, in moving the Second Reading of this Bill, thought it to be a measure required for the sake of justice, and one, at the same time, most expedient, as tending to the removal of a great cause of jealousy and dissatisfaction between landlord and tenant. The object in making the county and police rates payable by the landlord, was only to reconcile the form with that which was, for the most part, virtually the fact, and ought in justice to be always the fact in regard to these burdens. He could refer to high authorities in the House and out of the House to show that the real incidence of local taxation was on the owner, and not on the occupier. The hon. Member for the West Riding had observed, in a debate during the last Session, that no man's opinion was worthy of a moment's consideration who did not admit that fact. The same assertion had been made in terms equally strong by the hon. Member for Montrose, and by the right hon. the Chancellor of the Exchequer. In 1843, the Poor Law Commissioners were directed to inquire into the subject of local taxation. In their voluminous and able report, they strongly advanced the same doctrine, and agreed in recommending that all local taxation, as falling on real property, should be imposed on the principle of direct chargeability to the owner. The Bill before the House, however, did not go to the extent of this recommendation. It extended to the county and police, but not to the poor and borough rate. There was a distinction. The county and county police rates were levied almost exclusively upon land. Now, it had been noticed by Adam Smith, that a house being an unproductive subject, a tax upon it fell upon the occupier; whereas, taxes on land as a productive subject, were taxes on the owner. The poor-rate, it was true, in country districts, was a tax upon the land, but under different circumstances from the county rate. It was a parochial tax for parish purposes, fluctuating from week to week, and intimately connected, among an agricultural population, with the employment of labour in the hands of the farmer. It was right and necessary, therefore, that the farmer should be partaker at once in the responsibility as to the amount required, and have a share in the administration of the fund; but the case was widely different with regard to the county and police rates. These were for the general purposes of a large district comprising many parishes: in the levy and application of them the occupier had no control; and the county rate was often for permanent objects, in which he had only a transitory, or perhaps no interest at all. That these rates gave rise to much jealousy and dissatisfaction was sufficiently proved by the number of petitions, signed in a vast proportion, he believed, by occupiers of land, and presented in the last and present Session, in favour of a Bill prepared by the hon. Member for Manchester (the County Rates and Expenditure Bill). That Bill had been referred to a Committee upstairs. The House was not yet in a condition to know precisely how it had been there dealt with; but this he believed he might safely affirm, it would never again come before them in the shape of a Bill. It contained a monstrous anomaly, as admitting the occupiers of land with no property qualification to a share in the administration of a tax which they did not ultimately pay; or if they did pay any part of it, it was accidentally and by surprise, and under the pressure of injustice. Such injustice occurred when a large sum of money was levied at once for a permanent structure, as of a county prison or lunatic asylum, involving a call upon the occupier of land, which he might be about to quit at the expiration of one, two, or three years, for a full share on account of such land. He knew of no way by which this injustice could be effectually prevented, but by an unequivocal legislative acknowledgment of the proper incidence of the county rate upon the owner, capable of being easily carried into operation, as proposed in this Bill, by the same power of deduction from rent as was given to the tenant with regard to the landlord's property tax. Such a measure as applied to the county rate was in strict conformity with principle, and there was sufficient precedent for it. To go no further back than the present Session, it had been recognised in a Bill introduced by the hon. Member for Wiltshire (Mr. Sotheron), and which he believed had actually become law, as regards lunatic asylums. It would not be easy to show how that which was just with regard to lunatic asylums, was not equally so with regard to prisons or bridges. He had been accused of having brought forward this measure in a spirit of antagonism to the County Rates and Expenditure Bill. He denied that such was the case. It was very possible some alteration might be desirable in the constitution of courts of quarter-session, by which the real ratepayers might be admitted to a more direct control than they had at present over their financial proceedings; but this object he thought would be facilitated and not impeded by removing the occupiers of land from the consideration of the subject, as relieved from all contribution, nominal or real, to the county funds. Surely this was a preferable alternative for their sake, to that of admitting them to a share in the administration of those funds; and if the Bill was just and expedient on general grounds, it could not be considered as inopportune at the present moment. As an abstract position, it was certainly true that the ultimate incidence of the county rate, however paid, was on the landlord, and consequently that the transfer of its payment from him to the tenant would, when matters came to be finally settled, involve a difference pro tanto in the rent; but the relation between landlords and tenants was at present in an unsettled state. Until the effects of free trade on those relations were ascertained by further experience, they could not be adjusted. In the mean time, the farmers had to bear the brunt and burden of the change. At an agricultural meeting in the county he had the honour to represent, he had endeavoured to console the farmers by telling them they and the landlords were all in the same boat. The observation, trite and superficial as it was, did not escape animadversion from one of those present. "True," he said, "we are all in the same vessel, and if she goes down we shall all sink together; but there is this difference between us and the landlords, that while they and their property are under hatches, the tenant farmers and theirs are all on deck, liable to and swept away by the first effects of the storm." He thought it a fair argument in support of this measure, that, in some degree at least, at this critical period it would operate as a protection to a class than which there was no other more entitled to the consideration of the House, and believing it, moreover, to be on every account just and expedient, he submitted it to a second reading.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

must deny the accuracy of the statement of the hon. Baronet, when he said "the Poor Law Commissioners in their report on local taxation recommended the general rating should be imposed on and levied from the owners, not the occupiers." The Poor Law Commissioners recommended a consolidation for the purpose of improving the mode of assessment; but they did not recommend that in all classes of tenements the rates should be imposed on the owners not on the occupiers, except in cases of small tenements. The Bill which they were then called upon to consider introduced the general principle, that in the tenements of classes, large and small, there should be a reduction of the rate by the occupiers from the owners. But that was a principle that never had been admitted by the law of England. The principle was, that the incidents of the rate should be on the occupiers, not on the owners; and only in special cases, where a peculiar cause could be shown, the reduction was permitted to be held by the occupier against the owner. The special case existed, for instance, in the matter of small tenements. The reasons were fully stated in the debate that took place on the introduction of the measure at the opening of the Session, as to why, in the case of small tenements, the owners, not the occupiers, should be rated. If the hon. Baronet had confined the Bill before the House to county buildings, such as prisons, courts, and lunatic asylums, he (Mr. C. Lewis) would have made no objection to the second reading; but because it comprehended the police rate, highway rate, and county rate in general, he could not give his assent to the second reading of the measure, and should move that the Bill be read a second time that day six months. If they once admitted the principle in this instance, they should admit it in others, as in the case of the county and police rates. Therefore he thought the House would not act unwisely in assenting to so important a privilege; and he therefore felt constrained to oppose the measure.

Amendment proposed, to leave out the word "now," and at the end of the Question to add the words "upon this day six months."

, in justice to himself, felt bound to advert to what had fallen from the hon. Member for Herefordshire (Mr. C. Lewis), who had accused him of inaccuracy in the representations he had made of the recommendations of the Poor Law Commissioners in their Report on Local Taxation. In page 94 of that Report the following passage occurred under the authority of those Commissioner:—

"Many inconveniences and anomalies arise from the fact, that the legal character of the poor-rate and of all the local rates, except the sewers rate, is not made accordant with its real and essential character. These rates are essentially taxes on the rent of the landlord, not taxes on the occupier's profits; no legal declarations, no limitations of legal remedies to the person and goods of the occupier, however much they may disguise the aspect of the tax, or make its burden operate unequally on rent, can make it fall permanently on anything but rent. If these same rates were all avowedly laid upon the landlord, but made leviable upon any goods found upon the rated property, the occupier being enabled to deduct his rate from his rent, the amount of net rent which would then be paid to the landlord, would doubtless be the same as now, but there would be no disguise of the real incidence of the burden. Then also the right of the landlord to a superior share of power in vestry and in the election of guardians, to protect himself from injustice in the imposition, and mismanagement in the administration, of the taxes, to which he would then be seen to be the sole contributor, would not be viewed with the present jealousy, if indeed it were at all contested."

Much more was contained in the report in condemnation of the attempt to give taxes, referred to the appearance of occupier's taxes, and in recommendation of making their real incidence apparent; but he thought the passage he had recited sufficient to vindicate all he had said respecting the opinion of the Poor Law Commismissioners, on the subject of local taxation.

thought there was so much truth in what had just been said by the hon. Gentleman, that he would recommend his hon. Friend the Member for South Leicestershire not to press the Bill to a division. It was impossible to approach this subject in the way proposed in the Bill without seeing that what was good for county rates was good for poor-rates and highway rates, and every description of local taxation.

said, that from his experience of Select Committees he was prepared to say that they did not always discharge the duty assigned them in the sense in which the House understood they were bound to do. He felt it his duty to call attention to the proceeding of the Committee with reference to the County Rates and Expenditure Bill, submitted to them at the commencement of the Session. That Committee undertook to consider the best mode of carrying out the intention of the House, by devising machinery by which the principle of the Bill could be carried into practical application—

rose to order.

said, that the right hon. Gentleman was strictly in order.

continued: He would be unwilling to infringe the Orders of the House, but the Bill to which he was referring, and the Committee also, had been mentioned in the speech of the hon. Baronet who moved the second reading of the Bill. He considered the measure at present before the House was an extremely injudicious one, and if carried out in the form in which it had been introduced, it would be a great injustice to the owners of property. He had been charged with indifference to the rights of the magistrates, because he wished that the ratepayers should have control over the disbursements of taxation. But he could not agree to the principle involved in the Bill, that after a landlord made an agreement with a tenant on a lease of twenty-one years, and when the rent had been arranged, with due regard to the rates to be paid, that then, in each succeeding year, the landlord, having paid the rate, should not be allowed to charge it against the tenant. He thought the better way to secure justice would be to allow the ratepayers at large a control, by representation, over the assessing and expenditure of county rates; and, entertaining these views, if the hon. Baronet pressed the second reading to a division, he should vote against his Motion.

approved of the principle of the measure, so far as that the owner should pay the expenses of all permanent improvements made by the tenant. But if the hon. Baronet pressed his Bill beyond that consideration, he (Mr. Palmer) should vote against him.

suggested to the hon. Baronet the good policy of withdrawing the Bill.

hoped his hon. Friend the Member for South Leicestershire would listen to the suggestions made, and be content with having the measure referred to the consideration of a Select Committee.

stated his readiness to comply with the suggestions made by his hon. Friends, on the understanding that the matter should be referred to a Select Committee.

said, the Bill was founded neither on justice nor policy. Agricultural distress must be remedied, not by such means, but in a fair, just, and equitable manner.

considered the principles of the Bill most objectionable, and believed the practical consequences of passing it would be, that burdens which fairly belonged to the tenant would be borne by the occupier. The landed interest could not sustain the operation of such a measure. If the Bill were adopted, its principle would not stop there, but would be extended to poor-rates and other imposts.

said, that as the House appeared generally opposed to the Bill, he would not press it to a second reading, but he would introduce a similar measure early in the next Session.

Question, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question," put, and negatived.

Words added.

Main Question, as amended, put, and agreed to.

Bill put off for six months.

moved the Second Reading of this Bill. The principle of it was, that they should relieve copyhold tenants throughout the country from many of those forms and regulations which were the remains of the feudal system, and which weighed so heavily upon them as to be productive of great dissatisfaction. If the House would consent to go into Committee, he would make every exertion to adapt the Bill to the interests of all.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

opposed this Bill on the same ground he had assumed against the former measure on the same subject—that it was one-sided, and in favour of the tenant as against landlords and lords of the manor. It was impossible to make the Bill satisfactory to both the landlords and tenants, and he should, therefore, resist the second reading.

Amendment proposed, to leave out the word "now," and at the end of the Question, to add the words "upon this day six months."

did not disapprove of the principle of the Bill, in favour of which there was much unanimity, but there were great difficulties in the way of a satisfactory adjustment of the question by legislation. The hon. Mover could not expect to make much progress this Session; but in the mean time he thought the Bill might be read a second time and referred to a Committee, and he would vote for that course if there was a division.

, in reply, said the great merit of the Bill was, that it enfranchised all copyhold property from that which was objectionable, and left those parts untouched which were of benefit to the tenant or the public. He was willing to refer the Bill to a Select Committee; but he trusted that the House would consent to the second reading.

Question put, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."

The House divided:—Ayes 103; Noes 84: Majority 19.

Main Question put, and agreed to.

Bill read 2°, and committed for Wednesday, 17th July.

moved the Second Reading of this Bill, the object of which, he said, was to provide for compensation to be made to medical men who rendered their services to parties injured by accidents on railways. The measure had originated from an accident upon the Midland Railway, when one of the officers of the company engaged a surgeon to attend upon the sufferers. One person was severely injured. He was removed to an adjoining public-house, and Mr. Sands Cox, an eminent surgeon at Birmingham, who had been called in by a servant of the company, found it necessary to amputate the leg at the hip-joint. The company paid 150 l. to the sufferer, thus acknowledging that the accident had occurred through the negligence or misdirection of their servants; but they refused to pay the surgeon, on the ground that their servant who called him had no authority for such a purpose. The case was tried at the Warwick assizes, and during the trial, Mr. Justice Maule, who presided, begged to know whether the railway company were serious in their opposition to the claim. The learned Judge even added, that if they refused to satisfy such a reasonable demand, they had better post up at their termini notices that if any accident occurred on the railway, no medical assistance would be provided by the company. The company carried the case to the superior courts, where it was ruled that the company was not liable for the expenses incurred by their officer, which had been the means of saving the man's life, but that the officer was himself liable. This decision excited so much interest that a public meeting was held in Birmingham, the inhabitants of which indemnified Mr. Sands Cox, and the publican also at whose house the sufferer had been kept. In another case a poor man was killed upon the Lancashire and Yorkshire railway, and the judge of the Wakefield county court also decided that the company was not liable for the surgeon's expenses, but that the officer who called him in was liable. In a subsequent case a dreadful accident occurred upon the Lancashire and Yorkshire line, by which one of their own servants, a stoker, was thrown from an engine, and his leg cut off by one of the wheels passing over it. The servants of the company were called upon to send for assistance. They refused to do anything of the kind, though the man's leg had been taken off, but they said, "We will send him on to Bolton, and place him in the dispensary." The man, however, died, and no wonder, such was their fear of incurring liability, and the amputated leg was actually left upon the road. He asked the House whether it could possibly be the intention of Parliament to permit the law to remain in a state which had the effect of inducing persons to behave with such horrible indifference to human life? The measure he now submitted to the House provided that railway companies should be liable, in the first instance, to send for medical assistance in case of accident; but it enabled them to recover the expenses of the treatment from the person injured, if he was competent; or from the parish, if he was a pauper; and that they should not be saddled with these expenses at all, unless the accident was the result of their own or their servants' negligence. He contended that as the Legislature had required that emigrant and passenger vessels should be provided with sufficient medical attendance, it was only reasonable that railways should be compelled to adopt some analogous provision. In cases of this nature there ought to be some exception to the rule of law with regard to agency, on the ground that the moment a passenger took his seat in the carriage he immediately became subject to a series of bylaws of which he knew nothing, and because passengers ought to be duly cared for. It might be argued that accidents were rare. Then so would be the liability. The Bill, in fact, was a poor man's Bill, and he entreated the House to perform an act of mercy by consenting to the second reading.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

opposed the Bill, which he said had been brought in in consequence of the accident on the Midland line. He was a director of two of the most extensive railways in the kingdom—the London and North Western, and the Midland; and he could safely say that his brother directors on these lines had never endeavoured to shelter themselves by any quirks of the law from the payment of all fair and reasonable expenses arising out of accidents. With reference to the case on the Midland line, the man took a twopenny ticket to go a short distance; he was at the station twenty minutes before the train started, and, instead of getting into his own carriage, he put his foot on the steps of a first class, and as the train was about to start, he made a spring towards a truck and fell. The company, not being in anywise to blame for the accident, were advised that they were not liable. The man was attended, and by and by a large bill was sent in for payment. The company instructed their counsel to settle the matter for 200 l. That offer, however, was refused, and subsequently it was settled for 150 l., exclusive of the costs, which amounted to 70 l. additional. The company then supposed that they had done with the ease; but great was their surprise when they were afterwards informed that the 220 l. was for the injured man himself, and that that sum did not cover the costs. Four actions were immediately commenced against the company. The latter resisted, and appealed to the Court of Exchequer, where a rule was made absolute for a non-suit. As the parties who brought these four actions had intended to pluck the railway company, they were made to pay the costs. He begged to move, as an Amendment, that the Bill be read a second time that day six months.

Amendment proposed, to leave out the word "now," and at the end of the Question, to add the words "upon this day six months."

supported the Bill. He thought the existing state of the law exposed Her Majesty's subjects to great danger. There was not a word in the present Bill which would render railway companies liable for anything that did not happen through their own neglect. An action was now maintainable against a company for its own acts, but no action was maintainable against it for the acts of its servants, and this Bill rendered it liable in the latter case, and very properly so, for a remedy had now become absolutely necessary.

thought the country owed a debt of gratitude to the parties who had been instrumental in introducing this Bill. He thought railway companies should be compelled to make ample compensation in all cases where lives were lost through the neglect of their servants, and that they should grant annuities to the widows and children of the deceased. He hoped, also, the day was coming when a director and an experienced surgeon would be compelled to travel in every railway carriage, in order that both might be present at once in case of accident. He believed it was all trash to talk of railway companies feeling for the public, they cared only for self.

said, he could not recommend the House to agree to the second reading of this Bill, because the principle it involved was extremely objectionable and one which should not be sanctioned without mature deliberation. Exceptional legislation on questions of this kind was very much to be feared. The effect of the Bill would be to alter the general law of the land, as to principal and agent, without adequate cause. The principle of the measure would establish it in all cases as the duty of the servant of a railway company to call in medical aid, and it would render the company in all cases re- sponsible in the first instance for the payment of the surgeon. That would be a complete departure from the general law of the land. Railway companies would, if this Bill passed, be placed in a different position from the proprietors of steamboats, coaches, and mills; and the House ought to be sure that there was a great practical evil to be guarded against before they passed it. He could not agree that such an evil existed. If an accident happened, no one would contend that the railway companies should be liable to pay for medical assistance, unless it happened through the fault of themselves and their servants; and if it did so happen, it was clear that the injured party had an opportunity of obliging the company to pay his surgeon's bill without disturbing the general law of the land by an enactment of this kind. For a person so injured would have an action against the company, and the jury would assess the damages. His objection was directed to the principle of the Bill, which he thought would operate unfairly.

said, that a very strong case should be made out before they altered the law on this subject. But he believed that such a case was fully made out by the actions at law which had already taken place, and by the evidence on which it appeared that the servants of the railway companies positively refused to go for medical assistance. In one county court the decision was that the company was liable for the surgeon's fees; in another, that the servants were liable, and were made to pay damages. The consequence of that decision was that no servant would fetch a medical man in case of accident. This Bill proposed to remedy that great grievance, and he could not conceive that the House would reject it. It proposed that when accidents happened on a railway, every servant should be bound in such cases to go for medical aid. The liabilities of railway companies would remain as they were. The Bill merely proposed that the companies should be liable in the first instance, and if it afterwards appeared that they were not blameable, then they had their remedy at law. He hoped the House would consent to the second reading of the Bill.

opposed the Bill. He conceived that nothing was more dangerous than legislating for exceptional cases. They must not be governed by two opposite decisions of county courts. The judge of a county court who decided that the railway servant who ran in a hurry for a medical man in case of an accident, was liable for the payment of that medical man, was mistaken in his interpretation of the law. They must take the law from the Court of Exchequer. The servant was clearly not liable, because there was no "work or labour" done by him. The Bill was far from being complimentary to the medical profession, for it assumed that medical men under such circumstances were not satisfied with the chance of being paid by the person injured, if he were rich enough to pay him, or with almost the certainty of payment if the person were poor and brought his action against the company. If the principle of the Bill were admitted, there would be no reason for not extending it to coaches, steamboats, mines, and collieries, and all such places as accidents were liable to occur in. He would venture to say, as the result of considerable experience, that nothing was more dangerous than exceptional legislation of this kind. He had heard Judges in courts of common law say that hard cases made bad laws, because in such cases they were frequently influenced by their feelings to strain the law in favour of the injured party. If then, in courts of law, hard cases made bad laws, he thought, if the House allowed their sympathies to go too far with the public against large bodies like railway companies, they would lay down a very dangerous principle. It was now open to any sufferer by a railway accident to proceed against the company, and the damages he obtained from them would afford him the means of paying his medical attendants. He (the Attorney General) thought the Bill was open to great objections, and he hoped it would not receive the assent of the House.

observed that the hon. Attorney General had said that there was great danger in legislating for exceptional cases. Now, in all other cases than that of a railway company, any Member of that House who thought any injury or hardship was inflicted would look for a remedy by the laws of the land; but if in his peregrinations he observed anything that did not exactly square with his ideas upon railways, he immediately said, "Oh, bring in a Bill to regulate these matters." He (Mr. Ricardo) was satisfied that no one belonging to the executive of a railway, from the director down to the porter, would be guilty of inhumanity in case of an acci- dent, and if he were he would not be fit to hold his situation for a moment. But he maintained that the law as it now stood afforded every possible security for obtaining immediate medical relief. Under an Act called Lord Campbell's Act, railway companies might be mulcted of damages, which were sometimes of considerable amount, in case of the death of individuals by accidents on their lines; and there could be no doubt that a jury would readily give increased damages if it appeared that death had resulted from any neglect on the part of the railway company or their servants in obtaining medical aid. He considered, therefore, that the present law afforded sufficient protection to the public, and he challenged hon. Gentlemen to point out any case of neglect which had been proved against railway companies. In nine cases out of ten, accidents upon railways were attributable to the carelessness of the sufferers themselves, and he believed that not in one case out of ten had railway companies objected to pay the expenses of medical assistance.

Question put, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."

The House divided:—Ayes 53; Noes 108: Majority 55.

Words added; Main Question, as amended, put, and agreed to.

Bill put off for six months.

Notice taken, that forty Members were not present; House counted; and forty Members not being present,

The House was adjourned at five minutes before Six o'clock.