HC Deb 01 June 1896 vol 41 cc223-36

As amended (by the Standing Committee) considered:—

MR. JAMES LOWTHER (Kent, Thanet)

said that it would save time if they had some idea given them of the Bill as it now stood as compared with what it was when it was read a Second time. Into the details of the alterations made he did not care to go, but Members generally had a very meagre means of becoming acquainted with what took place in those recesses of the House—[laughter]—to which this Bill had been referred. This Bill had been relegated to one of the purlieus of the House—[laughter]—and he thought the Minister in charge of the Bill should inform them of the changes made in it. They should have some evidence that the Bill now before them was the same Bill which obtained the sanction of the House on the Second Reading. As to the subject generally, he thought there was a great deal of misconception. It was said that these light railways would confer an enormous boon on agriculture, but he could only say from his experience of the views of agricultural bodies that there was a very strong inclination not to accept any Measure which increased agricultural burdens. It was a sine qua non that no addition should be made on any pretence to the rates. Again there were those who thought that the time was hardly well chosen for dealing with this question. The whole matter, it was urged, was being revolutionised at the present moment. He was not speaking on behalf of what was called motor power. Pending their decision that they were proceeding in a right groove, they ought at any rate, to protect the public funds from being engaged in enterprises of this kind. The railway system of the country had hitherto been developed at the cost of private enterprise, and before they agreed to rates being placed at the disposal of those who desired to engage in railway speculation, they ought to be told whether the plan met with the approval of the responsible Government of the day. If the Government intended to keep the Measure in safe and narrow limits no great harm would be done, because he believed the ratepayers' representatives would, as a rule, take good care their money was not spent recklessly in light railway enterprises. As to the question of gauge, there were many persons who thought that the extension of our existing railway system, in certain districts, at any rate, upon the same gauge as the present lines would be a very useful addition to our system of locomotion, but that the moment there was an alteration in the gauge, nine out of ten of the advantages which were supposed to result from the introduction of light railways would be destroyed. He did not, ask the President of the Board of Trade to commit himself in the abstract to the principle that under no conceivable circumstances should a railway up a mountain side be allowed to vary in gauge from the regulation; but if there were to be little paltry tramways constructed all over the country, so far from developing the system of locomotion, a retrograde step would be taken which it would take years to overcome. In conclusion, he expressed the hope that this Government would at the outset show they were desirous of safeguarding the interests of the public, and that above all things they would lend a ready ear to those who discountenanced, as he most distinctly did, the tendency of the Bill to place private property at the disposal of speculators or ambitious local authorities without the safeguard of Parliamentary control. It was true that property could only be taken after inquiry by a Board of Trade official, but he reminded the House that, after all, such an official was a nominee of the Crown.

THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Mr. C.T.RITCHIE,) Croydon

was very much afraid his right hon. Friend and he were at issue on one of the most fundamental principles of the Bill, and he accordingly expected that any explanations he might give were not likely to remove the objections the right hon. Gentleman entertained to the Measure. The provision as to the setting up of a tribunal regarding the acquisition of land other than the Parliamentary tribunal which now existed had been cordially assented to by the House. It was either a good thing or a bad thing that light railways should be constructed. If it was a good thing, as he thought it was, it was evident light railways could not be promoted at such a low cost as would enable them to convey goods at a cheap rate if the present Parliamentary procedure were to be adhered to. As to the official of the Board of Trade being a nominee of the Crown, ho reminded the right hon. Gentleman that the President of the Board of Trade was responsible to Parliament for everything that took place in his Department. He further reminded his right hon. Friend that by the Bill they set up a body of Commissioners who would be representative more of public opinion than of officialism. Any scheme, he thought, which passed investigation at the hands of those Commissioners of the Board of Trade would be one which would meet with the approval of the Parliamentary tribunal if that were called in. In respect to gauge, every scheme woud be treated on its own merits where possible. It was well the gauge should be the same as the present railways in order to avoid the expense of transhipment; but the right hon. Gentleman would admit there were conditions to which that would not apply; if they were to insist upon the ordinary gauge in mountainous districts, it would mean that there would be no light railways constructed there at all. Again, he assured his right hon. Friend that the Central Chamber of Agriculture had passed a resolution in favour of the Bill, and that the Board of Trade had received copies of resolutions passed by a very large number—40 or 50—of local bodies in agricultural districts in which the desirability of rates being available, under circumstances, was recognised. His right hon. Friend spoke of the rates being used for railway speculation, but in the next sentence he really answered himself, for he there said the ratepayers' representatives would take good care their money was not recklessly squandered. [Mr. J. LOWTHER: "In most cases."] He did not think they could do much more than provide for the majority. Then his right hon. Friend desired to know what the Government intended to do with regard to the Amendment on which he was in a minority in the Standing Committee, and asked the Government to stick to their Bill. That was exactly what they were going to do. When he was in a minority he was rather in favour of some Amendment of the Bill, and the majority approved of the provision then under discussion. There were two classes of railway which, it was anticipated, would be made under this Bill—namely, branches of main lines and steam tramways. He did not think any material alteration had been made in the Bill. The Grand Committee went thoroughly into all the questions involved, and, he thought, disposed of the Bill in a satisfactory manner. ["Hear, hear!"]

MR. A. J. MUNDELLA (Sheffield, Brightside)

could assure the House that no Bill had ever gone through Committee with fewer changes than had the present Bill. The Bill, as it left the House on the Second Reading, allowed the local authorities to construct and work light railways. The right hon. Member for the London University came down with an Amendment to omit the words "construct and work," and in a moment of weakness the President of the Board of Trade was disposed to make some concession, but the Committee stood by the Bill. So far from the proposal in the Bill being one for the speculation in railways by the local authorities, it was one which provided that local authorities should have the power and control over the matter, and not railway companies. Surely they had heard enough from Members representing agricultural constituencies during the last few years, of the harsh dealing of railway companies with the agricultural interest. Here was a Measure introduced with a view to benefit agriculture. The demand for it came entirely from the agricultural interest, the Bill was promoted in the agricultural interest, and he said that if the local authorities were to have power to construct and work railways they would simply hand over the working and construction to the railway companies, they would place the local authorities entirely at the mercy of the railway companies, and very few tramways would be constructed unless they gave some guarantees to the railway companies. He thought his right hon. Friend need be under no apprehension that the local authorities would enter into railway speculations. He was bound to say that the Bill had come back to the House mainly in the condition in which it left it, with some beneficial changes, and if other changes were to be made, they must be in the way of enlarging the scope of the Bill and not of restricting it.

SIR JOHN LUBBOCK (London University)

said that as he moved the Amendment in the Grand Committee to which reference had been made, perhaps he might be allowed to say a few words. He concurred with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Thanet in deprecating the proposal that local authorities should be allowed to make railways with ratepayers' money; and believed also that the existence of this power would discourage their being made either by railways or independent companies. That question, however, would, no doubt, be discussed when Clause 3 was reached. In fact, however, the Bill on this point stood as it was on the Second Reading, and, while, therefore, agreeing in principle that the power given was dangerous and would diminish the value of the Bill, he thought the result of the proceedings in the Grand Committee was no reason why they should not now proceed to consider the Amendments.

MR. E. W. BYRNE (Essex, Walthamstow)

could not discover from the Bill what a light railway was. That was a matter which deserved consideration at the very outset. They had heard from the right hon. Gentleman in charge of the Measure that what was expected under the Bill would be either that short branches would be made in connection with main lines, or that something in the nature of steam tramways would be constructed. But, unless he had overlooked something in the perusal of the Bill, it appeared to him it was left entirely to the discretion of the Board of Trade to say whether or not an undertaking, however great—even supposing it was a railway of the ordinary gauge running from Land's End to John o' Groats—should be a light railway under the Act. He found Sub-section 3 of Clause 9 stated:— If the Board of Trade on such consideration are of opinion that by reason of the magnitude of the proposed undertaking or of the effect thereof on the undertaking of any railway company existing at the time, or for any other special reason relating to the undertaking, the proposals of the promoters ought to be submitted to Parliament they shall confirm the Order. It appeared to him to leave it solely in the discretion of the Department to say whether a railway should be constructed without the ordinary provisions and safeguards of ordinary railways, and yet be an ordinary railway to all intents and purposes. He would ask the right hon. Gentleman to tell them before the Bill passed through this stage that some definition would be introduced or some further safeguard brought in to show that this was really not meant by the Bill.

MR. T. LOUGH (Islington, W.)

alluding to the observations of the hon. and learned Member for Essex, said for his part he thought, on the whole, the Bill was better as it was, with this matter left in the discretion of the Light Railway Commissioners and the Board of Trade. He was seldom able to support the suggestions of the right hon. Member for Thanet on economic matters, and he was not able to support him on the present occasion. In the defeat of the Government to which the right hon. Gentleman had referred, he regretted to say that he supported the Government, and found himself in rather an awkward position. He had learned a lesson from it. His idea then was that too much temptation was being given under the clause of the Bill they were considering to local authorities to plunge into speculation in the matter of railways which might lead them to impose important additions to the rates. His right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield said he did not think the local authorities would plunge into such extravagance. But in Ireland there had been tremendous extravagance with regard to this experiment, and many local authorities were labouring under serious difficulties because of the speculations they had been obliged to take up in connection with light railways. In the vote he gave on the Committee he was thinking of protecting local authorities. But those who voted for the Amendment, which was carried, were thinking of the general principle of allowing the local authorities of Great Britain to carry out the works themselves. He was in favour of that general principle, and he was glad to hear the right hon. Gentleman say he would not go back upon what the Committee did, but would stick to the Bill in the shape in which it had come down to the House. He wished the right hon. Gentleman had given them a little more information on other defeats he sustained, because that was not the only one. There was an Amendment introduced to exempt light railways from the Railway Passenger Duty, and the right hon. Gentleman voted against it, but it was carried. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would adopt the same decision here as he had announced in the case of the previous defeat, and that he would support the Bill in its present shape, and exempt these light railways from the operation of the Railway Passenger Duty. There was another Amendment carried which provided that wherever there was a compulsory acquisition of land for the purpose of constructing railways there should be no compensation paid for compulsory disturbance.

MR. RITCHIE

It was carried only by the casting vote of the Chairman.

MR. LOUGH

said that was a very suspicious remark, and he hoped it did not indicate that the Government were going to go back on their defeat on that point. He hoped they would not do that, but that they would support the Bill as it came back from the Grand Committee. But the main ground of his objection to the Bill, as he stated on the Second Reading, had never been met at all, and at the last moment he would appeal to the right hon. Gentleman and ask whether he could not do something to consider it. He thought the financial clauses of the Bill were far from right. The interest which the Treasury would charge the local authorities, it was true, had been reduced from £3 10s. to £3 2s. 6d., but that was a very slight Amendment. He thought the principle on which assistance should be given was that the Government should furnish a small grant at interest not exceeding 2 per cent. for a certain number of years—say 10, 15, or 20—on condition that the line should be built. He was told by one of the highest railway authorities in the House that all the railways that were required in many districts in England could be built if a guarantee of this kind could be given. He might be met with the experience of Ireland in the matter of guarantees, but what was wrong there was not the principle but the amount of the guarantee. The guarantee given was 5 per cent., which allowed the greatest extravagance. What would be the effect of a guarantee from the Treasury of 2 per cent.? Any profits that might be earned—whether they were ½, 1, or 1½ per cent.—would go to meet the guarantee, so that the £1,000,000 proposed under the Bill would go a very long way if this principle of guarantee were adopted. He desired to ask the right hon. Gentleman a question with reference to the answer he had given as to the Snowdon Railway. He created a feeling of alarm in his mind when he told the House that the Board of Trade had no control whatever over that railway. He thought the House should know what were the circumstances under which a railway could be constructed and carry passengers, and yet entirely escape from the jurisdiction of the Board of Trade. It seemed to him a very extraordinary thing that this should be the case, and he thought the right hon. Gentleman should take some steps to bring such an enterprise within the purview of his Department.

MR. W. ALLAN (Gateshead)

said he could not see what was meant, under the Bill, by "light railway." He would have liked to see the President of the Board of Trade defining exactly what a light railway was—whether it was to be a 30-inch or 36-inch gauge. According to the Bill it seemed quite possible for a company, having power, to construct or to work a railway that might be authorised by Order under this Act, to construct and work, or to work that railway. Having got power to construct a 4 ft. 8½ in. railway, how could they make that a light railway? He could not see that the clause giving this power was applicable at all to the title light railway, and he thought the right hon. Gentleman required to alter it so as to say what gauge the light railway was to be. The late President of the Board of Trade had spoken about the railway companies not having the working of these lines. His own view was that County Councils could not work these railways. It would be a failure, and he would tell the House why. No light railway made and worked by a County Council would be a success unless the railway company that may join the line were agreeable that the County Council should run the railway. The larger company would kill the light railway by rates. Again, who was to decide what rates were to be charged? He thought the Bill was very weak in not defining what a light railway was in contradistinction to the general 4 ft. 8½ in. gauge.

MR. A. C. HUMPHREYS-OWEN (Montgomery)

thought his hon. Friend was not quite aware of the great difficulty there was in defining a light railway. The real fact was that a light railway was a cheap railway, and the question of the gauge did not enter into the matter at all. One way of making it cheap was to relax the restrictions of the Board of Trade. Those restrictions were absolutely necessary for their great trunk lines, but they were absolutely unnecessary on little lines running into remote rural districts. The question of gauge was one which must depend entirely upon local circumstances. For instance, in North Wales, where they had a homogeneous traffic of slates from the quarries down to the main line, it was carried with very great cheapness and very satisfactorily on a gauge of 1 ft. 11½ in. On the other hand, where they had agricultural products which were not destined for consumption at the next market town but were merely being collected to be forwarded on to great centres, there, in order to avoid the cost of transhipment, it would be necessary to have the standard gauge of 4 ft. 8½ in. throughout, otherwise the cost of transhipment might entirely destroy the value of the line. He hoped the Government would not in this case embark upon the very difficult, if not impossible, task of attempting to define what should be a light railway, but would offer every facility for making the railways as cheaply as possible.

MR. J. BRYCE (Aberdeen, S.)

said on the point raised by his hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead, he would like to say that he entirely agreed with his hon. Friend who had just spoken, and thought the Government had exercised a very wise discretion in not attempting to define a light railway. The whole scheme and plan of the Bill was to leave a very large discretion to the authority it was proposed to constitute, and the cases in different parts of the country were so various that no definition would suit them all. He hoped, therefore, the Government would stand firm on this point. As regarded the general question, all he wished to say at this stage was that, having attended carefully the Debates of the Grand Committee, he did not think it could be said that the Bill had been altered to such an extent as to make it substantially different from the Bill which was read a Second time. A good many minor changes were introduced in Grand Committee, and he thought, on the whole, the Bill had been improved, but these changes were not those which went to the principle of the Measure. Although he did not at all deny that there were many important questions which remained for the House to settle at this stage, and although he still regretted that the Bill was referred to a Grand Committee at all, still he did not think it was competent for anyone who had followed the discussions there to say that the Bill was so substantially altered as to make it necessary that they should reconsider the main points which the House had already affirmed.

* SIR HENRY MEYSEY-THOMPSON (Stafford, Handsworth)

said he did not think the question of gauge was of paramount importance. The great expense of making railways at present in agricultural districts was caused by the requirements of the Board of Trade. The real way in which to get a cheap railway was to have very little official restriction, but if they were compelled to make platforms, as at present, that cost £300, to have signal-boxes all over the place, a station house, and conveniences for everybody at every station, they must necessarily be involved in a large expenditure. The information laid before the National Railway Congress showed that the distinguishing feature of local lines in Holland was the special privilege given in the matter of regulations affecting their construction and working, and if they did not run faster than 12½ miles an hour they were hardly subject to any special rules as railways at all. They were treated as though they were ordinary vehicles drawn by horses or in any other way. He hoped that Members of the House would try their best to pass this Bill into law. There were many districts, he was sure, in which it would be extremely useful, and he believed that what they had to aim at was to enable the railways to be constructed so cheaply that they would pay their way. If they surrounded them with regulations and difficulties, it would pay no one to make them, and the result would be that they would not be made.

MR. J. W. LOGAN (Leicester, Harborough)

said it seemed to him that the doing away with the restrictions now imposed by the Board of Trade upon the construction of railways was a new departure of a serious character. He took it that these restrictions were imposed in the interests of the community, and as these light railways would have to go through more or less populous districts it seemed to him there was very great danger in relaxing the well-considered regulations which had been found necessary up to now for the protection of the public. These railways must cross highways upon which there was a considerable amount of passenger and vehicular traffic, and, in view of the fact that there was a strong desire on the part of a large number of people to make it compulsory upon railway companies to put bridges over main roads where they crossed them instead of the old dangerous system of level crossings, he thought they should be subject to some restriction. Or were they to make their light railways upon the lines on which they were made in Chicago, where all that was considered at a level crossing was that a man or woman should stand there and let down a stick across the road when a train was approaching? He hoped the President of the Board of Trade would realise that the relaxation of these restrictions was a very serious matter. As to the question of gauge, no doubt there was very considerable difficulty in saying what was a light railway, but still he did not agree that a 4 ft. 8½ in. gauge was not a light railway. He had had considerable experience in the construction of light railways, and he had never laid down any other than a 4 ft. 8½ in. gauge. In his opinion, it would be a very great mistake for County or District Councils or any other authority to lay down railways under this Act of any other gauge that 4 ft. 8½ in., because, speaking with considerable experience, he could assure the House that the cost of transhipment was a most serious matter. It was foolish for any man to tell him that joining up to a 4 ft. 8½ in. existing main line with a 3 ft. or 2ft. 6 in. gauge railway was not handicapping that railway from the very commencement. He desired to enter his protest against the new departure to which he had already referred, without carefully considering what they were doing, and to express a hope that it was not too late even now for the President of the Board of Trade to put a clause in the Bill declaring that all light railways constructed under this Bill should be of a 4 ft. 8½ in. gauge, so as to be able to join up to their existing railways. If he did that, he would never regret it.

SIR W. HART DYKE (Kent, Dartford)

said that if they tried to define too much they would make the Bill an absolute dead letter in many parts of the country. He could not imagine anything more destructive to a Bill of this kind than to lay it down that one particular gauge should be adopted. Wherever it was possible, it was perfectly obvious that the main trunk line should be utilised for the promotion of the objects of the Bill, and that the same gauge should be adopted for the light railways. On the other hand, there were cases, as in Wales, where a railway with a 2-foot gauge might be of enormous utility. It was, therefore, absurd to lay down a hard-and-fast line as to gauge. He would, however, suggest to his right hon. Friend whether it would not be advisable to so far define a light railway as to say that it should not have a greater maximum speed than 12 miles an hour. Such a restriction would not only be a precautionary measure as regarded human life, but it would also be a protection for stock, and would do away with the necessity of erecting expensive fencing.

MR. PARKER SMITH (Lanark, Partick)

said they were agreed that in order to get light railways to work they must relax the expense caused by Parliamentary inquiries, and also the expense caused by the Board of Trade restrictions. But there was one duty that he did not see imposed by the Bill either upon the Commissioners or upon the Board of Trade. That was the duty of inquiring into the solvency of the projectors of a scheme. He thought it a matter of the highest importance that the financial aspect should be looked into both by the Commissioners, who had no duty of that sort put upon them at present, and also by the Board of Trade when the matter came before them. He could not conceive anything more mischievous than that people should take up wild-cat schemes, getting them in a cheap way from the Board of Trade, without the prospect of being able to actually carry them out, and merely to use them as a block against other schemes. The position of the Commissioners did not seem to him large enough to attract the class of men whom they wanted to serve upon such a Commission. Only one of them was being paid £1,000 a year; the other two they expected to get to serve voluntarily. But they did not give sufficient dignity to the position, sufficient power to inquire into the whole aspect of the case when it was brought before them, to get the best class of men.

MR. LLOYD-GEORGE (Carnarvon Boroughs)

remarked that, though the narrow gauge lines in Wales had been of great service, it was generally admitted that the wide gauge would be much more satisfactory both for agricultural and mineral purposes. Many of these lines had been constructed originally for the purposes of slate quarries. The slate quarries had stopped work, and the lines had fallen into disuse, for the simple reason that it cost too much to tranship goods brought down by them. If those lines had been originally made on the same gauge as the Cambrian line, they would have been of considerable service. He was told, too, by those who understood the subject, that there was no substantial difference between the cost of laying down a wide gauge railway and that of laying down a narrow gauge line. At any rate, he was positive that in the two or three cases that had come under his observation it would be very easy to lay down the wide gauge.

MR. JOHN BRIGG (Yorks, W.R., Keighley)

contended that it was essential that all the details of the Bill should be discussed in order to make it a practical Measure. The desirability of having these railways at all was not altogether very clear. A large amount of produce was now brought into London by road even from a distance of 30 miles, and in other districts tramways had been laid along the roads for convenience. If it came to a question of these railways being placed in opposition to the other railways in the country, he was quite sure that the cost of transhipment would be fatal to them, and, in addition to that, in many cases the existing companies would construct them themselves. It would be very difficult to get people to invest their money in them; and he strongly advised the House, before committing themselves to the details of the Bill, to be assured that they would be carefully thought out.

Motion, "That the Bill as amended (by the Standing Committee) be considered," put and agreed to.

MR. C. B. RENSHAW (Renfrew, W.) moved that the following clause be read a Second time:—