Lords Sitting of 27 February 1899

Preamble
THE LORD CHANCELLOR THE LORD CHANCELLOR took his seat on the Woolsack at twenty minutes after Four of the clock.
PEER SAT FIRST.
The Earl of LATHOM The Earl of LATHOM—Sat first in Parliament after the death of his father.

PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR THE LORD CHANCELLOR acquainted the House that the Clerk of the Parliaments had laid upon the Table the Certificates from the Examiners that the further Standing Orders applicable to the following Bills have been complied with:
Oystermouth Railway or Tramroad [H.L.]
Furness Railway [H.L.]
Liverpool Overhead Railway [H.L.]
The same were ordered to lie on the Table.

MILFORD DOCKS BILL [H.L.]
The Chairman of Committees informed the House, That the promoters do not intend to proceed further with the Bill: Ordered that the Rill be not further proceeded with.
MUIRKIRK, MAUCHLINE AND DALMELLINGTON RAILWAY BILL [H.L.]
To be read a second time on Thursday next.
LONDON HOSPITAL BILL [H.L.]
Second Reading (which stands appointed for To-morrow) put off to Friday next.

WOLVERHAMPTON TRAMWAYS BILL [H.L.]
To be read a second time on Monday next.
Aberdeen Harbour Bill [H.L.]
Arbroath Corporation Gas Bi11 [H.L.]
Bristol Floods Prevention Bill [H.L.]
Coalville Urban District Gas Bill [H.L.]
Colonial and Foreign Banks Guarantee Fund Bill [H.L.]
Fylde Water Board Bill [H.L.]
Hampstead Church (Emmanuel West End) Bill [H.L.]
Hastings Harbour Bill [H.L.]
Infant Orphan Asylum Bill [H.L.]
Inverness Harbour Bill [H.L.]
Kew Bridge Bill [H.L.]
Mersey Docks and Harbour Board (Finance) Bill [H.L.]
Committed.
Aberdeen Corporation Bill [H.L.]
Barton-on-Sea Water Bill [H.L.]
Birkenhead Corporation Bill [H.L.]
Bognor Urban District Water Bill [H.L.]
Bury Corporation Bill [H.L.]
Bury Corporation Water Bill [H.L.]
Church Stretton Water Bill [H.L.]
Clyde Navigation Bill [H.L.]
Cobham Gas Bill [H.L.]
Cromer Protection Bill [H.L.]
Dumbarton Burgh Bill [H.L.]
Dundee Gas, Tramways, and Extension Bill [H.L.]
Gainsborough Urban District Council (Gas) Bill [H.L.]
Glasgow Corporation (Tramways, etc.) Bill [H.L.]
Glasgow Corporation (Gas and Water) Bill [H.L.]
Glastonbury Water Bill [H.L.]
Great Yarmouth Corporation Bill [H.L.]
Great Yarmouth Pier Bill [H.L.]
Grosvenor Chapel (London) Bill [H L.]
Hastings Corporation Tramways Bill [H.L.]
Humber Conservancy Bill [H.L.]
Kirkcaldy Corporation and Tramways Bill [H.L.]
Lanarkshire (Middle Ward District) Water Bill [H.L.]
Leigh-on-Sea Urban District Council Bill [H.L.]
Llanelly Harbour and Pontardulais Railway Bill [H.L.]
Loughborough Corporation Bill [H.L.]
Manchester Corporation Tramways Bill [H.L.]
Mersey Docks and Harbour Board (Pilotage) Bill [H.L.]
Mid-Kent Gas Bill [H.L.]
Moss Side Urban District Council (Tramways) Bill [H.L.]
Nene Valley Water Bill [H.L.]
Oldham Corporation Bill [H.L.]
Perth Water, Police, and Gas Bill [H.L.]
Portsmouth Corporation Bill [H.L.]
Queen's Ferry Bridge Bill [H.L.]
Rawenstall Corporation Water Bill [H.L.]
Renfrew Burgh and Harbour Extension Bill [H.L.]
Salford Corporation Bill [H.L.]
Skipton Urban District Gas Bill [H.L.]
Southampton Corporation Water Bill[H.L.]
Stockton and Middlesbrough Water Bill [H.L.]
Stretford Urban District Council (Tramways) Bill [H.L.]
Sunderland Corporation Bill [H.L.]
Wakefield Corporation Bill [H.L.]
Wallasey Tramways and Improvements Bill [H.L.]
Whitehaven Corporation Bill [H.L.]
Wick and Pulteney Harbours Bill [H.L.]
Wishaw Water Bill [H.L.]
Withington Urban District Council (Tramways) Bill [H.L.]
Wolverhampton Corporation Bill [H.L.]
Workington Corporation Water Bill [H.L.]
Committed: the Committees to be proposed by the Committee of Selection.
Newhaven and Seaford Water Board Bill [H.L.]
Southport and Lytham Tramroad Bill [H.L.]
Skipton Gas Bill [H.L.]
Caledonian Railway (General Powers) Bill [H.L.]
Glasgow and South-Western Railway Bill [H.L.]
Herne Bay Water Bill [H.L.]
North Staffordshire Railway Bill [H.L.]
Paisley and Barrhead District Railway Bill [H.L.]
Stretford Gas Bill [H.L.]
Walton-on-Thames and Weybridge Gas Bill [H.L.]
Read a second time.

RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
  SCIENCE AND ART DEPARTMENT.
  Forty-sixth annual report, for 1898; with supplement: Presented (by command), and ordered to lie on the Table.
  SCIENCE AND ART DEPARTMENT.
  Minute of Committee of Council sanctioning subjects to be taught under clause 8 of the Technical Instruction Act, 1889, for the county borough of Limerick (fifth minute).
  MILITIA ACT, 1882 (DEPUTY LIEUTENANTS).
  Return of descriptions of qualifications of deputy lieutenants lodged during 1898, as furnished to the Chief Secretary for Ireland.

  PIERS AND HARBOURS ACTS (PROVISIONAL ORDERS, SESSION 1899).
  Report by the Board of Trade of their proceedings under the General Pier and Harbour Act, 1861, and the General Pier and Harbour Act, 1861, Amendment Act.
  Laid before the House (pursuant to Act), and ordered to lie on the Table.

PETITION.
  VACCINATION ACT, 1898.
  Petition for repeal of; of Guardians of the Poor of the Ellesmere Union; read, and ordered to lie on the Table.

  METROPOLIS MANAGEMENT ACTS AMENDMENT (BY-LAWS) BILL.
  LORD MONKSWELL: My Lords, I beg to move the Second Reading of this Bill. It is a short Bill to enable the London County Council to make bylaws requiring persons about to construct, reconstruct, or alter drains in connection with buildings, to deposit with the sanitary authority of the district such plans, sections, and particulars as may be necessary for the purpose of ascertaining whether such construction, reconstruction, or alteration is in accor-

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  dance with the statutory provisions relative thereto, and with any by-laws made under the said section. This Bill was passed by your Lordships' House last year. It was to some extent discussed in this House and before the Standing Committee. An Amendment was made at the instance, I think, of the noble Marquess, the Prime Minister, and a further Amendment was introduced on behalf of the Government. By inadvertence, my Lords, I have had this Bill printed in the form in which I introduced it last year, but if your Lordships will give it a Second Reading, I will undertake, on the Third Reading, to make the Bill precisely similar to the one your Lordships passed last year. I am sure that under the circumstances your Lordships will hardly think it necessary that the Bill should again go before the Standing Committee, or that it should go through the Report stage. I beg to move that the Bill be read a second time.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR (The Earl of HALSBURY): My Lords, I do not desire to say anything in opposition to this Bill until I know more about it, but I am a little jealous of giving the County Council power to compel persons to deposit plans when only slight alterations are proposed to be made. I have had a complaint, made to me that in one case, where the mere reconstruction of one of the necessary articles of the household connected with the drain was involved, the cost, which need not have been more than 5s. was run up to £450 by reason of the requirements which were placed on the individual who owned the necessary article in question. Under these circumstances I should like to have some knowledge of the powers which are intended to be given under this Bill.
  LORD MONKSWELL: My Lords, I should like to call the attention of the House to the fact that it is not proposed that these plans shall be laid before the County Council, but that they shall be laid before the local authorities, and I imagine that the local authorities will exercise this by-law with discrimination. I quite admit that as the Bill now stands it will require amendment in the direction pointed out last year by the noble Marquess at the head of the Government. The noble Marquess said
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  it might possibly be necessary to make some small alterations in drains as matters of emergency, and he held that no such by-law ought to apply in a case of that kind. I propose to insert a provision that in all cases of emergency the by-law should not apply. I think that, subject to that amendment, the Bill will be found to be workable.
  Question put.
  Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the whole House tomorrow.

  POST OFFICE BUILDINGS.
  *LORD STANLEY OF ALDERLEY: My Lords, I rise to ask Her Majesty's Government, to explain why it is necessary that the General Post Office should be, in respect of the erection of Post Office buildings, under the control of the Board of Works as well as of the Treasury; and whether the Postmaster-General might not be allowed some discretion as to a portion of the Post Office revenue for Post Office improvements. It is hardly necessary, I think, that I should assure the Members of Her Majesty's Government on the Front Bench that the noble Duke, the Postmaster-General, has no part in the question which I am now asking. I am informed that when a new Post Office is needed at places of the size and importance of Holyhead, the rule is to consult the Board of Works as to the best course to be pursued, and on the receipt of their report the case is laid before the Postmaster-General for his directions, and then submitted to the Treasury for authority for the cost involved. I have heard it denied at the Board of Works that it caused delay, but I think it can be proved to the contrary. There was great delay last year in selecting a site for a Post Office at Holyhead, and in February of this year, after the negotiations had been in hand for 11 months, the matter was allowed to drop. I do not complain of the action of the Post Office or the Postmaster-General, because the delay throughout was caused by the Board of Works. I want to ask why the Postmaster-General should not be trusted in these matters as much a3 the First Commissioner of Works. Generally, the Postmaster-General is a Cabinet Minister, but the First Com-

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  missioner of Works is not always so. The noble Duke, the Postmaster-General, has large experience in the management of business matters, and there are other reasons why he ought to be allowed some discretion. It has been proposed to allot the Admiralty a certain sum for three or five years for shipbuilding so that it should not be necessary to discuss these matters each Session. Surely similar power might be given to the Postmaster-General without compelling him in every case to consult the Treasury.
  *THE POSTMASTER-GENERAL (The Duke of NORFOLK): My Lords, I am rather embarrassed at the extent of the Question asked by the noble Lord, and I am quite unable to solve the problem as to why the Postmaster-General is not trusted as much as other people. The noble Lord is under a misapprehension in saying that the Board of Works have control over the Post Office. They have no such control. The Hoard of Works is the architect and builder to the Government, and deals with the Post Office buildings in the same way as with other Government buildings. The selection of a site for a new Post Office, and the character of the building to be put up, are subject, of course, to the usual regulations of the Treasury in the same way as other Government buildings. The delay which the noble Lord has referred to may be due to the Board of Works, but I am afraid delay occurs in the execution of most building operations. This is the only answer I can give to my noble Friend.
  THE PRIME MINISTER AND SECRETARY OP STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (The Marquess of SALISBURY): My Lords, It does not seem to me to require any special distrust of my noble Friend the noble Duke that he is submitted to the same rules that apply to all other Departments of the Government. It is a very horrible burden that we should have to go to the Treasury for sanction, but so it is, and the House of Commons insists in maintaining that régime. They have exaggerated views of the merits of the Treasury. The particular régime which the noble Lord desires to introduce has already been tried, and has been given up. It used
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  to be the rule that the Post Office always paid its own expenses out of the gross receipts; that is to say, it was allowed to build anything it wanted, and in the use of that power it built St. Martin's-le-Grand. This was such a shock to the financiers of that day that nothing of the kind has been allowed since.

  SOLICITORS BILL [H.L.]
  Read the third time (according to order), passed, and sent to the Commons.
  PALATINE COURT OF DURHAM BILL [H.L.]
  Read the third time (according to order), passed, and sent to the Commons.

  HOUSE OF LORDS AND COMMONS PERMANENT STAFF.
  Moved That a Committee of Five Lords be appointed to join with a Committee of the House of Commons to consider and report upon the subject of the House of Lords and Commons Permanent Staff (The Chairman of Committees); agreed to.
  The Lords following were named of the Committee:

  M. Salisbury.

  M. Ripon.

  E. Morley.

  E. Camperdown.

  V. Knutsford.

  Ordered, That such Committee have power to agree with the Committee of the House of Commons in the appointment of a Chairman.
  Then a Message was ordered to be sent to the House of Commons to acquaint them therewith, and to request them to appoint Five Members of that House to be joined with the said Committee pursuant to the Resolution of this House of the 17th instant and to the Message of the House of Commons of Tuesday last signifying their concurrence in the said Resolution.

NEW BILLS.
  TELEGRAPH (CHANNEL ISLANDS) BILL [H.I,].
  A Bill to amend the Telegraph Acts, 1863 to 1897, and the post Office Acts In relation to the Channel Islands—was presented by the Duke of Norfolk; read the first time; and to be printed; and to be read a second time on Thursday next. (No. 12.)

  EDUCATION DEPARTMENT PROVISIONAL ORDER CONFIRMATION (SWANSEA) BILL [H.L.]
  A Bill to confirm a Provisional Order made by the Education Department under the Elementary Education Acts, 1870 to 1893, to enable the School Board for the United School District of Swansea to put in force the Lands Clauses Acts—Was presented by the Lord President (D. Devonshire); read the first time; to be printed; and referred to the Examiners. (No. 13.)
  House adjourned at forty-five minutes after Four of the clock, till Tomorrow, half-past Ten of the clock.