Lords Sitting of 14 May 1817

GAS-LIGHT COMPANIES.
Lord Montfort Lord Montfort moved the third reading of a bill for incorporating another Gas-light Company in London.
The Earl of Lauderdaleobjected to this bill, on the same principles on which
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he had objected to the bill for incorporating a gas-light company last year. As an individual he felt no great concern about the matter, but for the sake of the best interests of the country, he repeated his warning to their lordships not to listen to petitions of this description. If they did, they would have abundant applications, and would essentially injure the mercantile interests of the nation. In this country, wherever the profits of a concern rendered it an object to engage in it, individuals would come forward and carry on that concern in a much better manner for the public than these incorporated companies. There was no want of capital in this country for such undertakings, and the true line of policy was to allow them to be managed by private individuals, or companies, whose interests would bind them to proceed in the most careful manner, and to act in such a way as would be most beneficial to themselves and the public but, in consequence of the facilities with which bills of this kind were passed, their lordships would be perpetually called on to incorporate companies of this description; who, by holding out the prospect of great profits to their subscribers, in the manner of lottery puffs, would, entangle widows and persons unacquainted with business, and by a command of capital thus raised, would prevent the object being accomplished by private individuals or companies, who would do it in a much better and more beneficial way. He had taken occasion before to warn their lordships against these incorporations which were generally used as decoy-ducks to entangle the unwary; and the only effect of which was to throw the management of the concern into the hands of commissioners who would hardly conduct them with that degree of care and circumspection which private individuals would do. Experience proved that one application in this way only led to another; and, in point of fact, he believed that two petitions had been presented, or were about to be presented, for incorporating gas-light companies in other places. It was clear that these things were not attended with advantage to the public. Every writer on the subject of these monopolies condemned them as highly injurious to the community; even the East India company, carrying on a great and distant trade, had been condemned as pernicious to the interests of such a country as this, where there was no want of capi-

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tal to carry on that trade without any such incorporation; and it was well known that the great number of incorporations, for the most trifling purposes, which had been established in the reign of king William, had been attended with fatal effects to the mercantile interests of the country. He was very far from being unfriendly to the individuals of this company, but his sense of public duty compelled him to say this much. It might be contended that it would be a hard measure to refuse to this more respectable company what they had granted to less respectable adventurers last year; but this was an argument which would always be used; and the evil would at last reach a height which must prove ruinous to the mercantile interests of the community, when there would hardly be a branch of trade of any description unfettered by some such incorporation. If he thought that the public interests required, and if he saw that he could do any good, he would persevere in making these objections; but if the legislature should be determined to disregard them, it could not be expected that he should, on every occasion, be repeating the same arguments, and calling their attention to principles with which their lordships must be as well acquainted as he was himself.
Lord Kenyonsaid, he would not have supported the bill, unless he had been satisfied that it was for the public advantage that it should pass. In the metropolis, he believed, these things were much better conducted by a competition between incorporated companies; and, as a security to the public that the object would be accomplished, 100,000 l. had been already subscribed.
The Earl of Lauderdalesaid, he had in the committee successfully endeavoured to get that clause introduced by which the company was prevented from exercising the authority which this bill would give them, until 100,000 l. should be subscribed; and if this clause had not been introduced, they would have given this power to a company with a debt of 11,000 l., and almost without a halfpenny to carry on the trade.
The Lord Chancellorsaid, that if it was by the exertions of the noble earl that this clause was introduced, that noble earl had done the public a great service. He happened judiciously to know, that there could hardly be a greater evil than allowing such companies to begin their operations until such a sum had been sub-
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scribed as would afford some security that the object would be completely carried into effect.
The bill was then passed.