Lords Sitting of 6 July 1857

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILLS.—3a Dulwich College; Militia (Ireland) Act (1854) Amendment; Oxford University.

THE SCHOONER "MARIA"—QUESTION.
THE EARL OF MALMESBURYwished to put a question to the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs relative to a case of some hardship. It was the case of a Captain Ouseley, commander and part owner of the schooner Maria, which had been seized by the Venezuelan Government. It appeared that a boat had been detached from the schooner in order to pro-
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cure provisions at Caraccas. On board the boat there were some few yards of cloth which the crew intended merely to barter for the provisions of which they stood in need. They were, however, accused of smuggling, and the boat was consequently seized. The captain was brought before the authorities of the country, and fined 100 dollars for a breach of the Custom House rules of Venezuela. Not satisfied with this, the Government of that country also seized the schooner, which was then engaged in a regular and legitimate trade—that of carrying cattle to Demerara. The seizure occurred on the 7th of March, 1856. Since then a correspondence had taken place between his noble Friend (the Earl of Clarendon) and the brother-in-law of Captain Ouseley; and it appeared that no notice whatever had been taken of this transaction by our Chargé d'Affaires at Caraccas, and that no communication on the subject had been sent by that officer to the Foreign Office in answer to inquiries that had been addressed to him regarding it. In the meantime, Captain Ouseley had presented a bill against the authorities of Venezuela for damages to the amount of something like £3,000. He wished his noble Friend to explain, if he could, how such a proceeding as this, affecting a vessel that was British built, British manned, and British owned, should have taken place without any interference on the part of our Chargé d'Affaires on the spot, or without the knowlege of the Foreign office being drawn to it.
THE EARL OF CLARENDONwas sorry that he could not afford his noble, Friend the explanation he desired. It was perfectly true that neither before nor since the information relative to this case had been given to the Foreign Office by the parties interested had he received any Report on the subject from our Chargé d'Affaires at Caraccas. As soon as the circumstances came to his knowledge he put himself in communication with the Commissioner of Venezuela, who was then about to return to that country, and requested him to be good enough to lay the matter under the notice of the Venezuelan Government. Since then, however, he had not heard anything of that gentleman's proceedings. Although he had not yet succeeded in obtaining any information respecting this transaction, he trusted that before much longer he should receive some explanation on the subject.

CONVEYANCE OF TROOPS TO INDIA.

  QUESTION.
  THE EARL OF CARDIGANwished to ask the noble Lord the Secretary for War whether it was true that the reinforcements of European infantry and cavalry about to be despatched to India for the purpose of suppressing the serious insurrection which had broken out in that country were to be sent out in sailing vessels instead of in steamers? After what had happened during the war in the Crimea, the Government would be profiting little by past experience if, when they had so many war and merchant steamers at their command, they sent out these troops, whose speedy presence was required to meet a critical emergency, by sailing vessels.
  LORD PANMUREsaid, he could assure the noble Earl that the most attentive consideration of the Government had been given to this question of the best means of sending reinforcements to India with the greatest expedition possible. The difficulty in the use of steam vessels was the delay necessarily caused by coaling. This operation made it necessary for steamers to call at several ports; whereas sailing vessels were able to shorten the course by keeping further from shore. The result was, that the sailing yessels arrived at their destination as soon, if not sooner, than steam vessels. It was on a conviction that this would prove the case in the present instance which had induced the Government, after an attentive consideration of the matter, to give the preference to sailing vessels.
  THE EARL OF ELLENBOROUGHsaid, that he could not speak on that matter from very recent experience; no doubt steam navigation had since then greatly improved; but when he was in India no steamer made so good a passage as a sailing vessel, and this arose in consequence of the coaling difficulty referred to by his noble Friend (Lord Panmure). He should add, that this was the most favourable season at which a sailing vessel could start with troops for India.

  ALLEGED REVIVAL OF THE SLAVE TRADE—EXPLANATION.
  LORD BROUGHAMsaid, he found he had exaggerated the number of what were called free negroes about to be conveyed to the French colonies from the coast of Africa. He understood that the number was not 20,000, as he had stated, but
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  10,000. He was sure that no scheme for the revival of the slave trade would obtain the assent of the Emperor of the French. His noble Friend (the Earl of Clarendon) had also been charged with conniving at this virtual re-opening of the slave trade; but he (Lord Brougham) felt confident that no one would regard such a scheme with more suspicion than his noble Friend (the Earl of Clarendon). It must be admitted that there was the greatest difference between carrying off free negroes, or whatever they might be called, to a slave colony, and carrying them to colonies in which slavery was abolished. Yet, as regarded the Africans, even although they might be carried to colonies in which slavery was abolished, yet any scheme of this kind ought to be viewed with distrust, and to be most carefully and scrupulously watched.
  THE EARL OF SHAFTESBURYsaid, that some misunderstanding existed with regard to a deputation that recently waited upon the First Lord of the Treasury on this subject. The main object of that deputation was to represent to the Prime Minister some facts connected with the increase of the slave trade and the necessity of repressing it, not so much on the coast of Africa as by means of additional gunboats and steamers on the shores of Cuba. The want of free labour in some of the colonies was certainly a matter of discussion among that deputation, and one gentleman, gave an opinion on that subject. But as far as he (the Earl of Shaftesbury) was concerned—and he believed he might say the same for the other members of the deputation—their opinion was, that to endeavour to set on foot a scheme for carrying free negroes from the coast of Africa would be to all intents and purposes a revival of the slave trade, the most accursed crime that ever was perpetrated.
  THE EARL OF MALMESBURYsaid, he should be sorry if their Lordships should run away with the idea that if some plan were adopted, or could be discovered, for free labourers from Africa, that that was necessarily a renewal of the slave trade. If that were clearly shown, there was an end of the matter. But on the score both of policy and humanity the question was worthy the consideration of those who wished to take a broad and statesmanlike view of the subject. On the other side of the Atlantic there were millions of acres that could not be cultivated by white men, and if they were not culti-

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  vated by blacks they must remain sterile; while millions of negroes willing to labour were confined to the coasts of Africa. On the other hand, looking at it in a philanthropic point of view, there might be a danger of renewing the slave trade. He trusted, however, that their Lordships and the Government would not take it for granted that any efforts or experiments in the direction which the French Government were now taking must inevitably result in the revival of the horrors of the slave trade.
  THE EARL OF CLARENDONsaid, he had made inquiry into the matter in consequence of the speech delivered by his noble and learned Friend the other evening, and he found that the condition of the assent of the French Government to the contract was that it should be an engagement of free labourers, and that the negroes should be sent to those colonies where labour was wanted. It was intended to take all possible securities against abuses; but he agreed with his noble and learned Friend, that no plan of this sort, however carefully it might be devised, could be safely carried out without a liability to the revival of the slave trade.

INDIAN ADMINISTRATION—THE CIVIL SERVICE.

  RETURNS MOVED FOR.
  THE MARQUESS OF CLANRICARDE, in rising to move for Returns relative to the Civil Service in India, said, that as he believed there was no objection to their production, and as there must before long be a general inquiry into the administration of the Indian Government, he would not detain their Lordships at any length. When the present disturbances were put down—and he had no doubt they would be quelled at much less cost and with much less difficulty than some persons supposed, Parliament must inquire into the causes of the state of things which recent events had proved to exist in the Indian army. To suppose that this was a mere question of greased cartridges was absurd. The Returns which he desired would be of great service in the prosecution of these investigations, and would show what was the amount of administrative force at the disposal of the Indian Government. At present he spoke upon imperfect information, but it appeared to him that they were expecting the present Governor General to administer the affairs of India with the
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  same number of civil servants that were at the disposal of the Indian Government in 1846, when our territory was much smaller in extent. To show their Lordships that he had not adopted that opinion without due authority, he should quote a passage from the Minute of Lord Dalhousie, which had been laid upon the table of their Lordships' House in the course of the last year. He learned from the 12th paragraph of that Minute that "in eight years four Indian kingdoms had passed under the sceptre of Her Majesty, and that various chieftainships and smaller districts had been brought under her sway." Among the smaller acquisitions the Governor General enumerated Khyrpore, Ungool, Sikkim, some Nepaulese sirdars, Mundote, the Nawab Nazim of Bengal, and the States of Central India. Then there were, besides these, the Punjab, Rangoon, Nagpore, Sattara, Hyderabad, and Oude; the population thus brought under the dominion of this country amounting to nearly 11,000,000 of souls, while the extent of territory thus acquired amounted to 207,637 square miles. It also appeared, from a Return which had been laid upon the table of their Lordships' House that the amount of revenue derived from those recent additions to our territory in India was £4,330,000 per annum. That in Europe would be a large and important country by itself. Notwithstanding that large increase, however, in the extent of our territory, he could not ascertain that any corresponding addition had been made to our civil service in India. The number of the covenanted civil servants in that country were, he found, in 1846, 431, while in 1856 it was not more than 432. It was quite clear, therefore, that we were imposing upon the Governor General of India the task of ruling an empire of considerably-enlarged proportions with precisely the same staff as had been appointed in 1846 to administer the affairs of a much smaller territory. How long, he would ask, were we to continue that policy? Was our Indian Government to be the only Government in the world which was not to possess that elastic character by which the number of the public servants was adapted to the requirements of the State? What was the resource which, under those circumstances, was open to the Governor General when a demand for an increase in the number of the civil servants arose? Why, in

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  the case in which an office of high importance was to be filled, he was debarred from going beyond the covenanted service, and from calling to his aid any member of the uncovenanted civil service, however qualified such person might be. What was the consequence? He was obliged to resort to the military department, and to take officers away from the duties of their profession to fill civil employments. Thus, when an increase in the number of civil servants in India became imperative, a diminution of the military force was the invariable result. He had heard it stated, that the number of officers who were under those circumstances taken away from their regiments, amounted to no less than 25 per cent. That such a state of things existed he attributed to the fault of no individual; he deemed it to be the result of the system—and he trusted the Government would, by agreeing to the production of the Returns for which he rose to move, place their Lordships and the country in a position to obtain accurate information upon a subject so important to the efficient administration of the affairs of our Indian empire. The noble Marquess concluded by moving that there be laid before the House a
  "Return of the Number of Officers belonging to and employed in the Civil Service of the East India Company, distinguishing those in the Covenanted from those in the Uncovenanted Service, and in receipt of not less than £400 a year Salary, on the 1st of January, 1846, and a similar return for the 1st of January, 1856;
  "And, also, Return of the Number of Military Officers employed In Diplomatic, Political, or other Civil Services, on the 1st of January, 1846, and a similar Return for the 1st of January, 1856."
  THE EARL OF ALBEMARLErose, to express a hope that their Lordships would have the assurance of the Government that a full and searching inquiry into the condition of India in all its branches would be instituted. If such an inquiry took place, it would, he thought, be found necessary to make very material changes in the policy which had hitherto been adopted towards that country, and especially in one portion of that policy—he alluded to that by which the annexation of the territories of princes whose dominions bordered upon our own was brought about. In the adoption of that system, indeed, might be found one of the causes which had led to the mutinies which had lately taken place. In support of that reform he might state, that about fifteen months since he had had along conversation with an intelligent Mahomedan Native of India in reference to
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  the annexation of Oude, and the gentleman in question upon that occasion observed to him, "If you annex Oude, you will find that disaffection will break out among the Native troops, and for this reason—they are all drawn from the agricultural, but not from the peasant class. They are what you would call in this country yeomen, or small landlords. They are of the highest caste, being either Rajpoots or Brahmins, and are of a most inflammable character. They number about 50,000, and will necessarily be deprived of many of their privileges by the annexation of their territory." Such was the opinion of the gentleman to whom he had referred; and he might add, that it had also been pointed out to him that the new land revenue system which the Government had introduced into the North-Western Provinces of India, and which was made to follow the annexation of this new territory, was regarded by the Natives as a great hardship, inasmuch as under its operation every man's property was surveyed, and each of those 50,000 sepoys would thus be compelled to make out his title to the land in his possession. He understood that Her Majesty's Ministers might rely upon the fact that 140 petitions had already emanated from the sepoys of Oude in reference to that subject, and he therefore trusted that the Government would institute the most minute inquiries into the System to which he had adverted. He had only that morning received a newspaper from India, called the Rising Sun, dated May 20, which contained a quotation from another journal, complaining of the irritating nature of the survey of the lands in that country.
  Motion agreed to.

  HIGH AND LOW WATER-MARK—RIGHTS OF THE CROWN—PETITIONS.
  THE EARL OF DERBYpresented Petitions from the Llanelly Railway and Dock Company, under their common seal, and from David Lewis, of Shadey, Carmarthenshire, complaining of the Enforcement of the Rights of the Crown between High and Low Water-Mark. He was very much afraid that he should very imperfectly do justice to the merits of the petitions which he had been requested to present to their Lordships, because those documents involved many serious and complicated questions of law, which he felt his utter incompetency to deal with. At the same time,

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  if the House allowed him, he would draw their Lordships' attention for a few minutes to some matters of detail; and he hoped he should, at all events, be able to satisfy their Lordships that the subject-matter of these petitions was one deserving of their consideration, as involving the general rights of subjects of the Crown. The documents had reference to the rights of the Crown to the land between high and low water-mark, round the whole kingdom, and not only to the nature of those rights themselves, but to the manner in which of late years it had been sought to enforce them. The two petitions were from different parties, and some of the allegations were different, but as they proceeded from the same locality, and were to some extent connected, it would he convenient that he should state their substance at the same time. The first was from Mr. Lewis, a gentleman who had considerable property on the coast of Carmarthenshire, and who was at one time the Member for the county; the other was from the same neighbourhood, from the Llanelly Railway and Dock Company, incorporated by Act of Parliament in 1828. It would first be necessary for him to state to their Lordships a few particulars connected with the locality to which these petitions referred. Mr. Lewis's property is on the side of an inlet from the British Channel, running nearly north and south, on the shores of which there is at low water a large expanse of sand uncovered by water. The land beyond the sand on both sides of the inlet consists of banks of mud, behind which, in some places, was a considerable extent on both sides of land which is occasionally flooded at high spring tides, but generally speaking partook of the character of salt marshes. The petitioner had retained possession of his property, partly consisting of salt marshes, on this inlet, undisturbed and undisputed, until 1845; he had exercised all the rights of ownership over it of which such property is capable, and had sunk a shaft in the salt marshes in order to work the coal which lay beneath, and this had been leased to a copper smelting company. Even so long ago as 1807 and 1812 these marshes had been expressly excluded from the enclosure Acts which applied to the neighbourhood, as the property of Mr. Lewis and his predecessors. It was under these circumstances that in 1845 Mr. Lewis found that an information had been filed against him, which recited that the sea shore BO far inland as the tide flowed belonged to Her
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  Majesty, and claimed for the Queen the property up to the highest point reached by the tide, including the shaft which had been sunk. Mr. Lewis lost no time in filing an answer to that information, and he availed himself of the valuable assistance of Mr. Bethell; but it was not until 1851 that the Master of the Bolls pronounced a decree directing that the Crown should proceed against other parties before Mr. Lewis, by a trial at bar. The cause of this was a claim on the part of Lord Cawdor to manorial rights. This claim after some time was compromised between Lord Cawdor and the Crown; who, having got rid of this opponent, proceeded once more against Mr. Lewis. He could not but express his regret that this compromise had taken place between Lord Cawdor and the Crown, for if Lord Cawdor had turned out to be entitled to manorial rights, of course these proceedings could not have been taken against Mr. Lewis. When the case next came on that gentleman laboured under two disadvantages. One was, that Mr. Bethell, who had in the first instance been his counsel, had now become Solicitor General; and his services being now required by the Crown, he argued against him, with the advantage of all the information which he had derived while he was on his side. The next disadvantage was, that in 1847 the South Wales Railway had obtained an Act for the construction of a line along the sea coast, on a line pointed out by the Admiralty, and the embankment of this had much improved the character and the value of the salt marshes. The Lord Chancellor ultimately decided that the landward boundary between the property of the Crown and the subject was the medium line of all the tides occurring in the course of nature throughout the year. This definition, he thought, left matters much where they were before. He was aware that it had been entrusted to a civil engineer of great eminence to lay down that medium line; but Mr. Rendel having unfortunately since died without having determined the boundary; another person had been appointed to perform the duty, the suit was still lis pendens, and. Mr. Lewis was debarred from the free exercise and control of his own property. Now, it appeared to him that the judgment did not at all satisfactorily conclude the question. Besides, was it in the competency of the Crown to lay down a line which should at all times be the line of demarcation between the Crown and the

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  landed proprietor? That seemed a very doubtful point, and one on which the course pursued was contrary to the authorities, both ancient and modern, on this subject. In Scratton v. Brown, Mr. Justice Bayley laid it down—
  "That the Crown by a grant of the sea shore could convey not that which at the time of the grant is between the high and low water-marks, but that which from time to time shall be between the two termini. Where the grantee has a freehold in that which the Crown grants, his freehold shifts as the sea recedes or encroaches."
  But if the doctrine was to be laid down that the medium line of all the tides of the year was to be the boundary between the Crown and the proprietor, it set aside the doctrine of the possibility of gain to the proprietor by accretion. And if the Crown could dispose of that which lay between him and low-water mark, it was possible for it to interpose another proprietor between him and the sea, and thus do him very serious injury. To return, however, to the case of the petitioner. While the matter was still under adjournment, a notice, dated August, 1856, was served on the tenants of a farm of Mr. Lewis, three or four miles up the inlet, stating that slag and rubbish had been deposited on the foreshore belonging to the Crown, and asking them if they were willing to take a lease of the foreshore. Mr. Lewis said that his tenants were bound to do nothing contrary to his interests; that he himself could not, while the question between him and the Crown was pending, do anything to recognise those rights on its part which he disputed, The Crown replied that in that case they should take what steps they thought fit without regarding his interests. What he now complained of was in the first instance the great delay that had taken place, and the great uncertainty to which he was subjected as to the rights which he had exercised without contest for so long a time. And in the second place he complained that while he denied the right of the Crown altogether, and claimed a right himself by prescription, he was compelled—having no interest in this question—to fight on the part of the public as to how far the right of the Crown, when they had a right to the foreshore, should go, and where the medium line should be drawn. The case of the Llanelly Dock and Railway Company was even, he thought, still stronger than that of Mr. Lewis. That company was authorized by an Act of Parliament
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  which received the sanction of the Crown in 1828, to form a railway and dock. They consequently formed a dock, and had taken and held lands, expended money, executed works, and carried on the railway in conjunction with the docks for thirty years; and it was at the end of that period they received notice from the Woods and Forests stating that they had taken for the construction of their railway land the property of the Crown, between high and low water mark, and they must enter into a composition with the Crown or take a lease of their own works. In reply the Directors expressed their surprise and stated that there was no ground for the claim made. Some time after this another letter was received from the Woods and Forests, which, while abandoning the claim first made, they stated that Mr. Rendel was then engaged in making a fresh map of the shore, and that when that was finished the Company would be again communicated with. Here, then, were the Woods and Forests first setting up one map and then telling the Company that if they did not compromise the matter they would be proceeded against, and at a subsequent period admitting that their map could not be relied upon, but that when another map was completed the claim would be renewed. He ventured to call their Lordships' attention to this case, because it was clear that if a period of sixty years' prescription was required for the security of the subject against the Crown, notwithstanding an Act of Parliament, there was no one dock or harbour which had been made for the last sixty years, under an Act, and which might have had an indefinite amount of money expended upon it, which might not be liable to be taken by the Crown. This claim, which was, he believed, entirely of a novel character, and utterly unknown to the law of England, affected not one individual, but the whole country, and proprietors of land all round the country. No one disputed that, within certain limits, the Crown had the dominion between high and low water mark—what he did not believe was, that the Crown had such a right as it could lease, sell, or make the means of profitable transactions by way of lease, or by forcing compositions. He believed that the right in the Crown was one to be exercised for the public interests, for the protection of public property, and to prevent the sea coast—the great highway of the couutry—being monopolized by

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  individual proprietors, or the public being debarred from the use of it. A great authority who wrote in the time of Queen Elizabeth (Callis), said—"Rex habet proptietatem, sed populus habet nsum ibidem necessariam." Mr. Justice Bayley laid down that—
  "Primâ facie the Lord of the Manor is entitled up to high water-mark; but between, high and low water-mark, the ordinary high and low water-mark, the right is primâ facie in the Crown. The right of the Crown is not in general for any beneficial interest to the Crown itself, but for securing to the public certain privileges in the spot between high and low water-mark; and if any nuisance is committed on that spot, then the Crown has the power of proceeding to rectify such nuisance."
  Woolrych commenting on this, said:—
  "If the King were to make the seashores of the realm a source of private sale and profit, he would, according to what is said before by the Judges, be acting contrary to the trusts for which the ownership of the shore was vested in the Crown by the common law."
  And yet the Crown is now applying this right in dozens and hundreds of cases, not for the benefit but to the injury of the public, and to the aggrandisement of the Crown property by compelling the adjacent proprietors to pay a sum by way of compromise, or to accept a lease under the Crown, paying a sum for it. This seemed making such a use of the Crown property as, by the authority he had just quoted, was contrary to the common law. There were two cases to which he wished to call their Lordships' attention, as illustrating the restrictions which the law imposed upon the exercise of this power by the Crown. In the Attorney General v. Burridge, it was laid down "that the Crown could grant by letters patent all the land between high and low water-mark, but subject to the public right of passage, and that the restriction of such right was a nuisance, and a matter of fact to be inquired into." In the second case buildings had been erected by the corporation of Portsmouth, between high and low water-mark, which were ordered to be abated by a decree, inasmuch as they intercepted the flux and reflux of the tide, and it was held to be no defence that the buildings were placed there by grant of the Crown by charter to the corporation. No general order could be allowed to prevail against the public rights. Therefore, according to the law, the Crown was entitled to certain rights on this portion of the soil, but only for useful public purposes, and for the prevention of encroachments; but, beyond that,
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  the Crown had no rights. There were involved in these petitions two important points—first, as to the nature and extent of the rights of the Crown, whether they were absolute possessory rights, or mere fiduciary rights, to be exercised in trust for the benefit and protection of the public; and next, the manner in which the rights of the Crown had in fact been exercised. He could not see, even setting aside prescription and all rights founded on enjoyment for periods of a shorter duration than sixty years, how it could be contended that those rights could be valid against the provisions and powers of an Act of Parliament, sanctioned by the Crown itself. If this principle were admitted no dock or harbour in the kingdom would be safe. It followed almost as a matter of coarse that almost every wet dock must be made on that part of the Crown lands between high and low water-mark. It is the natural place for a dock; and therefore, every dock constructed within the last sixty years, even under Act of Parliament, would be liable to be seized if it infringed on the alleged rights of the Crown between high and low water-mark. He thought this could not be sanctioned by Parliament. It was plain that the mode in which individuals were called on one after another to uphold a public principle was most vexatious. Every individual who now submitted to aggression, or compromised the claim, or took a lease, strengthened the case against his neighbour, and the Crown might thus gradually acquire against the subject powers that it was never intended it should possess. The second case not only set aside the rights of the subject—it went the further length, that for sixty years the provisions of an Act of Parliament should be no security. He thought these were subjects well worthy the attention the House and of the Government. The petitioners prayed the appointment of a Select Committee to inquire into the rights of the Crown, and the manner in which they had been exercised. He did not intend to press that upon their Lordships at present, but he did hope that the Government would take some steps to quiet the apprehensions that prevailed from one end of the kingdom to the other with respect to the new and unheard-of claims of the Crown; and that they would set at rest matters which appeared to be involved in some doubt. It should be declared distinctly by Act of Parliament what was

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  between the Crown and the subject; what were the rights of the Crown to land between high and low water-mark; and what was the extent to which those rights should go.
  LORD STANLEY OF ALDERLEYsaid, that many years ago, the attention of the Government was called to the encroachments taking place on the coast of Carmarthenshire, on that portion of the soil comprised between high and low water-mark. The opinion of the law officers of the Crown was taken on the point in 1839. In 1845 an information was filed against the petitioner and others, to assert the right of the Crown, and so matters continued for some time, until the verdict was found for the Crown against Lord Cawdor. Some of the persons against whom informations had been filed took leases from the Crown for the land they had occupied between high and low water-mark. And in 1855 the question between the Crown and Mr. Lewis was referred to Mr. Rendel, to decide as to what should be the high and the low water-mark on the property of that gentleman, according to the principle of the decision of the Lord Chancellor, Mr. Justice Maule, and Mr. Baron Alderson, that that line should be the medium of the tides of the whole year. The carrying out of this arrangement had been interrupted by the death of Mr. Rendel; but, in May last, Mr. Bidder—who had been named by Mr. Lewis as the person he wished to have as arbitrator—was named as his successor. The present position of the matter was this:—that Mr. Lewis did not deny the right of the Crown; on the contrary, he acquiesced in it, be cause the verdict in the case of Lord Cawdor, which involved the same question, was not appealed against. He had accepted an arbitration, not to decide on the rights of the Crown, but within what limits the Crown should exercise those rights.
  THE EARL OF DERBY: That agreement was without prejudice to the right by prescription.
  LORD STANLEY OF ALDERLEYsaid, the verdict to which he had referred was not subject to any exception, and had not been appealed against. Although a railway might be carried over a portion of the shore, the rights of the Crown remained the same as they were before. Therefore, as far as Mr. Lewis was concerned, there could be no ground whatever of complaint. The Government had never
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  treated the party with harshness in seeking to enforce the claims of the Crown, As to the Llanelly Docks, although twenty years might have passed by, the rights of the Crown were not thereby given up. Surely it was the duty of the parties constructing the docks to ascertain, before doing so, that the title to the ground was a good one. He thought that the noble Earl opposite would be the last person to allow the opposite doctrine to prevail. The noble Earl said that there was no beneficial interest in the Crown. Now, how would the noble Earl like to have such an argument turned against his own claims to a portion of the shore near Liverpool. The right of the noble Earl to the foreshore was a grant from the Crown, and, of course, the Crown could give to the noble Earl, or to his ancestors, no rights that it did not itself possess. If, then, the Crown had no beneficial interest in the foreshore, the noble Earl could have no beneficial interest in the foreshore of Liverpool. If the claim of the Crown be unjust, and if it ought to be upset, he hoped that the noble Earl would be prepared to return the very considerable sum he had received from the Birkenhead Dock Company. The legal question he would leave to those who were more qualified than himself to speak upon it; but, after what he had said, he trusted that their Lordships did not suppose that those claims of the Crown were unfounded, or that the Government had used any harshness in enforcing them. The Government would have abandoned their duty if they did not enforce them.
  LORD WYNFORDsaid, that it might be recollected that, last Session, he warned certain Scotch proprietors not to attempt to improve the docks and ports of Scotland before they had satisfied themselves that no demand of this kind could be made on them by the Crown, He had then in his eye, not only the subject matter of these petitions, but a number of other cases in which the department of Woods and Forests had cruelly pressed on proprietors, and there were numbers of instances in which the proprietors of land on the sea-shore, and on the banks of navigable rivers, were not able to deal with their property in consequence of the vexatious course taken by the Woods and Forests. He would not go further into the matter, but would merely say that he was surprised to hear the noble Lord say that a verdict had been given for the Crown in one case, when, in point of fact, the case

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  was settled by a compromise. He was also surprised to hear that Mr. Lewis had submitted his claim to arbitration since Mr. Rendel's death; for it was stated in the petition presented that day, that no other arbitrator had been appointed. The property in question, to his knowledge, lay far above high-water mark.
  THE LORD CHANCELLORsaid, that the doctrine laid down that evening was rather startling; for the noble Earl, setting out on the assumption that the Crown had the right to the disputed shore, said that the question was whether it had been properly asserted; and he gave, as one reason why the right should not be asserted, that the Crown held the shore, not for its own benefit, but for the use of the public. It seemed strange to say that the Crown, which held the land for the use of the public, should not assert its right: for the more strenuously it asserted it, the more it would seek to preserve the land for the use of the public. If the Crown allowed property of this kind to be encroached on year after year, and did not claim it for the use of the public, the Crown deserted its duty, and, in fact, gave up what belonged to the public to the neighbouring proprietors. The noble Earl said that the assertion of these rights was inconsistent with the making of docks, and of those in this case especially; but, if the dock company had a title which was good against the Crown, why was it not set up in answer to the information? When he (the Lord Chancellor) was one of the law officers of the Crown, he, in conjunction with his noble Friend the Lord Chief Justice (then Attorney General), was consulted with regard to the rights of the Crown with respect to this question, and they gave what, of course, they considered a sound and correct opinion, which, however, was not acted on until the Government of Sir Robert Peel, when Sir Wm Follett gave directions to have informations filed. What the Cause of the delay was he did not know, but the trial did not come on for several years afterwards; but at length it was decided that the Crown had the right to the littus maris. The matter came before him (the Lord Chancellor) by way of appeal, to decide what the littus maris was. The civil law carried the doctrine very much further than was ever recognised by the law of England; and, the matter being one involving a question of common law, he obtained the assistance of Mr. Justice Maule and
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  Mr. Baron Alderson, who heard the case with him. It was most elaborately argued, and they came to the conclusion that the rights of the Crown were bounded by the middle line between the highest and lowest point to which the spring-tides reached. Then came the point, how was that line to be drawn? The matter came before him by petition, and it was arranged, with the consent of both parties, that an engineer should be named, who, with the decision of the court in his hand, should draw the required line; and Mr. Rendel was selected, If Mr. Rendel had been guilty of any delay, it was Mr. Lewis's fault, for not forcing him on; but no complaint was made of his proceedings. When Mr. Rendel died, it was necessary to appoint another arbitrator, and Mr. Bidder was appointed. With regard to Mr. Bidder's having been appointed with Mr. Lewis's approbation, he bad in his hand a letter from Mr. Lewis's solicitor, in which he stated that he was Willing to accept Mr. Bidder's arbitration. What had been the cause of the delay, he (the Lord Chancellor) did not know; but the matter stood thus:—that the Crown, on its own part, or rather on the part of the public, had asserted certain rights, in which it had been successful.
  THE DUKE OF BUOCLEUOHsaid, that as regarded the proceedings of the Woods and Forests, there were many complaints of the vexatious manner in which this part of the business of the department was conducted. He knew of a case in which a disputed right of this kind had been suspended over a proprietor and his father for years and years, and no decision had been come to. It would be a desirable thing for the public, if the Woods and Forests were compelled to bring these matters to a speedy trial.
  LORD CAMPBELLwas understood to protest against the doctrine which had been laid down, and which was calculated to produce uncertainty where none existed, with regard to the rights of the Crown, which was unquestionably entitled to the soil of the sea-shore between high and low Water-mark.
  LORD BROUGHAMsaid, there was no doubt about the law; but there ought to be some limit between the rigorous and the capricious exercise of these rights of the Crown. This was not, however, a subject for legislation, as the rights of the Crown were undeniable; but the Crown could only deal with them so as to benefit the public.
  LORD WENSLEYDALEagreed with his noble and learned Friend on the woolsack and his noble and learned Friend (Lord Brougham) that it would be entirely useless to legislate oh this subject, as the law was perfectly clear, The sea-shore belonged to the Crown for the benefit of the public; but there was a difficulty in interpreting what was the foreshore, and the question came before the Lord Chancellor, who, with the assistance of two of the common law Judges, had laid down the proper line. There could be no doubt that the sea-shore was held by the Crown for the benefit of its subjects, and the Crown had a right to grant the land to any one it pleased, provided that the grant was net inconsistent with its rights.
  Petitions read, and ordered to lie on the table.
  House adjourned at Seven o'clock; till To-morrow, half-past Ten o'clock.