BIRMINGHAM (CORPORATION) WATER BILL. (Hansard, 14 June 1875)

§ LORD HAMPTON
rose to call the attention of the House to the omission on the part of the Corporation of Birmingham to comply in the case of the said Bill with the requirements of the 63rd section of the Birmingham Improvement Act, 1851; and he would move that the Bill be read a second time that day three months. The Bill was one to compel the Birmingham Water Company to sell and to enable the Corporation of Birmingham to purchase the waterworks of that Company. That Company had, he believed, supplied Birmingham with water for many years without any complaint as to their supply, and had always admirably fulfilled its obligations. The 1775 Corporation had obtained the power of purchasing those works by an Act passed in 1851—the Birmingham Improvement Act—by a clause to the effect, that with the consent of the Water Company the Corporation might purchase the works, and if any question arose as to price that was to be settled by arbitration. In 1854 the Corporation gave notice of their intention to purchase, but did not take any further steps, and nothing had been done since in that direction. The Act of 1851 provided that such power to purchase should not continue beyond seven years; and accordingly since 1858 the Company, considering that compulsory purchase by the Corporation under the Improvement Act was out of the question, proceeded to expend £ 60,000 on new works and to double their expenditure. They were therefore entitled to protest against this resumption, contrary to the terms of their own local Acts, of the power to purchase. He resisted the present Motion also on two other grounds—namely, that there was not a single Parliamentary precedent for a Corporation thus seizing upon the property of a company against its will; and, secondly, that there never before was a Bill which arbitrarily fixed the sum to be paid for such a property. The Improvement Bill of 1851 distinctly laid down the principle that the price should be fixed by agreement or by arbitration; and the Chairman of Committees in the House of Commons, in stating that he did not intend to offer any opposition, or recommend any course of action, added that he did not think it right such a flagrant violation of Parliamentary rule and ordinary justice should escape notice, as otherwise the House might unwittingly be drawn into a dangerous precedent. Another objection to the Bill was that the Company had not complied with the requirements of the Birmingham Improvement Act of 1851, which required the consent of the ratepayers to be obtained in a certain form before a purchase such as that proposed could be undertaken by the Corporation. It was true that a meeting of the ratepayers had been held, but not until after the Bill had been introduced, and gone through some, at least, of its stages in the House of Commons. A further consideration which ought to influence their Lordships was that the passing of this Bill might endanger to 1776 some extent the regular supply of water which the Company had given Birmingham, and which it proposed to still further improve. No case was made out for the Bill; and under those circumstances he hoped their Lordships would agree to his Amendment that the Bill be read a second time that day three months.

§ LORD ABERDARE
hoped their Lordships would not sanction the unusual course proposed in the Amendment of his noble Friend. The objections' were such as might have been urged when the Bill was before the other House, and he thought it unfair not to have taken the sense of the House of Commons on those objections by moving the rejection of the Bill in that House on the third reading. Birmingham had been remarkable for escaping the ravages of cholera in past times, and that freedom had been attributed in a great degree to the excellent supply of water. In the last year, however, the mortality had largely increased, and it had been discovered that of 2,042 deaths which had occurred in Birmingham, 728 were caused by diarrhœa. This led to inquiry, and the local authorities discovered that, according to some witnesses, 70,000, according to others one-third of the inhabitants of Birmingham, had recourse to shallow wells for their drinking water. It was evident, therefore, that the great increase in the density of the population rendered a better supply of water an imperative necessity. He denied, and the Corporation of Birmingham denied, that the compulsory powers of the Act of 1851 had expired. That question had been raised in the Select Committee of the House of Commons on the Bill. The reason why the Corporation came before Parliament was that very large sums of money were required to be raised. The only opponent of the Bill was the Water Company. No other body and no individual in Birmingham had petitioned against it. He contended that the sanction of the ratepayers had been substantially obtained, and that was the opinion of the Select Committee of the House of Commons after having heard the object- 1777 tion of non-compliance argued before them. A meeting of the ratepayers had been called, though not till after the Bill was promoted. There was no dissent at that meeting from the course taken by the Corporation. As to the price, he had never heard that the Company objected to the terms at which the Corporation proposed to purchase.

§ THE EARL OF SHREWSBURY
supported the objections urged by Lord Hampton, and said that the Water Company had carried on their operations with great advantage to the town of Birmingham.

THE MARQUESS OF HERTFORD
believed it would be much in the interest of Birmingham if their Lordships agreed to the Amendment and rejected the Bill.

THE EARL OF CATHCART
side, it was the tendency of the day to rely more on merits than on technicality. On that ground he hoped their Lordships would read the Bill a second time and send it to a Select Committee in the ordinary course.

§ LORD REDESDALE
side, he did not regard as a technicality compliance or non-compliance with the provisions of an Act of Parliament. He believed that if the objection brought forward by the noble Lord (Lord Hampton) had been made before the second reading of the Bill in the House of Commons it would have proved fatal to the Bill. If there was any opposition on the part of the ratepayers he thought it would be impossible to proceed with the Bill now; but, as there was no such opposition, the objection might now perhaps be regarded as coming too late to induce their Lordships to prevent the Bill from going before a Select Committee by rejecting it on a second reading.

§ EARL GRANVILLE
thought that after the moderate speech of the noble Lord the Chairman of Committees their Lordships would see their way to a decision on the question before them. In giving the Bill a second reading their Lordships would be expressing no opinion on the compliance or non-compliance on the part of the Corporation with the requirements of the Act of 1861. The Select Committee of the House of Commons had had that question before them, and seemed to have arrived at the conclusion that any irregularity in point of form of which the Corporation had 1778 been guilty had been condoned by the ratepayers, and the ratepayers themselves had made no complaint to their Lordships. As the Bill had been passed by the other House, he thought there was no good reason why their Lordships should not read it a second time.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR
thought the objection should have been made on the second reading. The objection of the noble Lord (Lord Hampton) was founded on non-compliance with a particular clause in a local Act. But the provision in the Act of 1851 was one which Parliament had introduced in Improvement Acts promoted by Municipal Corporations as a cheek on their wasting the public funds in the promotion of Bills, and also as a protection to the minority of the ratepayers. In this case—from an oversight as it would appear—the Corporation of Birmingham had neglected to comply with the form of the provision, because it had not summoned a meeting of the ratepayers till the Bill was already in Parliament. That was an irregularity on which a Court of Law must have acted if its authority had been invoked; but it was not for Parliament to interfere and refuse to allow a Bill to be proceeded with, merely because that had not been obtained in form which in substance and reality had been obtained. The Corporation had run a great risk, because if, instead of assenting to the Bill, the ratepayers had refused their assent to it, the members of the Corporation would have had to put their hands into their own pockets and pay for the promotion of the Bill; but, as there was no dissent on the part of the ratepayers at the meeting held after the Bill was promoted, he thought their Lordships ought to allow the Bill to be proceeded with.