TRAMWAYS (USE OF MECHANICAL POWER) BILLS. (Hansard, 15 April 1878)

HC Deb 15 April 1878 vol 239 cc1275-83 1275

§ MR. RAIKES moved the following Resolution:— That it be an Instruction to the Committee on Tramways (Use of Mechanical Power) Bills, that they have power to deal with all Tramway Bills of the present Session, whether opposed or unopposed, which have been referred to them, notwithstanding that the Promoters may be desirous to withdraw from any such Bills the Clauses whereby it was proposed to authorize the use of steam or other mechanical power:—That the Dublin Southern District Tramways Bill be re-committed to the said Committee.

§ MR. ARTHUR PEEL
, as Chairman of the Committee to which the Tramways Bills had been referred, wished to remind the House that the Committee was appointed under very anomalous circumstances, and had very anomalous duties to discharge. To it was referred a great number of Bills which involved the application of steam to tramways. The Committee were also called upon to settle some rules and regulations which were hereafter to govern the application of steam and other mechanical power to tramways in the event of such applications being continued. A case came before the Committee in the course of their sitting—namely, the South 1276 Dublin Tramway Company's Bill, which they regarded as a sort of crucial case, seeing that it involved the application of steam to the tramways sought to be constructed. The case was argued before the Committee for two days, and, as was only natural, great stress was laid upon the application of steam to two of the tramways in the southern district of the city of Dublin. The opponents of the Bill were a Railway Company, and they were expressly admitted to have a locus standi before the Committee; because tramways worked by steam power were a novel invention, and would place the undertaking in the light of a railway. It was, therefore, regarded as one railway competing against another; and it was upon that ground, and that ground only, that the opposing Railway Company were allowed to have a locus standi. The Railway Company appeared before the Committee in opposition to the Bill; but, on the third day of the inquiry, the promoters suddenly withdrew that part of the Bill which involved the application of steam power to the tramways proposed to be constructed. They stated that they preferred to stand only on that part of the Bill which gave them power to construct an ordinary tramway. The Instruction to the Committee was of a very special and definite kind—namely, that they were to take into consideration Bills which involved the application of steam or other mechanical power to tramways; and, inasmuch as the steam clauses were withdrawn, they thought that the whole reason of their being had ceased, so far as the Dublin Bill was concerned; and they, therefore, declined to go on with the case, inasmuch as there was involved the question of a horse tramway only. The opponents against the Bill applied for costs; but the Committee declined to grant them, inasmuch as there had been no unreasonable or vexatious conduct on the part of the promoters of the measure. He gathered now from his hon. Friend the Chairman of Ways and Means, that some inconvenience had arisen from the fact that a great portion of the case of the promoters which involved horse tramways only came before the Committee, and some evidence was taken upon that part of the scheme under guise of the application for the use of steam power. He had only to remark upon this state of matters, that if horse 1277 tramways had been, in the first instance, applied for, the locus standi of the Dublin and Wicklow Company would never have been admitted, and the Company would not have been able to appear before the Committee. But, inasmuch as the Chairman of Ways and Means now stated that inconvenience was occasioned by so much of the ground having to be gone over again, of course, if it was the wish of the House to give the Committee fresh Instructions, the Committee would cheerfully acquiesce in any opinion the House might arrive at. They would be quite ready to hear the case entirely upon its merits; but he had thought it right to justify the action which the Committee had taken, in order that there might be no misconception in regard to the course which they had felt it their duty to pursue. As had been stated by the Chairman of Ways and Means, it was quite true that, although the case of the promoters was not concluded, it had been before the Committee for two days and a-half before that part of the Bill which authorized the use of steam power was withdrawn.

MR. O'CONOR
, as a Member of the Committee, was surprised to see the Notice which had been placed upon the Paper by the Chairman of Ways and Means. The Committee themselves had recommended that the Bill should be committed to an ordinary Private Bill Committee in the usual way, and they did so for this reason—that the moment the steam clauses were withdrawn from the Bill, the measure appeared before them in exactly, the same position as any other Tramway Bill would have done which did not contain steam clauses at all. It was scarcely necessary to remind the House that other Committees were appointed in a very different manner; and, under the circumstances, it seemed to the Committee very strange that the Bill, when divested of its steam clauses, should not be treated in exactly the same manner as an ordinary Tramway Bill, and referred to an ordinary Private Bill Committee. There had been no difference of opinion in the Committee upon the subject; and he should have known nothing whatever of the Motion that had just been made, if it had not been that he had casually glanced over the Paper that morning. He gathered, from the Notice given by the Chairman of 1278 Committees, that his object was to refer the Bill back to the Special Committee appointed in regard to Tramways. The Chairman of the Committee, the hon. Member for Warwick (Mr. Arthur Peel), had already alluded to a very important matter which came before the Committee—namely, the locus standi of the opponents of the Bill. They had not the least objection to entertain the Bill again, providing the question of locus standi was, in the first instance, arranged by the Court of Referees, and the Committee were simply called upon to deal with the merits of the case. If it were intended to take any other course, he was afraid the Committee was not at all suited to go into the questions which were involved in the consideration of locus standi, and to settle whether certain persons were entitled to be heard against the Bill or not. The whole opposition to the Bill, so far, had been a railway opposition; and, had it not been for the steam clauses, the Railway Company, under the ordinary rules, would have had no locus standi. As those clauses had now been struck out of the Bill, that opposition was in an entirely altered position; and it was certainly strange to call upon a Committee of this nature to decide questions, which, as a general rule, were submitted to the Court of Referees. He ought to remind the House, that the Committee was a Committee consisting of nine Members, who were appointed as a hybrid Committee generally was appointed—without being bound down by the ordinary rules in regard to the Bills which were brought before them. One of these rules was that no person interested in a Bill, or whose constituents were interested in it, should be a Member of the Committee. Now, this South Dublin Bill was in a peculiar position. The opponents of the Bill were the Dublin, Wicklow, and Wexford Railway Company, and the Corporation of Dublin also opposed, not upon the Preamble, but upon the clauses, and yet one of the Members of the Committee was the hon. Member for the city of Dublin (Mr. Brooks). That hon. Gentleman was also a member of the Corporation of Dublin, and was, therefore, interested in the clauses which were likely to be submitted to the Committee. In another sense he was also interested, because both his constituents and himself 1279 had been waging a perpetual war against the Dublin, Wicklow, and Wexford Railway for some time past. He was sorry that his hon. Friend was not present in the House at that moment; because he knew that his hon. Friend would feel deeply, indeed, that the measure in which he had taken such great interest should be brought before the House in his absence. Under all the circumstances, he (Mr. O'Conor) contended that it was not right to send back the South Dublin Bill to a Committee constituted as the present one was. He thought the Chairman of Ways and Means had been guilty of undue haste in putting his Notice upon the Paper; and, if the House would support him, he would move that the consideration of the question be adjourned until a future day. He thought the adjournment should be until after the Recess, and that would inflict no harm upon anyone, because no further Business could be done until the House re-assembled. In the meantime, it might be a matter for consideration whether the Committee, constituted as it was at present, was competent to entertain the questions involved by this Bill. He moved the adjournment of the debate.

§ SIR EDWARD WATKIN
seconded the Amendment. It seemed to him that the only case made out for the Resolution, was this—that, in the case of a particular Bill, the power sought for of working the tramway by steam had been withdrawn; because the promoters, for reasons of their own, had expunged the clauses which would have given them steam powers. For this reason, as he understood it, the House was called upon to pass a general Resolution to compel the Committee to hear any other cases which might come before them, and to prevent the Committee from exercising the discretion fairly given to them by the House. The Resolution was somewhat oddly drawn, and he wished to know from the Chairman of Ways and Means, if there were any precedent for the language he had used in it? The Resolution said— That it be an Instruction to the Committee on Tramways (Use of Mechanical Power) Bills, that they have power to deal with all Tramway Bills of the present Session, whether opposed or unopposed, which have been referred to them, notwithstanding that the Promoters may be desirous to withdraw from any such Bills the 1280 Clauses whereby it was proposed to authorize the use of steam or other mechanical power. He regarded that as an addition of a very general nature, and the terms used were certainly very odd. He took it to mean this—that if the promoters of a tramway intended to use steam power, and if they thought fit to say they preferred horse power, that they were then to come before this Committee in order to see whether they should not be compelled to use steam power. That seemed to him to be a strange manner of dealing with a Private Bill, and delegating a power to somebody which had never been given before. He certainly thought the matter ought to be more carefully considered. He was one of those who believed that steam ought to be substituted for horse power wherever it was possible; but the present was not the way of bringing about such a consummation.

§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Debate be now adjourned."—(Mr. O'Conor.)

§ MR. RAIKES
apologized to the House for not having brought the question more fully before it in the first instance. The hon. Member opposite was, however, labouring under a very erroneous impression. He (Mr. Raikes) had not brought this question forward as a matter of surprise; but he had been in communication with the Chairman of the Committee and other hon. Members who were interested in the subject, and it was not until he had ascertained their views upon the subject, that he had ventured to put the Notice on the Paper. The Motion itself might be open to the criticism which the hon. Member for Hythe (Sir Edward Watkin) had passed upon it with regard to its wording; but, at the same time, he thought its real purport was sufficiently clear. The proposal was that the Committee should be instructed and have power to deal with all—mechanical power—Tramway Bills, opposed or unopposed, that might be referred to them; and it was to guard against the costs which would be incurred in cases where, after an inquiry had been held and the case in support of a measure had been before the Committee by the examination of a number of witnesses, the special clauses of the Bill were withdrawn. It certainly would somewhat resemble a farce to require a case, such as the one before them, to be 1281 gone into again by the parties. The Committee had already heard all, or nearly all, the evidence that it was necessary for them to hear, and were in a position to decide what their judgment ought to be. He put it as a matter of convenience. The House must feel sensible of the great inconvenience to which the promoters and opponents of an Irish Bill would be put if they were required to come to London again to make out their case. It would certainly be regarded as a great hardship to require all the witnesses who had been already examined to be brought forward again and the evidence commenced afresh. He thought the most convenient course would be to acquiesce in the proposal which he had considered it his duty to make. He quite admitted the anomalous position occupied by the Committee over which his hon. Friend the Member for Warwick (Mr. Arthur Peel) had consented to preside. The House must be very much indebted to him and to the Committee for having undertaken a duty which was a very embarrassing one; because they had not only to settle particular Bills, but to discuss and settle a general principle; and, in settling that general principle, the functions conferred upon them were unquestionably all of a very unusual and very large character. He (Mr. Raikes) now proposed that the House should ask the Committee to construe their powers in the most liberal sense, and he had been anxious to secure that object by moving this as a special Instruction to the Committee. Another point had been referred to, and that was with regard to the position of the hon. Member for Dublin (Mr. M. Brooks) who was a Member of the Committee. He was glad to see the hon. Member was now in his place. He must say that the hon. Member was justified in joining the Committee, in the first instance, notwithstanding that the interests of his constituents were affected by this one particular Bill; because the application of mechanical power to tramways was so general an interest, that it was important to have a Member upon the Committee representing Ireland, and representing, also, a large constituency in Ireland. The hon. Member would probably remain upon the Committee; but he (Mr. Raikes) felt quite sure that the hon. Member would do nothing whatever 1282 to prejudice the rights of any of the parties concerned. The name of the hon. Member had been placed upon the Committee by the House, and not by the Committee of Selection; and he hoped the House, after this explanation had been given, would be content to acquiesce in the Motion submitted to them, and which his hon. Friend the Chairman of the Committee had accepted, allowing this Instruction to be given to the Committee, so that they might be enabled to conclude their investigation.

MR. O'CONOR
asked the Chairman of Ways and Means, if it were intended that the Committee were to consider the question of locus standi or not?

§ MR. RAIKES
replied, certainly. The Reference was drawn in such terms as to exempt this particular Committee from being in any way bound by the ordinary rules regarding locus standi, and they were perfectly free to admit the locus standi of parties who would not have been able to appear before an ordinary Private Bill Committee. But it would be for the Committee themselves to consider whether they would hear the parties further, if they were of opinion that their locus standi had ceased to exist in reality.

§ MR. M. BROOKS
said, after the explanation which had been made by the Chairman of Ways and Means, he would remain upon the Committee with the leave of his Colleagues; but he was quite prepared to give an undertaking that he would take no part in the consideration of any local Bill that might affect his constituents. He owned that it was his intention, if the Bill were referred back to the Committee, to retire from that Committee; but, if he believed he could be of any service to the Committee, he was quite ready to adopt the suggestion of the Chairman of Ways and Means, and to remain upon the Committee, abstaining from taking any action where local questions arose.

§ MR. ARTHUR PEEL
hoped that the hon. Member (Mr. O'Conor) would be satisfied with the explanation which had been made, and would not press his Amendment for the adjournment of the discussion.

MR. O'CONOR
said, he had no wish to press his Motion, and would, therefore, with the leave of the House, withdraw it.

§ Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

1283

§ Main Question put, and agreed to. Ordered, That it be an Instruction to the Committee on Tramway (Use of Mechanical Power) Bills, that they have power to deal with all Tramway Bills of the present Session, whether opposed or unopposed, which have been referred to them, notwithstanding that the Promoters may be desirous to withdraw from any such Bills the Clauses whereby it was proposed to authorize the use of steam or other mechanical power:—And that the Dublin Southern District Tramways Bill be re-committed to the said Committee.