§ Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
§ LORD WODEHOUSE moved the second reading of the Bill. He stated that the government of the metropolis, as regarded local affairs, was of the most complicated and unsatisfactory character. In the parish of St. Mary, Newington, there were two paving and four lighting Boards, besides five other Boards possessing powers with 1332 reference to various matters of local administration. In the Strand, between Northumberland House and Temple Bar, no less than nine paving Boards had separate jurisdiction. In the parish of St. Pancras there were twenty-seven local Acts, under which 427 Commissioners were appointed, and sixty-three officers employed. There were no less than 250 local Acts relating to different portions of the metropolis, and as many separate local bodies. Besides these there was the Commission of Sewers. Since 1847 there had been no fewer than seven different Commissions of Sewers, and they had incurred a debt of no less than 500,000l., and the cost of management was as much as 28½ per cent on the expenditure. The object of the present measure was to simplify this system, and to put an end to this Commission, and of the numerous local bodies he had referred to. It was proposed to extend to all parishes the provisions of Hobhouse's Act, as regarded the election of vestries, and in the various parishes wards would be constituted. The parishes of the metropolis were divided by the schedule of the Bill into two classes, schedule A and schedule B, and they might be called parishes sole and parishes in union. These parishes were twenty-three in number. The rest of the metropolis was divided into fifteen districts, making a total of thirty-eight districts, each of which would elect a Board. To these Boards would be transferred the superintendence of paving and lighting, besides the management of the local sewers. As regarded the rating, it would remain as at present, the occupiers paying the paving and lighting rates, and the owners the sewers rate. It was also proposed that there should he what was called a Metropolitan Board of Works, which was to be composed of forty-six members. The central Board would have one most important duty to perform—namely, to consider a plan for remedying that which was becoming every day a more serious evil—the condition of the river Thames. They would have to devise some method of preventing any of the sewage of the metropolis from being poured into the river; and if that object alone were accomplished, a very great benefit would have resulted from this measure. The noble Lord then went through the different clauses of the Bill.
§ Moved, that the Bill be now read 2a.
§ LORD PORTMANregretted there was not time enough remaining this Session 1333 for the consideration of the details of this Bill, though he recognised its value and thought it most important that it should pass into law. He had some suggestions to offer for its Amendment. The great questions were, the division of the town into districts, and the mode of electing the district Boards. He thought it was hardly safe to invest a newly-created body with all the functions which had existed by virtue of some 250 local Acts of Parliament, which were now to be repealed, unless the House were better informed than it was at present of the nature and extent of those various powers.
§ EARL FORTESCUEsaid, he also intended to propose an Amendment in Committee. By this Bill four great London parishes, St. George's, St. James's, Marylebone, and Pancras, would continue for a time the election of their vestries in the present mode, being exempted so far from the obligation imposed upon other parishes and districts of adopting the mode of election prescribed by this Bill; and in the meantime all the new powers which were given by the Bill would be exercised by the old vestries, including the appointment of officers, fixing salaries, and deputing representatives of those parishes to the central Board. He considered this was objectionable.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYthought the Government had done well in attempting to improve the local management of the metropolis, but expressed some doubt whether this measure would prove more efficient for the sewerage than other metropolitan Sewers Commissions which had been created in vain. He recommended that, as in the case of the New Poor Law, this measure should be only a temporary operation at first, for a term of three or five years, so that its faults might be corrected by experience.
THE EARL OF CARNARVONsupported the objections which had been taken by Earl Fortescue to the 7th clause of the Bill, relating to four large parishes of the metropolis; he thought it involved not only a practical injustice, but almost a constitutional grievance, to empower bodies which had been elected for a different purpose to perform duties which neither they nor their constituents ever contemplated.
§ THE EARL OF DERBYconcurred in expressing his regret that this Bill should have come before their Lordships at a period of the Session when it was physically 1334 impossible for them to bestow sufficient attention upon it; but he frankly admitted the great importance of passing the measure, and the diligent consideration it had obtained from the House of Commons, as well as from the Government. He thought it improbable that he should be able to attend when it was discussed in Committee; but he felt confident that Government would readily consider any suggestions that might be offered. There was one feature of it on which he would make some observations—he meant the enforcement of a uniform system of voting in, and election of, vestries throughout all the different parishes. At present, only a very small proportion of the parishes in London were under the operation of what was called Hobhouse's Act. This Bill did not formally introduce that Act in all the parishes; but in effect it did the same thing; for while it repealed Hobhouse's Act, it introduced the provisions of that Act, extending them over all the parishes and thereby established single voting, and negatived the system of plurality in voting. Now, he thought there was a great deal to be said in favour of the system of plurality of votes, as enabling the persons who contributed most largely to the rates to exercise a proportionate influence over the expenditure. But many parishes had had this question referred to their own decision; and the very class of persons who by this Bill or by Hobhouse's Act would have the exclusive franchise conferred upon them, had resolved that they preferred remaining under Sturges Bourne's Act, which they thought was more conducive to the good government of the parish. Now, he (the Earl of Derby) was not advocating one principle more than the other; but he would put it to the Government whether, for the sake of uniformity in the mode of election in all the different parishes and districts, they would make it compulsory upon them to adopt a system which the parishioners did not prefer. He did not see why it should not be left to their option. No inconvenience would result from the central Board being composed of members elected by different constituencies, in different ways; for example, the Senate of the United States consisted of two representatives of each State, but elected under different state laws and by various constituencies. The working of the metropolitan system, constituted as he suggested, would afford a valuable illustration of the problem of the best mode of election, 1335 and the representatives of each locality would try to rival others in good management.
§ THE EARL OF POWISthought the vestries of large parishes, like St. George's, were not suitable for the transaction of such affairs as would by this Bill be committed to them. He apprehended also, that the effect of the 1st clause would be, though unintentionally, to put an end to the burial boards, and to the commissioners of baths and washhouses. It was inconvenient to begin the operation of the Bill on the 1st of December, when the accounts of parishes were commonly made up at Easter or Lady Day.
LORD WODEHOUSEbriefly replied. With regard to the observations of the noble Earl opposite (the Earl of Derby), although Sturges Bourne's Act was a general Act applying to all parishes throughout the country, in the metropolis a large number of parishes had got special Acts; and there were scarcely two alike in the mode of electing their vestries. If the arrangement suggested by the noble Earl were adopted, he feared it would excite more heart burnings and jealousies than the application of one uniform rate.
§ Motion agreed to; Bill read 2a accordingly, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House on Tuesday next.