The EARL of RADNORwished that the further consideration of this Bill should be 1335 postponed, as he thought it required considerable alteration before it could be allowed to pass. He felt that under the Bill as it now stood some of the best schemes might be unfairly put an end to; and in corroboration of this view he would beg to read a letter which had been forwarded to him by some gentleman whom he did not know. The noble Earl then read an extract from the letter, in which the writer, who described himself as a holder of shares in several railway companies, alluded to the injustice that would be done under the proposed Bill to many projects of the greatest public importance, and suggested that a small portion of the capital subscribed should be retained for the purpose of keeping the companies together, and the rest returned to the subscribers until a more favourable state of the money market should enable them to proceed with their schemes. The noble Earl continued to say, that it was notorious that immense sums of money had been latterly expended in the purchase of railway scrip, with the intention of breaking up the companies and sharing in the surplus capital that would remain to be divided among the scripholders. He had been informed, both on that day and on the day preceding, that shares which had been some days ago at a discount of 50 per cent, were now at 50 per cent premium. Shares on which 2l. 2s. deposits had been paid, and which had gone down afterwards to 1l., were now as high as 3l. per share. He would suppose the case of a company comprising 100 shareholders: if fifty-one of these persons wished for any reason, good or bad, to depart from the undertaking, was it not a hardship that the forty-nine other shareholders should be thrown aside, and all the money that had been subscribed for the preliminary proceedings wasted? The hardship was very much increased, and the injustice both to the parties and to the public rendered much greater, where the shares were purchased up for the purpose of acquiring votes in order to put an end to the project. He could mention one case in which no opposition whatever had been offered to the Bill in the House of Commons. It passed through Committee, he believed, in half an hour, and had the concurrence of all the proprietors along the line. It was a Bill for a railway connecting an extensive and valuable coal-field with a seaport. Another coal-field situated four times as far from the sea, but accommodated with a railway, was able to supply coal at a lower rate than it could be furnished by the works to 1336 which he alluded. The result was, that instead of producing 120,000 tons of coals, as in former years, the quantity had dwindled down last year to 60,000 tons. Would it not, he would ask, be most unjust both to the projectors of this railway and to the public, if the proprietors of the rival coalfields and railway were to purchase a sufficient number of shares in this line, to prevent the Bill from being passed; and yet this, he understood, was a case which was not unlikely to occur. The gentleman who had mentioned the circumstance to him requested that he would not mention the name of the railway. He thought that to meet such cases a minority should be allowed to continue the company if they chose to do so, allowing the majority to retire, on payment of their proportion of the liabilities. A great deal of money had been expended in constructing plans and sections, and in making surveys, and it was too bad if these were to be allowed to become valueless. He understood that his noble Friend below him (Earl Grey) had drawn up some clauses to meet this difficulty; but he was not aware whether it was his noble Friend's intention to press them or not.
The EARL of DALHOUSIEsaid, that as a noble Earl opposite had prepared some clauses intended to apply to the cases referred to by the noble Earl who had just sat down, he would suggest to the House that it would not, perhaps, be desirable that he should follow the noble Earl in the arguments he had just used, at the risk of being obliged to go over the same ground twice, but that it would be better for their Lordships to go into Committee and hear the specific proposals intended to be submitted to them, before he was called upon to make any observations with respect to them.
§ EARL GREYsaid, he must entirely object to the discussion being postponed until he should have brought forward any Amendment which he might have in contemplation; because whether he did, in fact, propose any, would depend upon what he might now hear from the noble Earl; and before the House went into Committee, their Lordships had a right to know whether the Government had considered the evils and dangers that were likely to arise from the crude and imperfeet nature of the Bill, and whether they were prepared with any measure to correct the objections so forcibly pointed out by the noble Earl behind him, as well as by a noble and learned Lord who, he believed, had now left the House, 1337 and by a noble Marquess behind him. He had no doubt that if Her Majesty's Government applied themselves sedulously to the task, means might be found of guarding against those evils. He believed the measure to be substantially a wise one; but if it were passed in its present shape, he was convinced that great inconvenience, mischief, and injustice would flow from it. He did not think the Government had a right to rely upon Amendments, which might or might not be proposed for the purpose of correcting the defects of their measure; and he, for one, was of opinion that, before going into Committee, and rejecting the proposal of postponing the Bill for a few days, their Lordships ought to hear from the noble Earl opposite what were the views of the Government as to the evils which had been pointed out, and the means of remedying them.
The EARL of DALHOUSIEsaid, that so far from the Government relying upon any Amendments to be proposed by the noble Earl opposite, he would at once say, (having by the courtesy of the noble Earl seen those Amendments) that if the noble Earl did propose any such, he (Lord Dalhousie) would do all his power to persuade their Lordships to reject them. With reference to the views entertained by Her Majesty's Government as to the objections that had been urged, and the observations which seemed to be expected from him in regard to them—if the noble Earl had been in his place in Parliament at the previous stages of the measure, when intimation was given of the intention to introduce it, at its introduction, and at its second reading, he would have heard the considerations suggested by the noble Earl behind him (the Earl of Radnor) adverted to by him (Lord Dalhousie). All these points had been maturely considered by the Government, and yet it was made a matter of complaint by his noble Friend who sat next him, that the Bill had too premature an announcement. From that time to this, these difficulties were under the consideration of Her Majesty's Government, and they had resolved to decline such Amendment, feeling that it was impossible to provide a remedy for the mischief. What the noble Earl complained of was, that gambling was going on in the stock market. He (Lord Dalhousie) had admitted once, twice, thrice, that there was much gambling going on; but, as he had said before, and repeated now, that that ought not to 1338 induce their Lordships to reject this Bill; it was no reason for their passing it—in short, the Bill would have no effect with respect to it one way or other. And the reason he said so was this—that the gambling was going on long before this Bill was heard of. It was notorious that in the country to which he belonged, the first movement, professing to originate in a desire to relieve the money market, was a movement commenced by persons desirous of winding up: the only effect that would be produced upon the gambling in reference to this Bill was, that if it were rejected, the gambling would be twenty, ay, fifty times worse, because if these inchoate companies were left in a state of impossibility of winding up, they would be hung up indefinitely, and parties would speculate so long as there was a chance of obtaining anything. Therefore, so far as the gambling was concerned, he said it formed no specific objection to their Lordships proceeding with the Bill. Then with respect to the other part of the case—the purchase of shares for the purpose of winding up companies—he had said before, and he repeated he had no doubt it would be done; it was a practical impossibility to remedy the evil complaided of by the noble Earl. It was practically impossible to remedy such an evil by means of limiting the right of voting to the original scripowners, as scrip, like a bank note, could not be identified with any particular party. The question for their Lordships was, which was the least mischievous alternative? There was no doubt that individual hardship would accrue; but he said that the evil that would arise in taking advantage of the practical remedy which the Government proposed, and that the only one which anybody had suggested, would be but a feather in the balance, compared with the evil to the commercial community, and the population in general, if a stop was not put in some way to the progress of things as they were now going on. He thought it a matter of courtesy to allude to the Amendments of the noble Earl, as he had the kindness to place them in his hands that morning. The noble Earl had stated that great injustice would be done if means were not taken to enable shareholders to continue the existence of a company. Let him, in the first place, again disabuse the noble Earl's mind of the impression that the Bill which he held in his hand and the Sessional Orders were for no other purpose than to save speculators from the scrape 1339 into which they had got themselves. The Bill was to enable companies which were inchoate—which had not come before Parliament, or, having come before Parliament, had failed from their own demerits, or from non-compliance with Standing Orders—to enable them to wind up their affairs, to see in what position the partnership was, and to relieve themselves from their liabilities. Let him also disabuse the noble Earl of the notion that the measure applied solely to the Bills now before Parliament. There had been upwards of 1200. Now there were not more than 430 or thereabouts, and all the others were in the condition of partnerships in a state of incapacity of winding up their affairs, and ascertaining what liabilities they were subject to hereafter. The noble Earl said, that on the dissolution of a company its property ought to be vested in the minority if they wished to go on. He (Lord Dalhousie) objected to that as an injustice to those who were retiring. It would be a downright robbery to allow twenty or some small minority of shareholders, to possess the whole of the valuable property belonging to those who were retiring. The proper course would be to let the concern be wound up, let the property be sold, and let the dissentient minority, if they purchased, purchase it; and for a 5l. note they could go before the Provisional Registrar, and constitute themselves a new company. There was no doubt that gambling was carried on in the worst form, and would still be carried on. It was a great, an acknowledged, and an unmitigated evil; but the proposition of the noble Earl would only tend to increase it a thousand fold. He feared it would do neither more nor less than provide a nest-egg for speculation all over the kingdom; and the lowest and worst kind of speculators would incubate upon it, till, by this time next year, it would produce a most mischievous brood of these schemes. If there were no other remedy for this state of things, the course proposed might be adopted. But there was a remedy: if there were parties who were desirous of going on, they had nothing to do but ascertain the value of the assets of the company, then go down to Serjeant's Inn, and they were again a registered company, possessed of their plans. He again asked, was there any evil in this course? And he defied any noble Lord to say that he had exaggerated his statement. Such being the case, a remedy being provided on the one hand for the existing evil, and one which 1340 was so little liable to abuse on the other, he thought their Lordships could adopt no other course. On these grounds he should object to the proposal of the noble Earl, entering at the same time fully into his motives, and desiring, as sincerely as he, that no unnecessary pressure should be applied to these companies—desiring that the expense already incurred should, if possible, not be wasted, and anxious to give the minority, if they were desirous of going on, the means of possessing themselves of the plans for the purpose of doing so. He conceived he had now disposed of all the points of the noble Earl opposite; and he trusted their Lordships would see no objection to going into Committee.
§ LORD MONTEAGLEsaid, he thought his noble Friend who had just sat down had answered a certain part, but not the essential part, of the proposition of his noble Friend. But he would appeal to their Lordships if ever there was a state of things more painful to contemplate with respect to parties out of doors, and more disgraceful to the Legislature, than that the Government should have allowed such a system to arise and to be fostered, and should then come forward, admitting its existence, and seek to remedy these evils not by grappling with the subject in a large and masterly manner, not by laying down some broad and intelligible principle with respect to these great speculations (for great and important they were in their bearings on the national interests, and well worthy of being protected and guided to good results)—not by dealing with this question in such a manner as to give the country any hope for the future, but by dealing with it as a thing of shreds and patches—here a little remedy by an Order of their Lordships' House, and here a little remedy by Act of Parliament, but giving to the people of this country no indication of any stability of plan, any large intention, any statesmanlike way of dealing with the subject. He quite agreed that the object of the Bill was a good one; they were all anxious to accomplish the object it professed to have in view. But how did the Bill propose to do this? He had not taunted his noble Friend (the Earl of Dalhousie) with being premature in his announcement, but with the ineffectual mode in which he proposed to deal with the question; and he now repeated that charge. If ever there was a course likely to be prejudicial to the public interests, it was that of stating, that at a future time on the 1341 31st of March—leaving an interval for all speculators to prepare themselves in—an altered state of the law would take place. There was no example, as far as he knew, of anything approaching to this in any analogous legislation. The noble Earl had given notice, on the 31st of March, that persons becoming possessed—not persons then possessed—of stock, might act in a given way, either to promote or to interrupt and destroy these schemes. It was well known that every new railroad had to compete with old railroads; capital had been invested against these schemes as well as for them; and the moment the noble Earl was so inadvertent as to give notice to parties that if they took a certain step by a given day, they would have the means of acting upon the interests of these new companies—that moment it was quite obvious to every one that parties having a direct interest in preventing the construction of new lines, would use this power for the purpose of acting injuriously to others. This had actually been the case; his noble Friend admitted it, and said he despaired of a remedy. The right of voting in more important companies than these—he believed, in the Bank of England and in the East India Company—was guarded by a provision that parties should not acquire that right unless they had been for a given time in possession of stock. That was the common sense of the measure; and such a provision ought to have been introduced into this Bill. The object of this Bill was to extricate a certain number of persons from the difficulties in which they were placed, and thereby to extricate the public from the effects of inopportune and ill-advised speculative enterprise. But it was never contemplated to give notice to a number of gentlemen, in order that they might get themselves apparently into a scrape, and then make use of the powers of this Bill to bring themselves round again. He had suggested a provision—he knew not whether it would have been effectual, but it was certainly right In principle—that, as in the ordinary course of voting, every person claiming a vote should make a declaration that he had been possessed of an interest in the company on the 31st of March, and had not acquired it for the purpose. This would have secured the bonâ fides of the transaction; it would have prevented this railway king or that railway emperor from employing his great power to check and arrest the speculation of rival companies; and the measure would then have 1342 done that which Government intended and wished it to do—it would have given to the parties who were engaged in these speculations at the time a locus pœnitentiæ, in order that they might determine whether they would go on or not. Had such a declaration been provided, all the subsequent speculation would have been checked. His noble Friend (Lord Dalhousie) seemed to say that the speculation was not of his creating; and it would be a misrepresentation to say that the speculation anterior to his proposal had any connexion whatever with it. But it could not be denied that an increased and more mischievous speculation had since been going on, by reason of the proposition now before them; and there was no doubt it would be used for mischievous and bad purposes. But the 13th Clause provided that the parties entitled to vote should be those who were in possession of, and produced, certificates declaring them entitled to shares, notwithstanding they were not the parties to whom the shares had been originally granted. Now, see what would happen: ten men might go into a room, produce their certificates, and vote upon them; and there was nothing in the Bill to prevent the assignment of those shares in the room itself; and ten other men might become, under the terms of the Act, legally entitled to vote again in respect of those shares; this might be repeated ten thousand times; and by this false multiplication of votes, the interest and existence of the company might be compromised. As to the maps and plans, he considered they were parts of the assets of the company, and ought not to remain in the possession of the minority. But this might be easily remedied. Let a value be put upon the plans, and give to the parties who wished the company to continue the right of pre-emption; the value of the plans might be carried to the credit of the company amongst its assets, and their use would thus be secured to the parties desirous of continuing. He did not for a moment contemplate the partnership being continued; let the minority act like any other class of persons, and re-register, as his noble Friend suggested. Thus no injustice would be be done to any party.
The EARL of DALHOUSIEsaid, the fairest plan would be that proposed by the Bill, to put up the plans, &c., to competition.
§ LORD MONTEAGLEsaid, if this were done, the parties who sought to continue the company might be compelled to buy 1343 them at a ruinous price; but if the value of the plans and sections were fixed, either by the department of which the noble Earl (Earl Dalhousie) was at the head, or by any other competent party, no such objection would arise; and the parties were certainly entitled to a pre-emption. He did not wish to move any Amendment to the Bill, which he was anxious to see effectual, if it could be made so; but he hoped his noble Friend would see the propriety of preventing the indefinite transfer of shares, and of introducing a provision, requiring a declaration from the parties voting, that they were possessed of their interest before the 31st of March. He made these objections, not with the view of throwing difficulties in the way of the Bill—for, on the contrary, he was friendly to it, and wished to see it pass—but to render it such as would justify the intentions of the Government in proposing it, and the act of the Legislature in passing it.
LORD BROUGHAMsaid, he entirely agreed with his noble Friend who had just sat down, in the observations he had made in favour of the measure; and it was because he (Lord Brougham) was friendly to the measure, which his noble Friend professed to be, and no doubt was, that he rather regretted that his noble Friend's speech had been delivered against the measure. The obvious course, where any one was friendly to a measure, was to support it, not to oppose it, at least on this side the Channel. In Limerick it might be otherwise; but on this side St. George's Channel it was customary to show friendship to a Bill by supporting it with a speech or a vote. To speak against a measure, and to vote for it, was to look one way and row another; but his noble Friend seemed to reconcile both inconsistencies by both speaking against the measure of which he said he approved, and by voting against it, as far as some alterations went which he was about to propose. He regretted, quite as much as his noble Friend could do, that a larger measure had not been originally passed, and that a greater change had not been effected, prospectively and heretofore, in the whole system of conducting railway legislation, and private Bills generally. He rejoiced most heartily that this opinion, which had long been entertained by himself and many of their Lordships, was gaining ground every day, both here and elsewhere—out of doors and in the other House of Parliament. The present measure had been spoken of as though it was a general 1344 change in the whole system; but it did not profess to be this—it merely professed to apply a remedy to an existing evil. In applying a particular remedy to a specific mischief, they could not totally alter the system upon wide and general views of a prospective nature; but other means were perfectly competent to them; and while approving of this Bill as a remedy for a specific ill, they might go on to effect a more sweeping change in the Private Bill legislation, which he sincerely hoped would, before long, be introduced, and would prevent such mischiefs as they now witnessed from recurring. They were greatly deceived if they supposed that by putting down the gambling mania for the present, they extirpated it; for it had its root in the bad passions of human nature, and would continue to visit, haunt, distract, and half ruin this country, as it had done in 1825 and 1826; as it had done in a lesser way in 1807, in the Buenos Ayres gambling mania; as it had done in "the Orders in Council" mania, which led to the smuggling transactions of 1809, 1810, 1811, and 1812; and as it had done, worst of all, in 1825, producing a panic, almost a convulsion, in the money market, which was very nearly being repeated within a few months or a few weeks past; but which, owing to the good and firm conduct of those at the head of affairs, and owing to the admirable conduct of the Bank of England, had happily passed over without seriously injuring us, and only left us to hope and pray that such a wise improvement of the system might take place as should render the recurrence of any such frightful crisis in future all but impossible. He felt considerable doubt with respect to the proposal of his noble Friend behind him. He thought that in justice some such power might be given, if it did not exist already. It would be a cruel thing on those who were responsible for all the liabilities of the concern up to the time of their going out, to transfer all the property they had to the minority, without giving them the fair value for it. It ought to be sold; and there should be no pre-emption to the minority; otherwise, those who were going out did not obtain the fair value for their property. Let those who remained in compete for the property with others; and having bought it, they could be enabled for 5l. to register themselves. He saw no necessity whatever for altering the provisions of the Bill. The subject was a most important one; and a single false step 1345 might frustrate the whole measure, and produce other mischiefs which they could not foresee. The noble Lord who spoke last had pointed out a difficulty about the voting, which might require attention; but he must have forgotten what had been stated by the noble Earl (Earl Dalhousie), that this was a mere slip in the draft of the Bill. [Lord MONTEAGLE said, he was aware of this.] He should not have supposed, from his noble Friend's speech, that he knew there was a slip, and knew it was going to be rectified; because he had made an attack upon it, as if it were not going to be rectified. He (Lord Brougham) wished to be understood as not committed against the proposition of his noble Friend behind him, until he had had an opportunity of considering more fully the explanations of the noble Earl by whom the measure was proposed. As at present advised, he thought there was no occasion for the provision suggested, as the case appeared to him to be provided for by the Bill as it now stood. He heartily hoped and trusted that the country would have the benefit of a much larger and more extensive improvement in the system of legislation with respect to these matters; and whatever Government should carry such an improvement into effect, would deserve the gratitude not only of this age, but of posterity; for it would be beyond all other reforms and all other improvements which had been effected. He alluded to the conduct and management of the public business of the country. All the courts of law in England, Scotland, and Ireland, had not in ten years disposed of one hundredth part of the interests in land, money, stock, or in the comforts of men's lives, which were not to be valued in money or in stock that Parliament every Session disposed of, not merely in Railway Bills, but in other portions of the Private Bill legislation of both Houses. Parliament at present in this respect possessed, as had been described by a learned authority, a transcendental power—a power which no court of law possessed—that of taking men's property from them in spite of their objections to part with it, at a price not fixed by the seller but by the purchaser, or some person more or less friendly to him; and all this was carried on in the very worst possible way, by tribunals the least competent to do justice, and by a most expensive, dilatory, and vexatious process. The system was a standing shame and disgrace—he would not say to the Constitution of 1346 the country—but to those parts of the Constitution to which grave matters of legislation were entrusted. He (Lord Brougham) should depart from political life with comfort and satisfaction when he reflected that he had been the propounder and advocate of great and salutary measures of reform in this respect.
§ LORD ASHBURTONthought it would have been more regular if the discussion upon the propositions intended to be made in respect of the blots and defects of this Bill—some of which, it appeared, were accidental—had been postponed until the Bill had got into Committee. However, he must say, that he should be extremely sorry to suppose that this Bill was all that was intended to be done by the Government on the subject of railway legislation—that nothing further was contemplated to relieve the country from the state of confusion into which railway speculation had thrown it. The Bill before the House had only a very limited object in view; that of enabling those projects which were abandoned by a great portion of the persons concerned in them, to be wound up by those who so found themselves in a difficulty. The Bill also would relieve this House from the consideration of many Railway Bills with which it would otherwise have to deal. In this he rejoiced, because he should be, indeed, sorry to think that the House could possibly pass the great mass of Bills—upwards, as had been stated, of 400—which were now pending. This could not be done without serious injury, and without entailing upon the country the greatest confusion and distress. As to the spirit of gambling which had prevailed, and which he believed still prevailed, he thought it would be impossible to counteract it by any Parliamentary enactment. The only plan to effect that object which he could suggest would be, not to permit any issue of scrip in any railway company until the Bill had actually passed. He meant that the property in these companies should change hands by transfer, as was the case at the Bank of England and the India House, until the Bill had passed into a law, when, but not till then, scrip might be issued. With respect to the dissolution of the companies, a question arose as to whom the property in plans, &c., should belong; and would it not be well to provide that those who chose to remain in the company should have the option of purchasing, and buying up the capital of those who wished 1347 to retire? He would only repeat a view which he had strongly pressed upon the Select Committee which had been appointed to consider the subject of the pending Railway Bills—that a great danger and evil would be incurred, if the pending schemes were allowed to go out of the House of Lords to anything like the extent to which they had been told the number amounted. He for one did not reproach the Government for the state of things which existed; for he thought the fault was with Parliament itself, and did not attach to his noble Friend (the Earl of Dalhousie) who had the superintendence of these affairs, and who by this Bill contemplated the relief of the House from many of the embarrassments in which it would otherwise have been placed.
§ EARL FITZWILLIAMsaid, that although this Bill would diminish the number of railway schemes in the present Session of Parliament, it seemed to be impossible to say what the effect of it would be, or whether the greater number of the schemes that would be got rid of by it were schemes that ought to be got rid of. It was impossible to say whether it might not put an end to many good schemes, while it would leave many bad schemes to proceed. The desire of a company to wind up its concerns was no unerring criterion by which to judge of the goodness or badness of the scheme—he meant for the public. He doubted, indeed, whether it was a safe criterion by which to judge of the goodness or badness of the scheme even for the shareholders or speculators themselves; but of this he was quite sure, that it was no criterion by which to form an opinion of the value, or non-value, of the scheme for the public at large. Now, with respect to the objection that had been made with reference to the gambling that might take place, the suggestion made by the noble Lord who had just sat down was the best that could by possibility be carried into effect. He referred to the proposal that there should be no change of the property in those railways from the time of the original subscription until the Act was passed. That would be the best, if not the only mode, of putting an end to gambling; but he doubted much whether it could now be made practicable. He wished very much to draw the attention of his noble Friend at the head of the Board of Trade to the question of those plans. What was to become of them? They were valuable property. They were valuable 1348 documents and public property. He confessed he thought there should be sufficient grounds in that Bill for vesting them entirely in the Government. It might be said that they were part of the assets of the company, and that the whole of the assets of the company ought to be brought to bear in winding up its affairs. That was true; but at the same time let them mark the position in which those companies were now placed, and the advantages they would derive from this Bill. Was it not fair that they should receive from them quid pro quo; and when Parliament gave those companies the powers conferred by this Bill, they should say to them on the part of the public, "We should be possessed of all the valuable information you have." He (Earl Fitzwilliam would wish to see the plans deposited in a public office. He thought, on the whole, they ought to be in the possession of the Government; and he could not help looking forward to seeing the whole of those railway plans in the hands of the Government. It had been said by some person that the parties should have the power to get them sold by auction, and that every person should have the power to bid for them. But in case that proposition was carried into effect, who, he (Earl Fitzwilliam) asked, would be the persons to bid for them? Some of the great railway companies, who would by that means get into the possession of information which might be exceedingly valuable to them in carrying out their schemes, not for the benefit of the public, but for the purpose of advancing their own interests. It would be like an adverse party getting into his possession the case of the person to whom he was opposed; and he (Earl Fitzwilliam) apprehended—and he thought all their Lordships would agree with him, that would give undue advantage to certain parties who might be desirous of obtaining that information. Let them consider the great mass of information which might be thus obtained—information that would be most important for competing lines, but which would not be so important even for competing individual lines as for those great and powerful companies; for, by obtaining possession of it, thoy would thereby be enabled to carry to a considerable extent that monopoly against which it was one of the duties of Parliament to protect the country. Every day they received evidence of the means by which those parties were endeavouring to maintain and extend those monopolies; and he (Earl Fitzwilliam) was sure they ought not, 1349 by putting up those plans to public auction, give those parties the opportunity of acquiring, at a very low rate, a mass of property that would give them information which they would not otherwise be able to obtain but at great labour and expense. He thought, undoubtedly, whatever they did on other points, they ought not to leave the question of those documents loose, and that they should not allow those plans to be bought up by parties who had sinister objects in view.
§ LORD REDESDALEwas of opinion that another very good reason existed for not putting them up for auction, and that was, that no person would give anything for them; for it should be recollected that copies of those plans were lodged with the clerk of the peace, the parochial clerk, and the Board of Trade. And as to the surveyor's own book, it was only intelligible to the man who went over the ground and made the survey; and his minute book could not be made available by any other engineer. The engineer who made the survey could alone interpret what it meant, and understand the points which gave the exact measurements. But, with regard to the plans, they were all lithographed, and distributed amongst the parties who were interested in the project. Copies of them might be thus obtained, or they might otherwise be traced by any person who chose to go to the different parishes and inspect the copies lodged with the parish clerks; or they might refer to the copies lodged with the clerks of the peace, or to the general survey lodged with the Board of Trade. He would now refer to another remark that had been made with reference to this Bill. It was said that there would be jobbing practised in getting rid of those companies. He thought, however, that those companies that would be wound up should be honestly wound up by the parties belonging to them. But even if a little evil were experienced, they should be content to endure it, and take the great good they got by this Bill. It was well the parties should know the exact state they were in, and ascertain not only the Bills that would be brought under the operation of this Bill, but also those which were likely to succeed. He should, in the course of the ensuing week—on Thursday next—submit a Resolution to their Lordships to appoint a time beyond which that House would not appoint a Committee on opposed Railway Bills.
The MARQUESS of CLANRICARDE1350 had come to the conclusion that nothing whatever had been said to show that the objections stated to the present shape of the Bill should not be obviated, and that the Bill should not be adapted to provide for the cases which had been stated with so much clearness and ability by his noble Friend who spoke from that side of the House. Notwithstanding the speech made by the noble Earl (the Earl of Dalhousie), he hoped he would further consider the measure, with a view to obviate the objections that had been taken to it. He (the Marquess of Clanricarde) apprehended that the public would be much injured, if the Bill passed, by the gambling operations of the Stock Exchange, which would throw out Bills that ought to pass, in as great numbers as Bills that ought not to pass. He (the Marquess of Clanricarde) did not wish to press an adjournment of the question; but he hoped the noble Earl at the head of the Board of Trade would consider those matters, if not in Committee, at all events before the bringing up of the Report. He trusted that means would be adopted to prevent rival lines from coming in and over-ruling the bonâ fide shareholders of a company that had invested their money in an undertaking, and also prevent them from depriving the public of the benefit of a well-considered line of railway.
§ House in Committee. Several amendments made.
§ Bill to be reported.
§ House adjourned.