MARGINAL COMMENT
By HAROLD NICOLSON
FOR the second time in one hundred and ten years the House of Commons Chamber in the Palace of Westminster has been destroyed by fire, and for the second time a Select Committee has made proposals for its " rehabilitation." It is to be hoped that this time the Committee and the architects who will eventually be appointed will not be exposed to the rivalries, delays and confusions which on the last occasion drove Sir Charles Barry to distraction. After the fire of 1834 there was no single authority charged with the responsibility of supervising the progress of the building or of checking alterations and additions. The Commissioners of Works and Buildings would on Monday give detailed instructions to Sir Charles Barry which on Tuesday would be countermanded by the Commissioners of Woods and Forests. Dr. D. B. Reid, who had (most unfortunately and to the damage of the health of generations of legislators) been charged with the heating and ventilation of the Chamber, considered himself to be an independent authority and proceeded to play havoc with Barry's original design. Every morning Pugin would have another bright idea, and would insist upon encrusting Barry's already overcharged surfaces with some new armorial motto or some fresh Norman or Angevin escutcheon. It is not surprising that many delays and quarrels resulted and that several further ad hoc committees had to be appointed. Sir Charles Barry had said that it would take him six years to complete the new building ; it took him twenty-seven. He estimated that the cost would not exceed £724,986: the final cost was £2,198,098.2s. 11d.
And many rude and cruel disputes followed. •
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