COMMITTEE MOVED FOR. (Hansard, 8 May 1860)

§ GENERAL UPTON
said, he wished to move for a Select Committee to inquire into the truth of the allegations contained in the Petition of the Ayr and Maybole Junction Railway Company, presented in August last, and printed in the Eleventh Report of the Select Committee on Public Petitions, Appendix 202, relative to the application of the grant for Portpatrick and Donaghadee Harbours. The object of the Motion was to carry into effect the object of a petition presented some time since on this subject, in which the petitioners expressed their readiness to agree to complete a junction by railway between Portpatrick and Glasgow, and also between Donaghadee and Belfast, and to make important improvements in both harbours, on receiving a guarantee from the Government that a mail packet service should be esta- 889 blished between the two ports, thus completing the communication between Glasgow and Belfast. The late Government had postponed any grant of money for the improvement of the harbours until the completion of the line from Portpatrick to Glasgow and Dumfries; now the railway company contended that they had been exempted from this condition, and that it was enough if they formed a communication with Dumfries, leaving the traffic to find its way from there to Glasgow. The effect of this would be to give the Portpatrick Company eighty miles of traffic, and to cause that additional cost and inconvenience to the public. The company had been bound under a penalty to complete their line to Portpatrick in five years; this they had done; but this did not release them from the other part of their engagement to complete the communication to Glasgow. Nevertheless the Government had seen fit to release them from this obligation. This was done, as alleged, by a letter from the Secretary to the Treasury; but such a letter could not set aside former Minutes. Unless the Government would reconsider their decision he hoped that the House would grant him the Select Committee he asked for. He had no desire to cast reflections upon the character of a gentleman who was now engaged in the public service in the East, or to throw aspersions on Mr. Wilson, but he believed that under the direction of the right hon. Gentleman the Treasury had adopted a course which must have been founded on some misapprehension of the real merits of the case. The subject, he thought, was one at all events which called for further investigation; and he hoped for the support of Irish Members on both sides of the House in the Motion he now submitted; for every one travelling from Ireland to Scotland was interested in the question.

§ MR. LAING
said, he would not detain the House but for a few moments while stating the grounds why the House should not agree to the Motion. It was unnecessary to go into the question whether Donaghadee and Portpatrick were the right points between which the passage ought to be established between Ireland and Scotland, because in 1855 a memorial was presented to the Government with respect to a communication between Scotland and Ireland, and the matter was referred to Commissioners, who reported in favour of a communication between Portpatrick and Donaghadee. A Bill was accordingly 890 brought before Parliament for the purpose of effecting that object, provided it could be brought into connection with railways to the north of Scotland, and upon that application was made to the Government for assistance in the shape of money. A correspondence took place with the Treasury, and a Minute was issued by which they gave a distinct pledge to the promoters of the Dumfries and Portpatrick Railway to propose a vote for the harbours in question, on condition that the railway was completed within a certain time. Parliament had voted the money, and the works were now in progress. Under those circumstances, he did not think that the House of Commons could properly grant the Select Committee which was asked for. The contract which had been made by the Treasury could not be broken unless some collusion of a culpable nature could be proved to have existed between the Secretary to the Treasury and the railway company. Such a charge, if to be brought forward at all, should have been made last Session when Mr. Wilson was still in the country; but there was, in truth, not a shadow of evidence in support of it. The Treasury Minute was drawn up in the regular form, and as the whole transaction had reference to a railway Bill, which, when before Parliament, any party interested could have opposed, no undue secrecy could be alleged. The only contention was that the Government should, by the small outlay of £20,000 on the harbour, force the Portpatrick Company to spend, not only £500,000 on a line eastwards to Dumfries, but £300,000 more on a line towards Ayr. He thought the Government had done very well in obtaining security that the line from Portpatrick to Dumfries should be made, and he hoped the House would not grant a Select Committee in order to re-open a positive contract which had been recognized by three successive Governments, and adopted by the House of Commons, and on the faith of which large and expensive works had been commenced.

COLONEL DUNNE
said, that last year he had asked whether the Government intended to expend this £20,000, and he had been informed that no more money would be laid out until the conditions of the grant were fulfilled. He thought that the Government, having in the first instance promised to assist the promoters, were bound to carry out their engagements.

§ SIR HENRY WILLOUGHBY
said, he was as anxious as the hon. Gentleman to maintain the just power of the Treasury in its Minutes, but the original Minute of the 15th of August, 1856, undertaking that £20,000 should be laid out in the improvement of the harbour of Portpatrick, was upon condition that two railways should be made—one from Portpatrick to Dumfries, and the other along the coast, in connection with the present Ayr and Maybole Railway. The complaint of the persons interested in the coast line was that by a subsequent Minute in 1857, and by a letter of Mr. Wilson, the Portpatrick Company were told the money should be expended on the harbour if only the line to Dumfries were made. It was not fair to vary the basis of the whole transaction, and he thought the Government ought to withhold the remaining £10,000 until these persons were satisfied.

§ SIR ANDREW AGNEW
said, that as the Representative of the county in which Portpatrick was situate, he wished to add that the Portpatrick Company had never proposed to make the line to the north; and, as there was nothing to prevent the Ayr and Maybole Company making it, he did not see that they had any just ground of complaint.

§ MR. DUNLOP
pointed out that when the grant was first made it was on the understanding that there should be a line of communication made between Portpatrick and Glasgow on the one hand, and Portpatrick and Dumfries and London on the other. This condition had never been carried out, and the country at large, therefore, had not got the benefit which this grant was intended to secure. He hoped the Treasury would stand to the sum of £20,000, and not consent to any further increase.