HC Deb 20 June 1865 vol 180 cc593-4

Order for Second Reading read.

MR. WHALLEY

rose to move the second reading of this Bill, which he said was intended to get rid of a clause that had been surreptitiously introduced into a Bill which passed last year. That Bill was the meagre result of the labours of a Committee which sat nearly half of last Session. One conclusion at which the Committee arrived was that new projects for railways should not be resisted on the ground of competition. That Resolution was rescinded after a great part of the Report had been agreed to. The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Milner Gibson) brought in a Bill during the last Session of Parliament for the purpose of relieving the public of the enormous difficulties and impediments which attended the prosecution of this branch of commercial enterprise, and that measure provided that if any landowners agreed in making a railway through their estates they should not he compelled to incur the inconvenience and expense attending the ordinary passage of railway Bills through both Houses of Parliament. Though this proposal was a very moderate one, the associated railway companies insisted, in case of their feeling themselves aggrieved by the construction of any proposed railway, that the Bills should pass through Parliament in the ordinary way and that the Board of Trade should be divested of its powers, and the right hon. Gentleman was compelled to insert a clause to this effect, contrary to his own better judgment. This clause he I now proposed to repeal.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—(Mr. Whalley.)

MR. MILNER GIBSON

said, that though the clause to which the Bill of the hon. Member referred was inserted in the original measure against his wish, certain opposition to the progress of the Bill was withdrawn in consequence its insertion. This fact, coupled with the circumstance that there had been but little time to test the utility of the measure, compelled him to decline to give his support to the Motion of the hon. Member.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

Order for Second Reading read, and discharged.

Bill withdrawn.