lieved the monstrous fact if he had not | only, would be left in a worse position than seen and spoken with the witness alluded if they had got no information at all. to, Mr. Gulson, Assistant Poor Law Commissioner, upon the subject.

the Act of 1844, which described the ma-
chinery by which it was proposed to carry
it out. Under the Act of 1844, there
were two official referees appointed. A
subsequent clause in the Bill directed the
appointment of a third officer, who was
called the registrar, whose duty it was to
put upon record the decisions of the of-
ficial referees, and as it was understood
that this officer would generally be a bar-
rister, to act as a sort of legal assessor to
them, by affording them advice upon legal
matters. The clause also provided that
the award of one referee was final and
binding, if the seal of the registrar was
affixed to it. This was calculated to lead
to great inconvenience, inasmuch as the
referees might give different awards; and
the one which received the seal of the re-
gistrar, who was not supposed to be prac-
tically acquainted with the details of
building, was final. Her Majesty's Go-
vernment had deemed it their duty to
seize the earliest opportunity of removing
this obstruction; and for that purpose they
proposed to appoint an additional referee
who should possess co-ordinate powers
with the other two; and, of course, from
the mere fact of there being three referees,
in case of disagreement, a decision would
be come to by a majority of referees ac-
quainted with the subject. The most for-
midable objection to the appointment of
this third referee was the additional ex-
pense. By the Act of 1844 the salaries
of these referees were partly borne by the
Consolidated Fund, and partly by the city
of London, and the counties of Middlesex,
Surrey, and Kent. The salary of each
referee was 1,000l.; but by the additional
appointment it was not proposed to in-
crease the expense, as one of the parties
had retired on account of the condition
which had been heretofore attached to
the office, that he should be debarred
from pursuing his ordinary professional
avocations: the Government now proposed
to appropriate this sum to the payment
of 500l. per annum each to the successor
of this gentleman and the third referee,
and to permit them to pursue their own
private practice as surveyors.
He hoped
no objection would be offered to the passing
of this Bill, so that it might go into Com-
mittee next day.

VISCOUNT CANNING moved the Second Reading of the Metropolitan Buildings Bill. Their Lordships would remember that in the Session of 1844 an Act was passed, the object of which was to repeal the old Building Act of 1774, which had been found inefficient for the purposes it was intended, namely, for establishing and defining a well-digested and well-regulated code of rules, by which metropolitan buildings should be erected and repaired, with a view to the safety and comfort of the public. The country had had more than a year's experience of the new measure; and he was bound to admit that in several respects defects were apparent in the Bill. It was scarcely to be expected to be otherwise in a measure so full of details as this necessarily was, and affecting so many interests, and interests of such various kinds. The consequence had been, that many representations of different sorts had been addressed to the Government, setting forth the real or supposed defects of the measure, and pointing out what the complainants considered would be the proper remedies to be applied. Some of those representations contained suggestions, and others complaints, many of which, no doubt, were unreasonable; while, on the other hand, he must admit, others were founded upon just and reasonable grounds. Where the latter was the case, the Government had considered it to be their duty to take those complaints or suggestions into consideration, with a view to devise some remedy for the defects complained of. The Bill upon their Lordships' Table, therefore, was only the Bill of 1844, containing several Amendments, which had been thought necessary in consequence of the representations which had been made to the Government. At a later period of the Session he should deem it his duty to bring the whole of the corrections before LORD COLBORNE said, there never was their Lordships, embodied in a Bill, if any a Bill passed that had met with more obfurther Amendments were proposed. Injections, and had so little answered the purthe mean time it would only be necessary poses for whieh it was intended, as the for him to refer to the amended clauses on Metropolitan Buildings Act of 1844. He VOL. LXXXIV. {T}

Series

2 R

could speak to the inefficiency of the mea- | manufactories, and the introduction of sure, and he was gratified in hearing the steam-engines, that the citizens of London noble Viscount express his intention to in- were only by great accident ever permitted troduce a new Bill during the present Ses- to see the sun, unless they went some miles sion; and he trusted that the provisions of out of town for that purpose. He was inthat Bill would be such as would do away formed, that, by a very small expenditure, with the necessity of constant complaint the nuisance might be abated in nearly all against it on the part of the public, by pro- cases. viding a proper and efficient remedy for the existing defects.

LORD CAMPBELL did not rise to oppose the second reading of the Bill; but he must say that he thought the only way to remedy the evil would be to repeal the Bill of 1844 altogether. He was convinced, that to attempt to patch up that Bill would only be to make confusion worse confound ed. He and some noble Friends of his foretold the difficulties that would ensue; but in vain. His noble Friend had given but a faint idea of the confusion that had been occasioned. So very defective was the Act, that he thought few of those noble Lords who supported it in 1844 had read it through. The present Bill touched only two or three clauses out of some hundred or more equally objectionable; and he would suggest to the noble Lord (Lord Canning) that the better course would be to withdraw the present Bill, and bring in another more comprehensive, or, at least, one to repeal the Act of 1844, and allow buildings to be regulated for the present by the old Building Act of 1774, which, whatever its defects, was perfection, compared with the present.

The DUKE of BUCCLEUCH said, he had read the Bill of 1844 several times while it was before the House. He did not say that the Act was not in many points capable of improvement; but it was almost impossible to propose a measure of such a nature, dealing as it did with various interests, and involving many complicated matters, that should be in the first instance altogether free from objection. Questions of doubt were seen to arise, and objections to be made especially by those whose acts it was most necessary to control. He should much regret to see the Act repealed altogether, as the noble and learned Lord suggested; for it was absolutely necessary for the safety of the buildings and the health of the people that stringent measures should be taken.

LORD ASHBURTON regretted that no measure had hitherto passed for abolishing the smoke nuisance in the metropolis. So serious had that nuisance become, owing to the establishment of so many

LORD CAMPBELL had granted two or three patents, while he held the office of Attorney General, any one of which would be effectual for remedying the nuisance of which the noble Lord complained, and that not only without any great expense, but with considerable economy, by diminishing the cost of fuel. He was inclined to agree that measures to compel the adoption of a remedy should be passed.

The DUKE of BUCCLEUCH reminded the House that a Bill passed some Sessions ago for compelling manufacturers to consume their own smoke in the manufacturing towns.

Bill read 2a,
House adjourned.

HOUSE OF COMMONS,
Thursday, March 19, 1846.

MINUTES.]

PUBLIC BILLS-1°. Schoolmasters' Widows
Fund (Scotland); County Elections.
Reported. Consolidated Fund (£8,000,000); Fever (Ire-
land).

3. and passed. Fever (Ireland).

PETITIONS PRESENTED. By Mr. Octavius Duncombe, from

Newton, Sproxton, Beadlam, and Pockley, in favour of the Corn Laws.-By Mr. Lockhart, from Deacon, Convener, Collector, and other Members of the Trades' House of Glasgow, against the Burghs (Scotland) Bill.-By Mr. Hume, from the Parishioners of Saint Luke, Chelsea, against Union with other Parishes.-By Mr. Redhead Yorke, from Elizabeth Mason, of No. 4, Silver Street Groves, York, for Inquiry respecting Joseph Mason.

AQUEDUCTS-STANDING ORDERS.

MR. HUME rose to move

"That in case of Bills for making, maintaining, varying, extending, or enlarging any AqueFerry, Harbour, Navigation, Pier, Port, Railway, duct, Archway, Bridge, Weir, Canal, Cut, Dock, Reservoir, Tunnel, Turnpike Road, and Water Work, and for all other works and inclosures on tidal lands within the ordinary spring tides, a general said Aqueduct, Archway, Harbour, &c., should be Plan showing the situation and approaches to the denoted upon a sheet or sheets of the Ordnance Survey, when published, or else upon Maps of an equivalent scale, and extending ten miles on each side; together with enlarged Plans and Sections of such parts of the works as are on the tidal lands within the ordinary spring tides, on a scale of not less than twenty feet to an inch, with the dimensions figured thereon, shall, on or before the 30th day of November, be deposited in the Board of Admiralty."

As the law at present stood, the hon. Mem

ber said, no Bill for making, varying, ex-mittee, said that he was directed by the tending, or enlarging any railway, har- Committee to state that they had nearly bour, bridge, canal, pier, tunnel, or other come to the termination of their labours. work, which should interfere with tidal water, They had placed the different Railway Bills would pass the House unless the Admiralty sent before them in groups; but on coming had signified their approbation. A great to those, the objects of which were to make number of Bills, which would so interfere, lines through, and have termini, in the mewere thrown upon the Admiralty at once, tropolis, they had resolved that they formin the beginning of the Session, and it was ed so peculiar a class, and had bearings of quite impossible for the Board to make up so important a nature, that they ought to their minds upon the several merits of make it the subject of an Address to the those Bills without a careful examination. Crown for the appointment of a CommisTo make that examination, required con- sion to investigate and report upon them. siderable time, the Admiralty having no The Committee found the question so immeans of knowing the nature of the pro- portant, that it could not come to the jected works until they were thus suddenly same resolutions with regard to them as it placed before them; and it would be as had arrived at in other cases, and thought much for the benefit and convenience of that its duty required it to bring the questhe promoters themselves, as for the con- tion before the House. The metropolitan venience of the Board of Admiralty, that lines the Committee had divided into three the Board should have due time and oppor- classes: first, those that were originally tunity to examine into the merits of the pro- intended to have been brought before jects before they came before the House. Parliament during the present Session, For those reasons he wished that the but which were, for various reasons, postplans and sections should be lodged in poned to another Session; second, those the Admiralty Office. that had been proposed, but withdrawn; third, and finally, those that were to be brought before Parliament during the present Session. In the consideration of those Bills there appeared so much good and so much evil to the metropolis, that the Committee thought they should be carried before another tribunal, where they could be exclusively considered. He had brought with him a map, on which was marked all the proposed stations in the metropolis, and he could not call the attention of the House more forcibly to the effects which would be produced by their erection, than by stating that the mere surface of the ground to be occupied by them would amount to 200 acres; that the works would involve the necessity of taking down between 9,000 and 10,000 houses; and that the property to be taken, had the schemes all been carried out, would have been in value about 15,000,000l. He should not state the case fairly to the House if he did not explain that that was the total estimate for all the plans originally proposed, including those withdrawn and postponed, but that by no means so great an amount remained to be considered. However, some of those that remained involved matters of very serious consideration. Some of the proposed termini were to be placed in the very heart of the city. One was to be in Farringdon-street; another was proposed to be placed in Thames-street; another on Cornhill; and another, or rather two, in

CAPTAIN BERKELEY, in supporting the Motion, said, that there was a very strong case in point illustrative of the necessity which existed for such an order. It was that of the Great Western Railway Company, which had proposed last year to cross the river Severn, over the tidal water, by means of a bridge. The Admiralty very properly opposed such an interference with the navigation of the river, and threw out the Bill; yet the Great Western Company, notwithstanding that defeat, had actually brought in another Bill, and were trying to get it passed, and the effect of it would be to cross the river by another bridge, not far removed from the proposed site of the former.

SIR G. COCKBURN said, that the proposal of the hon. Member for Montrose would obviate many inconveniences with regard to Bills proposing to interfere with navigable rivers.

Motion agreed to; as well as a Motion to compel promoters of Bills at present before the House, which would come under the action of the Standing Order just passed, to send copies of plans, sections, &c., without delay to the Admiralty.

RAILWAY TERMINI IN THE METRO-
POLIS.

MR. WILSON PATTEN, in rising to call the attention of the House to the Sixth Report of the Railways Classification Com

He doubted

Holborn; another-but it would be un- | fail to deserve every respect. necessary to go through the enumeration whether the House could conveniently of them all. There were several to be proceed at once to decide the matter erected in various places. He hoped he merely on the verbal statements of a Memhad said enough to show the necessity for ber. Where so many interests were inthe establishment of such a tribunal as volved, it seemed expedient that the House that recommended by the Committee. It and the Government should have time had been given in evidence that from one to deliberate, and if the debate were now station alone, on the other side of the adjourned it might be resumed on an early Thames, 400,000 passengers were last year day. He proposed, therefore, that the despatched. The object was to send these present discussion be deferred until Monand many more from the heart of the day, when he should be prepared to state metropolis; and the Committee thought it the course Ministers were disposed to take much better that the subject should be in- after communicating with those who had vestigated by persons of science, and prac- Railway Bills connected with stations near tical as well as local knowledge, than by a the metropolis. Committee upon the mere exhibition of maps and plans. By the orders of the House it was also provided that no Member connected with the district of a railway should sit upon a Committee, so that in this instance the Members for London, Southwark, &c., who possessed local information, were necessarily excluded. It had been suggested that public accommodation might be obtained without going into the heart of the metropolis, and a Committee had met to determine whether some central point could not be fixed upon from which the lines of the railways leading from London might diverge; but he doubted how far this was practicable. At all events, this and other matters were fit questions for inquiry by a Commission. The more regular mode would have been for the Classification Committee to have made this recommendation in writing; but as delay was on all accounts to be avoided, the Committee had instructed him to make this Motion at once. If the House should be of opinion that a Commission was not expedient, of course the Committee would proceed with its duty, and would group the various Bills relating to railways intended to have their termini in the metropolis. He moved an Address to her Majesty, for the appointment of a Commission to investigate and report upon the various railway projects of which the termini are proposed to be established within or in the immediate vicinity of the metropolis.

SIR R. PEEL had no doubt that the Committee had been influenced by sufficient reasons for the course it had pursued, rather leaving their Chairman to state the grounds of the Motion than to embody them in a report; the consequence, however, was, that it precluded the House from maturely considering a question which, submitted by such Committee, could not

MR. FOX MAULE remarked, that if the Classification Committee, of which he was a Member, had made a formal written report, it must have been accompanied by maps and plans, and when they were put into the hands of an engraver, it was impossible to say when they would be ready to be brought before the House; it had therefore been deemed best that the Chairman should state the case, leaving it to the House, if it saw sufficient reason, at once to agree to the Motion for the appointment of a body capable of forming the most sound and practical judgment, accompanied also by due consideration of the sanatory effect of the proposed scheme upon the metropolis. Whatever was done should be accomplished in the least possible time, in order that business now in progress should be interrupted as little as possible. The proposal of the right hon. Baronet to give the decision of Government on Monday was perfectly satisfactory; but he had no doubt that it would see reason to appoint a Commission.

SIR G. GREY thought that the object of the Commission, if appointed, ought to be clearly defined. From the observations of the right hon. Baronet, and from those of the hon. Mover, it might be supposed that it was intended to supersede the functions of the Committee of Classification; but the Commission ought only to be appointed for the purpose of furnishing information, which ought to be referred back to the Committee.

SIR R. H. INGLIS wished to direct attention to one point not unimportant. He understood that two or three schemes, not abandoned, were intended to terminate in the city itself, and not to be extended to the Thames, the greatest highway in the world. In his opinion this stopping short of the river would deprive the station of