TELEGRAPH ACT (1892) AMENDMENT BILL. (Hansard, 6 March 1899)

§ *SIR C. CAMERON (Glasgow, Bridgeton)
Mr. Speaker, Sir, I rise upon a very important point of order, and I submit that under the ruling given on the 13th February 1895, by Mr. Speaker Peel, this Bill comes distinctly within the category of those matters which should be dealt with by public and not by private Bill procedure. That ruling was given in the case of the London Valuation Assessment Bill of 1895, to which an objection was taken upon a point of order by Sir Henry James, who argued that the Bill went far beyond the line which divided private from public Bills. He pointed out the inconvenience of amending public Acts except where the requirements of particular districts necessitated it. He said— If a public Act repeals a public Act we can turn to our digest, but no library contains all these private Acts, and therefore students and practitioners who are not acquainted with the proceedings of the House never know whether there was on record any repeal of a public Act by a private Act. The Court takes no judicial notice of private Acts; they have to be given in evidence, like any other document. Upon that objection Mr. Speaker Peel delivered a most elaborate ruling extending over the whole subject. He said— I am far from saying because a private Bill affects public Bills and repeals public Acts that that is always a fatal objection to its being introduced as a private Bill. But we must consider the scope of the public Acts which a private Bill proposes to repeal; and in this instance the Acts proposed to be repealed are of such vast magnitude and cover such a vast area that I think there are objections to the Bill being proceeded with as a private Bill. The Bill covers the whole of the metropolis, and though it does not quite follow from all precedents that a Bill affecting the entire metropolis must necessarily be introduced as a public Bill, still, I think that a review of these precedents will establish the conclusion that Bills affecting the metropolis should, as a rule, be introduced as public rather than as private Bills. That was not the sole ground upon which he gave the ruling. He stated that it 1336 dealt with the whole metropolitan area, that it repealed certain Acts, and he dealt with the statement that it appointed a new Court of Appeal. He mentioned a number of cases in which Bills dealing with the metropolis had been dealt with by way of private Bills, but he also gave others in which he said these metropolitan matters had been properly dealt with by public Bills. Now, I claim that this ruling of Mr. Speaker Peel's in 1895, subject to the cases that he refers to, govern, or should govern, the practice of the House in these matters. Mr. Speaker Peel goes on to say— If I am asked whether any clauses might be expunged from the present Bill, and the Bill so brought properly within the scope of private Bills, I should say that nothing of the Bill would be left, because the whole Bill is of such vast importance that it is impossible to separate the clauses. With regard to those two points my contention is that the Telegraph Act, 1892, deals not merely with the whole of the metropolitan area, but the entire United Kingdom, England, Ireland, and Scotland, including the metropolitan area; and with regard to the expunging clause, if you expunge the clauses so as to amend this Act to bring it within the lines of a private Bill you expunge the entire Act. Therefore, in both those cases I submit that Mr. Speaker Peel's ruling governs this Bill. Mr. Speaker Peel then went on to mention the interests involved. He said— I mention that to show that the interests involved are much more than local, that they cover Imperial taxation as well as local rating and if I am told that the Bill is a local Bill I am bound to reply that it is local only in the sense in which a Bill that applies to Scotland and Ireland may be called a local Bill. Exactly the same contention applies here with very much greater force, because the present Bill applies to the whole of England, Ireland, and Scotland. Another of his objections was that a new jurisdiction was established. This Bill establishes a new jurisdiction also, and under these circumstances I must ask your ruling upon the point of order of whether it is competent to proceed with this Bill as a private Bill, and I do so the more particularly because the Act which this Bill proposes to amend is one in which the Postmaster-General is interested. 1337 The National Telephone Company only come forward as the licensee of the Postmaster-General, and this bears upon the point of order, that if it is desirable that the powers asked for should be granted then they should be granted to the Postmaster-General. In the first place, I desire to ask whether this Bill can be properly proceeded with as a private matter, having regard to the interests involved, or whether it should not be dealt with by a public Bill.

§ *MR. SPEAKER
The matters which the honourable Gentleman has brought before me are well worthy of consideration of the House upon the merits of the Bill on the Second Heading, but I do not think they are such as would justify me in stopping the Bill or taking it upon myself to prevent the House from dealing with it at the proper time. The Bill proposes to exempt a company which is carried on for purposes of profit, under certain conditions and in certain places, from the operation of a particular subsection of a public Act. That is a thing which has been done before now in private Bills without objection being raised, and in other cases objection has been taken. I am not aware of any case where such a Bill has been ruled out of order, and in saying this I am not forgetting the case referred to by the honourable Member. What is proposed by this Bill is a course of action which has been taken by this House in private Bills on other occasions, therefore, I do not feel justified in stopping it on the point of order. As regards the ruling of Mr. Speaker Peel, I may point out that that was the case if a Bill having far wider scope and application than the present Bill. That was a Bill which proposed to deal with local taxation directly, and indirectly with Imperial taxation over an area of some 5,000,000 inhabitants, and it was proposed for that purpose to repeal three public Acts which already regulated those matters. It was proposed also to set up an entirely new court (not merely to add a new jurisdiction to an existing court) to administer the new law. That is a very different proposition from that which is contained in this Bill. In ruling that I cannot stop the Bill at this stage, I am far from differing from the view taken by my predecessor. It seems to me that the proper course is for the 1338 honourable Gentleman, on the Second Reading of the Bill, to present these objections as objections on the merits, and it will then be for the House to decide whether they think it proper to give a Second Reading to a Bill containing these provisions, or to refuse it on the ground the honourable Member has urged, or on other grounds.

§ "SIR C. CAMERON
Might I ask your ruling upon another point of order t It has been intimated to me that it would not be competent for me to move the rejection of the Bill on the First Reading, or at least to have any discussion on the Bill at that stage. There are strong arguments of convenience in favour of that course being adopted, because if it were adopted, where the Bill was thrown out on the First Reading, the numerous bodies who proposed to petition against the Bill would be saved the trouble and expense of sending in their petitions. Upon looking into the Standing Orders I find that the five minutes rule only applies to the Bills introduced before the commencement of public business; and I am not aware of any precedent of any discussion taking place upon the introduction of private Bills. Therefore, as a matter of information for those engaged in private Bill legislation, I should like to have your ruling, Sir, upon that matter.

§ *MR. SPEAKER
I think the law of Parliament stands thus: Up to about 45 years ago there might be a Debate upon the First Reading of a Bill, although I believe the practice has become obsolete; but since the Standing Order was passed with regard to public Bills preventing a discussion upon a First Reading of a public Bill the practice has been to deal with a private Bill on its First Reading in the same way as if it were a public Bill under the Standing Order, and not to have any discussion upon it. I think private Bills stand in the same position now as public Bills, and that there can be no discussion upon the First Reading. The honourable Gentleman can bring forward his objection and discuss the matter on its merits upon the Second 1339 Reading. The Question is, That this Bill be now read a first time.