§ Order for Second Reading read.
§ LORD ALWYNE COMPTON (Bedfordshire, Biggleswade)moved that the Order for the Second Reading of the London Port and Docks Bill be discharged and the Bill withdrawn. He said he did so on behalf of the promoters and as a Director of the London and India Docks Company. In 1902 the Government introduced a Bill called the Port of London Bill, which was promoted to purchase the dock companies' undertakings. Since then that Bill had passed through alternate periods of slumber and wakefulness till at last, wearied out, it had fallen asleep altogether. They who represented the trade of the Port of London had always disapproved of the principles on which that Bill was founded, and for that reason they promoted their own private Bill, 1183 which they considered carried out better the intentions of the Royal Commission. The President of the Board of Trade constantly told them that the Government Bill was not to be dropped, and for that reason they had postponed, from time to time, their own Bill and gave him all the assistance in their power to pass the Government Bill. They felt they had a grievance in this matter, because they had incurred a great deal of expenditure, on behalf of his company particularly, and also because their Bill, having been postponed so often, had now to be withdrawn. Neither this nor any other Government should interfere directly with trade, as procrastination in this matter had caused a great deal of dislocation of trade.
§ Order discharged. Bill withdrawn.