§ Lords' Amendments considered.
256
§
Lords' Amendment—
In page 4, line 2, of Clause 5, to leave out the words 'City and.'
§ Read a second time.
§ MR. T. M. HEALY (Louth, N.)said that by the Local Government Act of 1898 for the first time the city of Londonderry was separated from the county of Londonderry, and there was no such thing under the section as the County Council of the City and County of Londonderry. The Act of 1875, which was incorporated, placed a charge for twenty-three years of £45,000 on the capital of £220,000, and it placed that charge not upon the entire county of Londonderry, but upon certain baronies of Londonderry. In these circumstances what did the promoters do? He submitted that the Amendments inserted by the Lords were a gross breach of the privileges of this House.
§ *MR. SPEAKERThere is only this one Amendment, and of course the hon. and learned Member must confine himself to the effect of this Amendment. I think it would be more convenient if the hon. and learned Member made his criticism upon the question that the House do agree with the Lords' Amendment.
§ MR. T. M. HEALYsaid he was submitting that the Amendment of the House of Lords was a breach of the privileges of this House, and he submitted that upon the question now before the House his arguments were pertinent. The Amendment made by the House of Lords in this Act was unconstitutional in itself, and it was a breach of the privileges of this House, for it affected a large body of ratepayers who never had any notice that this charge was to be placed upon them at all. That was his argument. He had demonstrated by the section of the Act of 1875 that the Act placed this charge upon four areas out of the entire county of Londonderry. This was a most serious inroad upon the privileges of the ratepayers, but how did it stand with regard to the House? The whole county of Londonderry was now rated for the purposes of this charge. Notices of this ought to have been given to every ratepayer in the county of Londonderry 257 by the original notices drawn up in October and November of every year. They had the right to petition. He would not have complained of this extraordinary step so much if it had been for the purpose of continuing the existing charge for the benefit of the local ratepayers, but the proposal now was that a large number of persons in certain baronies who had never paid this charge before would now have to contribute. The Standing Orders of the House provided that problems of this kind should not be dealt with without notice, and insisted upon the privileges of the House with regard to any clauses inserted in private Bills or provisional Orders sent down by the House of Lords being observed, more especially in regard to local charges being placed on local authorities for local purposes. The charge in the original Act was solely upon certain baronies—
§ *MR. SPEAKEROrder, order! What the hon. and learned Member is now going into cannot be raised upon a point of order, and it would be better if he would raise his objection upon the general question.
§ MR. T. M. HEALYsaid the ratepayers of Ireland would be placed in a grave position if they were denied the protection of the privileges of this House in regard to a matter of this kind. The procedure in regard to private Bills was sufficiently difficult and cumbrous, but the Standing Order rigidly insisted, under a joint Order of both Houses, that no Bill should even be introduced to create a public charge unless notice had been given to every man in the locality, and unless the public bodies had notice and given their approval of the charge. What became of this Standing Order in the case of the Lords' Amendment to this Bill? The unfortunate shareholders were to be robbed of all their money and property for the benefit of a Treasury arrangement with a monopolist company.
§ *MR. SPEAKERThat is hardly a point of order.
§ MR. T. M. HEALYsaid his point was that there was no such body as the County Council of the City and County of Londonderry.
§ *MR. SPEAKEROrder, order! The hon. Member is going wide of the question. He is discussing the merits of the Bill, and he cannot do that upon a point of order.
§ MR. T. M. HEALYsaid his submission was that it was contrary to the Standing Orders that the House of Lords should make this Amendment, which deprived the public of the protection of the Standing Order which required that all new charges laid upon the ratepayers should first have the approval of the local bodies.
§ THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN, Worcestershire, E.)On a point of order, may I submit to the House that this clause containing the onerating charges was not inserted by the House of Lords but by this House, and all that the House of Lords hasdone is to exonerate the city of Londonderry, which was included in error in the clause inserted in this House. Therefore the action of the House of Lords has not been to cast a burden upon any ratepayers or taxpayers, but simply to remove from the city of Londonderry a burden placed upon it by mistake in this House.
§ *MR. SPEAKERIs there such a body as the County Council of the City and County of Londonderry?
§ *MR. SPEAKERIt certainly appears to me to be a mere case of error of description. It is a question whether the Lords have not merely corrected an error which the Commons had fallen into.
§ MR. T. M. HEALYcontended that the House of Commons had fallen into no error. Because of an objection addressed to the House of Lords by some private interested parties the Lords had put in a clause which onerated the whole county of Londonderry.
§ *MR. SPEAKERI do not understand that to be the case. As far as I can understand the position, there is no such body as the County Council of the City and County of Londonderry.
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. ATKINSON, Londonderry, N.)Under the Local Government Act of 1898 there was no grand jury of the city of Londonderry at all, but there was one grand jury which covered both the city and the county. Under the Act of 1875 the seven baronies of the county of Londonderry were charged under the guarantee with the payment of interest on the sum which has been stated at 5 per cent. In the clause as it left the House of Commons a non-existent body was named, and the House of Lords had simply corrected the clause by substituting for that nonexistent body the body that is obviously intended. What the House of Lords has done is simply to strike out those words relating to the non-existent body and make the clause describe an existent body, namely, the County Council of the County of Londonderry, upon whom the burden is thrown.
§ *MR. SPEAKERIt seems to me that all this Amendment does is to describe correctly a body which had been incorrectly described. Apparently there has been no new burden imposed upon the ratepayers by the House of Lords.
§ MR. T. M. HEALYsaid he was of course bound by this ruling, and he would address himself to the merits of the question.
§ *MR. SPEAKERMay I suggest that some hon. Member should first move that the House do agree with the Lords in this Amendment, and then the hon. and learned Member can move to disagree.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."—(Mr. O'Neill.)
§ MR. T. M. HEALYsaid he could well understand why the learned Attorney General was anxious that this clause should pass, because he happened to represent North Derry.
§ *MR. SPEAKERThat is not the result of this Amendment. The only point is whether this Amendment should 260 be inserted, and it appears to me to be simply a correction. Therefore the hon. and learned Member cannot go into the question of the effect of the whole clause.
§ MR. T. M. HEALYsaid he was dealing with what was his own impression as to the effect of this clause as a matter of argument and not of law. As the clause left this House, it could not be denied that it laid a charge upon no man. It was idle to contend that this was simply a correction. The public of Ireland were entitled in an onerating. Bill to be heard and to say whether this Amendment created an onerating charge. That was only common logic. Slips often occurred in Acts of Parliament of which prisoners got the benefit of the doubt. The real construction was that the mind of Parliament was expressed by the words of the Act, and as those words left this House, slip or no slip, they laid no charge upon anybody in the county or city of Londonderry, and the result would have been that they would have escaped by the terms of the Act as it left this House. Those hon. members who were familiar with the Local Government Act of 1898 noticed the slip, and they blessed the name of those who drew up this section. This would have passed the House of Lords without alteration so far as the county council of Londonderry was concerned, and the other local bodies, had it not been for the interested action of a number of private shareholders who, in their own interests, set themselves the task of getting this alleged ship corrected. He challenged contradiction upon the point that this Bill as it left this House relieved the people of the county of Londonderry from all obligations in regard to this charge. The result of the Lords' Amendment must be considered in relation to the existing statutes. He submitted that the effect would be that those persons living in the southern baronies and areas of this county would for the first time be onerated with this charge.
§ *MR. JOHN GORDON (Londonderry, S.)said that the hon. and learned Member for North Louth was under a very great misapprehension in regard to this question no doubt. The Local Government 261 Act of 1898 had put an end to baronies as taxable areas for general purposes under the Act, but it had at the same time provided that charges for railways, tramways, and the like could still be levied off the areas which had originally been made liable for such charges, and he understood that these charges had actually been levied and paid in this way since the passing of that Act. When the section left that House its intention was to preserve to the shareholders the rights which they possessed under previous Acts. There was no intention to impose a liability upon ratepayers not previously liable.
§ *MR. SPEAKEROrder, order! The hon. Member is now going into the general merits of the Bill, and he is not in order in doing so.
§ *MR. JOHN GORDONsaid it seemed to him that the intention of the section of the Act of Parliament alluded to when it left the House was to preserve to the shareholders any rights which they already had. If there was any slip in the language used or any mistake, was it not a reasonable and right thing to correct it? If the clause would extend a liability not before incurred, he should have supported the hon. Member in resisting the change. He would not touch the merits of the case; but content himself with saying that he did not think the House would impose any liability on the ratepayers to which they were not previously liable.
§ MR. MOORE (Antrim, N.)said his action would be largely guided by the
§ answer which the Attorney General for Ireland gave them as to whether in the original Act the baronies were liable to these charges. Would the right hon. Gentleman tell them whether as the Bill came down to them the baronies were—
§ *MR. SPEAKEROrder, order! That matter cannot be raised on this Amendment.
§ MR. T. M. HEALYNothing else arises. That is the whole point.
§ MR. ATKINSONsaid he had not the slightest hesitation in saying that so far as the liability of the ratepayers in the particular baronies mentioned in the Act of 1875, they remained exactly as they were before. There was no federation of the baronies. The Provisional Order simply provided that the county districts should be used instead of the baronies. It neither circumscribed nor extended the area on which any particular charges were made.
§ MR. T. M. HEALYRead the section.
§ MR. ATKINSONsaid that was his interpretation. So far as that Amendment was concerned, it was obvious that it did not charge any district; but what the Amendment intended, he presumed, was to indicate the bodies that should henceforth pay the charge.
§ Question put.
§ The House divided:—Ayes, 137; Noes, 91. (Division List No. 445.)
263| AYES. | ||
| Acland-Hood, Capt. Sir Alex. F. | Caldwell, James | Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers- |
| Anstruther, H. T. | Cavendish, V. C. W. (Derbyshire | Doxford, Sir William Theodore |
| Arkwright, John Stanhope | Cayzer, Sir Charles William | Duke, Henry Edward |
| Arnold-Forster, Hugh O. | Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor) | Durning-Lawrence, Sir Edwin |
| Arrol, Sir William | Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. J. (Birm. | Dyke, Rt. Hon. Sir Wm. Hart |
| Asher, Alexander | Chamberlain, J. Austen (Worc'r | Fellowes, Hon. Ailwyn Edwd. |
| Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John | Chapman, Edward | Fergusson, Rt. Hn. Sir J. (Manc'r |
| Bagot, Capt. Josceline FitzRoy | Churchill, Winston Spencer | Finlay, Sir Robert Bannatyne |
| Balcarres, Lord | Cochrane, Hon. Thos. H. A. E. | Fisher, William Hayes |
| Balfour, Rt. Hon. A. J. (Manch'r | Coghill, Douglas Harry | Fitzroy, Hon. Edward Algernon |
| Balfour, Kenneth R. (Christch. | Cohen, Benjamin Louis | Foster, Sir Walter (Derby Co.) |
| Banbury, Frederick George | Collings, Rt. Hon. Jesse | Garfit, William |
| Bathurst, Hon. Allen Benjamin | Colomb, Sir John Chas. Ready | Godson, Sir Augustus Frederick |
| Bentinck, Lord Henry C. | Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow | Gordon, Hn. J. E. (Elgin&Nairn) |
| Bignold, Arthur | Corbett, T. L. (Down, North) | Gordon, J. (Londonderry. S.) |
| Bullard, Sir Harry | Cranborne, Viscount | Gore, Hon. S. F. Ormsby- (Linc.) |
| Burdett-Coutts, W. | Davies Sir Horatio D. (Chatham | Gorst, Rt. Hon. Sir John Eldon |
| Butcher, John George | Dilke, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles | Goulding, Edward Alfred |
| Greene, Henry D. (Shrewsbury) | Macdona, John Cumming | Rollit, Sir Albert Kaye |
| Greene, W. Raymond- (Cambs.) | MacIver, David (Liverpool) | Ropner, Col. Robert |
| Groves, James Grimble | Maconochie, A. W. | Royds, Clement Molyneux |
| Hain, Edward | M'Arthur, Charles (Liverpool) | Rutherford, John |
| Hamilton, Rt Hn Lord G. (Midd'x | M'Killop, James (Stirlingshire) | Sackville, Col. S. G. Stopford- |
| Harris, Frederick Leverton | Majendie, James A. H. | Sadler, Col. Samuel Alexander |
| Haslett, Sir James Horner | Maple, Sir John Blundell | Sassoon, Sir Edward Albert |
| Heath, James (Staffords., N.W. | Mitchell, William | Sharpe, William Edward T. |
| Heaton, John Henniker | Montagu, G. (Huntingdon) | Skewes-Cox, Thomas |
| Hermon-Hodge, Robert Trotter | Moore, William (Antrim, N.) | Smith, Abel H. (Hertford, East) |
| Hoare, Edw. Brodie (Hampstead | Morris, Hon. Martin Henry F. | Smith, James Parker (Lanarks. |
| Hornby, Sir William Henry | Morton, Arthur H. A. (Deptford) | Spear, John Ward |
| Horner, Frederick William | Murray, Rt Hn. A. Graham (Bute | Stanley, Lord (Lancs.) |
| Hoult, Joseph | Myers, William Henry | Stirling-Maxwell, Sir John M. |
| Howard, J. (Midd., Tottenham) | Paulton, James Mellor | Stone, Sir Benjamin |
| Hozier, Hon. James Henry Cecil | Peel, Hon. Wm. Robert Wellesley | Thomas, Alfred (Glamorgan, E.) |
| Johnston, William (Belfast) | Pilkington, Lieut.-Col. Richard | Tritton, Charles Ernest |
| Johnstone, Heywood (Sussex) | Platt-Higgins, Frederick | Valentia, Viscount |
| Kenyon, Hon. Geo. T. (Denbigh) | Plummer, Walter R. | Walrond, Rt. Hn. Sir William H. |
| Lawson, John Grant | Pretyman, Ernest George | Warner, Thomas Courtenay T. |
| Lee, Arthur H. (Hants., Fareham | Purvis, Robert | Webb, Col. William George |
| Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage | Randles, John S. | Whitley, J. H. (Halifax) |
| Loder, Gerald Walter Erskine | Rankin, Sir James | Wilsod-Todd, Wm. H. (Yorks.) |
| Long, Col. Charles W. (Evesham) | Rasch, Major Frederic Carne | Wodehouse, Rt. Hon. E. R. (Bath) |
| Long, Rt. Hn. Walter (Bristol, S.) | Reid, James (Greenock) | Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George |
| Lonsdale, John Brownlee | Renshaw, Charles Bine | |
| Lowther, Rt. Hon. James (Kent) | Rentoul, James Alexander | TELLERS FOR THE AYES— |
| Lyttelton, Hon. Alfred | Ridley, Hon. M. W. (Stalybridge) | Mr. O'Neill and Colonel J. |
| Macartney, Rt. Hn. W. G. Ellison | Robertson, Herbert (Hackney) | M'Calmont. |
| NOES. | ||
| Abraham, W. (Cork, N. E.) | Gilhooly, James | O'Donnell, T. (Kerry, W.) |
| Barry, E. (Cork, S.) | Hammond, John | O'Dowd, John |
| Bayley, Thomas (Derbyshire) | Hayden, John Patrick | O'Kelly, Conor (Mayo, N.) |
| Bell, Richard | Hayne, Rt. Hon. C. Seale- | O'Malley, William |
| Boland, John | Horniman, Frederick John | O'Shee, James John |
| Boyle, James | Hutton, Alfred E. (Morley) | Partington, Oswald |
| Brigg, John | Jones, W. (Carnarvonshire) | Power, Patrick Joseph |
| Broadhurst, Henry | Jordan, Jeremiah | Reddy, M. |
| Burns, John | Joyce, Michael | Redmond, John E. (Waterford) |
| Burt, Thomas | Kennedy, Patrick James | Redmond, William (Clare) |
| Cameron, Robert | Lambert, George | Rickett, J. Compton |
| Campbell, John (Armagh, S.) | Leamy, Edmund | Roberts, John H. (Denbighs) |
| Carvill, Patrick G. Hamilton | Leigh, Sir Joseph | Roche, John |
| Channing Francis Allston | Lough, Thomas | Roe, Sir Thomas |
| Clancy, John Joseph | Lundon, W. | Sheehan, Daniel Daniel |
| Cogan, Denis J. | Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J. | Sinclair, Capt. J. (Forfarshire) |
| Colville, John | M'Fadden, Edward | Soares, Ernest J. |
| Condon, Thomas Joseph | M'Govern, T. | Sullivan, Donal |
| Crean, Eugene | M'Kenna, Reginald | Taylor, Theodore Cooke |
| Crombie, John William | Mansfield, Horace Rendall | Tennant, Harold John |
| Cullinan, J. | Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen) | Thompson Dr. E. C. (MonaghnN |
| Davies, Alfred (Carmarthen) | Murnaghan, George | Thomson, F. W. (York, W. R.) |
| Delany, William | Murphy, John | Tomkinson, James |
| Donelan, Captain A. | Nannetti, Joseph P. | Ure, Alexander |
| Doogan, P. C. | Nolan, Joseph (Louth, South) | White, Luke (York, E. R.) |
| Duffy, William J. | Nussey, Thomas Willans | White, Patrick (Meath, N.) |
| Elibank, Master of | O'Brien, James F. X. (Cork) | Whittaker, Thomas Palmer |
| Emmott, Alfred | O'Brien, Kendal (Tipperary Mid | |
| Esmonde, Sir Thomas | O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny) | TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Mr. |
| Field, William | O'Brien, P. J. (Tipperary, N.) | T. M. Healy and Mr. Daly. |
| Fitzmaurice, Lord Edmond | O'Doherty, William | |
| Flavin, Michael Joseph | O'Donnell, John (Mayo, S.) |
First resolution read a second time.
§ Subsequent Lords' Amendment agreed to.