BLACKROCK AND KINGSTOWN MAIN DRAINAGE AND IMPROVEMENT BILL. (Hansard, 24 March 1892)

THE EARL OF PEMBROKE AND MONTGOMERY
My Lords, as what I ask your Lordships to do, to refer this Bill back again to the Standing Orders Committee, is very unusual if not altogether unprecedented, I hope you will have patience with me for a moment while I explain what this Bill is and the fate it has met with. The Blackrock Township is one of the townships in that thickly populated district that runs from Kingstown to Dublin. All the way from Kingstown to Dublin the sea is extremely shallow; there are sands which run out a long way to sea and which are all dry at low water. I want your Lordships to take in the geographical aspect of this question; I only wish I had one of the big maps with a long stick that they have in the Committee Rooms upstairs to make myself clear; because unless you understand the geographical position it will be hard for your Lordships to understand what the peculiar difficulty of the Blackrock people is in dealing with their sewage, why they have always had to wait upon the people of Kingstown, and why they are perfectly justified at the present time in persisting with this Bill. My Lords, owing, as I say, to the shallow water and flats in front of these townships, to deal properly with their sewage it is absolutely necessary to intercept it and take it away to the right past Kingstown and away out to the deeper water beyond at Dalkey or elsewhere. They cannot possibly deal with it in front of their own township for the reasons I have stated. What happens at the present time is that this sewage is poured upon the sands; at low water it festers in the sun, and at high water it is all washed up again on to the shore all along Dublin Bay and causes a tremendous nuisance. If there is any noble Lord present who is in the habit of travelling, particularly by slow trains, backwards and forwards along 1626 that way from Kingstown to Dublin, especially at low water when the wind is off the sea, I am sure he will back me up in saying that, it is now almost an intolerable nuisance, the smell is so horrible. [After reading some letters from medical men in the district in support of his statements the noble Lord proceeded.] My Lords, I think the letters which I have read will leave no doubt upon your Lordships' minds that this question is most urgent, and, in the words of the Kingstown Commissioners (those very Commissioners who are now opposing this Bill) in a resolution which they passed last September, "the cleansing of the foreshore is an absolute necessity." My Lords, what is the history of this question up to now? For the last 20 years efforts have been made on the part of the Kingstown Commissioners to deal with the question, but they have all come to nothing; and, if I have made myself clear to you, you will understand that it was not such a pressing question 20 or even ten years ago as it is now. Things went on in this way until last year, when the Kingstown Main Drainage Committee devised a scheme which is the scheme now before your Lordships' House. As usual they asked the Blackrock people to contribute towards it and the Blackrock people did. What happened at the last moment? For reasons, about which I shall have a word to say presently, the Kingstown Commissioners dropped the Bill, and on 7th January they turned round and passed a resolution opposing their own Bill and their own scheme. Then it was that the people of Blackrock, being utterly sick of suffocating in the smell of their sewage, and despairing of getting any efficient assistance from the Kingstown Commissioners, made up their minds to go on with this Bill by themselves in the teeth of the Kingstown Commissioners. What has happened to this Bill? My Lords, the Bill came in the ordinary way before the Examiner of Private Bills, who pointed out that it was inconsistent with the Standing Orders on three points, of which the first and third, which I may take together as consequent upon each other, are I understand the most important. The Examiner pointed 1627 out that the words of the Bill were so wide in connection with the sewage works,—their drains, that it really gave power to the promoters to construct sewage works; and if that were done, of course consistently with the Standing Orders, their limits ought to have been denned, and proper notice ought to have been given in the Bill to the people likely to be affected by this nuisance. The promoters of the Bill were very much taken aback at this announcement; they had no more idea of constructing sewage works near the outfall than they had of building a lighthouse there. They had no idea of stealing a march or taking an unfair advantage of anybody. The mistake was due entirely to careless drafting and inadvertence. Before the Standing Orders Committee of the House of Commons therefore they offered to insert a clause restricting these wide words entirely to the two sewage pipes, which was all they wanted, to go past Kingstown and to go 600 feet out to sea. The House of Commons Standing Orders Committee took the view that such a safeguard as that would be sufficient, and they allowed the Bill, so far as that objection went, to proceed. I now come to the second objection taken by the Examiner, namely, that the notices for the Bill do not state the intention to compel the Kingstown Commissioners to contribute towards such a course and its expense. To anyone who knows the private history of this matter this objection will appear a very technical one; because, as I told your Lordships just now, it is the Kingstown Commissioners own scheme, drawn up by their own Main Drainage Committee, and the one they asked the Blackrock people to co-operate with them in. They cannot possibly plead that they have been taken by surprise in any way, for this is what passed on the 4th March last year. Their Committee reported to them that— As the Commissioners of the Blackrock Township represent the next largest township to our own in the suggested drainage district, we invited them to say whether they would join your Board in preparing and promoting a main drainage scheme which would provide for the townships and the area draining into them, on the basis of contribution and representation pro rata. 1628 I think your Lordships' curiosity may well be excited at the way in which the Kingstown Commissioners have dropped this scheme of their own,—it is really a very curious reason. They have dropped it I understand because certain members of the Kingstown Commissioners hold leases of landlords in Kingstown which will shortly expire, and they think they can get better terms from the landlords for renewing their leases by opposing this Bill, which the landlords are promoting. And, just to show that I am not repeating any mere malicious gossip, I think I had better read you this short extract from a speech of Mr. Myles, late chairman of the Kingstown Commissioners, when seconding the resolution passed on the 7th January of this year to oppose the Bill. He said that— They were now going to pass a resolution to oppose the Bill, and he hoped it would be unanimously passed. He thought that any main drainage scheme in the present deplorable condition of the Kingstown leases would be a mistake. So that they avowed that as their reason for turning on the Blackrock Commissioners and opposing their own Bill. Again I refer to what passed before the Standing Orders Committee of the House of Commons. The Committee thought that this objection might reasonably be met by allowing the question of costs to be dealt with by the Committee before whom the Bill might come. The first objection they thought might be met by a restricting clause; the second by leaving the question to the Committee on the Bill; and the House of Commons Standing Orders Committee allowed the Bill to proceed. Your Lordships' Standing Orders Committee took a more severe view; they held that the Bill had not been drafted in compliance with the Standing Orders and that it could not further proceed. Well, my Lords, I for one am not going to say that they were not perfectly justified in coming to that decision. I quite understand the extreme importance of insisting that people should comply properly with the Standing Orders; and there is no one in the world to blame in this matter but the draftsman of the Bill, through whose carelessness or inadvertence the whole difficulty has arisen. But looking at 1629 it from the point of view of the Blackrock people and their feeling upon the subject, it does seem to me very hard thing that a measure of such urgent necessity for their health and comfort should be lost, perhaps indefinitely, on account of a merely technical objection. My Lords, upon what ground can I claim a re-hearing? I claim it partly on this ground: that there was a certain irregularity in the way in which the Bill was opposed before the Standing Orders Committee of your Lordships House. The agents who represented a noble Lord in this House, Lord Carysfort, did not appear before the Examiner, but appeared before the Standing Orders Committee, without any notice to the promoters of the line they were going to take. I am informed that such conduct is very irregular. Anyhow it is highly inconvenient and very hard upon promoters. I believe there were several things put forward on behalf of Lord Carysfort which could have been shown to be inaccurate. There are several other things which could have been met and answered in a way that would I think have satisfied both the Committee and the noble Lord. For instance, the noble Lord representing the people of Dalkey was very much alarmed at the wide Parliamentary limit taken in the Bill for the possible outfall of the sewage; but, if the promoters had had notice and had been able to meet him before the Standing Orders Committee, I think they would have proved to the Standing Orders Committee and to the noble Lord that his fears were groundless, because there are other people to be consulted, and the Dublin Port and Docks Committee have confined the area in which they may discharge their sewer to the small area marked blue on the map which I have here, and which I shall be happy to show to any of your Lordships, in the extreme furthest corner of the Parliamentary limits, and at a spot where there is always 30 feet of water at low water, and where I am also informed the strong ebb tide (and the sewer is only to discharge at ebb tide) would carry all the sewage away. I base my appeal for a re-hearing partly upon this: that there was some irregularity as to the evidence which 1630 could have been given, if there had been proper notice, before the House of Lords Standing Orders Committee, evidence which would be given if the Standing Orders Committee should consent to allow the promoters a re-hearing; but I also appeal, my Lords, very strongly on the ground of the urgent sanitary necessity for this Bill, coupled with the fact that the non-compliance with the Standing Orders was due entirely to inadvertence, and did not conceal any unfair or nefarious design. I am fully conscious of the extreme importacen of enforcing compliance with the Standing Orders by a sharp lesson if need be, and I think what has passed with regard to this Bill will have taught such a lesson. On the other hand it does seem a great misfortune that so desirable a measure as this, of such urgent sanitary necessity should be lost upon a merely technical ground. My Lords, I may be met by saying that as a precedent it would be dangerous. But I ask your Lordships to remember that I am not asking that this Bill should pass. I am not even asking that it should be referred to a Committee to be sat upon. I only ask that it should have a re-hearing before the Standing Orders Committee. The Standing Orders Committee will always have power to throw out this Bill or any other, and therefore I think the argument as to its being a dangerous precedent will fall to the ground. No dangerous precedent will be set by this Motion of mine if you pass it, and I hope the Standing Orders Committee will listen to the plea that I have brought before them and will consent to my Motion. I beg leave to move the Motion that stands in my name.

THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (The Earl of MORLEY)
I hope the noble Earl will excuse me if I do not follow him into the details of the merits of this Bill which he has so ably brought before your Lordships. It is not a question of merits at all; it 1631 is simply a question of the Standing Orders not having been complied with; and it is a question for the Standing Orders Committee whether they should be dispensed with in this case or not. It is a perfectly simple question, and the merits I venture to think do not enter into the question at all. My Lords the facts are these: The Committee to which the Bill was referred was particularly strongly composed; no less than 15 Members were present and heard with patience, and I think with perfect fairness, everything that was brought forward by those whom the noble Earl represents to-day. I beg the noble Earl not for a moment to imagine that the Committee entered into the question, or would deny what he has said as to the desirability of the scheme. Of that we knew nothing; but we considered the question whether in this case the Standing Orders, which undoubtedly had not been complied with, were so unimportant that they might be dispensed with with safety; and the Committee, without any division, came to a decision that it was not a case in which the Standing Orders should be dispensed with, and in that sense we reported to the House. Now my Lords the Motion of the noble Earl is a very unusual one; I think I may say that in the particular form in which he has brought it before the House it is almost without precedent. I can imagine cases where new evidence was forthcoming that was not produced before the Committee, and which had arisen subsequently, where it might be desirable to refer the Bill back to the Committee; but in this case the only plea that the noble Earl has brought forward is certain irregularity with regard to Lord Carysfort's Petition. Now that irregularity certainly was not brought to the notice of the Committee when we heard the arguments for and against dispensing with the Standing Orders, and I am not quite certain that it existed. But, at any rate, I may say I think, without much fear of contradiction from my colleagues, that the grounds upon which they based their decision were not very materially strengthened by that Petition, whether it was regular or whether it was irregular. My Lords, I think there might be cer- 1632 tain cases, such for instance as when there was a considerable divergence of opinion on the Committee, or where a Member of that Committee desired that the Bill might be again referred to it, that I think might,—I do not say that it would,—form a justification for a re-hearing. But in the present case I am bound to say, sorry as I am if the district is deprived of a beneficial scheme in consequence of its failure to comply with the Standing Orders of your Lordships' House, I should not be doing my duty if I did not state to your Lordships that I think it would not be desirable to re-open a question that has been already decided unequivocally by so strong a Committee as that which sat upon this Bill.

THE EARL OF LONGFORD
It is with great deference that I rise to say anything in opposition to the noble Earl who has just sat down; but as one of the ground landlords of Kingstown, whose supposed oppression of their tenants is the so-called cause of the opposition on the part of the Kingstown Commissioners, and, I am afraid, of the greater part of the Kingstown Corporation to this measure, I really hope your Lordships will excuse my saying a few words, especially when I say that I do not so much rise on my own part as on behalf of my partner in the ground landlords of Kingstown, Lord De Vesci, who is out of England and unfortunately cannot come back, or I would not trouble your Lordships at all. I quite defer to all the noble Earl said about the great impolicy of creating a precedent for revising or re-considering the decisions of the Standing Orders Committee of your Lordships' House. And I daresay I am perhaps rather prejudiced by my local position and local views upon the subject. It is of course rather a thankless task to take any part in a Debate in your Lordships' House on one's own property, especially in such a question as this, and I certainly shall not say anything more than the noble Earl, the Mover of this Motion, said concerning the actual merits or demerits of this Bill. I do not think there can be any dispute about them, because this is not a question of merits or demerits of the Bill at all; it is really a question whether the Bill ought to have a 1633 fair show before your Lordships at all,—I do not use the term in an invidious sense, but in the sense that we should have what is vulgarly called a run for our life. Under the present circumstances the whole project is disqualified before ever it gets a fair show at all, owing to the error for which all of us who are interested in the Bill are I suppose in a certain sense responsible. Yet I think we may be forgiven if we feel rather sore that a project, in which we have so great an interest, and in which so many other people are interested, should not be tried absolutely and entirely on its fair merits. And my Lords if I were opposed to the Bill in any way, if I were a Kingstown Commissioner, or a ground landlord of Dalkey, or if I were in any way anxious to destroy this Bill there is nothing I would sooner do than second the Motion which I am now seconding; because, if this scheme is a bad one and deserves to be destroyed, surely that should be done by a Select Committee. I know this is more an appeal to your Lordships personally than anything else when a Bill comes before you rather as a culprit. But we ask for forgiveness for the mistake simply on account of the great inherent merits of the Bill, and because it is so absolutely necessary that something should be done to remedy the state of things in Kingstown and Blackrock; and if this scheme is not discussed before a Select Committee of your Lordships' House, I do not suppose anything more will be done. My Lords, the matter is of course entirely in your Lordships' hands. I say we ask rather for mercy perhaps than strict justice; but still if your Lordships will give us another chance, at any rate a project of great public importance and benefit will be submitted to your Lordships. If on the other hand your Lordships decide against us, that will continue the horrible nuisances that have been already described, and it will serve no purpose except to warn promoters against the drafters of Private Bills to be brought before your Lordships' House.