§ MR. ARTHUR PEELasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether any decision has been come to in reference to instituting an inquiry into the causes of floods throughout the country; and whether, in the opinion of the Government, a Royal Commission would not be the most suitable mode of ascertaining facts and suggesting remedies?
MR. ASSHETON CROSS,in reply, said, that Her Majesty's Government had had the subject of the floods throughout the country under consideration, and they thought it was a subject about which inquiry was certainly necessary. The time of this House was at present fully occupied, both in Committees and 1978 otherwise; and therefore they had come to the conclusion that the better course would be that the inquiry should be undertaken by a Committee of the House of Lords in the first instance, the Government reserving to themselves the right, when the Committee had reported, to appoint a Royal Commission afterwards, if necessary, to inquire into specific points in the inquiry, but not to take the shape of a roving Commission.