HC Deb 28 March 1854 vol 131 cc1397-410
MR. H. HERBERT

said, he was happy to be able to preface his observations with an announcement which he was sure would be exceedingly gratifying to the House, namely, that he should occupy its attention but for a very short time, though, if he were to extend the length of his remarks proportionately to the importance of his subject, he might not be able to communicate the same pleasing intelligence. But when the House saw a right hon. Gentleman, who enjoyed the highest respect and esteem of his fellow-citizens—not because he had mixed himself up with the excitements of political turmoil, but because of the able and energetic manner in which he had always endeavoured to promote every measure calculated to advance the prosperity of his country—when they saw him presenting himself before them with a petition in favour of his Motion—he believed they would not be disinclined to attach a due importance to it. As the House would perceive, his Motion only related to a portion of the recommendations contained in the Report of the Select Committee, namely, to that having reference to the water communications between the two countries. And he confined himself to that division of the subject, because, in the first place, an assurance had been given at an early period of the Session by the hon. Member for Westbury (Mr. J. Wilson) to the hon. Member for Dublin (Mr. Grogan) that certain improvements were in contemplation for the land portion of the postal communication between London and Dublin, the details of which he was not, however, then prepared to lay before the House; therefore it would be premature to touch at present on that branch of the question. But there was also this additional consideration to prevent his doing so, namely, the comparative ease with which mere railway arrangements could be made so that at any moment the recommendations of the Committee in this respect could be adopted. The case was different, however, with regard to the employment of steamers, for there a considerable period must elapse before alterations could be effected. He had, however, an additional inducement to move in the matter in consequence of the statement of the right hon. Baronet the First Lord of the Admiralty, who informed him, in reply to a question, that it was not the intention of the Government to carry out the recommendations of the Committee—and the statement was the more unsatisfactory in consequence of the right hon. Gentleman being seemingly under the impression that the Committee had recommended only the employment of steamers capable of a given rate of speed. Now no such suggestion had ever emanated from the Committee. They simply recommended, that as the means of communication had for several years been deteriorating, an improvement should be made, leaving to the Government to determine the nature and the extent of that improvement. He had himself received a letter last year from Sir Cusack Roney, than whom no one was better acquainted with the subject in hand, in which he stated that within the last three years at least twenty-four hours had been gained in the communications between England and North America—a remark which applied equally to the West Indies and the Mediterranean, where the same result had been obtained in a proportionate degree—while in the case of the communications between England and Ireland they were going backwards. He thought that he had now stated sufficient reasons for calling the attention of the House to this subject. Ever since the Union the House had appointed Committees at different periods to report upon the subject of the communication between the two countries. The recommendations of those Committees had been generally adopted by the different Governments of the country, with the exception of the recommendation of the Committee of last year, which appeared to have been treated with contempt by the present Government. There was in the library of the House no less than twenty-eight Reports upon this subject. During the last half century it had been laid down as the fixed plan of the Government to consider the convenience of travellers, when making arrangements for postal communications. The late Sir Robert Peel, in 1844, had approved of a grant of public money for the harbour at Holyhead, and in reference to his arrangements for an improved postal communication betwen the two countries, he said that it was impossible to underrate the advantages of a more speedy means of transit; and that if the expenditure of the public money could secure that advantage, he, for one, would not hesitate upon the matter. In the year 1848, being the last year in which there were full and complete returns made of the mail and packet service between the two countries, the total expenditure of the kingdom for the packet service was 140,000l. In 1850, he was sorry to say, that A change came o'er the spirit of their dream, for the expenditure was cut down from 140,000l. to 25,000l., a sum totally inadequate to secure anything like effective speed in the transmission of the mails, or anything like respectable accommodation for the passengers. In a debate that took place some years ago in that House, his namesake (the right hon. Gentleman who now filled the office of Secretary at War) had complained of the utter inadequacy of the sum that was voted for those postal communications. The hon. Gentleman the present Secretary of the Admiralty took a similar view of the subject. The Committee of last year stated that, in consequence of the changes made in our postal arrangements, there was a considerable diminution in the speed of the mail-packets, and that the accommodation on board for passengers was extremely defective; for it was proved that even ladies were frequently obliged to lie upon the floor in such numbers as to render it utterly impossible for any person to move about the place. It was also stated that the boats were insufficient for the number of passengers. The Committee was composed of some of the most able and distinguished men in the country. They recommended, in general terms, the adoption of immediate measures to accelerate the mail communication between London and Holyhead, and to provide a class of steam-vessels with adequate accommodation for passengers, and of greater power, in order to secure increased speed. The Government allotted 270,000l. a year for the mail service between England and the West Indies, yet gave only 25,000l. for the avowedly not less important communication betweed the capitals of the two portions of the United Kingdom. He trusted the House would support the Committee by at least restoring to this most essential service the sum which had been allotted to it in 1848.

MR. VANCE

seconded the Motion. He said, that there never was a Committee that had assembled together with a more stern determination to do their duty then the Committee that had sat last year. Amongst the Members were two Lords of the Treasury, the Secretary of the Admiralty in the late Administration, one of the late Secretaries of the Treasury, and one of the late Lords of the Admiralty. He believed that those Members were unanimous upon the more important points of the Report. When he (Mr. Vance) asked the Secretary of the Treasury last year how far it was likely that the recommendations of the Committee would be acted upon, especially in respect to an additional morning mail, he was told by that hon. Gentleman that, so far from the Government being disposed to acquiesce in this recommendation, they were determined to reduce the number of mails that then existed. He was quite sure that after the statement made by his hon. Friend the Member for Kerry, every hon. Member must admit that the suggestions made were but reasonable and just.

Motion made, and Question proposed— That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, that She will be graciously pleased to give directions, that immediate measures should be taken to give effect to the recommendation contained in the Report of the Select Committee of this House, appointed in the last Session to examine and report upon the present state of Communication between London and Dublin; namely, 'that a class of Steamers be provided with adequate accommodation for passengers, and with greater capabilities as regards speed than those at present employed.'

THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER

said, he felt it his duty on the part of the Government to oppose the Motion of the hon. Member for Kerry. The first point was extrinsic to the main issue—namely, the fact that a change had taken place within the last three or four years in the mode of conducting the packet service to Ireland, attended with a great diminution of public expenditure, and likewise with a diminution of the comfort of the passengers between Holyhead and Dublin. The case of the mail-packet service between this country and Ireland had been referred to, as though it had been a special and peculiar case, and some hon. Members could see in it nothing but a fixed and rooted determination of that House, while, on the one hand, it seized hold of every pretext for inflicting burdens upon Ireland, to avail itself of every wretched and shallow plea for withdrawing from the inhabitants of that country accommodation and advantages. ["Hear, hear!"] That was the view of the two hon. Gentlemen connected with Ireland who now cheered this statement of the case. But at the same time it ought to be known to the House at large that, whether the measure of substituting mail-packet service by contract for Government performance of this service were wise or unwise, it was not a peculiar measure applied to Ireland exclusively, nor did it grow out of the simple discretion of a particular department of the Government. The measure was one which had been adopted upon a recommendation of a Committee of that House, which had come to the conclusion that, on account of the enormous expenditure to which the public were put in connection not only with respect to these packets, but with others carrying on the postal service of the country, it was time the principle of contract service should be substituted for the performance of this service by the Govern- ment. That principle had been applied first at one point and then at another, until the only case now remaining where Government carried on the service was the case of the Dover packets, and there the substitution of the contract system for that of the Government was to take place on the 1st of April. This was not, therefore, an exceptional principle, dictated by those cruel and rapacious motives which had always governed this House with regard to Ireland; but it was a general principle, adopted upon general grounds and generally made, and, as he had stated, the last case in which the contrary practice prevailed was to be assimilated to the others on the 1st of April. With regard to the special merits of this Motion, there seemed to be some peculiarity connected with it. This was not a question about the mode in which a certain Government service was performed. Don't let hon. Gentlemen suppose that this was analogous to the question frequently raised with regard to the transmission of mails by inefficient vessels, and of the imperfect performance of the duties of the Post Office. That might be an element in the case, but it was only an element; it was not the whole case, nor was it the principal part of the case. The principal part of the case was the comfort, accommodation, and luxury of passengers; and the demand made by his hon. Friend (Mr. H. Herbert)—which, however, he did not wish to characterise harshly—was a demand for the increase of that comfort, accommodation, and luxury, at a heavy expense to the public purse. The sound principle was, that with the provision of this passenger accommodation the Government, as a general rule, should have nothing whatever to do. Before, however, he went to that part of the subject, he must refer to what had been said about the unanimity of the Committee which had sat upon this matter. It had been spoken of as an impartial and discriminating Committee—as a Committee not, perhaps, unanimous on every point connected with the subject of their investigation, but certainly unanimous upon the main principle. Well, he had before him the blue book in which the proceedings of the Committee were recorded, and he found, on reference to it, that, so far from being unanimous, there was a division on the main Resolution, which was taken as a division on the principle of the whole Report, stating that "the best and speediest means of communication between the two countries has been regarded as a paramount duty of Government." That division was carried by four to three—by four votes, one of which was given by the hon. Member for Dublin, another by the Member for the University of Dublin, the third by the Chairman, who gave a casting vote, and the fourth by one single English Member, while the other three English Members who composed the Committee opposed the Motion. This, then, was far from being a unanimous Committee; but if it were, judging of it by the same rule, he supposed if the hon. Chairman of the Committee had given his vote the other way there would have been an equally unanimous vote against the Resolution. But this was not alone a question of passenger communication; he did not hesitate to say it was a question regarding only the upper class of passengers. At present the lower class of passengers between the two countries—the mass of the Irish people, on whose behalf Parliament certainly ought to feel the first anxiety and interest—did not frequent the Holyhead packets at all. They went by the cheapest route, which was necessarily the longest—the route viâ Liverpool—and, therefore, the mass of Irish passengers would not be benefited by the improvement of the communication between Holyhead and Dublin. The Report of the Committee stated as follows:— The Legislative Union of the two countries, which renders the attendance of Irish Peers and Members of Parliament necessary; the mass of business connected with private Bills, involving the attendance of professional men in London, and witnesses, at great cost and inconvenience; the appellate jurisdiction of the House of Lords over the Irish courts of law; the transfer of the Board of Customs, Excise, and other public offices from Dublin to London; all contribute to show the importance of an expeditious and convenient mode of communication between the two countries, and afford strong claims for the favourable consideration of Parliament. These were certainly important considerations, but they were all questions about passengers, and about those passengers who could perfectly well afford to pay for whatever accommodation they required. In this case the conduct of the Committee was rather remarkable. The vulgar and sublunary consideration of the cost at which the improvement they proposed might be carried out did not appear to enter into the Report of the Committee. He had looked three or four times over the Report, and believed he was correct in stating that there was no reference or allusion what- ever in it to the question of cost. This was certainly not because the Committee thought it an unimportant consideration, for the hon. Member for South Cheshire (Mr. Tollemache) proposed this Resolution:— That the additional subsidy required would be small compared to the great national object to be effected, namely, a rapid and efficient postal communication between England and Ireland. The Committee, however, would not adopt this Resolution. They saw perfectly plainly that the expense of these twenty-five mile an hour steamers, the employment of which the Committe recommended—

MR. H. HERBERT

said, he must deny that the Committee had made such a recommendation.

THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER

Well, the Report said:— Your Committee have had a Plan and estimate laid before them for a class of vessels affording accommodation far superior to anything that has hitherto been attempted, and capable of running at a speed of twenty-five statute miles an hour. The recommendations were general in their terms undoubtedly, but they referred to the establishment of such steamers. However, the Committee, at all events, declined to enter upon the question of the expense which would be necessary to carry out their object, which was a tolerably good proof that they could say nothing about the expense which they thought would be satisfactory to the House. In their natural and laudable desire to improve the communication between the two countries the Committee had omitted the question of expense, for the very good reason, as it seemed to him, that it would not very well bear handling. This, however, was a question which the Board of Admiralty had not failed to consider. The cost of the reduction in the time taken up in the journey between London and Dublin, from an average of fourteen hours and a half to an average of eleven hours, could not of course be ascertained without knowing the probable expense consequent upon the necessary acceleration of railway trains. To effect such a reduction in the time of the journey as he had alluded to it would be requisite that two hours and a quarter should be gained upon the railway part of the passage, and he did not suppose these trains could be run at a speed of some forty miles an hour, including stoppages, at an extra expense of less than 30,000l. or 40,000l. a year. The main ex- penditure, however, would be that connected with the packets. Three steamers would be required for the purpose of establishing a certain and regular communication, and it must be calculated that the cost in the first instance would be 300,000l. But that would be only a small part of the entire cost. The annual cost of such a service, after allowing for wear and tear and interest upon the outlay, would not be less than 40,000l. per vessel, or 120,000l. a year for the sea part of the communication, subject, however, to a diminution—of which he was not able to state the precise amount, but it would not be a very great diminution—on account of receipts from passengers. The House, then, must please to understand that the cost, as it was estimated by the responsible Government department—which was not apt to overrate the cost on such occasions—would be 120,000l. a year for the purpose of effecting this improvement in the daily communication. Putting these things together—considering, first, that this was a matter outside the business of the Government, and, in the second place, that the passengers for whose especial accommodation Parliament was called on to provide, were persons who were best able to provide for themselves—he did not think the House would be of opinion that this improvement in the communication between the two countries was worth the large outlay it would entail. He did not mean to say this was a question of small importance. On the contrary, he wished to make what might, perhaps, be deemed a questionable admission, and to allow that, so important was the communication between Holyhead and Dublin, that even the consideration of passenger accommodation might perhaps not, on a proper occasion and at a fitting time, be placed beyond the view and consideration of that House. He must be understood, then, not to lay down the doctrine that under no circumstances ought the passenger accommodation between Holyhead and Dublin to be considered by Parliament; but this he did hold, that 20,000l. or 150,000l. a year, or any sum at all approaching this for any such purpose, ought not to be entertained at a moment when the country was called upon to incur an enormous expenditure, not for purpose of comfort and luxury, but for the purpose of defending its honour, and for purposes of absolute duty and necessity. [Col. DUNNE: Hear, hear.] It was very well for the hon. and gallant Member to scoff at these sentiments, but he (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) would tell him that his scoffing was not in accordance with the feelings of the House. He thought it would be departing from those rules of prudence which usually governed the conduct of that House if they were to incur an outlay of such a nature at a period when, by a recent vote of the House, the burdens of the country had been heavily augmented, and when it might be the duty of the Government, even within a few weeks from the moment at which he was speaking, to come forward and propose a further heavy augmentation of those burdens. Under these circumstances, looking to the probable financial embarrassment of the country, and to the facts which he had laid before them, he hoped the House would have no hesitation in giving a negative to the present proposition.

MR. FRENCH

said, that the case presented to the House by the hon. Member for Kerry (Mr. H. Herbert) was a peculiar one, and that it was the Government itself that had made it an exceptional one. A Committee of that House had recommended that the Government vessels should not continue to discharge the duties of carrying Her Majesty's mails between this country and Ireland, but that the service should be performed by contract. An advertisement was then put forth by the Admiralty, in which it was stated that they were prepared to receive tenders for the carriage of the mails from Holyhead to Dublin, and a tender was sent in by a private company, who offered to discharge the duty for 55,000l. a year. Negotiations succeeded, and ultimately the contract was completed for 45,000l. Now, in this case the Admiralty did not adhere to the terms of its own advertisement, inasmuch as they had reopened the matter for the purpose of forcing the company to perform the service at what every person must admit would subject them to a loss. All the hon. Member for Kerry asked by his Motion was, that a sufficient sum should be given to enable the work to be efficiently and properly done. He did not call upon the Government either to build vessels or to discharge the duties themselves; but he could tell the Chancellor of the Exchequer that his right hon. Colleague the First Lord of the Admiralty had, at that moment, in his possession offers from private companies to undertake the duty at a fair and reasonable remuneration, as well as to build the necessary vessels at their own expense. There could be no reason why a fair sum of money—though not the extravagant amount named by the right hon. Gentleman—should not be granted. One reason why the mail-packet service had hitherto been so expensive was, that the Admiralty had required that all vessels employed in it should be built so as to comply with certain conditions which that Board laid down. Of ninety-eight ships surveyed ninety-seven were reported to have fulfilled all these conditions, and yet not one of them was at this moment available for public service. In his opinion no answer had been given to the statement of the hon. Member for Kerry; and he really thought, if the Government had determined to regard the Report of their own Committee as so much waste paper, that they ought never to have allowed that Committee to be appointed.

MR. COWPER

said, he must remind the hon. Member for Roscommon (Mr. French) that the Committee, in whose proceedings he himself had taken an active part, had distinctly reported— That the conduct pursued by the Lords of the Admiralty in the transactions relating to the contract concluded with the City of Dublin Steam-packet Company was, in all respects, unexceptionable. The hon. Member for Kerry (Mr. H. Herbert) contended that the mail service was less effectively performed now than when it was in the hands of the Government, and that the vessels which were now employed were worse than they were then. But the hon. Member had omitted to state that two of the vessels engaged in the service were the identical vessels that were on the station at the time he so highly approved of the manner in which the service was discharged: he alluded to the Llewellyn and the Columba. The Government had never yet taken upon itself to provide adequate accommodation, and to make arrangements for the comfort of passengers; and if it were to do so in this instance, it would be laying down a new principle, and there was no telling how far it might lead them. Of one thing, however, they might rest assured: it would cause a great increase of expenditure, for other parts of the empire would make similar demands, and there would be no reason why they should not be complied with in their case as well as in that of Ireland.

LORD NAAS

said, that if the object of the present proposal was to restore the system of the mails being carried in Government vessels, instead of being conveyed, as at present, by contract, he should not have supported it; nor would it have received his sanction if its object had been to ask the House to increase the accommodation and luxury of first-class passengers. These were, however, not by any means the objects of his hon. Friend. The inquiries of the Committee which had sat to examine into this subject had been devoted principally to the consideration of methods for the acceleration and proper conveyance of the mails, and every witness who was called was examined strictly upon that point. The examination of witnesses with regard to the improvement of the vessels employed was conducted with the view of showing that the mails could be conveyed more speedily than they were at present. It appeared to him that the expenditure necessary to effect the requisite improvement need not be anything like so great as the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer appeared to apprehend. If hon. Members would look to the evidence taken before the Committee, they would see that persons connected with the Dublin Steam Packet Company stated that they could perform the service in shorter time, and with greatly increased punctuality, for a sum, not of 120,000l., as the right hon. Gentleman stated, but for something like 40,000l. or 50,000l. a year in addition to the present grant. They could not, perhaps, make the transit so speedy for that sum as they could for a larger amount, but they could ensure punctuality, which certainly was not ensured at present. Some suggestions of great value were also made by the Committee as regarded the land journey; but it appeared that the Government were determined to put aside the question altogether, from a false impression that an enormous sum of money would be required. An alteration in the despatch of the mails would be productive of great benefit, and he thought that the subject had been met in a very unfair way, and argued upon entirely false grounds, by the Government. He believed that, unless some steps were taken in this matter, things would get worse and worse, until the communication would become as imperfect as it was ten or twelve years ago. The mail service to every part of the world had been lately improved, and he considered it to be a great hardship upon the people of Ireland, that they should not enjoy the advantages which the advancement of science afforded, the benefits of which were experienced by all others of Her Majesty's subjects.

MR. W. WILLIAMS

said, he wished to draw attention to the fact that the South Wales Railway would, in a few months, be completed to Milford Haven, and that three first-class steamers were to be provided by private enterprise, to ply between that port and Waterford, without any aid from the Government. Looking at the importance of the towns on the west and south coast of Ireland, he must contend that, inasmuch as this traffic was to be carried on without any charge upon the public revenue, there was no ground for the complaint now made relative to the service between Holyhead and Dublin.

MR. R. FOX

said, that it was not fair to say that the boats now employed between Holyhead and Dublin were the same as were employed before 1850; and he would ask whether it was not the case that the Admiralty, knowing that the sum paid for the carriage of the mails was not remunerative to the company who had taken the contract, had permitted the company to reduce the speed, and thus to save expense?

COLONEL DUNNE

said, the right hon. Gentleman (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) had charged him with having scoffed at the dangers and difficulties in which the country was placed. He (Colonel Dunne) begged to say that the right hon. Gentleman acted unfairly in accusing any hon. Member on that (the Opposition) side of the House of having done aught of the sort. He believed the right hon. Gentleman had received a liberal support on the part of the Opposition, when he asked the House to furnish him with the resources which were required to enable the Government to carry on the war; but it was not less the right of hon. Members to mark by a cheer their estimate of the arguments they did not approve of. The only argument of the Chancellor of the Exchequer against the Motion before the House, was founded upon the expense it would involve. He (Colonel Dunne) submitted that the right hon. Gentleman would have better availed himself of that argument when he embarked on the absurd system of effecting a conversion of stocks, which had cost the country nearly 1,000,000l. of money. The right hon. Gentleman would be much more usefully employed in turning his attention to the improvement of the communication between England and Ireland, than in per- petrating financial blunders for which the public must afterwards be called on to pay. He would recommend the right hon. Gentleman in future to take his financial measures with more caution. For whilst the Government were spending 800,000l. on a pier at Holyhead, it appeared they were unable to provide for the efficient performance of the mail service between the two countries.

MR. GEORGE

said, a misapprehension was likely to be created in the minds of the House as well as the public by the statement that had fallen from hon. Members on both sides of the House, to the effect that the company who were now in possession of the contract had been guilty of irregularities in the performance of it—in short, that they had not performed the duty they had undertaken to fulfil. The Report upon the table of the House directly contradicted any such statement as that. The Government gave the contract to the City of Dublin Steam Packet Company with stipulation that the passage between the two countries should be effected in four hours and forty minutes, and to the letter, and without any irregularity whatever, had that passage for a great many months been performed.

MR. TOLLEMACHE

said, it was proved before the Committee of which he had had the honour to be a Member, that, under existing arrangements, the postal service between this country and Ireland was very badly conducted; but the Committee never thought for one moment that it would be necessary to incur the absurd expenditure mentioned by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. It was proved satisfactorily before them, that for 50,000l. a year vessels of a superior kind might be placed on the station, and that that amount of money would not be altogether a loss to the country, inasmuch as a very considerable sum would be received in postage, and in addition to this the Government would have the advantage of being able in a case of emergency to send troops to Ireland with the utmost possible rapidity. He (Mr. Tollemache) had no connection either with Ireland or the Steam Packet Company, and, whatever might be the decision of the House on the present Motion, he should still adhere to the opinion that the Report of the Committee was a just and proper one.

Question put.

The House divided:—Ayes 152;Noes 208: Majority 56.

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