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  • Anderson discussed in the House of Commons

    Hello all,

    Some may find this interesting..
    Here is a series of exchanges in The House of Commons surrounding Secret Service payment funds, Sir Robert Anderson, and involves Littlechild, Munro and Sir Charles Warren..

    SIR ROBERT ANDERSON AND "THE. TIMES" ARTICLES.
    20 April 1910

    Mr. REDDY asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he can state if any secret service money was disbursed at the instance or on the advice of Sir Robert Anderson; and, if so, whether he can state the total amount?

    The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. Churchill)-For obvious reasons I can make no statement on this subject.

    Mr. MacVEAGH asked what safeguards are in operation to prevent money disbursed in connection with the Secret Service Fund being improperly or wastefully employed?

    Mr. HOBHOUSE-No charge is admitted by the Comptroller and Auditor-General against the Vote for Secret Service unless covered by a certificate by the Minister of the Crown responsible for the payments, solemnly declaring that the interests of the public service required them to be made out of the Secret Service Fund and that they were properly so made.

    Mr. MacVEAGH-Has the Treasury any reason to think those safeguards are sufficient, and is there any record as to whether any part of the £50,000 -which was offered by "The Times" newspaper to P. J. Sheridan was to come from the Secret Service Fund?

    Mr. HOBHOUSE-There are no such records at all that I know of.

    Mr. MacVEAGH-Is the hon. Gentleman not aware that large sums of money were paid out from the Secret Service Fund to agents provocateurs for giving information with regard to plots which they themselves were organising with money supplied by the Secret Service Fund?

    Mr. HOBHOUSE-I have no such information.

    Mr. FLAVIN-Who supervises or checks the expenditure of the Secret Service Fund?

    Mr. HOBHOUSE-I have already explained that the Minister responsible for the Department with which the particular expenditure is connected is responsible for the proper expenditure.

    Mr. MacVEAGH-asked whether Mr. Munro received any gratuity from public funds on the termination of his appointment in Scotland Yard; and whether he was entitled to any pension?

    Mr. CHURCHILL-The answer to both questions is in the negative.

    Mr. MacVEAGH-Why is it that Sir Robert Anderson had an increase of salary, a pension and a knighthood whilst his superior official receives neither a pension nor a knighthood?

    Mr. CHURCHILL-I am afraid I. cannot give any explanation of the freaks of fortune in the world.

    Mr. MacVEAGH-Are there any records to show on whose advice Sir Robert Anderson received a knighthood?

    Mr. CHURCHILL-That was the decision of a Government which has long passed away. I cannot investigate, justify or explain, still less impeach their motives.

    Mr. FLAVIN-Was the knighthood conferred on Sir Robert Anderson for services rendered to the Tory party?

    Mr. CHURCHILL-I know nothing of the circumstances.

    Mr. FLAVIN-Who conferred the knighthood on Sir Robert Anderson?

    Mr. CHURCHILL-The King.

    Mr. MacVEAGH asked what official position was being held by Sir Robert Anderson on the date on which Pigott and Mr. Soames got permission to visit John Daly and Dr. Gallagher in Chatham Prison; on the date on which a similar permit was issued to Inspector Littlechild; and on the date on which Pigott escaped?

    Mr. CHURCHILL-Neither Inspector Littlechild nor Pigott appears to have visited Dr. Gallagher. At the time when the other visits mentioned took place, and also at the time of Pigott's escape, Sir Robert Anderson occupied the position of Assistant Commissioner of Police.

    Mr. MacVEAGH-Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether Inspector Littlechild and Pigott were admitted to the prison to interview these prisoners?

    Mr. CHURCHILL-My information is that they were not.

    Mr. MacVEAGH-Well, that information is diametrically opposed to the information given to the Parnell Commission.

    Mr. MacVEAGHasked whether Sir Robert Anderson filed any official memoranda embodying the substance of the communications made to him by Le Caron?

    Mr. CHURCHILL-No, Sir.

    Mr. MacVEAGH-If no official report has been filed, what evidence have the Home Office that they ever got value for their money?

    Mr. CHURCHILL-I suppose that the Secretary of State for the time being was satisfied that full value was received for the money.

    Captain CRAIG-May I ask whether value was not received in the fact that a great many of the crimes of the Nationalist party of that day were laid open to the public?

    Mr. MALLABY-DEELEY-May I ask how much further time of this House is to be wasted by these fruitless and absurd inquiries?

    Mr. SPEAKER-The hon. Member is not entitled to make that observation.

    Mr. MacVEAGH asked whether there is any precedent for terminating the career of any Scotland Yard official on the ground that he wrote articles for a magazine?

    Mr. CHURCHILL-The correspondence which led to Sir Charles Warren's retirement in 1888 originated in a magazine article written by him; but it would hardly be correct to say that that article was the ground of his retirement. Apart from that case, I know of no precedent.

    Mr. MacVEAGH-Has the attention of the right hon. Gentleman been called to the fact that the Home Secretary of that time, Mr. Matthews, now Lord Llandaff, declared explicitly in this House that the only cause for the censure passed on Sir Charles Warren and his subsequent retirement was that he wrote this article in "Murray's Magazine"?

    Mr. LAWSON-May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether it is a not uncommon practice for high officials to write articles in various magazines?

    Mr. CHURCHILL-If it is a not uncommon practice it is certainly one which should be discouraged when and if these articles trench at all upon subjects which are matters of controversy, and in respect to which the knowledge they have acquired has been due solely to their official position.

    Mr. MacVEAGH-May I ask the right hon. Gentleman to answer the question I put to him, namely, whether the Home Secretary of the day declared in this House that the only cause for the censure passed on Sir Charles Warren was as stated in the question?

    Mr. SPEAKER-The hon. Member can find that out for himself. If there is any record in the Proceedings of the House, he will be able to find it.

    Mr. MacVEAGH-I have found it out already.

    Mr. CHURCHILL-The hon. Member has placed newspaper extracts at my disposal, and, so far as public accounts go, his statement is not out of harmony with those accounts, but I am informed by the Home Office that the retirement of Sir Charles Warren was not the writing of the article, but the discussion and correspondence which proceeded from that original act.

    Captain COOPER-May I ask if that applies to Ministers of the Crown who write articles descriptive of the Departments for which they are responsible?

    Mr. CHURCHILL-Every case must be judged entirely on its merits or demerits.

    best wishes

    Phil
    Chelsea FC. TRUE BLUE. 💙


    Justice for the 96 = achieved
    Accountability? ....

  • #2
    Wonderful stuff Phil!

    The Secret Fund has been one of the convenient Cat's-Paws by which Ministers of the Crown circumvented the oversight of parliament, and Westminster responsibility.

    The example nicely highlighted by Mr McVeagh, shows that Ministers could do whatever they liked with the monies from the Secret Fund.

    It would have been John Mortimer's fictional T.V. civil servant, Sir Humphrey Appleby's idea of "Paradise"!

    And the difference in treatment of Sir Charles Warren and Sir Robert Anderson, indicates Anderson was more political: he knew "where the bodies were buried". And I'm not talking Jack the Ripper there.

    JOHN RUFFELS.

    Comment


    • #3
      Well Done Phil!

      I forgot to say. Nice work Phil. Well discovered.Thanks for sharing.
      Can you find more please?

      JOHN RUFFELS.

      Comment


      • #4
        good work

        Hello Phil. Good work. Keep it up.

        Cheers.
        LC

        Comment


        • #5
          Hello John, Lynn,

          Thank you for your kind comments... A couple of things struck me when reading this over... namely the date of the discussion (20th April 1910), and the comments by Churchill...

          1) By sheer co-incidence, the discussion happened on Adolf Hitler's 21st birthday! (who by 1910, he was living in a house for poor working men on Meldemannstrasse in Vienna, having had a falling out with the man who was selling his (Hitler's) paintings for him, one Reinhold Hanisch).

          2) That if one is to take Winston Churchill's comments as completely true, then here we have another confirmation that it was not the article written by Warren itself from Murray's Magazine that led to his downfall. Please also note Churchill uses the word "retirement" as opposed to "resignation".

          "... I am informed by the Home Office that the retirement of Sir Charles Warren was not the writing of the article, but the discussion and correspondence which proceeded from that original act."

          Interesting stuff indeed!

          best wishes

          Phil
          Last edited by Phil Carter; 08-06-2010, 03:18 AM. Reason: addition added
          Chelsea FC. TRUE BLUE. 💙


          Justice for the 96 = achieved
          Accountability? ....

          Comment


          • #6
            Originally posted by Johnr View Post
            Can you find more please?
            Hello John,

            You asked, so with my compliments...

            The very next day there was a long debate surrounding Sir Robert Anderson and his article in The Times, which caused a furore.

            T.P.O'Connor, at 4pm on the 21st April, rose and asked the House the following:-

            "The Motion I make is that the Vote on Account shall be diminished by so much money as belongs to the pension of Sir Robert Anderson."

            It was a very long speech, and the ensuing debate was long as well. Far from showing all of the discussion, a few lines and a few paragraphs highlight T.P.O'Connor's views on Anderson...

            "...I attack his pension because I think he has violated the traditions of the high position he held and of the service to which he belonged; because he has been guilty of gross acts of official indiscretion; because he has made many statements which are inaccurate and misleading, and calculated to interfere with the course of justice; but, above all, I ask for the destruction of his pension because I regard him as the symbol and outcome, and as the standard-bearer of a bad and false and rotten system."

            O'Connor states further in his Motion speech...

            "....Sir R. Anderson is an Irishman and a Unionist....He has the most violent political prejudices. These prejudices are so strong, and I am sure so honest, that they blind him very often to all the difference between what is right and what is wrong in the conduct of his fellow-creatures, and often to his own attitude towards those who have the misfortune to differ from him. But when one reads his history described by himself, one is not surprised at that."

            "You will find in all his writings and all his proceedings he is constantly haunted and beset and obsessed by what I may call the policeman's spirit, and above all the secret service spirit."

            "In this book he gives perhaps the most eloquent proof of his prejudices and prepossessions. This book has many villains; it has only one hero—or, perhaps, I should say it has many villains but only two heroes. One of the heroes of the book is Sir R. Anderson, and his achievements lose nothing in the telling. The other hero is Major Le Caron. But there are many villains, some of whom are sitting round me."

            He ended his long speech with..

            "Question proposed, "That Item Class VI., Vote 1, be reduced by £900, in respect of the Pension of Sir Robert Anderson."

            After a long response from Churchill, and an even longer discussion, the result was as follows...

            Question put, "That the Question be now put."

            The Committee divided: Ayes, 232; Noes, 111.


            best wishes

            Phil
            Last edited by Phil Carter; 08-06-2010, 04:00 AM. Reason: re-arrangement of sentence
            Chelsea FC. TRUE BLUE. 💙


            Justice for the 96 = achieved
            Accountability? ....

            Comment

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