§ Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee read.
§ Moved,"That the House do now resolve itself into Committee on the said Bill."—(The Marquess of Salisbury.)
§ THE EARL OF WEMYSSsaid, that before the House went into Committee 1170 on the Bill he desired to draw attention to some objectionable provisions which it contained. In moving the second reading of the Bill, his noble Friend in feeling and touching words had referred to the sufferings and privations of the working classes, especially in the Metropolis, from the want of healthy and sufficient accommodation. Words such as those could not fail to reach the heart of every one of their Lordships. He, for one, did not desire to be understood as differing from the great majority of the House in this respect. They all knew the history of the Bill. Two years ago his noble Friend wrote a very able article on the subject. In consequence of the public interest excited on this question a Royal Commission was appointed, which had issued a Report. The people of this country were deeply indebted to the Royal Prince and the other Members of that Commission, which sat for something like 70 days. The present Bill was the result of that Commission. Now, there were two classes of provisions in the Bill. The first consisted of the sanitary, and what he might call the destructive clauses; and the second were those which dealt with the housing of the poor and the construction of houses for them. He should be the last person to object to the sanitary proposals of the Bill. It was, and had been, the intention of the Legislature to get rid of insanitary or pest-generating houses. This was necessary, not only with a view to the health of those who lived in them, but for the sake of the surrounding inhabitants. If the existing law was insufficient or not properly enforced, it was desirable that improvement of the law or its machinery should be effected. To those provisions he had no objection; but there was another and totally distinct set of provisions which involved whathecould not but consider dangerous doctrines. In one of these provisions was really involved the question of "prairie value." He referred to the provision by which public bodies were enabled to sell public property for less than its value for a special purpose. The same principle was extended to private owners when the life tenants of settled estates were enabled to sell parts of the settled estate for less than its full value for the erection of labourers' dwellings. This aspect of the case had 1171 not escaped the attention of all the Commissioners, for Mr. Goschen made a pointed reference to it, and spoke of these proposals as being in the nature of a "State subsidy." It was really a State subsidy, whether it was done directly by the State or by the Municipality. The Scotch evidence before the Commission was hostile to such proposals. He hoped his countrymen were not harder-hearted than Englishmen; but they were perhaps harder-headed. He was glad to find that one witness who spoke on behalf of the Trades Council took the same view as being the view of the working classes, and condemned the proposal to give aid in this way for workmen's dwellings from the resources of the State or the Municipality. Some of the provisions of the Bill were dangerous, and would, if carried into effect, defeat their own end, inasmuch as they would put an end to that private enterprize which had been the cause of the success of all great undertakings in this country. It should be known that one Company alone had expended £12,000,000 in erecting this class of dwellings, which paid £5 per cent. He hoped the Bill before it left their Lordships' House would be divided into two parts, one of which might be passed this Session, and the other be left over for consideration to another Session. The questions raised in the Bill were so important that he did not think they ought to be passed by their Lordships in a hurry at that late period of the Session.
THE EARL OF MILLTOWNsaid, he wished to express his deep sympathy with the noble movement which had been inaugurated by his noble Friend (the Marquess of Salisbury). The evils which were disclosed by the evidence given before the Royal Commission were little short of a scandal to their civilization, and constituted a real danger to the commonwealth. Although he could not entirely agree with some of the remarks which had fallen from his noble Friend on the Cross Benches (the Earl of Wemyss), still he thought that the Bill was a somewhat dangerous extension of the very large powers already given under the Settled Lands Act.
§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYsaid, the remarks of his noble Friends had been, on the whole, so friendly to the Bill that he did not think he should be 1172 right in discussing, while the noble and learned Lord was still on the Woolsack, certain matters of detail which had been brought forward. There were only two remarks that he wished to make with respect to something which was said at the close of his remarks by his noble Friend on the Cross Benches. In the first place, this was not a Government Bill, and the Members of the Cabinet were not more responsible for it than anybody else. Consequently, he had not availed himself of those means of obtaining support for it which it was usual to obtain in the case of Government Bills. And not only was this not a Government Bill, but it was not a Bill that was introduced in the interest of the Conservative Party, because, if it had been brought forward for that purpose, his noble Friend would have had to account for the phenomenon of its having been carried through the House of Commons by Sir Charles W. Dilke, who certainly was not likely to advance the interests of the Conservative Party. The truth was that the Bill was not intended to advance the interests of any Party in either House. He would say no more at present about the Bill. As to the particular clauses to which his two noble Friends had objected, they would be more fitly considered in Committee.
§ Motion agreed to.
§ House in Committee accordingly.
§ Clauses 1 and 2 severally agreed to.
§ Clause 3 (Provision respecting sites of certain Metropolitan prisons).
§ LORD BRAMWELLsaid, this clause appeared to him to be very objectionable. It provided that, in the event of two prisons being no longer used as prisons, they might be sold—that at Millbank by the Government, and that at Clerkenwell by the Middlesex magistrates. They were to be sold, however, not at the market value, but for such a price as would enable the Metropolitan Board of Works, without serious loss—and what would be serious loss was almost as difficult to put a meaning upon as "fair rent"—to appropriate the sites for the purpose of labouring class dwellings. He had no fear of the Justices of the County of Middlesex putting that Act in force; but he was not so sure of the Government. If these powers wore acted 1173 upon, the consequence would be that these properties would be sold at an inferior price; and the difference between that and a fair price would be given, in effect, to the working classes of the Metropolis. Why those persons should be given an improvement, at the expense of other people, he was at a loss to understand. Such a thing seemed to him altogether wrong, and he confessed he could not understand it. It was really taking money from the nation at large, and giving it to a part. He did not say that the proposal was a Socialistic one, although it certainly appeared to have somewhat of a Socialistic hue or character about it, which, perhaps, would not be, with some, an objection to it nowadays. But he did not think that it was the most profitable one that could be adopted. It would be better to sell the property for what it would fetch in the open market, and then to hand over a portion of the sum so realized to the Metropolitan Board of Works, so as to enable them to build on cheaper sites without serious loss.
§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYsaid, that the point raised by the latter part of the noble and learned Lord's argument had not escaped the attention of the Commission. Indeed, it had been the subject of a great deal of anxious consideration. He was not sure that the plan proposed by the noble and learned Lord might not be the more efficient; but it would involve a far larger scheme than that proposed by the Bill, which only authorized the Metropolitan Board of Works to apply the provisions of the measure to a part instead of to the whole of the sites mentioned to this particular purpose. The noble and learned Lord had said, in effect, that he had no objection to the proposal as far as Cold-bath Fields was concerned, because he was satisfied that the Justices of Middlesex would take good care of themselves, but that he was afraid of what the Treasury might do. That showed that the noble and learned Lord did not know the character of Her Majesty's Treasury. He could assure the noble and learned Lord that if the Justices whipped us with whips, the Treasury whipped us with scorpions on matters of economy. Therefore the noble and learned Lord need be under no apprehension of extravagance on the part of the Treasury. He fully admitted that the effect of this 1174 clause would be to give these sites, or portions of them, at prices somewhat lower than they would fetch in the open market. It was a matter of common knowledge that the Metropolitan Board of Works had spent enormous sums in obtaining sites for the purpose of carrying out the provisions of the Artizans' Dwellings Act, with the result that very heavy burdens had been cast upon the working classes. Therefore, by lessening the cost of the sites to be appropriated to building dwellings for the working classes a benefit would be conferred upon the ratepayers. With reference to the question of principle which had been raised by the noble and learned Lord, he wished to say that the noble and learned Lord had very fairly asked how Her Majesty's Government was justified in giving that which, in the long run, was undoubtedly public property to the benefit of a particular class. His reply to that question was that the State was now asked to undo the evil it itself had done. He had a great belief in the doctrine of laissez-faire; but it ought to be applied impartially on both sides. If he might venture to take exception to the doctrine as it appeared in the hands of the noble and learned Lord and his noble Friend it was a doctrine in operation only so long as it was a question of the State giving something, and it never came up when it was a question of the State taking something. What the State had done for London was that it had authorized the forcible seizure of large blocks of territory on which houses were formerly built, and on which the population formerly lived. It had, for objects that were good no doubt, cast out this population from their dwellings and thrown them on the general market for dwelling places in London. Thus the spaces left had been crowded more and more; and if there was enormous pressure on the space, Acts of Parliament were in many cases responsible. They could not wipe this legislation and its results out with a mere expression of regret, nor could they say to the population—"You must take your chance; our doctrines axe too pure, our political economy too high, to give you any assistance." They must come into court with the doctrine of laissez-faire when they had clean hands. But taking a less high ground, although a very important one, he might say that 1175 it was the moral duty of employers—a duty which had been very extensively fulfilled in many parts of the country— to provide for the accommodation of those whom they employed. And if that was the case of private employers, it was still more so in the case of the State, which was the largest employer of labour of any, and had done far more than the others to bring large numbers of persons into a single centre.
THE DUKE OF ARGYLLsaid, he thought the noble Marquess had offered a very fair defence of the clause; but he ventured to suggest to his noble Friend that the words in the clause, "without incurring a serious loss" were words far from capable of a judicial interpretion. It was an objectionable practice to introduce into an Act of Parliament colloquial expressions which wore not capable of judicial interpretation; and he would suggest to his noble Friend that these words might be left out with perfect safely to the Bill. In many large towns land had been acquired by the Corporations for the purpose of building dwellings for the working classes, and this had been done under the existing law.
§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYsaid, he would not defend the words, because he should have preferred the words "at a price not below the original cost of the land." He would bring up an Amendment on the Report.
§ THE EARL OF WEMYSSsaid, this was merely an enlargement of the principle already in force. The Metropolitan Board of Works had already suffered great loss on the works carried out. Who would have to pay that? Why the ratepayers. He might also point out that many of the works, such as railways, &c., for which large portions of the populations had been displaced, had been for the benefit of the whole of the community.
§ LORD BRAMWELLsaid, he had heard the statement of the noble Marquess with the greatest alarm; but he was more than surprised that the noble Duke should also have given expression to the same opinion, especially whenheconsidered the noble Duke's views on Irish legislation. It came to this— whenever a condition of things existed of which people complained, they might ascribe it to the effect of legislation and government, and demand amends from 1176 the State. In Ireland they had seen the principle applied in an extraordinary manner.
§ LORD CARLINGFORDBut see the condition of things then.
§ LORD BRAMWELLSee the condition of things now. They were told that there was justification for that legislation, because Ireland was within a measurable distance of rebellion. Had that distance decreased by the Land Act? The principle would be next taken advantage of by the Crofters, who would say—"Look at the condition of things in which we are. We are suffering owing to the previous acts of Government and its legislation; and we call, therefore, for an indemnity from the State."heprotested that there was not a grievance of which any man could complain in this country which could be in any way attributed to the legislation of the country, for which indemnity would not be asked if this doctrine prevailed. It was as great a piece of Socialism as he had ever heard of.
§ EARL FORTESCUEcomplained of the injustice proposed to be done by the Bill in making any part of the expenses fall on one particular class of property alone; for rates could no longer be levied on any but real property.
§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYsaid, the ratepayers had nothing on earth to do with this clause. It had reference to taxes, not rates.
THE EARL OF KIMBERLEYsaid, their Lordships were treading on very dangerous ground. Could anyone say that there was no danger in connection with the condition of the dwellings in large towns? What they did not see was how, consistently with the old principles they were accustomed to act on, to remedy this evil. Were they to sit down and make no attempt? Sooner than leave the evil unremedied, he was willing to accept this Bill, although he might deem it faulty in some degree. Let them feel certain of this—that the evils which existed would not be allowed to continue in this country without a remedy. If they had not found the remedy now, they would have to find it, andhehoped their Lordships would not be induced to delay the Bill.
§ THE EARL OF WEMYSSpointed to the experience of Scotland, as shown in the evidence before the Royal Commission on the Housing of the Working 1177 Classes. The President of the Edinburgh Trade Council repudiated, on behalf of the working men, the notion that the State or Municipality should supply them with houses.
§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYsaid, he did not wish to wound the national feelings of the noble Lord; but Edinburgh was not so large as London.
§ Clause agreed to.
§ Clause 4 (Amendment of 31 & 32 Vict. c. 130, and 42 & 43 Vict. c. 64).
§ THE EARL OF POWISsaid, the clause gave power to the Local Government Board, at the instance of a crotchety medical officer and a single ratepayer, to take possession of and to pull down houses, without any of the formalities or safeguards which were necessary in all other cases before compulsory possession was taken of land for public purposes.
§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYsaid, that at present it was in the power of a Local Authority, on the recommendation of the officer of health, to compel the demolition of premises unfit for human habitation, or to order dangerous structures to be pulled down. This clause proposed, where the Local Authority did not act, that its place should be taken by the Local Government Board, acting on the complaints of another Local Authority, or of an owner of property, and after having instituted local inquiry through one of its Inspectors, and having received a Report favourable to their action. He did not think that any less securities would exist under the proposed clause than at present; but it was undoubtedly the fact that Torrens's Act was not now put in operation, owing to disinclination on the part of the Local Authorities.
§ Clause agreed to.
§ Remaining Clauses agreed to, with Amendments.
§ The Report of the Amendments to be received To-morrow.
§ THE EARL OF WEMYSSsaid, he should feel it his duty to vote against the third reading, unless he obtained a satisfactory explanation from the noble Marquess with regard to certain provisions in the Bill.