RAILWAY BILLS—STANDING ORDERS—RESOLUTION.—QUESTION.

HC Deb 06 June 1867 vol 187 cc1652-8

MR. MILNER GIBSON

rose to call attention to the discrepancy which now exists between the Standing Orders of the two Houses of Parliament in regard to the provisions made for securing the completion of Railways, and to put a Question to the Chairman of the Committee on Standing Orders in relation thereto. That he might put himself in order he would conclude with a Motion in reference to the Railway Bills of the present Session. During the last year, in the other House of Parliament, a Committee of Inquiry sat who recommended an alteration in the Standing Orders of that House. The con- clusions come to by that Committee—which he must say did not appear to him to be supported by the evidence—were embodied in the Standing Orders of the other House, and the effect was to make a complete alteration in the provisions hitherto put into Railway Acts in order to secure the completion of the works which Parliament authorized. In point of fact, the new Standing Order of the House of Lords was a sort of modified subscription contract, entirely at variance with the Standing Orders of the Commons on the subject of deposits. The Standing Orders of the House of Commons required a deposit of 8 per cent to be made in certain Railway Bills, by way of security for the completion of the works authorized by Parliament. The deposit was allowed to be withdrawn on a bond being given to the satisfaction of the Treasury that the money should be forthcoming, if called for, and the money was to be forfeited to the Crown if the promoters failed to execute the works within the time limited by their Act. The Standing Order of the House of Lords was on a very different principle. When the railway was completed, or when half the share capital had been raised and expended on the works, the depositors were to receive shares to the amount of their deposits, and the company were to draw out the money for the execution of the works. This was completely different in principle from the Standing Order of the Commons; and he thought it expedient that the two Houses should have some common principle of action. If there were two rules great inconvenience would be the result. It had been proposed in "another place," by the noble Chairman of Committees, that for the present Session the difficulty should be got over in this way—that all Railway Bills that went up from the Commons to the Lords should contain the Commons' Standing Order clause, which the Lords should strike out and for it substitute their own, and vice versâ that all Bills sent from the Lords to the Commons should contain the Lords' clause, which the Commons should strike out, substituting for it their own. Now, the result of this would be that a certain number of the Private Bills would contain one kind of security and the remainder another. But there were, I believe, twelve Railway Bills going from the Commons to the Lords, and only two coming from the Lords to the Commons—those two being the Fulham Railway Bill and the Isle of Wight Railway Bill. So that the Lords' clause would be inserted in twelve Bills, the Commons' clause in only two. He did not think this quite a fair division. Nor did he think we ought to apply any new rule to the Railway Bills of the present Session. The promoters of Bills had made their arrangements with regard to the Bills now before Parliament according to the existing Standing Orders, money had been provided according to those Standing Orders, and it had been the prevailing belief among the Parliamentary agents that the new clauses required by the House of Lords would be waived during the present Session. He thought it would be unfair at this period of the Session, and especially unwise considering the probabilities as to future railway legislation in consequence of the inquiry before the Railways' Committee, if this were not done. The Committee which had sat under the presidency of his hon. Friend the Member for North Lancashire (Colonel Wilson Patten) recommended that although a revision of the Standing Orders with regard to these Bills was desirable, no change should be made that would affect the Bills of the present Session. He believed that the Chairman of Ways and Means (Mr. Dodson) also supported this view of the case. He (Mr. M. Gibson) therefore proposed that the House of Commons should resolve that it was inexpedient to apply any new Standing Order, with regard to the deposit as a security for the completion of railways, to the Railway Bills of the present Session. He would not discuss the merits of either Standing Order, but this he would say, that the Commons' Order did not appear to have been unsuccessful. The object was to secure the completion of works which Parliament had authorized; and he believed that a large proportion of the railways authorized by Parliament since the present deposit system had been adopted had been carried into execution. The right hon. Gentleman moved a Resolution accordingly, that, considering the advanced period of the Session, and the probability of the House taking a review of railway legislation, it was inexpedient to make any alteration in the present Session of the existing Standing Orders, so as to affect the Bills before the House.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That it is inexpedient, considering the advanced period of the Session, and the probability of a review by Parliament of Railway Legislation, to make any alterations in the case of Bills of the present Session, in the provisions for securing the completion of Railways which have hitherto been adopted in Railway Acts."—(Mr. Milner Gibson.)

COLONEL WILSON PATTEN

said, that having had the honour of presiding over the Committee to which allusion had been made by the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Milner Gibson), he wished to offer a few remarks. At the end of the last Session—he believed in the very last week—the noble Lord (Lord Redesdale), who discharged the duty of Chairman of Committees in the other House with so much credit and so much usefulness to the country, did him the honour of suggesting that he should propose in the House of Commons a stringent alteration of the Standing Orders of the House, in accordance with what he was himself about to propose in the House of Lords, involving the forfeiture of the deposit under certain circumstances not contained in the then existing Standing Orders of the Commons. He told the noble Lord he had better exercise his own judgment in the House of Lords, and that he (Colonel Wilson Patten) would call attention to the subject in the Commons in the coming Session. In the House of Lords there was a considerable difference of opinion; but the stringent Resolution was passed, which now formed a portion of the Standing Orders of the other House. In the present Session he consulted many Members of this House on the subject without obtaining their concurrence; and he then brought the subject under the attention of the Committee recently appointed to consider the subject; who came to a Resolution that it was not desirable to adopt as a Standing Order of the House the Resolution of the House of Lords, and that it would be better to defer the subject till a later period of the Session, when an opportunity might be afforded to settle the point. As this seemed hardly the best way of settling the difficulty, the Chairman of Committees thought a Committee should be appointed to consider the discrepancy. A Committee was appointed, and was impartially chosen, and he (Colonel Wilson Patten) had the honour of presiding over it. That Committee came to the unanimous conclusion that it was inexpedient to make any alteration in the Standing Orders of this House in the present Session. The Chairman of Committees and himself communicated this to the noble Lord in the other House, and they also saw him with a view to an understanding on the subject. They failed in accomplishing that object. The noble Lord, he was sorry to say, seemed to think that there was some discourtesy shown to him in not summoning him before the Committee to give evidence. But, so far from intending any act of discourtesy, they, on the contrary, acted towards the noble Lord with the utmost courtesy. They did their utmost to come to an understanding; but all was in vain, and the result, as had been stated, would be the adoption of two systems of legislation with regard to Private Bills of the same character. According to the public journals he found it had been suggested elsewhere that there should be a Joint Committee of the two Houses to consider the difficulty. He was favourable to this plan, and he thought it would be a public calamity if, owing to a discrepancy in the Standing Orders of the two Houses, Bills involving an expenditure of several millions should be deferred till another Session. The whole of the Committee thought that some alteration in the Standing Orders was required, but that the stringency of the Standing Orders of the Lords ought not to be adopted in the present Session.

MR. STEPHEN CAVE

said, he was of opinion that these artificial restrictions on the making of railways were contrary to public policy. In a short time, when the great railways had pretty well divided the country between them, it would be very difficult to get new lines made at all; and therefore the placing additional obstacles in the way would be productive of mischief and inconvenience. He had read the evidence of the Lords' Committee last year, and must say he quite agreed that it did not seem to him to bear out the allegation that the alteration adopted was needed. He did not agree that the deposit was intended to be employed in the construction of the railway. It was a mere guarantee. It seemed to him that the intention of the deposit was to secure the bonâ fides of the undertaking. When the Legislature allowed lands to be compulsorily taken over a wide extent of country it had no right to place that power in the hands of people who did not intend to use it properly, but to hawk it about for sale perhaps, keeping the landowners and neighbourhood in a state of uneasiness. It was said that, in fact, no bond was ever enforced; but if the deposit had not been forfeited or the bond enforced that was no argument against the principle of the rule, but against its administration; or if it were an argument against the principle it was only so far as it showed that the penalty was too severe. He rather agreed with Mr. Booth, formerly Secretary of the Board of Trade, a witness of the greatest intelligence and experience, who expressed an opinion that a small deposit should be required; and that if the railway company failed to perform their undertaking within a reasonable time they should be wound up and the expenses and damages paid out of this deposit. If the line were made how could it matter whether a contractor made it on his own account, finding the money, or whether he was himself paid for doing so by a body of shareholders? Shareholders had nothing very tempting in prospect to induce them to make a line. The contractor had an additional inducement; therefore he was willing either to find or borrow the money instead of the shareholders. Why should he not? It did not cost more to make the line. What was the cost of a line? Did it not consist of labourers' wages and materials? If anything, the contractor's line was made more economically, because it was his interest to look more sharply into it. But it was said that he was paid enormously for finding the capital. Perhaps he was—he was paid for interest of money and risk; but that did not matter to the public—the money fructified, to use a term now in vogue, in his hands as well as in those of a body of shareholders. Experience had shown that these restrictions had failed in their object. The old subscription contract, to which this was a partial return, broke down utterly. Under it there had been abandoned up to 1855 fifty-five trunk lines, authorized to raise above £20,000,000 of capital, and 152 branch railways, representing upwards of £21,000,000; whereas under the present system, which had been in operation since 1858, out of 302 lines, not more than twenty had failed to redeem their deposit up to last year. So said Mr. Baxter, a high authority in such matters, before the Lords' Committee. With regard to the present difficulty, he must say that the proposal that a portion of the Bills should be passed on one principle and the rest on another, by mere haphazard, on no principle of selection, was likely to lead to great dissatisfaction; and, on the part of the Board of Trade, he might say that the President and himself agreed in thinking that no interruption ought to be caused to the Bills now before Parliament by any innovation this year, but that it might be well for the authorities in both Houses to endeavour in a Committee or by a Conference to come to some agreement for the future.

MR. DODSON

said, he entirely concurred in the remarks which had been made by his right hon. Friends, both as to the policy of the new Standing Order of the House of Lords, and as to the course pursued by the Committee of this House. The difficulty between the two Houses had arisen in consequence of the House of Lords having made a Standing Order which was not of the same character which a Standing Order of either House usually was, and he might perhaps say invariably should be—namely, an Order referring solely to proceedings of that House. The Standing Order of the House of Lords required that in every Railway Bill which was introduced there should be inserted a particular clause. Now, if one House took upon itself thus—by a rule of general application to direct the insertion of a clause, such a course of procedure in reality amounted to legislation by a single House of Parliament. He trusted the House would concur in the proposal of his right hon. Friend (Mr. Milner Gibson). If it should be thought fit to appoint a Joint Committee of the two Houses to consider what should be done in reference to the Railway Bills of future Sessions as to point at issue, a satisfactory result might perhaps be brought about. He thought it might moreover fairly be considered whether it would not be desirable that at the commencement of each Session a Joint Committee of both Houses should be appointed, to which all Standing Orders that went beyond the proceedings within the walls of the particular House which wished to adopt the Order should be referred. If some such course were adopted each House would avoid the risk of being placed in a difficulty like the present.

Motion agreed to.

Resolved, That it is inexpedient, considering the advanced period of the Session, and the probability of a review by Parliament of Railway Legislation, to make any alterations in the case of Bills of the present Session, in the provisions for securing the completion of Railways which have hitherto been adopted in Railway Acts.—(Mr. Milner Gibson.)