I propose to divide the House on the Fifth Stage of this Bill. I propose to divide it for this reason. Here is a unique deposit of learning held in trust for the State by the Benchers of the King's Inns. Their total revenue amounts to less than £500 per year, and that does not represent an ex gratia grant from the State. It was given by the State to take the place of a statutory advantage that they had enjoyed under the British Government for a very protracted period—the copyright grant. I think it is niggardly and unworthy of this House that, when the Benchers of the King's Inns report to us that the volumes in the library stand urgently in need of repair in order to prevent their falling to pieces and that the Inns have no funds from which to undertake this work, the best offer we can make to the Benchers is that we will allow them to appropriate one-half of their already exiguous income annually to the business of repair, which implies the presumption that they will reduce their purchases of books hereafter by such sum as they may deem it necessary to expend for the preservation of the volumes that they already have.
Surely, in that situation it would have been a very much more becoming gesture on the part of the State to say: "How much would it cost to put the bindings in suitable repair— £500?" There are some splendid old binders in this city. It is one of the crafts in which Dublin excelled and certainly equalled every other centre of the craft. Here is an opportunity of providing lucrative and useful work for a craft which finds very little occupation for its skill. It would have been a very modest act of generosity if we had given the Benchers £500 and told them to get done all the binding they wanted and then gave them annually a grant of £100 to maintain the books which are the nation's property—they are held in trust—in good condition for the rest of time.
It is a source of amazement to me that the Parliamentary Secretary has trotted in here with this most typical, dry-as-dust, unimaginative proposal which has been worked out in some obscure labyrinth in the Department of Finance. I urge on the Parliamentary Secretary to do what I know he has not the discretion, the power, or the moral courage to do, and that is to withdraw the Bill and say that, on reflection, he will ask the House to pass a Supplementary Estimate and that in the Estimates for this Department in the years to come we may expect an addition of £75 or £100 to the annual grant to the King's Inns for the purpose of maintenance and purchase of volumes for the library of that institution.
