WIRRAL RAILWAY (EXTENSION OF TIME) BILL [LORDS] (BY ORDER). (Hansard, 24 May 1906)

§ MR. W. H. LEVER (Cheshire, Wirral)
said he did not know whether he would be in order, but he wished to move after the Second Reading of the Bill, "That it be an instruction to the Committee to leave out Clause 8 of the Bill."

§ MR. SPEAKER
The hon. Member would not be in order in moving such an instruction because he has given no notice of it. The hon. Member for Birkenhead has given such notice.

§ MR. W. H. LEVER
said that the hon. Member for Birkenhead could not be present in the House that night and he wished to know whether he could not move the instruction in behalf of his hon. friend.

§ MR. SPEAKER
The hon. Member is not entitled to do so by the Rules of the House.

§ MR. W. H. LEVER
said that in that case he must move the rejection of the Bill. It was a very unusual course, and he would not have done so if the matter 1492 had not been an urgent necessity. This Bill was similar to the Mersey Bill which was before the House last week, only it was more vital to the interest of the municipality. The opposition which he represented was that of the Wallasey Urban District Council, whose area of administration had a population of 60,000, a rateable value of £370,000, and an extensive tramway system which had cost £135,000 of the ratepayers' money. These trams ran from Seacombe to New Brighton and served the whole district extremely well. Parliament granted to the Urban Council the monopoly, and it was on the strength of the monopoly that the ratepayers had sunk their money in the tramway system. The Wirral Railway Company opposed the granting of these powers in 1899, but with no avail. Last year the Corporation proposed to extend their tramway system, and in addition to run motor omnibuses; and later the Wirral Railway Company promoted a Bill which proposed to give them powers to run motor omnibuses. Both these Bills came before the House of Lords Committee at the same time. It was a fact that the Chairmen of Committees, whatever their private interests might be, were undoubtedly perfectly fair and just in their dealings with all the matters which come before them. He did not want it to be supposed that he, or those he represented, had any cause of complaint with the constitution of the Committee of the House of Lords. They did their duty to the best of their ability. But the fact remained that the Chairman of the Committee was the Earl of Cawdor who was an ex-Chairman of the Great Western Railway Company, and he decided that the Bill promoted by the Urban District Council should be refused because the powers sought would enable them to compete with the railway company, and he passed the Bill promoted by the railway company although it would undoubtedly enable the company to compete with the tramways. He believed a matter which weighed with the Committee in giving the decision was an agreement entered into at the time when the company made the line down to Seacombe Ferry. That agreement provided that the railway 1493 company should receive one third of a penny for every passenger by the ferry who proceeded by train from Seacombe, and under that agreement the company had received some hundreds of pounds a year. But there were a certain number of passengers who did not book through, but paid their fare to Seacombe by the ferry and then walked to the station and rebooked. Of these passengers there was no record, and therefore no account could be rendered. It was entirely a matter for adjustment between the two authorities. The Wallasey Council had always acknowledged that the matter should be adjusted, and had always been prepared to adjust it, but they had not agreed with the company as to the method of adjustment. But to say that because in consequence of this agreement the company ran the line to Seacombe therefore, for all time, no matter what modern improvements were made, nothing must be allowed to compete with the lines seemed to be perfectly absurd. It never was intended by Parliament when they sanctioned the extension of that railway that because of that agreement the company were to have the sole monopoly of carrying over their line all the passengers that came across the ferry from Liverpool. Yet it was believed that it was because of the production of that agreement that the council's Bill was thrown out the effect of the position taken up by the railway company was to prevent the council from extending their tramway system, and providing a service of motor omnibuses. It was quite obvious that if this Bill was passed municipalities would not be allowed to develop their tramway or other transit system, and it was mainly on that ground that he moved the rejection of the Bill. The promoters of the Bill claimed that they alone were to be entitled to use motor omnibuses, and they said that they would limit the carriage of passengers to and from their stations and hotels. Now they had no hotel there. He contended that it would be impossible to work Clause 8 as it stood. It was claimed by the railway company that the Bill, if passed, would enable a large number of clerks in Liverpool to cross the river and get home to their dinner. But he had studied the railway time tables, and had found that the journey to and from Liverpool to 1494 Seacombe and New Brighton would occupy every minute of the time given to clerks for their midday meal. No maximum fare for the omnibuses was provided for, although it was usual to fix the fare in the Bill itself. The promoters had been approached and asked to take a reasonable course, but, they had refused to do so. Having beaten the municipal body and acquired a monopoly, they wished to be at liberty to fix such a fare as they as monopolists could obtain. The measure, moreover, although it gave power to the urban authorities to control the traffic, did not give that power to the rural authorities. Of course the Bill might be amended in Committee, but as it at present stood it did not give that power to the rural authority. He came to another point, and that was the damage which would be done to roads by this motor omnibus traffic. The Wallasey Urban District Council was responsible for the upkeep of the roads, and they would have to spend the ratepayers' money in maintaining them. Parliament had however refused them the right to have omnibuses of their own, but now the proposal was that that privilege should be granted to a railway company and that the railway company should have a monopoly in regard to the right of running such vehicles without any provision being inserted that they should pay a single penny for the maintenance of the roads. Moreover, when these omnibuses left the urban district they would go into a rural one, and who was going to pay for the upkeep and maintenance of those rural roads? The farmers whose land bordered upon the roads were not interested in this traffic at all. It might benefit the urban population, but so far as the farmer was concerned, schemes of this sort only mean taking snippets off his land here and there, and depriving him of the raw material by means of which he made his living. This Bill, however in addition to that deprivation, would force upon him the increased cost of the upkeep of the roads. In reply to that the promoters of the Bill said that Parliament had given the local authorities power to make extra charges for extraordinary traffic. It was very doubtful to his mind, however, whether within the legal 1495 decisions of the Courts this could be called extraordinary traffic. They all knew what the Courts described as extraordinary traffic, but whether that principle of contribution would be applied to motor omnibuses sanctioned by Parliament was exceedingly doubtful. The promoters of this Bill ought to have acceded to the very reasonable suggestion made to them, that they should make some contribution towards the repair of the roads, the use of which they would enjoy, and on which so far as the Wallasey District Council was concerned they would have a monopoly of this kind of traffic. It was doubtful what the powers of the council would be in regard to the licensing of other motor buses; it might be held that they had no right to grant licences on the ground that Parliament had granted this monopoly. He would like to know who was better suited to run these omnibuses than the authority who was responsible for the upkeep of the roads. And let it be remembered that if the Bill passed they would have established a precedent which would prejudice the Wallasey District Council in succeeding Parliaments if they re-introduced their Bill seeking powers to run motor-omnibuses. By passing the Bill they would endorse the action of the House of Lords, which had declared that if they once gave a railway company the right to run a line for the benefit of their own shareholders, then the municipalities must not be allowed to compete with the railway company. The promoters claimed that they and they alone should serve the public with motor omnibuses, and although they professed to be ready to insert in the Bill a clause limiting their privileges to the conveyance of passengers to and from their stations or hotels, in practice such a clause would be inoperative. This was a serious matter for all municipalities, as it appeared that the monopoly was to be given for all time, and without any reference to any new advance which science might make in regard to motor power. In this state of things he had ventured to take the extreme course of moving the rejection of the Bill, and he asked all those who were in favour of extending the powers of local authorities to embark upon municipal enterprise to support his Motion. He begged to move.

§ MR. SUMMERBELL (Sunderland)
, in seconding the Motion, agreed with the Mover that the Bill raised a question of great interest to all municipalities. Speaking from the point of view of one who had been the Chairman of a tramway company for many years he would like to say that his objection to the Bill was confined to Clause 8, and he would rather have supported a Motion for its removal than one for the rejection of the Bill. He was, in fact, not concerned with other parts of the Bill Clause 8 stipulated that this company should be empowered to run motor omnibuses to carry passengers, passengers' luggage, parcels, etc. It might be argued that the Bill contained a provision which somewhat protected the municipalities in regard to the roads, but he did not think that that was so. If the House once embarked upon the practice of giving the railway companies throughout the country the right to run motor omnibuses, an inspector would be required in almost every street in which these motor omnibuses ran. Once this concession was given to railway companies they could not, as it was said this Bill would do, restrict the traffic to persons going to or from the trains or to or from their hotels. This was a question of interest not only to all municipalities but to all tramway companies, and he would give a case in point. A tramway company which he knew claimed the right to run a tramway for some six or seven miles, but a railway company opposed that Bill and said it was unfair that they should be deprived of their passengers. The House listened to the appeal of the railway company and rejected that tramway Bill. It thus appeared that while municipalities and tramway companies were prevented from running vehicles and affording public facilities the railway companies year after year came and made demands which, when other people made them, they opposed. He asked the House to negative this proposal in regard to motor omnibuses. If it was wrong for a tramway company or a municipality to run them it was equally wrong in the case of a railway company. The municipality had had given to them the control of the streets and had to keep them 1497 in repair, and therefore their views should be respected. Anyone who had anything to do with dealing with traffic in our large centres knew that they did not want to increase the traffic, but to decrease it as much as they could. He contended that the House ought not to give this railway company the facilities it asked for in view of the fact that the local authority had the responsibility of regulating the traffic and repairing the streets. In the case of the corporation, with a capital of £300,000 their Act made it obligatory that in thirty years the municipality must pay off that sum by yearly instalments of £10,000, and that being so, Parliament had no right to allow the railway company to step in and compete with a tramway company and thus prevent that condition being carried out. In taking the course he did he was not arguing against fresh facilities being given to the public; he was only pleading for fair play for the whole of the municipalities of the country.

§ MR. ARTHUR HENDERSON (Durham, Barnard Castle)
said that both the mover and the seconder had made out a very good case, especially with regard to Clause 8 of the Bill. He gathered that the mover would have been quite satisfied if it had been possible for him to have accepted the position suggested in the Motion of the hon. Member for Birkenhead, but unfortunately that could not be. He himself thought no case had been made out for the entire rejection of the measure; it would be unfortunate so far as the promoters were concerned if because hon. Members felt strongly against Clause 8 the Bill had to stand over for another year. He therefore proposed to take the only course it was possible to adopt, and move the adjournment of the debate in order that the Bill might come before them again, and that the Committee might have an opportunity of 1498 removing the objectionable clause. He moved that this debate be now adjourned.