THE SECRETARY FOR SCOTLAND (LORD BALFOUR), in moving the Second Reading of this Bill, said its object was to empower the Treasury to provide a guarantee for a sum of money to be devoted to making a railway in one of the poorest district of the West of Scotland. This was one of the schemes which a Committee which sat in 1890 recommended. It was approved of by the late Government, and carried some stages before they left office, and it was subsequently taken up by the present Government. The Treasury were, under the Bill, to give a guarantee of 3 per cent. on a sum of £260,000. Fifty per cent. of the gross receipts of the railway were to go to pay the working expenses, and the North British Railway Company was to work the line for that sum. The remainder of the receipts less than the Government Duty which would not be a large sum were to go to diminish the cost of Treasury guarantee now proposed. The locality, which was a poor one, was prepared to do its utmost because £40,000, partly in land which was given without compensation, and partly in money, had been subscribed.
Read 2a (according to Order); and committed to a Committee of the Whole House To-morrow.