BIRMINGHAM AND GLOUCESTER RAILWAY (WOLVERHAMPTON LINE). (Hansard, 15 May 1845)

§ Mr. Spooner
moved the second reading of the Birmingham and Gloucester (Wolverhampton line) Railway Bill.

§ Mr. Pakington
would take the sense of the House against this Bill. He trusted that the House would not sanction such a precedent as the success of this Motion would establish, and allow parties who had brought forward a railway project, and then abandoned it for seven or eight months, to bring it forward again at the last moment at the greatest possible inconvenience and injury to the landowners and others who were opposed to it. When this Bill was brought in, his surveyor told him that it violated the Standing Orders in so many particulars that it could not possibly pass without his concurrence. He had no idea in what particular the Standing Orders had been violated, for when he heard that the line was abandoned he thought no more of it, and had not the remotest thought that it would be proceeded with till he received a letter from Mr. Wheatley, of Birmingham, the solicitor to the company, dated the 1st of April last. The Railway Department of the Board of Trade also considered this line abandoned; for in one of their Reports they stated, "It is understood that arrangements have been made by which it is withdrawn in favour of the London and Birmingham Company." He begged further to add that this project was now brought forward by the London and Birmingham Company, in order to meet some deficiencies in its own Bill, and not by the Birmingham and Gloucester Company which originated it, but which had since amalgamated with the Midland Counties Railway Company. In consequence of the actual abandonment of this line, the Board of Trade had not reported upon it. He had not had proper notice of their intention to proceed with this Bill, 415 and had been lulled into false security by its being withdrawn in January, and not again brought forward till now; and he should therefore move that it be read a second time this day six months.

§ Mr. Spooner
said, there had been no abandonment of the project, though his hon. Friend was justified in inferring from what had passed that it was abandoned; but as soon as it was determined to revive it, he had got notice of it—that which he got on the 2nd of April, and yet he had not ever since given any intimation of his intention to oppose it; and it was not fair now, when the promoters of the Bill had their witnesses in town, and had counsel engaged, and the case was ready to be gone into in Committee, to deal with it out of the ordinary course, and refuse it a second reading. On the success of this Bill depended, in a great measure, the termination of the controversy between the wide and narrow gauge. The House ought not to take the Bill out of the hands of the Committee.

§ Mr. Pakington
regretted that he had not given a public intimation of his intention to oppose the second reading of this Bill. He would have done so, but that he had not had an opportunity of doing so before the holidays.

§ Sir R. Inglis
said, he did not understand his hon. Friend to object to the Bill, except upon the ground of surprise; but, as he understood the facts, it was his hon. Friend the Member for Droitwich who was taken by surprise; and he would, therefore, support the Motion of his hon. Friend the Member for Droitwich.

§ Mr. Labouchere
thought the hon. Member for Droitwich had brought forward his case with perfect fairness, and had fully explained the nature of his interest in the matter; but he had not, in his opinion, made out any case against the second reading. If there was any surprise in the case, it appeared to him that it was not confined to one side, for the hon. Member had not given to the parties to the Bill any intimation of his intention to oppose the second reading, and they could have had no knowledge of such an intention until to-day. He thought the fairer course to all parties would be to read the Bill a second time, and refer it to the Committee.