§ MR. R. LONGsaid, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if he intends to introduce a Bill for amending the Highway Act this Session; and, if so, how soon it will be laid upon the table of the House?
§ SIR GEORGE GREYsaid, that several Amendments had been brought under the consideration of the Government. It was impossible, however, to bring in a Bill until 713 all the representations had been duly considered. There was no intention to change the nature of the existing Act; the Bill, when introduced, would simply affect certain details.
§ MR. ROGERSsaid, he would also beg to ask, if after a county had been divided into Highway Districts, under the Act of 1862, facilities will be afforded to rural parishes where the population, according to the last Census, was more than three thousand, and such parishes desire to withdraw from such districts, by adopting the Local Government Act of 1858?
§ SIR GEORGE GREYsaid, that his own opinion was that it was undesirable that rural parishes, when once they had been included in Highway Districts formed by order of the Court of Quarter Sessions, should withdraw themselves by the adoption of a local Act. It was not intended to give them any facilities for doing so beyond those which they now possessed by law.