§ As amended, considered.
§ MR. JOHN BURNS (Battersea)said he respectfully protested against the way in which the local authority of Hitchin had allowed this Bill to go through without protesting in the only way that was open to them, namely, by dividing on the Second Reading as a protest against the way in which this Bill had been treated by the promoters. For the first time for twenty-five years the House of Commons had denied to a big corporation a compulsory purchase clause, and thus denied to the people of Hitchin in the future the right to have their own municipal gas.
§ MR. HUDSON (Hertfordshire, Hitchin)said that he had withdrawn his opposition to this measure because he found half the local authority of Hitchin were in favour of leaving matters as they were, and a very large proportion of the inhabitants of the town were still more in favour of it. It was under those circumstances that ho withdrew his opposition to the Third Reading of this Bill and, if what the hon. Member for Batter-sea said was true, then all he could say was that the fault lay with the people of Hitchin and not with him.
§ Bill to be read the third time.