GALWAY HARBOUR BILL. (Hansard, 13 July 1860)

THE MARQUIS OF CLANRICARDE
said, that the noble Lord the Chairman of Committees had, in the exercise of his functions, struck out of the Bill two clauses which were of considerable importance. This made it necessary for him (the Marquess of Clanricarde) to take what was a rather inconvenient course. He might observe that the step taken by the Government of the noble Earl opposite (the Earl of Derby) in granting a subsidy to a line of packets between Galway and America bad already been attended with very important results. Two years ago there 1845 was not a single steam packet running between Ireland and America. At the present moment Sir C. Cunard's Transatlantic mail steamers called at one of the southern ports of Ireland; the Canadian Company's called at one of the northern; and there was this Galway line: so that Ireland was now practically recognized as the portion of the United Kingdom from which the packets employed in speedy communication between Europe and America should depart. The Bill before their Lordships was to improve the harbour of Galway; it proposed that a sum of £180,000 should be raised; part of this sum was to be applied to the payment of existing charges, and the remainder to the making of a pier and breakwater in Galway Harbour, and for other works in connection therewith. It was intended in the first place that the tolls on the harbour should be charged with the payment of this money; next that it should be raised off the property in the immediate neighbourhood; and, as a last resource, that a limited rate should be imposed upon the county. Now as the harbour was a benefit to the county as well as the town, such a mode of securing the money was not improper, though he admitted that that course should be adopted with great caution; moreover, the course was not without precedent. Taunts had been often thrown out that whenever an effort was made for the improvement of Ireland it was always at the expense of English capital; but this was now refuted in the case of Galway, which only sought powers to tax itself for a purpose that he believed would prove beneficial to the commerce of the United Kingdom. Not a word of any opposition to this Bill had they heard until last week, and this fact was the more extraordinary, inasmuch as the objects of the measure had been generally approved of. He was, therefore, extremely surprised to find that the Select Committee had struck out of the measure a clause which imposed upon the county Galway a guarantee for a large sum of money for the improvement of the harbour. He begged, therefore, to move that the clauses which had been struck out should be reinstated.

THE EARL OF LUCAN
hoped the House would reject the Amendment of the noble Marquess. The Chairman of the Select Committee had acted very wisely in striking out the clause in the Bill which de- 1846 volved on the county of Galway the guaranteeing of a large sum of money for the improvement of the harbour, and had shown a wise discretion in declaring that the charge should not extend beyond the town. Under the Bill it was proposed to raise £180,000, of which £25,000 were to be applied in the payment of debts, and £100,000 were to be expended on a pier, breakwater, and graving docks—he wondered it was not for building ships. He believed that such a proposition was altogether without precedent. No doubt small sums had been expended on the repairs of fishing harbours under the Grand Jury Act, but that case did not afford a parallel to the present, in which a great national harbour was concerned. He believed it was the general wish of the landed proprietors of the county that the proposition of the noble Marquess should not be adopted. If the Amendment were agreed to, the result would be to impose a permanent charge of £1,700 a year upon the county funds.

§ LORD MONTEAGLE
concurred with the noble Earl that this was the first time any proposition had been submitted to Parliament to impose a guarantee upon a county for works undertaken by local companies only, without any recommendation from the Board of Works in Ireland. He should oppose the Amendment. At the present moment the very existence of the packet station was at stake. Already £120,000 had disappeared in connection with Galway harbour, and the House was now called on to decide without a security as to the utility of the plans, or as to whether the harbour would be available for the purpose. He thought it would be better to suspend the further progress of the Bill until they had the plans and reports of competent engineers, and not allow £180,000, constituting a permanent fund, to be saddled on the country. If we were to have the American trade it was highly important there should be a proper packet station at Galway.

§ LORD REDESDALE
said, he had always felt it to be his duty not to allow a new principle to be introduced in private in legislation without it was a very sound one, or without its being the sanction of the House. The principle proposed in the present Bill was entirely a new one that of taxing a county for the improvement of a local harbour, and if adopted might be drawn into a precedent in numberless cases, to the injury of pri- 1847 vate enterprise; and he thought the principle of guarantees in such cases was altogether objectionable. He had seen too much of the manner in which grand juries in Ireland would vote taxation in the shape of these guarantees to be very well satisfied with the prospect of an extension of it. In this case there was no security that the money proposed to be raised would be sufficient to complete the work, so that the county might be saddled to an indefinite extent.

§ EARL GRANVILLE
was inclined to think that, when a district came forward ready to take the expense of an improvement on itself, instead of asking for public money, it was a principle he thought that ought to be encouraged rather than discouraged.