COMMITTEE. (Hansard, 30 June 1891)

THE EARL OF BELMORE

My Lords, before this Bill goes into Committee perhaps I might make one or two observations upon it. I regret that, owing to my absence from town during the whole of last week, this Bill escaped my attention until to-day. I was not, therefore, able to give notice of an amendment, as I would otherwise have done, and which I now hope to move in the Standing Committee when it goes there next week. I have nothing whatever to object to in this Bill, but there is one matter which I should have been very glad to have seen included in 1838 it, and to which I should be glad to call the attention of my noble Friend who represents the Irish Office in this House. Rather more than a year ago an extension of the South Clare Light Railway came before the Committee of the Privy Council in Dublin on one occasion when I was present, and the opposition to it was solely on the ground of the incidence of the baronial guarantee. The Committee of the Privy Council advised the Lord Lieutenant not to let the Bill proceed; and, although, of course, I had no right to say anything about what might have influenced the Committee if they had had the power themselves in the matter, yet, I think it is a fair inference from what took place, and from the course of evidence that as nobody objected but everybody wished this Light Railway to go on (and that certainly would have been my view) if there had been power with regard to the guarantee it would have been done, and all the expense of sending the Bill back to the Grand Jury, with all the attendant expenses of retaining legal gentlemen to argue it, would have been avoided. I hope to have an opportunity of moving an amendment in that direction, and I should be glad if the noble Lord representing the Irish Office in this House will consider the point.