COMMITTEE. (Hansard, 21 June 1870)

THE EARL OF KIMBERLEY
, in moving that the House do now resolve itself into Committee, said, he desired to make one or two observations in reply to what had been stated on a previous evening by the noble Lord the Chairman of Committees. With reference to the dissatisfaction said to prevail in certain quarters, he rather supposed that it it originated with some Parliamentary agents who naturally found fault with a system which tended very materially to abridge the business before Select Committees of both Houses. For himself, he did not think that a second inquiry by the Board of Trade was necessary, inasmuch as a previous inquiry took place by the Admiralty. He had referred to the number of Provisional Orders granted by the Board of Trade 623 between 1862 and the present time, and he found that nearly the whole of them had been confirmed by Parliament with out the necessity of parties going before a Select Committee. He did not think Parliament had any reason to view with jealousy the system of Provisional Orders; but he did not at all complain of the noble Lord watching narrowly the action of the Board of Trade. The noble Earl concluded by paying a marked tribute to the admirable manner in which the business of the Board had been conducted in the much-to-be-regretted absence of his chief, by the Vice President, (Mr. Shaw Lefevre).

§ LORD REDESDALE
said, he should be sorry if it could be supposed that any observations he had made on a former occasion arose from any idea that there was want of ability and energy on the part of the Vice President of the Board of Trade. On the contrary, he believed that Mr. Shaw Lefevre had proved himself a most zealous and efficient officer, and there could be no doubt that at the present time the Board was very much overworked. Complaints had been made to him of cases in which the parties said they had found the transaction of business with the Board of Trade extremely unsatisfactory, in consequence of so much of that Department being conducted by subordinate officers; and he thought that under present circumstances that must necessarily be the case. To say that it was not so would be to say that the Office of President of the Board of Trade was a useless one. He did think it was a just cause of complaint that during a considerable portion of the last half-year the Board of Trade had been without any head whatever. In the present Session a Committee was appointed on the Tramways Bill, of which Committee the Vice President of the Board of Trade was Chairman. It sat for 10 or 11 days, during which time the Board of Trade Office must have been without either President or Vice President. With regard to the case of Ilfracombe, which came within the Bill, there ought to have been a new inquiry. Formerly steamboat owners appeared in the case, and the Admiralty sent down an officer, whose Report was adverse to what would now be done by the Board of Trade. The steamboat owners having withdrawn from the opposition there was no one now before Parliament to prevent 624 the carrying out of what that officer had said ought not to be done.

THE EARL OF KIMBERLEY
said, that officers of great experience were associated with the Board of Trade. It did not follow that because an officer of the Admiralty had reported adversely last year, the Board of Trade were bound by their decision under altered circumstances.