HL Deb 12 July 1898 vol 61 cc614-28

Moved— That the Orders of the Light Railways Commissioners as submitted to the Board of Trade be in future presented to this House together with the Orders as confirmed by the Board of Trade."—(The Earl of Camperdown.)

THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN

My Lords, I rise to call attention to the operation of the Light Railways Act, 1896, and especially to the alterations made by the Board of Trade in the Orders submitted for confirmation by the Light Railways Commissioners; and to move that the Orders of the Commissioners as submitted to the Board of Trade be in future presented to this House, together with the Orders as confirmed by the Board of Trade. It is now two years since the Light Railways Act was passed, and the first Report of the proceedings of the Board of Trade, and also the Report of the proceedings of the Commissioners appointed under the Act have been laid on the Table of Parliament, as also have the Orders which had been made by the Commissioners, and confirmed by the Board of Trade up to the end of last year. My Lords, it may be as well that I should remind your Lordships very shortly of the provisions and the effect of the Light Railways Act. Your Lordships will remember that under the Act full power was given to the Board of Trade with regard to the railways which were described as light railways, though they were not defined, and it was laid down in the Act that an Order, when finally made by the Board of Trade, should have the effect of an Act of Parliament. I would remind your Lordships that at the time when the Bill was passing through this House objection was taken by the noble Lord at the Table, and by other peers, to the fact that there was no definition of light railway in the Bill, and that, therefore, the Board of Trade would receive absolute power to decide that anything was or was not a light railway. My Lords, notwithstanding those objections, the Bill was passed in the form in which it stood, and the result is that at the present time anything is a light railway which the Board of Trade says is a light railway, and nothing is a light railway which the Board of Trade says is not. My Lords, with regard to the other provisions of the Act, I may remind your Lordships that Commissioners were appointed under the Act, who were to make inquiries into all applications made to them for the formation of light railways. They were directed to hold a local inquiry; they were directed specially to inquire into the conditions for the public safety, and other matters of that kind, and they were to lay their Orders, which were Provisional Orders only, before the Board of Trade for consideration and confirmation. My Lords, the Board of Trade have received the power either of passing the Orders unamended, or of altering and modifying them, and then passing them, if it saw fit to pass them at all, in the final form which they would assume. Therefore, there is no means of raising any question with regard to any of those Orders before they become law. But, my Lords, although Parliament surrendered its powers in regard to light railways, it did not at the same time surrender all its interests, and therefore, when these Orders are laid upon the Table it is only natural and right that we should look into them, and see what the Light Railways Commissioners recommended, and how far their recommendations have been accepted or altered by the Board. My Lords, it may be as well that I should state to your Lordships what were the intentions of those who framed this Act, because that alone, I think, enables the House of Parliament to form a judgment of what was intended to be a light railway, and what was intended to be the operation of the Act. Now, Mr. Ritchie, when moving the Second Reading of the Bill in another place, said that one of the main difficulties had been the expense of the requirements for the public safety enforced by the Board of Trade. He said that— As regarded the requirements for the public safety, the public must make up their minds that, if they desire to have these railways, they must of themselves exercise an amount of caution, and not insist upon those elaborate precautions which, on trunk lines, where trains were running at great speed, might be necessary, but which in other countries had been abandoned where great speed was not desired. And he said, further, that— As far as the question of public safety is concerned, the Board of Trade is empowered to deal generally in the way of modification with those requirements in their Order, and the circumstances of each case would be considered in respect of permanent way, gauge, posts, and brake power. No limitations were contained in the Bill as to any of these requirements, but the Board of Trade would have power to deal with each separate application, and the requirements which seemed to be necessary in each case. That was the intention of Mr. Ritchie, and Mr. Bryce, who had previously been President of the Board of Trade, entirely concurred in the propriety of those views. He pointed out that the cheapening of requirements as to the construction and working of the line were essential, and that no Bill would be adequate if this were omitted. He said that— As regarded the cheapening and the dispensing of certain requirements, the Government were in the same position as the late Government—such as the strength of the staff, the provisions for interlocking points and signals. All these were matters with regard to which great economy in the construction and the working of the line might be effected. Someone had said, 'Utilitas publica, periculum privatum.'" I am sure that was not Mr. Bryce himself. Continuing, Mr. Bryce said— There were cases where there would be a certain amount of risk, and there were level crossings where there was danger; but he believed on the whole that the experience of this and other countries was satisfactory. In the United States they might see trains running at the speed of four miles an hour through populous districts, and children playing about, and yet few accidents happened. So, my Lords, both Presidents of the Board of Trade were entirely agreed that great cheapness in the construction of these railways were absolutely necessary if they were to succeed, and this was one of the essential points with which the Bill was supposed to deal. Well, my Lords, the question that we have now to ask is, in what sense has the Act been carried out, and has it been carried out in the manner which Mr. Ritchie and Mr. Bryce proposed and hoped that it should be carried out? My Lords, all that Parliament has to guide it are these Orders as they are laid upon the Table; and I must point out to your Lordships—and this is the justification for the Motion that I have moved, namely, that the Orders of the Commissioners, as submitted to the Board of Trade, be in future presented to this House, together with the Orders as confirmed by the Board of Trade—that it is impossible to tell from the confirmed Order only what the Commissioners originally proposed, and how far their recommendations have or have not been disagreed with. So long as the noble Lord who is Chairman of the Commission is on the Commission and in discharge of his duty, his mouth is closed as regards criticising any of the proceedings that may have been taken with regard to the Provisional Orders which the Commissioners have presented to the board. Well, now, my Lords, three Orders were laid on the Table in 1897, and in 1898 there had been three more—the Rinkton Order, the Lizard Order, and an Order called the Crowland Order. These are, so far as I know, all, or nearly all, the Orders for light railways proper. There have been two or three other Orders for what are really tramways in populous places, and which are not light railways properly so-called. Now, my Lords, in every single one of these Orders that I have mentioned the Commissioners were of opinion, in the first instance, that continuous brakes were not required, and in every one of these cases the Board of Trade has incorporated continuous brakes. With regard to the Crowland Order, which is the last, there is a slight difference, because, instead of incorporating the words of the Act of Parliament of 1889, which gives the Board power at any time to insist upon continuous brakes, a specially written clause has been inserted in the Order; but, so far as I can make out from studying it, there is no actual difference whatever between that and the Order which appears generally in the Act of Parliament. Then, my Lords, with regard to the signals. In all those cases the Commissioners were of opinion that no signals were required except at places where the line joined a main line of railway. My Lords, in every case that clause of the Commissioners has been struck out, and arrangements have been made proposing signals of different sorts. Now, my Lords, I am not going to attempt to take your Lordships further into the matter, because, in the first place, there are other details which I have not been able to ascertain. I only ascertained these by asking direct questions as to matters of fact at the Board of Trade itself, and also at the office of the Light Railways Commissioners; but there may be other matters which it would be very easy to go into in detail if we were holding an actual inquiry. I think I have said enough to show to your Lordships that, in some essential principles, the Board of Trade has departed from the recommendations of the Commissioners. Now, my Lords, the next thing that one naturally asks is, by what tribunal were these alterations made, and how far were the opinions of the Light Railways Commissioners taken into-consideration, and how far were they themselves consulted as to the alterations before they were made? So far as I can ascertain, practically the Court of Appeal in this matter has been an official, generally the Permanent Secretary to the Board of Trade, assisted by some of the permanent advisers, including one of the railway inspectors of the Board of Trade. My Lords, one then naturally asks, what is the expert advice which was taken, and were the Commissioners consulted? I believe that as a matter of fact their secretary was generally present, at all events after the first Order or two; but I should be very much interested to know from my noble Friend opposite [the Earl of Dudley] whether, before these alterations were made, the matter was referred back to the Commissioners, or whether they had an opportunity themselves personally of laying their views before the Board of Trade. A case occurs to my mind, which may occur to the minds of other noble Lords in this House—an analogous case—where a Joint Committee of the two Houses of Parliament was appointed to inquire into certain railway rates which had been made by the Board of Trade. As Lord Balfour of Burleigh, whom I see present to-night, and who was Parliamentary Secretary of the Board of Trade at the time, will remember, he and Sir Courtenay Boyle (the Permanent Secretary to the Board of Trade) were both present at the sittings of the Joint Committee. They heard all that the opponents to the rates they had proposed had to say, and, after all the evidence had been heard, the Duke of Richmond, who was chairman, I think, during the whole length of the sittings of that Committee—two or three years—asked them whether they had any remarks to make, and especially what reasons they had for having fixed upon the specific figures which they had fixed upon. Now, my Lords, I want to know whether there was real consultation in that sense in these cases. I am speaking only from general ideas, but I rather think that the Board of Trade did not hold any local inquiries when considering these matters, or, at all events, if they did, those inquiries were very rare indeed. Your Lordships will remember that, in the first instance, the Commissioners had gone down to the spot; they inquired into every detail upon the spot. They satisfied themselves as to what was required for the safety of the public. That was one of the points specially referred to them, by the Act, and the recommendations which they made were based upon full and complete knowledge of the locality, of all the facts, and of the persons interested. I should like to know what opportunity the Board of Trade had of inquiring into these matters, and of ascertaining that the Commissioners had made a mistake, and that it was better to insert regulations in the Orders different from those which the Commissioners had proposed. I wish to say one word, too, my Lords, with regard to the expert evidence—the expert assistance which the Board of Trade had. I believe—of course, I speak liable to correction—but I believe they were assisted by the ordinary inspectors of the Board. I should be the last person to say a single word in depreciation of the efforts of those inspectors, and the great advantages which they have conferred upon the public when dealing with railways; but, at the same time, your Lordships must remember that an inspector, who has all his life been dealing with railways intended to run at a high rate of speed, and which are very large and important undertakings, is hardly the best person to turn his attention to, and to express an opinion upon, these light railways, which are confessedly for quite different purposes, and which were made and intended to be worked in quite a different way. And, moreover, the Act is a little hard on the inspector. The Act says that upon the Board of Trade is cast the duty of looking after the safety of the public. When the official engineer of the Board of Trade looks into this matter, it is only natural that he should observe that if there should be any accident at any time the first person whose action would be called in question would be the inspector of the Board of Trade, and therefore it is natural also that he should place considerably more value upon absolute safety to the public than upon the requirements such as I have read to your Lordships, which the President of the Board of Trade said were intended in light railways. Now, my Lords, that is all I have to say, but it seems to me this is a question whether this Act is going to succeed or not. In what sense are you going to work it? Are you going to work light railways as the promoters of the Bill intended they should be worked, or are you going to make them into undertakings which are very safe to the public, but which, at the same time, cannot be at once absolutely cheap and absolutely safe in the sense that the ordinary large railway is? My Lords, it may be said, of course, that the insertion of these clauses about continuous brakes do not necessarily imply that continuous brakes will be insisted upon. That is very true. But then you must make allowances for them in the capital of the undertakings. The capital of the undertakings has purposely been kept very low for the excellent reason that the Commissioners have been anxious not to raise the capital to such a figure that it would pay any promoter to advocate the making of a light railway with the intention of reselling it at a profit. For that reason the capital sum has been kept at the very lowest figure possible. If you introduce more of these conditions, you increase the capital, and the result will be, I am afraid, that the success of your Act will be greatly imperilled if you continue to work in this way. My Lords, I beg to move that the Orders of the Commissioners, as submitted to the Board of Trade, be in future presented to this House, together with the Orders as confirmed by the Board of Trade.

EARL STANHOPE

My Lords, I should like to say one word in support of the Motion of my noble Friend. I think you will all admit that light railways are very different from ordinary railways, and therefore should not be subjected to the same conditions. The speed of light railways is considerably less, and they generally run by the side of the highway. Commissioners were appointed two years ago by Her Majesty's Government to carry out these matters, and they take considerable trouble in the performance of their duties. I am well acquainted with the work that has been performed since my noble Friend Lord Jersey has been chairman. The Commissioners, at considerable sacrifice of time and trouble, hold local inquiries on the subject and hear evidence; and then after due deliberation the Commissioners make a Report, and what is the result? The Board of Trade, it may be, makes small Amendments, but the result of it all is that these schemes are hung up indefinitely, partly owing to the want of further capital, but directly owing to the obstruction of the Board of Trade. I do think, if I may be permitted to say so, that it is a hard case to appoint gentlemen to do this work, voluntarily, at a considerable sacrifice of time, and then that their decisions, after local inquiries, are set aside, overruled, or, at any rate, delayed by the action of the Board of Trade. I trust, therefore, that your Lordships may be disposed to accept the Motion of my noble Friend.

THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY TO THE BOARD OF TRADE (The Earl of DUDLEY)

My Lords, my noble Friend, in the course of the speech which he delivered, said this was a question whether the Light Railways Act was to be a success or not, and, so far as I could follow him, his whole contention was that in administering the Act, and in considering the Orders which had been submitted to them by the Light Railways. Commissioners, the Board of Trade have been too drastic and too stringent with regard to the arrangements for public safety which they have inserted into the Orders that he referred to. My Lords, I think that the Board of Trade perfectly agree with my noble Friend that, in a matter of this kind, care has to be taken not to strangle or stifle enterprise by unnecessary safety arrangements. But I think, that if the effect which both of us wish to avoid had in reality taken place the result would have been that fewer Orders would be now applied for by people throughout the country than heretofore. It may interest the House, in this connection, to know that although the public, for the last six months, have been in possession of information upon this subject, and have had knowledge of the requirements as to safety which the Board of Trade have insisted upon, the Orders, instead of decreasing, have increased; and we have up to now been asked to sanction more than 1,000 miles of light railways throughout the country. Therefore, my Lords, at any rate up to the present, I think we may take it as tolerably certain that the action of the Board of Trade has not stifled or strangled the promotion of enterprises of this kind. Now, my Lords, my noble Friend specially referred to two classes of arrangements that had been made by the Board of Trader—firstly with regard to continuous brakes; and, secondly, with regard to signals; and he has complained that in every case the Board of Trade have insisted on brakes being attached to the rolling-stock on those lines where the Commissioners have not thought them necessary. My Lords, in answer to that, I cam say this— that in many instances we have been told at the Board of Trade, by the promoters themselves, that no matter whether the Board of Trade insisted on continuous brakes or not they intended to use them; and for this very good reason, that without continuous brakes the manager of the line, no matter whether it is a light line or a heavy line, runs such an enormous risk of accidents, and of criminal proceedings in case of accidents, that for his own safety, and for the safety of the directors and shareholders of that line, he wishes to take every precaution in his power to avoid an accident. And, in addition to that, my Lords, it must also be remembered that in many cases of this kind the rolling-stock is transferable—that is to say, the same rolling-stock is used on both heavy and light lines which connect with each other, and therefore the company, being desirous of interchanging the rolling-stock, would fit continuous brakes to the rolling-stock whether they were insisted upon or not. So much for that point; but in defence of our action I wish to point this out to the House, and that is, that in administering an Act like this, which has but recently been passed, when we have not yet on either side sufficient experience to enable us to judge with any certainty how these matters will work out in the future, the Board of Trade, being saddled with direct responsibility with regard to public safety, must, I think, lean rather more to stringency than to laxity in these matters. The noble Lord has quoted from the speech made by the President of the Board of Trade in introducing this Bill, in which he said that requirements insisted upon in respect of heavy lines would not be insisted upon in regard to light lines. That is perfectly true, and that course has been followed in considering these Orders. As the noble Earl is perfectly aware, there are many arrangements for public safety, such as complicated systems of block-working, interlocking of signals, fencing, gating level crossings, etc., which Parliament has insisted upon in respect of heavy lines, but which have been, to a tremendous extent, modified in the case of these light lines. For instance, we have dispensed to a great extent with fencing; we have dispensed to a great extent with gates across level crossings; and, instead of insisting upon a complicated system of interlocking of signals and block-working, we have only asked that some communication should exist between the various stopping places, and that some simple arrangement such as that which is used in Ireland should be put up by which the confliction of two signals can be avoided. In the Crowland Order, to which my noble Friend referred, our expert advisers informed us that there was nothing to prevent two signals being in opposition to each other. We only desire that some arrangement should be made by which that is impossible. I am told that a system such as the one we have insisted upon is by no means expensive, and is one which has been tried and found successful upon the light railways in Ireland. Therefore I do not think that the noble Earl is quite correct when he says that after giving the public the idea that we were going to be very lenient in these matters, as foreshadowed in the speeches which he quoted, we have not carried out that policy, and that we have insisted upon the requirements which are necessary upon heavy lines. My Lords, I would also, before passing from this subject, remind your Lordships that in the Light Railways Act of 1896 there is a clause which specially puts upon the Board of Trade the responsibility of looking into these matters. The Act says— The Board of Trade shall consider each Order, specially with regard to questions of public safety. Therefore, my Lords, although we have every respect for the able work which the Light Railways Commissioners do, although we have every respect for the views which they put before us, we do not think that we can divest ourselves of the direct mandate which Parliament has imposed upon us to take every precaution against any possibility of accident to the travelling public. Now, my Lords, with regard to the point which my noble Friend raises as to the relationship between the Board of Trade and the Light Railways Commissioners. My noble Friend seems to think that the Board of Trade, in altering these Orders, did not take into consideration for one moment the views which the Commissioners had formed from information derived at local inquiries or other sources. In that my noble Friend is in error. In the first place, on nearly all these cases one of the Commissioners has been to the Board of Trade before that body has heard the Order, and has talked to one of the officials with regard to it. In addition to that, there is always, at these inquiries, one of the secretaries of the Light Railways Commissioners present, who instructs the official who may be hearing the case as to the reasons which have induced the Commissioners to make such and such a provision; and therefore, my Lords, it seems to us that it cannot be said that we have ridden in any way rough-shod over the opinions of the Commissioners, or wantonly changed an Order they had prepared. I might say that in this connection I have had a talk with Lord Jersey, who, as your Lordships know, is chairman of the Light Railways Commission. I regret that my noble Friend has brought on this Motion to-day, when Lord Jersey is unable to be present. But this I can say, that Lord Jersey has expressed to us, in the fullest terms, that although there are differences of opinion as to technicalities between the Commissioners and the expert advisers of the Board of Trade, he is perfectly satisfied with the relations between the Board and the Commission, and has no complaint at all to make against the way in which those who have to administer the Act have worked together. But in order that there should be no possibility of misunderstanding upon this point we have arranged, in addition to the safeguard to which I have alluded—in addition to the presence of the secretary—that in future, upon any occasion on which it may seem to the Board of Trade necessary to alter the Order upon any important point, a Commissioner should be asked to wait upon the Board, and to go fully with them into the reasons which have induced the Commissioners to take a particular course. But, my Lords, my noble Friend has quoted the instance of the Duke of Richmond's Commission, and he has said that the procedure adopted there ought to be followed in this case. I think the two cases are totally dissimilar. In that case my noble Friend the Secretary for Scotland and Sir Courtenay Boyle attended the sittings of the Commission as officials of the Board of Trade. They were appealed to upon questions of rates, and they answered upon these subjects. That was a perfectly proper course, but in this case my noble Friend asks that a perfectly independent body, such as the Light Railways Commissioners, should attend the hearing of cases in a totally different court; in other words, he is asking that the judge of a lower court should sit upon the bench in the upper court.

THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN

That is not what I asked.

THE EARL OF DUDLEY

Then I misunderstood the noble Lord.

THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN

All I intended to ask was that the decisions of the Light Railways Commissioners on matters of principle, such as continuous brakes, should not be altered without their having been thoroughly consulted.

THE EARL OF DUDLEY

The noble Earl quoted the illustration of the Duke of Richmond's Commission, in which the officers of the Board of Trade were present. I do not quite, therefore, see, if he did not intend that the Light Railways Commissioners should be present at the Board of Trade, the relevancy of his illustration. It is obvious that that could not take place; it would be undignified and improper. As the noble Earl does not mean that, I pass it over. In any case, I hope we have done in the past everything we could to consult the Commissioners, and in future we are going to invite a Commissioner to be present on all occasions when an important alteration is to be made. I do not think I need go further into this subject. I am sorry that my noble Friend has raised this question at the present time, because, as I said before, the Act is yet too young for us to be quite certain of how these matters will work out. But if my noble Friend had waited until the time came when the whole procedure laid down by the Act had to be reviewed, I think that, perhaps, would have been a better time to have discussed the procedure under the Act; but still, as he has raised it now, I hope I have said enough to assure the House that we do strongly feel the disadvantage of hampering enter- prise with any unnecessary restrictions, and that so long as we can adequately discharge the responsibility which Parliament has directly laid upon us in this matter we are perfectly ready to meet both the promoters and anybody else who might take their view of the case upon the most reasonable terms possible. I think, my Lords, I omitted to refer to the Motion with which my noble Friend concluded his remarks. I cannot help thinking that there would not be very much advantage in laying these Orders upon the Table, for this reason—that in the first place, the Order would then be sanctioned, and therefore, the laying of it upon the Table would not affect the final decision with regard to it; and, beyond that, it would be impossible for the House to derive proper information from the draft of the Order and the completed Order. It would be impossible for the House to know, without further information, what changes that might be noticed between the two Orders had been agreed to, what changes had been put in at the direct request of the promoters, and what changes had been made by the Board of Trade, in contravention of the views of the Light Railways Commissioners. And therefore, my Lords, if my noble Friend would agree to withdraw his Motion, and give the Board of Trade a little longer time to attempt to satisfy him upon that point, we should be glad.

THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN

In answer to what the noble Earl has said, all I want is some information that I can understand. As it is, this Order, as modified by the Board of Trade, is laid on the Table of Parliament, and there it lies, but Parliament is kept in absolute ignorance as to how much of it belongs to the Board of Trade, how much of it belongs to the Commissioners, and what has happened at all. It is quite true that great power has been given under this Act to the Board of Trade, and that what the Board of Trade does has the force of an Act of Parliament, but I should like to have some means of judging what the Board of Trade have done, and what the Commissioners did. If my noble Friend will suggest to me any other way by which I can get that information, I shall be perfectly ready to accept it, but, as it is, this Order, as now laid on the Table, is to me only double-Dutch.

Question put.

Motion negatived.

THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN

I will not put the House to the trouble of a Division, but at the same time I wish to point out that we are kept entirely in the dark by the Board of Trade.