PRIVATE BILL LEGISLATION
1
In the early morning, long before the curtain rises on the larger
and more prominent stage of the House of Commons, work, useful and
practical, of which the public hears but little, is being done in the
committee-rooms upstairs. This is the consideration, laborious as well
as meritorious, by Members of both Houses of Parliament of the details
of the numerous and important Private Bills which are introduced every
session. A visitor to the Central Hall of the Houses of Parliament
between eleven and twelve o’clock will witness a spectacle of a
kind entirely unexpected in association with the Legislature. An
eager throng passes by and disappears up the broad staircase that
leads to the committee-room corridor. It is a mixed and varied crowd
indeed. There are company promoters, barristers, surveyors, clerks,
porters--carrying huge plans and maps--Members of the House of Commons,
peers, scientists, fishermen, artisans, farmers, railway directors,
shopkeepers, solicitors, engineers, mayors, town councillors--all
interested in the fate of those Private Bills containing, often,
large and far-reaching powers, involving the expenditure of hundreds
of thousands of pounds, promoting great commercial and municipal
undertakings, affecting the convenience and comfort and social
well-being of the community. It is a scene that appears more
appropriate to the Law Courts than to Parliament.
By a Private Bill is meant a Bill in which a company or a local
authority seeks for powers to carry out a commercial undertaking, or
a social scheme, involving interference with public rights or the
rights of property. Parliament alone can abrogate public or private
rights. Therefore, when a municipal body or a company desires to
build or extend a railway, to provide a local community with gas or
water, to lay down a tramway, to open a cemetery, to construct a
system of sewerage, to erect municipal buildings, to make a canal,
to provide harbour and dock accommodation, or construct works of any
kind, which, in their execution or operation would trench on public
rights or private interests, it must embody its scheme in a Bill and
submit it to Parliament, which alone possesses and can alone confer
on an outside authority, the power, for instance, of acquiring land
compulsorily--subject, of course, to proper compensation to the owner;
and no step can legally be taken by the promoters in the carrying out
of the scheme until the Bill has passed through Parliament.
Every Private Bill--a Bill, say, empowering a little country town to
provide itself with gas--has to go through precisely the same stages
in both Houses of Parliament as a Public Bill dealing with a matter in
which the whole country is interested. It must be presented in either
House and read a first time, pass its second reading, be committed,
or referred to a committee for the consideration of its details,
reported to the House, read a third time, then go up to the Lords, if
it originated in the Commons, or down to the Commons, if it originated
in the Lords, where it must again go through all the same stages, and
finally receive the Royal Assent which transforms all Bills into Acts
of Parliament. Nevertheless, there are certain marked distinctions
between procedure on a Private Bill and procedure on a Public Bill. The
proceedings in committee on Public Bills is of a purely legislative
character, whether the committee is a Committee of the whole House
sitting in the Chamber itself, or a Grand Committee meeting in one of
the committee-rooms upstairs. But a committee on a Private Bill always
sits upstairs and exercises judicial as well as legislative functions.
There is also a striking difference in the manner in which Public
Bills and Private Bills are presented to Parliament. A Public Bill
is introduced in either House without any preliminary proceedings
outside. But before any Private Bill can be presented in either House,
a petition for such a Bill, together with plans of the proposed
scheme or undertaking and an estimate of its cost, must be deposited
by the parliamentary agent of the promoters in the Private Bill
Office. Copies of these documents must also be sent to the Government
Department interested in the scheme--the Board of Trade, in the case of
railways, and the Ministry of Health, in the case of undertakings by
local authorities. Due notice must be given to all persons affected,
such as the owners and occupiers of the land and houses proposed to
be compulsorily acquired under the Bill. Each House has an official
known as the “Examiner of Private Bills,” whose duty it is to see that
the Standing Orders regulating Private Bills have been complied with.
They sit together at Westminster about a fortnight before the meeting
of Parliament, to hear the parliamentary agents of the interested
parties--the promoters and opponents of the scheme--as to whether or
not there has been proper compliance with the Standing Orders.
Parliamentary agents are usually--though not necessarily--solicitors.
Any person, save a Member of Parliament (a term which includes, of
course, Lords as well as Commons), or an official of either House, may
become a parliamentary agent, by writing his name on the register of
agents in the Private Bill Office, and by entering into a bond for £500
for the payment of the Private Bill fees, and for the due performance
of the declaration he is also required to make, to obey the rules,
orders, regulations, and practices of Parliament.
If the examiners find that the Standing Orders have been observed,
the Private Bill may be presented in the House of Lords or the House
of Commons. But if they report a breach of the Standing Orders, such
as insufficiency of notice to parties concerned, or inaccuracy in the
plans, the matter is referred to two committees--one appointed by each
House at the commencement of every session--and known as the “Committee
on Standing Orders.” These committees decide between them, on written
statements supplied by the promoters and opponents of the scheme,
whether the Bill should be allowed to be proceeded with that session,
and if so under what, if any, conditions.
The next stage in the progress of a Private Bill is the selection of
the House through which it shall first pass, for, as I have said, it
must pass both Houses before it becomes an Act of Parliament. This
question is settled by the Chairman of Ways and Means in the House of
Commons, and the Lord Chairman of Committees in the House of Lords, who
meet at the commencement of each session, to determine, in conjunction
with the Counsel to Mr. Speaker, the House in which the respective
Private Bills should be first considered. Private Bill legislation is
in that respect almost equally divided between the two Houses.
2
Let us follow a Private Bill in its initial courses through the House
of Commons. After the preliminary proceedings which I have described,
the Bill is lodged by the parliamentary agent in the Private Bill
Office, and printed copies of it are delivered to the doorkeeper of
the House for the use of Members. Every Private Bill is endorsed or
“backed” by the names of two Members, at the request of constituents
or the promoters; but these Members have, as a rule, nothing further
to do with its progress through the House. All notices in relation to
the Bill which appear on the “Orders of the Day,” except notices of
opposition, are given by the parliamentary agent of the promoters.
It is he who fixes the day for the first, second, or third reading,
subject, however, to the revision of the Chairman of Ways and Means.
But as no stage of a Bill, private or public, can be passed except by a
motion made and put in the usual manner from the Chair, one Member of
the House--generally an old and respected Member--undertakes the duty
of moving these motions in regard to Private Bills.
The first thing the House of Commons does after prayers, with which it
opens each sitting, is to proceed with any Private Bills that may be
down on the notice-paper for consideration. The normal aspect of the
Chamber at this hour is empty and listless. Half a dozen Members or
so are scattered over the benches at each side. The responsibility of
Ministers in regard to public legislation does not extend to Private
Bills. Indeed, Ministers, as a rule, abstain from any interference in
these measures. The only occupant of the Treasury Bench is the obliging
unofficial Member, who, to the great convenience of the House, as well
as of the parties interested in the Private Bills, has undertaken to
see these measures through the different stages.
The proceedings are purely formal. The Speaker rises and says, “The
Clerk will now proceed to read the titles of Private Bills set down
for consideration this day.” There may be six or eight such Bills some
days, and on other days no more than one or two, in various stages
of advancement. But be the list long or short, it is generally gone
through in a few minutes. The Clerk, reading from the “Orders of the
Day,” says, “The Essex Railway Extension Bill--second reading”; the
Member on the Treasury Bench lifts his hat to indicate that he moves
the Order, and the voice of Mr. Speaker is again heard reciting the
formula of putting a question: “As many as are of that opinion will
say ‘Aye’; the contrary, ‘No.’” No one responds to the Speaker’s
invitation. Not a solitary “Aye” or “No” is heard from the few
uninterested and inattentive Members present. But, nevertheless, the
Speaker imperturbably declares he thinks the “Ayes” have it, and then
pronounces the irrevocable decision, “The ‘Ayes’ have it.” And so on
through the entire list. The Clerk reads the title and stage of each
Bill; the occupant of the Treasury Bench raises his hat; the Speaker
declares the order passed.
But all Private Bills are not disposed of in this formal manner. Many
of them closely affect for good or ill the well-being and convenience
of large masses of the people, and naturally, are strongly opposed.
Private Bills of this character are often debated for hours with great
animation, not, however, at the opening of the sitting, but at a
quarter-past eight o’clock, till which hour opposed Private Bills are
adjourned. The progress of the average Private Bill through the House
is even and uneventful, and it is only when, after second reading--by
which the House has affirmed the general principle or expediency of the
measure--it is referred to a committee, sitting upstairs, that it finds
itself in troubled waters.
Before we follow the Private Bill upstairs, let us see how the
committee, which is to decide its fate, has been appointed. The
committee consists of a chairman and three other Members who are
selected--like the Members of Grand Committees to which, as I have
already described, Public Bills are referred--by the Committee of
Selection. Each Member must sign a declaration that his constituents
have no local interest, and that he himself has no personal interest,
in the undertaking which is the subject of the Private Bill; and
that he will not vote on any question which may arise before the
committee without having heard and attended to the evidence. Members
of the Administration do not act on these Private Bill Committees.
Ex-Ministers are also excused. Professional men, such as doctors and
lawyers, or men actively engaged in business, are rarely called upon
to serve. Work in the committee-rooms is important and useful; but it
is also responsible, wearisome and obscure. Many Members accordingly
try to escape it; and it is notorious that many succeeded in doing
so--professional men especially--with the connivance of the Whips, by
whom lists of those in each Party available for service are prepared
for the Committee of Selection.
But no Member selected for the duty is allowed to shirk it without
sufficient reason--aye, though he may have been suspended from the
service of the House for disorderly conduct. Any Member failing to
attend a committee for which he has been appointed is reported to
the House by the Committee of Selection as “a defaulting Member.” He
is then required to attend in his place in the House and explain his
neglect of duty. Should he still prove contumacious, he may be brought
to the Bar and admonished by the Speaker, or he may even be sent to the
Clock Tower, as the House directs. Curiously enough, in almost every
other branch of parliamentary work attendance is optional. There are
on record only two cases of Members reported for absence from Private
Bill Committees. One was due to a misunderstanding. In 1860 Pope
Hennessy, an Irish Member, was reported to the House for disobedience
of the summons of the Committee of Selection to serve on a railway
committee. He was ordered to attend in his place in the House and
give an explanation. Two days later the Speaker announced that the
hon. Member, had sent him from Cork a telegram, which ran: “Railway
Committee had escaped my recollection. I most respectfully apologize
to the House. I hasten to London without delay.” Next day Pope
Hennessy appeared in his place. His explanation was accepted, but he
was directed to attend the committee forthwith. In 1846 another Irish
Member, Smith O’Brien, refused to serve on a Private Bill Committee, to
which he was nominated, as a protest against the Irish policy of the
Government. He was committed to the custody of the Serjeant-at-Arms,
and was detained in prison at Westminster for as long as three weeks
before the House ordered his discharge. Two years later he led the
Young Ireland Party in rebellion, and was sentenced to be hanged, drawn
and quartered, but was reprieved.
To such a committee, so selected and so composed, a Private Bill,
if it be objected to--that is to say, if after the first reading a
petition against it has been lodged in the Private Bill Office, in
which the petitioners pray to be heard by themselves, their counsel,
or their agents--is referred for the consideration of its details. Of
unopposed Private Bills it is only necessary to say that they are sent
to a committee over which the Chairman of Ways and Means presides. The
procedure of a Private Bill Committee partakes more of a judicial than
of a legislative character; or, perhaps, it would be more accurate to
say that it is partly judicial and partly legislative. The Members
first sit as judges. They hear evidence on behalf of the promoters
and opponents of the Bill; they listen to speeches of counsel; and
finally they adjudicate upon the merits of the undertaking. If they
find against the Bill--if they decide to report to the House “that the
preamble has not been proved”--the Bill is thrown out. But if they
declare that the preamble, or introductory portion of the Bill, in
which its intentions are defined, has been proved, they then proceed,
in their legislative capacity, to go through the clauses, and approve,
amend, or reject as they think proper.
3
The rooms in which these committees sit are along a magnificent
corridor, running the whole length of the Palace of Westminster,
facing the Thames. Access to this busy hive of commercial legislation
is obtained from the Central Hall by a broad flight of stairs.
To the right are the Lords’ committee-rooms, and to the left the
committee-rooms of the Commons. On days the committees are sitting--the
Lords’ from 11 to 4, the Commons’ from 12 to 4--the long corridor
presents a scene of bustle and excitement. Serving the same purpose
as the central hall of the Law Courts, it is thronged with parties
interested in the Private Bills--barristers in wig and gown passing to
and fro from one committee-room to another, agents and their clerks,
witnesses of all kinds. Each room has a distinctive number. One of
them, “Committee-Room 15,” in which were held the famous meetings of
the Irish Parliamentary Party in December 1891, which culminated in the
split of the Nationalists, the deposition of Parnell, closely followed
by his tragic death, will always be an apartment of historic memories.
There are two entrances to each room, one for “Members Only,” the other
the “Public Entrance”; and at each door also (at which a policeman
stands on guard) is a framed announcement, in large letters, of the
name of the Select Committee sitting within.
There are nineteen of these committee-rooms. Each is a large and
lofty chamber, with windows commanding a view of the river. A table,
in shape like a horse-shoe, fills half the room. On a raised seat at
the top of the table sits the chairman, flanked at each side by his
colleagues. Fronting them, inside the table, is seated the witness
under examination. At a small separate table close at hand is a clerk
of the Private Bill Office, who keeps minutes of the proceedings; but
the evidence is fully taken by an official stenographer, who sits
at a table close to the witness-chair. At the end of the horse-shoe
table there is a long table for the accommodation of counsel, the
parliamentary agent, and the local solicitors on behalf both of the
promoters and the opponents of the Bill. At the back of the room stand
the witnesses waiting to be called and others interested in the Bill,
with occasionally a sprinkling of the general public, who are being
shown over the Palace of Westminster by Members of Parliament, while at
a detached table close to the windows several newspaper reporters are
busily at work. The walls are generally hung with huge maps showing the
route of the proposed railway, canal, or tramway, or plans illustrating
the scheme under consideration, the details of which are indicated by
the witnesses by means of long pointers. The witnesses, of course, are
brought up by the parties interested. The prospect of big fees, liberal
expenses, and a pleasant holiday in London secures their attendance.
But if these inducements should fail in the case of a person whose
testimony, in the opinion of the committee, is essential, he is
reported to the House, and if extreme measures are deemed necessary to
compel his attendance, Mr. Speaker issues to the Serjeant-at-Arms a
warrant for his arrest.
An inquiry before a Private Bill Committee can hardly be described as
exhilarating. Sometimes the proceedings have that intellectual interest
which is aroused by the contradictory statements of eminent experts on
opposite sides, by a clever cross-examination of these professional
witnesses, or by a passage at arms between opposing counsel. But on the
whole it is dull work. The investigations are often protracted as well
as irksome. Richard Cobden was appointed on a railway committee in the
session of 1845, and his letters to his wife and brother in reference
to the exacting nature and the tediousness of the service are just as
applicable to the state of affairs to-day. On June 24, 1845, he writes
to his wife:
There never was such a case of petty persecution as I am
enduring in this railway committee. We have been nearly five
weeks sitting, hearing witnesses and listening to the tedious
harangues of counsel about a lot of paltry lines among the
little towns and villages in Norfolk and Suffolk. I thought
we should have got to the end of our work in a fortnight or
three weeks, but now we are threatened with another week or ten
days. And the great misfortune is that we have no power to put
any restraint upon the tongues of the counsel, who are paid in
proportion to the length of time they can waste.
At the same time Cobden was groaning over his ill luck to his brother,
who was communicating to him pressing and unpleasant business affairs;
he writes:
_June 6th._--I am sorry to say it is impossible for me to
come down even for a day. Our committee have determined to
sit on Saturdays, and the rule of the House precludes me from
being absent even for an hour. God only knows when this odious
committee will come to a close.
_June 19th._--Your letters keep me on the tenter-hooks, for I
know not in what extremity you may be placed. I am in the same
predicament as ever. The committee will in all probability
last a week more. To-day we have been treated to a three
hours’ speech by a counsel upon a mere fraction of the group.
What makes it more difficult to escape is that the committee
does not give a decision on any part until we have heard the
whole, and consequently nobody not acquainted with the evidence
already taken could step in to fill my place. Sir Benjamin
Hall, very luckily for him, was pitched from his horse on his
head the second day of our meeting, and he was excused from
further attendance.
4
It is no wonder, then, that Members of Parliament should desire to
escape service on these committees. There is a popular belief that they
are paid five guineas a day, but it has no foundation in fact. They
get no special remuneration whatever for their time and labour. They
have, however, one curious privilege. A seat in the House of Commons
for the evening is secured only by attendance at prayers. From this
rule Members serving on committees are exempt. On their way to the
committee-room in the morning they may enter the Chamber and slip a
pink card--as distinguished from the white card of Members who have
been at prayers--into the slit at the back of the seats they desire to
retain. But it is doubtful whether many of them are satisfied with that
as an adequate compensation for the inconvenience of having to appear
in the committee-room so early as twelve o’clock, after, perhaps, a
late sitting of the House the night before, and give attention for
hours to long statements of dull facts and figures and dry technical
details.
So tied are the Members of the committee to their task that not more
than one of them can be absent at the same time, for it takes three
of the four to form a quorum. If two Members absent themselves, the
sitting is suspended for an hour; if at the end of that time one of
them does not appear, the committee is adjourned till next day, and,
unless a reasonable excuse can be given, the defaulters are reported
to the House. The presence of the Members in the committee-room
is therefore essential to the progress of the proceedings. On the
chairman--always a man of experience, with a special aptitude for
business and familiarity with the procedure on Private Bills--falls
most of the burden of the work and responsibility. He gives all his
attention to the inquiry. He sedulously listens to the arguments and
most carefully weighs the evidence. The example he sets is followed by
the other Members, though, perhaps, at some distance. Nevertheless,
this kind of service is more enjoyed by some Members than that of
making speeches in the House, or hearing them, because they feel they
are “doing something real.”
At a quarter to three o’clock, the time the House meets, one of the
messengers pops his head into the committee-room and shouts: “Mr.
Speaker at prayers.” The committee, however, do not join the Speaker
for devotions. They remain to wrestle with the question whether or not
some little town newly sprung to municipal dignity should be allowed
to make its own gas or run its own trams. But should a division take
place in the House during the remaining hour or so the committee
sits, the Members jump to their feet at the first sound of the signal
bell, rush headlong from the room and down the staircase leading to
the Legislative Chamber, and knowing little or nothing, perhaps, of
the issue which hangs on the division--a vital issue, it may be, of
national policy--pass into the lobby pointed out by the Government
Whips if they are supporters of the Government, and go into the other
lobby if they are of the Opposition. Then, after this remarkable
display of devotion to Party, they return to the committee-room, and
resume the consideration of the municipal question at the point at
which it was interrupted by the summons of the division bell.
But apart from this diversion, which does not often happen, the
monotony of the inquiry is unbroken even by an interval for luncheon.
A waiter brings a Member, on his order, a sandwich, or a few biscuits,
with a glass of milk, or a bottle of ginger beer, and this modest fare
is partaken of while listening to a prosy counsel or a tedious witness.
Disraeli once said that a Member of Parliament who desired to be a
success in the House should live on Blue-Books and biscuits. Of all
our representatives, the Members of committees on Private Bills more
closely attain to that ideally heroic state of parliamentary existence.
In the committee-rooms of Parliament there is not the same strictness
as to the manner of examining witnesses that is maintained in the Law
Courts. The witnesses are not sworn, except at inquiries of a special
character. To ask “leading questions” is a matter of ordinary practice.
A well-known member of the Parliamentary Bar appearing in one of the
High Courts of Justice had not proceeded far with his examination of a
witness when he was interrupted by the Judge. “No, no,” exclaimed his
lordship. “That may be good enough for Westminster, but here we take
evidence according to the laws of evidence.” The Members of the Private
Bill Committees are similarly unfettered by rules or precedents. The
decisions are guided by no fixed principles. Accordingly, they are
without uniformity, and, indeed, are sometimes contradictory. It is
also the fact that some Members nominated on Private Bill Committees
are unqualified by experience or training to act as judges on the
business matters at issue. There is a story told of a young Member,
sitting on a committee to decide on the engineering merits of two rival
lines of railways, who, after days of silence, aroused himself to ask,
“Pray, what is a gradient?” But, on the other hand, it may be said that
an average share of shrewdness and common sense is alone sufficient
to guide the committee to a proper decision on the question of public
expediency or policy at stake in a Private Bill.
“Do the advantages, or services, offered to the public by the scheme
justify the interference with private rights which the execution of
the scheme involves?” That is the main question, and when the evidence
is concluded, and counsel on each side have been heard, the committee
deliberate upon it with closed doors. If the committee decide the
question in the negative, the parties are called in, and the chairman
simply says: “The preamble of the Bill has not been proved to our
satisfaction.” That is all. The committee on a Private Bill never
give reasons for their decision. If the committee decide that the
preamble of the Bill has been proved, the clauses are then taken up
and gone through, one by one, as in the case of a Public Bill before
the Committee of the Whole House, or one of the Grand Committees.
Amendments may be moved, or new clauses submitted, on behalf of both
promoters and opponents; but, of course, the questions are decided
solely by the Members of the committee. The chairman votes in every
division, and if the numbers are equal, he also gives a casting vote.
It is the interest of the community directly concerned, or the general
public benefit, that the committee keep in view in deciding all
questions. They limit the amount of taxes, rates, tolls, or fares which
the company may charge the public, and even restrict the profits the
company may divide among the shareholders.
5
Having passed successfully through the committee stage, the Bill is
reported to the House of Commons, and some day it is formally read a
third time. It then goes up to the House of Lords, where a similar
ordeal awaits it. Its first reading and second reading are generally
mere formal stages, but if it embodies a scheme which is stoutly
opposed it is referred to a committee--consisting of a chairman and
five other peers, appointed, as in the Commons, by a Committee of
Selection--before which the same evidence is given, and the same
counsel appear for promoters and opponents, exactly as before the
committee of the Commons. The Bill may even be rejected by the
committee of the Lords. After hearing the evidence, the Lords may
find that “it is inexpedient to proceed with the Bill” (the form in
which committees of the Lords declare their judgment), and the Bill is
accordingly thrown out, without any reasons being assigned. In that
event, the expense and time and worry of getting the Bill through
the House of Commons have all led to nothing. That this sometimes
happens, the story of the Manchester Ship Canal Bill for making a
seaport of Manchester--one of the most important Private Bills ever
promoted--affords proof. In 1883 the Bill was introduced in the House
of Commons, and, though strongly opposed on behalf of Liverpool, passed
successfully through all the stages, including an inquiry, extending
over thirty-nine days, before the Commons’ Committee; but was rejected,
after another prolonged investigation, by the Lords’ Committee. In the
following session the Bill was first brought into the House of Lords.
It was referred to a committee in the usual course, and this time it
passed triumphantly through the trying ordeal of an inquiry which
lasted forty-one days. Then it came down to the Commons, got through
its first and second readings in the House, but came to grief at the
end of twenty days’ investigation before the Commons’ Committee. The
Bill subsequently passed through the same stages in both Houses, and
became law--as the existence of the Manchester Ship Canal sufficiently
indicates--but the long and arduous contest over it added £100,000 to
the expenses of the undertaking, and probably cost the Corporation of
Liverpool and the railway companies which opposed it at least the same
amount.
However, every Private Bill has not to go through this double inquiry
before different committees of both Houses of Parliament. The
opponents, if defeated before the committee of the House in which the
Bill originated, allow, as a rule, the Bill to go through. It is only
in the case of an undertaking of great magnitude that the opponents use
the second committee as a court of review in regard to the decision
of the first. The high fees tend to restrain vexatious proceedings
on the part of promoters and opponents alike. Moreover, even if the
investigation should be twice repeated, it is seldom that a Bill which
has passed the committee of one House is rejected by the committee of
the other, though it happens occasionally that the production of new
evidence before the second inquiry leads to the material amending of
the Bill. But in most cases a Private Bill that has passed through one
House is referred, if the House be the Commons, to the Chairman of
Committees in the Lords, or, if the House be the Lords, to the Chairman
of Ways and Means in the Commons, and the approval of the one chairman
or the other renders the passage of the Bill through its remaining
stages, in the Lords or in the Commons, easy and expeditious. Nothing
now remains but the Royal Assent. When that is given, as it is in due
course, the Private Bill becomes an Act of Parliament.
Parliament derives a substantial revenue from fees charged to
promoters and opponents of Private Bills. The aggregate sum paid to
Lords and Commons is, on an average, about £80,000 a year, and is
applied as appropriations in aid towards the salaries and expenses of
the officials of the Private Bill Office of each House. Altogether,
a sum of about £800,000 is spent, on an average, in each session
on promoting and opposing Private Bills. The biggest items in this
expenditure are the payments to counsel and professional witnesses. The
Parliamentary Bar, as it is called, is quite a distinct branch of the
legal profession, at which specialists in the law relating to Private
Bills practice exclusively. The work is usually compressed within
three or four months of the session. Within that period the “leaders”
live lives of tremendous pressure. They are usually briefed to appear
for or against all the Private Bills under investigation before the
committees sitting the same day, and so they may be observed hurrying
from room to room--always calm and bland, nevertheless--examining a
witness here, making a speech there, conducting a cross-examination
elsewhere, their movements being regulated by their watchful clerks,
who keep them informed of the progress of events before each committee
in which they are interested. It is said that a few of the “leaders”
earn in these three months £20,000. At any rate, I remember reading
in a speech by the chairman of the Manchester Ship Canal, delivered
during the protracted proceedings, with varying fortunes, in relation
to that gigantic engineering scheme, before different committees of
both Houses, during four or five sessions, that the promoters paid 80
guineas per hour (or 120 guineas per day of four hours) for each hour
each Select Committee sat on the Bill, to four counsel, only one of
whom was present at any time in the committee-room.
6
The acceptance by a Member of the House of Commons of a bribe for
advancing or defeating a Private Bill is punished by expulsion from
the House. To solicit a bribe is visited with imprisonment. Happily,
Private Bill legislation is absolutely free from all taint or suspicion
of corruption. There is no instance known of a Member of Parliament
having been guilty of personal dishonesty in the exercise of his
legislative functions. There is one case of the solicitation of a
bribe. In 1879 the chairman of a committee which sat to consider the
Tower High Level Bridge Bill reported to the House of Commons that a
Member of the House, named Grissell, had represented to the agents
conducting the opposition to the measure that he would control the
decision of the committee and procure the withdrawal or rejection of
the Bill for the sum of £2,000. A solicitor named Ward was involved
with Grissell in the charge. Both were found guilty by the House, and
the Serjeant-at-Arms was ordered to arrest them and bring them to the
Bar for judgment. Ward was apprehended. Grissell escaped to Boulogne,
whither he was followed by a messenger of the House; but as the warrant
of the House runs only within the kingdom, the absconder could not
be brought back. Ward was committed to the Clock Tower during the
pleasure of the House. After a week’s imprisonment, he sent a humble
petition to the House expressing the deepest contrition and was set at
liberty. Grissell returned to London and surrendered himself to the
Serjeant-at-Arms. But this was two days only before the termination
of the session, when, as Grissell was well aware, any order of the
House in regard to his imprisonment would lapse. He was committed to
Newgate on August 13, and was released the next day on the prorogation
of Parliament, but was informed he would be arrested again in the next
session. On the assembling of Parliament in 1880 he expressed his
sincere sorrow for his offence, but he was again committed to Newgate
for having evaded in the first instance the warrant of the House. His
imprisonment ended, perforce, with the end of that session.
This system of Private Bill legislation, under the direct authority and
supervision of Parliament, has existed for centuries. On the whole, it
has worked excellently well. Under these Private Bills which are passed
session after session great municipal and commercial undertakings are
carried out. The kingdom has been honeycombed with railways and canals.
Docks and harbours have been built in its seaports. The cities and
towns have been provided with drainage systems, supplies of water, gas
and electric light and tramways. The prosperity, health and comfort of
the community have been immensely promoted. Spacious cemeteries have
been opened in urban areas for the decorous disposal of the dead. And
exacting and laborious though service on committees is to Members,
Parliament has always rejected proposals for the transference of the
work to an outside body, such as a Government department or judicial
tribunal. Parliament is reluctant to part with any of its direct power
and authority over matters involving the abolition of existing rights
or the creation of new ones. Even the setting up of joint committees of
Lords and Commons to consider Private Bills--thus dispensing with that
duplication of the detailed hearing of the arguments for and against a
Bill by separate committees of the two Houses--to the saving of time,
money and labour, though sometimes resorted to, is usually received
with disfavour. Here we have an illustration of how jealous each House
is for the preservation of its ancient privileges and customs.
What Parliament has done is to relieve itself of some of the work
associated with inquiries into Private Bills by means of the system
known as “Provisional Orders.” Such Government departments as the
Home Office and the Ministry of Health are authorized by various Acts
of Parliament to grant these Provisional Orders on the application
of local authorities. The Orders are, however, limited mainly to the
repeal, alteration or amendment of existing local Acts. Under them no
fresh powers can be granted. Until it has been confirmed by Parliament
the Provisional Order does not become law. But the system enables
local authorities to obtain the necessary parliamentary sanction for
the execution of certain local works with greater expedition and at
much less cost than by Private Bills. A Provisional Order can be got
through Parliament in a week or two when a Private Bill would take
months to pass. The promoters of Provisional Orders are exempt from
the payment of fees, but should an Order be opposed, which is a rare
occurrence, the opponents are obliged to pay the same fees as in the
case of Private Bills. It has been calculated that the average expense
to local authorities in promoting Provisional Orders is £233 per Order,
as compared with an average cost of £2,178 for a Private Bill.
In 1899 the weary shoulders of Parliament was still further relieved,
by the Unionist Administration, of a part of this burden of Private
Bill legislation. A new tribunal for dealing with Scottish Private
Bills by a separate procedure was established. All private legislative
proposals from Scotland are deposited at Westminster in the form of
Provisional Orders. The Chairman of Committees in the Lords, and the
Chairman of Ways and Means in the Commons, meet and consider whether
these proposals should go forward as Provisional Orders or as Private
Bills. If they decide in favour of Private Bill procedure, the proposed
schemes must receive parliamentary sanction at Westminster. But should
the decision be in favour of Provisional Orders, as it generally is,
the proposed undertakings, if opposed, are sent down to the locality
concerned to be inquired into locally by a committee composed of two
Scottish peers and two Scottish Members of the House of Commons, having
no interest, local or personal, in the matter. If a scheme should be
unopposed, it is simply examined by the Government department to whose
province it relates. But though the inquiry be local or departmental,
Parliament watches and controls the acts and decisions of the new
tribunals. All these Provisional Orders, unopposed or opposed, have
ultimately to receive the sanction of both Houses of the Legislature.