The Earl of Dalhousielaid on the Table the Report of the Board of Trade on the Newcastle and Berwick, and the Manchester and Leeds Railway lines, and the Maps of the Railways in the South-Eastern and Manchester and Leeds districts, which were ordered to be printed.
§ Earl Fitzwilliaminquired whether these Reports contained the reasons for the decisions which had already appeared in the Gazette?
The Earl of Dalhousiereplied, that they contained the detailed reasons for 1035 the recommendations of the Board of Trade.
§ Earl Fitzwilliamwould then ask whether it was certain the advice of the Board of Trade would be given to Parliament on all the lines, before Parliament had been obliged to form its own conclusion without that advice? He did not ask this for the purpose of impugning the conduct of the Board of Trade, but quite the contrary; for he thought the public were indebted to the Board of Trade for the labour they had undertaken, and he would say also that the public were indebted to the Government for having imposed those labours on that subordinate department. He was induced to take that opportunity of making these observations because it appeared to him that the Board of Trade had not been fairly dealt with in other places; and he went the length of saying for himself, that it would be better if Parliament did not entertain any Bill till the Board of Trade should have reported upon it. Indeed, he entertained a sort of major opinion that the Government ought originally to have issued a Commission to determine the best mode of establishing railway communications throughout this country, and, entertaining the major opinion, he undoubtedly held the minor, not that every decision by the Board must be acquiesced in by Parliament, but that the greatest possible deference ought to be paid to the opinion of that Board. The distinction he was inclined to make on the subject was this,—that whenever the Board of Trade reported against a railway, the consequence of it should be that the Report was final; but not that it should be final if the Board of Trade came to a decision in favour of any line. By taking the decision of the Board as final when it should be against any line, they would only be postponing that line for another year; but if they took absolutely the Report in favour of a line, it might have the effect of inducing Parliament to take a line which might afterwards be found not to be the best adapted to the object they had in view. He wished to say one word more on a subject which appeared to him to call for a comment. The Railway Officers of the Board of Trade seemed to him to have been brought up before the other House of Parliament as culprits; they had been treated most unfairly, and this solely because of certain transactions on the Stock Exchange which had come to the knowledge of the public. At that place there were certain gentlemen who 1036 dealt largely in railway shares; and he was not making use of an improper word, or one which was beyond the limits of propriety, in designating these transactions at the Stock Exchange as a species of gambling, founded on their Lordships' estates all over the country. There had been inferences drawn in another place, that because railway shares realized a certain profit to those who speculated in them, this result must have been in consequence of improper communication having been given to individuals on the subject from the Railway Committee of the Board of Trade. He knew this inference had been drawn in a certain quarter where he entertained the highest respect and personal esteem; but it was in his opinion altogether unfounded. If he looked at the matter with open eyes, or even with half an eye open, if he found the Reports regularly delivered in from the first to the second, third, fourth, down to the ninth, and if, moreover, he found in all those Reports—and he must observe that persons much more acute upon these points than himself had the same opportunity for observing and for drawing their conclusions—if, he repeated, he found, and those more acute persons found, that certain principles had been adhered to by the Railway Board in coming to a decision upon the schemes laid before them, and that their decisions and Reports had been guided by those principles, then he would observe to their Lordships that it required no very great degree of intelligence or sagacity to infer that the same principle which had determined the Railway Committee in reporting upon the first nine schemes, would likewise guide them in reporting upon the tenth. It surely did not call for any excessive ingenuity to enable an acute observer to arrive at this conclusion; and yet, notwithstanding, because so obvious an inference had been drawn, and a successful speculation in railway shares had ensued in consequence, the Railway Officers of the Board of Trade had been roundly accused of collusion. This was not only a most unfounded conclusion, but the terms likewise in which it had been announced were too strong, and it was altogether a most unfair and unwarranted accusation. At the same time, he could not refrain from expressing his opinion that the traffic in railway shares ought to be put an end to by the Legislature, or by some means being placed at the disposition of the Executive Government for stopping it; or, if such a power did 1037 not exist, it ought to be devised, in order to enable the Government to prevent such gambling. This was a subject well worthy the attention of Parliament. The first railway bill that ever passed through the Legislature was called a Private Bill. What a monstrosity it was to style such a class of measures Private Bills! Was an intersection of the whole country by lines of railways, increasing the speed of travelling by four or five times, and causing an entire revolution in the economy of the people, to be classed under the head of Private and Personal Bills? Such a thing was monstrous, and if the railway schemes were continued to be dealt with on the principle of Private Bills, the Legislature would abdicate one of its most important functions. He thanked the Government most sincerely for what had been done in this respect. It was a step taken in a right direction, and he was extremely sorry the Railway Reports of the Board of Trade had not been upheld in another quarter. If the mischief that had been done in this respect was not irreparable by the time the various railway bills came up to their Lordships' House, he trusted that a sufficient and proper degree of respect and of authority would be given to those Reports. Not that in his opinion the present Railway Board was the best constituted body for effecting the objects which it was sought to achieve. It was not a Committee of the Privy Council, nor had it the weight or authority of such a body, one only of the Privy Council being a Member of the Board; but it was formed from a subordinate class of public officers, who ought not in his opinion to have such weighty powers intrusted to them. He thought the power ought to exist, but that such a body of men as those constituting the Railway Committee ought not to be intrusted with the power of dealing with all the landed property of England. He considered, therefore, that he was doing no disservice to the noble Earl sitting on the opposite bench, if he pressed on him the necessity of reconstituting the Railway Board, and of appointing to act in that capacity men of the very highest weight and authority in the kingdom; by which step all the difficulties which surrounded the legislative progress of the bills in question would be removed; and more,—he would venture to say, that a Railway Board constituted in the way he had pointed out, and selected from the class of men he had indicated, would go far to remove all necessity far legislating on the subject of railways.
The Earl of Dalhousiecould give no definite reply to the question of the noble Earl with respect to the period when the remaining Railway Reports might be expected to be laid before Parliament; for the labours of that Department of the Board of Trade had been of a far more onerous description than was generally known. The increase in the numbers of railway projects during the last year had been altogether unparalleled; and such a simultaneous creation of schemes would probably never again occur. It had, therefore, been utterly out of the power of that Board to do that which, from its constitution, it was originally contemplated it would, and which, under ordinary circumstances, it ought to be able to perform,—namely, to report upon all the schemes in detail previous to the meeting of Parliament, so that all the Reports should be ready to be laid upon the Tables of both Houses on the first day of their meeting. The consequence of the enormous pressure of this class of business on the Railway Department had been to prolong inquiries that were still going on before them. The Railway Board had been reproached for the tardiness of its proceedings, in not having reported on all the projects sooner; but a similar reproach for precipitancy would have been justly made had the Committee hurried through the business before them, without duly weighing each scheme in its bearings upon the whole subject. He must further call their Lordships' attention to the fact, that the preparation of their Reports, and their drawing up in detail, was a work which required time to perform it with that care which was requisite. The investigations that had hitherto taken place before the Railway Department only regarded the great outlines of each class of railway projects; and it now remained for the Board to see if the objects of the schemes were carried into operation in the Bills themselves. The various details of the Bills were extremely voluminous; the tariffs—the various regulations and stipulations—were all to be settled, independently of the preliminary investigations; and, of course, subsequent to them. But, in so far as those preliminary investigations were concerned, the Reports relating to the schemes would, he might assure the noble Earl, all be laid before Parliament very soon; though it was not possible for him to name the day on which 1039 they would be ready. With respect to the noble Earl's views of the system that ought to have been adopted, he did not coincide in all his opinions; nor did he adopt his views with respect to the constitution of a General Railway Commission. He would not say it might not have been desirable to have adopted such a course in the first instance; but he thought that the time had passed at which such an arrangement could be made with any advantageous results. He was extremely gratified to hear the noble Earl's statements and remarks with regard to the proceedings of the Railway Board. Undoubtedly, the Members of that Department had been, to a great degree, treated as culprits, and as such they had been condemned. He did not complain of this; all he asked, was—not for pardon—not for an acquittal—but only to have as full, as severe, as unlimited, and as long a trial as was necessary to test the integrity and efficiency of the Railway Board, and the impartiality which had governed the decisions at which its Members had arrived.
Lord Campbellhaving said a few words on a former occasion with reference to the subject before the House, would take the present opportunity of stating that he had never imputed any blame to the Railway Committee with respect to its decisions, nor to the Government for having appointed that Department of the Board of Trade. He believed the Government had acted wisely in so doing, and he believed also that the Railway Board had carried the intentions of the Government in constituting it into full effect. But what he had said, and what he was glad to find his noble Friend (Earl Fitzwilliam) concurred in saying also, was, that the Railway Board was wholly incompetent to perform its duties. It was not constituted under the authority of an Act of Parliament. Its powers were limited. It could not examine witnesses. In short, it was founded solely on the authority of a Resolution of the House of Commons, that Resolution being to the effect that railway projects should be submitted to the preliminary investigation of the Board of Trade. But that Resolution was not sufficient to warrant the constitution of a separate Department of the Board of Trade; nor could any such body as the Railway Committee have any weight until regularly appointed under the authority of Parliament. He must, however, protest most strongly against 1040 the opinion of his noble Friend (Earl Fitzwilliam), whose high character would give a great weight to his sentiments relative to the decisions of the Railway Board. His noble Friend had stated that the decisions of the Board, when adverse to a railway project, ought to be conclusive. That was a monstrous conclusion to arrive it, and he could not for a moment coincide in it. The noble Earl opposite had candidly admitted, that notwithstanding all the evidence before the Railway Committee of the Board of Trade, neither he nor his coadjutors could do more than guess at the various elements which were to be taken into consideration in coming to a decision; and that they had to grope in the dark, doing their best in the meantime to arrive at an equitable and beneficial judgment. He (Lord Campbell) had no doubt whatever that such had been the case; but ought it to be said that great enterprises—such as many of the rejected railways were—should be crushed, and for ever deprived of all possibility of being executed, because the noble Earl and his Colleagues had, in their hurry to get their Reports presented to Parliament, not had time to report on all the elements of such railway projects? He admitted that respect was due to the Reports of the Railway Board; but that such Reports when adverse were to be final, he would never consent to.
The Earl of Dalhousiewould not prolong the discussion, but must take the opportunity of putting the noble Lord right upon one subject. The noble Lord had asserted that the Railway Committee had no authority to report on the projects brought before it. Such was not the fact. The Select Committee of the House of Commons appointed to examine and report upon the general question of railway legislation reported on the particular question whether the projected railways which were to come before Parliament, should undergo a preliminary investigation by the Government or not. This question was discussed in all its different branches by the Committee; and in the Report the Committee entered into the arguments, and detailed them at length, stating that the railways ought to be submitted to the examination of the Board of Trade, and further specifying particularly the Railway Department of that Board as the proper authority to examine them. Not only was this laid down in the fifth Report of the 1041 Select Committee; but the Report entered into a consideration of what the duties of the new Railway Board ought to be, and it defined its powers and functions. The Report even went further; and, in order to prevent any usurpation of undue power, it laid down in distinct terms what the Railway Board should not do. Therefore, not only was there a line marked out as to what the Board was to do, but also as to what it should not do; and the authority which was to attach to its Reports was likewise clearly defined. It was in vain for noble Lords to assert, after such a precise and well-defined line as that to which he now referred had been laid down, that the Government ought not to have done what it did. The Government could, he must distinctly assert, take no other course than that which had been followed; and which, he reiterated, was precisely the one indicated by the Resolution founded on the Report he had referred to. With respect to the suggestion of his noble Friend (Earl Fitzwilliam), he could hold out no prospect that such a Commission of the Privy Council of the Lords of Trade, or any other similar body, as he had indicated, would be formed. The noble Earl would bear in mind, with reference to this subject, that to constitute such a Board would be to interfere with, and in some respects to supersede, the authority of the Legislature itself.
§ House adjourned.