§ Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee read.
§ Moved, "That the House do now resolve itself into Committee."
§ THE MARQUESS OF TWEEDDALEsaid, he wished to take that opportunity of protesting against the manner in which the Convention dealing with submarine telegraph cables had been conducted. The property affected by the Convention consisted of 110,000 miles of telegraph cable, of which 98,000 miles belonged to private individuals or to private Companies. The whole of those cables had been laid down at different times by English hands, and were for the greater part maintained, kept in order, and repaired by English hands. The value of the property in submarine cables owned by private individuals or Companies was estimated at £34,000,000, and the owners of that property were, for the greater part, inhabitants of the United Kingdom. That was the nature of the property to which the Convention applied, and for the protection of which the Convention was held in March, 1884. The Convention was composed of the Representatives of 26 Powers, including the European Powers, two Asiatic Powers—namely, the Shah of Persia and the Indian Government—the United States, and some eight or ten small Governments in South America. The only feature common to all those Representatives was their complete ignorance of everything connected with sub- 1601 marine telegraphy. He did not believe there was one person at that Convention who had any knowledge, theoretically or practically, of the laying or maintenance of submarine cables. It was naturally to be expected that the Convention would communicate in some way with the owners of this valuable property. So far from doing so, they legislated for it in complete ignorance of the subject, and without inviting the owners or other persons capable of doing so to give them information. The result, as might be anticipated, was that the Bill carrying out the deliberations of the Convention contained clauses so objectionable that the owners of this valuable property, almost to a man, had petitioned that this Bill, designed for their protection, should not become law. They alleged that so far from the Bill being calculated to protect them it was eminently calculated to injure and, in some cases, to ruin them. The best evidence he could give that the objections to the Bill were not exaggerated was afforded by the Amendments which the noble Duke who had charge of the Bill had placed upon the Paper. In one case the Amendment proposed by the noble Duke was very considerable, and in another it entirely wiped out one of the Articles of the Convention. He ventured to think, however, that the Amendments he had placed on the Paper were preferable to those of the noble Duke; at any rate, the owners of the telegraph cables preferred them. He had risen to record this protest, because he thought it intolerable that a large and valuable property like this should be dealt with, as this had been, without any communication with those for whose benefit the Convention was ostensibly held.
§ Motion agreed to; House in Committee accordingly.
§ Clause 1 (Short title) agreed to.
§ Clause 2 (Confirmation of Convention).
§ On the Motion of the Marquess of TWEEDDALE, the following Amendment made:—"In page 1, line 9, after ("and"), insert ("subject to the provisions of this Act").
§ Clause, as amended, agreed to.
§ Clause 3 (Punishment of violation of Article two of Convention).
1602§ THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (The Duke of RICHMOND), who had given Notice of the following Amendment:—In page 2, after subsection (3), insert as a new subsection (3a)—
A person shall not be deemed to have acted wilfully who in order to the repair of one submarine cable is unavoidably compelled, by reason of not being able to effect the repair otherwise, to break or injure another submarine cable; but this provision shall not apply so as to exempt such person from any liability under this Act to pay the cost of repairing and breakage or injury;Also after the clause, to insert as a new clause—(Limitation of Article four of Convention.)Article four of the Schedule to this Act shall not apply to a depth of water exceeding one hundred fathoms,said, it had been adopted by him in consequence of representations made by the noble Marquess (the Marquess of Tweeddale) and other Gentlemen interested in the subject. It was pointed out by them that the clause affected Telegraph Companies injuriously, and rendered them liable to be punished by fines and imprisonment if in the exercise of their duty to repair their own cables they injured those of somebody else. It might very well happen that in repairing their cable a Company might unintentionally damage the cable of another. To meet this difficulty he now moved to amend the clause by providing that no person should be deemed to have acted wilfully who, in order to repair one submarine cable, should be unavoidably compelled to injure another submarine cable. The provision was not, however, to exempt the person injuring the cable of someone else from liability for the cost of repairing it.
§ THE MARQUESS OF TWEEDDALEsaid, that he entirely agreed with the principle of the Amendment, though it did not, in his opinion, afford sufficient protection to those for whom it was intended. Ho objected to the use of the ambiguous word "unavoidable." It would be almost impossible to say whether any particular act done by the captain of a ship in mid-Atlantic in the repair of a cable was, under the circumstances of the case, unavoidable or not. It should be sufficient that everything was done in reason to prevent injury to other cables. He would 1603 suggest an Amendment to the effect that punishment should not be inflicted when sufficient and reasonable precautions had been taken to prevent injury being done to another cable.
§ LORD BRAMWELLsaid, he could not help thinking that this was a very dangerous piece of legislation. It appeared to him, however, that the Amendment of the noble Duke was an improvement on the original clause, and that the Amendment of the noble Marquess was an improvement on that of the noble Duke; but he himself intended to suggest a third Amendment to the effect that this section should not extend to any case where in a bonâ fide attempt to repair a submarine cable injury had been caused to another cable or the same had been broken, but that the section should not apply so as to prevent a civil remedy.
§ THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (The Duke of RICHMOND)said, that his Amendment was substantially the same as that proposed by the noble Marquess. The noble Marquess had referred to the difficulty of mending a cable in the Atlantic; but the Amendment he proposed to insert in the Bill had reference only to the 100 fathom limit, and, consequently, what the noble Marquess said was not much to the purpose. They had all the same object in view, and that was not to subject persons to what would certainly be an injury in the execution of what was their legitimate duty. There were three propositions before the Committee—his own, that of the noble Marquess, and that of the noble and learned Lord. He liked the third better than the second, and it was possible the second might be better than his own. He would suggest that that of the noble and learned Lord should be printed, and that the matter should be left open to the Report, which he hoped might be taken on Friday.
§ THE MARQUESS OF TWEEDDALEsaid, he did not understand the noble Duke's criticism as to the 100 fathom limit—which applied solely to Article IV. of the Convention, and not to Clause 3 now under discussion.
§ THE LORD CHANCELLOE (Lord HALSBURY)suggested that there were some ambiguities in the clause of the noble and learned Lord (Lord Bram-well), which he might correct in putting 1604 it on the Paper. The words "bonâ fide" and "reasonable care" involved the question which would have to be determined by a jury.
§ Clause agreed to.
§ THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (The Duke of RICHMOND)said, he proposed to insert after Clause 3 a clause to meet objections which had been raised that the measure went far beyond what was reasonable. It was said that it would be very difficult indeed, if not impossible, in mid ocean to take up a cable, especially in places where they were in close proximity to each other. He therefore proposed that Article 4 of the Schedule should only apply to a depth of water not exceeding 100 fathoms, a limit which was well defined in all charts. There was no difficulty in dealing with cables within that depth; it was easy to take them up and repair them. He added to the clause a Proviso preserving any right or remedy possessed independently of the Convention or of the Act.
§
Moved, to insert new clause after Clause 3—
(Limitation of Article four of Convention.)
Article four of the Schedule to this Act shall not apply at a depth of water exceeding one hundred fathoms."—(The Duke of Richmond.)
§ THE MARQUESS OF TWEEDDALE, in accepting the Amendment, said, he was obliged to the noble Duke for the manner in which he had endeavoured to meet the wishes of those concerned.
THE EARL OF CAMPRBDOWNasked whether the limitation in the Amendment was consistent with the Convention, which applied to all cables, and for which the contracting parties undertook to ask the sanction of their Legislatures?
§ THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (The Duke of RICHMOND)said, that Parliament could not be compelled to carry out the whole Convention.
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWNsaid, he was afraid we were establishing a system of punishment for British subjects which would not be enforced by foreign nations against their own subjects engaged in these operations, which would be undertaken when we were neither at peace nor at war, but between the two.
§ Amendment agreed to; Clause inserted accordingly.
§ Clauses 4 to 7, inclusive, agreed to.
§ Clause 8 (Masters of vessels liable to punishment).
§ THE MARQUESS OF TWEEDDALE, in moving the insertion of the following clause:—
§ (Provisions as to a concession of right of landing cables.)
§ "With respect to concessions to be hereafter granted of the right of landing submarine cables on the shores of the United Kingdom the following enactments shall have effect:
- "(1.) No such concession shall be granted unless public notice of the application for and purport of the proposed concession has been previously given by advertisement once in The London Gazette and twice in two successive weeks in two daily morning newspapers published in London.
- "(2.) Before any such concession be granted the Board of Trade shall consider any objections which may be made thereto by any company or persons affected thereby, and of which notice in writing shall be given to the Board of Trade within twenty-one days after the date of the insertion in The London Gazette of the advertisement mentioned in this section.
- "(3.) A copy or statement of the material provisions of every such concession shall be inserted in The London Gazette within fourteen days from the date thereof, and copies shall be laid before both Houses of Parliament within the like period if Parliament be then sitting, and if not, then within fourteen days from the next sitting thereof,"
§ said, the object of Article 3 was to secure in future that a cable should be laid in such a manner that it would not cause any injury to any other cable, and he wished to provide that in future when a concession was given before it became valid it should be treated as a provisional order—in other words, that the concession should remain for a certain number of days so that it might be examined, discussed, and, if necessary, objected to. At present, there was no machinery whatever for ascertaining the nature of the concession which might be granted by the Board of Trade or the Post Office.
§ THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (The Duke of RICHMOND)said, he objected most strongly to this clause, which seemed to have been drawn up very much in favour of existing Companies. It would be very difficult for new Companies to become established as means might be taken during the time application was being made to endeavour to buy up the new 1606 Company. He also thought it would be a great hardship upon the owner of a foreshore that he should not be able to grant a concession to a Cable Company to land upon it without coming to Parliament.
§ LORD BRAMWELLsaid, ho should support the Amendment.
§ THE MARQUESS OF TWEEDDALEsaid, he had had no communication with any of the Companies on this subject, and there was no intention to stop concessions.
§ Clause (by leave of the Committee) withdrawn.
§ Remaining Clauses agreed to.
§ The Report of the said Amendments to be received To-morrow; and Bill to be printed as amended. (No. 203.)