§ Order for Second Reading read.
MR. M'LAREN (Stafford), in moving that the Bill be now read a second time, said, its object was to amend one of the sections of the Land Clauses Consolidation Act, which dealt with the mode in which juries and arbitrators assessed damages for land required for public purposes by Corporations and other public authorities under powers of compulsory purchase. The present system on which compensation was assessed in cases of public undertakings was entirely one-sided. The owner of land which was required by the promoters of public improvements generally asked a price in excess of the real value of the land, with the intention, in many cases, of extorting money from the Corporation proposing to purchase. The Act gave the parties power to go to a jury, or to have an arbitrator appointed to assess the value; but instead of the law enabling the promoters and the owner to state their respective cases fairly, all evidence on the part of the promoters to show that the proposed 856 works would increase the value of other adjoining property belonging to the same owner was excluded, while the owner was placed in the position of being able to bring a train of professional witnesses to prove that he would be seriously prejudiced by the execution of the works. On the one-sided argument which thus took place compensation was assessed, and it was in most cases very much above the real value of the land. The Bill would alter this state of things, and would enable both sides of the question to be heard, leaving the jury to decide, as at present. When town improvements were being effected, and the houses on one side of the street were pulled down, and the frontages set back, the value of the houses left on the other side was often enormously increased. The result was that Corporations became land-jobbers. In Manchester the Corporation bought a very large tract of building land on each side of the street, so that the whole of the property, with its improved value, should be theirs. That was not a thing to be encouraged. The debts of Corporations were very largely increased by the system. What he proposed was no novelty. It was the law of the United States, of France, and of other countries. He had taken pains to ascertain what the law on the subject was in various countries, and he found that the procedure was such as this Bill, if passed, would introduce into this country. All the French railways had been made under such a law; and commercial improvements under a law even more stringent against owners. What he proposed was simply a concession to natural equity and to the ordinary principles of justice. The House knew very well that the capital spent on purchases for railways very largely exceeded the value of the property acquired. Railway Companies had paid for the land they required more than £50,000,000 beyond what justice would have exacted. He was very much mistaken if that House would insist any longer on continuing those advantages to landholders, which had cast such heavy burdens on railway property and on those who had to pay railway rates. Having pointed out numerous actual cases of excessive valuations of land acquired recently by new lines near London, and shown that there was a practical grievance in the 857 law as it stood, he hoped the House would consent to the second reading of the Bill, which he now begged to move.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—(Mr. M'Laren.)
§ MR. GREGORY (Sussex, East Grinstead)said, that the Bill would introduce an entirely new method of valuation—namely, that the jury, in estimating the value of the property to be acquired, should take into consideration the contingent advantages which might accrue to the adjacent property from the change proposed. He recollected that when he practised before Parliamentary Committees, the first two days of their sitting; was usually occupied by the promoters of any undertaking of importance in giving evidence of the great benefits which it would confer upon the district. Evidence of traffic managers, surveyors, and officials was never wanting, and all this would be at the command of promoters in any case of valuation; and how was an individual to meet it? It was entirely evidence of opinion, and any individual must be placed under great disadvantage in meeting it. It must be borne in mind that the valuation preceded the completion, if not the commencement, of the undertaking. There was nothing, therefore, by which to test the opinion expressed, and in some cases the undertaking might never be carried out or completed at all. Where it was, a man might have half his field, or warehouse, or factory taken, and be told that he was entitled to no compensation for it in consideration of the contingent advantages to the remaining half. The extravagant expenditure which Railway Companies often incurred was in many cases due to the proposed establishment of competing or "fighting" lines. In; one case he was told by the late Mr. Robert Stephenson that £500,000 had been utterly wasted. Something had been said of the expense incurred in acquiring land for a line to Harrow. He did not think that £300 per acre was at all too large a sum to give for land near London. He had himself sold land near London for £1,000 an acre. He ventured to think the proposed alteration was entirely uncalled for, and that the existing legislation was quite satisfactory in its working. Holding that no case had been made 858 out for the Bill, he begged to move that it be read a second time that day six months.
§ MR. F. S. POWELL (Wigan), who seconded the Amendment, argued that it was not possible to foretell whether a locality would be advantageously or disadvantageously affected by a railway. His observation led him to conclude that the extension of railways benefited large towns to the detriment of smaller ones. The large town was aggrandized, enter-prize being attracted to it, and the smaller suffered a proportionate loss. It was always uncertain whether a complicated line of railway would really be constructed; and, therefore, it was impossible, during the negotiations for the sale of a property, to have regard to the results of an undertaking which might never be completed. He admitted that in the early days of railway management very large sums were paid for land; but those days had gone by, and extravagant prices were no longer exacted. He was in favour of allowing the law to remain unaltered, except with regard to improvements which Local Authorities might wish to make. In cases of that kind the change which the hon. Member opposite desired to introduce might be desirable; but it should apply only to the actual property on which the improvements were to be effected, and not to property in the neighbourhood.
§ Amendment proposed, to leave out the word "now," and at the end of the Question to add the words "upon this day six months."—(Mr. Gregory.)
§ Question proposed, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."
THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. J. B. BALFOUR)&c.) (Clackmannan,said, he supposed that in all parts of the House they should be agreed that when any man's property was taken for a public or mercantile purpose he ought to be fairly and consequently fully compensated. The true question, therefore, to be answered in all such cases was, what was fair, and including in that idea full compensation? That, he took it, was the primary criterion of the justice of any principle or standard of valuation. He ventured to submit that the present system which prevailed under the Lands Clauses Act of England, and the corresponding Act of Scotland, did not conform to that standard, in the particular that his hon. Friend (Mr. M'Laren) had 859 pointed out, and that his Bill did correct a blot which must have struck everyone who had had large experience in the valuation of lands taken for public purposes as requiring amendment. The hon. Members who opposed the Bill spoke of the introduction into the measure of speculative and prospective elements not susceptible of precise ascertainment. That was the main burden of the adverse argument. One would suppose from that that in what he would call the original or primary claim which was made by the landowner there was no ingredient of that kind. But was that so? He hoped to be able to show that there was no more speculation in what his hon. Friend proposed to make the set-off than there was in the original claim against which a setoff was to be made. His hon. Friend simply said—"I first allow to the owner of the property the full value of his property as it stands, without considering how it will be affected by the undertaking." That might be called the debtor side of the account on the part of the undertaking and the creditor side on the part of the person whose land was taken. "But then," said his hon. Friend, "let us see whether this man is made better or worse. If he is not made worse, but is made better, then he has nothing to be compensated for, and any advantages he may get from the undertaking which improves his position ought to enter into the account and be deducted, and then the balance will remain." He (the Lord Advocate) put it to the House whether on the first blush of it that was not absolutely and entirely just. When he first found the practice to be that they were to look to one side of the account only and shut their eyes to the other, he was much surprised; but he thought this would be a very proper occasion for amending it. When a man asked that his land should be valued with a view to compensation, did he limit his claim and his evidence of the value of the land in its present condition and in its present occupation? If the land was now agricultural land, did he assume it was always to be agricultural land? Certainly that was not his experience. One of the most important elements of evidence given with regard to land was its prospects and its chances; and it was said, with perfect justice, that if they took a man's land from him for a public purpose, 860 they were not entitled to limit him to the value of the land at the present moment if that land had prospects and chances. If any man should say his land was building land, or was available for any other purpose for which he was likely to get a higher price, he got credit for that in the original valuation. That showed that into the original valuation all these elements of estimation and calculation of prospects and contingencies and chances entered. If it was just that they should enter into the original claim, why was it not just that they should enter into the counter-claim, or set-off? His hon. Friend proposed to make this possible. The effect of the present law was that a man might both get the full value of his land, with all its prospects, on the assumption that he was not to have an advantage from the undertaking, and he might at the same time get advantages from the undertaking which might be equal, or possibly more than what he suffered if his land was taken away. The result of that was that he might be compensated twice over. He might be compensated for the price of his land which was fixed on a liberal scale, and he might be compensated a second time by the advantages which the Railway Company might bring to him by turning the land into a very lucrative purpose. It treated him, in other words, as an injured man when he was really a benefited man. His hon. Friend only proposed to leave it to the judgment of arbitrators or juries to take the two sides of the account into estimation, and to strike the balance favourably for the person whose land was invaded, and to see that on the whole he did not suffer wrong, but was rather the better. His hon. Friend did not bind them to give more effect than they thought just to those considerations, but only asked that they should not be shut out from their view; and as the Bill proposed a remedy for an evil which, in practical experience, was often felt in those matters, he thought the measure should at all events have a second reading, whatever amendment it might be thought necessary to make in Committee.
§ MR. BEADEL (Essex, Chelmsford)said, that having had considerable experience on that question, he could give numerous instances where land had been taken by a Railway Company at the verge of the owner's estate, and where 861 the adjoining owners had benefited to as great an extent by the railway as the man whose property had been actually taken. If it was desired to multiply expenses and to inflict injuries on people, he thought it could best be done by carrying the second reading of that Bill. If they were, on the one hand, to go through the process of fighting what the compensation was to be, and, on the other hand, to fight the creditor side of the account, and disprove that the property would be increased in value as much as the Railway Company asserted, they would duplicate every compensation case that was tried after that Bill passed. The practice followed in France and America had been referred to in support of the Bill; but he thought the English system was a far better one. The Lands Clauses Act had worked well for a considerable number of years. With regard to the compensation that had been given for land at Harrow, he could say that the land had been bought for a very reasonable price, having regard to its situation. It would be most unjust to compel a landowner in these days, when heavy compensation for the compulsory purchase of land was not given, to face the expense of a double inquiry. He therefore strongly supported the Amendment.
§ MR. LAWSON (St. Pancras, W.)supported the Bill, which he regarded as only providing a very small instalment of legislation in the right direction. It was most unjust that the public should be robbed at every turn simply to give a bribe and a sop to the landed interest, to allow the material resources of the country to be developed.
§ MR. MAURICE HEALY (Cork)pointed out that in Ireland, when a new road was made, its cost was apportioned according to the benefit which the occupiers of the adjoining property derived from it. He hoped that the provisions of this measure would be extended to Ireland.
§ MR. CROMPTON (Staffordshire, Leek), in supporting the Bill, said, the real question was, did the landowners get more than a fair share of compensation for their land, which was compulsorily taken from them? He ventured to say they did. The hon. Gentleman who had just spoken (Mr. Beadel) had referred to the honourable and generous conduct of certain gentlemen having land through which a railway ran, some 862 little distance from London. That only showed that those gentlemen were satisfied with obtaining a fair price for their land, instead of the unfair and much larger amount which they might have obtained as compensation. It was very well known that when extensions of railway were proposed to be made, secret purchases of land were carried out on behalf of the Railway Companies. He was informed that on the extension of the Midland Railway Company, from Carlisle to Settle, a large amount of the land that would be required for it was bought up by apparently private individuals for the Railway Company, but who were not at the time known to be purchasing on behalf of the Company. That was done, of course, before the Bill for the proposed extension was brought in, and the result was the land was obtained at a fair price. If the owners had known that the Bill was to be introduced, things might have been very different. It seemed to him quite preposterous that a landowner should be entitled to go to a railway and claim compensation for a tract of land that might be injured by a proposed new line, and yet should not pay anything on account of other parts of his property, which would be benefited by it. He would just give one instance, which he thought showed how the Act worked. With regard to the land on the banks of the Thames. It was well known that owners of land, who had property adjoining the Thames in London, had their land very much improved in value in consequence of the construction of the Thames Enbankment. He would take the case of the Duke of Buccleuch. ["Oh!"] The Duke had got a Crown lease of his property near the Thames, and there was a small pier running down from it to the river. In respect of that property he claimed, and got, several thousands of pounds for compensation, because the Embankment would prevent him from making use of this small pier, and from having direct communication to the river. It seemed to him (Mr. Crompton) that the Embankment improved the Duke's property instead of injuring it, and so far from receiving compensation he should have contributed towards that expense. He should support most heartily the second reading of the Bill of his hon. Friend.
§ MR. TOMLINSON (Preston)said, that under the provisions of this Bill a 863 man's property might, in some cases, be taken from him without anything being paid to him for it. He objected to such a proposition as amounting to confiscation. They all knew that the confiscation of landed property was dear to many hon. Gentlemen opposite. Some hon. Members, perhaps, thought they could stop short at real property; but they were mistaken, for personal property would not escape. The principle of maintaining the security of property lay at the root of the prosperity of the nation. If it were imposed, capital which ought to be used for developing the resources of this country would go away to other parts of the world.
§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Sir WILLIAM HARCOURT) (Derby)said, that if he had not been already convinced that this was a useful measure, he should have been satisfied that it was a measure of that character after hearing the speech just delivered by the hon. Member opposite. Sydney Smith reduced to a common form the Tory creed of his day; and although the phrases had altered since then, that common form still existed. Whenever a proposal was made to remove a substantial injustice we were always told it was confiscation. The notion of confiscation entertained by hon. Members opposite was that a man who was greatly benefited by a public undertaking should not be able to charge the public as if he had been greatly injured. That was their idea of confiscation. He would take from the hon. Member for Essex (Mr. Beadel) another illustration of the doctrine held on the other side of the House. The hon. Gentleman said that if a counter-claim were allowed to be set up the proceedings would be prolonged and made more expensive. This was, no doubt, true with regard to every law suit. If it were agreed to hear only one side the proceedings would, of course, be shorter and less expensive. Then it was said—"You are taking future and contingent advantages as against present loss." But did they not include future and contingent advantages in their claim? ["No, no!"] He thought he was right in supposing that hon. Members who denied that proposition had had no experience in compensation cases. The commonest case in the world was to take a piece of land, let it at £1 an acre, and claim for it as a prospective 864 building land, and immense sums of compensation were paid on that principle. Supposing land-owners at Swindon and Crewe received large compensation for the "injury" that would be done to their land by the construction of the Great Western and North-Western Railways. Everybody knew that since the lines had been made the landlords had been benefited to the extent of thousands and tens of thousands of pounds. The hon. Member said that the railway might never be made. This was quite true; but, on the other hand, the land might never become building land. He ventured to say that no one of experience would deny that the most exorbitant and extortionate sums had been paid to landlords to the great injury of the public in these cases. He could only compare the attitude of the owners towards the Railway Companies to that of those Chieftains who once occupied the picturesque castles on the Rhine and who used to descend upon the peaceful traders and take toll of them as they carried on the traffic. That was the history of the extortion which was practised in former years. The hon. Member opposite challenged the case of the Duke of Buccleuch. He happened to be counsel for the Board of Works in the case of the Thames Embankment. The Duke said nothing would induce him to live at Montagu House if the Embankment was made. To this a reply was made that the making of the Embankment would remove the bargees from their then proximity to the garden wall; but Mr. Hope Scott, the Duke's counsel, said he did not mind that; they had got quite used to the bargees' conversation. The Duke also claimed compensation for "a hard" by which provisions and other articles were brought to the residence, and thus it came to pass that they used to speak of the "hard" case of the Duke of Buccleuch. Well, they had many hard cases. This was, after all, a very large question. The lawyers next to the landlords had taken a large toll of these Companies; and he should be extremely glad, as he had left that branch of the Profession, to see some measures taken by which the cost could be reduced of taking these Bills before Committees of the House. He hoped that this would be one of the reforms in their Procedure. No one could deny that the most extravagant charges had been placed on per- 865 sons advancing works for the public advantage. If there were any points in this Bill, although he did not see them, which required correction, they could be corrected; and he thought it a most fair proposal that they should say to a man—"You suffer some disadvantages, but you also gain something, therefore both must be taken into consideration." He cordially supported the Bill.
§ LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL (Paddington, S.)said, there were two quarters against which the House should be on its guard; the one would be the quarter, to some extent, represented by the hon. Member for St. Pancras (Mr. Lawson)—namely, the capitalist in the character of the denouncer of landlords; and the other was the character which had just been represented by the right hon. Gentleman, the lawyer advocating philanthropy. The right hon. Gentleman advocated this Bill partly in the interest of the public, and partly in the interest of Railway Companies. That Gentleman had great sympathy with the Railway Companies of England for the great compensation they had had to pay to landlords at the beginning of their undertakings. This was all the more strange, as he was also one of the Government which had introduced into the House a Bill which Railway Companies denounced as the most extraordinary modern instance of public plunder for which any Government was responsible.
§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERThey do not oppose it.
§ LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILLsaid, the right hon. Gentleman could not have looked at the Paper, where there was a Notice by the hon. Member for Hythe (Sir Edward Watkin). The argument seemed to be that, the Railway Companies having been plundered in the past by the landlords, they were now to be plundered by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. That was the remedy. But, apart from this little personal interlude as to the position occupied by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, he would like to ask the Liberal Party, who seemed inclined to support the Bill, what was their real policy with regard to the land of this country? He understood that their great ideal—an ideal in which many Conservative Members shared—was to multiply the owners of land. Did they suppose they would multiply the number of the owners of 866 land by diminishing the attractions of landed property, and by increasing the perils of that property? There was very little in the Bill which would injure the great landlord; but there was a great deal which might injure the little landlord. The great landlords could perfectly well hold their own, and could follow the Railway Companies into all the Law Courts. The people who were beaten by the Railway Companies were the little landowners, who could not bring evidence into the Courts, and could not obtain the illustrious legal aid of such counsel as the Chancellor of the Exchequer. If the House was anxious to increase the number of landowners it would make the possession of land as safe as possible; and he ventured to think that the Lands Clauses Consolidation Act was drawn up by some of the ablest men this country had ever known. He could truly say himself that he regarded the Lands Clauses Act with peculiar favour; because if it had not been for that Act the hon. Member for Hythe, in his capacity as Chairman of the Metropolitan Railway Company, would have done him out of something like £7,000, as he could not have afforded to follow him into the Law Courts. He would ask the House not to be led away by the abstract arguments of the hon. Member for St. Pancras and the hon. Member for Stafford, who on this occasion appeared to represent the Railway Companies, to hastily tamper with the Lands Clauses Consolidation Act. In doing so they would be dealing a vital blow at the possession of landed property; they would not only be preventing large capitalists from investing capital in land, and small capitalists from desiring to become landowners, but also would be hindering that which the Liberal Party professed to have so much at heart—namely, the multiplication of the number of the owners of land.
§ MR. HENEAGE (Great Grimsby)said, he agreed with the right hon. and learned Lord Advocate that at the first blush the Bill looked very nice; but it was entirely one-sided, and calculated to prevent the landowner from getting that which he would be entitled to for the fair value of his property. That would act most unfairly in the case of small freeholders, some of whom would lose their present income, whilst others would equally benefit, but pay nothing 867 to the improvement. He would venture to suggest that even if it was carried with the support of Her Majesty's Government, without, as he thought, sufficient consideration being given to it, at any rate a clause might be inserted with the object of withholding any deduction until the improvements were made which gave the prospective value. He thought the case put forward by the noble Lord (Lord Randolph Churchill) was very strong. He believed the effect of the Bill would be to lead to a lot of jobbery, and that the lawyers of the future would profit by this Bill, if passed, as much as the lawyers of the past had profited by the Lands Clauses Act. If the Bill were read a second time it would have to be looked into very carefully in Committee. This, however, was a large question, and if it was to be dealt with at all it should not be dealt with by a private Member in the interests of the Railway Companies, but by the Government of the day. He should, therefore, vote against the second reading, because he did not think that in its present shape it ought to pass.
§ LORD JOHN MANNERS (Leicestershire, E.)said, he concurred with the right hon. Gentleman in considering this a large and important question; and for that reason he all the more regretted the readiness with which the Government, in an apparently hasty way, had decided to support it. With reference to the case of the Duke of Buccleuch, to which the right hon. Gentleman opposite had called attention, he might explain that some years before the Thames Embankment was sanctioned by Parliament the Duke undertook to spend a large amount of money in building on the site now occupied by Montagu House, upon the condition that the Government should resist any proposal to carry a road between it and the Thames. But after the house was built the Thames Embankment was sanctioned and made, and in consequence of the raising of the banks the levels of the house became wrong, and therefore the Duke's case for compensation was a very strong one. He did not think the right hon. Gentleman ought to have omitted all reference to the real case of the Duke of Buccleuch on that occasion.
§ MR. KIMBER (Wandsworth)said, that the proprietor whose land was improved 868 by Railway Companies was not the man, generally speaking, through whose land the railway passed, but rather the man whose property adjoining the railway was not touched. Moreover, there were other damages which an owner might sustain of an indirect kind, for which he cannot obtain relief except by the expensive process of petitioning the House against a Bill, which he might not be able to afford, such as damage by vibration, or injury to drainage, or access to property not included in the plans deposited. He was himself, at the present time, a victim to a case of this sort, in which he had been compelled, at great expense, to petition Parliament. Again, a Railway Company might do a great injustice under this Bill, for in the preparation of their plans they might fix their limits of deviation as to include some small corner of an estate in order to bring into operation the functions of this Bill. He knew the provisions of the Bill were copied from Colonial Railway Bills; but there was no analogy between the two cases, because a railway running through a wilderness or bush would obviously give an enormous increase of value to the property.
§ Question put.
§ The House divided:—Ayes 203; Noes 103: Majority 100.—(Div. List, No. 99.)
§ Main Question put, and agreed to.
§ Bill read a second time, and committed for Tuesday next.