QUESTION. OBSERVATIONS. (Hansard, 4 February 1881)

§ VISCOUNT MIDLETON

asked Her Majesty's Government, When it was their intention to bring in a Bill to deal with the question of Noxious Gases? He need not remind their Lordships that this subject had long occupied attention. The Acts passed on the subject several years ago owed their origin to Reports of Select Committees, made at the instance of their Lordships. Within two years of the passing of the last Act the grievances which had been before complained of became so much intensified that, on a Motion of a Member of their Lordships' House, Her Majesty was pleased to appoint a Commission to inquire into the subject. He had on former occasions called their Lordships' attention to the line of inquiry which was pursued by that Commission, and the conclusions at which they had arrived. He did not propose to recapitulate them; but in order that their Lordships might not underrate the importance of the interests mixed up in this question, he would briefly enumerate the places and neighbourhoods in which the evils to be dealt with in any future Bill arose. They were—Glasgow, Newcastle-on-Tyne, Tyneside, Durham, and the coke oven district; Liverpool, and the adjacent towns; St. Helens, Widness, and Runcorn; Manchester, Nantwich, and Cheshire salt works; Flint, and the North of Wales chemical works; Swansea, and the copper works of the southern part of the Principality; and last, but 158 not least, the banks of the Thames, both north and south, especially the northern portion of the Thames, from Blackwall down to Greenhithe. The population surrounding these places, more or less affected by the evils complained of, could not be less than the whole population of Ireland. It would, he believed, be no over-statement to say that 6,000,000 of individuals—a very large proportion of them amongst the poorest of our population—were affected by the influences of these noxious gases. What happened? The Commission to which he had referred made its Report in the summer of 1878. In the year 1879 a Bill was introduced by the President of the Local Government Board. That Bill, he believed, reached its second reading; but for reasons which he could not enter into, although he could do so at the proper time, it perished in the "massacre of the innocents." The next year, or rather the close of the same year, the evil had become so much aggravated that a deputation from Lancashire, headed by the noble Earl opposite (the Earl of Derby), had an interview with the President of the Local Government Board, and urged upon him that, bad as matters were before, they were infinitely worse in the winter of 1879–80, and that it was absolutely necessary some further legislation should be initiated. Further legislation was promised, and another Bill, also on the lines of the Report of the Commission, was laid on the Table of their Lordships' House in 1880. Then came a change of Government, and, he supposed, with the change of Government came other subjects which demanded the attention of the new Government, and this important matter was forgotten. In July last he called attention to this neglect, and he received a very satisfactory reply from the Representative of the Local Government Board in that House, to the effect that a Bill should be introduced at the earliest possible moment in the forthcoming Session. Information had reached him from very reliable quarters that the evils complained of had been even worse during the winters of 1879–80. The truth was, the influence of these noxious gases depended very much upon the prevailing winds, or whether there was no wind, and also upon the question of temperature. In consequence of the revival in trade, all these evils were becoming 159 intensified. He had hoped, considering the early period at which they were called together, and the remark that fell from the noble Earl the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs as to the absolute want of Business in their Lordships' House, that a Bill dealing with this subject would have been introduced at an earlier period. But, instead of that, one-sixth of the ordinary Session had now gone by, and no such Bill had been introduced. He hoped the time was coming when this subject would not escape the attention of the Government, but that it would be dealt with in a judicious and effective measure. By so doing Her Majesty's Government would earn the thanks of a very large portion of the working population of the country.