HC Deb 21 February 1870 vol 199 cc592-3
SIR GEORGE JENKINSON

said, he would beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether he intends to carry out during this Session, and if so when, the pledge he gave on 23rd of July last, on his requesting the withdrawal of the Resolution respecting the hardship and injustice inflicted on the Ratepayers of certain parishes by the present system of the partial abolition of Turnpikes; on which occasion the hon. Gentleman appealed to him to withdraw his Resolution— Inasmuch as it was the intention of the Government to introduce next Session a measure on the subject very much in the spirit of the hon. Gentleman's Motion, which was as follows:— To call attention to the hardship and injustice inflicted on the Ratepayers of certain parishes by the present system of the partial abolition of Turnpikes; and to move, That, in the opinion of this house, the present system of providing the cost of maintaining the Turnpike Roads of which the Trusts have expired is unjust, and inflicts great hardship on particular parishes, and in all such cases where Tolls have been or may hereafter be abolished, the area from which the cost of maintaining such Roads is levied ought to be extended, and should not be limited to those parishes only through which such Roads actually pass?

MR. KNATCHBULL-HUGESSEN

, in reply, said, he would repeat a statement made by him on Friday night, that the Government had not pledged themselves to bring in during the present Session a Bill on the subject of the abolition of turnpikes. They had pledged themselves to give the subject their attention, with the view of proposing legislation at an early period; but, having regard to the state of Public Business, he could not promise that their pledge would be redeemed this year. The territorial arrangements for Ireland, and the educational wants of England, with a number of other measures which the Government proposed to lay before Parliament, some of them in reference to local taxation, in which the question of road management was much involved, rendered it necessary to postpone legislation upon the subject of turnpikes.