PRIVATE BILLS. (Hansard, 16 February 1846)

§ MR. GREENE
moved— That it be an Instruction to the Select Committee on Petitions for Private Bills, and to all Committees upon Private Bills, not to hear parties on any Petition hereafter referred to them which shall not be prepared and signed in strict conformity with the Rules and Orders of this House. He had taken a different view of the matter at first. He thought that there would be considerable injustice in refusing to hear those parties who, being at a distance, and being unaware of the rules of the House, should have forwarded petitions not strictly in compliance with those Orders. On consideration of the question he had also thought that the House having referred those Petitions to the Committee, the Committee had no power to refuse them a hearing. As to the clerks at the Table looking into the Petitions presented there for the purpose of seeing whether they complied with the Standing Orders, that was virtually impossible. It appeared, therefore, to him, that the Committees should be instructed to deal with the petitions sent to them. The Order was an absolutely necessary one, as the parties who petitioned against Bills were quite as much bound to comply with the Orders as any one else, and they would have abundant notice of the intention of the House from henceforth to enforce them. But he did not think that they could be enforced without the adoption of the present Resolution.

§ MR. ENTWISLE
thought some of the objections of petitioners against Bills were very frivolous, and he saw no reason why any relaxation of the Standing Orders should be extended to them. He knew one instance in which a petition had been presented against a Railway Bill, on the ground of the subscription deed not having been signed in accordance with the Standing Orders; the fact being, that about forty of the subscribers had signed by 962 power of attorney, instead of personally; and the sole object of the petition, as avowed, had been to put the parties to the expense of bringing up witnesses from Scotland and Ireland to prove the correctness and validity of those signatures. He thought it not at all unjust that parties who came forward to oppose others on grounds of non-compliance with Standing Orders, should be compelled to comply with them themselves. He should therefore move, "That the word 'hereafter' be left out" of the Resolution proposed by the hon. Member for Lancaster.

§ SIR WILLIAM HEATHCOTE
said, his first view of the case had been in favour of the Amendment just proposed; but on consideration it occurred to him that, in justice to the parties whose petitions had first brought about the discussion, it could not be enforced. Had the enforcement of the Standing Order been in the first instance insisted on, those parties would have been enabled to amend their petitions, and put the name or short title of the Bill at the heads of them, so as to have presented them in time to be heard. But now, if they were precluded from a hearing, they would be too late to amend their error, or have their petitions brought forward again.

MR, B. ESCOTT
thought the proposition was either a useless repetition of the rules of the House, or an improper interference with the rights of the petitioners. He thought that the matter too much affected one particular railway.

§ MR. GISBORNE
begged to be permitted to offer a few observations upon the question, as he had previously been heard upon the late occasion, when it had been before the House. It had been urged that the Standing Order No. 111-A could not be enforced by the Committee, because no penalty was attached to it. Why, he could show them one or two, or rather indeed very many others of those same Standing Orders, to which there were no penalties attached. As to the discovering of defects in the petitions which were presented to the House, the House did not pretend to find out defects in them. Petitions were seldom even opened. It was not known whether there was a single signature attached to them. It was taken on the good faith of the Member who presented the petition that it was what it professed to be. He was one of those who thought the Standing Orders too stringent, and that they ought to be relaxed. But whilst they 963 remained and were in force, the House should not take single cases of the sort then under consideration.

§ MR. STRUTT
, as the first person who brought the matter under the consideration of the House, could not allow it to be disposed of without offering a few observations. In the first place, he should observe upon the argument which had been used, that the Standing Order under consideration was of the same kind as all the other Standing Orders; and the hon. Member for Nottingham had just stated that if there were no penalty attached to the Standing Order 111-A, neither was there any penalty attached to the others. But he (Mr. Strutt) should say that there was a penalty attached to the others; and if his hon. Friend would look into the matter, he would find that there was a very serious penalty, being no less than the loss of the Bill, in the case in which the non-compliance should have been shown. The requirements of the Standing Order under consideration were very important, the object being to prevent mistakes in the case of petitions. He thought it very desirable that the House should come to the Resolution; and all that he objected to was that they should qualify it by the word "hereafter." As, however, the parties who had presented the petitions could have amended them had they been objected to at the Table of the House in the first instance, and as it would be then too late for them to do so, he would vote against the Amendment, and in favour of the original Motion.

§ COLONEL ANSON
thought that parties had had abundant notice of that rule. It had been a Sessional Order last year, and it had been made a Standing Order for the present year, so that the notice had been quite sufficient. He really thought that the parties infringing it ought to suffer penalties consequent, and he trusted that the House would agree to the Amendment of the hon. Member for South Lancashire.