Sitting of 11 March 1884

MINUTES.
SELECT COMMITTEE—Thames River Preservation, appointed [House counted out].
PRIVATE BILLS (by Order)—Second Reading—Metropolis Water, put off; Metropolitan Railway (Park Railway and Parliament Street Improvement), committed to a Select Committee.
PUBLIC BILL—Second Reading—Local Government Provisional Orders * [127].

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
  PARLIAMENT-PRIVATE BILLS—DELIVERY TO DOORKEEPERS.

    RESOLUTION.
    THE CHAIRMAN OF WAYS AND MEANSmoved—
    "That Standing Orders Nos. 203 and 214 be amended by leaving out 'Doorkeepers,' and inserting 'Vote Office.' "
    He stated that a mere verbal alteration was required in these Standing Orders, in order to carry out a change which had been made in regard to the arrangements of the House. Hitherto Private Bills had been delivered by the doorkeepers, and it was considered expedient that in future they should be delivered at the Vote Office.
    Motion agreed to.

  METROPOLIS WATER BILL (by Order).

    SECOND READING.
    Order for Second Reading read.
    SIR THOMAS CHAMBERS, in moving that the Bill be now read a second time, said, its object was—
    "To make provision for the supply of water by measure within the limits of the Metropolis, and certain places in the neighbourhood thereof, by the Companies authorized to supply water within such limits; to amend the Acts relating to the said Companies as to charges, dividends, and the issue of new capital, and for other purposes."
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    The House would be quite familiar with the question of the water supply of the Metropolis; because for the last 60 years it had been, over and over again, the subject of controversy in the public Press; there had been frequent debates and Divisions in the House upon it; and Select Committees had been appointed more than once to consider the question. The House was quite aware that the water supply of the Metropolis had to be purchased and paid for for every man, woman, and child within it, and that the supply was, practically, a monopoly, which had been necessarily granted to the Water Companies of London, which were eight in number—namely, the New River, the East London, the Southwark and Vauxhall, the West Middlesex, the Lambeth, the Chelsea, the Grand Junction, and the Kent Companies. In 1880–1 an inquiry was made by a Select Committee into the complaints which, from time to time, had been made in the public Press, and on the part of various districts of the Metropolis, that they were unfairly dealt with in regard to the supply of water. The House would also be aware that at present the charge for the water was quite irrespective of the quantity consumed by the customer as well as of the quality. The assessment was made upon the rateable value of the property in the Metropolis, a mode of charge first brought about by the late Lord Shaftesbury, who was for many years Chairman of Committees in the other House of Parliament. In the course of some inquiries before Lord Shaftesbury, that noble Lord made a suggestion which the Water Companies took notice of, and since then they had charged according to the rateable value of the property supplied. It was in reference to this mode of assessment and charge that the outcry against the Water Companies of London had been raised. It had created the greatest discontent, and he thought with a good deal of reason, on the ground that it was not a proper mode of charging for the supply of water. The charge had been made upon the assessments on the rateable value since about the year 1855; and when it was first made the rateable value of property in London was about £4 per head of the population. At the present time the rateable value of London was £7 per head of the whole population, so that

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    the water was now charged for at a rate 75 per cent higher to the customers than it was in 1855. Now, the Companies had done nothing to earn that increased charge, either in respect of the quantity or quality of the water, nor had they done anything to make it right that the customer should pay 75 per cent more now for the water than he did in 1855. Not only had the rateable value increased from £4 to £7 per head of the population, but it was daily increasing, and, in all human probability, would continue to increase. He contended that the principle upon which this payment was made was a wrong principle, and that it could not possibly be maintained. The dislike of the population—their disgust, he was about to say, at having to pay the present water rates was very great; and he did not think it would be possible for the Water Companies to maintain the principle of assessment they had adopted, and for the last 30 years maintained. The principle worked against the consumer year after year, and would continue to go against him, as long as the rateable value of the property within the Metropolis increased, and nothing could be more unfair than that the people of London should now pay for the same article 75 per cent more than they did 30 years ago. He was not complaining of the Water Companies. Like all other monopolists, they exercised their powers within the rights which Parliament had conferred upon them, and it would be idle to complain of them. They had to consider the interests of their shareholders, so long as they kept within the limits of their statutory powers. Indeed, some of them not only said that their charges were made in strict compliance with the rights Parliament had conferred upon them, but that they had not come up to the full exercise of their powers. No doubt they were perfectly entitled to use that argument; but those who supported the Water Companies of London would have to consider what weight such arguments were likely to have in the long run in the face of the public experience of the kind of supply which the population of London received. It must also be borne in mind that the cost of the supply to the people of the Metropolis was altogether unequal. For instance, a house in a fashionable situation like South Kensington would fetch
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    £400 a-year; whereas a similar house with the same number of rooms, but in a more unfashionable quarter, would only fetch £130 a-year. The difference in rent was represented by a difference in the rates between Russell Square and South Kensington; nevertheless, the quantity of water consumed was the same, and the quality was the same; therefore, the charge bore no relation whatever, either to the quality or the quantity of the article paid for. In regard to gas, which, as they all knew, was also a monopoly, there were regulated charges. Parliament had interfered and introduced in favour of the public, stipulations against the Gas Companies under which they were to supply the article they trade in, giving the Gas Companies, no doubt, some advantages when the review of their charges took place; but at the time the review took place the cost of the manufactured article was getting cheaper and cheaper in the country, while the cost of water, which was not manufactured, but had only to be pumped up and distributed, was continually increasing, and would continue to increase, to the public. Therefore, the inequality and injustice between the charges made for the two articles were absolutely beyond controversy. There was no excuse for the present state of things, except the language of the Acts of Parliament under which the charge was made; and no one could contend that Parliament had not only the right, but was bound to interfere in the interests of the consumer. Of course, if a case of injustice could not be shown, the complaint must fall to the ground; but if it could be shown, having due regard to the interests of those concerned—namely, the present Water Companies, and without injustice to them, that something could be done to rectify the continually increasing injustice done to the public, it ought certainly to be done, and no doubt Parliament would undertake to do it. This Bill proposed nothing further than to give the option to the customer of taking water by measure, and not of paying for it according to the rateable value of his property. He would then pay only for what he had. He could not remember another instance of an article bought and sold, where the price charged had no relation whatever to the quality or quantity of the thing sold. It was so,

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    however, with regard to water. The Bill proposed to give the customer power to say to the Water Companies—"I will take my water by measure, and I will pay for it according to the quantity I consume." Surely nothing could be fairer than that; and if there might be certain cases in which it would not be fair—as, for instance, where the quantity taken was very small, and the cost of supplying it larger than the average—those were matters for a Select Committee to inquire into and settle. No doubt, the Committee would make allowance for any extraordinary circumstances, such as the cost of supplying Hampstead Hill, or a district where there were only a few houses, and those very much scattered. Those were special circumstances for the consideration of a Select Committee, which would not allow injustice to be done to the Water Companies any more than they would allow the present state of things to get continually worse in relation to the public. It had been said that the present arrangement was an arrangement in favour of the poor—that the assessment of the rich paid part of the cost of supplying the poor; but the statistics entirely disposed of that argument, and it had no foundation in point of fact. It was shown that a rate of 3s. a-quarter was now charged in the poorer districts of London, and that 3s. a-quarter would more than pay for all the water the poor consumed. It was urged, on the part of those who opposed this Bill, that the poor should be encouraged in the consumption of water. At the same time, one effect of this measure would be to put an end to the present enormous cost of water within the limits of the Metropolis. No doubt there were statistics by which it could be proved, by those who were the best judges of the matter, that 50 per cent of the water supplied by all the Water Companies was wasted. That was a very serious thing. It did no good to anybody—it did not even clear the sewers. It only filled the receptacles which went down to the Thames, and put the authorities to the expense of pumping it out again. It had done no good whatever; and if that 50 per cent of water could be saved, it would postpone for many years the consideration of where a new supply was to be found to satisfy the wants of an overgrown population like this. Under
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    these circumstances, the Corporation of London thought the Bill they proposed was a Bill which might safely be committed to the care of a Select Committee, constituted as the House might consider most convenient, where those who represented the Water Companies would be fully heard, and where the promoters of the Bill would be able to call witnesses in support of their case. It would then be for the wisdom of Parliament to say whether some change in the law might not be adopted which would put an end to the evil now so greatly complained of, and give the same satisfaction to the population of London as that which they had felt in an analogous case—namely, the gas supply. If that could be done, he thought the Corporation of London would have done a great public service in submitting this Bill to the consideration of the House. He begged to move the second reading of the Bill.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—(Sir Thomas Chambers.)
    MR. COOPEsaid, he rose to oppose one of the most extraordinary pieces of legislation which had ever been attempted to pass into law in that House. It was singular that the Corporation of London should have brought in this Bill, inasmuch as the Corporation had power to legislate over about one square mile of the Metropolis; whereas they were now proposing to legislate for something like 300 square miles, that being the area occupied by the present Water Companies. The hon. and learned Gentleman the Recorder of London had made one or two rather startling observations, which, however, could hardly be relied upon by the House as positive facts. The hon. and learned Gentleman had stated that nothing had been done by the Water Companies as regarded either the quantity or quality of the water supplied; but, nevertheless, that their rates and their receipts were very much greater. The hon. and learned Gentleman made this further remarkable statement—that the water wasted was of no use whatever, and that, in point of fact, it only occasioned trouble and expense to the Water Companies, and especially to the local authorities, who had to pump it up again and throw it into the river, down which it flowed away without advantage or profit to

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    anybody. Was the hon. and learned Member not aware that the waste water was of the greatest possible benefit in cleansing and sweetening the drains and sewers connected with the houses of the poor? In that respect it was invaluable in a sanitary point of view. It was rather curious that the Corporation of London should have brought in a Bill which certainly would afford great relief to the wealthy bankers, merchants, and warehousemen occupying large and valuable properties in the City; but which would punish the poor in order to benefit the rich, by stinting them in their supply of water. He did not think the hon. and learned Gentleman could possibly get over that argument. As regarded the charges made by the Companies, the public were certainly under a great misapprehension upon that score. He was perfectly well aware that the Water Directors were looked upon as extortioners, or as greedy cormorants, whose sole object was to rob those who took their supply of water. But what were the Waterwork Directors doing? They were carrying out, most faithfully and most strictly, a great number of Acts of Parliament. He would appeal to the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board (Sir Charles W. Dilke), if he were present, to give his testimony as to what had been done by the Water Companies, especially since the Act of 1871, in the way of increasing the quality and the supply of water. The quality was no longer a question in suspense or doubt. As a matter of fact, owing to the nice regulations between the influx of water and the efflux of drainage, the Metropolis of London had now been made the healthiest city in the world. It had nothing like the same extent of death rate as many other large towns. Prom the last Report of the Registrar General, it appeared that the death rate in London was 19·3 per 1,000; while many other large towns—such as Birmingham, Manchester, and Liverpool—were in a very different position. Indeed, he believed that the death rate in Manchester was as high as 29 per 1,000. He thought that fact would show that, even with the most modern legislation, where every effort had been made to avail themselves of the improvements of science and modern inventions, the Provinces had not been able to improve
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    upon the water supply of London. He might state that the present mode of charging upon the rateable value had been consistently acted upon by Parliament for the last 80 years; and many measures which had been submitted as an improvement upon rating in accordance with the annual value had been rejected—such, for instance, as the cubical contents of the houses supplied, the number of rooms they contained, and many other principles. But in all the changes which had been suggested the question of supplying water by meter had never been submitted until the introduction of this strange, singular, and ill-considered Bill of the Corporation of London. The water rate was obviously a tax upon property, and it was so arranged that the poor should receive full benefit at the expense of the rich. The Water Companies had felt that it was their duty to meet the wants of the poor in that respect. If they attempted to supply water by meter, they would at once considerably curtail the quantity of water the poor would get. At present, every small house received a supply from the Water Companies of 66,000 gallons per annum. According to the Corporation Bill, they would receive only 24,000 gallons per annum, or a little more than one-third; but the charge to the poor would be 3s. per quarter, and 3s. was the lowest charge for the use of the meter. Therefore, the total charge would be 15 s. a-year; whereas many houses now supplied by the Water Companies did not pay more than from 8s. to 10 s. a-year; so that it was evident that, while the poor would be robbed of a considerable part of their water supply, they would have to pay a great deal more for it. It was perfectly true that innumerable objections had been made against the Water Companies for charging upon this system, and, no doubt, the water rate collector was a most unpopular person to many people; but if the public would only realize what was really the fact, that the Companies were honestly, faithfully, and loyally carrying out their part of the duty, it was only right that the public should fall in and do their part as well. As regarded the effect upon the Water Companies of the present Bill, he did not believe the framers of it could ever have thought of what its consequences would be. The Water

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    Companies had fully considered the proposals contained in the measure; and in the calculations they had made they only differed as to whether they would be totally ruined, or simply lose one-half of their income. He maintained that, fortified by many Acts of Parliament, the Companies were entitled to their statutory dividends; and if, as was probably the case, the day might arrive when the Companies were purchased, they could only be purchased upon that basis. Mr. Smith went into a careful calculation; his value of the Water Companies was based upon that principle, and he (Mr. Coope) maintained that no other principle could fairly or honestly be applied. He was certainly surprised, and regarded it as something wonderful, that such a revolutionary measure as this should be introduced by the ancient and venerable Corporation of London, possessing, as it did, such grand old traditions of its own. Seeing that that Body was so apt to speak with pride of the good old times and the good old customs, he was very much astonished that his right hon. Friend the Lord Mayor (Mr. R. N. Fowler) could possibly give his countenance to so revolutionary a measure.
    MR. R. N. FOWLER (LORD MAYOR): It was prepared during the time of my Predecessor in Office.
    MR. COOPEasked if he was to understand that the Lord Mayor did not give his support to the present Bill?
    MR. R. N. FOWLER (LORD MAYOR)said, he did not go so far as that; he had only said that the Bill itself was prepared when his Predecessor was in Office.
    MR. COOPEsaid, that, at all events, the Bill had been introduced into the House by the hon. and learned Recorder for the City of London; and therefore he presumed that it was introduced with the sanction and approval of the Lord Mayor and his brother Aldermen. He was very glad to find that the Lord Mayor was a little shy in the matter. It induced him to entertain the hope that it was quite possible the measure might not be introduced with such earnestness as he was afraid it must have been; because really to press forward a Bill of this kind as the child of the Corporation was simply suicidal to the Corporation themselves; because, if they once advocated the doing away with vested rights
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    and interests, and induced Parliament to sanction such views, he should like to know where the Corporation themselves would be? It was very curious that this Bill should have been introduced by the Corporation of London, inasmuch as the House ought to believe that they were fully alive to the great necessity of an ample and good supply of water, and that they had taken active measures themselves with that object in view. It was unfortunate, however, that the Corporation of London did not appear for centuries to have taken any active steps at all for obtaining a satisfactory and perfect supply. Down to the 13th century Londoners were wont, with pail and pitcher, to resort to the banks of the Thames, or to draw their water from wells at Wallbrook, Oldbourne, Long-bourne, Holywell, Clement's Well, Olerk-enwell, and other places; but ultimately it was found that such a supply was not sufficient, and then they showed great energy in laying down leaden-pipes from the town of Tyburn to a great stone cistern then in public use in West-cheape, at the point now occupied by the monument of Sir Robert Peel. This "great conduit," as it was called, occupied 50 years in construction, and for more than three centuries the Lord Mayor and Commonalty, aided by private gifts from worthy citizens, continued to supply London with water. In the end that supply was found to be insufficient, and about 300 years ago the Corporation obtained an Act to enable them to supply water by pumping from the Thames. But they had not energy enough to carry out their own scheme; and in 1580 they made arrangements with a Peter Morris, and leased to him the first arch of old London Bridge for 500 years, at 10 s. a-year. Morris built there his Thames Water Mill, for pumping Thames water into the City, and set up works as the first water monopolist in the Metropolis. It was said that the Lord Mayor and Aldermen went in state to witness Morris astonish the citizens by throwing a jet of water over the bridge and over the steeple of the Church of St. Magnus. Thus the Corporation lost a great opportunity for themselves; and the water supplied by Morris from the Thames, besides being limited in quantity, was often exceedingly turbid and foul, and the squalor of the poor occasioned

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    well-grounded apprehensions that the plague would renew its dreadful visitations. Moved by such considerations, the Corporation obtained power from Parliament, towards the end of the Reign of Elizabeth, to cut a river for conveying water to the City from any part of Middlesex or Hertfordshire. Having obtained their Act, with true Corporate procrastination, they rested on their oars for six or seven years; and in 1603 the plague broke out. They then sent surveyors to survey the springs of water situated in various places round London, and after much delay they fixed on the springs of Amwell and Chadwell in Hertfordshire. In 1607 they obtained a new Act authorizing the conveying of these waters by an aqueduct to the City. Two years elapsed, and they then made over to Sir Hugh Myddleton the right to construct a new river, and to bring water from the Hertford springs. The Corporation themselves would have nothing to do with it; they said—"You must do it on your own responsibility." Sir Hugh Myddleton was a man of energy and skill, with business habits, and he at once set to work and contrived to get together a Company for constructing a conduit from Amwell to London. Unfortunately, not possessing a proper knowledge of engineering, he was obliged to make the channel between Bishop's Stortford and London double the length he had calculated; and the consequence was that when he had completed his works about half way to London—namely, to Enfield—he was obliged to stop for want of funds. He applied to the Corporation again, but they turned a deaf ear to him. Myddleton then applied to the King; and, thanks to the scientific knowledge of the Scotch King—James I.—that Monarch undertook to supply half the funds, on condition that he should have one-half of the profits and emoluments. To those terms Myddleton acceded, and subsequently a Charter was granted to the Company under the title of the New River Company. The shares of the Royal Incorporation in 1609 were divided into "King's shares," and the "adventures' shares," the holders of the latter possessing all the powers of management. He now came to the character of the water supply. Numerous official Reports had been made by Royal Commissions, Select Commit-
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    tees, and other public authorities between 1828 and the present time. The Duke of Richmond's Commission, in 1866, said—
    "That the abundance, permanence, and regularity of supply, so important to a great Metropolis, are secured much more efficiently by the great extent and varied geological character of a large hydrographical basin, such as the Thames, than by the necessarily very much more limited collecting areas that can be made available on the gravitation system. Further, that there is no evidence to lead us to believe that the water now supplied by Companies is not generally good and wholesome."
    Mr. Ayrton's Committee said, in 1867—
    "We are satisfied that both the quantity and quality of the water supplied from the Thames are so far satisfactory that there is no ground for disturbing the arrangements made under the Act of 1852, and that any attempt to do so would only end in entailing a waste of capital, and an unnecessary charge upon the owners and occupiers of property in the Metropolis."
    He did not think that he ought to detain the House longer than to say that he believed, from the pregnant words of the Speaker on taking the Chair, that the right hon. Gentleman had convinced every Member that it was his earnest desire to uphold the dignity of the House, and to preserve inviolate the faith and honour of Parliamentary engagements. It must not be forgotten that the measure was one which affected very large vested interests. He quite agreed with the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Home Secretary, who gave the Water Companies so courteous a reception at the Home Office the other day, that an Act of Parliament was not intended to last for ever, and that it might be, under certain circumstances, repealed; but when capital had been invested on the faith of Acts of Parliament, those persons who had invested their capital had a right to be fully compensated for the outlay which they had been induced to make. This Bill was fraught with danger to the community; it attacked interests which had hitherto been secured by the sanction of the Legislature; and he could not help thinking that the course taken with regard to it would have a considerable effect upon Railway Companies, Gas Companies, and all other Companies. The passing of such a measure would be most injurious to the community at large. The value of the property belonging to the Water Works Companies, although it had been undoubtedly de-

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    preciated by these proceedings, was at least £25,000,000 sterling, about one-half of which was in the hands of Trustees, and, therefore, belonged to women and children, who had no one to protect their interests except Parliament. He was sure Parliament would not forsake that precious trust, but would in this case, as in all others, maintain the right of vested interests, and see that the engagements contained in Acts of Parliament were fully carried out. He begged to move that the Bill be read a second time on that day six months.
    SIR HENRY HOLLANDseconded the Amendment. He protested against the second reading of this Bill on behalf of the shareholders in the Water Companies—a large proportion of whom were, as had been stated, Trustees and Executors—and all of whom had invested their money in reliance on Acts of Parliament. He protested against this Bill, because serious damage was by it proposed to be inflicted on the Water Companies without adequate, or, indeed, as the Bill stood, any compensation being given to them. The principal object of the Bill was to substitute supply by meter for all purposes, trade and domestic, for the present system. Now, if this change were desirable—and he would assume it to be so for the sake of the present argument, though he believed upon examination it would prove not to be so—and if it were beneficial to the public, let it by all means be adopted; but the change should not be made in the face of rights solemnly secured by Acts of Parliament, unless proper compensation were made in respect of the capital laid out in reliance upon those Acts, and of the vested interests secured by those Acts. He was almost afraid of using that term, as the Home Secretary a few weeks ago, when he received and lectured a deputation from the Water Companies, seemed to pooh-pooh "vested interests," and said that whenever any improvement was suggested "vested interests stood in the way." Upon that he (Sir Henry Holland) would only observe that though it was quite right, and even necessary, that vested interests, whether of Corporations, or Companies, or individuals, should give way before a clear and pressing public interest, it would be monstrous that in such case they should be practically confis-
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    cated; and wrong and unjust that they should even suffer whenever adequate compensation could be awarded. It was quite certain that if vested interests were to be treated, as they were treated in the Bill now under consideration, it would be a very unfortunate thing for the country at large, as it was unquestionable that capital would be largely invested in other countries, or, if invested here, would cease to be invested in undertakings established by private enterprize, which had proved so beneficial to the industry and wants of the country. What compensation should be awarded in cases like the present, and how the Companies could be properly secured in their statutory rights, could be readily tested by reference to the language of the Acts of Parliament by which those rights were vested in the Companies. It was clear, however, that the Corporation had had no regard to this point. They seemed to think that the Companies were bound to take what the Corporation thought fit to offer. Fortunately, however, for the Companies there was an excellent precedent in favour of their views which he felt sure would have great weight with the House. That precedent was embodied in the Instruction which, if this Bill were read a second time, his hon. and gallant Friend the Member for South Essex (Colonel Makins) was prepared to move. It was taken from an Instruction sent down to a Committee which was considering a somewhat similar question affecting the Gas Companies; and it practically secured to the Companies such a price for the gas supplied by them as would enable them to earn their statutory dividend. By whom was this precedent established? Not by the Companies or their opponents, but by the Government of that day; for it was, in fact, an Instruction prepared and sent down to the Committee by the Board of Trade. He (Sir Henry Holland) trusted that the Liberal Government of the present day and the House would be prepared to deal as fairly now with the Water Companies as the Government and the House dealt with the Gas Companies in 1868. He would, with the kind permission of the House, now mention two special points upon which he relied against the second reading of this Bill. The first point was that this was not the proper time to propose such an import-

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    ant change in the system of supply; and the second, that the Corporation of London were not the proper Body to propose it. As to the first point, he would remind the House that a Bill was to be introduced by the Government this year to create a new Municipal Government for the Metropolis. This Municipal Body, even if they did not purchase and take into their own hands the supply of water and gas to the Metropolis, would probably be invested with large powers for regulating that supply. Was it, then, wise or desirable to hamper them in advance by a system and regulations which experience might show, as he believed it would show, to be inexpedient in the interests of public and private health, on sanitary and economical grounds, and which they might, therefore, in a short time feel themselves bound to repeal? Surely this proposal should be postponed until the new Body had time fully to consider it in all its bearings. Again, it was hardly fair to the Water Companies to put them to the expense of fighting this question before a Body like the Corporation, instead of before a Body like the new Municipal Body, with whom the ultimate decision would practically rest. As to the second point, he would remind the House that the Corporation, who had only jurisdiction over an area of one square mile, were by this Bill endeavouring to effect a change over some 300 square miles, and affecting about 4,000,000 people. Not only that, but the Bill affected Companies who did not supply one drop of water within the City area. The Home Secretary had referred the deputation to the precedent of the Gas Companies. But upon examination it would be found that that supposed precedent failed. In that case the City Bill only applied to Companies who actually supplied gas within the City area; and the result of the proceedings was not a compromise between the Corporation and the Gas Companies, but a compromise, as he had already pointed out, between the Board of Trade and the Companies. The Home Secretary said that he should support this Bill, and a Bill of the Metropolitan Board of Works, by which it was sought to make the ratepayers liable in advance for any expenses incurred in respect of any Water Bills which that Board might think fit to bring in, as acts of "tardy repent-
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    ance" on the part of those Bodies. He (Sir Henry Holland), however, did not believe in the repentance of those Bodies. He believed these Bills to be nothing more than bids for popularity; promoted from motives of self-interest; to get more power into their hands; to show that they were alive to the wants of the inhabitants of the Metropolis; and this in the hopes either of escaping merger into the new Municipal Board, or of being merged with more favourable conditions to themselves. This question of change of system of supply was far too important to be dealt with by a Body like the Corporation, and should not be brought forward except as a Government Bill, or upon the Report of a Royal Commission, after full examination of all the evidence for and against the scheme, which, he would observe, had, in fact, never received full consideration. As regarded the Bill itself, and its clauses, he desired to make a few observations. In the first place, it was by no means clear that the meter system for all purposes (trade and domestic) would work well from either a sanitary or economical point of view. It was certain that very much less water would be available for flushing and cleansing the great system of drains and sewers underlying the Metropolis; it was doubtful whether there would be water enough for that purpose. Should such be the case, there would either be great danger to the public health, or else the Companies would have to be called upon to find a sufficient extra supply for this special purpose, and for this they would have to be paid, and this charge would fall as an additional expense upon the ratepayers. Again, it was probable—he might almost say certain—that the poor would greatly stint their use of water, and thus lessen that personal and household cleanliness—already too little attended to—which was so important for public and private health. Great stress was laid upon this point both by the Committee of 1867 and the Royal Commission in their Report of 1869; and, though he did not often find himself in accord with the hon. and learned Gentleman the junior Member for Chelsea (Mr. Firth), he entirely agreed with his just observations upon this point in his book on Municipal London, which he would take the liberty of quoting to the House—

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    "The establishment of a general meter system would be an unfortunate thing for London. The more water is consumed in the cleansing of houses and in bath-rooms, gardens, and so forth, the better it is for the public health and sanitary condition."
    Nor did he (Sir Henry Holland) believe that this change of system was desirable from the economical point of view. He believed that the poor would lose, while the rich would gain. He would not trouble the House with figures; but, unless he had been misinformed, it could be proved that the poor in Liverpool and Manchester now paid more for the supply of water than the poor in London. Of course, he did not propose to test this by the proposed scale of 6d. per 1,000 gallons, as such a price could not be sustained. It would be absolutely unremunerative to the Companies, and seriously imperil their power to earn the dividend secured to them by Acts of Parliament; a power which had been recognized by a former Government in the case of the Gas Companies; a power upon the faith of which an enormous capital had been laid out, and very large sums expended, even in recent years, in improving filter beds and reservoirs, and thus improving the quality of the water supplied. The Corporation, in fixing this price, seemed to have overlooked the fact that in Liverpool and Manchester an initial fixed charge of 6d. or 3d. per pound was allowed on the rateable value of every house, whether supplied with water or not, in addition to the charge allowed for every 1,000 gallons of water supplied. No such initial charge was provided in this Bill. The price of 6d, per 1,000 gallons must, therefore, be greatly raised, and to this must be added the cost of the meter, and of keeping it in order. Thus, where a poor man was now charged from 6s. to 8s. per annum, he would have to pay, oven under this Bill, a minimum charge of 12 s. per annum, to which must be added the charge for the meter. He thought he was justified in saying that this was a Bill to relieve the rich at the expense of the poorer classes. There was another most unfair and unworkable provision in the Bill, to which he desired to call attention. It enabled any person to apply for a supply by meter; but it did not allow the Companies to compel persons to have a meter supply. This was unworkable in practice, as engineers and those well acquainted with
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    the question must know. The evidence before the Committee of 1867 showed that if the change of system was to be adopted it should be made compulsory on all. Again, there was nothing in the Bill to prevent a person who had applied for and got a meter supply, but who was dissatisfied with it, coming to the Company and requiring them to go back, so far as he was concerned, to the present system, without regard to the cost and inconvenience thus occasioned to the Company. There were other points which showed the crude and unsatisfactory way in "which this Bill had been prepared; but he would not now trouble the House with these. He would conclude by referring to one further point of some importance. It was proposed to make the poor rate valuation the basis of the charge for water. Now, that was a distinct breach of the arrangement made by Act of Parliament. The water charge was not in truth a "rate," but a charge or payment for goods supplied; and to make the poor rate conclusive was to introduce a principle which Committees had seen to be wrong, and to place the Companies wholly in the hands of parochial authorities, and to bind them to accept, as final, assessments in which they had had no voice. He would add that such a provision appeared to him to be, if not directly contrary to, at all events not in accordance with, the late decision in Dobbs' case in the House of Lords; for in that decision no reference was made to the poor rate valuation, while one of the Judges distinctly laid down how the net annual value should be arrived at. For these reasons, he protested against the second reading of this Bill.
    Amendment proposed, to leave out the word "now," and at the end of the Question to add the words "upon this day six months."—(Mr. Coope.)
    Question proposed, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."
    COUNCIL MAKINStrusted the House would allow him to make a few observations upon the Bill, and he would endeavour to avoid, as far as possible, touching upon the points which had already been dealt with. The hon. and learned Gentleman the Recorder of London (Sir Thomas Chambers), in introducing the Bill, had been careful to abstain from telling the House what the

    1215
    Bill contained; and, more than that, there were one or two things he had said in regard to it which could not be borne out by the Bill itself. In the first place, the hon. and learned Gentleman did not tell the House—and to him (Colonel Makins) it seemed to be an important matter, which had not yet been referred to at all—that the cost, supposing the consumers of London under this Bill were to adopt the meter system, would involve the Water Companies in an outlay of capital to something like the extent of £2,000,000, £3,000,000, or even £4,000,000, according to the cost of the meters, which had not yet been accurately ascertained. How was that money to be raised? The Water Companies had no power to raise such capital, and this Bill would give them no such power. Then in regard to another question which had been dealt with pretty freely—namely, the charge to the poor—the water rate and the meter rate per quarter under the Bill would amount to 18 s. a-year; whereas there were thousands of houses under the present system where the annual water rate did not amount to more than 8s. or 10 s. a-year, and for this excessive charge of 18 s. per annum the consumer would receive less than half the quantity of water he now received. That was a very serious matter. In a crowded City like London they had more to fear from dirt than dynamite, because dirt meant disease, immorality, and drunkenness. There was no surer way of producing disease than by the generation of sewer gas, and the only way of preventing the generation of sewer gas was to provide a copious and plentiful supply of water, such as that which was supplied at present. They had been frequently told that the increase in the water rate had been in accordance with the increase in the assessment of the rateable value of the houses. That was a point which had been urged in favour of this Bill by the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Home Secretary when he received a deputation the other day, and which had been confirmed by the Recorder of London in introducing the measure. At first sight, no doubt, it appeared to be a great hardship; but if they looked into the matter closely they would find that it was not so, because the rate paid for water for the domestic supply included not only the supply used for domestic purposes, but also the public
    1216
    supply which, under other circumstances, the ratepayer would have to provide. As London increased, no doubt the sewers increased, and so did the amount of water required for cleansing the streets and extinguishing fires; and, therefore, the water rate must necessarily increase in exactly the same proportion, just as the poor rates and other rates increased. A man who lived only six months in London only used a certain amount of water, and only required a certain amount of police protection; but, as a citizen of London, he had to bear his proportion of the general local taxation, and to pay his share both of the police rate, the sewer rate, and the water rate. If the meter system were adopted, he would only pay by meter for his private supply; but the parish would, nevertheless, be called upon to pay for the public supply, and that would be charged to him in the public rates. Consequently, it would be exactly the same eventually, because he would have to pay the private rate plus his share of the public rate. Therefore, that hardship, which had struck so many people, when it came to be examined really had no force. When the Home Secretary received a deputation from the Water Companies, he referred to the way in which the Water Companies should be dealt with. The right hon. and learned Gentleman said there were three courses—purchase, competition, and regulation. If the right hon. and learned Gentleman had considered the character of the present Bill, he might have added a fourth course—namely, annihilation—because, as far as some of the Companies were concerned, if the Bill passed in its present form, they would be unable to pay a dividend on their ordinary Stock, or upon their Preference Shares, or upon their borrowed capital, although there would be an immense augmentation in their working expenses. Consequently, the question could only be settled in one way—by the Company ceasing to exist at all. It was said, with regard to the purchase of Water Companies' rights, that the terms prescribed in the Act of 1881 were too high. No doubt that might be the case; but he would remind the House that wherever the undertaking of a Water Company had been purchased—as in the case of Middlesborough, Leeds, and other places—the price paid for it had been

    1217
    on much the same basis, and, in most cases, even a higher price had been paid than that adopted by Mr. Smith as the basis of the water purchase of the interest of the Metropolitan Companies. He came next to the question of competition. That had been dismissed summarily by the Home Secretary; and well he might so dismiss it, because if the value of the Water Companies' property was not now secured, what inducement would there be to people to subscribe their capital for a competing scheme? In addition to that, there was the physical difficulty of obtaining room in the streets for the laying down of more mains; and, therefore, the question of competition might be very quickly disposed of. He came next to the question of regulation, and the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Home Secretary had referred to the system adopted with reference to the Gas Companies. Now, as far as the Bill was a Regulation Bill, he (Colonel Makins), personally, could see no objection to it, although he had no right to speak on behalf of the Water Companies, because he was not a Water Director, and had nothing to do with the Water Companies, except as a Trustee for certain women and children. This Bill, as a Regulation Bill, left little to be said against it, except that it contained no power of amalgamation, a step which was pressed upon the Gas Companies by the Government. He should like to have seen in the Bill a power to amalgamate, because he believed that amalgamation would have a beneficial effect upon the supply, avoid cross-pumping, and also that it would reduce the price. In the case of the Gas Companies, there were originally 13 of them, and there were now only three large Companies, over one of which he had the honour to preside. They had absorbed into themselves the other 10 Companies; and by that process they had got rid of about 100 Directors, 13 Secretaries, and 13 Accountants, together with a large staff of unnecessary officers; and the effect of that, together with the sliding scale, had been to cause a saving which amounted. in round numbers, to £600,000, £500,000 of which went into the pockets of the consumers in the shape of reduction of price, while only £100,000 went into the pockets of the shareholders in the shape of increased dividend. Therefore, if this
    1218
    Bill were to go to a Committee, he trusted that Amalgamation Clauses would be inserted in it. In that case they would be able to re-arrange the source of supply, and, by taking the supply from rivers when flooded, would be able to cheapen the cost of and improve the supply itself. There were other matters and regulations which might also be considered. He did not see why, in regard to future capital, the Auction Clauses should not be imposed upon the Water Companies in the same way as upon the Gas Companies. The outside public had been found ready to pay premiums for the purchase of Water Companies' Stock issued under the terms of an Act of Parliament; and in the case of one London Company which had raised its last capital by tender to the public, it had obtained it upon a premium of £9 per cent. That fact, in itself, appeared to be a very strong argument against what he might call the confiscatory character of the Bill. When the outside public were found ready and willing to pay a high premium upon the Stock issued by the Water Companies, it showed what faith the public attached to the security of Acts of Parliament. He had been somewhat surprised that the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Home Secretary should have taken the course he did on this subject in replying to the deputation which waited upon him recently. It was notorious that the effect of the right hon. and learned Gentleman's speech was to send down the price of Water Stock very considerably; indeed, he seemed to have been playing skittles with the Stocks of the Water Companies, and they went down like nine-pins. Now, that sort of thing was not altogether satisfactory to the public; because, if the right hon. and learned Gentleman would only consider for a moment, he must remember, although the effect might be immaterial to a good many people, yet that many of the Water Shareholders were Trustees of poor women and children, and that a lowering of the price of Water Stock meant panic, terror, and a good deal of unnecessary suffering to a large number of persons. He could have wished that when the Home Secretary said what he did in reference to the Water Companies, he had also said a word in favour of keeping Parliamentary faith. He was quite sure the right hon. and learned Gentleman

    1219
    was one of the last men in that House to desire that Parliament should embark in a career of dishonesty. At the same time, his own view of the Bill was, that if it. were allowed by the Government to pass in its present shape it would be a distinct act of public dishonesty; and it would inflict a deadly blow upon Joint Stock enterprize, and show the public what little reliance was to be placed on the authority of an Act of Parliament. As to the Water Companies, they were spoken of out-of-doors as rogues, robbers, and cheats, and all sorts of hard names were applied to them. They were public servants whose duties and remuneration were specified and fixed by an Act of Parliament. If they neglected their duties they were amenable to the law; but as long as they performed them they were entitled to the remuneration which was secured to them by Act of Parliament. In the Paper which had been circulated to hon. Members by the Corporation of London, it was admitted that there ought to be a remunerative rate secured to every Company, and that no price should be fixed for water which would be incompatible with their earning a remunerative interest upon their outlay. He wanted to know from the hon. and learned Recorder (Sir Thomas Chambers) what was the remunerative interest? What was the hon. and learned Member going to fix as remunerative interest? If he was prepared to give a remunerative interest, let him concede the remunerative interest provided by the different Acts of Parliament, and there could then be no doubt upon the matter. He (Colonel Makins) had placed upon the Paper an Instruction, which he proposed to move if the Bill were read a second time. He should, however, oppose the second reading; but if the Bill were read a second time, then he should move his Instruction, because it was exactly in accordance with the course taken in regard to the Gas Companies in 1868.
    MR. FIRTHconfessed that he had been somewhat interested in hearing one observation which had fallen from the hon. and gallant Member who had just eat down. The hon. and gallant Member had absolutely accused the Corporation of the City of London of having commenced a career of public dishonesty. That was a very hard term to apply to a Body so ancient in its history, and with
    1220
    such large claims upon the public regard at the present time. Nevertheless, the hon. and gallant Member had not been deterred from making that suggestion. Now, he (Mr. Firth) confessed that the position of a Metropolitan Member in the presence of a Bill of this kind was one of very considerable difficulty, although it could not be viewed without a certain amount of satisfaction. It was a matter which could not be regarded without a certain amount of satisfaction to find the Water Companies and the Corporation of London tilting at each other. There was some chance that, under such circumstances as these, the honest people of London were likely at last to come by their own. However, when they had a proposition like this put before them, they ought to consider it upon its merits, quite irrespective of the parties who put it before them; and, as the measure itself did not propose to give any increased power to a Body which was said to have a jurisdiction only over one square mile of the area affected, he thought they were in a position to examine the question from a more impartial; and independent point of view than would otherwise have been the case. The Bill contained three main propositions. One was that the Shares of the Company should be put up at auction in the event of any proposed increase of capital, and he took that principle to be accepted by the House, seeing that it had already been adopted in the case of the Gas Companies as a proper one. With respect to the proposition that the annual value should be taken to mean the rateable value, that was merely confirming what had already been decided by the House of Lords. The third proposal was to supply water by meter. That was altogether a different matter; and if the decision of the House, on passing the second reading, were to affirm the principle that the supply of water was to be distributed by meter, he thought their difficulties would be greater than they were. He took it, however, that if the Bill were read a second time and referred to a Select Committee, all questions upon matters of detail would be carefully inquired into. The hon. Member for Middlesex (Mr. Coope) spoke of the Bill as a measure of confiscation; but it was suggested that the Corporation of London had power to provide a water supply themselves, be-

    1221
    cause there was no monopoly in the matter; and in that case the Corporation would be entitled to say that the public should be charged not even 6d. per 1,000 gallons, but that they should have a supply for nothing, if the City authorities chose. That argument was met by the hon. and learned Recorder for the City of London by the observation—"Why should you pay more for water than you receive in return?" It was competent for any householder to go without water altogether. ["No!"] The condition of the law was this at the present moment—that if a man took the water he must pay for it on the annual value of his house. If a man put down a pump in his own garden, and obtained water, he would be entitled to go without a supply from the Water Companies. He did not wish, however, to enter into any controversy upon that point. All he would say was that if he were to put down a pump in his own garden, he had no doubt that he would be able to get water, and to do without the present water supply; but probably he would not be willing to drink the water he got. Therefore, if a man were able to go without water altogether, he was not bound to pay the charges of the Water Companies; but if he did take it, then he was bound to pay the rates which they were entitled to charge by law. He might mention that a right hon. Friend of his—a former First Commissioner of Works (Mr. Ayrton)—would, under this Bill, have his water rate very considerably reduced; but yet his right hon. Friend considered the Bill to be a measure of confiscation. For his own part, he (Mr. Firth) was glad to see these questions taken in hand. To-day it was the Water Companies; to-morrow it would be the Corporation themselves. The Water Companies were to-day proposed to be delivered over to the tender mercies of Parliament for consideration; to-morrow the Water Companies would probably help the House to deliver over the Corporation of London; and he looked upon the prospect, either from the one side or the other, with the utmost satisfaction. On the whole, he thought it would be advisable to read the Bill a second time, in order that it might be referred to a Select Committee, and he trusted to such a Committee as that which was suggested by the right hon. Member for Westminster (Mr. W.-
    1222
    H. Smith). Such a Committee would fully consider the question, and he hoped that such a consideration would not be excluded as that made public by the analyst of the Local Government Board—namely, that five-sixths of the supply of water in the Metropolis were more or less impregnated with sewage matter. He thought a statement of that kind should have far greater weight than the opinion of a Director of a Water Company that the water supply of the Metropolis was the purest that had ever been furnished for a great community. Unfortunately, the Water Companies undertook to supply pure water, and altogether failed to do it. However, the purity of the water, and the necessity of providing a supply at constant pressure for extinguishing fires, were questions with many others for the future. There was, however, one question which he wished to put to the Speaker on a matter of Order. He found in Sir Thomas Erskine May's book upon the Practice and Procedure of the House of Commons a reference to the votes of Members who were interested in Private Bills. Sir Thomas Erskine May alleged that the votes of such Members had been frequently disallowed. He gave many illustrations, and he (Mr. Firth) ventured to think that those illustrations applied to the position of many Members of the House on the present occasion who occupied the position of Directors of Water Companies. He had the highest regard for their personal honour and integrity; but in their official capacity as Directors of Water Companies he entertained some doubt whether they were entitled to cast their votes on this occasion against the interests of the public.
    MR. SPEAKER: The question alluded to by the hon. and learned Member could only be properly raised after the Division has been taken, when it will be for the House to allow or disallow any of the votes which have been given.
    LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL: I hope the Lord Mayor (Mr. R. N. Fowler) and his Colleagues the Aldermen, who have found their way into this House, will feel happy at the turn which the debate has taken, and especially at the speech which has just been delivered. The raison d' être of the position of the Lord Mayor and his brother Aldermen

    1223
    of the City of London, and of their presence in this House, is that they are bound to be the rigid and unbending defenders of the rights of property; and when they cease to hold that position I think they will cease to fulfil any position of usefulness in this House. The Lord Mayor and his brother Aldermen, who represent the City of London in this House, must feel happy and delighted at the support they have received from the hon. Member for Chelsea (Mr. Firth). It has certainly not been a friendly support, but is rather impelling them forward in their reckless and disastrous career by something which approaches more of the nature of a hick. I wish now to draw the attention of the House to two points which involve matters of principle. I think the speeches which have already been made have had more reference to questions of detail, which might properly be sifted in Committee, than to those questions of principle which should be considered upon the second reading. What I wish now to draw the attention of the House to is unquestionably a matter of principle, and it is a sentence in a document which has been forwarded to hon. Members by the Corporation of London in support of the second reading of this Bill. In the third paragraph of that statement—about the middle of it—the Corporation of London anonymously state that—
    "They have not, however, failed to recognize that sanitary requirements demand that water should he used without stint; and that it is necessary that the wealthier consumers should, by paying an enhanced price, cheapen the cost of water to their poorer neighbours, and encourage them to use it freely."
    Now, is the Lord Mayor aware that he and his brother Aldermen have put forward in this printed document the wildest Socialistic doctrine that, without any exception, I have ever heard enunciated on any platform in this country—even by Mr. Henry George? Nothing could exceed the extravagance of the Socialism contained in that sentence. Has the Lord Mayor ever heard of a graduated Income Tax? Has he ever studied the principles upon which such a tax is advocated? and, if so, is he aware that what is proposed in that sentence is nothing more than a graduated Water Tax? If he has studied the principles of a graduated Income Tax,
    1224
    and will kindly apply those principles to this sentence of the statement which he has circulated among the Members of this House, I shall be obliged if he will explain, without loss of time, how he—as the head of the Corporation of London, supported by his brother Aldermen—recommends Parliament to legislate upon such principles? Before I leave this precious document I should like to show to the House its fallacious and, if I may say so, its hypocritical character. Having set forth the Socialistic doctrine—
    "It is necessary that the wealthier consumers should, by paying an enhanced price, cheapen the cost of water to their poorer neighbours, and to encourage them to use it freely,"
    in a further sentence the Corporation go on to say that—
    "It is desirable that the present sources of supply should be economized by its being made to the interest of the consumer to see that the water is not wasted."
    Thus, in the first place, you propose to adopt the Socialistic principles of Mr. Henry George in order to encourage the use of water freely; and, in the second place, you propose to establish stringent regulations in regard to the use of water under the pretence of preventing waste. So much for this document put forward by the Corporation of London, which I hope the House will treat at its proper value. But this Bill goes much further. It proposes to deal with landed estates. It proposes, in Section 18 of the Bill, that—
    "The rents and profits derived by any Company from any landed estate, houses, or property, although the same be not now directly used for, or be not now directly connected with, their water supply, shall, after payment thereof of all charges and outgoings and expenses of management affecting or payable in respect of the same from time to time, be carried to the credit of the undertaking of such Company, and shall form part of and be included in the profits of the undertaking of such Company, and the profits of the undertaking of any such Company (including such rents and profits as aforesaid) to be divided among the shareholders of such Company in any year shall not exceed the prescribed rate or the prescribed rates upon the paid up capital of such Company."
    Now, the Corporation of London and the City Companies possess large landed estates, and I hope the Home Secretary, when he introduces his Bill for the better government of London, will remember the principles respecting landed property which are now laid down by the

    1225
    Lord Mayor and his brother Aldermen. Are the Lord Mayor and his brother Aldermen, who put forward this Bill, aware that the landed estates which belong to the New River Company are held by a far better title than any of the estates belonging to the City Companies? The New River Company hold their estates under a Charter granted by King James I., in virtue of which the Company purchased land of which the ground rents now amounted to £4,000 a-year, and will in a few years, as the leases fall in, produce something like £50,000 per annum. That is the extent of the landed property which the Corporation of London propose to confiscate. Is the Lord Mayor a ware that no later than the year 1871 Parliament laid down, at a time when a confiscating Government was in Office, that confiscation of this character could not be sanctioned; so that the Corporation is now actually proposing to legislate upon principles which the Government of 1871 would not look at. In 1871 Parliament enacted that nothing in this—the Metropolis Water Act—should be deemed to apply to any landed estate, houses, or property of the New River Company not directly used or connected with their water supply, or shall authorize or empower the auditor to investigate or audit any accounts of the New River Company other than those relating to their water supply; so that this sum of £50,000 a-year, to which the New River Company are entitled under the Charter of James I., and which was confirmed in 1871 by Act of Parliament, the Corporation of London now come forward to confiscate, and to confiscate without compensation. I think the Home Secretary, when he introduces his Bill, will be able to say to the Lord Mayor—"Out of thine own mouth shalt thou be judged." Who, after all, is it who comes to this House with this garb of philanthropy and humanitarianism upon them? If it is not a guilty party, it is an accused party; if it is not a convicted party, then it is a suspected party; and certainly they are not in a position to claim the confidence of Parliament for dealing with the water supply of London. I should like to ask the Lord Mayor how we are to defend the Corporation from the robbery proposed by the Home Secretary when the Corporation are themselves the first to propose the
    1226
    robbery of other Corporations? How are we to defend from confiscation those who are encouraging the Party opposite in their onward career of confiscation? Those who trample on the rights of others must not be surprised when the time arrives if their own rights are trampled upon. Under these circumstances, I hope the House will not consent to read this Bill a second time, especially on account of the principles which it contains. But if the House does read the Bill a second time, then I sincerely hope that hon. Members opposite, when they come to discuss the Bill of the Home Secretary, will remember, and will follow the principles, which have been laid down by the Lord Mayor and his brother Aldermen.
    SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: Sir, it is a considerable source of satisfaction to us who sit on this side of the House to find that the guns of the noble Lord who has just spoken should be turned behind him, and that his stern-chasers are directed against the Lord Mayor and the Corporation of London. For my own part, I have always been an admirer and supporter of the Corporation, and I am prepared to give them my support this afternoon. I must, however, decline to enter into this triangular fight—if, indeed, it is not rather more than that in regard to the number of angles concerned—between the hon. and gallant Member for South Essex (Colonel Makins), the Corporation of London, my hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea (Mr. Firth), and the noble Lord who has just spoken. I am not going to enter into the merits of the Corporation of London from the point of view of any hon. Member who has yet spoken. As far as the Government are concerned, and as far as the House are concerned, what we have to look to is what, in regard to this Bill, are the interests of the people of London. I do not say the interests of the people of London regardless of the rights of property, because the interests of the people of London are, to a large extent, bound up in the rights of property, as are the rights of everybody, and it is the interest of everybody to respect those rights. But what is the situation of the people of London in regard to the water supply of the Metropolis? Everybody knows that the existing system of water supply is most unsatisfactory. I think

    1227
    we came to this conclusion some years ago, when there was a proposal to purchase the interests of the Water Companies. That showed at that time that the system was not regarded as satisfactory, or such an attempt would not have been made. I will not go hack now, or detain the House by entering into various subjects which have been discussed; but that Committee unanimously came to the conclusion that the state of things then existing ought not to be perpetuated, but that somebody or other representing the people of London should attempt to improve the situation of the inhabitants in respect to the water supply. I should have been very glad if there had been any chance of the Corporation of London and the Metropolitan Board of Works coming to an agreement on this subject. It has been said, and said very truly, that if the Corporation of London represent one square mile only of the Metropolis, there is another Body which represents a much larger area. That Body, however, has refrained from coming forward; and whenever we want to see the two Bodies, who profess to be the representatives of the Metropolis, acting together in accord, we find either that the Metropolitan Board is not able to support the policy of the Lord Mayor and Corporation, or that the Lord Mayor and Corporation are not prepared to support any proposal made by the Metropolitan Board. What do we find to-day? The Lord Mayor has introduced a Bill, and the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Chairman of the Metropolitan Board (Sir James M'Garel-Hogg), who generally sits next the Lord Mayor, has on this occasion retired to a less prominent position, and is now sitting as far away from him as possible. [Sir JAMES M'GAREL-HOGG, who was sitting at the other end of the Bench below the Gangway, here got up and took his seat beside the Lord Mayor.] I am glad that I have succeeded in bringing the Lord Mayor and the Chairman of the Metropolitan Board of Works into line; but I believe that the Chairman of the Metropolitan Board is going to give his cordial support to the proposal to reject the Bill. It is unfortunate that whenever the unfortunate people of London require anything to be done for them you will never find these two Bodies, which ought to
    1228
    act together, acting in co-operation for the advantage and benefit of the Metropolis. That being so, and it being admitted that something ought to be done, I do not think the House ought to reject, on this occasion, the proposal which has been brought forward, and which offers a chance of doing something, simply because there is an objection against the Body from whom the proposal emanates. The Corporation of London have introduced a measure which they state is intended to deal with a grievance which, I venture to say, is felt on all hands by every man in the Metropolis; and their measure proposes, to some extent, to remedy the extreme unfairness of the present system. I am not saying for a moment whether or not the proposal now made by the Corporation of London is the best, or even as good, a proposal for dealing with that grievance; but that there is a grievance in this respect I think nobody will deny. The unanimous voice of the people of London, and, I venture to say, the common sense of everybody who has considered the matter, can have come to but one conclusion—namely, that the existing condition of things ought not, and cannot, continue. Then, if it is to be altered, the hon. Member who spoke on behalf of the shareholders of the Water Companies—the hon. and gallant Member for South Essex (Colonel Makins)—said very fairly that he did not object to a Regulation Bill so long as the Bill was a fair one. At all events, this is a Regulation Bill. It proposes to introduce a different system which primâ facie is more fair. That is a subject for consideration, and such questions as the objections to which the Bill has been subjected—whether it is more fair towards the consumer than the system that exists, or whether the proposals of the Corporation of London are fair and equitable as regards the Water Companies—assuming that an alteration has to be made, those are questions not for the second reading of the Bill, but for Committee. The Committee would have to consider whether the terms proposed in this Bill are or are not fair towards the shareholders of the Water Companies. I am quite sure that no Committee of the House of Commons would be likely to approve of terms that were inconsistent with the rights of property.

    1229
    I cannot conceive for a single moment that the House will entertain a proposal to refuse the second reading of a Bill like this. Considering the enormous importance of the question; considering the universal acknowledgment that it is one which ought and must be dealt with; and considering the enormous injustice which the rejection of the second reading of the Bill would inflict upon 4,000,000 of people, I, for one, have not the remotest hesitation in saying, on the part of the Government, that it will receive their cordial support. It is perfectly possible, and almost certain, that fair terms will be arranged by the Committee. Therefore, I will not go into the questions which have been raised about whether, more or less, water will be taken for flushing the drains, or carrying away the sewage matter. Those questions would be thoroughly sifted in Committee; and I do not know why, except for the purpose of having a tilt with the Corporation of London, the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock (Lord Randolph Churchill) has taken such deep interest in the matter. Perhaps he may have been acting from instructions which he may have received—from the advice he has been receiving from the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets (Mr. Ritchie). I do not know whether the hon. Member is or is not a supporter of the Bill; but the House will very likely hear that from him presently. He is, however, a person who has a direct interest in the question, as he has in every question which affects the people of the Metropolis. Looking at this matter from an impartial point of view, and having had occasion to consider it fully for some years past, I have not the slightest doubt that what the House ought to do is to read this Bill a second time, so that it may be discussed by a Select Committee, not an ordinary Committee such as Railway Bills are sent to, but a Committee carefully selected by the Committee of Selection. In that respect I entirely agree with the proposal about to be made by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Westminster (Mr. W. H. Smith). I hope the House will not allow itself to be run away with by the fears expressed by the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock in reference to the question of landed estates. The proposal in the Bill, as I understand it,
    1230
    is to treat the Water Companies, in respect of their landed property, exactly the same as every Railway Company is treated—namely, that in respect of the land they hold it should be considered as part of the undertaking. That is the ordinary condition upon which the Railway Companies hold their land. We ought not to regard this matter either from the point of view of the shareholders of the Water Companies, or from the point of view of a like or dislike to the Corporation of London; but we should look at the Bill as one which proposes to do something for the people of London, and as one in which the population of the Metropolis are deeply interested. Under these circumstances, I hope that the Bill will be read a second time.
    SIR R. ASSHETON CROSS: I will only detain the House for two or three minutes. I am quite prepared to admit that something ought to be done to put the water supply of London upon a better footing; and I think the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Home Secretary missed a splendid opportunity of doing this some years ago. However, I will not go into that matter now. The question is, what are we to do with this Bill? The Corporation of London have come to Parliament, and have brought this matter forward as their proposal. Now, I should have supported any Bill brought forward by the Corporation of London, if it had been drawn on proper lines; but I object to the second reading of the present Bill, for one strong reason, because I believe that the main principle—which is to be found in the 4th clause and the 3rd Schedule attached to it—is one of absolute confiscation. It is all very well for the right hon. and learned Gentleman opposite to say that this must be inquired into by a Committee afterwards; but the Committee will say that the House has sanctioned that principle. Now, the Water Companies have subscribed their money on the faith that Parliament has given them certain rights; and yet it is proposed to sweep away all the Parliamentary statutes, and all the Parliamentary property, by a few words contained in the 4th clause and the 3rd Schedule of the Bill. Now, as regards the case of Railway Companies. No doubt Railway Companies, at the same time, very often charge rates which are objected to; but

    1231
    would it be just or fair to bring in a Bill to declare that the Railway Companies should only charge Parliamentary rates to every passenger they conveyed? In the case of the Water Companies, they are entitled to make the charge they now make by Parliamentary sanction. Everybody knows—indeed, it was the sole argument of the right hon. and learned Gentleman—that it was of enormous benefit to the 4,000,000 of the people of London that the water should be pure and free. But would it be fair to bring in an Act of Parliament, and say that the article proposed by the Water Companies should be rendered free to the people of the Metropolis, without any compensation to those who have invested their capital in producing it? No; you have already recognized the Parliamentary rights the Gas Companies had, and you have given the Metropolitan Board the power to purchase those rights on fair and reasonable terms. I am opposed strongly to any Bill which contains a proposal for absolute confiscation; but I am ready to support any Bill which respects the Parliamentary rights of the Water Companies. I shall certainly vote against the second reading of the present measure.
    SIR SYDNEY WATERLOWwished to state, in the first instance, that he was not a member of the Corporation of London, nor had he a share in any of the Water Companies. He was, therefore, satisfied that what he had to say would be regarded as coming from an independent person. The Bill condemned the inequality of charging water rates upon a rateable value, and proposed to change the charge in future to one in accordance with measure by meter. That was said to be confiscation. It was said that payment by meter would be injurious to the Water Companies. Perhaps that might be so, if the Bill were passed on the lines on which it was at present drawn. There was a clause in the Bill which said that the minimum charge would be 12s. a-quarter, with 3s. for the meterage; but whether that was to be the actual charge fixed was clearly a matter that would have to be settled by Committee. It was a simple matter of detail, and it was more than the average price that was now paid by the tenant of a tenement under £20 a-year. Then it was said that the Bill would give to the occupiers of small tenements a
    1232
    minimum supply of water in order to save money. No doubt anything that tended to minimize the consumption of water ought to be prevented; and if the Bill passed the second reading an Instruction might be given to the Committee to prevent the measure from having such an effect by providing that, in the case of all tenements under £20 a-year, which would cover artizans' dwellings, the charge for water should be a charge on the landlord, and that he should be obliged, within a reasonable period after the passing of the Act, to provide proper measures for securing to the tenants a sufficient and constant supply. In 1871 an Act was passed, declaring that there should be a constant supply; and he thought that they were all agreed that that principle was a desirable one. Why had there not been a constant supply? It was because the people who had had to pay for the water were not interested in saving it. They paid the same price, whether they consumed a larger or a smaller quantity; and, therefore, there had been no demand for a constant supply, because a constant supply would also necessitate in the present system a serious increase of the cost by supplying every house. The hon. and gallant Member for South Essex (Colonel Makins) had said that the minimum price paid, according to the rateable value, by small consumers, amounted to from 7s. to 8s. a-year.
    COLONEL MAKINSsaid, what he had stated was that there were thousands of houses which now paid from 8s. to 10 s. a-year, which would have to pay 18 s. if the Bill passed.
    SIR SYDNEY WATERLOWasked what the House supposed payment by meter would amount to for a constant supply? He did not intend to express any opinion of his own; but he would give the result of figures in regard to 2,500 houses in Wapping, Hackney, and Whitechapel, which had been supplied until very recently by the East London Companies by meter. The average cost had been about 6s. for each tenement, or about 1½d. per week. For that sum the occupier was supplied with 200 gallons per week, which was found to be sufficient for a family of three or four persons living in a small tenement. What he wanted to impress upon the House was, that when they talked about the benefit of the poor it must be borne in mind that

    1233
    the supply should be constant, as it ought to be, wherever the Companies now only gave an intermittent supply. The occupier would not be required to put in the necessary appliances for securing a constant supply; but that expense should fall upon the landlord. There was another advantage that would be gained. In small houses there was a too prevalent practice of having the receptacle for water inside the house, and in many instances close to the closet, by which means the water became polluted. If this Bill were passed, and a constant supply were provided, it would necessitate provision for the water being placed outside the dwelling house, and in that way the consumer would not only get a constant and a cheaper supply, but one that was more pure. The Corporation were blamed because they had put 6d. per 1,000 gallons in the Bill; but the amount was printed in italics, so that the Committee might settle the amount and insert a fair price for the public to pay. At the same time, it should be remembered that 6d. per 1,000 gallons was what the Water Companies themselves asked by their present Acts. It would further be loft to the Committee to decide what was a fair price; but lot them, once for all, get rid of the system of one man paying for another, and let the Water Companies be paid for what they supply. At present, they supplied water for flushing the sewers, which was paid for by the Local Authorities; also for cleansing the roads, and for putting out fires. Let those charges be paid by the Local Authorities. Every man should pay for what he had, and should pay a fair price, such as a Select Committee, after a full investigation, would determine. He hoped the House would pass the second reading of the Bill. He thought the Corporation of London had done a great deal of good by bringing before Parliament the question of supplying water to the Metropolis by meter.
    SIR JAMES M'GAREL-HOGGsaid, he had not intended to take any part in the debate, because he had wished to save the time of the House, having already spoken on a water question which he had the honour to bring forward in the House a short time ago. That Bill had already passed the second reading, and was now going into Com-
    1234
    mittee, notwithstanding the fact that some hon. Friends of his were very anxious to prevent it from getting into Committee. He thought that the memory of the Home Secretary must be somewhat defective, because he (Sir James M'Garel-Hogg) had told the House only 10 days ago that the Metropolitan Board of Works, far from not acting up to their duty, had some years ago directed him to be their mouth-piece in bringing in two Bills, one for the purchase of the Water Companies, and the other for establishing an independent supply. As he had stated, one of these Bills had been read a second time; but the other had failed to reach a second reading, on account of the opposition of certain hon. Members who were interested in the question. Under these circumstances, he did not think the Home Secretary was justified in twitting the Metropolitan Board with not being equal to their duties. They always endeavoured to do their duty, and a very onerous duty it was. They had been exposed to many very serious attacks; but he was happy to say that most of the charges made against them, when they came to be sifted, fell to the ground. For himself, personally, he did not care one farthing about them, as long as the Board over which he had the honour to preside worked together harmoniously. He had been Chairman of the Metropolitan Board during a tenure of office of 14 years in succession. He had been sitting quietly in a far corner of the House because he had no wish to trouble it; but after the remarks which had been made in reference to him by the Home Secretary, he had felt bound to get up and explain his views. He would only say, in regard to the appeal made to the Metropolitan Board by the right hon. and learned Gentleman, that the Board were not so foolish as to incur an expense of £15,000 in promoting a Bill when they did not know where the money was to come from.
    MR. GOSCHEN: I do not propose to detain the House for more than a few minutes. I must say that I do not think the time of the House has been wasted, because there is a most important principle at the bottom of the Bill, and it is the real principle which it appears to me ought to decide the second reading of the Bill. That prin-

    1235
    ciple is, how far it is competent for this House to vary a Parliamentary bargain? It is a question of vital importance for all towns to know whether powers which have been given by Parliament can be revoked by Parliament without compensation. That is a question which is not only of interest to the inhabitants of the Metropolis as consumers of water, but is of very vital interest to the whole country. I am sorry that my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary is not in his place, because I noticed that my right hon. and learned Friend, in the answer which he made lately to a deputation which waited upon him, used words which seemed to imply that if Parliament had made an improvident bargain we might revise that bargain. Now, Parliament never does make a bargain except it is more or less of an improvident nature; that is an unfortunate habit that Parliament has. My vote will be determined by the consideration of what the question is which will be submitted to the Committee. If the submission to the Committee is the question of establishing a now arrangement between the consumer and the seller which will be equivalent in value to the old Parliamentary title, then I do not see any objection to this Bill. But if, on the other hand, it is to determine what would be fair and equitable between the consumer and the Water Companies, without regard to the Parliamentary title of the Water Companies, then I should say that that is a question which ought not to be relegated to a Committee, but should be raised on the second reading of the Bill. I therefore wish to ask my hon. and learned Friend the Recorder of London (Sir Thomas Chambers) this question—what is the intention of the promoters of the Bill? Do they intend to cheapen the water supply—a most excellent object if it could be attained, but which might possibly bring the promoters into conflict with rights already conferred by Parliament—or do they intend to introduce a new mode of measuring water, so that the present rights of the Companies shall remain intact?
    MR. RITCHIEsaid, that, as a direct appeal had been made to him, he felt bound to take notice of it. The right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary had implied, in the first place—indeed, he had directly stated—that he
    1236
    (Mr. Ritchie) had been the inspirer of the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock (Lord Randolph Churchill) in the attack he had made on the City of London in reference to this Bill. Now, the Home Secretary might be a very good shot sometimes, but certainly he had missed his mark upon this occasion; because the communication he (Mr. Ritchie) had had with the noble Lord, who was capable, as he need hardly tell the House, of inspiring himself, was upon an entirely different point, and had nothing whatever to do with the Water Question. The right hon. Gentleman had challenged him to express his opinion upon this Bill, and to state what he intended to do. It so happened that his name was one of those which appeared on the back of the Bill; so it was, primâ facie, quite obvious that he should vote for the second reading of it. All he desired to say was this—that when he was asked to put his name on the back of the Bill he gave his consent simply upon a particular point—that the present system of water supply was, in his opinion, not a good system for supplying consumers with water, and he thought the meter system was the better system of the two. But he had not had the remotest idea that anything like confiscation was involved in the Bill. Neither had he the remotest idea of confiscation now. The reason which induced him to put his name on the back of the Bill was, as he had said, that, in his opinion, the meter system was the better system of the two, and that was the only principle he was going to vote for in voting for the second reading of the measure. He considered that the price inserted by the Corporation in the Bill was a totally inadequate price; and he entertained very little doubt that a Committee of the House of Commons would take care, on investigating the provisions of the Bill, that they would not pass any measure which bore upon the face of it the stamp of confiscation. That was all he desired to say in answer to the remarks which had been made by the Home Secretary, and he should certainly vote for the second reading of the Bill.
    MR. WIGGIN, who spoke amid continuous interruption, said, that he did not often trouble the House; but he considered it necessary that he should do so now. If he did so now it was be-

    1237
    cause he had made several attempts to rise in order to express his surprise and astonishment that a good old Tory Corporation like that of the City of London should venture to bring in a Bill of this confiscating character. He very much regretted to find that the Home Secretary and the Government were going to vote for the second reading of the Bill. In the interest of the water consumers of London he believed it would be a most unfortunate thing for the measure to be read a second time. It was incredible to him that Parliament should lend its sanction to the introduction of a system which would so largely increase the cost of distributing water; and however the provisions of the present Bill could cheapen the supply to a consumer he could not possibly understand. If they decided upon introducing this system it would be found necessary to expend an enormous amount of capital in the purchase of meters, which were very costly and expensive pieces of machinery. A water meter was very different from a gas meter, which cost only a few shillings; and to supply meters to the consumers of water would entail an enormous expenditure. On these grounds he opposed the Bill; but there was still another ground upon which he considered it unadvisable to pass the second reading—namely, the ground of sanitary improvement. The adoption of a system of supplying water by meter would compel the people very materially to reduce the consumption of water; and he asked the House to recollect what had made London one of the healthiest cities in the world. He had no interest, direct or indirect, in any of the London Water Companies; he had no connection with them in any shape whatever—[Cries of "Agreed!"] Hon. Members might interrupt him as much as they pleased; but he was determined to stay there until midnight, in order to say what he meant to say. He was unacquainted with any Water Director in London, and he had no interest in any Company. But he certainly did not think that the people of London had given full credit to the London Water Companies for the magnificent water supply they now possessed. It was no easy thing to supply 4,000,000 people with a constant supply of good and pure water; and the fact that it was done in so satisfactory a manner reflected the
    1238
    greatest credit upon the gentlemen who had succeeded in doing it. He had no doubt that the water system of the Metropolis might require alteration in some respects; but, at the same time, let them give credit where credit was due, and he hoped the House would put its foot down firmly in opposition to all schemes of confiscation like this.
    SIR THOMAS CHAMBERSsaid, he only rose to answer a question which had been put by his right hon. Friend the Member for Ripon (Mr. Goschen) as to what was a fair price. He understood a fair price to mean what, in the estimation of the Select Committee to which the Bill would be referred, would be a fair price as between the Water Companies and the consumers, taking all the circumstances of the case into consideration.
    Question put.
    The House divided:—Ayes 152; Noes 197: Majority 45.—(Div. List, No. 33.)
    Words added.
    Main Question, as amended, put, and agreed to.
    Second Reading put off for six months.
    MR. FIRTH: Mr. Speaker, I beg to draw your attention to the point of Order that the hon. Member for Middlesex (Mr. Coope), one of the Tellers for the Noes, who is a Director of a Metropolitan Water Company, and who has a direct pecuniary interest in the Question before the House, has voted in the majority upon the second reading of the Bill.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Vote of Mr. Coope be disallowed."—(Mr. Firth.)
    MR. SPEAKER: A Motion having been made that the vote of the hon. Member for Middlesex (Mr. Coope) be disallowed.—["No, no!"]—I understand the hon. and learned Gentleman to make that Motion—[Mr. FIRTH raised his hat.]—the Question is that the vote of the hon. Member for Middlesex be disallowed. I must, first of all, call upon the hon. Member for Middlesex to rise in his place and make any statement he may please.
    MR. COOPE: I beg, Sir, to claim my right, as a Representative of one of the most important counties in England, to

    1239
    vote on this occasion. I am not aware why I should be prevented from doing so.
    MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member will now please withdraw.
    [Mr. COOPE then withdrew.]
    VISCOUNT FOLKESTONE: I wish, Sir, to call your attention to this point in connection with the question now raised by the hon. and learned Member for Chelsea (Mr. Firth). The hon. Member for Middlesex (Mr. Coope), as I understand, did not vote at all; his name is not included in the numbers brought up to the Table. I wish to know how that will affect the question? The hon. Member was simply one of the Tellers; therefore his name is not included in the Division List.
    MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member (Mr. Coope) was one of the Tellers in the Division. The Question is that his vote be disallowed.
    MR. GORST: I rise to Order, Sir. I wish to ask you a question. The Motion is that the vote of the hon. Member for Middlesex (Mr. Coope) be disallowed. That vote is not counted in the number of Noes. I should like, therefore, to know what will be the result in the event of the House deciding that his vote be disallowed; how will the House proceed?—because his name does not appear in the Division List.
    MR. SPEAKER: The way in which I would put the Question would be that the vote of Mr. Coope be disallowed.
    LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL: Upon this point I would like to remind the House that the hon. Member for Middlesex (Mr. Coope) has stated from his place in the House that he voted in the late Division in his capacity of Member for a county largely affected by the Bill which was under consideration by the House, and not in the capacity of a Director of a Water Company. The House will see that that statement could only be made by a Representative of a Metropolitan constituency. Of course, it would not be a valid statement if made by any hon. Member unconnected with the Metropolis. I submit that the House should, in justice to the hon. Member, accept his statement, and not cast a needless reflection upon him by disallowing his vote.
    SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE: I think the question which has been
    1240
    raised is one upon which it would be a great advantage to the House if we could have the ruling of Mr. Speaker. It would be of great advantage, Sir, to have your ruling as to how far, and under what circumstances, the votes of Members ought to be disallowed. I would also like to ask whether, under the circumstances, the challenge ought not to have been made at the time that the hon. Member for Middlesex (Mr. Coope) was named as a Teller; because the difficulty which has been suggested by my hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Gorst) is certainly a difficulty which would be very serious if we were told that the vote was to be disallowed, when, in point of fact, the vote has not been counted. I think the objection ought to have been taken at the time the hon. Member was named by you, Sir, as a Teller. I should be glad to know what your ruling is.
    MR. SPEAKER: In reply to the right hon. Gentleman, I have to state that, according to precedent, the objection was taken at the proper time. With reference to the larger question raised by the right hon. Gentleman, I have to state that there is a distinction, which it would be well for the House to bear in mind, between Private and Public Bills—Bills, that is to say, of a private nature, and Bills which involve questions of great public policy. I am quite aware that, technically and in form, this Bill is a Private Bill, but it involves great questions of public policy; and I can find in the Journals no instance of a vote having been disallowed on a Public Bill. There are instances of votes having been challenged; but in no instance has a vote been disallowed. Under these circumstances, it will be for the House to decide what amount of direct and personal interest the hon. Member for Middlesex may have in the question, and whether his vote ought to be allowed or disallowed.
    SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH: May I venture to mention to the House what I believe is a fair precedent in this matter? It occurred no longer ago than the last Session of Parliament. The question before the House, if I remember right, was the confirmation of a contract made between the Post Office and the London and North-Western Railway Company. The vote of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member

    1241
    for the University of Dublin (Mr. Plunket) was challenged upon that occasion because he was one of the Directors of the London and North-Western Railway Company. The result was that the vote was allowed.
    MR. NEWDEGATE: Surely it must be shown, if the vote of a Member upon a Private Bill is to be disallowed, that the Member in question has a predominant and personal interest in the matter under consideration. If the House, on a great public question, which this is, proceeds to disallow the votes of leading members of large Companies—Companies which provide essentials of life to large communities—I wonder where the process is to stop. Shall we come to this—that on any question affecting the produce of land large landowners are to have their votes disallowed? I do not Bee where the process is to stop. It appears to me that this Motion has been made without reason assigned. I await the explanation of the hon. Mover.
    SIR CHARLES W. DILKE: I cannot wonder that my hon. and learned Colleague (Mr. Firth) should have made this Motion, because the hon. Member for Middlesex (Mr. Coope) has spoken on two occasions in this House as Chairman of a Water Company, and has on each of these occasions stated that he was Chairman of one of the Water Companies, and that he was largely interested in the Company. I cannot, under such circumstances, wonder that this Motion has been raised. But, as my hon. and learned Friend has gained his object by calling attention to the matter, I would recommend him not to divide the House.
    MR. FIRTH: With the consent of the House, I would like to withdraw the Motion.
    MR. T. P. O'CONNOR: Mr. Speaker, on the Question that the Motion of the hon. Member for Chelsea (Mr. Firth) be allowed to be withdrawn, I wish to say a few words. Hon. Members on these Benches are determined that the Motion shall be put to a Division. Now, Mr. Speaker, I wish to respectfully point out why it is necessary that the House should pronounce an opinion on this question. In the very lucid exposition you have just made of the law of the House on this matter, you pointed out that this Bill was partially of a public character; but you did not traverse the
    1242
    general principle that, according to the immemorial usage of this House, established by several precedents, no Member has a right to give a vote on any question in which he is directly or pecuniarily interested. I wish to submit to the House that the hon. Member for Middlesex (Mr. Coope) is directly and pecuniarily interested in the question on which he has given a vote. One reason urged against the Bill, alike by the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock (Lord Randolph Churchill) and the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Chelsea (Mr. Firth), was that it interfered with the price which was charged by these Water Companies for their water. If this Bill had passed, it would probably, according to the opinion of those who opposed it, have seriously reduced the price which was charged for the water supplied by these Companies; and, therefore, it would have depreciated the property of the Companies. Does anyone suppose that, if this Bill had been read a second time, the shares of the Companies affected would not have fallen very considerably to-morrow, and that the dividends which would have been declared by the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Coope) and the other Directors of the Companies at the next half-yearly meetings would not have been seriously diminished? If the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Coope) be the Chairman of one of the Water Companies affected, as he says he is, we may reasonably assume he has a large number of shares. If he has a large number of shares, and if his shares would have been depreciated in value by the passing of this Bill, I have, I think, clearly proved to the House what he has a most direct and large pecuniary interest in the question on which the House has voted. For these reasons, I and my hon. Friends are determined to test the feeling of the House upon this question.
    SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE: I think the argument of the hon. Gentleman (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) proves a great deal too much; because, according to his argument, anybody who is a shareholder, or in any way interested in the Water Companies, would be precluded from giving a vote. My hon. Friend the Member for Middlesex (Mr. Coope) holds a prominent position in connection with the Water Companies; and it

    1243
    was in consequence of that, no doubt, that he took the leading part he has done in advocating the case, not of himself personally, but of those whose Representative he is. I do not know what my hon. Friend's personal interest in the Company may be—very probably it is not so large as that of many others for whom he is Trustee, and on account of whom he is bound to make the best case he can when their interests are assailed. I think that the course which is proposed by the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Sir Charles W. Dilke), and which the hon. and learned Member for Chelsea (Mr. Firth) acquiesces in—namely, the withdrawal of this Motion, after having called attention to the vote of my hon. Friend (Mr. Coope), is a course which the House will entirely approve; and I shall be very sorry if the hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Firth) is prevented from taking the step which he himself is ready to take, and which, I think, will be in accordance with the general feeling of the House.
    MR. T. P. O'CONNOR: Mr. Speaker, on a point of Order, I wish to ask you whether the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Chelsea (Mr. Firth), having moved that the vote of the hon. Member for Middlesex (Mr. Coope) be disallowed, is not bound to tell in the Division?
    MR. SPEAKER: He is not bound to tell. He wishes to withdraw the Motion.
    Question put.
    The House divided:—Ayes 36; Noes 235: Majority 199.—(Div. List, No. 34.)

  METROPOLITAN RAILWAY (PARK RAILWAY AND PARLIAMENT STREET IMPROVEMENT) BILL (by Order).

    SECOND READING.
    Order for Second Reading read.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—(Mr. Dodds.)
    SIR ARTHUR OTWAYsaid, he did not rise for the purpose of offering any observations of length, nor was it necessary he should trouble the House with any expression of opinion as to the merits of the Bill. The Bill, however, contained clauses which came in conflict
    1244
    with one of the Standing Orders of the House; therefore it was incumbent upon him to offer some explanation with regard to that clause, and to the action he had taken. The 33rd Standing Order was as follows:—
    "The Chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means shall he at liberty, at any period after any Private Bill shall have been referred to a Committee, to report to the House any special circumstances relative thereto which, may appear to him to require it, or to inform the House when, in his opinion, any opposed Private Bill should be treated as an unopposed Private Bill."
    Now, the 58th clause of the Bill empowered the Department of Public Works to make an expenditure of funds in furtherance of the Bill. Under the circumstances, he thought it his duty to put himself in communication with the promoters of the Bill; and he had received from the agents a letter in which they informed him that they were instructed to withdraw the 58th clause when the Bill went to the Committee. He was also further informed that there was no contract between any public Department and any of the parties promoting the Bill. Under these circumstances, he had not thought it necessary to make any Report to the House. He had, however, felt it his duty to explain, before the discussion proceeded, why he had not made a Report.
    MR. R. H. PAGETsaid, that, before this Bill was read a second time, he was entitled to some information, not only from the promoters of the Bill, but from the Department of Public Works. This was a measure to which the House ought to give its serious attention. Under Clause 11 power was given to the First Commissioner of Works to purchase land to the value of £250,000; but the land was not detailed; it was not specified how much land was to be taken. It was merely set forth, in a vague way, that as much land as the First Commissioner of Works could obtain for £250,000 he was to be entitled to purchase under this Act. Was there any agreement in writing as to how much land was to pass to the First Commissioner of Works under this scheme? In the case of an ordinary Railway Bill, or in the case of the formation of any public Society, it would be necessary that some agreement should be in view. If there was an agreement in this instance, it ought to be laid on the Table

    1245
    of the House, in order that hon. Members might know whether they were justified in assenting to the proposed large expenditure of public funds. The Bill contained many objectionable features. The Company were not required to complete their works for five years, so that for five years the work of construction might be going on, the Parks might be interfered with and their beauty destroyed, and the public convenience might be largely sacrificed. What was this Bill to do? Where were the great centres of population it had to connect? Anyone who looked at the plan would see that part of the line passed through Her Majesty's Parks, in which there was to be no station. The Board of Works, he understood, in giving its sanction to the construction of the line, stipulated that there should be no station in the Parks, and that there should be no ventilators or blow-holes. But what guarantee had the House of Commons, once the Bill was passed, that the travellers by the railway would not come down to the House, declare that they were being suffocated, and demand that ventilators should be opened? How many stations were there to be on the line? the stations were to be a mile distant from each other. How long after the line was made, if it was made at all, would they have a deputation coming down to the House asking that a station should be opened in the middle of Hyde Park? The Bill did not contain a clause providing for such a station; but there was no guarantee that in future there would not be an agitation got up in favour of the construction of stations, which would be fatal to the beauty of the Parks. There did not appear to him to be a sufficient amount of public good in the scheme to justify the House in assenting to it. There was another matter to which he would call attention. A plan of the scheme had been circulated, from which it would be seen that the scheme sanctioned by the First Commissioner of Works, so far from effecting a Metropolitan improvement, left one of the worst and narrowest streets in the Metropolis in its present condition. Furthermore, the access to the end stations of the line would be extremely bad. It was said by the promoters of the Bill that they had informed the Board of Works that they would be willing to join the District Railway Company in
    1246
    constructing a subway from the proposed street to the District Station at Westminster Bridge; but a haphazard statement such as that ought not to be sufficient to cause hon. Members to support the Bill. The promoters of the line also said they would agree to a junction with the District Railway; but what was the use of saying they would agree to a junction when there was not a word about it in the Bill? If these statements were of any value, why did they not find a place in the Bill? He had no personal interest in the matter; but he took interest in the protection of the public Parks from injury. When they were dealing with Metropolitan improvements, they ought to do so handsomely, and not make the egregious blunder which this Bill proposed—namely, leaving a street unimproved, and putting a railway station in a most inconvenient spot. If, on public grounds, the line would prove to be desirable and useful, by all means let it be constructed. The public grounds upon which the line was recommended ought to be fully set forth by the official in charge of the measure; indeed, the House of Commons had a right to demand, more especially as it was suggested to expend a considerable amount of the public funds, that they should be told the reasons why the Board of Works had given their assent to a scheme which, as at present advised, he did not hesitate to say ought to be rejected.
    SIR THOMAS CHAMBERSmoved that the Bill be read a second time that day six months. His constituents took a peculiar interest in the proposed railway, which they found open to many very serious objections. The Vestries of Marylebone and Paddington were especially concerned in this matter; and they had come to the conclusion that the line was very badly devised; that it would not form a connecting link between North and South London; that it was a great deal too far West; that it ran through districts in which there were few residents; that it ran very close, indeed, to the Metropolitan District Railway, which was only a little West of it; and that if a line connecting North and South London were to be made, it should start from a far more central point—from Euston Square, for instance, and go straight from North to South. The proposed line would ac-

    1247
    commodate no street in London, which might be accommodated by a line which really connected North and South. It was intended to run up Edgware Road—there were great objections to that—it then came out and crossed to go under Hyde Park; it did not accommodate Oxford Street, for it only touched an extreme end of that thoroughfare; it did not accommodate Regent Street, or Piccadilly; it did not accommodate Charing Cross; it did not accommodate any one of the great streets of London between the Northern Railway Termini and the Southern Termini. The Paddington and Marylebone Vestries contended that the railway would not accomplish any great good; that it would not accommodate the large mass of the London population, who at present were a long way from the Underground Railway. On that ground it was that they desired the Bill should not be read a second time. On the face of it, it was not a good line, because it did not do what a line connecting North and South ought to do; it did not accommodate Oxford Street, or Bond Street, or Regent Street, or Waterloo Place, or Charing Cross. These were streets and places which wanted railway accommodation; but the proposed line would leave them as much without railway accommodation as they were now, notwithstanding the expenditure of an enormous sum of public money. The next objection to the line was that running up the middle of Edgware Road, as it did, it would completely ruin the trade of the trades people in that thoroughfare; the construction of the line would interrupt the traffic for so long a period that scarcely any business would be done. He heard it stated it was intended to do what was now being done in Cannon Street. Of course, it was possible to make a temporary road; but everybody knew that such a road, especially if there was a very large traffic upon it, would not be likely to attract any customers to the houses in the road. No gentleman would drive in his carriage along such a road; so that the Vestries of Marylebone and Paddington were apprehensive that the greater part of the trade in the Edgware Road would be destroyed if the line were sanctioned. He knew that was not a valid argument if the railway would be a good railway, and if it would afford accommodation for that portion of the public which required
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    accommodation. He had no hesitation in saying that when the line was constructed it would be found that a great mistake had been made, and that the line ought to have been made in another direction. Another objection to the Bill was that Hyde Park, the Green Park, and St. James's Park, in which they all took so much pride, were to be handed over to a Board of Railway Directors. Though he was aware the right hon. Gentleman the First Commissioner of Works (Mr. Shaw Lefevre) had satisfied himself that the precautions he intended to take would prevent any permanent injury being done to the Parks, he (Sir Thomas Chambers) considered the experiment was a very dangerous one. He maintained that if it could be shown, as he believed it could, that the line was ill laid out, that it ought not to run near the Parks, but in a totally different direction, that it ought to accommodate a very different class of people to that the proposed line would accommodate, the construction of the line ought not to be assented to by Parliament. It could not be gainsaid that the Parks must be injured if this scheme were permitted to be carried out. Some of the turf must be removed, and the turf laid down upon the completion of the line would never be of the same colour as the turf which had been undisturbed. In many respects this railway would not accomplish the object it was intended and designed to accomplish. The real truth was, the improvement of Parliament Street was at the bottom of this scheme. Much disappointment had been expressed with regard to the purchase of property there. A new War Office could not be erected there; therefore this scheme had been allowed to spring into existence. It was wrong to inflict upon Railway Companies the cost of making great public improvements; and for this reason, in conjunction with those he had enumerated, he should be glad if the House would refuse to send the Bill to a Select Committee.
    Amendment proposed, to leave out the word "now," and at the end of the Question to add the words "upon this day six months."—(Sir Thomas Chambers.)
    Question proposed, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."
    MR. SHAW LEFEVRE: Sir, I think I need hardly assure the House that if I had the slightest idea that this scheme would effect any injury to the Parks, in the manner suggested by the hon. and learned Gentleman (Sir Thomas Chambers), I should never have given it the countenance of the Department over which I have the honour to preside. I feel very strongly the responsibility I have in regard to the Parks in London; but, independent of my official position, I should be the last person in this House to do anything to injure them. I can assure the House, therefore, it is only after most careful consideration, and after consultation with the permanent officials of the Parks, who are responsible for the beauty of the Parks, and who will feel the whole brunt of the popular feeling if in two or three years it should turn out that the Parks had been damaged, that I have come to the conclusion that there is no reason to be alarmed on this subject, and that this Bill may safely be allowed to pass. I may remind the House that the question of a railway tunnel under the Parks is not a new one. Two years ago I had to consider a proposal to construct a railway, partly under Regent's Park and partly under Victoria Park, Parks quite as important to the residents in the neighbourhoods as Hyde Park and St. James's Park to the people in the West End. I then came to the conclusion, after looking at the congested state of the districts affected by the Bill which was then introduced, looking to the communication which the Bill would afford between the different districts, and looking also to the great expense incurred by Railway Companies in tunnelling under the streets and in acquiring property, it was not wise for the Government to impose an absolute veto upon the construction of railways under the Parks; but that, on the contrary, it would be expedient to permit the construction of railways under the Parks if harm to the Parks could be prevented. I required that the Company who proposed to make the line under Regent's Park should make it wholly in tunnel; I also required that they should carry out a great public improvement affecting Regent's Park as a condition of giving them permission to make the railway. These conditions were approved by Committees of both Houses
    1250
    of Parliament, and I have never heard that the public took any exception to them. The Bill eventually passed into law, though, owing to many reasons, the line has not yet been constructed. In the same way, when this question now before the House came under my consideration, I came to the same conclusion with regard to it. I think no one can look at the map of London without seeing that further communication is necessary between North and South, and that it will not be long possible to resist a railway going under Hyde Park or the Green Park. I came to the conclusion that such a scheme might be assented to subject to the conditions which I have laid down, and which have been accepted by the Directors of the Company. These conditions are four. In the first place, the railway is to be made wholly in tunnel; secondly, the tunnel is to be of such a depth that at no point of the line shall there be any noise heard, or vibration felt, on the surface; thirdly, no ventilators or air-holes of any kind are to be made, either now or in the future; and, lastly, the construction of the work is to be effected in the winter months, and in such a manner as may be approved by the Department of the Board of Works. I am informed by Sir John Hawkshaw, the engineer of the line, that there will be no difficulty whatever in complying with these conditions. He asserts, in the most positive manner, that when this line is completed it will not be possible for anyone on the surface to say there is a railway underneath. [Lord GEORGE HAMILTON: Oh, oh!] The noble Lord must know that if the Committee to whom this Bill is referred are not satisfied on that point it will be quite competent for them to say the line must be made at a greater depth; indeed, I have reserved to myself power to insist upon a greater depth, if, on hearing the evidence given before the Committee, I consider it desirable. Sir John Hawkshaw further assures me there will be no difficulty in ventilating the tunnel without air-holes. ["Oh, oh!"] He states it would be easy to do so if the line is made on that understanding. Of course, it will be said that the District Company have been obliged to come for power to make blow-holes; but Sir John Hawkshaw says there is all the difference in the world between making a line with a certain ventilating system and applying

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    that system to a line already made. At any rate, Sir John Hawkshaw undertakes to say there will be no difficulty in ventilating the line without air openings. He says ventilation may be effected in one or two ways—either two separate tunnels, running side by side, may be made, or else the foul air may be pumped out by stationary engines. Whichever plan is adopted, Sir John Hawkshaw says there is not the least doubt of proper ventilation being secured. All these are matters, however, upon which the Select Committee will have to be satisfied. There remains the question of the construction of the works. I am assured they can be effected in the winter months. It is perfectly true that portions of the line will be constructed by open cuttings; but these will be covered up temporarily with timber, sods being placed over, so that during the construction the surface of the Parks will be little interfered with. This, also, is a matter for the Committee to procure evidence upon and to decide. If they do not feel satisfied with the arrangements proposed, they will take what course they think best. On these conditions, I have felt it to be my duty to give the assent and the weight of the Government to this Bill; but, further, I have made it a condition of the assent of the Government that the Company should carry out a very important improvement in Parliament Street. My hon. and learned Friend behind me (Sir Thomas Chambers) said it is unprecedented for an improvement of this kind to be made a condition of the construction of a line; but, as I have already pointed out, I made conditions of a similar kind in the case of the railway for which Parliamentary powers were obtained a year or two ago. [An hon. MEMBER: That line has not been made.] No; the line has not been made, but the principle laid down is the same. I think anyone who looks at the plan will see that a station cannot be placed in Parliament Street until the land there is laid out afresh; therefore, it did not appear to be unreasonable to make it a condition that the Company should make this improvement. The improvement suggested by the Government to the Metropolitan Board of Works last year has been estimated to cost £200,000; but when the Government refused to continue the coal dues for the purpose of defraying the expenses, that project was abandoned by the Board. It is
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    evident that the improvement is not one that the Government can effect out of the Imperial Funds. I do not, therefore, think there is much chance of its being carried out, unless it is by some scheme like this before the House. The improvement will be a most important one. It involves the widening of Parliament Street, from the New Public Offices to the open space in front of the Houses of Parliament; and when that is done Parliament Street will be one of the finest and most important streets in Europe, affording a magnificent approach to the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey. The Government have property behind the existing Parliament Street of the value of £270,000. A large portion of that is lying idle, and the remainder is let at very inadequate rents. The value of this land cannot be realized until an improvement, such as that contemplated, is effected; consequently, the effect of the construction of this railway will be that the Government will be enabled to realize the value of the property. I have reserved the right, on the part of the Government, of taking the value of this land in new frontages in the new street. It seemed to me that it was a wise thing to make this claim, for the reason that the Government may want land for Public Offices, and this will give them very fine frontages for the purpose. For my own part, I do not believe that this will be a very onerous obligation to the Company, because it is obvious that they will require a considerable portion of the land at the back of Parliament Street for their new railway station; and, moreover, the bringing of the railway to that point will add to the value of the land, and make it more easily saleable. I think the House will be of opinion, on the whole, that I have not made a bad bargain. In the first place, a great and important improvement will be effected without cost to the ratepayers of the Metropolis; and, in the second place, the Government will be able to realize £270,000, the value of the property which is now lying idle, or for which inadequate rents are being paid. I do not propose to deal at length with the question raised by my hon. and learned Friend (Sir Thomas Chambers), as I conceive it be a matter for the Committee—I mean as to whether it would not have been better to have

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    laid out the line differently—to have taken it further Eastward, to accommodate Oxford Street, Regent Street, Piccadilly, and Charing Cross. My hon. and learned Friend objected to the line being taken down the Edgware Road, on the ground that it would ruin the trades people there; and he suggested an alternative route. I do not think an acceptable alternative route could be suggested without going further Eastward; and the effect of going further Eastward would be to cause even a greater outcry than that raised against the Edgware Road route. I think the route selected is a very proper one; but, at any rate, these matters are questions for the Committee. I felt that this Bill involved a very important public question—a question much more important than the questions generally involved in Bills dealt with by Select Committees. I think, therefore, it is only reasonable that the scheme should be considered by a Committee, formed in a somewhat different manner to ordinary Committees—that is to say, by a Committee empowered to entertain all Petitions presented to them, and to enter into all questions which may be submitted by parties interested, without being limited to questions which are brought before them by counsel. If the House should read the Bill a second time, I should be quite prepared to assent to the proposal to refer the Bill to a Hybrid Committee, with power to hear all Petitions, either by parties themselves or by counsel.
    LORD GEORGE HAMILTONsaid, he was sorry to have to detain the House on this question; but he would not do so for more than two or three minutes. He rose for the purpose of seconding the Motion of the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Marylebone (Sir Thomas Chambers); and at the outset he wished to state that this was the first time he had ever taken part in a Motion for the rejection of a Private Bill. Well, the right hon. Gentleman the First Commissioner of Works was a very efficient and capable public official; but it seemed as though on this occasion his zeal had outrun his discretion. The great majority of the public, as well as of the House, were under the impression that the railway was to be constructed wholly in tunnel; for when the hon. Member for
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    Stoke (Mr. Broadhurst) went with a deputation to the First Commissioner of Works on the 5th of January, the right hon. Gentleman said that, in the first place, it appeared to him it should be an an absolute condition that any railway should be constructed through the Parks wholly in tunnel, and that the tunnel should be of such a depth below the surface of the Parks that there should be no noise or vibration which should inconvenience the public. He (Lord George Hamilton) had relied upon this solemn pledge, and had not been disposed to take any part in the discussion of the Bill. A few days ago, however, a deputation had come to see him, and had declared that two-thirds of the line through the Parks would have to be constructed by open cuttings. He (Lord George Hamilton) could hardly believe the statement, and had answered that there must be some mistake in the matter. He refused to believe the representation that was made to him; but the deputation, to whom he had referred, brought him the plans. He had examined them, and, distrusting his own judgment, had submitted them to one of the most competent railway engineers in London, and that gentleman had assured him that, looking at the deposited plans, which presumably had received the sanction of the Board of Works, two-thirds of the railway would have to be made by what was known as open cuttings through the Parks. Now, what did that mean? Personally, he did not see much objection to the construction of the line, if it could be made in a tunnel all through the Parks; but that could not be done unless there was a certain headway above the top of the tunnel. The fact of its being impossible, therefore, to construct the line through the Parks by tunnelling meant that there was a very small amount of soil between the top of the tunnel and the surface of the Parks. On one point he challenged contradiction—namely, that there was only something like six feet of soil between the top of the covered way and the surface of the Park in one portion of the line; and it was, therefore, certain, if the Bill were allowed to pass, that it would be necessary to construct the line by open cutting, altering the appearance of the Parks very much indeed for the worse; in fact, almost destroying that portion through which

    1255
    the railroad ran. The carrying out of the present plan would necessitate the removal of the Ornamental Water in St. James's Park, in order that an open cutting might be made through its site, to enable the construction of the line to be proceeded with. It certainly seemed to him that this was a very serious risk to run. To his mind, this was not a bonâ fide Railway Bill; his great objection to it being that it put the First Commissioner of Works and the hon. Member for Hythe (Sir Edward Watkin), whom they all knew to be a great railway promoter, in a false position towards each other. The hon. Member for Hythe would, for his Company, have to purchase land for the building of houses; and the right hon. Gentleman the First Commissioner of Works would have to superintend the construction of the railway through Hyde Park. But that was not all. It was true that the Government were to get £270,000 worth of land in a new street. To his mind, they would acquire this at a cost far too heavy to the public; because, although in the Bill the Government were to receive this amount of value from the hon. Baronet and his Company, it would not be so many superficial feet, but so much worth; and the result would he that the First Commissioner of Works and the hon. Baronet would have to bargain with each other as to how much the Government should get. That, he maintained, would still further put the First Commissioner of Works and the Department he represented in a false position. The hon. Baronet might argue with the right hon. Gentleman as to how much land the Company should give the Government, and might find it to his interest to say—"We want a good return for our money. We would let you have a little more land in Parliament Street, if you will allow us to open a few more blowholes in the Parks." The necessity for bargaining of that kind would be very unfortunate; and there could be no doubt that if the improvement in Parliament Street was altogether disassociated with the Government that they would not be ready to give this measure their support. There was another point to which he wished to draw attention, and that was that the sum the Company were to pay the Government—namely, £25,000—was inadequate for the privi-
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    lege they were to obtain of tunnelling through the Parks, when they considered that the District Railway had paid something like 10 times that amount for the privilege of running a less distance under the Embankment. But there was even something more than this behind. The Board of Trade had pointed out that the railway was not in accordance with the recommendations of the Select Committee of the House of Lords, who had stated that in all cases where an underground railway was made it should be a condition of its construction that it should connect existing lines. The proposed railway would not connect existing lines. Moreover, so far as he could ascertain, he did not believe there was any great demand for a, railway connecting Paddington and West-mister. A certain number of Members of Parliament, of whom he was one, might be benefited by the construction of this line; but he did not believe that it would carry a large number of general passengers. It seemed to him that he had given good reasons for the rejection of the Bill. Not to put too fine a point upon it, the scheme appeared to him to be a job. A Railway Company was to be employed to carry out objects with which it ought to have no connection. Four years ago the Metropolitan Railway Company got an extension of their Inner Circle, on condition that they carried out certain improvements. He did not know whether the Chairman of the Metropolitan Board of Works was present; but, if he were, he would be able to corroborate the statement that the Board of Works had been pressed either to alter or abrogate the condition originally laid down. From past experience, therefore, they ought to be careful before they accepted a Bill of this kind. The improvements suggested in Parliament Street, under any circumstances, would have to be carried out sooner or later; but, if the present scheme were adopted, it was very possible that they might permanently damage Hyde Park. It was certain that, in order to construct the railway, they would have to remove a largo number of trees, and damage the surface of the Parks. He thought, therefore, that it was by no means too strong a course to ask the House to reject the Bill on the second reading.
    SIR EDWARD WATKINsaid, he was sorry the noble Lord had not given his facts with greater accuracy, for he regretted that he should have allowed Party politics to influence his judgment upon a matter which chiefly concerned the convenience of the public. The noble Lord had talked about "a job;" but he (Sir Edward Watkin) repudiated any such insinuation. The noble Lord should have known that the Metropolitan Railway Company had carried out their undertakings as to the construction of new streets, and everything else, to the letter; in fact, in one case they had effected a great improvement long before the time which had been specified in their Act for its completion. As a matter of fact, there was no obligation of any kind which had ever been placed on the Metropolitan Railway Company which had not been entirely and honourably carried out; and yet the noble Lord thought it consistent with propriety to accuse the Company of "a job." The noble Lord had accused them of not carrying out their engagements with the Metropolitan Board of Works; but his (Sir Edward Watkin's) reply to that was that it was not true. Who were these gentlemen connected with the Metropolitan Railway? They were 5,000 saving people, who held each, on an average, about £2,000 in Metropolitan Stock, and whose interest was something like £2 a-week. He himself knew proprietors in this railway, which was now such a popular institution, who went every day to and from their work on the line they themselves had helped to construct, and towards which their small capital was now contributed. What did they do last year? They carried 75,000,000 people, 20,000,000 of whom were carried for sums of 1d. If hon. Members would calculate that the value of the time of workmen was 6d. an hour, and would bear in mind the amount of time and strength saved by rapid transit of the kind afforded by this railway, they would see the enormous saving and the enormous benefit conferred on the workmen of London by the Metropolitan Railway. Hon. Members would find, if they went carefully enough into the calculation, that, practically, by taking the workmen to and from their work in this manner a present had been made to them equal to their ordinary house rent. He con-
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    tended that these Metropolitan shareholders, with their £2 a-week of dividend, had conferred immense advantages on the working classes, and had done more to house them properly, and to minister to their convenience and comfort, than all the cheap philanthropists who were always shouting out about the necessities of the working classes, without doing anything for them, put together. As to the hobgoblins raised up by the noble Lord, they had no existence in fact whatever. The right hon. Gentleman the First Commissioner of Works had made careful inquiries, and was perfectly satisfied that everything connected with the undertaking would be secured in his own manner. He (Sir Edward Watkin) begged to inform the noble Lord that he had not suggested the undertaking. It had been suggested to him, and not by him; and the conditions upon which he had consented to have anything to do with it were these. But, first of all, he would inform the noble Lord that he had all his life advocated the giving of Parks and open spaces to the labouring populations of large towns, and that he had been able to effect a great deal in that direction in his own district in past times; and in connection with the railway for which powers were now sought his chief motive in taking up the matter had been to enable the working classes of the Metropolis to obtain better access to the Parks—to enable numbers, who perhaps never, under ordinary circumstances, would see the Parks, to avail themselves of their advantages, and to see the carriages and the people of the better class of life who frequented these places. One of the conditions he had alluded to was that it should receive the approval of Her Majesty's Government; and another was that it should not displease the highest authority in the Realm. It had been assented to in these quarters. It was a Bill to enable workpeople to visit the Parks with greater facility than they could do at present; and, more than that, as the line was to be completed in a dead time of the year, he contended that it was desirable that it should be constructed if only in view of the depressed state of the labour market, and the enormous amount of employment that it would give to the workpeople of the Metropolis.
    MR. GREGORYsaid, it was generally admitted that more direct railway communication between the North and South of London was desirable; and the question they had to deal with was, whether the particular line under consideration was the right one, or whether a more appropriate one could be found? Residing, as he did, in the centre of London, and being connected with an estate of considerable importance there, he happened to know the difficulties in the way of the construction of a work of this kind through a thickly-populated district. An attempt had been made to establish such a line some years ago; but it failed, in consequence of the fact of the enormous population it would have displaced, and the number of houses that would have had to have been taken at enormous cost. By the present line the only street that would be affected would be the Edgware Road—a broad and open street, but not a very long one. He could not help thinking that the Marylebone Vestry was rather desirous of saving the Edgware Road at the expense of their friends in neighbouring streets in the district, because they sought to drive the line more into the centre of London. The question raised by this Vestry was one, of course, for the Committee. If it could be shown that another line would be better and more feasible than the one proposed, by all means let that be adopted, and let this one be thrown out. The question seemed to him to be a fair one for evidence which a Committee should go into. Let the Committee decide whether this line was not the only one really practicable, having regard to the inconvenience that would be caused to certain shopkeepers and the general public in another place, and to the expense that would be incurred. Let them consider whether the cost of the construction of another line would not be so great as to be entirely prohibitive. Personally, he should be very sorry to be a cause of inconvenience to anybody; but he was afraid that it would be utterly impossible to construct a line from the North to the South through any district without causing inconvenience of some kind or other to some one; and the question to be considered should be how they could best minimize that inconvenience? It seemed to him that the line proposed was one which really
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    caused a minimum of inconvenience; because he did not know any other that could be adopted which would cover less street space. It appeared to him that the proper means of dealing with the question would be by a Committee, who would bestow all the care and attention necessary upon the matter. He noticed that the measure imposed very stringent conditions on the Company in regard to the construction of the line. It made the Company subject to the instructions of the First Commissioner of Works, and it insisted upon the undertaking being carried out within a certain period. He thought the Committee should, if necessary, impose still further obligations upon the Company; and if he might venture to throw out a suggestion to the Committee, it would be that they should put something on the face of the Bill to make it, as it were, a matter of record that there was a bargain to the effect that the Company voluntarily consented to the arrangement that they should, in the future, have no ground whatever for a mitigation of the liabilities incurred by them. He would also say to the Committee that the scheme should be complete in itself once for all—namely, that it should be sufficient in extent and construction for the accomodation not only of the traffic contemplated in the present, but for the traffic which might reasonably be anticipated hereafter. With these observations, he had much pleasure in giving his support to the second reading of the Bill. At the proper time he would move the reference of the Bill to a Hybrid Committee.
    MR. BROADHURSTsaid, he would not detain hon. Members for many minutes on this question; but, as the noble Lord the Member for Middlesex (Lord George Hamilton) had referred to the deputation that he (Mr. Broadhurst) had the honour of introducing to the First Commissioner of Works on this subject some time back, he begged to assure the noble Lord that his observations on that occasion were very brief indeed, and that what he stated was, in his opinion, the feelings of the working people with whom he ordinarily came in contact. His statement had been to the effect that if the railway could be made with a guarantee that no part of the Parks would be permanently injured, it could be made with great advan-

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    tage to the working people of the Metropolis. He had no interest in the railway, and he was always denouncing and opposing some of the details of these lines. He opposed the ventilators in every possible way, and should do so again if he had an opportunity. He, however, would say this—that there had "been no greater advantage conferred on the working people of this country than that conferred by the development of the railway system. In regard to the line in question, it was said it would not largely benefit the working people on account of its route; but he would ask hon. Gentleman to remember that there was no part of a workman's walk to his business in the morning where he needed protection so much as whore he had to cross large open spaces. If the House would permit him, he would point out that many and many a score of times had he himself got thoroughly wet between 5 and 6 o'clock in the morning in nearly every one of the Parks involved in the Bill; and that in those wet clothes he had had to stand all day, until he reached home at 6 or 7 o'clock at night. Now, what he wished to ask was, could hon. Members conceive any advantage that would be greater to those whom they knew had to walk over the Parks to their work at at cost of almost an hour of time, than to give them the use of a railway which would take them from one end to the other of their journey in 10 minutes, under dry and comfortable conditions? Long ago, in the barbarous days—some 20 years back—he had had to climb the gates, seven feet high, when the Parks were shut; and other men had had to do the same to get home from their work. He had had to climb the gates in the midst of snow, and in the midst of rain; and he had no hesitation in declaring that they could confer no greater blessing on the working men and their families than the bestowal of railway facilities of this kind. They would save many weeks of sickness to the workmen, who now got wet in going to their work; and indirectly, therefore, not only the men themselves, but their families also, would be greatly benefited by the railway. Parliament should encourage railways of this kind in every possible way—they should encourage their construction in every direction, always insisting upon a guarantee against injury to public property, and that the Companies would
    1262
    run workmen's trains at a cheap rate and at reasonable times.
    MR. CAUSTONwished to say a word or two as to the building site at the corner of Parliament Street. The right hon. Gentleman the First Commissioner of Works had stated that, under this scheme, the Government would be able to realize the value of its land, and that they would have an opportunity of repurchasing frontages which would be acquired by the Railway Company. The right hon. Gentleman had stated, further, that the Parliament Street site might be wanted for public buildings. Now, he (Mr. Causton) considered that when this site was cleared it would be one of the finest sites in London, if not in Europe; and he thought the House ought to require a definite assurance from the right hon. Gentleman that, when cleared, it would be utilized for nothing else but public buildings. He might be told that at present no new public buildings were required—that was to say, when the building schemes in hand had been carried out. Well, to his mind, the Board of Trade Offices were a disgrace to the country, and they might very well be replaced by a new building on the site in question. The business of the Department of the Board of Trade was considerably increasing, and an enormous amount of additional labour had been thrown upon it by the operation of the Bankruptcy Act; and he threw it out as a suggestion that this was one of the Offices that was really required. Further than that, he wished to throw out the suggestion that they might very well erect a more suitable building for the accommodation of the Prime Minister of this country. [Mr. WARTON: No, no!] He was not speaking of the Prime Minister personally; but his opinion was that any Prime Minister of England ought to be better housed, from an official point of view, than he was at present. This was a favourable opportunity for taking the matter into consideration; he threw out the suggestion at a time when it was in the power of Her Majesty's Government to retain a site which, as he had already stated, was one of the finest in London for the purpose.
    THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. CHILDERS): I will not detain the House more than a moment or two; but I wish to say, in the first

    1263
    place, as to the suggestion last made, that it is a provision in the Bill that the Government shall, in the event of the measure passing, have a choice of the frontages from Great George Street along the widened Parliament Street to the present Government Offices. That is part of the bargain with the Company, and that will enable the Government to take frontages for the purpose to which my hon. Friend (Mr. Causton) has alluded. On another point, I wish to say that the smallest depth between the surface of the ground and the crown of the tunnel arch will be eight feet, so that there will be ample provision against noise and against interference with the grass in the Parks. If, however, the Committee, after taking evidence, should not be satisfied upon that point, other conditions can be insisted upon; but when we remember that the depth between the surface and the crown of the tunnel of the Metropolitan Railway is much less, I do not see that there is any need to be afraid, on the score of inconvenience or discomfort, in regard to the plan suggested for the construction of the proposed railway. No Bill was ever more carefully considered by myself and my Colleagues than this, when it was brought to our notice by the First Commissioner of Works. I considered it myself very anxiously from a financial point of view; and I can assure the House that, in this respect, I conceive it to be a very valuable scheme. I have no hesitation in saying that it would be a great misfortune if it were not allowed to go to a Select Committee, as it has been very carefully considered by us, who are responsible for the interests of the taxpayers and the public in general, and in our opinion it will be a decided national advantage.
    MR. D. GRANTsaid, his constituents would be very materially affected by the construction of this railway. The line would pass down the Edgware Road, and in its construction those who owned or occupied shops there would be seriously injured. The construction of the line would have the effect of destroying their business, and almost of ruining them. Indeed, they felt so strongly on the matter that they declared it to be a matter of life and death to them. The right hon. Gentleman the First Commissioner of Works had stated his willingness and his desire that every protection
    1264
    should be given to those interested in the matter; and what he now was anxious for was that the hon. Baronet the Member for Hythe (Sir Edward Watkin) should give some guarantee to those who were likely to be damaged from a business point of view by the making of the line that they would not be put to great expense in setting their views before the Select Committee. Let the hon. Member give them an assurance that the interests of the shopkeepers would not be jeopardized, and that they would have a full opportunity of bringing their complaints to a fair issue, particularly that this opportunity might be granted to such of them as might be unable to employ counsel to represent them. If the Bill was sent to a Select Committee, it should always be understood that none of those who would be affected by the scheme should be deprived of the opportunity of having their case fully considered.
    MR. SHAW LEFEVRE: The object the hon. Member has in view will be effected by referring the Bill to a Hybrid Committee.
    MR. CARBUTTsaid, the only point he wished to refer to was as to the ventilation of the tunnel. He trusted that, whatever Committee the Bill was referred to, they would insist upon the railway being constructed with a double tunnel, so that each train, by pushing the air before it like the piston of a steam-engine, would ventilate the tunnel through which it passed.
    Question put.
    The House divided:—Ayes 124; Noes 64: Majority 60.—(Div. List, No. 35.)
    Main Question put, and agreed to.
    MR. GREGORYsaid, he had a Motion on the Paper to the effect that the Bill, after having been read a second time, should be
    "Referred to a Select Committee of Seven Members, Three to be nominated by the House, and Four by the Committee of Selection; the Committee to have power to receive all Petitions, and to examine witnesses as to the effect of the proposal on the Parks."
    He, however, was told that he should have, in place of this, to agree to a Motion accepted in regard to another Bill.
    Bill read a second time, and committed to a Select Committee, Five to be nomi-

    1265
    nated by the House, and Four by the Committee of Selection.
    Ordered, That all Petitions against the Bill presented not later than three clear days before the sitting of the Committee be referred to the Committee, and that such of the Petitioners as pray to be heard by themselves, their Counsel, Agents, or Witnesses, be heard upon their Petitions, if they think fit, and Counsel heard in favour of the Bill against such Petitions.
    Ordered, That the Committee have power to send for persons, papers, and records; Five to be the quorum.
    MR. LABOUCHEREsaid, he begged to move the following Amendment at the end of the Orders in connection with this Bill:—
    "That it be an Instruction to the Committee that the proposed line be connected with the Metropolitan and District Railway."
    MR. SPEAKER: That Instruction can only be submitted after Notice has been given.
    MR. LABOUCHERE: Then, Sir. I now give Notice that I will move this Instruction to the Committee on Friday.

  QUESTIONS.

    INLAND REVENUE—PROPERTY AND INCOME TAX (IRELAND)—ASSESSMENTS OF LAND-SURVEYORS OF TAXES.
    MR. ARTHUR O'CONNOR (for Mr. HEALY)asked the Secretary to the Treasury, If the Commissioners of Income Tax or Inland Revenue have directed that Income Tax should be received from the landlords of Ireland in instalments on the rents received during the past two years and for this year also; has the work of the Surveyors of Taxes and Collectors of Income Tax been greatly increased in consequence; have the Surveyors of Taxes got any additional assistance to do this extra work, or is it intended to give them any; have the Collectors of Income Tax got any additional remuneration for the extra labour imposed on them by having to accept the tax in instalments and filling up forms, or is it intended to give them any; and, could he state how long Mr. Smith, Inspector of Taxes in Ireland, has been in the public service, and what reason exists for keeping him longer than the time prescribed by the Rules of the Civil Service Commissioners?
    MR. COURTNEYsaid: In the years 1880 to 1883 the Collectors of Income
    1266
    Tax in Ireland have been authorized to accept payment of Income Tax from landlords on the actual agricultural rents received from time to time. This has, no doubt, caused a certain amount of additional work to the officials; but it has not been found necessary to give further assistance on this account alone to the Surveyors of Taxes, nor is any such necessity expected; the Collectors of Income Tax in Ireland are paid by a poundage, which covers any extra services which may be required of them. The Mr. Smith referred to has been 37 years in the Public Service; but there is no rule compelling retirement after that period.

    EDUCATION (IRELAND)—THE QUEEN'S COLLEGE, CORK.
    MR. O'BRIENasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether he is aware that the President of the Queen's College, Cork, in one of his late Reports, complains that the students admitted to that College are so ill-instructed in "the ordinary instruments of thought" that they are to be classed into the "instructed and the un-instructed;" how many of the students at present attending lectures in the Queen's College, Cork, are of the uninstructed class; is it the fact that Scholarships are awarded on the principle laid down by the President, in his Report for 1880–81, that—
    "When the number of candidates is less than the number of Scholarships to be competed for, the standard is determined by the knowledge of the lowest candidate;"
    if so, are Scholarships so awarded to be continued as a public charge; how many of the students in any of the Queen's Colleges have obtained prizes or Scholarships in any of these Colleges after failing to obtain an Exhibition or any honorary distinction in the Royal University; and, whether, the regulations of the Royal University notwithstanding, there are students in any of the Queen's Colleges holding an Exhibition in the Royal University, and a Scholarship in any of the Queen's Colleges?
    MR. TREVELYAN: The hon. Member quotes from the elaborate Report of the President of the Queen's College, Cork, for 1880–81, certain detached phrases and parts of sentences which are misleading in the shape in which he pre-

    1267
    sents them. The President's remarks about the unprepared state of some of the students who enter College are directed against the course of instruction in the schools from which they come, and are no more an argument against the Queen's Colleges, than it would be an argument against Oxford if the Vice Chancellor of the University complained that boys came up badly prepared from our public schools. The case is still stronger as regards the sentence which the hon. Member quotes about the Scholarships. I can find no such sentence in the Report. The President (speaking not specially of Cork College, but of any College examining for prizes) says—
    "If the number of competitors is not greater than the number of prizes, or even fall short of it, the standard would be determined by the knowledge of the lowest candidate, unless a predetermined minimum were fixed;"
    and he goes on to say that the Council of Cork College have always taken care to fix a minimum which would represent a fair knowledge of the subjects of the examination. As regards students who may have obtained prizes in any of the Queen's Colleges, after failing to obtain an Exhibition or honorary distinction in the Royal University, I have referred the inquiry to Belfast and Gal-way. So far as Cork College is concerned, the President informs me that he knows of only one such case, and in it the student succeeded in subjects different from those in which he had failed in the Royal University. I have received a letter from the Secretaries of the Royal University, from which it appears that they have no knowledge of any breach of the regulations under which the University Exhibitions may be held.

    ROYAL IRISH CONSTABULARY—SUBINSPECTORS.
    MR. ARTHUR O'CONNOR (for Mr. HEALY)asked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, If he will state how many Englishmen have been admitted to the Royal Irish Constabulary as Sub-Inspectors within the last five years; what the total number of admissions was; how many of these were Catholics; and, what was the religious classification of those who secured nominations as Sub-Inspectors within the same period?
    MR. TREVELYAN: The total number of gentlemen admitted as cadets during the last five years is 77. Of these, 25 were born in England and eight are Roman Catholics. I am unable to answer the inquiry in the last paragraph of the Question, as there is no record of the religious persuasion of unsuccessful candidates. There certainly have been a good many Roman Catholics nominated since I have been at the Irish Office.

    COURT OF BANKRUPTCY (IRELAND)—UNPAID DIVIDENDS.
    MR. O'SULLIVANasked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, If he is aware that there is a large amount of unpaid dividends lying at the Bank of Ireland to the credit of the Irish Court of Bankruptcy in place of being paid out to the proper owners entitled to receive the same; and, if so, if he will take steps to publish the names of the parties entitled to this fund, so that it may reach its rightful owners?
    MR. COURTNEY: There is under statute an unclaimed dividend account of the Irish Court of Bankruptcy; but money is not paid into it until notice has been given to the parties entitled, and more than a year has elapsed without their claiming it. Payments are made from this account to persons who can prove their claims, special facilities being given for the recovery of small sums. The question has recently been raised of giving increased facilities for reclaiming unpaid dividends in bankruptcy in Ireland, and it is now under consideration.

    SALE OF LIQUORS ON SUNDAY (IRELAND) BILL.
    MR. M. BROOKSasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether, in view of the appearance in the list of Notices of Motions of the 10th instant of the Sale of Liquors on Sunday (Ireland) Bill Second Reading, he is aware that a large number of Members of this House have been led to infer, from a statement of the First Lord of the Treasury, that the Second Reading will be deferred till the Representation of the People Bill has been read a second time; and, whether it is his intention to give the Sale of Liquors on Sunday (Ireland) Bill

    1269
    any priority over the Representation of the People Bill?
    MR. TREVELYAN: I think I can only repeat to my hon. Friend the answer made by the Prime Minister on, I think, Thursday last. The Prime Minister then said that he could not fix a day for the second reading of the Sale of Liquors on Sunday (Ireland) Bill until after the second reading of the Representation of the People Bill.
    MR. M. BROOKS: He intimated he did not intend to bring it forward until after the second reading of the Representation of the People Bill.
    MR. TREVELYAN: The Prime Minister gave even a stronger assurance. He said till the Representation of the People Bill had passed he would not even fix the day for it.
    MR. M. BROOKS: I would only wish to point out some of the difficulties—["Order!"]
    MR. T. D. SULLIVAN: I wish to inquire why it is put upon the Notice Paper night after night if it is not to be moved until after the second reading of the Representation of the People Bill is passed?
    MR. TREVELYAN: I should have understood that the positive assurance of the Prime Minister was sufficient to settle the question.

    LAW AND JUSTICE (ENGLAND AND WALES)—EXECUTION IN KIRKDALE GAOL—THE HANGMAN.
    LORD HENRY LENNOXasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether his attention has been called to the evidence respecting the condition of the hangman whilst in Kirkdale Gaol, waiting preparatory to the execution of Michael Maclean in Kirkdale Gaol yesterday morning; and, whether he will take the necessary steps to remedy such a state of things?
    SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: I have not yet received any authentic information with reference to this matter, and it would not be right that I should make any statement on it until I have received such information. The noble Lord is probably aware that I have no authority to appoint or dismiss the executioner. That is a power which rests in the local authorities in each case.
    MR. KENNYasked whether the Home Secretary had no power to prevent a
    1270
    repetition of the painful scenes which had occurred?
    SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: Of course, the Home Office, if occasion arose, might ask Parliament for new powers of that kind. I am only speaking of matters as they stand at present. With regard to the scenes referred to, I cannot admit that in the past anything has arisen which would justify such an application to Parliament, because, in the absence of authentic information, I am unable to report upon the matter.

  THAMES RIVER PRESERVATION.

    APPOINTMENT OF SELECT COMMITTEE.
    Select Committee appointed, "to inquire into the operation of the Acts for the Preservation of the Thames, and the steps which are necessary to secure the enjoyment of the River as a place of recreation."—(Mr. Story-Maskelyne.)
    And, on March 13, Ordered, That it be an Instruction to the Select Committee on Thames River Preservation that they have power to limit the inquiry to that part of the River Thames above Teddington Lock."—(Mr. Labouchere.)
    And, on March 27, Committee nominated as follows:—Mr. HOLMS, Mr. ELTON, Sir MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH, Mr. WROUGHTON, Mr. WALTER JAMES, Mr. FREMANTLE, Mr. MOLLOY, Colonel MAKINS, Sir ANDREW LUSK, Mr. CRAIG-SELLAR, and Mr. STORY-MASKEYLYNE:—Power to send for persons, papers, and records; Three to be the quorum.
    Notice taken, that 40 Members were not present; House counted, and 40 Members not being present,
    House adjourned at ten minutes after Eight o'clock.

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILL—Committee—Report—Mr. Speaker's Retirement.*
NEW PEER.
Alfred Tennyson, Esquire, having been created Baron Tennyson of Aldworth in the county of Sussex and of Freshwater in the Isle of Wight—Was (in the usual manner) introduced.
EDUCATION DEPARTMENT—OVERPRESSURE IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS-NUMBER OF CHILDREN UNDER THE AGES OF FIVE AND SIX.

  MOTION FOR A PAPER.
  EARL DE LA WARRsaid, he rose to ask the Lord President of the Council, If any information could be given relative to a child, aged eight years, who had been attending a board school at Cheltenham, whose death, according to the evidence given before a coroner's jury, was caused by inflammation of the membranes of the brain, and that the mental strain from overwork hastened her death? and to move—
  "For copy of the evidence given before the coroner's jury; also for Return of the number of children under the age of five years and under the age of six years attending schools which are subject to Government inspection."

  1185
  He was especially desirous of asking the attention of the noble Lord opposite to this case, and also to bring it under the notice of the House, as it was not, he regretted to say, a solitary one, which might, perhaps, have been attributed to some peculiar circumstances; but others of a similar kind had recently occurred. They were driven to the conclusion that there were causes now at work which were likely to produce very serious consequences in the education of young children. What he wished specially to refer to was the over-pressure, the overwork which was now imposed upon children, and in numerous cases upon very young children in board and other schools. He believed the evidence which he was about to ask the noble Lord to lay upon the Table of the House would go very far to show that if overwork in a school was not the sole cause of the death of this child, yet, at least, that it was hastened by it. He abstained from making comments until the evidence was before their Lordships; but he felt sure that it was a subject which deserved much attention. It had attracted the notice of the Medical Profession. Eminent men in that Profession did not hesitate to say that many evils affecting the health of children and young persons might arise from overwork in study. It had been noticed frequently of late years that the eyesight of many of these children had been seriously affected. It was often attributable to school work and over-employment of the eyes on print. The strain of the eyes in reading and fine sewing required of children now to bring them up to the Standards which they had to pass not unfrequently resulted in defective vision, which was more especially apt to occur when there was an inherited tendency to it, and where general bodily nutrition was faulty. It was further said—and he believed with great truth—that excessive application to study in early years would sometimes produce hopeless imbecility by forcing the brain of young children. There was another effect which had been noticed by medical men—the increase of headache among children. He was informed that this had also attracted serious attention in Germany, and was attributed to overworking of the brain. But in the face of these facts the Education Department of the Privy Council had lately issued a New Code raising the
  1186
  Standards still higher, against which, he believed, numerous Memorials had been sent by school managers to the Privy Council. He wished now to say a few words with reference to the ages of children attending board and other schools. There had been gradually growing up a system of bringing—he might say of forcing—children of very tender age into schools and subjecting them to the discipline and strain upon their minds which were required for learning what certainly at that age, if it could be learnt at all, could not be of use either to themselves or others. He had taken some pains to inquire into the subject, and, so far as he could learn, the number of children between the ages of three and five years at schools under Government was very considerable indeed. It had been put as high as 400,000, and though he could not vouch for the strict accuracy of this number, it was doubtless very large. He would ask their Lordships to consider for a moment whether children of such tender ages were capable of receiving the instruction which was expected to be imparted in these schools. Observe what these children of three to five years of age were expected to do. He had been informed that they had to prepare for an examination by Her Majesty's Inspector of Schools in reading, writing, counting, needlework, and knitting. He believed this was the programme, or something very similar to it. He would ask, was it possible that a child of three or four years old could derive any advantage from being subjected to such a course of what was called education? But, what was more, was it not likely to injure a young child, both in mind and body, to cripple instead of gradually develop the intellect, and to check physical growth? It was well to look for a moment to one of the chief causes of this pressure being put upon young children. The great object of schools under Government inspection was to obtain the largest possible amount of the Government grant. The more children that could be brought into the schools at whatever age and made to pass the examination of the Government Inspector, so much more was added to the income of the school; so that the object was not only to get the child into the school, but to force it up to such a Standard that it might pass the examination. This was one of the great evils of the

  1187
  system of pecuniary grants dependent upon results. The managers of a school, as well as the master of the school, were all under the influence of this—to make a good show to the Inspector, and to earn a large share of the Government grant, with little thought of the mental or bodily effect upon the children, who were first driven into the schools under a penalty for non-attendance, and then placed under a system of intellectual pressure which might deprive them of bodily and mental energy in after life. If this applied to children of more mature age, with how much greater force did it apply to children of three or four years of age, who might be fixed for hours in the day to a bench at an age when they should be running free to amuse themselves, and be crammed with grammar in a crowded room when they should be enjoying fresh air and sunshine? It was impossible to conceive greater torture to very young children of a lively temperament and disposition than to sit for hours in a dull schoolroom with a master or mistress standing before them talking of things of which they could not have the slightest conception of what was meant. A child, an infant of three or four years old, would more readily converse with nature and the objects around it in the natural world than with gloomy walls and unintelligible utterances in a school-room. It seemed to him a very mistaken notion to place infants of tender years under the care of trained masters and mistresses who might have little or no sympathy with children, or no real knowledge of what a child was. In connection with what he had just briefly referred to, their Lordships must not forget the poverty and wretchedness which often, especially in towns, surrounded these children in their own homes, and how much it must tend to disable them for any great mental work or exertion. He desired to mention one instance out of many which he feared might be found. In the City of Glasgow it appeared by the last Census that out of 114,759 families 40,820 lived in homes of a single room. In a report which had lately appeared in The Times by Mr. Marchant Williams, to take one instance only in London, it was stated—
  "There are schools in the Finsbury division filled with children of whom 60, 70, or even 80 per cent. come from homes consisting of one room only."
  1188
  There was one more point which he desired to notice as bearing materially upon the condition of children who were sent to board schools—he meant the poverty and destitution in many cases of the parents. In the same report to which he had referred, Mr. Marchant Williams said—
  "In one of the Clerkenwell schools I found on the day of my annual inspection that 40 per cent of children come to school sometimes without a breakfast, and 28 per cent come sometimes to afternoon school without having had any dinner."
  It was added—
  "These facts are not so entirely exceptional that they might be considered applicable to a considerable proportion of the children attending the board schools in my district."
  He mentioned these facts because he thought it was quite impossible not to see that these children must be so weakly from want of food that they could not be benefited by the amount of education and training which they were expected to undergo. He would not now trouble their Lordships any further. He had very briefly referred to these facts because it seemed to him that the social condition of children at schools could not be lost sight of in considering educational questions, and he hoped at a future day they might be brought under their Lordships' notice in a fuller and more complete manner.
  Moved, "That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty for Copy of the evidence given before the coroner's jury relative to the death of a child, aged eight years, who had been attending a school at Cheltenham, and whose death, according to the evidence, was caused by inflammation of the membranes of the brain, and hastened by the mental strain from overwork.
  "That there be laid before this House Return of the number of children under the age of five years and under the age of six years attending schools which are subject to Government inspection."—(The Earl De La Warr.)
  LORD STANLEY OF ALDERLEYsaid, he wished to call attention to a worse case of death from over-study than that referred to by the noble Earl. The noble Earl was, no doubt, aware that a short time ago a Memorial had been prepared, signed by 66 medical men in Bradford, and presented to the Chairman of the Bradford Schools, against over-pressure in school study. The first name on the list was that of Dr. Alexander, who was the senior consulting physician in Bradford. This

  1189
  gentleman at first refused to sign the Memorial, because he was opposed to agitation in the matter. Afterwards, however, he signed the Memorial, on the ground that within three weeks' time there were no fewer than three cases, one of them being fatal, brought under his notice as having been caused by over-study. Now, this fatal case was that of the child of a teacher in a Board school; and though, as he (Lord Stanley of Alderley) had been informed, this teacher had not exerted any undue pressure, yet it was natural that The Bradford, Telegraph should write—
  "If a teacher does not exercise due discretion in regard to his own child, what discretion can he be expected to have in regard to the children of other people, in whom he has no interest, while the remuneration for his labour is dependent on the success with which he can get the children crammed for the Inspector?"
  He would ask, introspect of these cases, whether the Education Office had yet come to a decision as to the Bradford Memorial against payment by results and home lessons? The Education Office was constantly acting ultra vires, and going beyond the provisions of the Act of 1870; and the Lord President, as Head of that Office, did not appear to do his duty by restraining them within bounds. He had encouraged them as to home lessons, and had put the people of Bradford to the expense of applying for a mandamus, and the Lord Chief Justice had occupied a day in hearing the case, and more time would be consumed in a further trial of the legality of insisting on home lessons. It also appeared, from a letter of the Vicar of Staines, that the Education Office was endeavouring to enforce an illegal rate for enlarging a school to admit children of three years old, notwithstanding that there was not a word in the Education Act as to children under five years of age. He would further ask the Lord President whether he was prepared to abide by his statement in that House at the close of last Session, that the new, or Mr. Mundella's Code, was easier than the preceding Code? in spite of more than 40 remonstrances against the severity of the new Code from various towns, which had been published by the National Union of Elementary Teachers. Lastly, he would ask the noble Lord the Lord President whether he was going to uphold the sacrifice of
  1190
  sewing in girls' schools to the teaching of drawing, which added £40,000 a-year to the expenditure of the London School Board, with no appreciable result?
  LORD NORTONsaid, he had no objection to a high standard of education; but he did object to the forced education produced by this system of payment by results—a system unknown in any other country. It led the teachers to give up all their time to the clever children for the purpose of winning the higher prizes, and to the neglect of those children who could not win them prizes, who, in the teachers' phrase, were "no use" to them. The sooner they got rid of that system the better. When they returned to the system of fixed salaries, the teachers would devote themselves to the general education of all the children who were committed to their charge. He hoped on an early day to bring forward a Motion asking their Lordships to express their opinion on this subject. It was in preparation for that Motion that he now desired to ask the Lord Privy Seal whether any inquiry was being made about the increasing complaints of over-pressure in public elementary schools, and the mischievous expenditure under the present system, unknown in any other country, of paying for national education by grants on details of show results; such grants, moreover, being attached, in an ascending scale, to higher subjects than the bulk of children in elementary schools, unless in very exceptional cases, can properly reach?
  LORD CARLINGFORD (LORD PRESIDENT of the COUNCIL)said, he thought that the question of payment by results was hardly one which came within the range of practical politics; at all events, he did not himself propose then to go into the question. But with respect to the Questions which had been put to him, and first as to the Question of the noble Earl who had raised the conversation, the subject of the death of the child at Cheltenham had been very carefully inquired into both by the Coroner's Jury and also by an Inspector of Schools, who had been specially sent down to look into the matter. Before the latter, however, no evidence was produced in addition to that produced before the Coroner's Jury, which, he thought, was of a very satisfactory kind, and which left

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  little or no doubt as to the real character of the case. There was no doubt that at first the doctor who attended the child and the Coroner were inclined to think that overwork in the school had something to do with the death of the child; but it did not appear that either of those gentlemen was acquainted with the requirements of the Code to which they were inclined to attribute some bad effects on the child's health. But they had to look to the evidence and the finding of the Coroner's Jury. The evidence showed that the child was attending an exceptionally good school, and was under the care of an exceptionally experienced and considerate mistress, and that there was no reason whatever to suppose, until the time of her last illness, that she had been subjected to any overwork in the school which could have accounted for her ill-health. He found that at the last examination several children had been very properly withheld from examination upon the ground of ill-health; but it did not appear to anyone that this girl was a child who ought to be withheld on those grounds. Then it appeared on the inquest, and by the post-mortem examination, that the child had a fatal disease which could not have possibly been produced by overwork in the school—that, in fact, she was suffering from tubercular disease of the brain, as well as lung disease. The immediate cause of death was tubercular disease of the brain, and there was no reason whatever to doubt that her death was quite unconnected with her schooling. The Coroner, being inclined at first to take the other view, specially directed the attention of the jury to this point, and almost invited them to express their opinion in his sense. The jury, however, did not do so, but simply returned a verdict to the effect that the child had died from disease of the brain, and afterwards added a rider that no blame whatever attached to the authorities of the school. So much for that case, which certainly did not support the alarmist views of the noble Earl. With regard to the Bradford case, he was not able to go into that now; but he believed a general statement had been made. As far as he was aware, however, no facts relating to particular children had been supplied which could be investigated. If any
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  were supplied, of course they would be inquired into. As to the question of infants, there was no doubt that an infant was any child from three years old to seven years old; and the noble Earl opposite seemed to think that infants were subjected to the conditions of the Code. That, of course, was not the case, as a child did not enter the First Standard until it reached the age of seven years. As to the general question of disease among children which could be conceived to be produced by overwork, he wished to say that the evidence, as far as the Education Office had discovered it—and they had taken great pains to discover it—did not appear to give cause for alarm. For instance, the Registrar General had been consulted as to the statistics of disease among children; and the result was that, while the general health of children had greatly changed for the better within the last 10 years as compared with the previous 10 years, with respect to diseases of the brain and nervous system, with which they were chiefly concerned in that controversy, it had been found that there had been no increase whatever among children in England or Wales. He had already said that he would not go into the question of payment by results; but he was bound to say that his noble Friend had a happy way of begging the question in putting his own Question, of which the words on the Paper were rather a striking specimen. He asked whether any inquiry was being made into the increasing complaints of over-pressure, and the "mischievous" effects and "show results" of the present system? Of course, these words might be the text of a discussion which would last all night. He did not admit either the "mischievous effects" or the "show results." In fact, he did not know what he meant by show results. Surely not reading, writing, and arithmetic?
  LORD NORTON: There are other subjects.
  LORD CARLINGFORD (LORD PRESIDENT of the COUNCIL)said, there were other subjects; but they could only be taken upon the condition that the ordinary subjects were mastered, and the noble Lord would be astonished to find in how small a number of cases they were taken up. He (Lord Carling-

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  ford) was only that day looking at a Report made by one of the Inspectors, in which he said that out of 17,000 children who had been examined in Manchester, there were only 4 per cent who had even taken up special subjects; and he hoped his noble Friend knew that they could not be taken up at all in any school which had not passed 70 per cent of the children through the ordinary Standards of examination. The result of that had been to reduce the number of children taking up those specific subjects. He certainly did not wish that these specific subjects should be extinguished. The Education Department were anxious that they should be taken and taught, but only where it could be done usefully and effectually, and without any sacrifice of the main objects of the Elementary Education Act. He would give their Lordships a specimen of the result of the New Code. He took one of those subjects which were sometimes laughed at—animal physiology. According to a recent Return, they found that in the four months before the Code of last year came into operation in England and Wales 22,000 children had taken up that subject; but during the four months that had elapsed since, only 4,800 children had taken it up. Therefore, his noble Friend need not be at all apprehensive that the New Code was unduly stimulating those specific subjects at the sacrifice of essential education. As to the other part of the noble Lord's Question, whether any inquiry had been made as to the results of over-pressure, he might say that the greatest attention had been paid to the subject. The Education Department had considered it in every way, and in consultation with their Inspectors; and although the noble Lord objected very much to the Code of 1883, they had no reason to think that it increased the demand on the children. It ought to have a directly opposite tendency.
  LORD STANLEY OF ALDERLEY: Oh, no.
  LORD CARLINGFORD (LORD PRESIDENT of the COUNCIL): The noble Lord seemed to know more about the subject than he did; but the opinion which he had expressed was his own opinion and that of the Vice President, and of those who were responsible for carrying out the Act. At the same time, it was very
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  possible that in some cases those who had to work the system and who were interested in it, such as school managers and teachers, might commit the error of trying to do too much in the endeavour—probably the vain and mistaken endeavour—to earn a larger grant at the expense of some of the weaker children. The Department had very carefully looked into that matter, and in issuing the Code for the present year—which was laid upon their Lordships' Table to-day—they had endeavoured to guard against those effects. They had made changes which he believed would not alter in any degree the intentions of the Code of last year, but which would prevent misuse of it. For the first time, managers would be held responsible by the Department for the care of the health of individual scholars who might need to be withheld from examination or relieved from some part of the school-work throughout the year. Then the Inspector must satisfy himself that the teacher had neither withheld scholars improperly from examination, nor unduly pressed those who were dull or delicate in preparation for it at any time of the year, and that, in classifying them for instruction, regard had been paid to their health, their age, and their mental capacity, as well as to their due progress in learning. The following, among others, would be considered reasonable excuses for either withholding a scholar or not presenting him in a higher Standard:—Delicate health or prolonged illness, obvious dullness or defective intellect, temporary deprivation, by accident or otherwise, of the use of eye or hand. If a scholar should fail in two subjects, or twice in the same subject, it would generally be permissible to present him again in the same Standard. Beyond these relaxations the Department could not go. They believed that such relaxations were not without their risks, because, much as they were bound to guard the health of the children, there was a risk of abuse in the other direction. The Department hoped, however, that no such fate would attend them. The changes were of considerable importance, and he hoped they would re-assure the minds of noble Lords and others who were interested in the subject without sacrificing the great object of the Act.
  EARL DE LA WARR: Do I understand the noble Lord to say that children between three and five years old are not examined in reading and the other subjects I have mentioned?
  LORD CARLINGFORD (LORD PRESIDENT of the COUNCIL): There is no individual examination, and no payment by results, until after the age of seven years.
  EARL DE LA WARR: Is there no examination?
  LORD CARLINGFORD (LORD PRESIDENT of the COUNCIL): An examination of classes. As to the ages of the children, there is no information which can be given beyond that contained in the Annual Reports; but the noble Earl can have the evidence taken before the Coroner at Cheltenham.
  First Motion agreed to.
  Second Motion (by leave of the House) withdrawn.

LAND LAW (IRELAND) ACT, 1881—LEGISLATION.

  QUESTION. OBSERVATIONS.
  EARL STANHOPEsaid, he rose to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether the Government would undertake to introduce the proposed Bill to amend the Irish Land Act in the House of Lords? It would be in the recollection of their Lordships that on Wednesday last the Chief Secretary for Ireland, speaking on behalf of the Government, stated that on an early day after Easter either the Treasury or the Irish Government would be prepared to lay before Parliament proposals as to the amendment of the Land Act, and to state how far they were prepared to go in amending that Act. He thought he could show two very good reasons why such proposals should be introduced in their Lordships' House. In the first place, he would remind their Lordships that, in 1882 and 1883, a Select Committee of this House considered the whole question of the Irish Land Act, not with the view of retarding, but for the purpose of facilitating its operations; and the Committee recommended that portions of the Act which did not work satisfactorily should be extended, particularly the Purchase Clauses. Nothing had been done since, though now, tardily, the Government had acquiesced in the de-
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  sirability of making proposals. The Purchase Clauses were now said by the Irish Land Commissioners, in their last Report to Parliament, just presented, "to continue to operate slowly." And one of the reasons they gave was that purchasers would not come forward
  "Because of the expectation of further legislation granting more favourable terms to tenant purchasers."
  Another reason why the Amendment Bill ought to be introduced in the House of Lords was that there were many noble Lords in that House who were the owners of land in Ireland, and others who, though not Irish landowners, filled high judicial positions, and understood the sale and transfer of land better than any other people in the Kingdom. He also hoped—though, perhaps, the hope was in vain—that the Government might be disposed to consider other clauses of the Act, which the Select Committee also recommended should be extended—namely, the Emigration Clauses. Lord Derby had publicly stated—and he thought it was a very sound opinion—that public money would be well spent in providing for the emigration of a number of the poor peasants of Ireland. Any noble Lord who had been in the West of Ireland must know that even if the small land tenants there had their land free of all charge they could not keep body and soul together. The principal object of his Question, however, was to ascertain whether the Government would be disposed to introduce this Bill in the House of Lords?
  EARL GRANVILLE: My Lords, in the speech of the Chief Secretary for Ireland, to which the noble Earl has referred, it was very clearly laid down how far Her Majesty's Government thought they would be justified in making proposals in the direction of amending the Land Act, and I have nothing to add to the statement then made. With regard to the particular Question of the noble Earl, I am sorry to say that I cannot give any such undertaking on the part of the Government as he asks for. Nevertheless, I sympathize with him in the object which he has in view. I constantly press my Colleagues to introduce certain Bills in this House. I sometimes succeed, and I very often fail; but I am quite certain that I should fail this time were I to make the application. It seems to have escaped

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  my noble Friend's attention that this Bill, of which the basis is finance, is essentially a measure for the consideration of the House of Commons.
  House adjourned at a quarter past Five o'clock, to Thursday next, a quarter past Ten o'clock.