Lords Sitting of 15 April 1845

MINUTES.
Took the Oaths.—The Earl of Waldegrave.
BILLS Public.—Reported. — Mutiny; Marine Mutiny; Customs (Export Duties); Glass Duties.
Private.—1a. Fisher Lane (Greenwich) Improvement.
2a. Thames Navigation Debt.
Reported.—Sparrow's Herne Road.
3a. and passed:—Boileau's Divorce; Calvert's Estate.
PETITIONS PRESENTED. By Bishops of Winchester and Salisbury, Ear's of Enniskillen, Rosebery, and Wicklow, Marquess of Normanby, and Lords Kenyon, Campbell, and Redesdale, from Incumbent and others of Shirley, and several other places, against Increase of Grant to Maynooth College.—By Bishop of Salisbury, and Earl Powis, from Clergy and others of Wilts, Clun, Wells, and Flint, against Union of St. Asaph and Bangor.—From Clergy and others of Frome, and 4 other places, against Union of St. Asaph and Bangor, but in favour of the Appointment of a Bishop to the See of Manchester,—By Bishop of Winchester, from Shrewsbury, and 4 other places, for the better Observance of the Sabbath.—From Free North Church, Stirling, for the Abolition of Religious Tests in Scotch Universities—By Earl of Rosebery, from Caithness, against any Alteration in the
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present Laws relating to Banking (Scotland); and from Members of the Presbytery of Stirling and Tain, for Improving the Condition of Schoolmasters (Scotland).—From Clergy and others of Ludlow, for Alteration of Law relating to the Rating of Tithes.—From Armagh, and several other places, for the Encouragement of Schools in connexion with Church Education Society (Ireland).—From Shirley, and 3 other places, for the better Regulation of Beer Houses.

RAILWAYS.
Lord Broughamrose to call the attention of the House to the Standing Orders with respect to Railways. He was anxious, in the first place, to remind the House of the two main points to which he called its attention when the subject was last before the House. He meant the vast and unprecedented, and almost incalculable extent of projects for railroads and other similar undertakings by means of private speculation. These undertakings led to constant interference with the private property of individuals not less than they promoted that hurtful spirit of speculation, which he would call a gambling frenzy, which had seized the people of this country. This was not unexampled, for a similar state of things occured twenty years ago, and also about a century ago in this country, as well as previously in a neighbouring country; and he need hardly allude to the disastrous results and wide spread ruin that followed on each of these occasions. Before, however, he proceeded further he would present a petition which had been entrusted to him, praying for protection at the hands of that House. It was the petition of a noble lady, who was the proprietor of a family estate in the county of Somerset, which had descended to her by inheritance. This lady was the daughter of a noble Earl who was well known to that House, and who for a great number of years held some of the highest offices of the State. The Petition was from the right hon. Lady Cecily Jane Georgiana Fane, daughter of the late Earl of Westmoreland, and sister of the present Earl. The statement of the facts of the case, which were before him, were not drawn up by a man of business, but by the lady herself, and he believed that the statement was perfectly accurate. The Petitioner stated that under the will of her father she had become possessed of an ancient mansion in Somersetshire, of great beauty, built by Inigo Jones, with pleasure grounds to correspond, and in the midst of her estate, and to the possession of which she succeeded her father and grandfather. About the middle of last December she was informed that it was intended to carry a

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railway through her estate; but she could not learn until the 4th of January in what direction, when she heard that the plan and map of the line were deposited with the parish clerk. She then found that this railway would go through the heart of her estate, and would make a new arrangement of the farms on it necessary. In addition to this, the line ran within a quarter of a mile of the front of her mansion, and cut through an avenue of old oaks. She also stated that on the 25th or 26th of January, the agent of the company called upon her, and showed her the plan and map of the railway, and stated that there could be no deviation from the line laid down on it for more than 100 yards. The petitioner expressed her dislike to the vicinity of the railroad to her residence, and said that she should oppose the line if it was not removed to a greater distance from her house, and she then referred the party to her solicitor. On leaving her, the agent called upon one of her tenants, and asked him to sign a paper in favour of it; but the tenant objected, on the ground, he believed, that the petitioner was opposed to it; but the agent assured him that so far from her ladyship being averse to it, she had declared in favour of it, and thus he induced this party to sign the paper. The agent then went to other tenants of the petitioner, and stated that it was her wish that they should sign the paper; they, however, were dissentients to the proposed line, and declined to do so. Now, he asked, after this whether any one could be said to have secure possession of his property? When this agent also went to the petitioner's solicitor, and when he was told of her objection to the vicinity of such a nuisance as a railroad to her residence, the agent replied—"Oh, we are accustomed to this kind of observation; but she, like other persons, will soon get used to it." In addition to this, on being asked what compensation was intended to be made, the reply was, that the company did not intend to enter into any arrangement for compensation until the Bill had passed. The agent also stated that if she did not give her assent she would see whether it would not tell against her; and it would be found that those who opposed the railroad would be the worst treated. Such was the treatment on the part of these railway companies, as if the possessors of property were to be regularly ousted from it. Under such a state of circumstances, the petitioner flung herself on the protection of their Lordships,
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as well on her own part as on that of several of her neighbours, many of whose residences were considerably within a quarter of a mile of the proposed railway. He had also before him the petition of one who did not happen to be rich, but whose case most strongly called for the protection of that House. It was the petition of John Hartnell, market gardener and nurseryman, near Yeovil, Somersetshire. This person gave 500 l. for a piece of land, which he cultivated as nursery grounds, and the railway was proposed to be cut right through the centre of it. This man had no means to oppose the Bill; he could not afford to employ an agent or solicitor before the Committee on the Bill, as he had no money to contest with a company with half a million of capital. The result, therefore, to him must be entire ruin. This petitioner also stated that when his attention was called to the subject, he asked what remuneration he was to receive, and he was told in reply that the company would not listen to any application of that kind until they had got their Bill. These two petitions would fitly preface the few remarks he (Lord Brougham) intended to make. Of course, he was net so extravagant as to advocate a general, absolute, and unqualified negation of all applications by undertakers desirous to carry on public works, which, useful in the first instance to themselves, might nevertheless be most beneficial to the community, not perhaps when proceeding to the extent at present proposed, but still to a considerable extent. He could not help thinking, however, that this had become a subject no longer of local and limited, but altogether of public, general, and national importance. He blamed no Government, neither the present nor the last, nor its predecessor, for not having betimes become awake to this view, because the evil had gradually arisen from small beginnings, and no Government could be expected, by the spirit of prophecy, to have foreseen the great and national aspect it was to wear; but now that it was so, it became the bounden duty of the Government (meaning thereby not the Railway Board, but Parliament, the body in which the Government of the country practically resided) to treat it as of general and national concern, as it had been treated in France. Besides the 130 or 140 railways already existing, all having their origin within the last few years (and he found the prices of the shares of that number quoted in the

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public lists), there were now to be 244 more, and the whole communication of the country was to be carried on by these bodies, and the land cut up into roads by them. This was all very proper, provided it was done with due caution, fit circumspection, and under proper checks; nor was he any enemy to a railway bill, any more than a bill for a canal, a dock, a road, or an inclosure, all of which more or less interfered with the rights of private property; but in legislating, not in the case of one or two bills now and then, but passing between 200 and 300 in one Session, there must be imminent risk, without meaning it, per incuriam, of doing the most grievous injury to individuals. The law of England would not allow one square foot of a man's ground to be touched by any one without the owner's leave; and so delicate was our law, that a person standing in the public road became a trespasser if he but put his hand across the fence, so that it should be above the neighbouring close. When "the grand alliance" in the north, the coal-owners, wanted a way-leave, they had to bargain with the owner of the soil, and could not compel him to part with it, though the effect of their having it might be to enable them to sell coals cheaper in Loudon; and when Sir Hugh Myddelton brought the New River to London—a project nearly as useful as a railway (he supposed he must not say quite so, for fear of being thought disrespectful to these companies), he was not armed with those extreme and tyrannical powers which the railway companies had for asking, making in effect whatever compensation they chose, for juries would not now give more than the company's offer; and accordingly Sir Hugh had to take a meandering course, just as he could buy the land. It made water dearer; but of the two evils it was by far the least that a company should be put to inconvenience, and have to pay double or treble what they ought (though it was the occurrence of such cases that had made a reaction in favour of the companies), than that violence should be done to the rights of private property, and men he compelled to sell their land at a price fixed without their consent. It was the first instance in the history of civilization in which persons were not permitted to assent to, or dissent from, the sale of their property as they chose, or in which the Parliament interfered to enable others, who were their customers in the market, to take property against the consent of the
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owners. He believed the interests of the community would be best preserved by providing that such powers of interfering with the rights of property should, so far from being the rule, as was the case at present, be made only the exception. A period had arrived when it was absolutely necessary, for the protection of the public, that Parliament should interfere in this matter. The rule at present was, that when a sufficient number of persons, with a long purse between them, petitioned Parliament for a Railway Bill in their favour, all these exorbitant powers were included as a matter of course in their demand. The application for the Bill implied that they expected that all men whose land they wished to purchase should be compelled to look to the decision of a jury alone as their only resource, and should be obliged to accept of any award that might thus be offered to them. He wished to see such an arbitrary power given as the exception, and not as the general rule. If his view were adopted, the worst that could happen in nine cases out of ten would be that the company would have to wait for a year, or perhaps for two years, until they could make terms with the parties; but he thought even that delay would be preferable to a violent and oppressive compulsory seizure of any man's property at a valuation. They were told that there were guards for the rights of private property in the two Houses of Parliament, and in the Standing Orders, with which all companies were obliged to comply. He would warn their Lordships, however, not to place too much faith in the efficiency of the Standing Orders Committees of the other House. He would, with great respect, warn their Lordships against thinking that those Committees were invaluable bodies, or that they were by possibility enabled, with such a vast number of Railway Bills before them, to report whether the Standing Orders had been complied with in each case or not; and if they were not complied with, they were in reality a mere nullity. He would warn their Lordships against thinking that these Standing Orders Committees were of infinite industry. He would warn them against thinking rashly that these Committees were of incalculable and extraordinary diligence in transacting business. He would warn their Lordships not to think for a moment that these Committees were of any considerable diligence whatever. He would warn their Lordships not to be-

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lieve that in every instance the Committees took any trouble at all about the matters that were submitted for their consideration. They were told that in cases where parties were too poor to come before Parliament to oppose railway companies, they might safely trust to the Standing Orders; but here was an occurrence that had recently taken place elsewhere, and that was avowed with an immensity of courage, and he would add, with an immensity of honesty on the part of one of the Standing Orders Committees. They admitted that they were not in the habit of looking to the clauses of the Bills submitted to them; but that they merely read the marginal note and the index. But the margin was no part of an Act of Parliament, it was no part of a Bill, and if any railway company chose to insert a clause in their Bill, which they might be certain would not pass through the Committee, they had only to take care not to allude to it in the margin, and they might then rest assured that it would pass without observation. It was not denied that in the case of one Railway Bill, lately alluded to in the other House of Parliament, this very course had been adopted. A clause was inserted in the Bill that all the owners of soil or land, or of gravel pits, or of coal pits, or of mines, or of chalk pits, within five miles of the railway, might have leave to go through any man's property lying between such pits or mines and the railway, on paying for the actual damage done by them, without any allowance being made for the right of way. That clause passed with the Bill through the Standing Orders Committee, and it came out afterwards in the House that the Committee had never looked at the clauses, but had merely glanced over the margin and the index. The consequence of this discovery was, that the second reading of the Bill was postponed, and the Bill was referred back to the Committee, where he did not know what fate awaited it. That was a case that had actually occurred. There were two very great grievances in connexion with these Railway Bills, to which he wished more particularly to allude. One of these was the power of deviation that was allowed for 100 yards on either side of the proposed line. That left the company 200 yards, or nearly the one-eighth of a mile, in which they might diverge; it was no wonder that with such a power persons circumstanced like the noble lady, whose petition he had that evening presented, should be told by the
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company that they had better be quiet and make no attempt at opposition, or else they would be treated so much the worse. It was the Legislature gave power to the company to make such a threat. If that noble lady petitioned against the company, the threat was ready—to go 100 yards nearer to her residence; whereas if she remained quiet they might remove the line 200 yards farther from her. There were many other minor grievances which he would not delay their Lordships by referring to; but he would beg to ask the most zealous defender of railways, what possible ground could be assigned for these companies not being prepared to state exactly what line they wished to take? Those jobbers or speculators, should be made to tell exactly what it was they wanted; and he for one certainly would not give them liberty of altering their lines more than twenty yards either way from their proposed course. Another power to which he totally objected was that conferred upon them of taking materials wherever they wished without the consent of the owner, on paying the amount of the damage actually done, and not the value of the commodity, as settled between the two parties in the market, as would be the case in all other instances. But, he would ask, was his property to be taken under such circumstances without his consent? Was he to have a man come to him and offer him some 5l. 3s. 6½d. for digging a gravel pit in the centre of his lawn? Such a transaction should be settled by the voluntary will of the seller, instead of being the act of the buyer alone. Another hardship of which he complained was, that unless the railway passed over a man's property, he could be entitled to no compensation whatever, no matter what loss he might be subjected to by having it near his residence. He would mention a case of this kind that came under his own knowledge. Certain parties were in treaty for the possession of a handsome villa. The situation was approved of, and the apartments admired, but on accidentally opening a window it was discovered that a railway passed as near the house as he was to his noble Friend opposite. It was at once said that the villa would not do, and that there was an end to the arrangements about the purchase of it. The reply was: "That is what every one says who has come to take the house for the last year; nobody will become the tenant of a house so near a railway." "But," said they,

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"you must have been very handsomely remunerated by the railway company for the injury done your property." "On the contrary," said the owner, "we have got nothing, as the bound of our property lies just along the railway." Thus was a villa, which produced some 300 l. or 400 l. a year, utterly ruined, because nobody would pay that rent for a house close to a railway; though it appeared that the companies thought, as in the case of the noble lady whose petition he had read to the House, that it was the common lot of humanity to live close to railways, and that all should, therefore, learn to accustom themselves to it. After observing that a remark which he had made, in allusion to an individual whose name he had not mentioned, when he had on a former day introduced this subject before the House, had been erroneously supposed by a respectable gentleman in Yorkshire to have applied to himself, the noble Lord continued to say, that he had devised two Standing Orders, which he would take the liberty, with the permission of the House, of laying on their Lordships' Table, with the intention of moving their adoption on a future day. One of these would require a statement to be laid before the House of the number of furlongs and rods over which the projected railway would pass, for which the consent of the owners or proprietors had not been obtained. He was aware that under the existing rules they might, out of the mass of evidence laid before them, collect the Return which he required; but what he required was, that they should have, within a very small compass, and under their immediate view, the extent of the property required to be taken by the company belonging to persons who were opposed to the construction of the railway. He would also require that the height of the railway works above the surface of the ground should be specified in each case. This also, he was aware, could be collected out of the general mass of documents; but he wished to have it distinctly shown in a collected shape, and in a narrow compass, within what distance of A. B.'s house, and to what height above the surface of the ground, was to be erected that greatest of all nuisances—a railway. The other Standing Order which he had prepared, would require information that could not be all collected under the existing Orders. It would apply to the last grievance to which he had alluded—namely, that of the injury done by railways in passing, not over property, but
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near property. He would have a compendium, showing the number of houses within 300 yards of the intended line of railway, or any other distance that might be thought advisable. He was not one of those who would regret any difficulties which these Orders would place in the way of the railway schemes that would be brought before the House. He need not again repeat the reasons which induced him to feel firmly persuaded that railway speculations were going a vast deal too far—that the frenzy of speculation—for he could call it by no other name—was spreading far and wide, and that he much feared a reaction, more or less extended in its ravages, would take place in the internal commerce and in the money market of the country. He held t to be a duty due to their Lordships, and o the other House of Parliament, to bring this subject under their notice; and through them to address his fellow-subjects generally on the dangers to which they exposed themselves by engaging in these speculations. He held it to be equally the duty of all good citizens to use similar words of caution; and, in particular, he thought it to be the duty of those in whose hands rested the management of the press of the country—he meant the newspaper and periodical press—to give timely and sufficient warning to the community; and, above all, to those individuals whom the frenzy of speculation was now betraying to ruin. With these views, he would beg leave to read to their Lordships some facts that he had extracted from the Report of the Committee of the other House of Parliament that sat in 1843 or 1844. If in the years 1837 or 1838, and still more, ten years earlier, when railways were in their infancy, the promoters of the lines thus commenced were told they would get only 5 per cent., or even 6 or 7 per cent. profit on the capital expended in their construction, they would laugh at the assertion as an absurdity, as they satisfied themselves that they would never make less than 15 or 20 per cent. on the capital invested. But were these anticipations realized? He had now before him, from the Report of the Committee to which he had alluded, the per centage paid on 32,000,000 l. sterling worth of shares. He spoke of the original prices of the shares, without making any account for the premiums at which, no doubt, many of the shares were purchased—the rule being to get the shares up to a premium in the first instance, if possible—and, therefore, it was likely that the capital paid on

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the shares to which he was about drawing attention, instead of being 32,000,000 l., approached, most probably, nearer to 42,000,000 l. sterling. Taking, then, the amount at 32,000,000 l., and excluding all the schemes which were not successful and paid no dividends, he found that the average interest paid on that capital, so far from being 20 per cent., as was hoped by some, or 15 per cent., which with the utmost difficulty others thought might be the lowest amount of the dividends coming to them, or even 10 per cent., was actually as low as 5¾ per cent. on the average of the entire 32,000,000 l. But if that was the rate on the average of the entire amount, what was the result in the case of the possessors of shares to the extent of 16,000,000 l., or half the gross sum? These, instead of getting 5¾ per cent., got less than 5 per cent.—as much as they would have received from lending their money to a good bill broker, or on a mortgage on a small property. But taking 6,500,000 l. of the amount—a very large sum, and enough in itself to ruin whole counties, if lost—the average interest was but 3 per cent., or less than would have been obtained by embarking the amount in the Three-and-a-Half per Cent. Consolidated Annuities. But there was a still lower scale of profit—a degree of ruin still greater. If any of these speculators had been told their profits would be less than 2 per cent. on the capital embarked, they would, he believed, have gone into fits. The assertion would have been met by the silent contempt of the males, and by hysterics among the female speculators; but yet 2,000,000 l. of the capital embarked in these speculations paid less than 2 per cent. But take the matter in another view. There were, in the list of shares, some eighty or ninety of these speculations; out of which no less than twelve paid no dividend at all, while twelve more paid only 1l. 14 s. 6d. per cent. When the railway jobber came to a maiden lady or a widow lady having some 5,000 l. or 6,000 l., or to a poor clergyman who had a small sum, saved, perhaps, to prevent his daughters being thrown upon the parish after his death, he said, "Oh. you will never be called upon to pay more than 5 per cent., or, at the outside, 10 percent, on the number of shares taken; and then the shares will be sure to rise to an enormous premium in the market, and you will be sure to sell at an immense profit." They were thus induced to purchase, not with the intention of remaining holders of the
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stock, but under the hope that they would be able to sell out again at a profit; but, instead of the promises of the speculator being realized, the fact was, that on the whole of the 42,000,000 l. of shares, the entire 100 l. per cent. had been paid up; while of these 25,500,000 l. were selling at an actual loss; 9,000,000 l. out of the 42,000,000 l. being selling at half the amount originally subscribed; that was to say, if a poor gentlewoman embarked 5,000 l. in one of those speculations, she would now on selling out find herself possessed of but 2,500 l.; and thus her hopes of being possessed of a coach and six, and all the luxuries of life, would terminate in her actual ruin. 2,000,000 of these shares sold at one-fourth of what had been paid for them; so that 1,000 l. paid in them would now produce only 250 l.; while the interest, instead of being 30 l., as it would be in the funds, produced only 12 l. After expressing a hope that the warning which he thus gave would be attended with beneficial results among the parties for whom it was intended among the public, the noble Lord concluded by saying, that he would not trouble their Lordships by reading the Orders which he had prepared; but he would beg leave to move that they be now laid upon the Table, and printed.
Motion agreed to.
The Marquess of Breadalbanesaid, he had a petition to present from one of the railway companies, against which his noble and learned Friend had endeavoured—and he was afraid successfully endeavoured—to excite the feelings of their Lordships. He was confident that as long as his noble and learned Friend remained in the House, and retained his hostility to railways, no great hardship would be in flicted by them, without being brought before the House and the public. The petition was from a company calling themselves the Caledonian Railway Company; and it complained of certain clauses of a Bill about being introduced into their Lordships' House, namely, the Railway Clauses Consolidation (Scotland) Bill, which gave compensation to road trusts. These clauses gave a power to the Sheriff in certain cases to inquire what compensation should be given to toad trusts by railway companies, and they had been pronounced by persons well versed in the law of Scotland to be totally impracticable, and calculated to lead to great injustice.
Lord Broughamsaid, he was aware his noble Friend, who had just sat down, was one of the principals of the railway powers, and the chairman of a great railway company, but he was quite sure that his noble Friend would never be a party to any such acts of oppression as those which he had been describing.
The Earl of Dalhousiesaid, he would not trouble the House by going at length into the observations which his noble and learned Friend had made on this occasion, as a more fitting opportunity would present itself when the Motion of his noble Friend came under discussion. He wished, however, to guard himself against his being supposed to admit, to the full extent, the view which his noble and learned Friend had taken. There was much truth in what he had stated; but many of the facts were strongly put, and the picture he had drawn, though, perhaps, correct, was yet too highly coloured. As to the petition presented by the noble Marquess, the proper occasion for discussing that would be when they went into Committee on the Bill, which would be on Thursday evening. But so far was it from being true that this clause established a new principle, it had been acted upon in every Bill connected with Scotland; and so far from the general feeling being against the Bill, he thought that this being the only petition presented, and it from a company whose chairman was a Member of this House, was sufficient proof that the general feeling of the country was not against the Bill.
The Marquess of Breadalbanemoved, that the petition be printed. ["No, no."] He reiterated the statement that the clause had only been introduced into three or four of the Scottish railways—into them for special reasons.
Petition read, and ordered to lie on the Table.
Their Lordships then adjourned to Thursday.