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H O U S E O F K E Y S O F F I C I A L R E P O R T R E C O R T Y S O I K O I L Y C H I A R E A S F E E D P R O C E E D I N G S D A A L T Y N HANSARD Castletown, Tuesday, 14th March 2017 All published Official Reports can be found on the Tynwald website: www.tynwald.org.im/business/hansard Supplementary material provided subsequent to a sitting is also published to the website as a Hansard Appendix. Reports, maps and other documents referred to in the course of debates may be consulted on application to the Tynwald Library or the Clerk of Tynwald’s Office. Volume 134, No. 15 ISSN 1742-2264 Published by the Office of the Clerk of Tynwald, Legislative Buildings, Finch Road, Douglas, Isle of Man, IM1 3PW. © Court of Tynwald, 2017 HOUSE OF KEYS, TUESDAY, 14th MARCH 2017 Present: The Speaker (Hon. J P Watterson) (Rushen); The Chief Minister (Hon. R H Quayle) (Middle); Mr J R Moorhouse and Hon. G D Cregeen (Arbory, Castletown and Malew); Hon. A L Cannan and Mr T S Baker (Ayre and Michael); Hon. C C Thomas and Mrs C A Corlett (Douglas Central); Miss C L Bettison and Mr C R Robertshaw (Douglas East); Mr G R Peake (Douglas North); Hon. W M Malarkey (Douglas South); Mr M J Perkins and Mrs D H P Caine (Garff); Hon. R K Harmer and Hon. G G Boot (Glenfaba and Peel); Mr W C Shimmins (Middle); Mr R E Callister and Ms J M Edge (Onchan); Dr A J Allinson and Mr L L Hooper (Ramsey); Hon. L D Skelly (Rushen); with Mr R I S Phillips, Secretary of the House. Business transacted Leave of absence granted ............................................................................................................ 673 Welcome by the Speaker ............................................................................................................. 673 Order of the Day ................................................................................................................ 674 1. Evidence from Dr Gawne ...................................................................................................... 674 1.1. The introduction of a popularly elected House of Keys in 1867 – Evidence to the House .......................................................................................................... 674 2. Motion .................................................................................................................................. 677 2.1. 150th anniversary of introduction of direct elections and ensuing progress for the Isle of Man – Motion carried ................................................................................... 677 Thanks and statement by the Speaker ........................................................................................ 679 The House adjourned at 3.05 p.m. ............................................................................................... 680 ________________________________________________________________________ 672 K134 HOUSE OF KEYS, TUESDAY, 14th MARCH 2017 House of Keys The House met at 2.30 p.m. in the Old House of Keys, Castletown [MR SPEAKER in the Chair] 5 The Speaker: Fastyr mie, Hon. Members. Members: Fastyr, mie, Mr Speaker. The Speaker: Please be seated. Leave of absence granted 10 The Speaker: Firstly, to advise Hon. Members that leave of absence has been given to Mr Ashford and Mrs Beecroft. Welcome by the Speaker The Speaker: It is easily assumed that because we have the world’s oldest continuous parliament we also have the world’s oldest democracy. Democracy and parliament go hand in hand, but it has not always been so. We are meeting this afternoon to celebrate those first 15 tentative steps on the road to the full democracy we now enjoy. The House of Keys has not formally sat in this building since 26th November 1874. It has witnessed sittings of the last unelected House of Keys and the first sitting of the House of Keys under popular elections, albeit where just 40% of the adult male population had the vote. Today it sees the first House to be elected under equality of representation, being entirely elected from 20 two-seat constituencies. It is therefore a historic day for both our ancient House and this building. I would like to welcome and acknowledge in the gallery former Speakers Mr Rodan and Mr Cringle, and I am delighted to welcome, to give evidence today, Dr Kit Gawne, who is well known for his publication Controversy, which covers the period up to Revestment and its 25 implications, especially for Manx finances. ________________________________________________________________________ 673 K134 HOUSE OF KEYS, TUESDAY, 14th MARCH 2017 Order of the Day 1. EVIDENCE FROM DR GAWNE 1.1. The introduction of a popularly elected House of Keys in 1867 – Evidence to the House The Speaker: Moving to Item 1 on our Order Paper, I now invite Dr Gawne to give his evidence on the introduction of a popularly elected House of Keys. Dr Gawne. 30 Dr Gawne: Thank you, Mr Speaker, Deputy Speaker, Hon. Members. My talk today is entitled ‘A New Hand to Scour a Rusty Bunch: How the self-elected Members of the House of Keys voted themselves out of office from 1833 through to 1867’. It is very appropriate that we are here in the very building in which the Members of the House of Keys met during most of the period this talk covers. The building stands on the site of 35 the library which was built by Bishop Thomas Wilson in 1710 and where the Keys were allowed to use the ground floor for their meetings. The old building was replaced on the same site by this one in 1821. With the increasing importance of Douglas, however, which became the Island’s capital in 1869, the Keys moved temporarily to Douglas courthouse and then permanently to the former Bank of Mona building on Prospect Hill in 1881. 40 In 1832 Britain had extended the vote to men who owned or tenanted property worth at least £10 a year and to those who had other specific property qualifications. But the people of the Isle of Man had not one vote to cast in the election of their representatives. The members of the self-elected House of Keys resisted demands to change their establishment. Whenever a vacancy occurred, they nominated two men to the Lieutenant-Governor for his decision as to 45 which one should then be appointed. The ‘Castletown clique’, the disparaging contemporary term used to describe them and their supporters, were seen as land-owning members of a self- perpetuating and self-interested oligarchy and a very powerful force. But, as often is the case, there are two sides to a story. This talk explores the attitudes and influences of some of the Members of the self-elected House of Keys in the lead-up to its 50 dissolution. And running alongside this story there is an interlinked one about the reformers who were prepared to take risks to help achieve what they considered were long-overdue political and fiscal changes. Reform petitions had been raised in the late 1700s, and John Murray – as you know, the fourth Duke of Atholl and Governor of the Isle of Man – had derisively referred to the Keys in 55 1822 as being ‘no more representative of the people of Man than of the people of Peru’. But the call for political reform only started in earnest in 1833 when the teetotal Methodist Robert Fargher launched the liberal and dissenting newspaper the Mona’s Herald and became involved in a persistent and vigorous campaign to bring about a democratically elected House of Keys. From that moment may be dated the beginnings of political and fiscal reform. 60 Fargher called for meetings of the Keys to no longer take place behind closed doors but to be open both to the press and the public and for its Members to be chosen by the vote of the people. His inflammatory ‘letters to the editor’ resulted in a libel action being brought against him in 1844 by George Dumbell, one of the ablest and bitterest opponents of political reform, who was a Member and the Secretary of the House of Keys as well as a banker. 65 Fargher was sentenced to 10 days’ imprisonment in Castle Rushen and a fine of £10, which he refused to pay. His supporters paid the fine, and the Mona’s Herald reported that on a triumphal procession back to Douglas: ________________________________________________________________________ 674 K134 HOUSE OF KEYS, TUESDAY, 14th MARCH 2017 Flags were displayed on public houses, shawls and handkerchiefs were hung out at the farm houses, and, in the absence of these, at thatched cottages patriotic old matrons hung out their wearing garments. Many of the constitutional reform protestors formed committees and associations and sent petitions to the British government throughout the 1830s and 1840s. Nothing came of it until 70 Home Secretary Sir George Grey temporarily subdued the protestors in 1847 by threatening that Britain might annex the Island. In 1853 George Dumbell and William Callister were appointed by their Keys’ colleagues to go to London to meet with Prime Minister William Gladstone, Home Secretary Viscount Palmerston and Financial Secretary to the Treasury James Wilson to express their alarm that the Isle of Man 75 was being included in a British Customs Act. Negotiations were intense but ended in agreement that special clauses would be used distinctly referring to the Island and that a fixed annual amount of money raised by Manx customs duties would be given to Tynwald to use for harbour works. This was in addition to an amount already given since 1843 when Dr John Bowring MP had lobbied on behalf of the Manx people for the return of their money. Since the Revestment 80 Act 1765, Britain had been taking the surplus Manx customs revenue and putting it into its own exchequer with little of it ever coming back to the Island. Towards the end of the discussions, Wilson surprisingly suggested to the two MHKs that the Keys should have control of the surplus customs revenue but only if they were willing to be elected by the people.