CANADA, NEW BRUNSWICK, AND NOVA SCOTIA RAILWAY BILL.

HC Deb 21 March 1854 vol 131 cc1068-9

Orders for Second Reading read.

MR. BROTHERTON

moved to postpone the second reading of this Bill until Tuesday the 11th of April.

MR. BOUVERIE

said, he should propose as an Amendment, that the Bill should be read a second time that day six months. As far as he could understand its meaning, he was quite sure that it was a measure which that House ought not to sanction. It was a very short Bill. It recited an Act of the Canadian Legislature, incorporating a railway company in Canada; it referred also to Acts of the Provincial Legislatures of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia; and it proposed that the House of Commons should confirm those Acts. It interfered, therefore, with the Colonial Legislature in a matter which was quite within its competency; and it trenched therefore upon the rule which had been laid down for leaving exclusively colonial subjects to be dealt with exclusively by the Colonies themselves. There was a clause at the end of the Bill reciting the great interest which had been taken by a Mr. Tibbetts in the formation and promotion of the company; and providing that, in the event of circumstances compelling him to retire from the secretaryship and management, he should be fully remunerated for the term of his natural life. This appeared to him to be the only reason why the House was asked to pass this Bill. He could discover no other object with which it could have been introduced; and, at all events, he did not think that it was a measure which they could be fairly asked to agree to.

Amendment proposed, to leave out the words, "Tuesday the 11th day of April next," in order to add the words "this day six months," instead thereof.

MR. BROTHERTON

said, he was informed by the agents of this company that a deputation was coming from New Brunswick to this country on the subject of the Bill; and he thought if that were so, it would be well to give them time, until the 11th of April, that they might have an opportunity, if possible, of making out their case. If they failed to do that satisfactorily, of course he should have nothing to say.

MR. FREDERICK PEEL

said, he should support the Amendment. This company had been incorporated by the Canadian Legislature, and, in the opinion of the law officers of the Colony, had forfeited its charter. This Bill proposed to give it a charter of incorporation in the three provinces of Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick. The proper course would have been to apply to the Canadian Legislature to revive that which had been forfeited, and to the Legislatures of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, for new charters in those Colonies. But there was a much more serious objection to the measure. It proposed to vest in this company a belt of land of ten miles in breadth, which the Colonial Legislature had authorised the Governor General to place at the disposal of the Imperial Government, with a view to the construction of an important line of railway in the Colony, giving no security, however, for the completion of the line.

MR. BROTHERTON

said, if the Government opposed the Bill, of course he would not press it.

Question—"That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question," put and negatived.

Words added:—Main Question, as amended, put, and agreed to.

Second reading put off for six months.