BELFAST CORPORATION BILL. (Hansard, 7 August 1913)

THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE)
My Lords, in moving the Third Reading I think I ought in a few sentences to explain the position as regards this Bill. The Bill came up from the House of Commons containing in main part, judged by magnitude of enterprise, a big scheme for reclamation on the southern side of the harbour. The Bill was fought in Committee by, among others, certain railway companies who are interested and in whose favour Lord Ribblesdale and his Committee gave a decision similar to that given by Lord Welby in 1911, the facts of which I have no doubt are in your Lordships' minds: Other questions have been raised since the Bill was before the Committee, notably in one case by the War Office as regards the danger area of a range in which they are interested. The result of all the negotiations—and there have been a great many busy negotiations during the last two or three weeks—has been that the Belfast Corporation have decided, without prejudicing in any way the raising of the scheme again, to withdraw the scheme from the Bill this year. They will be perfectly at liberty, of course, to bring forward the scheme in another session, and they will have an opportunity of negotiating with the War Office and the railway 1687 companies, if they desire to do so, with a view to a solution in some future year. That is the position. Your Lordships see on the Table some seven or eight pages of Amendments to this Bill, which carry out what I have just outlined to your Lordships—namely, the withdrawal of the reclamation scheme—but they preserve certain very useful things in the Bill itself, mainly financial clauses in connection with the management of the Belfast Corporation finance, but having, of course, nothing whatever to do with the reclamation scheme which is being withdrawn. I have seen all the parties. The railway companies offer no objection to this course, but they made it quite clear to me that, whilst making no objection to the dropping of the scheme and the consequent dropping of the clause carrying out the decision which they gained before Lord Ribblesdale's Committee, they do so fully preserving their right, if by any chance when this Bill goes back to another place the reclamation scheme should be reinserted—I understand, of course, that the Belfast Corporation have no intention of suggesting in another place the reinsertion of this scheme, but any independent Member would be within his right in asking the House to do so—to ask your Lordships to support your Committee so that this reclamation scheme, if carried out at all, should be accompanied in this Bill by the clause which they gained in Committee. That position was made quite clear to the promoters, and I believe that as far as they are concerned they are satisfied that that is the position in which the matter now stands. In these circumstances probably your Lordships will not desire to go through all these Amendments in detail; and therefore after the Bill has been read a third time I will move them en bloc.

LORD MAC DONNELL OF SWINFORD
My Lords, if the course which the Lord Chairman has explained to your Lordships' House had not been adopted, I was prepared to move an Amendment omitting Clause 59 from the Bill. This matter reproduces a dispute which was raised in this House two years ago. On that occasion the Corporation of Belfast introduced a Bill calculated to confer great benefits upon the city. The railway companies objected, and insisted that these great 1688 advantages to the city of Belfast should be purchased at a price which they named. I thought that that was taking an unfair advantage of the municipality of Belfast, and I expressed my views upon that occasion in your Lordships' House. I was glad to find support in the Report of the Royal Commission presided over by Lord Balfour of Burleigh, who took up an attitude which, if I may respectfully say so, seemed to me to be consonant with the dignity of your Lordships' House and with the interests of justice. It was that under the law in Ireland railway companies are not entitled to obtain differential treatment in this matter, and that it was unfair to utilise Parliamentary procedure to make the concession of what the Belfast Corporation were entitled to ask for contingent upon their being bought off. However, an agreement was then come to, and sooner than lose their Bill the Corporation agreed to these terms. But the terms were exacted through coercion; they were not accepted willingly by the Corporation, and they were not, in the opinion of the Corporation, to be called in as a precedent. Now another occasion arises and they are made a precedent; but the Corporation, rather than accept that provision, have determined to sacrifice an important part of their Bill, so that the result is that the inhabitants of the city of Belfast are to be punished because this, as I consider, illegal action, or at all events unjust action, on the part of the railway companies has not been complied with. My Lords, this sort of thing will go on, and I submit to your Lordships that it is not consonant with the dignity of this House that the matter should not be settled on a straight issue. If railway companies have a right to differential taxation in Ireland and in Great Britain, let that right be asserted in a Bill. Let your Lordships have the opportunity of discussing the principles of that Bill, and then we shall know where we are. But let not such a proceeding as this be again repeated in your Lordships' House.

LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH
My Lords, I should not have intervened in this discussion had it not been for some remarks made by the noble Lord who has just spoken, and I shall allude to them in a moment. I understand that the position which we are in is this. The Belfast Corporation, the promoters of this Bill, have, for reasons sufficient to themselves, agreed to withdraw the whole scheme of which 1689 the rating provision, which is the matter in dispute, is a part; and I take note that the noble Earl the Chairman of Committees has made it clearly understood that if any one—I cannot conceive the Belfast Corporation attempting to reinsert the clauses in another place—but if any one, whether acting for the Belfast Corporation or otherwise, should propose to reinsert those clauses, this House will stand to its own Committee and to the decision which has been arrived at. It is only on that ground that you could possibly expect the railway companies interested to agree to the reinsertion of the clauses which are now the subject of dispute. Now a word with regard to what Lord MacDonnell has said. He made the same reference or practically the same reference, to the Report of the Royal Commission over which I presided as he did two years ago; and I say to him now, as I said to him then, that I stand to all those recommendations provided they are taken as a whole. What I think is not fair is that a bit should be taken and pled for and not the whole scheme which was then outlined in the Report. But if the noble Lord quotes me as prejudiced in this matter, may I ask whether it is not the case that the noble Lord himself is a director of a railway company which enjoys from the Corporation of Dublin the very privileges of which he seeks, on behalf of the Corporation of Belfast, to deprive another railway company, of the board of which he is not a member?

LORD MAC DONNELL OF SWINFORD
I do not impute to the noble Lord any sort of feeling in the matter. It is quite true that I am and have been for a short time a director of a railway company, but I did not know in the very least that my railway company was interested. If I had known I should, before addressing your Lordships' House, have resigned my directorship.

LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH
I should be the last person to wish to import any feeling into the matter, but I felt, when my own Report was quoted against me, that it was fair to say that if the Report was taken as a whole I stand to it, but I do not think it reasonable to ask railway companies to give up a privilege which they enjoy under the present system almost universally unless all the 1690 conditions of the Report are to be carried into effect. And I do think, if the railway company in the North of Ireland which serves Belfast is to be deprived of this privilege at the instance of the noble Lord, it is not unreasonable to point out to him that the railway company of which he is a director enjoys the same privilege with regard to all rates from the Corporation of Dublin.

LORD MAC DONNELL OF SWINFORD
I had no intention whatever of referring to the noble Lord except in support of the proposition that it is most undesirable that special privileges should be conferred upon railway companies, and I did so on account of his own remarks on November 16, 1911, which, if your Lordships will permit me, I will quote. The noble Lord said— I am not going to oppose what is suggested now, but I do want to put in a word of caution, in regard to this being pleaded as a precedent, that we must take great care that by pleading a series of precedents we do not break down the whole position of rating of railway companies in this particular matter of sanitary provisions. I only intended to refer to the noble Lord in support of the position that we ought not to allow railway companies to bring force to bear upon municipalities, and, having got in a particular instance their way, to quote that as a precedent for an alteration in the law. My view in the matter would not be in the least influenced by my position as a railway director, just as I should think the noble Lord's position would be uninfluenced by it.