HC Deb 22 March 1872 vol 210 cc507-29

Order read, for resuming Adjourned Debate on Question [15th March], That, in the opinion of this House, the system of Private Legislation calls for the attention of Her Majesty's Government, and requires reform."—(Mr. Dodson.)

Question again proposed.

Debate resumed.

MR. LEEMAN

said, that he rose for the purpose of protesting against the House being called upon to discuss the principles or the details contained in those Resolutions, until the House had had a fuller and much better opportunity of considering them. His hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester appealed yesterday to the Chairman of Ways and Means to permit the discussion of those Resolutions to be deferred until after the Easter holidays, and he (Mr. Leeman) regretted exceedingly that the hon. Gentleman did not feel it consistent with his duty to afford that time which the parties who were largely interested in those Resolutions thought was absolutely necessary for their due consideration by the House, seeing that their effect would be to revolutionize the whole system of Private Bill legislation in that House. In fact, the hon. Gentleman proposed neither more nor less than to put an end to Private Bill legislation in Parliament, and to transfer that business to a new tribunal outside of Parliament, and composed practically of two men. That, of itself, was a proposition so broad as to justify those who had urged the hon. Gentleman to allow something like a reasonable time for the consideration of those Resolutions by parties outside the House. The present system of Private Bill Legislation was the creation of the House, and, notwithstanding all that the hon. Gentleman had said about its defectiveness, and the mistakes which had been committed from time to time, that system had in the long run worked out something like justice to the parties concerned, as evidenced by the fact that many hundreds of millions of money had been freely invested by the public under its conditions. If the hon. Gentleman had proposed to substitute a Joint Committee of Lords and Commons for the Standing Orders Committee of the House of Commons, the Court of Referees, and the Standing Orders Committee of the House of Lords, he would have done far more towards cheapening Private Bill legislation than by the course he had pursued. In 1869 a Joint Committee of the Lords and Commons was appointed, and Sir Erskine May, who was examined before that Committee, gave his view, but it was never suggested, that there should be a tribunal external to Parliament; but they recommended that there should be a Joint Committee to investigate Private Bills, consisting of three Members of each House; and in the meantime the system of Provisional Orders which had before existed with regard to docks, harbours, and enclosures, was extended to gas and water companies. That Report was made in August, 1869; and he wanted to know why, from that time to the present, the hon. Gentleman had taken no step to carry out the Resolu- tions of that Committee, for they were virtually his own Resolutions? It would seem to be the opinion of the hon. Gentleman that the three Gentlemen who were to compose the tribunal suggested by him should be Members of the Bar. Although he (Mr. Leeman) himself was a Member of another branch of the legal profession, he, for one, from his knowledge of lawyers, must say that a worse tribunal than one composed of lawyers could hardly be proposed. He thought the Gentlemen to be appointed Members of the proposed tribunal should, among other qualifications, possess large engineering knowledge. But it appeared further that the hon. Gentleman intended to establish a tribunal absolutely without appeal, which was utterly opposed to the principle of the propositions of the Joint Committee of 1869. Did the hon. Gentleman really mean to do away with the power of appeal under the existing system? If so, it was hardly to be expected that the House of Commons would give away its right of private legislation on such conditions.

MR. DODSON

I do not propose to take away the power of appeal.

MR. LEEMAN

asked, what then did the hon. Gentleman really propose? He proposed that after a decision had been come to by the outside tribunal, there should be no power of appeal until the interested party came before the intermediate tribunal which he indicated, and that tribunal was alone to have the power of deciding whether there ought to be an appeal or not.

MR. DODSON

That Committee is to report to Parliament, and not to determine the matter itself.

MR. LEEMAN

still considered that, practically, the power of appeal would be taken away. Such a course would resemble the practice with regard to appeals to the Home Secretary in the case of a person tried at the Assizes. The Home Secretary referred to the Judge who tried the case, and practically the Home Secretary acted upon the opinion of the Judge. But at present, if anyone felt aggrieved by a Provisional Order made by the Board of Trade, he could appeal to Parliament. In the case, for instance, of a proposed railway amalgamation, he (Mr. Leeman) thought it ought to be left to the option of the companies concerned either to come to Parliament with regard to that subject, or to go before the proposed tribunal. He believed the great mass of the people were satisfied with the legislation of Parliament; that they would come before Parliament rather than go before the new-fangled tribunal suggested by the hon. Gentleman. It had been said by the Chairman of Ways and Means that the gentlemen who practised at the Parliamentary Bar bore down the Chairmen of the Select Committees. He (Mr. Leeman) would leave it to those Chairmen to vindicate themselves. He believed there was no foundation for such a charge. The Parliamentary Bar had quite enough to do to bear down each other. Trusting that the House would not now commit itself, even to the 1st Resolution of the hon. Gentleman, but that it would agree to postpone the whole of them until the country had a full opportunity of considering what effect they were likely to have, he would conclude by moving that the debate be adjourned.

MR. DENISON

, in seconding the Amendment, said, that the Chairman of Committees yesterday, in answer to the hon. Member for Gloucester (Mr. Monk), stated that if the House should pass his 1st Resolution to-day, he would offer no obstacle to an adjournment of the other Resolutions, in order that the House might have an opportunity of considering its future course with respect to them. But if the House were to agree to the 1st Resolution, it would commit itself to the opinion that it was desirable to surrender a further portion of its jurisdiction, and to the adoption of that course he was strongly opposed. What he chiefly objected to was, that the House should be urged, without loss of time, to come to a Resolution upon so important a question as this, in which were involved millions of money. His hon. Friend had referred to the Committee of 1869; he would refer to another Committee, that of 1863, on which sat Mr. Milner Gibson, Mr. Lowe, Mr. Bouverie, Colonel Wilson-Patten, and other distinguished Members of the House. That Committee examined witnesses who were practically acquainted with the business of Private Bill legislation, and while there was a general concurrence of opinion that the present system was not satisfactory, chiefly on account of the length and costliness of the proceedings, there was a great diver- sity of opinion as to the changes required. The Committee reported that as to Contested Business they were disposed to concur in the view of the majority of the witnesses—that no Court of Inquiry which could be devised would be so satisfactory to the public as the Committees composed of Members of both Houses of Parliament. One of the witnesses, Mr. Bidder, who had more than 30 years' experience of the matter, stated that though he could not say that the decisions on all occasions were right, for no one could expect that from any tribunal, yet there was one thing satisfactory in connection with them, and that was that the contests were fairly fought out. The tribunal now sought to be established was one of appeal, and the hon. Gentleman grounded his proposals on what was said to be the opinion of the most experienced Members of the House—namely, that great difficulty was experienced in finding Members who were competent enough to act as Chairmen of Private Bill Committees. But that proved too much and too little; for if they accepted the argument that from personal weakness or business incompetency Members of that House were not qualified to discharge such duties, it would compel the conclusion that the tribunal of appeal, though constituted of a select number of Members of that House, was not the tribunal which ought to be established to overrule the decisions of highly-paid and experienced Judges. They ought not to concur in the suggestion that no further inquiry should be made into this subject, unless they determined to oppose the weight of all previous inquiry which went directly against the proposition of the hon. Gentleman. He would ask them whether the House should be content without further discussion to surrender its jurisdiction over Private Bill legislation? The weight of testimony was against it, and it was at least premature to initiate so great a Resolution in the conduct of Private Business.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Debate be now adjourned." (Mr. Leeman.)

MR. VERNON HARCOURT

said, that having had for many years the honour of practising before the tribunal now under discussion, he wished to make a few remarks. His hon. Friend the Member for York (Mr. Leeman) had protested against discussing this question now. But his hon. Friend reminded him of some one else, for swearing he would never discuss, he discussed for half-an-hour in great detail the scheme of the Chairman of Committees. Though a sound reformer in politics, his hon. Friend was in railway matters a great leader of the Tory party, and it might have been remarked how by the frequent use of the word "revolutionize" he secured the cheers of hon. Gentlemen opposite. As to the proposal of the hon. Gentleman the Chairman of Committees, he would say that whatever the defects of the present tribunal, he had never heard the most disappointed litigant hint that its decisions were unjust; and looking back with the calmness brought about by a day or two's interval, he himself could never say, however imperfect its constitution might have been, that taken solely upon its merits it ought to have been abolished. Objection had been taken to the proposal of an appeal to the House of Lords. He did not think it a bad thing. Over and over again he had known decisions reversed by the House of Lords, and he never recollected any in which the reversal of the House of Lords was not right. That was natural, because when the case went from the House of Commons to the House of Lords, and received a second hearing, it came naturally to be better understood. It would be a mistake to make one Standing Committee which could give only one hearing, because second hearings in cases of great importance were very valuable. As to the present proposal, he could not conceal from himself that the question was, whether they were to abolish the old tribunal. The real question, however, was—could they continue it? From what he had heard from various sources he believed they could not continue it, for the right hon. Gentleman (Colonel Wilson-Patten) had informed the House that the difficulties of manning Private Bill Committees within the House of Commons were growing greater. It had also been stated that counsel were too strong for these Committees. That was not his experience. There was in that House an interest far stronger than Parliamentary counsel—the railway interest; and there was much more to fear from the strength of railway directors than from Parliamentary counsel. The difficulty was how to get your panel. Out of the 658 Members of the House an enormous number had to be excluded—all persons interested in these questions; all officials and ex-officials; all persons whose business was incompatible with service; as well as that extremely small number of Members who were not naturally capable of doing the work. Day by day there was a greater indisposition on the part of hon. Members to apply themselves to this Private Business, and a greater call upon them to apply themselves to Public Business. Having spoken to his old colleagues at the Parliamentary Bar, he found their opinion to be that Parliamentary Committees were not manned as they used to be; there was a greater difficulty in getting experienced Chairmen and Members of experience. He was, therefore, disposed to support the proposals of his hon. Friend, not because he thought the present tribunal so bad that it ought not to be continued, but because it could not be maintained. He thought, however, that his hon. Friend laid too much stress upon the necessity that the new tribunal should be of a judicial character. He agreed with the hon. Member for York that the question for decision in the case of Private Bills was not essentially or even mainly a judicial question. It was an administrative question; in many cases the question involved was one of public policy. It was not natural he should undervalue the advantages of legal training and experience, which, among other things, taught men to see more readily what evidence had a tendency to support or rebut a case. He was aware that upon questions of locus standi, which were now removed from Committees, as well as upon the effect of legal agreements between companies, a legal training was essential. But he did not think that legal training should be an exclusive or even the predominant element in the new tribunal. Legal training had its disadvantages in dealing with questions of this nature. As the right hon. Member (Mr. Bouverie) said last Friday, the legal mind was apt to run too much in the groove of precedent, and they must be on their guard against that defect. What they wanted in such a tribunal was mixed minds and qualities. They wanted administrative capa- city which should modify the defects belonging to the judicial quality. He, therefore, suggested that the tribunal was neither extensive enough in its quality, nor large enough in its number. Three were not enough; there should be five members—two lawyers and three laymen of much administrative capacity, men of the highest qualities they could secure; the sort of men out of whom they made Home Secretaries, Presidents of the Board of Trade or of the Poor Law Board. If they had such men, assisted by persons of legal education and judicial experience, then they would possess a tribunal of First Instance to which they might reasonably trust—such a tribunal, in fact, as they would have in a first-rate Committee. His hon. Friend must not starve this tribunal either in point of numbers or remuneration, for the funds supplied by promoters and petitioners were quite sufficient to defray the costs. Another point was the right of appeal, which should be to a Joint Committee of the two Houses, and he entirely agreed with the hon. Member for York that the appeal should be as of right, and should not be left to the discretion of any intermediate tribunal. If you had a powerful Court of Appeal they would be disposed to support the decision of the Court below; and this prospect, with the liability to costs, would be a security against wanton and unnecessary appeals. Subject to these remarks, he thought that litigants ought to be satisfied with the proposed tribunal, one of the great merits of which would be that it would prove enormously economical to the litigants. At present there was a great waste of time and money in calling before an inexperienced tribunal unnecessary evidence. This was not the fault of leading counsel, but of their clients, who often said—"We must go on with the evidence till the Committee stops us." So the Committee was plied with local evidence, with ornamental evidence, with professional and scientific evidence, simply because the tribunal was not strong enough to stop it. Evidence of this sort had been tendered within his experience to prove that in a rich agricultural district potatoes were grown and corn was reaped; that in a mineral district there was coal; and that in the Peak of Derbyshire they could find stone. In the last case, a humorous and learned friend of his asked whether there was not also in the Peak a plentiful supply of atmospheric air; and he observed that the Chairman of the Committee took a careful note of this point. Such evidence would not be necessary before a tribunal constituted as he had suggested. They would not even think it worth while to call the Members for the borough; and as to professional and scientific witnesses, what the Court would ask for would be not opinions, but facts. At present, also, it was necessary upon gas and water and other questions to go into the matter ab ovo; they had to educate the Committee; whereas an experienced tribunal would know all about it from the beginning. Indeed, he did not know any class of persons which could possibly suffer by the passing of the Resolutions of his hon. Friend, unless that most worthy and excellent class with which he had great sympathy—the solicitors and barristers. The question to be considered, however, was what was best for the public interest; and, viewing the subject in that light, he should, with the modifications which he had ventured to suggest, give a hearty support to his hon. Friend's proposals.

MR. SCOURFIELD

referred to a case in which he, having been Chairman of a Private Bill Committee, a witness made a very important statement which, to say the least of it, he had reason to suppose was inaccurate. Now, that statement, having been brought under the notice of the House of Lords' Committee an opportunity was afforded for demonstrating that inaccuracy, and the Bill was thrown out. He could not see, however, how under the proposed system a mistake like that was to be rectified. Drawing an analogy from the trial of election petitions, Private Business, if removed from the jurisdiction of that House, ought to be dealt with only by a tribunal composed of men of the greatest knowledge and experience, who should be highly paid. Any other attempt at legislation in this matter would only end in complete failure.

MR. CHICHESTER FORTESCUE

said, he saw no objection to the 1st Resolution, except that it was sought by it to lay on the Government a greater burden than was usual in the case of Private Business. He thought, therefore, some words should be added to it bringing in Parliament as having a greater concern in the matter, so that the whole responsibility should not be laid on the Government. The 2nd Resolution, also, he was quite prepared to support, taking it by itself; but the Government, it must be understood, would not commit itself to its exact terms. As far as his experience went, the system of Provisional Orders had turned out to be a decided success. It commenced in 1845, and had since been extended, and, with certain limits, it had been found extremely useful as well as economical to the public. The whole force of the Resolution turned, in his opinion, on the words "as far as possible;" but, in the interpretation which he put on those words, he was not disposed to go quite as far as his hon. Friend the Chairman of Committees. He was, at the same time, far from saying that the system of Provisional Orders had reached its limit, and a good deal might, in his opinion, be done in the way of its extension and revision. He now came to the 3rd Resolution, which he looked upon as one of a very serious character. The House, in assenting to it, would be committing itself to a regular revolution. He was glad to see that his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Oxford (Mr. V. Harcourt) had let down the present system of Private Bills Committees so gently, because it seemed to him it was not so bad as it sometimes got credit for being. He was not, therefore, prepared to go the length of his hon. Friend the Chairman of Committees in applying to it a number of adjectives, which, he thought, hardly met the justice of the case. His hon. Friend said that the decisions of the present tribunal were unsatisfactory; but the parties concerned in those decisions had great faith in its uprightness and impartiality, and whether as much could be said for the tribunal which it was proposed to substitute was, he could not help thinking, rather doubtful. It did not appear to him, he must confess, that a satisfactory plan had as yet been submitted to the House for the creation of such a tribunal. What was the experience on which the House was asked to act in the matter? Were hon. Members prepared to say, as his hon. Friend had said, that the system of Provisional Orders as now in force ought to be extended to the whole circle of Private Bill legislation, including questions of the greatest mag- nitude, with which hitherto it had not been called upon to grapple. They must remember that up to the present there had been no attempt to give such an extensive application to those Orders; they had never been applied to contentious questions of first, second, or even third-rate magnitude, involving great interests which there was plenty of money to support. He demurred to the precedents quoted by his hon. Friend of cases in which Parliament had already parted with its jurisdiction—such as divorce, settled estates, and so on. In those cases it parted with its jurisdiction finally, and never heard of the thing again; but it was not in that sense that his hon. Friend proposed that Parliament should get rid of its jurisdiction. Moreover, the class of subjects which that House had ceased to deal with differed in their nature from those which it was now proposed to part with. The term "judicial tribunal" applied to the proposed Court of Inquiry, also, was rather misleading; the questions to be dealt with being not purely judicial ones, but questions of discretion, expediency, and policy, questions which would have to be decided, not by the application of particular rules to particular cases, but according to the discretion and good sense of the parties deciding. The proposed experiment, in short, was one of a totally untried character; and though the did not say it was impossible to create such a tribunal, he did not see how their jurisdiction could be safely intrusted to this new tribunal, which would have the power of granting to parties concessions involving thousands, hundreds of thousands, and, perhaps, millions of money, and, on the other hand, of taking away legal rights. For such a purpose they must have a tribunal capable of deciding upon those concessions, and of maintaining without suspicion the confidence of the public, and capable of coming to an award, which would not be liable to be very often reversed afterwards by a Parliamentary Committee. If the decisions of the Court were often reversed, it would soon lose its weight and authority. It was not asked that this new Court should have the final decision, and, of course, then came the question of appeal; and if that was left to the discretion of that House, the result would be either that the appeal would be granted as a matter of course, or that there would be a hot contest over the point. If the Committee of Appeal were to be a Joint Committee of both Houses, then, of course, the question of appeal would have to be decided by both Houses, and there might often be a debate in that House and the other on the subject of an appeal. His hon. Friend had expressed an opinion that the right of appeal would be very rarely exercised. He doubted whether that would be so. He did not mean to say that in minor cases, such as those now dealt with by Provisional Orders, there would be frequent appeals; but when matters involving vast interests were in question, and when there was plenty of money to back up one side and the other, he believed the right of appeal would be constantly used. Again, the appeal in this case was proposed to be made from one Court to another of an absolutely different constitution. The two were made of different materials, and one was to be permanent and the other shifting; and he feared that, in consequence, the chance of the two tribunals taking different views would be very great; and if once appeals became frequent, they would, as a matter of course, go on. Appeals would then become the rule, and the tribunal of First Instance would be discredited. He had heard something of a plan for giving that tribunal an option in the matter, by leaving it to the parties themselves to go either to that tribunal or to Parliament in the first instance. He would like to hear the plan discussed; but, for his own part, he had the greatest doubts as to whether it would be successful. Those were a few specimens of the difficulties which had to be dealt with in setting up any such tribunal. He doubted whether it was safe, even if possible, to make so great a change. With regard to the 4th Resolution, he again differed from the hon. and learned Member for Oxford, because he thought that the amount of authority in favour of that Resolution was very great indeed. Every inquiry of late years had, as far as he knew, ended in the recommendation of that change; and, for his part, he was quite willing to concur in that Resolution, proposing that a Joint Committee of both Houses should deal with these questions. It was very evident that the other House had become very favourable to the proposal of a Joint Committee. He believed that a single tribunal so constituted would command the confidence of the public, and largely diminish the expense of proceedings. But, even if the House were so conservative of its practice as not to be prepared to go the length of substituting a joint tribunal for a double inquiry, he thought that at least Provisional Orders, both those which were made under the present law and those which might be made under an extension of the law, should be subject to an inquiry only in Parliament. He had a strong opinion in favour of this last Resolution; he approved of a limited extension of the system of Provisional Orders; and, subject to the qualifications which he had stated, and without committing himself to the Government further, he was prepared to support the 1st Resolution.

COLONEL WILSON PATTEN

said, he had no objection to the insertion of the word "Parliament" in the 1st Resolution, as proposed by his right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade; but he must say that he could not imagine any duty more imperative or suitable for a Government to undertake than that of legislating upon a subject of such enormous magnitude as the Private Business of that House. The enormous extent of the interests implicated in the question alone should induce them to do so. The property in railways in this country amounted to £600,000,000, and the interests of railway directors and shareholders were largely involved in this question, and he was, therefore, very glad to think that the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade had no repugnance to undertake the consideration of the subject. He entirely agreed with his hon. Friend the Member for York (Mr. Leeman), that, whatever else might be said of the present system, he had never heard any accusation of unfairness brought against any of their Committees. It, however, had always appeared to him that the grave defect of the system was its enormous expense, which he believed had prevented many useful works from being carried out, and no one could deny that the great expenses incurred by railway companies in connection with Private Bill legislation had added to the cost of travelling in this country. It was no uncommon thing for a railway company to spend £50,000, £60,000, or £70,000 in a contest before a Committee of that House. In fact, he had been informed by a director of one of the principal companies that from first to last his company had spent £300,000 on Private Bill legislation. That, he thought, was a discredit to Parliament, and should induce them to reform a system which deterred people from bringing forward useful schemes. It happened to him—perhaps from his connection with Private Bill legislation—to be constantly receiving letters from persons asking his advice whether they should come before Parliament with a Private Bill, their chief object being really to ascertain the expense; and he invariably answered that a Private Bill might be got through the House, if unopposed, for between £400 and £500, which was itself a large sum; but that if any one person in the district chose to oppose the project, and to petition the House, the expense might be increased by several hundred pounds. He could mention an instance last summer in Scotland, where a very useful scheme was abandoned because the money could not be mustered for the contest. The Private Bill legislation was also imperfect in other respects. The Committee was perpetually being re-elected. The average duration of Parliament did not exceed three or four years, and on the occasion of every Election a large number of Members had to be placed on Committees who were wholly unaccustomed to the work; and hence, as the hon. and learned Member for Oxford stated, whenever a Committee of the Lords overruled a decision of a Committee of that House, the Lords were right.

MR. VERNON HARCOURT

explained. That did not arise from any superiority of the tribunal; but because the second hearing was superior to the first.

COLONEL WILSON PATTEN

had no doubt it arose also from this—that the Commons' tribunal was more variable, while the Lords' Committee was more permanent, and there was, therefore, greater uniformity of decision. Nor was that the only difficulty. The Committee of Selection did its work as fairly as possible—and he did not believe that its selections were ever by any chance in the least degree influenced by political consideration; but a great difficulty was experienced from the small number of Members out of which such large Committees had to be selected. None of the right hon. Gentlemen on the first Ministerial Bench could be selected at all; and the number of Public Committees was not only increasing each year, but the number of Members serving on them was doing the same, so that sometimes 21 or 22 hon. Members would be on one Committee. Then the convenience of the Members of the House practising at the Bar had to be considered; and though they were not let off, arrangements were made to secure their services at the time most agreeable to them. It had been the practice to ascertain, at the beginning of the Session, the wishes of hon. Gentlemen in regard to serving on Committees; but lately it had often become necessary to give up that plan to a certain extent, and to place hon. Members on Committees whether it was convenient to them or not. What ought to be the remedies for those evils? Every Committee that had sat on the subject had agreed, either unanimously or by large majorities, that the present system did require reform; and he felt deeply indebted to the hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Dodson) for the assiduity and ability with which he had devoted himself to the subject, but he could not agree with the whole of his Resolutions. To the 1st Resolution he entirely agreed; but he thought the President of the Board of Trade had suggested a very wise course in dealing with the subject at all, that they should gradually improve the system by diminishing the expense and the labours of hon. Members in connection with it. He quite agreed to the introduction of a larger system of Provisional Orders, which had diminished expense; and on more than one occasion, to his knowledge, had given a more satisfactory decision than under a Committee. But he thought if his right hon. Friend would undertake, on the part of the Government, to consider the whole subject of Private Bill legislation, and come before the House with a scheme next Session, it would be the most satisfactory course that could be adopted. In one part of the scheme suggested by that right hon. Gentleman he entirely concurred, that the appeal should go to a Joint Committee of the two Houses. That itself would be one enormous advantage. A Joint Committee would be a much more satisfactory Court of Appeal than if there lay first an appeal to that House and afterwards to the House of Lords.

MR. DENT

said, he could bear witness that inexperienced Members of Parliament sitting on Private Bill Committees were often indebted to members of the Parliamentary Bar for their courtesy and prompt support; but still counsel often called unnecessary witnesses to occupy time, because their leaders were engaged before more than one Committee, and Committees were powerless to prevent this abuse. The delay and expense which were occasioned in that way, coupled with the short period of the day for which Committees sat, must induce hon. Members to wish for an alteration. He thought that the scheme of his hon. Friend had been somewhat too severely criticized, and that it would be better if the proposed tribunal were to consist of a larger number of hon. Members. The scheme would increase rather than diminish the opportunity of appeal, because it was proposed to grant it in case a scheme was rejected, that being a right which did not exist now when a Committee of either House had rejected a Bill. The new tribunal ought to have the power of remitting certain cases to Parliament without going into them at all, because there were some that could be better decided by Parliament than by such a tribunal. Knowing the extent to which Members of Parliament were prevented from attending to Public Business and to Public Committees by the demands which Private Bills made upon them, he was thankful to the Chairman of Committees for submitting those proposals to the House.

MR. PERCY WYNDHAM

said, that at the present moment they were not suffering from any great pressure of Private Business; but there were already signs that the pressure familiar to them before the last monetary crisis of 1866 was about to occur, and unless the necessary reforms were made they would again witness the spectacle then so often seen—of Committees sitting upstairs over cases in which were employed highly-paid counsel and witnesses from all quarters; but the Committees only giving four hours out of the 24 to the consideration of the cases; and of tribunals divided only by a wall arriving at diametrically opposite decisions upon cases that were substantially similar. Though the Chairmen were usually very competent for their duties, there had been cases in which the Chairman of a Private Bill Committee had never before sat on such a Committee in any capacity; and he remembered an instance in which the question before the Committee was as to the building of graving docks at Portsmouth; and after the inquiry had been going on for some days, one of the Members of the Committee turned to another, and said—"Can you tell me what a graving dock is?" That, no doubt, was an extreme case; but Committees were constantly called upon to listen to evidence the value of which they were not really competent to decide, from the want of special knowledge. He hoped, therefore, that the House, before any very long time had elapsed, would really take a step in the direction indicated by the Chairman of Ways and Means, and that they would see the day when Bills relating to the public health and to rating should be decided by a Grand Committee. But that could never be if they were to retain their Private Bill legislation as it was now. The hon. Member for York (Mr. Leeman) seemed to think that because the present tribunal was a popular, therefore it was a suitable and efficient one; but the fact was, that its very weakness and inefficiency were its strongest recommendations, for many persons who had been unsuccessful before such a tribunal would again appeal to it, in the hope that they might have better luck on a second hearing of their case.

MR. RATHBONE

said, that speaking from his own experience of the working of the system of Private Bill legislation, he could state that in many instances expenses were doubled on account of the class of witnesses summoned before Parliamentary Committees. Not only that, but a serious objection to the present system was the effect which it had upon the Public Business of the country, for the condition in which sometimes important measures had left that House was discreditable to it. But that could be easily accounted for when one remembered that if most of the experienced Members of the House were told off to attend to the work of private legislation, it was impossible that they could give that attention which they might otherwise give to the Public Business.

MR. GATHORNE HARDY

said, he agreed almost entirely with what had fallen from the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Chichester Fortescue), so that it would be unnecessary for him to add more than a very few words. The right hon. Gentleman asked them to accept the first recommendation, and to leave the others on the Paper for further discussion; but it seemed to him that if they were to impose upon the Government the responsibility and duty of dealing with this matter, it would be fair that Parliament should not dictate to Government the course they were to take. The Chairman of Committees proposed to take the whole question of private legislation out of the jurisdiction of Parliament, and there were in the scheme certain details which had not been accepted by the right hon. Gentleman opposite on the part of the Government, and to which he, for one, entertained a strong objection. With reference to many of the points which had been named in the discussion, he could say something of the practice prevailing before the Committees of that House, of some of which he had occasionally acted as Chairman; and he was bound to state that he had had no reason to quarrel with their decisions on the whole, and he was convinced the Members serving on them had such a deep sense of responsibility that they bestowed their most earnest attention to the subjects brought under their notice. Even if Committees were such bad tribunals as was implied by some of the arguments of the hon. and learned Member for Oxford (Mr. V. Harcourt), and of the hon. Member for West Cumberland (Mr. Percy Wyndham), who spoke of them almost with contempt, the House would, by adopting the proposed reform, allow an appeal to these miserable tribunals from the great tribunal which was to be established, and he (Mr. G. Hardy) thought the adoption of that course would be absurd. While admitting that under the existing system the expenses were unreasonably large, he doubted whether they would be lessened by the adoption of the proposed changes. There was a time when gentlemen were sent down into the country to make local inquiries, and in almost every instance their decisions were attacked, and were frequently overruled by Committees. If that should happen under the proposed scheme, the expenses would of course be increased instead of diminished. As to reducing the number of witnesses, he maintained that if a counsel said certain witnesses were essential to his case no Judge would feel himself strong enough to interfere. After the experience gained from a recent case, no one could expect to get rid of unnecessary and irrelevant witnesses, and, indeed, if a Judge were to do so he would be charged with having caused injustice to be brought about. He was, however, prepared to say that reform was needed in the mode of conducting Private Business, and he should be satisfied if Select Committees consisted of three Members instead of four. They would arrive at their conclusions just as well, while the House would retain its control over the public policy of those important questions which were brought before Committees upstairs, whose decisions had to be confirmed by the House. Questions of such enormous importance ought never to be delegated to any body of men outside the House, however learned and judicious they might be. He might mention, as samples of such, the cases of the Mersey Docks, the Birkenhead Docks, and the great amalgamation. Hon. Members seemed to be all agreed that reforms might be judiciously made with advantage to the House and the country, and although many hon. Members were as anxious as the hon. Member for Scarborough (Mr. Dent) to be relieved from unnecessary work, none would wish to shirk work if they deemed it essential to the interests of the public. He would urge the House, therefore, to accept the promise that the Government would give full consideration to this question, to adopt the 1st Resolution, and to allow the other Resolutions to be withdrawn by the hon. Member the Chairman of Committees. By adopting that course the House would leave the question to be freely dealt with by the Government, who might avail themselves of some of the suggestions made in the course of the present discussion.

MR. MAGUIRE

, who claimed to represent the general feeling of Ireland on this subject, said, the suggestion made that evening would by no means satisfy the wants and necessities of the persons interested in those local matters which were at present referred to Parliamentary Committees. The cost of conducting such inquiries was enormous; indeed, those connected with his own city (Cork) of late years involved a cost of about £60,000. These inquiries could be made far better by a tribunal sitting in Dublin or Cork than by a Committee of the House of Commons; for were that course adopted cases tried locally would not be overloaded with witnesses, as was done in London, where unnecessary and irrelevant witnesses were called for the purpose of filling up the time, while the leading counsel were engaged elsewhere. It would not be desirable for the new tribunal to be composed exclusively of lawyers. Among its members there ought to be a commercial man, or a man of that class, a lawyer, and an engineer of eminence. Again, he did not see how a single tribunal could get through the amount of work which was now distributed among about 55 Select Committees. In his opinion, there ought to be a separate tribunal for Ireland. Some time ago the House was extremely reluctant to surrender its privileges and powers in regard to the trial of election petitions; but the new system had worked admirably, in spite of all prophecies to the contrary. ["Question!"] That, he maintained, was quite germane to the question. The interests of the Parliamentary barristers and the Parliamentary agents ought not to be allowed to interfere with the reform now proposed, because, although they resided in London, they would follow the business into the country. A new tribunal was appointed to try contested elections for the purposes of saving expense and of bringing those cases before a higher class of Judges; but, above all, of having them tried upon the best evidence, taken on the spot. That, he maintained, was the course that should be pursued in dealing with the subject. The House ought to affirm the principle that the present mode of dealing with this Private Business was not satisfactory, and he was glad that the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. G. Hardy) had given the recommendation he had in favour of the 1st Resolution, for no man could say that the present system was satisfactory; and he could not help congratulating his hon. Friend the Chairman of Committees on taking the initiative in what promised to be a very wise and great reform.

VISCOUNT BURY

said, he was very glad that his hon. Friend the Member for York (Mr. Leeman) had moved the adjournment of the debate, because the House should not be hurried into a division on a question on which they ought to exercise the greatest deliberation; and he (Viscount Bury) further considered that all they had heard during the discussion showed that the House was not in a position to come to a decision upon the Resolutions. There were £400,000,000 invested in railway property in this country. If the owners of that vast property were satisfied with the present tribunals, as had been asserted, where was the necessity for change? It was in the interest of the House, and not in the interest of those immediately concerned in Private Bill legislation, that a reform was therefore wanted. The tribunal that had been proposed would be difficult to constitute and difficult to work. The remuneration which would be offered for discharging the duties of members of that tribunal would not be sufficient to induce eminent lawyers to leave their positions at the Bar for the purpose of accepting the office of member, and therefore the public must be content with the services of second-rate men, who would not be equal to the average tribunals of the House. That was opposed to their present experience, for he denied that the Committees were less experienced or worse constituted now than they were in former years; and, at the same time, he maintained that the railway mania had this good effect—that it had trained hon. Members in Private Business, which they would not have had an opportunity of otherwise acquiring. If Private Bill legislation were taken away from hon. Members, where could there be found experienced members to constitute the proposed appellate tribunal? The appellate tribunal would then be weaker than the tribunal whose decision was appealed from. He thought that a great improvement would be effected if the Committee of Selection were to ask Members at the beginning of a Session, whether they would serve on Committees for dealing with some particular class of Bills, and would adhere to that class of private legislation for a considerable time in order that they might afterwards be appointed Chairmen of Committees for dealing with that particular class of legislation. If that course were adopted, he thought the Chairmen of Committees would become too strong to be borne down by the Bar. He hoped the hon. Member for York would withdraw his Amendment, and allow the 1st Resolution to be passed.

SIR EDWARD COLEBROOKE

, feeling strongly the defects of the existing tribunal, thought it was in the power of the House to introduce an improvement in the direction indicated in the debate without introducing so violent a change as that contemplated by the Resolutions. There might be difficulties with regard to the appointment of additional officers; but the same difficulties existed with regard to the appointment of a new tribunal. He suggested that the principle on which the Referees were appointed should be extended, and pointed out that in Private Bill inquiries that which was wanted was not legal knowledge, but good sound practical sense. He entertained the strongest objections to the Resolutions, and thought the proper way of dealing with the matter was by a Bill directing the manner in which the appointments should be made.

MR. DODSON

trusted his hon. Friend (Mr. Leeman) would withdraw his Amendment, and allow the House to agree, he hoped unanimously, to the 1st Resolution, modified as suggested by the President of the Board of Trade. In order to avoid trespassing too much on the time of the House, he would not attempt to reply in detail to the objections which had been raised by his hon. Friend and other hon. Members in the course of the debate. He would merely observe with regard to one objection respecting the composition of the external tribunal, that he did not bind himself to a Court consisting of lawyers only. What he intended to convey was, that there should be not less than three Commissioners put into the Commission who should be lawyers; but he left it open, whether other Members who might be selected as being versed in engineering or finance should not be added to the Court. With regard to appeals, so far from desiring to exclude them, he had stated that he should be satisfied to allow appeal as a matter of right, relying upon the power of awarding costs to check unnecessary contests; but, as many persons feared an undue number of appeals, he had suggested that an additional safeguard might be provided by appointing a Standing Committee to report to the House whether there was a primâ facie case for appeal. The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade had expressed his willingness to consider the expediency of extending the system of Provisional Orders; and he trusted that the right hon. Gentleman would at the same time consider the possibility of giving facilities for obtaining such Provisional Orders without the necessity of coming to an office in London. In any case, whether Provisional Orders were to be obtained from a Government Department under an extension of the present system, or from a quasi-judicial tribunal, the constitution of Joint Committees of both Houses ought not to be lost sight of. What he would suggest now was this—that the House should agree to the 1st Resolution, and that the three other Resolutions should remain on the Paper for some day after Easter; but he had no idea of bringing them on unless some disposition should be shown on the part of the House for their discussion.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Amendment proposed, after the word "attention," to insert the words "of Parliament and."—(Mr. Chichester Fortescue.)

Question, "That those words be there inserted," put, and agreed to.

Main Question, as amended, put, and agreed to.

Resolved, That, in the opinion of this House' the system of Private Legislation calls for the attention of Parliament and of Her Majesty's Government, and requires reform.