The Earl of Dalhousielaid upon the Table of the House a Minute of the Lords of the Committee of Privy Council for Trade, dated the 10th day of July, 1845, relative to the constitution and mode of proceedings of the Railway Department of the Board of Trade. As the subject was one of considerable importance, he felt himself called on to state shortly, the alteration which it was intended to make, and the grounds upon which they proceeded. Their Lordships would recollect that, at the commencement of the last Session, a Committee had been appointed by the other House for considering the subject of Railway Legislation generally. That Committee sat for many months, and made a very full Report on various matters connected with railways. Upon one point in particular, it reported very fully—viz., the degree of supervision which the Government ought to exercise over schemes before they were brought under the consideration of Parliament. That Report was laid before the House, and adopted, and the Government proceeded to carry into effect its recommendations. It had now become necessary for the Government to consider what provisions should be made for the future conducting of railway schemes. They had found that the circumstances connected with the subject differed materially from those which existed at the beginning of last Session. Having maturely considered the question, and having due regard to the constitution and operations of the Committee of the House of Commons, and to the feeling which had been evinced by Parliament in the course of the present Session, the Government had come to the conclusion, that the Board of Trade should not, in future, prepare or submit to Parliament any Report upon the merits of railway projects. But in relinquishing this function of reporting upon the merits of schemes, previously to their being considered by Parliament, their Lordships must not be induced to consider that the Board had failed in the object for which it had been instituted. He had seen it stated as a curious fact — and curious it, no doubt, would be if true—that only one 389 decision of the Board of Trade had been approved of by the House of Commons, and that that one decision had been reversed by the House of Lords. But what were the real facts of the case? The Railway Department of the Board of Trade had reported on 247 schemes, comprising nearly 8,000 miles of railway; of these 58 had been withdrawn, and 19 had failed upon the Standing Orders, leaving 160, which had been read a second time in the House of Commons. Of these 160, nine still remained undecided, making the number, actually decided on, 151; and of these 151 schemes decided on both by the Board of Trade and the House of Commons, there were only six in which the House of Commons had directly reversed the opinion of the Board of Trade, which six schemes were involved in what was termed the gauge case, and only nine other cases in which the opinion of the Board of Trade had not been confirmed, owing in the mean time to a change of circumstances, or to a compromise between the contending parties; so that, out of 151 schemes which the House of Commons had decided upon, only 15 had been rejected, while 123 of the decisions of the Board of Trade had been absolutely confirmed. He thought he was, therefore, entitled to say that the Board of Trade had not failed in discovering the truth, and that their Reports were not to be considered as waste paper. The Minute of last year proposed that a distinct Committee of the Board of Trade should be appointed for railway business; but it was now intended to discontinue that Committee, and allow the business to be carried on by the ordinary Committee. The same preliminary steps on the part of railway companies which were now required, such as depositing with the Board of Trade a copy of the plan and a statement of the objects of the Bill, would continue to be required. They would also be expected to deliver a copy of the Bill when prepared; and if, upon the examination of its provisions, it should appear to the Board of Trade to be desirable, on public grounds, to direct the attention of Parliament to the nature of those provisions, the Board of Trade would be at liberty to submit to Parliament a Report upon the subject; but in no case to pronounce any opinion upon the merits of the Bill. That was a considerable change from the former system; and he ventured to think that it would be impossible for 390 either House to feel, under the remodelled form of procedure, that there could be any invasion of their powers in deciding upon such matters.
Lord Broughamthanked the noble Earl for his very fair and candid statement. The noble Earl said that a new arrangement had been made. It might well be called a new arrangement. It was just such an arrangement as took place in the body natural, when it was consigned to its parent earth, and suffered decomposition in the course of nature. He condemned the system of delay which was pursued in Committees by the opponents of different Bills for the purpose of insuring their defeat; and particularly instanced the case of the London and York Bill, which had now been about fourteen weeks in Committee. He had always been opposed to the appointment of the Board of Trade Committee, considering that their proceedings were calculated to encourage gambling, and being convinced that they could not have the materials before them which would enable them to come to a correct conclusion. He, however, could not see any objection to the plan now proposed.
§ Report to be printed.