Lords Sitting of 15 May 1902

EARL OF LEITRIM.
Report made from the Lord Chancellor, that the right of Charles, Earl of Leitrim, to vote at the elections of Representative Peers for Ireland has been established to the satisfaction of the Lord Chancellor; read, and ordered to lie on the Table.

PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR acquainted the House, That the Clerk of the Parliaments had laid upon the Table the Certificate from the Examiners that the further Standing Orders applicable to the following Bill have been complied with:—
Scarborough Tramways.
And the Certificates that the further-Standing Orders applicable to the following Bill have not been complied with:—
Halifax Corporation.
Metropolitan District Railway.
The same were ordered to lie on the Table.

PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.
  BARROW HÆMATITE STEEL COMPANY, LIMITED, BILL [H.L.]
  Presented (pursuant to leave given on Tuesday last); read 1a; and referred to the Examiners.
  DEVONPORT CORPORATION (WATER) BILL [H.L.],

    SADDLEWORTH, SPRINGHEAD, AND LEES TRAMWAYS BILL [H.L.]
    Reported from the Select Committee, with Amendments.
    MARGATE CORPORATION WATER BILL [H.L.],
    LEICESTER CORPORATION BILL [H.L.],
    WIGHAM CORPORATION BILL [H.L.],
    LIMPSFIELD AND OXTED WATER BILL.
    Reported, with Amendments.

  LONDON SCHOOL BOARD (SUPERANNUATION) BILL.
  Reported, without Amendment.
  RATHMINES AND RATHGAR URBAN DISTRICT COUNCIL BILL.
  Read, 2a and committed; the Committee to be proposed by the Committee of Selection.
  BELFAST CORPORATION BILL.
  Read 2a, and committed.
  RENFREW HARBOUR BILL [H.L.],
  Read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.

  CHARD GAS BILL,
  GARSTON AND DISTRICT TRAMWAYS AND ELECTRIC SUPPLY (TRANSFER) BILL,
  GREAT CENTRAL AND MIDLAND RAIL-WAYS (SOUTH YORKSHIRE HAIL-WAYS) BILL,
  GREAT CENTRAL RAILWAY BULL,
  LANCASHIRE AND YORKSHIRE RAILWAY (VARIOUS POWERS) BILL,
  LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL (GENERAL POWERS) BILL,
  NORTH METROPOLITAN TRAMWAYS BILL,
  YORKSHIRE CORPORATION BILL.
  Brought from the Commons; read 1a; and referred to the Examiners.

  CITY AND NORTH EAST SUBURBAN ELECTRIC RAILWAY (No.1) BILL [H.L.]
    CITY AND NORTH-EAST SUBURBAN ELECTRIC RAILWAY (No. 2) BILL [H.L.],
    Report from the Select Committee' That the promoters do not intend to proceed further with the Bills: Ordered that the Bills be not further proceeded with.

    SWANSEA CORPORATION BILL [H.L.]
    NATIONAL TELEPHONE COMPANY (KINGSTON-UPON-HULL) BILL [H.L.],
    ABERCARN URBAN DISTRICT GAS BILL
    BROADSTAIRS GAS BILL,
    CLAY CROSS RAILWAY BILL,
    NEWPORT CORPORATION BILL,
    CITY OF LONDON (SPITALFIELDS MARKET) BILL,
    COMMERCIAL GAS BILL,
    GREAT WESTERN RAILWAY (CRUMLIN VIADUCT) BILL,

    MIDLAND RAILWAY BILL.
    Report from the Committee of Selection, That the following Lords be proposed to the House to form the Select Committee for the consideration of the said Bills; (viz.),

    V. Hill,

    L. Saltoun,

    L. Digby,

    L. Hamilton of Dalzell,

    L. Hawkesbury (chairman);

    agreed to; and the said Lords appointed accordingly: the Committee to meet on Wednesday the 4th of June next, at Eleven o'clock; and all petitions referred to the Committee, with leave to the petitioner's praying to be heard by counsel against the Bills to be heard as desired, as also counsel for the Bills.

    LOCAL GOVERNMENT (IRELAND) PROVISIONAL ORDER (No. 1) BILL.
    Read 2a (according to order), and committed to a Committee of the whole House Tomorrow.
    PAISLEY GAS PROVISIONAL ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL [H.L.]
    Read 2a (according to order.)
    LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 1) BILL.
    Read 3a (according to order), and passed.
    ELECTRIC LIGHTING PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 1.) BILL.
    Brought from the Commons; read 1a; to be printed; and referred to the Examiners. (No. 74.)
  RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
    NAVY (WATER-TUBE BOILERS).
    Letter from Messrs. Delaunay, Belleville, and Company, commenting on the report of trials of H.M.S. "Hyacinth" and H.M.S. "Minerva."

    TRADE REPORTS: ANNUAL SERIES.
    No. 2790. Germany (German Colonies.)

    No. 2791. Morocco (Dar-al-Baida.)

    No. 2792. Turkey (Erzeroum.)

    No. 2793. Argentine Republic (Rosario.)

    No. 2794. Portugal (Goa.)

    No. 2795. China (Hankow.)

    No. 2796. Japan (South Formosa).

    No. 2797. China (Chinkiang.)

    CABLE COMMUNICATION.
    Minutes of Evidence taken before the Inter-Departmental Committee on Cable Communications.
    Forty-fifth Annual Report of the Trustees of the National Portrait Gallery, 1901–1902.
    JUDICIAL STATISTICS (ENGLAND AND WALES) 1900 (PART II. CIVIL JUDICIAL CIVIL STATISTICS).
    Statistics relating to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, the House of Lords, the Supreme Court of Judicature, County Courts, and other Civil Courts, edited by John Macdonell, Esquire, C.B., a Master of the Supreme Court.

    MARRIAGES, BIRTHS, AND DEATHS (ENGLAND AND MALES.)
    General Abstract for 1901. (March 30th.)
    Presented (by Command), and ordered to lie on the Table.

    INDIA (PROGRESS AND CONDITION.)
    Statement exhibiting the moral and material progress and condition of India during the year 1900–1901. Thirty-seventh number.)
    RAILWAY COMPANIES' POWERS ACT, 1864.
    Draft Certificate of the Board of Trade, authorising the Liskeard and Looe Railway Company to raise additional capital.
    FACTORY AND WORKSHOP (FIVE HOURS SPELL IN HOSIERY FACTORIES.)
    Order, dated 12th May, 1902, made by the Secretary of State for the Home Department, in pursuance of Section 39 of the Factory and Workshop Act, 1901, extending to hosiery factories the exception by which a woman, young person, or child may be employed continuously for live hours, and also directing that in the case of hosiery factories, the exception shall not be limited to certain months of the year.
    POLLING DISTRICTS (COUNTY OF NORTHAMPTON).
    Order made by the County Council of the County of Northampton, altering certain polling districts in the Southern Parliamentary Division.
    Nineteenth Report of the Comptroller General of Patents, Designs, and Trade Marks, with appendices, for the year 1901.
    COMMONS ACT, 1876.
    Report, by the Board of Agriculture, upon an application for a Provisional Order for the regulation of the commons in the parishes of Chipping Sodbury, Old Sodbury, and Little Sodbury, in the County of Gloucester.

    TECHNICAL INSTRUCTION ACT, 1889.
    Minutes by the Board of Education sanctioning the subjects to be taught under Clause 8 of the Act: (1) for the County of Dorset, 4th Minute; (2) for the County of Buckingham, 9th Minute.
    Laid before the House (pursuant to Act), and ordered to lie on the Table.

    HOUSING OF THE WORKING CLASSES—JOINT COMMITTEE.
    The Lord Sandhurst discharged from serving on the Joint Committee, and the Viscount Gordon (E. Aberdeen) named of the Committee in his place.

    LONDON UNDERGROUND RAILWAYS.
    THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN: My Lords, some weeks ago † I called your Lordship's attention to damage which had been done and might be done to house property through the construction and working of underground railways, and I also directed your Lordships' attention to the fact that, under the law as it now stands, no action lies against a railway company which holds its charter by statute, for any damage it may do in its working, and I suggested to your Lordships that possibly there might be some change made in the existing law. I understood then that the Board of Trade would prepare clauses and submit them to the Lord Chairman of Committees, and that these clauses would be considered by him, and I believe that such clauses have been drawn. I also have seen it stated that clauses altering
    † See (4) Debates, civ., 986.
    the general law in relation to this subject are at the present time under the consideration of two Committees of your Lordships' House now sitting upon Private Bills.
    The point which I wish to submit to the House is this, that this change in the law—if it is an alteration in the general law as I apprehend it is intended to be, and as I think the Chairman of Committees said it would be applying to all Bills for underground railways—if this alteration becomes the general law, if it embodies a general policy, then it will form part of the general law of which it will be an alteration; and in these circumstances I submit to your Lordships that these clauses ought, in the first instance, to be laid on the Table of the House, so that the House may become acquainted with their terms, and also that the public may have notice of the proposals, so that anyone, who may see fit to do so, may offer suggestions upon them. I do not know anything of the clauses myself. I daresay they are very good clauses, but the point is one of principle. I would submit to your Lordships that when it is proposed to alter the general law the procedure ought to be the same as it is with regard to any alteration in your Lordships' Standing Orders, which is always laid on the Table of your Lordship's House for consideration. It appears to me there is some inconvenience in clauses of this sort being presented to Committees on Private Bills. In the first place, it by no means follows that all Committees will come to the same conclusion, and my view is that if there is to be an alteration of the general law, of course the alteration should be one and the same in all cases. Another thing is, that as far as I know, your Lordships only refer these Private Bills to Committees for consideration with regard to the objects for which they are promoted. You do not submit to them any question of alteration of the general law. Under any circumstances, I think if your Lordships were to allow this matter to pass away to a Committee your Lordships might never become acquainted with the change at all, because, as the House knows, Private Bills are not printed and circulated, and are not laid on the Table

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    of the House. So it would not be in the knowledge of your Lordships what change had been made. It is a question of the original jurisdiction of this House and I apprehend this House will be very slow to part with any of its original jurisdiction. For these reasons I submit these clauses should be laid on the Table of the House that they may be considered before they are inserted in any Railway Bill.
    Moved to resolve, That the special clauses to be proposed with reference to the damage done by underground railways be submitted for consideration by the House, before being inserted in any Railway Bill.—(The Earl of Camperdown.)
    THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (The Earl of MORLEY): My noble friend moved, as he has said, some weeks ago on this subject, and I then objected to his Motion on the ground that it went somewhat further than I thought the circumstances justified. But I fully admitted from the first that something more than the present state of the law was required for the protection of property under the very novel circumstances of these tube railways. There is no doubt that the conditions under which these "tube railways," as they are called, are made are entirely novel. We have had no experience of their results, and at present it is very difficult to tell what damage may he done to adjoining property by constant working of the trains. Therefore I am entirely in agreement with my noble friend that something is required to be done, and I also quite sympathise with him in the wish that the House at large, and not merely a Committee, should be thoroughly informed of what clauses are introduced into these Bills, and further the object which he and I, and I think the House generally have in view. But, my Lords, there is a good deal of difficulty in carrying out the suggestion my noble friend has made, of in the first instance laying these clauses before the House. My noble friend laid some stress on "alteration of the general law," and no doubt it is in a sense, an alteration of the general law whenever a Private Bill is passed. But then my noble friend may say these Bills are to meet special cases, but the clauses now referred to are of a more general character. That, no doubt, is perfectly
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    true, but the circumstances may not be the same in all these Bills, and though it is quite irregular, I know, to refer to the proceedings of Committees now sitting, I think it is pretty well known that there are two Committees now discussing tube railways upstairs—one of them I think has almost concluded its labours—and these Committees have considered with very great care clauses which have been submitted to them, and which they' have themselves suggested, to see what can be done to give some further protection than the ordinary law affords to owners of property in the neighbourhood of these railways. These Committees have had the great advantage of having before then the promoters' cases, the cases for opponents, and the cases of owners of property, and of having these cases thoroughly discussed by counsel engaged for the several interests. And now I venture to submit to the House that it would be far better to leave the elaboration of these clauses for the present to these Committees. Let them insert clauses in the Bills if they think proper to do so, either clauses of absolute uniform character, or clauses to meet the varying circumstances of the different Bills, and when the Bill comes before your Lordships on the Third Heading it will be perfectly open to the House to consider these clauses and make any alteration in them the House may think fit. My noble friend says Private Bills do not come before the House in the way Public Bills do, and that they are not printed for circulation. I can assure him that I shall be very happy to inform him, or give general information to the House when these Bills are coming on for Third Reading, and if my noble friend will then call attention to the clauses that may be introduced into the Bills, and will take the opinion of the House on them, it will. I think, provide a guide to future Committees and to myself in dealing with such Bills. I think that would be a more convenient course to adopt—and I shall be glad to do everything in my power to assist the noble Lord in that way—than to pursue the course he suggests in his Resolution.
    THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN: Of course the suggestion of the noble Lord

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    will be most convenient to the House, and I shall not oppose it or take the sense of the House on my Motion. But, at the same time, I wish to point out that it is only by the noble Lord calling oar attention specially on the Third Heading to these Bills that we can take action. If he will kindly undertake that they shall be printed and laid on the Table of the House, the House will have an opportunity of judging of the clauses. I do not wish to persevere with my Motion, but unless some unusual course of this kind it taken your Lordships will not be in a position, I fear, to see these clauses at all. As the matter is a very important one and the general law is, as we know, frequently altered, and in this case the alteration will be novel and may be considerable, certainly, I think the House ought to have the means of knowing what is being done.
    THE LORD CHANCELLOR (The EARL of HALSBURY): The noble Lord seems to he under some misapprehension as to the effect of a clause in a Railway Act on the general law. A railway company has its own code recognised in the Statute authorising the construction of a railway, and if any one line is authorised by an Act having a particular section in it, that will not affect any railway beyond the particular railway in question. It will not be an alteration of the general law, though it is true enough it is an alteration of the general law which is enacted in these Railway Bills. It is a mistake to treat this business as an alteration of the general law. The general law is that where a railway is authorised by Parliament to be made from one point to another, under the Railway Clauses Act the user of the railway does not give rise to a claim for compensation for damage done during the working of the railway. The noble Lord seemed to think that the authorisation of either of these railways with some special provision made would have operation beyond this particular railway, but that is wrong.
    THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN: I quite concur with everything that has been said by the noble Earl on the
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    Woolsack; perhaps I did not use quite the correct expression when I alluded to the general law. But these clauses are intended, as I said on a previous occasion, to be clauses of general application, and in future Underground Railway Bills it will be the exception, not the rule, if they are not inserted. It is because it is intended that they shall be clauses for general application that it seemed to me a matter that should come before the attention of your Lordships' House.
    THE EARL OF MORLEY: I will undertake that the House shall have printed copies of the clause or clauses in the Bills, so that the proposals shall be in your Lordships' hands.
    THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN: With that assurance I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.
    Motion, by leave of the House, withdrawn.

    LONDON UNDERGROUND RAILWAYS.

      THE CORONATION—ACCOMMODATION FOR PEERS, ETC.
      EARL CARRINGTON: I beg to ask my noble friend the Chancellor of the Duchy, as a member of the Coronation Committee, whether he has made any representation to the Lord Great Chamberlain so as to ensure arrangements being made for the benefit of Peers and Peeresses who are going to attend the Coronation of their Majesties on June 26th.
      LORD JAMES OF HEREFORD: I have not made any representations to the Lord Great Chamberlain—it would not be my duty to do so—but Lord Cholmondeley has taken great interest in this matter, and he has been good enough to say that he will do all he can to make arrangements for the accommodation for Peers and Peeresses before the ceremony, and certainly for receiving them immediately afterwards in this House. The circumstances have involved a considerable amount of trouble and detail, and he asks for the assistance of a few Members of this House to take charge, to some extent, of these arrangements, and trusts they will proceed at once to make such arrangements as are possible to meet the convenience of Peers

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      and Peeresses who are to attend. Notice will be given by circular to every Peer as soon as those arrangements are made.
      THE EARL OF ONSLOW: If it is in order for one member of the Government to ask another member of the Government a Question, I would like to ask whether Peers' daughters will be included.
      LORD JAMES OF HEREFORD: I am afraid they come under the word "details."
      House adjourned at ten minutes before Five o'clock, till Tomorrow, half past Ten o'clock.