Lords Sitting of 28 July 1896

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
  LONDONDERRY IMPROVIEMENT BILL.
  Reported without Amendments.
  ABENSUR'S NATURALISATION BILL [H.L.]
  Returned from the Commons agreed to.

  PRIVATE BILLS.
  THE EARL OF MORLEY (CHAIR MAN OF COMMITTEES)THE EARL OF MORLEY (CHAIR MAN OF COMMITTEES) moved that the Standing Orders be amended as follows:—
  [NOTE.—The words struck through are to be omitted, and the words printed in Italics are to be inserted.]

  PRIVATE BILLS.

    NOTICE TO SPECIFY LANDS IN CASE OF GAS WORKS, SEWAGE WORKS, BURIAL GROUND, DESTRUCTOR, ETC.
    5. In cases of Bills for constructing gas works or sewage works, or works for the manufacture or conversion of the residual products of gas or sewage, or for making or constructing a sewage farm, cemetery, burial ground, crematorium, destructor, hospital for infectious disease, or station for generating electric power, the notices shall set forth and specify the lands in or upon which such gas works, sewage works, works for the manufacture or conversion of residual products, farm, cemetery, burial ground, crematorium, destructor, hospital, or generating station, is intended to be made or constructed.
    Tramways, Underground Railways, and Subways.

    NOTICES TO BE POSTED IN STREET OR ROAD.
    10. In the months of October and November, or one of thorn, immediately preceding the application for any Bill for laying down a tramway or constructing an underground railway or subway, when such Bill contains powers authorising any alteration or disturbance of the surface of any street or road, notice there of shall be posted for
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    fourteen consecutive days in every such street or road along or under which it is proposed to lay the tramway or construct the railway or subway in such manner as the authority having the control of such street or road shall direct; and if after application to such authority no such direction shall be given then in some conspicuous position in every such street or road, and such notice shall also state the place or places at which the plans of such tramway, railway, or subway will be deposited.

    NOTICE TO OWNERS, ETC., WITHIN 300 YARDS OF GAS WORKS, SEWAGE WORKS, CEMETERY, DESTRUCTOR, ETC.
    15. On or before the fifteenth day of December immediately preceding the application for a Bill for constructing gas works or sewage works, or works for the manufacture or conversion of the residual products of gas or sewage, or for making or constructing a sewage farm, cemetery, burial ground, crematorium, destructor, or hospital for infectious disease, notice shall be served upon the owner and lessee of every dwelling house situate within three hundred yards of the lands in or upon which such gas works, sewage works, works for the manufacture or conversion of residual products, farm, cemetery, burial ground, crematorium destructor, or hospital, may be made or constructed.

    CONSENTS IN CASE OF TRAMWAY BILLS.
    22. In cases of Bills to authorise the laying-down of a tramway, the promoters shall obtain the consent of the local authority of the district or districts through which it is proposed to construct such tramway, and where in any district there is a road authority distinct from the local authority, the consent of such read authority shall also be necessary in any case where power is sought to break up any road subject to the jurisdiction of such road authority. For the purposes of this Order, the local and road authorities in England and Scotland shall be the local and road authorities mentioned in Section 3 and Schedule A of "The Tramways Act 1870," except that in the case of such Schedule tramways situate within the area of the county of London "the London County Council" shall be substituted for "the Metropolitan Board of Works," "urban district council "for" local board," and "rural district council "for" vestry, select vestry, or other body of persons acting by virtue of any Act if Parliament, prescription, custom, or otherwise, as or instead of a vestry or select vestry"; and in Ireland shall be the grand jury of the county in respect to any highway or portion of highway within the jurisdiction of such grand jury; and in respect to highways wholly or partly within any city, borough, town corporate, or other place or district in which the public roads are not under the control of the grand jury of the county, shall bathe respective local and road authorities of such city, borough, town corporate, or other place or district mentioned in Section 38 of "The Tramways (Ireland) Act 1860": Provided that where it is proposed to lay down a continuous line of tramway in two

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    or more districts, and any local or road authority having jurisdiction in any such districts does not consent thereto, the consents of the local and road authority, or the local and road authorities having jurisdiction over two-thirds in length of the streets and roads along which such line of tramway is proposed to He laid, shall he deemed to he sufficient.

    DEPOSIT OF PLANS, ETC, IN CASE OF PROVISIONAL ORDERS IN PARLIAMANT OFFICE.
    39. Whenever plans, sections, hooks of reference, or maps, are deposited in the case of an application to any public department or county council for a provisional order or certificate, duplicates of the said documents shall at the same time also he deposited in the Office of the Clerk of the Parliaments; provided that with regard to such deposits as are so made at any pubic department or with any county council after the prorogation of Parliament and before the thirtieth day of November in any year such duplicates shall he so deposited on or before the thirtieth day of November.
    LIMITS OF LATERAL DEVIATION OF EMBANKMENT OF RESERVOIR TO DEFINED ON PLAN, AND INCLUDED LANDS TO BE MARKED.
    40 a. In cases where it is proposed to make, vary, extend, or enlarge any reservoir, the plans shall describe the embankment or retaining wall thereof; and where it is the intention of the promoters to apply for powers to make any lateral deviation from the line of such embankment or retaining wall, the limits of such deviation shall be separately defined on the plan, and all lands included within such limits shall be marked thereon.

    PETITION FOR ADDITIONAL PROVISION.
    61.
    Compliance with this Order shall be optional and not compulsory be necessary in the case of alterations made on petition for additional provision in the House of Commons.

    MEETING OF MEMBERS OF LIMITED COMPANY, SOCIETY, ETC., IN THE CASE OF BILL PROMOTED BY A COMPANY, ETC.
    63. In the ease of every Bill, whether originating in this House, or in the House of Commons, promoted
    (4.) Promoted by any company, society, association, or co-partnership formed or registered under the Companies Act 1862, or constituted by Act of Parliament, Royal charter, letters patent, deed of settlement, contract of co-partnery, cost book regulations, or other instrument, and under the management
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    of a committee or directors or trustees (and not being a company to which the preceding Order applies), or

    OR EMPOWERING OR REQUIRING ANY COMPANY, SOCIETY, ETC., TO DO ANY ACT NOT AUTHORIZED UNDER EXISTION, POWERS.
    (2.) Empowering or requiring any such company, society, association, or co-partnership, not being the promoters of the Bill, to do any net not authorised by the memorandum and articles of association or other instrument or instruments constituting or regulating such company, society, association, or co-partnership, or authorising or enacting the abandonment of the undertaking, or any part of the undertaking, of any such company society, association, or co-partnership, or the dissolution thereof.
    MEETING OF MEMBERS OF LIMITED COMPANIES, ETC., IN THE CASE OF CERTAIN BILLS ORIGINATING IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS OR THERE MATERIALLY ALTERED.
    65. In the case of every Bill brought from the House of Commons, in which provisions have been inserted in that House empowering or requiring any company, society, association, or co-partnership formed or registered under the Companies Act 1802, or constituted by Act of Parliament, Royal charter, letters patent, deed of settlement, contract of co-partnery, cost hook regulations, or other instrument or instruments, and under the management of a committee or directors or trustees, and not being a company to which the preceding Order applies, to do any act not authorized by the memorandum and articles of association of such company, or other instrument constituting or regulating such company, society, association, or co-partnership, or authorizing or enacting the abandonment of the undertaking, or any part of the undertaking of any such company, society, association, or-co-partnership, or the dissolution thereof, or in which any such provisions originally contained in the Bill have been materially altered in that House, or by which any such powers are conferred on any company, society, association, or co-partnership not being the promoters of the Bill, the Examiner shall report as to compliance or non-compliance with the following requirements:

    COMMITTEE OF SELECTION.
    97. The Chairman of Committees and four other Lords to be named by the House shall be appointed a Committee to select and propose to the House the names of the five Lords to form a Select Committee for the consideration of each opposed Local Bill or Provisional Order Confirmation Bill, and shall appoint the Chairman of

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    such Committee, and shall name the Bill or Bills which shall he taken into consideration on the first day of meeting of such Committee.
    If a vacancy occur in any such Select Committee in the interval between any two sittings of the House, the Chairman of Committees may appoint a Lord to fill such vacancy, and in such case shall report the sane to the House at the next sitting.
    New Standing Order 105B:
    Chamber of Agriculture, etc., may he heard if injuriously affected.
    Where a chamber of agriculture, commerce or shipping, or a mining or miners association sufficiently representing the agriculture, trade, mining, or commerce in any district to which any Bill relates, petition against the Bill alleging that such agriculture, trade, mining, or commerce, will be injuriously affected by the provisions contained in the Bill, it shall he competent for the Select Committee to whom the Bill is referred, if they think fit, to hear the petitioners or their counsel or agents and witnesses on such allegation against the Bill or any part thereof.

    NO INTEREST OUT OF CAPITAL TO BE PAID ON CALLS UNDER RAILWAY BILLS, EX- CEPT SUCH AS THE COMMITTEE THINK FIT TO ALLOW.
    128. A clause shall he inserted in every Railway Bill prohibiting the payment of any interest or dividend out of any capital which the company have been or may be authorised to raise, either by means of calls, or of any power of borrowing, to any shareholder on the amount of the calls made in respect of the shares held by him, except such interest on money advanced by any shareholder beyond the amount of the calls actually made as in conformity with the Companies Clauses Consolidation Act, 1845, or the Companies Clauses Consolidation (Scotland) Act, 1845, as the case may he; and except such interest (if any) as the Committee on the Bill may, according to the circumstances of the case, think fit to allow, subject always to the following conditions:—
    (1.) That the rate of interest allowed by the Committee do not in any case exceed four three per centum per annum;
    And the company shall may be authorized by the Bill to pay interest accordingly, but not further or otherwise.
    If in any case the Committee on the Bill do not think fit to allow any such interest, thon there shall he inserted in the Bill provisions making liable to penalties, recoverable summarily, any director or officer of the company who shall, directly or indirectly, pay or procure to be paid any interest or dividend prohibited as aforesaid, and making illegal and void any contract entered into by the company, or the directors thereof, or any of them, under which payment of any interest or dividend prohibited an afore said shall be, directly or indirectly, provided for.

    NO POWEBS FOR CONSTRUCTION, ACQUI- SITION, OR TAKING ON LEASE OF TEAMWAYS BEYOND THEIR DISTRICT TO BE GIVEN TO A LOCAL AUTHORITY, EXCEPT UNDER SPECIAL LOCAL CIR- CUMSTANCES.
    133. No powers shall be given to any local authority to construct, acquire, or take on lease or work any tramway or portion of tramway beyond the limits of their district, unless such tramway or portion of tramway is in connection with a tramway belonging to, or authorised to he constructed or acquired or worked by the local authority, and unless the Committee on the Bill shall determine that, having regard to the special local circumstances, such construction, acquisition, or taking on lease or working ought to be sanctioned.

    NO POWERS TO BE GIVEN TO LOCAL AUTHORITIES TO RUN CARRIAGES AND TAKE TOLLS UPON TRAMWAYS EXCEPT UNDER SPECIAL CIRCUMSTANCES.
    133. No powers shall he given to any local authority to place or run carriages upon any tramway, and to demand and take tolls and charges in respect of the use of such carriages, subject to the following exceptions only:—
    Leave out Sub-section A.
    Where a local authority are empowered to work tramways power may be given to enter into agreements for running powers over connected tramways.
    (B.) Where the a local authority are empowered to work any tramways belonging to, or authorised to be constructed or acquired by them, the Committee on the Bill may, if they think fit under the special circumstances of the case, empower the local authority to enter into agreements for running powers over any tramways in connection with the tramways so worked or to be worked by them, and such running powers shall he deemed to he a purpose of the Public Health Act, 1875 and

    BORROWING POWERS OF LOCAL AUTHO- RITIES GOVERNMENT BILLS.
    134. In the case of any Bill whereby any municipal corporation, district council, improvement commissioners, joint board or joint committee, or other local authority in England or Wales, are authorised to borrow money for any purpose within the jurisdiction of the Board of Trade or the Local Government Board, without the sanction of the respective Board, estimates showing the proposed application of the money for permanent works within the meaning of the 234th section of the Public Health Act, 1875, or as defined by any subsequent Act shall,

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    except so far as the exercise of the borrowing power is mate subject to the sanction of the respective Board, be recited in the Bill as introduced into Parliament and proved before the Committee.

    LANDS FOR GAS WORKS, SEWAGE WORKS, ETC., TO BE DEFINED.
    139. In every Bill for making, or constructing gas works or sewage works, or works for the manufacture or conversion of the residual pro-duets of gas or sewage or for making or constructing, altering, or enlarging any sewage farm, cemetery, burial ground, crematorium, destructor, hospital for infectious disease, or station for generating electric power, there shall be inserted a clause defining the lands in or upon which such gas works, sewage works, farm, cemetery, burial ground, crematorium, destructor, hospital, or generating station may be made or constructed.
    The noble Earl explained that most of them were consequential on recent legislation. But there were one or two points to which he ought to call the attention of the House. They were originally on the notice he gave to amend the drafting on certain Amendments with regard to the deposit of plans and sections, and the notices to be given before private Bills were introduced. He found it extremely difficult to make the alterations he desired in the Standing Orders, and he postponed them until next year. But it would be necessary, and he trusted he would be able next year to give attention to the question, which very much required it. The first order to which he would refer was Order 22, relating to the consent of local authorities to Tramway Bills. In that Order he had inserted District Councils in substitution for "vestry" or "select vestry," mentioned formerly. That was necessary as the Rural District Council had control over the roads. In Order 63 there was an Amendment of great length, but it merely amounted to this: To place a limited company in the same position for proving meetings before the second House, that a Parliamentary company was in now. That was the sole object of the Amendment. In Order 97, there was a point which he particularly desired to call attention to, because it affected himself. In that Order power would be given to the Chairman of Committees in case any Peer failed to attend at any of the Opposed Bill Committees after the meeting of the House, to appoint a Peer to take his place. Twice this year a Peer had,
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    in consequence of illness, been unable to be present at the Committee, and considerable difficulty was caused. A Committee might be delayed for a whole day, especially if the Committee were sitting on Wednesday, and the House were not sitting in a judicial capacity. The object of his Amendment was to enable him to place a Peer on the Committee to make it complete. He would have preferred if power could have been given to the Committee of Selection instead of to himself individually, but as this must be a case of emergency arising generally between 10 and 11 a. m., it would be impossible for him to consult his colleagues on the Committee of Selection, which he would very much sooner have done. He had, therefore, in the Amendment, taken power to appoint a Peer to complete the Committee, binding himself to report it at the next sitting of the House. If he could thus appoint a Peer when necessary, much expense and inconvenience might often be saved to parties promoting or opposing Bills. The next Order he would refer to gave certain Chambers of Agriculture and Chambers of Commerce and Shipping a locus standi before Committees. This had been passed by the House of Commons, and he thought their Lordships would desire to bring their Standing Orders in accordance with those of the other House in that respect. He did not think there was any other point he need call attention to. The other Amendments were the result, chiefly of actions taken by Parliament, such as granting to local authorities power to work as well as construct tramways. This had necessitated the cancelling of Standing Orders that had hitherto prevented the working of tramways. With these remarks he begged to move that the Amendments be adopted.
    Agreed to; Standing Orders amended accordingly, and to be printed as amended.—[No. 225.]

  PROVISIONAL ORDER BILLS.
  On the Motion for the Second Reading of the Local Government Provisional Orders (Housing of the Working Classes) Bill,
  LORD STANLEY OF ALDERLEY*LORD STANLEY OF ALDERLEY moved that the Bill be read a Second

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  time that day three months, and complained of the procedure of the Local Government Board in mixing up two schemes for different counties in the same Bill. The scheme for Birkenhead was a good one. He might he asked why he moved the rejection of the whole Bill. But he had been informed that it was not in order to move the rejection of the Leeds scheme before the Second Beading. Then he might be asked why he did not wait for the Second Reading. The reason was that before the Committee of the other House, a person called a referee interposed and prevented a number of questions being put before the Committee, because they had not been raised on the Second Reading. He should like to know what were the functions of a referee with regard to private Bills. He had never heard of a referee before except in regard to prize fights and similar events. The referee in this case was a Mr. Bonham Carter. He could not find he was a Member of the other House at all, and the only thing he could imagine was that the Chairmen of the other House were not sufficiently competent, and were obliged to have professional men to assist them, much as unpaid magistrates had to have a law clerk. Mr. Bonham Carter stated that because these points had not been raised on the Second Reading, the Committee could not go into them. As to the merits of the Bill, no one disputed the area was an insanitary one, and, perhaps, almost all the houses were bad. But that rather spoke to the discredit of the Corporation of Leeds, which had not had them repaired from time to time, and not taken precautions to prevent overcrowding. There were four public houses in the area which were admitted not to be insanitary, and no complaint was made as to the other public houses, for the owners of which nobody appeared. The corporation proposed to demolish houses on 16¼ acres. The population of the area was 3,844, all necessarily poor. For only 2,000 of these the Corporation proposed to provide dwellings, the excuse being made that the others were shopkeepers. But shopkeepers who supplied poor people like these living in slums must necessarily be poor themselves, and provision ought to be made for the people who were to be displaced as was done in the case of the
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  Metropolitan Streets. Improvement Act of 1877, Clause 34 of which provided for the re-housing of people of the poorer classes, as well as of working men. He complained that the Local Government Board had acted ultra vires in sanctioning] an Order without having the scheme put before them. During the hearing before the Committee they tried to maintain that there was a scheme, which was for pulling down houses on an area of 16¼ acres, and afterwards building houses in their place. The people of Leeds, however, had had no opportunity of giving their opinion, and did not know in the least what was going to be done. The corporation expected to get £58,000 from the sale of surplus land, but how would there be any surplus land at all when there were nearly 2,000 people displaced for whom no provision was made? In the alteration of the Standing Orders there had been an addition made to Clause 134, and he should like to ask the noble Earl (the Earl of Morley) how that would bear upon this point? The words had been added, "unless the exercise of the borrowing power is made subject to the sanction of the respective Board." Would that go beyond the tether now imposed on corporations by which they were not allowed to borrow more than a certain amount? The amount of the debt of Leeds exceeded £4,000,000, and the extreme limit allowed by the regulations was £6,612,268. Preston was already ruined, and unable to borrow any more because the town had got so much into debt. He contended that the cost of the projected improvement by the Leeds Corporation had been very much understated. £126,000 was the cost estimated for acquiring the sites. Mr. Pember stated that the paper-mill site alone would cost from £100,000 to £200,000, and taking the former figure, if 10 acres were worth upwards of £100,000 for the site alone, how could 16 acres outside this, in the area to be taken be said to be worth only £126,000, unless the people were given less than the value of their sites? He wished to call the attention of the Chairman of Committees to another irregularity which was sufficient to vitiate the proceedings in another place, and he felt quite certain the noble Lord the Chairman of their Lordships' Committees would never

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  sanction that a person residing within twelve miles, as the crow He;, of a town for which a contentious Bill was to be brought forward, should be the person who should act as Chairman of the Committee concerning such Bill. That, however, was what took place in the case of this Committee. With regard to the question of dissents and assents to the scheme, the dissents were more numerous that the assents. There were 634 houses to be demolished, and 447 notices to owners, which showed that these owners were poor people, not capable of opposing the Bill. The scheme was hurried through without the ratepayers having any opportunity of considering the matter. On inquiry being made into the subject the Mayor of Leeds distinctly refused to state what plan was to be presented before the Committee. He said the Corporation was not bound to any plan, and, in short, everything was in the air. There were 15 public-houses in the area, and the Chairman of the Committee was very anxious—but did not succeed—to get a definite statement from the Corporation that these public-houses should not be reduced or there should not be an area without any public-house in it at all. Only four public-houses were represented, the proprietors claiming that they were not to be compensated merely for the value of the bricks and mortar of the houses, but also for the licence, that their houses were not insanitary, that one or two of them had been rebuilt lately, and it was admitted that they were in good order. There was one witness who stated that the 15 public-houses would be valued on account of the licences at from £45,000 to £50,000. If they deducted that from the sum of £126,000, it left very little for the rest of the area. He thought he had touched upon all the questions that were likely to come before the Committee, so that it would not be able to be said that they ought to have been referred to on the Second Reading and had not been. He moved that the Bill be read a Second time this day three months.
  LORD HARRISdesired, in the first place, to express his regret to the noble Lord who had just spoken, and to every noble Lord who came down on Monday expecting that this Bill would be pro-
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  ceeded with, that he was unable to give them earlier notice than was done of the necessity of deferring the Second Reading until to-day. He was not aware the Bill was opposed until Saturday morning, and he took the promptest steps in his power of advising the Clerk of Parliament, and of writing to the noble Lord himself. He was given to understand, in answer to the objection of the noble Lord to the mixing of the two Provisional Orders in one Bill, that it would be scarcely possible to put each order into a separate Bill. It would this year have involved over 130 separate Bills, instead of 29 Confirmation Bills. If their Lordships had taken their knowledge of this Bill from what the noble Lord had said, he was afraid they would imagine that the Local Government Board had been proceeding in an arbitrary and autocratic manner. As a matter of fact, the Local Government Board and the Corporation of Leeds had proceeded in the most strictly legal manner, and every person who had a right to be heard, both for and against the proposal, had been advised of the various steps that had been taken under the Act. What did the opposition amount to? There were 15 licensed public-houses in the area in Leeds affected by this Bill. They were represented at the local inquiry held in Leeds, and when the Bill came before the House of Commons Committee, the opposition had been reduced to, he thought, four public-houses. The House of Commons listened to what those four representatives had to say, but, having done so, they passed the Bill. The opposition in their Lordships' House had, he understood, been reduced to three public-houses. That was the amount and the class of opposition the noble Lord was representing that day. The steps that had been taken to support this proposal were these. The official medical officer had reported that the area was in an insanitary condition. The corporation, having taken his report into consideration, had prepared a scheme, with maps and plans for the consideration of the Local Government Board. The Local Government Board had held its Inquiry, and had listened to what had got to be said for and against the scheme upon the spot, while its officers had examined the area personally. Upon

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  the information the officers thus obtained, they reported to the Local Government Board, who, after the consideration of the report, had consented to the scheme being proceeded with, subject, of course, to the sanction of Parliament and to certain conditions. He was given to understand that the main objection of the noble Lord to the Bill was that the scheme presented by the local authority was not such a scheme as was intended by the Act. He was given to understand that the scheme was, to all intents and purposes, precisely of the same nature as all schemes that were presented for the consideration of the Local Government Board upon Motions of this character, and that it would be extremely difficult, if it was at all possible, to present such a scheme in detail as would set forth every alteration that was to come into force in the future. What the scheme and the plans and the map of the Corporation did was to give the outlines of the area affected. He was given to understand that one of the reasons why this Bill was opposed by the representatives of these three public-houses was that if they could get their plots of land and tenements excluded from the provisions of Clause 8 of the Bill, they could then obtain the 10 per cent. compensation for compulsory acquirement which, as, under this Bill they were included in the insanitary area, they could not now do. When their Lordships remembered that some 12 other public-houses were not opposing the Bill in this House, they would realise the unfairness, apart from any other considerations, there would be in giving special consideration to these three persons, and allowing them to have extra compensation which was not asked for by the other 12 occupants of the public-houses. Another provision laid down was that the laying out of streets and approaches and other matters, and the dealing of the site when acquired, were to be subject to the sanction of the Local Government Board. The houses for the accommodation of 2,000 of the working classes displaced by the scheme were to be provided within the area by instalments, and the area could only be cleared piecemeal by four instalments as the accommodation mentioned was provided. That, he thought, showed that the Local Government Board had been careful
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  in giving its approval to this considerable alteration, and had been mindful to see that the convenience of the poorer classes should be as carefully considered as possible. On all these grounds he thought their Lordships would agree that there was no reason for granting the objection of these persons, or for interfering with the passage of this Bill through its Second Reading stage.
  THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (VISCOUNT CROSS)assured the noble Lord that this scheme came entirely within the meaning of the Act of 1875, which he had the honour of passing.
  THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEESsaid that the noble Lord's Motion obviously could not be entertained by the House, because, while destroying the offending Leeds Order, he would at the same time be dealing a deadly blow at the unoffending Birkenhead Order. The practice of grouping several Orders in one Bill had been the universal practice, and had always been very conveniently adhered to. The noble Lord seemed rather to hold a brief for the opponents of this Bill and had entered into a large number of details which would be far more opportunely discussed before the Committee. He would point out that the Second Reading of a Private Bill was practically a formal stage, and did not commit the House in any shape to the principle of the Preamble of the Bill. Anything that might be discussed in the whole House was equally open to the Committee to which the Bill was referred, to discuss, and that included Preamble, Clauses, and, he ventured also to think, the jurisdiction of the Department which introduced the Bill. The opponents of the Bill would have ample opportunities of being heard before the Committee to which the Bill was referred, and the noble Lord would have an opportunity of doing so if he was not satisfied with the decision of the Committee. He thought that under these circumstances, and after hearing the explanation given by the noble Lord who represented the Local Government Board, the House could have no hesitation in rejecting the Motion of the noble Lord, and in assenting to the Second Reading of the Bill. The noble Lord had asked him a question about the Amendments which he had just moved to the Standing Orders—namely, in reference to the

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  Order 134. He could assure the noble Lord that the Order would make no difference whatever in the present practice, which was that in private Bills which empowered local authorities to raise money for improvement schemes, either estimates must be recited or the money sanctioned to be raised with the consent either of the Board of Trade or the Local Government Board as the case might be.
  LORD STANLEY OF ALDERLEYsaid he had forgotten to state one fact which he should like their Lordships to know. He was entirely disinterested in Leeds. He knew nothing of the place, and believed he had only passed through it once. As he understood from the noble Lord the Chairman of Committees that the opponents of the Bill would have ample opportunities of being heard before the Committee, he would not trouble their Lordships further, and would withdraw the Amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Bill read 2a accordingly, and committed. The Committee to be proposed by the Committee of Selection.

  LOCAL GOVERNMENT (PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 16) BILL.
  LORD HARRIS, in moving that the House go into Committee on this Bill, said that he would like to take that opportunity of explaining how it was that it was necessary to move the suspension of the Standing Orders on this and other Provisional Order Bills the other day, and thus supplement the explanation he then gave and which the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack intimated that he considered inadequate. Bill No. 16 was late in coming up to their Lordships' House through the opposition offered to it in the House of Commons. Then Bills Nos. 21 and 22 were certainly introduced late into the House of Commons, and as they referred to the water supply of two very large services in the country, the House of Commons agreed to suspend their Standing Order, and allowed the Bill to proceed. He was entirely unaware that any question would arise in their Lordships' House as to the suspension of the
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  Standing Orders, or He should then have been ready with the explanation he had now given.
  Motion agreed to; Bill committed.
  Bill considered in Committee (according to Order); reported without Amendment; Standing Committee negatived; and Bill to be read 3a on Thursday next.

  COLLECTING SOCIETIES BILL.
  Considered in Committee (according to Order); Bill reported without Amendment; Standing Committee negatived; and Bill to be read 3a on Thursday next.
  FRIENDLY SOCIETIES BILL.
  Considered in Committee (according to Order); Bill reported without Amendment; Standing Committee negatived; and Bill to be read 3a on Thursday next.
  WORKING MEN'S DWELLINGS BILL [H.L.]
  Reported from the Standing Committee with Amendments; the Report thereof to be received on Thursday next; and Bill to be printed as amended.—[No. 218.]
  JUDICIAL TRUSTEES BILL.
  Reported from the Standing Committee with further Amendments; the Report of the Amendments made in Committee of the Whole House and by the Standing Committee to be received on Friday next; and Bill to be printed as amended.—[No. 219.]
  COAL MINES REGULATION ACT (1887) AMENDMENT (No. 2) BILL.
  Brought from the Commons; read 1a; to be printed; and to be read 2a on Thursday next.—(Lord Belper.)—[No. 220.]
  CONCILATION (TRADE DISPUTES) BILL.
  Brought from the Commons; read 1a and to be printed.—[No. 221.]
  NAVAL RESERVE BILL.
  Brought from the Commons; read 1a, and to be printed.—[No. 222.]

  RAILWAYS (IRELAND) BILL.
  Brought from the Commons; read 1a; to be printed; and to be read 2a on Friday next.—(The Earl of Ranfurly.)—[No. 223.]
  VISCOUNT CROSSsaid He believed it would be convenient for the House to meet To-morrow, in order to receive a Bill from the House of Commons, and, therefore, he would move that the House on its rising do adjourn until half-past Five o'clock To-morrow (Wednesday).
  Motion agreed to.
  House adjourned at Twenty-live minutes past "Six o'clock, till To-morrow, Half-past Five o'clock.