SELECT COMMITTEE. (Hansard, 15 May 1888)

§ MR. T. M. HEALY (Longford, N.),
in rising to move that the Bill be referred to a Select Committee, said, that he had placed upon the Committee the name of the Chairman of Ways and Means, which he found to be unnecessary, seeing that the Chairman of Ways and Means would be an ex officio Member of the Committee. He proposed to move that the Committee should consist of seven Members, and he would suggest that five should be nominated by the House, and the remaining two by the Committee of Selection. It would be observed that, in choosing the names of Members to sit on the Committee, he had not attempted to make a Party question of the matter. Only two hon. Members out of the seven whose names he had placed upon the Paper were Gentlemen who, in any sense, could be supposed to be hostile to the Bill—the hon. Member for West Cavan (Mr. Biggar) and the hon. Member for East Donegal (Mr. Arthur O'Connor)—and they were not really hostile, because the hon. Member for East Donegal was prepared to support the Bill, provided certain guarantees were given; and the only kind of opposition which had been offered to it by the hon. Member for West Cavan was directed to words securing proper safeguards as to leaseholders and the lending of money to the Canal Company. It seemed to him to be of very great importance that the Bill should be referred to a Select Committee, although, of course, he did not know what view the Government had taken in the matter. It would be remembered that in the year 1886 a Bill was laid before the House dealing with the same question, which did actually go before a Select Committee, and very important changes were made in the measure. That Committee examined witnesses, and, among others, examined Dr. Madden in regard to certain questions which affected the county of Fermanagh. Very important evidence was given before the Committee, which produced a great effect, and led to the alteration of the provisions of the Bill. At the present moment what he desired the Committee should do, as 292 far as he was concerned, was this—that they should have an opportunity of pressing on the minds of the Government the necessity of providing proper guarantees in any arrangement which was made between the country, as represented by the Treasury, and the persons to whom the canal was to be handed over, and to secure before the property was handed over that those guarantees were adequate to entitle the Government to get rid of the property. The property itself was valued, when it was made, at at least £200,000, with the land adjacent, and it was now proposed to hand over Crown property to the extent of nearly £250,000 to a number of individuals of whom the House knew absolutely nothing. Surely such a proposal was so important that before it was assented to, its ultimate effects should be fully considered. The proposal was to hand over this property to a certain number of individuals who might be very good men, but who were necessarily a fluctuating body, and who might sell this particular asset, and set off the money obtained for it against their bad debts. The House knew absolutely nothing of the transaction; and because their friends were really in a state of darkness upon the matter, he asked for information to be obtained by a Select Committee. He took it that a Select Committee would examine the Committee of the Lagan Navigation Company, to whom it was proposed to hand over the Canal, and see who they were. He was told that they were wealthy gentleman, but, personally, he did not know whether that was the fact or not. They might be paupers for anything he knew—a corporation of paupers—and, therefore, he maintained that all these matters should be subjected to the scrutiny of a Select Committee. Above all, it was desirable that this Lagan Corporation should never have the power of selling this estate, which they would obtain from the State for nothing. It would be most iniquitous if, in regard to property which they obtained for nothing, they should over be permitted to sell it as an asset. If the Lagan Navigation ever got the Canal into their hands, and desired to part with the land on each side of it, it should be handed over to labourers in a district, if a fair case could be made out for creating a body of small yeomen in Ire- 293 land. Certainly, if ever the land was parted with, it should go to the labouring classes. It was now held by the Crown, and he was of opinion that they had no right to part with it for the private advantage of a few individuals. He, therefore, respectfully submitted that it was only right and fair to appoint a Select Committee to ascertain what the value of the Canal was which that House, out of its bounty, proposed to confer upon the Lagan Navigation Company as a free gift; who the parties were who had the right to claim it as a free gift; and what they intended to do with it when it was handed over to them. Under these circumstances, he ventured to suggest that the Bill should be referred to a Select Committee, partly nominated by the House and partly by the Committee of Selection. He was only anxious to protect the public interest, and at the present moment he would confine himself to moving that the Bill be referred to a Select Committee.

MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER
said, the Bill was referred in the ordinary way to a Committee yesterday. The question, therefore, would be that the Order to refer the Bill to a Committee be discharged, and that the Bill be referred to a Select Committee.

§ COLONEL WARING (Down, N.)
said, he hoped the House would not consent to shelve this Bill, as would practically be the case if the Motion of the hon. and learned Member were agreed to. The hon. and learned Member had clearly shown by his own statement that all he wished to do could easily be accomplished when the Report of the Committee came back before the whole House. He had already called attention to the fact that the Bill went before a Select Committee in 1886.

§ MR. T. M. HEALY
Not this Bill, but a Public Bill.

§ COLONEL WARING
said, it was a Bill that was practically the same as the present measure, having identically the same objects in view, the only difference being that it was introduced as a Public instead of a Private Bill. That Committee presented a Report, and the re- 294 commendations contained in that Report were available to any hon. Member if he chose to enlighten himself on the subject, before assenting to the unusual course proposed by the hon. and learned Gentleman. He thought the Financial Secretary to the Treasury made it very clear the other day how the matter stood. The hon. Gentleman was quite aware of the dangers which had been pointed out by the hon. and learned Member opposite, and intimated that the Government intended to take precautions against the acquisition of this property by the Great Northern Railway Company, or against the Lagan Navigation Company being able to use it as their own private property. It appeared to him that the course taken by the Financial Secretary practically settled the whole question, and that it was not necessary to send the Bill to a Committee upstairs, from which it would never emerge.

§ MR. T. W. RUSSELL (Tyrone, S.)
said, he hoped the House would not consent to the proposal of the hon. and learned Member for North Longford (Mr. T. M. Healy). The measure would save the taxpayers of the country £1,200 a-year, which they were now paying, and it proposed to confer a great boon upon the mercantile community of the North of Ireland. The Company who were to take over the Undertaking were quite willing to meet fairly all the objections which had been raised. They were quite prepared to meet the case of the leases in East Tyrone, and to prevent the ultimate sale of the Canal to the Great Northern Railway Company. They were willing to insert clauses in the Bill upon those two points. That would be satisfactory to the House. As to the question of the Government lending money to the Company on their security, he thought that was a matter for the Government, and not for hon. Members below the Gangway. The House need not fear that the Financial Secretary to the Treasury would not be able to take care of the Government in that matter. Therefore, he hoped that the House would not consent to take an unusual course with regard to the Bill, but that it should be allowed to go through the usual course appointed for Private Bills. It was an Unopposed Bill, and ought to take the ordinary course.

§ SIR WILLIAM EWART (Belfast, N.)
said, he had also to express a hope that 295 the House would not consent to the Motion. On behalf of the mercantile community of the North of Ireland, he strongly deprecated any further delay in regard to the passing of the Bill, which had now been before the House consecutively for several years. The opposition to which the measure had been subjected had deprived the North of Ireland of the great advantages which were expected to accrue from the passing of the Bill. The hon. and learned Member for North Longford (Mr. T. M. Healy) had mentioned several points, which he thought should be inquired into by a Select Committee; but it might be pointed out that if the Bill went before the Chairman of Ways and Means in the ordinary way, ample care would be taken to insert provisions in the Bill to guard the interests of the State and of the general public. He trusted that those who agreed with him in the propriety of pressing the Bill forward would lend every assistance in their power in resisting the Motion, and so far as the Treasury was concerned, he maintained that it was quite fit to take care of itself. The Motion would involve delay, and he could not shut his eyes to the fact that there was very great danger in delay. He, therefore, trusted that the House would not consent to refer the Bill to a Select Committee.

§ MR. MURPHY (Dublin, St. Patrick's)
supported the proposal of his hon. and learned Friend the Member for North Longford, to send the Bill to a Select Committee. It was quite clear that at that period of the Session, if it were referred to a Select Committee and came down to the House again after Whitsuntide, they would be in a position to pass it without further delay. The hon. Member for South Tyrone (Mr. T. W. Russell) had given insufficient grounds for opposing the Motion, and it was obvious that the measure contained many points which a Select Committee could alone deal with fitly. For instance, it had already been pointed out that there was no guarantee contained in the measure that the Company to whom the property was to be handed over would be prevented from selling it afterwards to the Great Northern Railway Company. He saw no force in the objections of the hon. Members for South Tyrone, North Down (Colonel Waring), North Armagh (Colonel 296 Saunderson), and other Members from the North of Ireland, for, if the Bill went before a Select Committee, they would really have the question in their own hands, as a majority of the Select Committee proposed by the hon. Member for North Longford was composed of the Friends of those hon. Gentlemen.

§ SIR JOHN MOWBRAY (Oxford University)
said, he gathered from the conversation which had taken place that it was considered desirable to discuss certain details of the Bill with a view of introducing changes, and it was suggested that the only way of doing that was to refer the Bill to a Select Committee. The real question was whether the Bill, being an Unopposed Bill, it was to go before the ordinary tribunal, or to be sent to a Select Committee. He thought the House would do wisely to accede to the proposal of the hon. and learned Member for North Longford (Mr. T. M. Healey), and he would suggest that the Bill should be referred to a Select Committee of seven Members, four to be appointed by the House, and three by the Committee of Selection.

§ MR. T. M. HEALY
said, he was quite ready to accept the suggestion of the right hon. Baronet, and he was also prepared to allow the Committee to be nominated by the Committee of Selection.

§ COLONEL SAUNDERSON (Armagh, N.)
said, he sincerely trusted that the Government would not consent to the proposal of the hon. and learned Member opposite. It was most unaccountable why the hon. and learned Gentleman should so bitterly oppose this Bill. He represented a constituency through which the Canal passed, and he must be aware that all sections of the community were unanimously in favour of the measure. The only objection which had been urged against it came from the hon. Member for West Cavan (Mr. Biggar), who, for some reason or other, had got at the cog wheels of the Bill and interfered with its progress. The objections of the hon. Member for West Cavan were that no further money should be advanced for the purposes of the Canal, and precautions should be taken to prevent the possibility of the property being sold to a Railway Company. The Government had already expressed their intention of so altering the provisions of the Bill that that would 297 be rendered impossible. The Bill was one of very happy augury. It was the only Bill upon which Irishmen of all Parties agreed. It was absolutely non-contentious, and it was much desired by all persons in the part in which he lived and in the districts through which the Canal passed. He, therefore, trusted that the House would pass the Bill without further delay. The right hon. Gentleman who had just spoken said that there had been no discussion upon the details of the Bill, but the Bill itself had been gone into over and over again on the Floor of that House. [Mr. T. M. HEALY: Never.] If not this Bill, at any rate a similar measure, and never was a Bill brought in which had received more general acceptance than this proposal. He, therefore, hoped that hon. Members opposite would withdraw their opposition, as he had said the only reason why the Bill had not been passed long ago was from some cause or other with which he was not acquainted. The hon. Member for East Cavan had interfered with the cog wheels of the Bill, and they had stuck ever since.

MR. O'HANLAN (Cavan, E.)
rose to Order. Was the hon. and gallant Gentleman entitled to say that the Member for East Cavan had opposed the Bill? He (Mr. O'Hanlon) was Member for East Cavan, and never did anything of the kind.

MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER
said, the Question did not involve a point of Order.

§ COLONEL SAUNDERSON
said, that it would appear in the Division which was taken yesterday, several Members of the Party below the Gangway on the other side of the House were in favour of the Bill.

§ THE SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. JACKSON) (Leeds, N.)
said, that in consequence of what took place yesterday, he had made some inquiry, and he found that there was no objection on the part of the promoters to insert that clause in the Bill to meet the objections which had been taken by the hon. and learned Member for North Longford, and to make it certain that the Great Northern Railway Company, to whom the hon. and learned Gentleman referred, should be prevented from ever acquiring the Canal, it would be necessary to insert in the Bill a clause to that effect, and it could be added in Committee. 298 As he had said yesterday, he believed that could be done in one of two ways—either in the agreement, which Would have to be drawn up between the Lagan Navigation Company and the Commissioners of Works, or by the insertion of a clause in the Bill. His own impression was that it would be better to insert a clause in the Bill, and if that course were taken, it would be necessary either to insert it in the Committee to which the Bill was referred, or when the Bill itself came back to the House. He did not think there was much difference as to which course was adopted, and, therefore, he had come to the conclusion, after the advice which had been given by the Chairman of the Committee of Selection, that the best course would be to refer the Bill to a Select Committee, and allow the names of the Committee to be nominated by the right hon. Gentleman the Chairman of the Committee of Selection. He advised his hon. Friend who was in charge of the Bill to accept the Motion. He wished to take that opportunity of pointing out that several Members had spoken of the possibility of handing over property to the extent of £250,000 to the Lagan Navigation Company, and of that Company being in a position to dispose of it to somebody else. The hon. and learned Member for North Longford could not have read the provisions of the Bill, or he would not have made that statement. Any such proposal must receive the sanction of the Board of Works in writing before it could be carried out.

§ MR. T. M. HEALY
remarked that it might receive the sanction of that Board.

§ MR. JACKSON
said, it must also receive the sanction of the Treasury, and, therefore, there was every safeguard that the property would not be disposed of without due consideration. He had said that the precautions which were necessary could be provided for in the agreement between the Government and the Lagan Navigation Company; but it could also be done by the insertion of a clause in Committee. He, therefore, supported the Motion to refer the Bill to a Select Committee with the view of having a new clause inserted.

§ MR. MACARTNEY (Antrim, S.)
said, that the Bill was a most important one for the community of Belfast, and the whole of the North of Ireland. He, 299 therefore, hoped, if the House consented to refer it to a Select Committee, that the Committee would be nominated and sit at the earliest moment possible, so that the consideration of the Bill might be proceeded with at once.

§ SIR CHARLES LEWIS (Antrim, N.)
said, that as the ordinary course was not to be taken in regard to the Bill, he thought it would be much better to dispose of the question to-day, and accept the Committee as proposed to be nominated by the hon. and learned Member opposite, instead of referring it to the Committee of Selection to nominate the Members. If it were in Order, he was certainly of opinion that it would be far better to settle the matter at once.

§ MR. JORDAN (Clare, W.)
said, that as a Committee was to be granted, he hoped there would be no delay in making progress with the Bill; but that every step would be taken to expedite its progress. He trusted that the Secretary to the Treasury, in framing Amendments, would have an eye to the best means of securing the running of the Canal. It would be most disastrous if, when the property had passed from the Government to the Lagan Company, it were found that, in the course of a few months or years, the traffic on the Canal was altogether abandoned. The House had been told that the land on the banks of the Canal might sell for £5,000, and unless proper precautions were taken, the Company to whom the Canal might be handed over might sell that.

§ MR. JACKSON
Not without the consent of the Government.

§ MR. JORDAN
said, it was very easy sometimes to get the consent even of high officials. He understood the Financial Secretary to state distinctly that the Lagan Company would not be allowed to sell or lease the Canal to the Great Northern Railway Company or to any other Railway Company. It was most desirable that a provision to that effect should be inserted in the Bill, and, above all, that a further provision should be inserted to provide that if the Company at any time chose to give up the property, it should revert again to the Crown in the position in which it stood at present. If these conditions were observed, he should have great pleasure in supporting the Motion for the reference of the Bill to a Select Committee, 300 and he hoped the proceedings of the Committee would be expedited and not delayed, so that the Bill might pass during the present Session.

§ MR. CHILDERS (Edinburgh, S.)
said, he must express the hope that the House would now adopt the suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Oxford University (Sir John Mowbray), and refer the Bill to a Select committee. It was quite clear from what had already passed that this would cause no unnecessary delay—on the contrary, the provisions of the Bill would be carefully considered, and it was highly probable that the settlement of the question would be expedited by reference to a Committee.

MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER
Does the hon. and learned Member for North Longford propose to move the names now?

§ MR. T. M. HEALY
No; to-morrow. He trusted that as the Government had adopted his suggestion, and as the general sense of the House was favourable to it, they would themselves nominate the Committee. He would, therefore, simply move the remainder of the Resolution.

§ MR. T. W. RUSSELL
asked, when the names of the Committee would be moved?

§ MR. T. M. HEALY
said, he should to ready to do so to-morrow; but he thought it would be better after what had passed, for the Government Whips to undertake the duty. He had very little knowledge of these matters him-self, as might be seen from the fact that he had put down the Chairman of Ways and Means, who would naturally be an ex officio Member of the Committee. He thought it would be better either for the Government or the Chairman of the 301 committee of Selection to have the nomination of the Committee.

§ MR. T. W. RUSSELL
asked, whether the Government would accept the proposal of the hon. and learned Member to nominate the Committee tomorrow?

§ SIR JOHN MOWBRAY
said, he thought it was desirable that the Committee should be nominated, in order that the Committee of Selection, when it met on Thursday, might be in a position to add three more Members.

§ MR. JACKSON
said, he imagined there would be no difficulty in agreeing upon four names, and he would put them on the Paper to-morrow.