HL Deb 31 July 1891 vol 356 cc893-5

Amendments reported (according to order).

*THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN

My Lords, I wish to say one word with reference to what passed in your Lordships' House last night. Of course I am not going to ask your Lordships to revise the decision at which you then arrived, though the majority was a very small one; but I wish to say one or two words with regard to the merits of the question itself. I do not propose to make any Motion on the subject. I can quite understand that it was extremely difficult for the House to comprehend the somewhat mysterious jargon of classes and letters and classifications and one thing and another with which my noble Friend Lord Belper and myself, who were on the Joint Committee, and my noble Friend opposite, are familiar, owing to our experience. The result was to leave upon my mind a sense that the decision which was arrived at was not in conformity with what is quite just to the London and North-Western Railway Company. I am not an upholder of the London and North-Western Railway Company or of any other railway; and I believe that in the deliberations of that Committee and in the votes which were given, as an individual I voted a great deal more on the side of the traders than I did in favour of the propositions put forward by the Railway Companies. At the same time, I think your Lordships intended that the Members who were appointed to sit upon that Committee should do the most pure and simple justice, as far as lay in their power, between the railways and the trading interests. A great many of our decisions passed without any remark; but this particular one, which happened to be in favour of the London and North-Western Railway Company, has, I am sorry to say, been reversed. I am not going to attempt to convey to your Lordships any detailed information on the subject; I am afraid that I failed last night, and I do not think I should succeed any better now; but having given, as your Lordships did, and as the Committee did, higher rates for the carriage of coal, special rates on these small Welsh railways, I do respectfully say that I think the House acted somewhat under a misapprehension in refusing rates of the same nature to those same railways with regard to the more manufactured article, slate. That is all I have to say except this: that at the last moment I asked if your Lordships could extend the charges of the London and North-Western within a farthing of what appeared on the special scale. I know that your Lordships were not willing to take that course, and I only hope and trust that the matter will be revised and reconsidered hereafter. I can only say that if that course were decided upon I should be most happy to be a member of a Select Committee to examine into the merits of that one particular case, and to elicit the opinions and examine the persons upon whose opinions those changes have been made in the Bill. I feel certain that if the other members of your Lordships' Committee had been present they would all have agreed with me upon this point, as Lord Belper did last night. I only hope that this matter may subsequently meet with some reconsideration from Her Majesty's Government.

Standing Order No. XXXIX. considered (according to order) and dispensed with; Bill read 3a, and passed.