§ VISCOUNT ENFIELDsaid, he had a Question to put to the First Commissioner of Works which was of importance to the inhabitants of the metropolis. The right hon. Gentleman last year introduced a measure to open a communication through Hyde Park between Bayswater and Kensington. His plan, however, met with serious opposition. There were financial difficulties in the way, because the road would cost £7,000; and engineering difficulties and difficulties of time, because it was clearly demonstrated by the hon. Baronet the Member for Finsbury (Sir Morton Peto) that the road would not be ready when the Great Exhibition was opened. His right hon. Friend withdrew his proposal, and brought forward another plan, which had the great advantage of costing only £2,000, and was readily made. That road combined the maximum of convenience to those who used it with the minimum of inconvenience either to foot-passengers in the Park or equestrians in Rotten Row. The close of the Exhibition brought with it the close of the road; but he was bound to say that the right hon. Gentleman kept faith with the House, because he had very distinctly refused to hold out any hope of continuing to keep the road open. He would now ask his right hon. Friend, Whether he would not reconsider his decision of last year, and permit the road to be again opened; because he believed the advantageous results of last year would be again realized, and that it would be of the greatest accommodation to the inhabitants of Bayswater and Kensington to have that means of communication open?
MR. COWPERsaid, he had long felt the amount of communication between the populous districts of Bayswater and Paddington on the north of the Park, and South Kensington and Chelsea on the south, to be such as urgently to require a public road; and that the concession of such a road was a question of time. It could not be expected that this increasing population would be long content to perambulate the eastern boundary of the 580 Park and thus add two miles unnecessarily to their journeys. When the subject was first pressed upon his attention, he felt so much the importance of preventing business traffic from encroaching upon those parts of the Park which were, set apart for the recreation of the people that he endeavoured to arrange that a road should be made, altogether distinct and separate from the other portions of the Park, and it was with that view that he proposed the plan to which his noble Friend had alluded, and which was brought before the House in the month of February last year. But there were many difficulties in adopting any permanent road at that moment, and it was almost impossible to get any plan carried into effect in time for the opening of the Exhibition on the 1st of May. He was therefore induced to adopt the alternative of opening a temporary road by appropriating a portion of the Serpentine Bridge and of Rotten Row to the use of carriages. He was entirely satisfied with the result of that experiment. His noble Friend only expressed the general opinion of those who frequented the Park when he said that the road provided what was wanted, without serious inconvenience to anybody. Now, therefore, that the subject must be again considered, they could not, in his opinion, do better than adopt the same line which experience bad shown to answer so well. He would remind the House that he was asked, towards the close of last Session, by the hon. Member for Finsbury (Sir Morton Peto), whether he should continue the temporary road, and he stated, in reply, that he considered himself pledged to shut it up at the close of the Exhibition, and to that pledge he had most scrupulously adhered. Now, that the matter was again opened for consideration, he was quite prepared to say, that when the repairs should be completed which were now going on on the Serpentine Bridge, which required a coating of asphalt to prevent percolation of the water through the arches, it was his intention to re-open the public road in the same direction in which it ran last year, and he believed that road would provide the accommodation required with the least possible alteration in the general arrangement of the Park, and with the smallest possible impediments to future alterations and improvements. The surface of the road had not been changed; all that had been done was that the wire fence which the Messrs. 581 Morton, of Liverpool, had kindly lent for use during the Exhibition was taken away. It would now be necessary to put up the ordinary fence; but when that was done the road would be opened to hired cabs and carriages, but neither carts, omnibuses, nor other heavy traffic would be allowed to make use of it.