, be ultimately crowned by a like victory. The immense accumulations of Parliamentary business which have had the effect of checking the progress of the new Free Libraries Bill have rendered it quite hopeless to think of making any rapid or immediate progress in regard to this question. It was, of course, the duty of the Council to ascertain what steps, if any, were being taken by the Government or its officers to deal with the principle upon which public documents should be distributed. Attention was called to this subject in 1881, in the First Report of the present Controller of the Stationery Office, Mr. Pigott.† The Controller called particular attention to the distribution of the Statutes, of which he spoke in the following terms: "The general distribution of the Statutes is made by the printer in accordance with a 'Promulgation List,' which is a paper of some antiquarian interest, but as an official document of present application perfectly unintelligible. It was originally drawn up by a Committee of the House of Commons, and adopted by a resolution passed in 1801. The List was reconsidered in 1835 by a subsequent Committee, who reported that they had been unable to discover any fixed principle on which the distribution was made,' and recommended that a new List should be prepared; but it does not appear that any action was taken on their recommendation."‡ pp. 2-5; 50, 51. First Report of the Controller of Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1881. 8vo., pp. 33. p. 12. The observations made by the Controller upon this and other questions connected with the Stationery Office led to the appointment of a Joint Select Committee of the two Houses of Parliament to consider Mr. Pigott's Report. The Select Committee took evidence upon the various questions relating to the printing done for Parliament and the storage and sale of Parliamentary Papers, and also upon the promulgation of the Statutes; the last being the only question with which we now propose to deal. Questions 206 to 232 addressed to Mr. Pigott deal with this subject, and the story told by Mr. Pigott was certainly a very curious one. He told the Committee that copies of the Statutes were still printed for the use of the boroughs of Gatton-as every body knows, one of the old rotten boroughs-and Dunwich-an old seaport, but now for many years almost entirely submerged, and for many other places as little entitled to them. The total number of copies of the Statutes, supplied at the public expense, was 1885, of which the Houses of Parliament received 770 copies; Offices and Departments of State, 50; Courts of Justice, 188; sheriffs, magistrates, &c., 807; and Public Libraries, 20. Mr. Pigott explained that in his opinion "the distribution of the Statutes at large at the public expense ought to be made on some intelligible principle. Whoever they might be, it ought to be clearly laid down that such and such a class of public officials, magistrates, and so on, and libraries, should receive Acts of Parliament; that this list should be corrected by some one in authority every year, and issues made from it." After hearing Mr. Pigott and considering the matter, the Committee in their report recommended, "That a fresh list for the promul gation of the Statutes be drawn up by the Secretary of State for the Home Department, in communication if necessary with the Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury," and "That all alteraations in the revised list be made by the same authority." The report of the Select Committee is dated 29th July, 1881, on which day it was ordered by the House of Commons to be printed.* In pursuance of the recommendations of the Select Committee, Sir William Harcourt, as Home Secretary, appointed a departmental Committee, consisting of Sir A. F. O. Liddell, Mr. Pigott, and Mr. C. J. Knyvett, one of the principal clerks in the Home Office, to draw up a fresh list for the Promulgation of the Statutes. The warrant of appointment was signed on the 10th of February, 1882. The Report of the Committee has just been printed (it is dated May 18th, 1883), and occupies, together with the appendices 139 folio pages. We think it not unsuitable to direct the attention of our readers to the principle of distribution laid down by the Committee, and especially to the treatment accorded to libraries in this Report. It should be observed, in the first place, that the number of copies * Report from the Select Committee of the House of Lords and the House of Commons on Stationery Office (Controller's Report). Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed 29th July, 1881. Folio, pp. xiv. 63. Folio, pp. 139. to be distributed in accordance with this new list is not diminished, but is, in fact, enlarged from 1885 or 1886* to 2366. How now have the Committee dealt with the case of "Public Libraries, &c."? There is no more striking change in the state of things since the list of 1801 was framed than the development of libraries in this country, and especially of libraries created and maintained also at the expense of no small proportion of the ratepayers of the country. It will hardly be believed that the Committee have not added a single library to the list. Indeed, at first sight, the list appears to have been diminished, though this diminution is only apparent. To use the very words of the Committee: "The Public Libraries: We do not suggest any alteration as regards the supply of Statutes to these Institutions, except in respect of the libraries of Queen Anne's Bounty, First Fruits Office, and Corporation of Sons of the Clergy, which are dealt with under the head Public Departments.' All they have done is to transfer these "institutions," which certainly sound oddly enough among libraries, to the head of "Public Departments," where indeed they sound nearly as oddly. It is interesting to observe how the list of libraries now stands. It is as follows: : The British Museum, This is certainly a very curious list. Oxford, and Cambridge receive copies of the Statutes, and properly enough, but why does not the Advocates' Library at Edinburgh receive a set, and the Library of Trinity College, Dublin? Then the So it is stated at p. 35 of the Report. I do not quite understand the calculation on p. 36, which makes the old number 1961.--ED. University of London receives a copy: but why not the University of Durham, or the Victoria University, or the Scotch Universities? So, again, four Chapters in all England and Wales are singled out: why should not other Chapters be supplied? Here, certainly, we look in vain to see how the Committee proposes to carry out Mr. Pigott's "intelligible principle." But a more curious and glaring question still should surely have presented itself to the minds of the Committee? Why should the College of Arms and three or four Chapters be supplied with sets of the Statutes at the public expense, and not the libraries maintained by the ratepayers of Liverpool and Manchester, of Birmingham and Bristol, not to name a hundred other places? We may ask the question, indeed, but where is the answer to it? Yet the question should be asked and asked and asked again until some sort of answer is extorted from the Stationery Office or the Treasury. It may be worth while to give a few illustrations of the extravagances with which it is still proposed to bestow copies of the Statutes upon some favoured institutions and individuals, while the infinitely greater claims of the public libraries are wholly ignored. To begin with, no less than 218 sets are given to members of the House of Lords, besides which many of its leading members receive duplicate and even triplicate copies from the Privy Council Office, or as being officers of State. The number assigned to the House of Commons-viz., 22 copies, is in singular contrast to the liberality shown to the House of Lords. It is difficult to see the reason for the inclusion of some of the so-called departments of State. Why, for instance, should copies be supplied at the public expense to such institutions or "departments" as the Corporation of the Sons of the Clergy, Queen Anne's Bounty Office, and the Consistory Court of Hereford? The most unjustifiable waste is shown in the treatment of some great officers. Thus the Lord Chancellor, in addition to the set which he is entitled to as a peer, receives one from the Privy Council* Office, and no less than three sets as Chancellor. It is even more absurd that the Archbishop of Canterbury, in addition to his copy as a peer, receives three in his capacity of archbishop, and a further copy for the Lambeth Palace Library! The entire number of copies absorbed by the Houses of Parliament, the State Departments, and the Courts of Justice, amounts to 752. The remaining 1597 copies (which, together with the 17 copies allotted to libraries, make up the total of 2366) are distributed to municipal magistrates, the chief magistrates or head officers of every city, borough, and town corporate, and the clerks of the magistrates of boroughs which have a commission of the peace under the Municipal Corporations Act; and finally, in counties, to sheriffs, clerks of the peace and lord lieutenants, to chairmen of Quarter *It is curious to note that a set is supplied by the Privy Council Office to the Lord Steward, the Lord Chamberlain, and the Master of the Horse respectively (p. 41). Sessions and Petty Sessional Divisions altogether, no less than 1002 sets are distributed to county officials and magistrates. The Committe report that they felt considerable difficulty as to the mode of distribution in this class, and as to the preservation of the Statutes for public purposes. They issued a series of questions to the county authorities; and the replies, which are printed in an appendix to their Report, deserve particular attention. The Committee themselves sum up the effect of these replies as follows :— 1. "That (with some few exceptions) no general system exists for the preservation of the Statutes, or for the transmission of them from clerk to clerk of Petty Sessional Divisions, or from magistrate to magistrate. 2. That, with the exception of copies kept by clerks of the peace and those maintained for the use of Courts of Quarter Sessions, there are hardly any complete sets from the year 1801. 3. That many clerks and most magistrates look upon the copies supplied to them as their private property; and that (with some few exceptions) no steps are taken on a change of clerks, from death or other causes, to secure to their successor the possession of Statutes, which have been supplied at the public expense. 4. That in the case of magistrates it would appear that in most instances the Statutes are placed in their libraries, and pass, as a matter of course, to their representatives. 5. Many of the clerks report that they consider themselves entitled to retain the Statutes as private property, inasmuch as they are at the expense of binding them."* The Committee do not, however, call particular attention to the replies received to one of their questions, which is of importance for our present purpose. They asked the County Authorities to say, "14. Assuming that such arrangements do not at present exist, could regulations be established to render the copies of the Statutes supplied for the use of Courts of Quarter and Petty Sessions available for public use, by keeping them at the courts or places where such Sessions are held?" From the general nature of the answers received to this question it appears that for the most part the Statutes supplied to the County Authorities are not generally available for public use. It is also pointed out in at least one answer,† that the copies are really more available for public use by being kept at the clerks' offices, which are open daily, than by their being kept at the court-houses, which are only occasionally open. It does not appear to have presented itself to the attention of the Committee that so far as the use of the Statutes by the general public is concerned, there would be no place so appropriate as the public library supported by the ratepayers, wherever there is such an institution. The law of England assumes and must necessarily assume, that the Statutes are known to every member of the community. The principle upon which the extensive distribu |
