HC Deb 04 May 1900 vol 82 cc743-4

Lords Message [1st May] relating to the appointment of a Joint Committee on Railways (Ireland) Amalgamation Bills considered.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That a Committee of four Members be appointed to join with the Committee of the Lords to consider the Great Southern and Western and Waterford and Central Ireland Railway Companies Amalgamation Bill, the Great Southern and Western and Waterford, Limerick, and "Western Railway Companies Amalgamation Bill, and the Midland Great Western Railway of Ireland Bill, as requested by their Lordships in their Message of 1st May. Message to the Lords to acquaint them therewith. That the said Committee be nominated by the Committee of Selection. That the Committee have power to send for persons, papers, and records."—(Mr. J. W. Lowther.)

MR. DILLON (Mayo, E.)

I was unavoidably absent when this question was before the House at an earlier date,* and I rise on the present occasion not with the intention of dividing the House or of opposing this proposal at this late stage, but for the purpose of entering my own protest and of safe-guarding myself, as well as a large section of Irish Members, from this being used as a precedent in the future. I do not desire that it should be on record that we have agreed to this novel procedure being applied to important Irish Bills. Two or three such Bills have this session been referred to a Joint Committee of Lords and Commons, and I for one cannot see why Irish private business should be dealt with on different lines from English and Scotch business. Had I been in the House when the matter was debated I think that unless much stronger reasons had been advanced than we have yet heard for submitting the Dublin Corporation Bill to this method of * See The Parliamentary Debates [Fourth Series], Vol. lxxxi., page 1239. proceeding, I should have felt it my duty to oppose it. But as I was absent, and as we are now asked to pass what is only, after all, a consequential motion based on the decision already arrived at, I have decided to confine myself to registering this protest, thereby safeguarding myself against any future statement on the part of the Irish Government, that the whole body of Irish Members have acquiesced in what is certainly a novel and, to my mind, a most objectionable procedure.

MR. MONK (Gloucester)

I see it is proposed in the resolution as it appears on the Paper, that two shall form a quorum. Does that mean two Members of this House or two of the whole body?

* MR. J. W. LOWTHER

That part of the motion appears on the Paper by inadvertence, and I am not going to move it. There will be no quorum. All the members appointed will have to sit and hear the evidence and decide according to that evidence.

Question put and agreed to.

Ordered, That a Committee of Four Members be appointed to join with the Committee of the Lords to consider the Great Southern and Western and Waterford and Central Ireland Railway Com- panics Amalgamation Bill, the Great Southern and Western and Waterford, Limerick, and Western Railway Companies Amalgamation Bill, and the Midland Great Western Railway of Ireland Bill, as requested by their Lordships in their Message of 1st May.

Message to the Lords to acquaint them therewith.

Ordered, That the said Committee be nominated by the Committee of Selection.

Ordered, That the Committee have power to send for persons, papers, and records.—(Chairman of Ways and Means.)