asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, If his attention has been called to a recent magisterial decision (Southwark Police Court) by which it is made an offence to keep an early coffee stall in the streets; and, if he will take into consideration the policy of such decision?

Sir, I have been in communication with the magistrate and also the chief magistrate on this matter; and, as I understand the decision, it has nothing like the effect attributed to it by the hon. Member's Question. There is no doubt that these coffee stalls are legal; but it is quite necessary that they should be under some regulation. Whenever a particular stall turns out to be a source of annoyance to the neighbourhood, then it may be suppressed, but not otherwise. There is no intention to re-consider the decision in question.

asked the First Lord of the Admiralty, If his attention has been recently called to the regulations under which Her Majesty's steam squadrons are sailed in "grand divisions" at a distance of about three cables' length apart; and, whether he contemplates making a departmental inquiry into the practice, for the purpose of lessening the risk of collisions similar to that which resulted in the loss of the "Vanguard" in a temporary fog?

Sir, there is no such order as sailing in grand divisions. The established order of sailing or steaming in squadrons in ordinary circumstances of cruising is in two columns, the columns being at least 10 cables apart, and the ships in column two or four cables apart, according as the Fleet is in open or close order. There is no intention of making a departmental inquiry into the subject.

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether his attention has been called to the recent wholesale manufacture of faggot votes at Exeter by the creation of thirty-two freehold rent-charges in respect of one house there, as disclosed in the proceedings of the Revising Barristers' Court, published in the "Devon Evening Express" of October 4th, 5th, and 9th, 1877; and, whether he is prepared to advise the Government to take steps to prevent such an evasion of the Act 7 and 8 Will. 3, c. 25, s. 7, in future in such boroughs as possess the right for owners of 40s. freeholds residing within seven miles of the Parliamentary Borough to be placed on the list of Voters for the Members of Parliament for such borough?

in reply, said, his attention had only been called to the matter by the Question of the hon. Member. He had had no opportunity of inquiring into the facts. He was told that the votes in question were allowed by the Revising Barrister; and he therefore concluded that, according to law, the claims were legal. Personally, he objected to faggot votes; but he did not know that there was any pressing necessity for any alteration of the present law on the subject.

gave Notice that, in consequence of the unsatisfactory nature of the reply, he would take an early opportunity of calling attention to the subject and move a Resolution.

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, If he can state when or how long it is since the district Inspector of Mines visited the Wood Pit, Haydock Colliery; if he made a searching examination; and, if he will lay the notes of that inspection or inspections upon the Table of the House?

Sir, I can only give the information I have received from the Inspector in this case. He says that the last time he was at this mine was on the 27th September, 1876. He goes on to say—

"There has not teen any fatal accident at the pit since the 1st July, 1873. I am familiar with, the system of management adopted by Mr. Chadwick, the general manager of the Haydock Collieries, which consist of 12 pits, several of which are working difficult and dangerous seams. I have devoted what time I could to the inspection of those which seemed to require it during the last three years. Twelve thorough underground inspections and 23 visits of inquiry have been made by myself to the pits at the Haydock Colliery, but the opinion I have formed of their management and the precautions enforced are very favourable. The Wood Pit is another seam, and one in which such a calamity is least likely to occur of any of the pits belonging to the Haydock Colliery."

asked the Secretary of State for War, Whether the new Warrant respecting the Medical Service of the Army will include the first batch of those gentlemen who entered the Medical Service under the ten years' system; and, if not, whether he will take their case into consideration?

in reply, said, that there was a Committee now sitting to inquire into the position of the medical officers of the Army, and until that Committee reported, he could not say what would be done.

asked Mr. Attorney General, Whether an opportunity will be given for the discussion of the Criminal Code (Indictable Offences) Bill before the Members of the Bar, who are also Members of this House, leave town for their Summer Circuits?

, in reply, said, he had a very confident expectation that the Bill would be taken in Committee before members of the Bar left town.

said, the accounts of the Post Office savings banks showed a profit of about £140,000 annually, whereas the accounts of the old savings banks showed an annual loss of between £70,000 and £80,000. He wished, therefore, to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Whether, viewing the great annual loss sustained by the excess of interest paid to the Trustees of the Savings Banks, he is prepared to consider the desirability of taking steps to prevent future deposits except at a reduced rate of interest?

in reply, said, that the Government had not prepared any measure bearing on this subject; and, considering the late period of the Session and the state of Public Business, they could not hold out any hope of dealing with the question this year.

asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies, Whether it is true that the Acting Governor of Labuan has appointed a Mr. Pryer, who is agent of the British Borneo Company, to be Consular agent at Sindak, on the territory in Borneo ceded to the Company, a cession which has not been sanctioned by the British Government; and, if so, whether steps will be taken to prevent misconceptions which might arise among the natives from the agent of the Company flying the British Flag?

Sir, it is true that Mr. Pryer, one of the agents for the British Borneo Company, stationed at Sandakar, has been provisionally appointed by the Consul General at Labuan to be Consular agent, without salary, in Northern Borneo. The Consul General reports that there exists a valuable trading connection between Labuan and the harbour of Sandakar, and he thought it desirable that he should receive official and reliable information upon this part of Borneo, which has never been penetrated by Europeans, and which is said to be a very fertile portion of the island. However, the appointment of Mr. Pryer has not been confirmed, pending the further consideration of the question which has been raised with respect to the cession of the territory. This cession of the territory has not been recognized by Her Majesty's Government, who have suspended all action in the matter pending the return to this country of the promoters of the Company, who are either on their way home or are about to start. There is no reason to apprehend any misconception arising from the use of the British flag by the acting Consular agent.

asked the Secretary to the Treasury, Whether the Report of the Commission on the Board of Works, which he intimated some time ago would be in the hands of Members shortly after Easter, may be expected before the Vote for that Department is taken?

Sir, the Report has been unavoidably delayed owing to the wide range of the subjects embraced within the inquiry. It is now ready, and I hope will be in the hands of hon. Members in the course of a very few days. I am quite prepared to postpone the Vote until the Report is in the hands of hon. Members.

asked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Whether, in view of the continued disfranchisement of the boroughs of Cashel and Sligo, it is the intention of Government, before the next general election, to provide for the restoration to Ireland of the full number of representatives secured by the Act of Union?

Sir, the Government has no present intention to propose a measure on the subject.

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether the money saved by the abolition of the sinecure salary of the Lord Clerk Register of Scotland, and which is derived from registration fees, will be devoted to cheapening registration in Scotland?

in reply, said, that the question as to how the registration ought to be cheapened was one which properly came before the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He might, however, remind the hon. Member that in 1874 no less a sum than £15,000 a-year was taken off these fees under a Treasury minute. With respect to this particular office of Lord Clerk Register, the money would, he had no doubt, be applied to the part payment of another officer who was to have charge practically of the Register Office.

begged to give Notice that he would resist any such arrangement, and move on the next stage of the Bill that it was an extreme injustice to Scotland to treat her in this matter differently from the other parts of the United Kingdom.

asked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, What progress has been made with the claims against the Spanish Government arising out of the seizure of the "Lark" in 1872,andofthe"Octavia" in 1875; whether any, and what, particular sum by way of compensation has been named, or is under consideration, in either case; and, whether there is any prospect of an early settlement of these long standing claims?

Sir, to the demand of Her Majesty's Government for compensation to the sufferers in the case of the Octavia, the Spanish Government have replied that, considering the suspicious character of the vessel at the time of capture, they do not think that they can justly be called upon to pay any compensation whatever for her capture and subsequent detention. They acknowledge that the Octavia was illegally seized on the high seas; but they consider when they handed the vessel over to Her Majesty's Government that all claim upon them ceased. This decision has been referred to the Law Officers of the Crown. The proper amount of compensation in this case can only be ascertained on further inquiry; and, therefore, for the present, no fixed sum has been demanded as indemnity. As to the Lark, Her Majesty's Chargé de Affaires at Madrid was instructed last July to press on the Spanish Government a re-consideration of their decision not to grant any compensation to the persons who suffered from her unjust detention and the ill-treatment to which they were exposed. The Spanish Government have returned no reply to this communication, but Her Majesty's Chargé de Affaires has again been instructed to press the matter upon their consideration.

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether, having regard to the rapid increase in the number of out-door licences over which the magistrates have no control, and to the numerous memorials from magistrates and municipal bodies praying for a discretionary power over the granting of such licences, he will give his support to the Bill for this purpose which has already passed a Second Reading, or will introduce or support a measure suspending the further grants of such, licences until the Government is able to deal with the whole question?

Sir, I do not think that the introduction of a Suspensory Bill would be wise, unless legislation was immediately contemplated; and, so far as I can now form a judgment, to pass such a Bill would take as much time as if we dealt thoroughly and practically with the whole subject. Under those circumstances, I can make no promise to the hon. Member.

asked the Postmaster General, Whether he has considered the memorial from the Grand Jury of the county of Longford, praying for the extension of telegraphic communication to the town of Granard, and can hold out hopes that such extension will be conceded?

Sir, the question has been considered, but the revenue which it is estimated would be produced by a telegraphic office at Granard would not justify its establishment at the public expense. If the inhabitants will join in giving a guarantee against loss, the extension will be made.

asked the President of the Local Government Board, If his attention has been called to the case of Eliza Littlehales, a pauper receiving out-door relief, who was compelled by force to go into the workhouse of the Madeley Union on the 9th April last, by the order of the chairman of the board; whether it is true that the poor woman was so affected by this act that it became necessary to remove her into the county lunatic asylum in a few days; and, whether this proceeding was legal or not; and, if so, under what Poor Law Act or Act for the management of pauper lunatics can a person be arrested and sent into the workhouse?

Sir, the case alluded to in the Question of the hon. Gentleman has been brought under my notice, and I have received full information respecting it. It appears that Elizabeth Hales is a hysterical imbecile woman, who has been for some time in receipt of out-door relief in the Madeley Union, residing with her sister. The chairman of the Madeley Guardians, who had been in the habit of visiting her during the last four years, found her on a recent occasion in such a state of destitution, and so imperfectly cared for by her sister, that he thought it necessary for her to be removed at once, and gave directions that she should be taken to the workhouse infirmary, with the view of sending her subsequently to the county asylum. In this he acted, not as a Guardian or as Chairman of the Guardians, but as a magistrate; and, as he supposed, under powers vested in magistrates by the Pauper Lunatic Act. In reply to the second part of the Question, it is not the case that the removal had the effect supposed in the Question; for the district medical officer states that he would have given a certificate for the removal to the asylum from the cottage direct had the magistrate been present at the time of the removal. The removal to the workhouse infirmary was made on the Tuesday, and the further removal to the asylum on the following Friday, in strict accordance with the proper legal formalities. I may add that the woman is now discharged from the asylum greatly benefited by the treatment and good diet she there received, and is again in charge of her sister. As to the third part of the Question, I am bound to say that the interim removal to the workhouse infirmary was not in accordance with any statutory power; and, of course, there is no power under any Act by which a person can be arrested and sent into a workhouse.

asked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether Her Majesty's Government are negotiating with the Government of Monte Video for the sale of the British Protestant Cemetery at that place as building ground; and, if so, whether Papers on the subject can be laid upon the Table before the contract is concluded?

Sir, negotiations for the sale of the British Protestant Cemetery at Monte Video are still going on between Her Majesty's Government and that of Uruguay. One of the stipulations is that no part of the cemetery now occupied by graves shall be interfered with for, at least, five years; and the British community are desirous of removing the bodies of those who have been interred. I do not see that any object would be gained by producing the Papers, as the transaction will in all probability be completed before the Papers could be laid on the Table; but if my hon. Friend will confer with, me privately, I have no doubt we shall be able to agree about the matter.

asked the Postmaster General, If he is ready to advertise for tenders for the Eastern Mail Service; if he will require that the whole service now performed by the Peninsular and Oriental Company under one Contract be again done in one Contract, or if he intends to divide the service so as to induce greater competition; and if he intends to give any effect to the Memorial from Bombay asking for a time not exceeding sixteen days instead of twenty as at present, or in any other degree to require increased speed in the conveyance of these Mails?

in reply, said, he was not in a position at present to advertise for tenders for the Eastern Mail Service; but he hoped shortly to be able to do so. The advertisement would be so framed as to enable parties to tender either for the whole or any portion of the service and for any rate of speed.

asked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Whether it is true that Sir Charles Ducane has been appointed Chairman of the Board of Customs; and, whether any instance has ever occurred in which a person who has had no previous service in the department, and no experience of the duties, has been appointed Chairman of that Board?

Sir, It is true Sir Charles Du Cane has been appointed Chairman of the Board of Customs. I have not gone back into all the records of the Board of Customs to see what was the case with regard to the early appointments. The last lamented Chairman, Mr. Goulburn, had been for a considerable time in the Department; but the Chairman before him, Lord Cottesloe, had not any previous service in the Department when he was appointed for a short time Deputy Chairman with the understanding, I believe, that he should be immediately after appointed Chairman. There have been cases in the Board of Inland Revenue, which is a cognate institution—especially the case of Sir William Stephenson, the late Chairman—in which the appointment was made of a gentleman who had not previously seen service in the Department.

said, assuming that the Roads and Bridges (Scotland) Bill would be finished to-night, the Valuation Bill would be proceeded with to-morrow, and on Monday the second reading of the Cattle Diseases Bill.

in moving, in page 32, lines 38 and 39, to leave out "said debt Commissioners" and insert "Sheriff," said, the object of his Amendment was to provide that the Sheriff of the county, who had more legal knowledge and was more competent to deal with, the matter, should determine the valuation rather than the Debt Commissioners. If the Amendment were objected to, he was not anxious to press it.

said, that this Amendment was in a much worse position than those of a similar nature which had been previously moved by the hon. and gallant Member, for this reason—that the work to be performed by the Sheriff would be purely accountant's work, and not official work at all.

said, he did not object to the omission of the word "generally," if it was not to be followed up by any other alteration of the clause. It appeared to him that the words following were necessary in order to indicate to the Debt Commissioner not only that he had a full discretion in these matters, but that he was bound to exercise it.

then moved, in lines 38 and 39, to omit the words "including a reasonable fee to the Debt Commissioners." The object of the Amendment was to provide that the Debt Commissioners should be paid by the Government, and not by the several counties. He thought it would be an exceptional proceeding for the Government to appoint an officer who was to be paid by the several counties and districts. The cost of the various arbitrations might be rendered very expensive, particularly if the Debt Commissioner was to be paid by the parties interested. A much more economical scale was likely to be adopted if the officer were paid by the Government; and it would, he thought, facilitate the settlement of the question if the officer, during the two or three years he would be called upon to act, were paid a certain sum by the Government.

said, he could not accept the Amendment. It was only right and fair that the arbitration, which involved questions in dispute between the parties, should be paid for by the parties themselves.

said, he had no wish to object to the clause, nor to any of the provisions which it contained; but as it had reference to a district of a county in which he had an interest, he thought its application should be made universal. He therefore moved, after the word "trustees," to insert the words—

"nor to any debt due by the district road trustees of any of the several districts into which the county of Argyll is divided for the purposes and under the powers and provisions of the Argyllshire Roads Act, 1864."

said, that on the first blush of the thing, he saw no objection to the proposal of the hon. Member; but as he had only just received Notice of it, he could not, offhand, say whether this was or was not the proper point for its introduction. He would look into the matter, and it could be dealt with on the Report.

in moving, in page 40, line 15, after the word "shall," to insert "subject to the provisions hereinafter contained," said, his object was to provide that the assessments should be imposed for the year subject to the provisions of the Act, according to the valuation of the lands and heritages on the valuation roll in force for the year.

suggested that in line 20 the words "1st of February" should be substituted for "1st of January." The hon. Member said, the valuation roll was not made up, or, at all events, was not completed and accessible to the local authorities until the end of October; and, therefore, he felt that it would be desirable to give a little longer time than was contemplated by the Bill for the making out of the assessments and the collection of the rates.

said, he thought the suggestion a very reasonable one, and he would, therefore, accept it.

said, the Committee had already practically adopted the Amendment, but saw no reason why, in line 35, after the word "rate," there should not be inserted the words "and may be collected either separately or along therewith."

said, he would call upon the hon. Member at a future stage to move his Amendment.

proposed to add these words at the end of the clause—

"And with respect to the suspension bridge across the River Ness, erected with public money under the Act 14 & 15 Vict. c. 66, for the accommodation of the Northern counties by the Parliamentary Commissioners, the burden of maintaining the said bridge shall in future rest upon the county and burgh of Inverness in proportion to their respective real rents as established by the valuation roll thereof."

opposed the Amendment, inasmuch as the whole of the bridge was situate within the burgh of Inverness, the boundaries of which had been greatly extended since the bridge was built. It must be remembered that the Bill was one for the abolition of tolls and pontages, and to improve the general administration of the roads, and not intended to shift the burden of maintaining the bridges from the shoulders of those who had hitherto borne them to those who had not. The Amendment referred to the county of Inverness alone, while the terms clearly intimated that the cost of maintenance should be shared by the whole Northern counties. To some such arrangement the county of Inverness would probably offer no objection; but he could not consent to the Amendment as it stood. It should also be remembered that since the introduction of railways the value of the bridge, as a means of communication between the burgh and the Northern counties, had greatly diminished. Another objection to the proposal was, that it prejudiced the very question which it was intended by the clause should be settled by a scheme of arbitration.

was glad that though the case of the county of Inverness was in such able hands, so little could be made of it. In 1851 the suspension bridge was built by Government, not for the accommodation of the burgh of Inverness alone, but for the benefit also of the four Northern counties. The expense of maintenance fell upon all alike, but in 1862, when the Commissioners for Highland roads and bridges were abolished, the maintenance was taken off the three Northern expressly, and the bridge was vested in, and became the property of, the Commissioners of Supply of the county of Inverness. The town, if it had to build a bridge for its own traffic, would not have built a bridge which cost between £20,000 and £30,000, and the annual maintenance of which averaged nearly £100 a-year. It was owing to a strained interpretation put by the Commissioners of Supply upon the Interpretation Clause of the Act of 1862, that the town was saddled with the whole cost of maintenance, and he was certain Parliament never intended this. His hon. Friend the Member for the county of Inverness (Mr. Donald Cameron) complained that by this Amendment direct Parliamentary interference was sought in this matter; but this was done because Parliament, however unintentionally, by statute committed the injustice, and the remedy provided under this section was circuitous and expensive. He had no objection to a modification of his Amendment to this extent—that the expense of the maintenance should be borne, half by the county and half by the burgh. He hoped the Committee would help the burgh of Inverness, which was in the position of being obliged to pay for a thing from which they derived no exclusive benefit. He would ask the Committee, whether it was ever heard of that the expense of maintaining the property of one person should be cast on another? He would divide on the point.

did not dispute what his hon. Friend said as to the history of the bridge. The old bridge was swept away by a flood in 1849, and the new bridge was built of stone, and the town levied pontage upon it.

said, the present Bill was not introduced for the purpose of remedying any injustice that might or might not have been done by a previous Act of Parliament, or for the purpose of settling any point in dispute between the county and the burgh of Inverness. He thought the Amendment rather out of place, because he was calling upon this House to decide upon a question which fell within the scope of this clause, and to decide it, he thought, without sufficient information as to the nature of the case between what he might term the litigant parties. The very purpose of this clause was to deal with a bridge wholly in one county or burgh, which served as a general means of communication with the adjoining burghs and counties. It might be very proper, under these circumstances, that those who derived benefit from the existence of the bridge should contribute their share. Although the bridge was situated in a burgh, it afforded accommodation to two counties, and, therefore, accommodated traffic much larger than that carried on in the burgh. But there were no materials laid before the Committee which could enable them to judge as to what proportion should be borne by the one party and what proportion by the other. Therefore, he thought the matter should be left under the clause which was expressly made to meet such cases, and, amongst the others, the case of the bridge of Inverness.

said, that what he understood the hon. Member to mean was, that the county should pay for the bridge at Inverness. He saw no reason why, if the county of Inverness was to maintain this bridge, the counties of Lanark and Renfrew should not pay the cost of maintaining all the bridges across the Clyde at Glasgow, because those bridges afforded accommodation to the county.

remarked, that the hon. Member simply desired that this bridge should be placed in the same position as if it was in any other part of the county. He proposed that the burgh should pay their share of maintaining the bridge corresponding to the benefit they derived from it. If the hon. and gallant Member who had last spoken wished that the county of Renfrew should take part in the expense of maintaining bridges over the Clyde, the local authority would be glad to accept the suggestion. The hon. and gallant Gentleman seemed to forget that in the case of the bridge across the Ness it was not the property of those who were called upon to maintain it, but that the property in the bridge was vested in the county of Inverness. It was not un natural, therefore, that the hon. Member for the burgh should ask that relief should be afforded to his constituents.

thought the hon. Member had made out a very strong case indeed. If Parliament actually had in view to put the burden of this bridge entirely on Inverness, it would have been a very different matter; but the burden of maintaining the bridge had been imposed upon the inhabitants of this burgh simply and solely in consequence of an error on the part of the draftsman of the former Bill, by which it was intended that a part, at any rate, of the cost of maintenance of the bridge should fall upon the county, because the bridge was much larger than was necessary to meet the wants of the burgh. In the Act of Parliament the word "road" was taken to include the word "bridge," whereas there should have been a separate interpretation. It seemed to him that if any bridge came within the scope and intention of this Clause 85, it was this bridge at Inverness. The bridge was the only one which connected the North of Scotland with the South, along a very considerable part of the line of the Caledonian Canal. It was, therefore, very proper to propose that the cost should be divided between the burgh and the county; but, at the same time, it might be very true that the Committee was hardly in a position to deal with the matter in the manner suggested by his hon. Friend. He did not think his hon. Friend would put the Committee to the trouble of a division, if the Lord Advocate would assure him that the bridge came within the clause which provided the means of apportioning the cost of bridges between the different localities and authorities who derived advantage from them.

said, he could give no such assurance, for the reason that the question turned upon a disputed question of fact, which he had no means of determining. If, as the hon. Member for Inverness stated, the bridge accommodated both the county and the burgh, it seemed unfair that the burgh should be called upon to pay all the expense, as the bridge would come within the meaning of the clause.

said, it would be perfectly competent at any time to make an application to the Secretary of State under the provisions of the clause to which reference had been made, and then the facts would be investigated.

said, that was the case, and added that the clause was introduced in the Bill in consequence of representations made by persons interested in the Inverness bridge, and other bridges which were similarly circumstanced.

observed, that this was an exceptional case. The bridge was constructed entirely out of public money, partly granted by that House, and prospectively from a grant made every year for the maintenance of the Highland roads. The maintenance of this bridge was provided for by making it incumbent on all the Northern counties, as being alike interested in this means of communication, to maintain it. It was never looked upon as a bridge belonging to the town of Inverness. Inverness had a bridge of its own, kept up by the town, lower down the river. The new bridge was undertaken, not at all as a burgh bridge, but as a county undertaking. The burgh had no voice in its construction, and had been originally expressly exempted from the liability to maintain the structure. Unfortunately, from a neglect in attending to the Act, consequent on the withdrawal of the annual grant to the Highland roads, words were used in the Interpretation Clause that had been construed adversely to the burgh. He did not approve of the Amendment of the hon. Member, because the expense ought to be borne not by Inverness-shire alone, but by all the Northern counties, as was stipulated when the bridge was built. He therefore thought it best not to press the Amendment as it stood, but to leave the matter in the hands of the Lord Advocate till bringing up the Report.

said, the hon. Member seemed to forget that there were bridges in other parts of Inverness, and that those bridges were exceedingly expensive. If Inverness had contributed one-half to the maintenance of the roads in other parts of the county, he could have understood this application, but he understood Inverness did no such thing. It would be a very unfair thing if, while those living in other parts of Inverness were taxed to keep their own bridges, this should be thrown upon them also.

deprecated any division on this Amendment. The hon. Member who had moved the Amendment had now seen the feeling of the House, and it would probably be better to leave the clause as it was, and not to prejudice it by this Amendment.

said, that as several hon. Members had asked him to withdraw his Amendment, he should not ask the Committee to trouble to divide. He was satisfied with the discussion so far. Hon. Members had seen that this bridge was not the property of the town of Inverness, and all he wanted was that the town should not be liable for the expense of keeping up a bridge for the whole of the Northern counties of Scotland.

wished to know, if the Lord Advocate would amend the clause in order to meet the case where a bridge was partly in one county and partly in another? There might be exceptional cases, which must be provided for in some way or other.

remarked, that provision of that kind was made in an earlier clause.

understood that referred to bridges wholly in a county or wholly in a burgh. The case he desired to meet was where the bridge was partly in one county or burgh and partly in another.

remarked, that the words fully met that.

objected to the Amendment, not because he was desirous that the trustees should not have the control, but because there was a general clause giving to them full control over the board. To insert this Amendment might raise the question as to whether the general clause was to have universal application.

said, it could not be feared that any of the gentlemen likely to be selected would be unfit to be trusted with the duty of signing cheques on behalf of the Boards or bodies of trustees, and he hoped the Amendment would not be pressed.

wished to point out that there were 30 members of the Board. Surely there ought to be some people who should be responsible for signing cheques, rather than this duty should be discharged by any one of 30 members? The clerk might take the cheques to any member who did not often attend the meetings, and who did not know what business was going on. It seemed to him it would be desirable to insert this Amendment.

said, the usual practice was for the Board to delegate the signing of cheques to one member of the Board and the secretary, and usually the duty was delegated to the chairman. He thought it would be more convenient to let the clause stand in its present form.

thought the precaution of the hon. Member for Forfarshire was not an improper one, but would be in accordance with practice.

said, that the clause should be amended by so altering it as to provide that the cheques, instead of being signed by one member of the Board, should be signed by one of five members to be selected by the Board.

said, he was willing to accept the suggestion.

opposed both the Amendment and its suggested alteration, on the ground that they were unnecessary, inasmuch as no money could be taken out of the bank without the assent and signature of some person duly authorized for the purpose.

said, it was necessary to give power to the district trustees to dispose of the money which they had collected within their respective districts.

said, he would accept the Amendment.

next proposed to amend the clause by providing that all cheques should be signed by the treasurer and by one of three trustees nominated by the committee, instead of the signatures of the treasurer and one member of the Board only being necessary, as provided by the Bill. He thought it would be a simple precaution to take, and one which would ensure business being conducted in a regular and careful manner. As the clause stood at present, a banker would be justified in paying a cheque signed by the treasurer and any one of the district trustees. Circumstances could be conceived in which such a power intrusted to any one member might lead to serious loss. It was quite true that a bank might be instructed as to how far the account should be operated upon; but he thought the trustees ought to be directed to name certain persons who were to be authorized to operate on the banking account.

said, that the answer to the question was that the bank would take precious good care to know who was signing the cheques, and who had given the authority to sign them, and the Board would know what precautions to take.

said, he did not think the bank would take very good care, because, according to the Bill, the bank was protected if a cheque were signed by one member of the Board. In the present day they occasionally heard of treasurers who were supposed to be highly honourable men, but who had turned out to be dishonest, and there would always be members of the Board who might not be dishonest, but who would be careless. It would, therefore, be imprudent to give the treasurer power to draw the money with the aid of any one member of the Board.

thought it a sufficient precaution to have the cheques signed by the treasurer and one member of the Board. It was curious that those who advocated a policy of popularising the arrangement should already begin to distrust those who were to be appointed. If anything untoward happened, it would be the fault of those upon whom the duty of election was thrown that they did not select the best possible men.

was of opinion that every precaution should be taken against loose and irregular facilities for signing these cheques. The distrust of the popular element in these road boards was not the cause of this restrictive policy; because, looking back at the past, it would be found that men of high position and place had been guilty of making' away with money; and against the repetition of such practices they were bound to guard.

said, that the chairman who signed cheques was authorized to do so by a resolution of the Board.

said, that the only question now before the Committee was whether line 17 of this clause was to be left out. The discussion that had taken place would be repeated when the Amendment to which it referred was reached.

said, he intended to withdraw that Amendment.

suggested that it would be convenient to provide that cheques should be signed by the treasurer, and by one member authorized by the committee.

said, that what had just been suggested was exactly in accordance with the practice of the trusts and Boards of which he was a member. The invariable custom had been to appoint one person to sign the cheques in conjunction with the treasurer. The complaint that was made with regard to the provision in the Bill was that any member might, in conjunction with a fraudulent treasurer, embezzle the money of the Board, while the banker would be exonerated from all risk or liability for carelessness. As to the distrust spoken of by the hon. Member for Bute (Mr. Dalrymple), it was not distrust that they felt, but a desire to prevent the possibility of trust being abused.

said, that what he proposed was that the cheques should be signed by one of three trustees selected by the committee. Any one of them would be available who lived in the immediate neighbourhood of the treasurer, and would have the same responsibility as himself.

said, he would bring up a clause giving effect to the Amendment, and also giving the same direction with respect to Clause 97. He hoped the hon. Member would, under those circumstances, withdraw his Amendment.

said, he had to move an Amendment to leave out the word "Sheriff" in the clause and to insert "trustee" in its place. The clause provided that there should be an annual audit of accounts, and that the auditor should be appointed by the Sheriff. It appeared to him to be obvious that if trustees could manage their own affairs they were perfectly well able to appoint their own auditor. His proposal would assimilate the practice of these new bodies to that of local boards, such as Poor Law boards and school boards.

hoped that the Committee would not accept the Amendment, and that the appointment of auditor would be allowed to rest with the Sheriff.

earnestly hoped the Lord Advocate would do nothing of the kind. He would remind the House that the Board of Trade invariably required the Sheriff to name the auditor for all accounts connected with harbour and road trusts. That was in order to give the Secretary of State the right to interfere when he found that merely a nominal examination of the accounts was taking place.

said, that the accounting was really between the public and the trustees, and it had been thought right to put the appointment in the hands of the Sheriff.

hoped that the auditor was to be appointed annually.

wished to remind the Secretary of State that unless an effective control was exercised over the details of the expenditure of these bodies expenses would very largely increase. The clause provided that the trustees of counties, and local authorities in burghs, should once a year, at such time and in such form as the Secretary of State might direct, make a Report as to their income and expenditure, and such other matters as they might be directed, and that such Report should be laid before both Houses of Parliament. It appeared to him that there should be a still larger power vested in the Secretary of State of obtaining information from these bodies: as to their expenditure and as to the condition of the roads, the Secretary of State should have the right to prescribe to the counties the nature and extent of examination to be made in the details of the vouchers. Mere verifications of the entries in the accounts by the totals of the vouchers were illusory checks on improper outlay.

said, that this clause gave powers to the road authorities to make reports to the Secretary of State, provided that the report should be in such a form as the Secretary of State directed. It was to deal both with their income and expenditure. If the hon. and gallant Baronet could suggest anything else that would be desirable to add he should be happy to listen to it.

said, that his only object was that the House of Commons should obtain all the information it required. He would have great pleasure in communicating his views to the right hon. and learned Lord Advocate. Indeed, he had already submitted a memorandum to the Secretary of State, but as yet without finding any good result there from.

said, his hon. and gallant Friend (Sir George Balfour) had a Motion on the Paper for a Return in which the length, breadth, and depth of metal in every turnpike road in Scotland would be contained. He hoped that the Secretary of State would not think it necessary to get more detailed information than the clause provided for. The cost of obtaining details as to every turnpike road in Scotland would be excessive, and some special building would soon be required to contain information so obtained.

asked whether the hon. and gallant Member was in Order?

said, he merely wished to point out that without the proper information they could not control the expenditure in counties. No one knew better than the noble Lord that there was a great danger of the road expenditure largely increasing, unless direct control was exercised. And as regarded the details to which the noble Lord referred, it was quite well known to the noble Lord that without these details it would be impossible to exercise any useful influence over the road authorities of Scotland. By abolishing the tolls and changing the statute labour roads into roads kept up by assessments, they had removed those useful checks which tolls and labour so effectually afforded. No doubt the roads might be more economically managed and better than hitherto, but the looseness of the controlling clauses gave many openings for abuses.

said, he had an Amendment which was of a formal nature. The clause provided for the repeal of the 8 & 9 Vict. c. 41, and 1 & 2 Will. IV. c. 43, except as to certain sections. He hoped the right hon. and learned Gentleman might be induced to incorporate these sections in the Act itself, instead of leaving them unrepealed in the old Acts. He saw no reason why district committees in country places should be obliged to refer not only to this Act but to the old ones also; and he therefore moved, in page 49, lines 15 and 16, to leave out the words "except the sections thereof incorporated herewith, as after mentioned."

thought the best plan would be to repeal the Acts by this clause—all but the excepted sections—and to consider afterwards the clause which the hon. Member proposed to add.

would have been glad to have taken that course, but that the clauses were incorporated in the next clause, which he proposed to omit.

supported the Amendment. The question was whether, for the sake of some 10 or 12 clauses of the Act of Will. IV., here left unrepealed, the authorities should be put to the trouble of keeping the whole of these old Acts, which were altogether defunct, except as regarded the clauses which were to be added to the new Bill?

said, that his hon. Friends misapprehended the effect of the clause. The first part of the clause repealed the General Turnpike Acts, except to an extent to which it reserved their provisions. The point raised by the hon. Member was whether the provisions which were retained could be left out, and afterwards incorporated as a part of the Act? That might hereafter be done; but all that was proposed by the clause was to repeal the General Turnpike Acts, except those few sections.

thought it would be a great convenience that the suggestion as to the incorporation of these clauses should be adopted.

said, the only difficulty in respect to the incorporation of the clauses would be as to the interpretation. It might happen that the interpretation of the clauses of the Act of Will. IV. did not exactly correspond with those contained in the Bill. His impression was that the clauses in question, instead of being excepted and then incorporated in the new Bill, might simply have been re-numbered and added to it.

said, that it appeared to him that it would be better to schedule these clauses to the Bill, and retain them as unrepealed clauses of the previous Act, rather than incorporate them. He said this, having regard to the decisions of the Courts of Scotland with respect to these clauses, which might be disturbed if the clauses were treated in the manner suggested.

remarked, that it would be much better to incorporate the clauses in such a way as to make the whole subject readily accessible.

said, there was one inconvenience about the course proposed by the Lord Advocate, as a Judge would have to decide whether any one of these clauses was inconsistent with any part of the Act; and he thought, therefore, that it would be better to incorporate them in such a way as to make them a part of the Bill.

said, he could not consent to the Amendment. For a very long period—he thought since the statute passed in the third year of the reign of George IV.—after the system of macadamizing roads became the rule, there had been a custom in Scotland of taking the stone necessary for the roads, the trustees being empowered to acquire that material under certain limitations and provisions. It would very seriously affect road making and road repairing in Scotland if any such alteration were to be made in the clause as had been suggested. There would be extreme difficulty in getting the roads metalled except at very considerable cost, and consequently he could not accept the Amendment. But under the existing statute there was no limit as to the length of road which might be repaired by material taken from the land of one proprietor, and consequently metal for five, 10, or 15 miles of road might be drawn from one place. That appeared to him to be carrying the power given under the Act a little too far; and he considered the quarries from which metal was taken ought to be somewhat nearer than the distances he had mentioned. Consequently, by the clause before the Committee he had restricted the length of the road to be metalled from one place to three miles. The right to take stone, however, he regarded as a very material feature of the Act.

regretted the remarks of the Lord Advocate, because he could not believe the House would sanction a practice which was sought to be perpetuated by the clause—the taking for public use the property of private individuals without compensation. The right hon. and learned Gentleman said it had been the practice for a long period so to act, and there was no doubt that was the case. But were they to continue robbing private persons for the purpose of benefiting the public in the shape of making roads at a cheap cost? The law was not so framed to facilitate the making of railways, or canals, or any other public work; and he could not conceive that there could be the slightest justification for perpetuating such a system. He hoped the clause would be struck out; and then he would move, as a substitute, a clause to the effect that no stone should be taken for road purposes without the owner of the land from whence it was obtained being compensated. He did not believe that the people of Scotland generally had any desire to save expense at the cost of private individuals; and therefore he hoped the Committee would strike out the section in order that they might consider the full effect of the amended clause he would propose, providing for compensation.

said, he could quite understand the force of the objection if the materials were of any value; but they knew perfectly well that the rock and stone of which the roads were composed in Scotland were of no earthly value. There might be a few cases where it was of value, but in 9 cases out of 10 it was not; and that being the case, as landed proprietors could not sustain much damage, he thought it would be absurd to disturb an arrangement which had lasted so long.

expressed his thanks to the Lord Advocate for not agreeing to the prohibitory Amendment. Roads made through a landed estate added immensely to its value; and, having rendered these estates so much more valuable by the making of the roads, it was nothing but right that materials should be obtained free of charge to keep them in repair. There was nothing fairer than the General Turnpike Act, which gave power to the trustees to pay for all surface damage; and he thought the landowners of Scoland, who had got their estates vastly improved by the making of roads, the cost of which practically came from the people, should be content with this, and not ask to have the road metal paid for in addition. He agreed that a limit should be put to the length of road to be repaired from one quarry; but he considered three miles too small. Frequently, the particular metal required could not be obtained within a radius of three miles; and, therefore, he thought the Government would be conferring a great boon on the country if they altered the word "three" to "six." He would move that the word "six" be substituted for the word "three" in reference to the length of road to be kept in repair from one quarry.

said, the Amendment could not be put. The Question before the Committee was that the incorporation of section 80 of the General Turnpike Act should be struck out of the clause.

said, this was not a landowner's, but a public question. The difficulty was this—that whereas when the General Turnpike Act was passed, which, authorized the taking of stone from land, for the purpose of metalling the roads, there was an abundance of stone to be had; at the present time that supply had very much diminished, and in some parts now there was great difficulty in obtaining the required material. On some parts of the land no material of the kind required could be found at all; while in another part, which the hon. Member who spoke last must have been thinking of, there was any amount of the stone, and it would be no robbery to take any quantity of stone for the highway. But he considered that to go into a man's field, open a quarry, and take stone to metal a road, even within three miles on either side of the place, was inflicting an injustice on the owner of the land, for a field was frequently spoiled in that way. That being so, he thought the clause should be struck out, and he hoped the Government would be able to make some proposal in the shape of a compromise, which should be considered on Report. He was quite sure that the House would not sanction a continuance of the present state of things.

said, a custom which had existed for 80 or 100 years might very safely be assumed to be a fair arrangement. If any charge were allowed to be made for stone it would be in the power of certain landowners to exact a considerable sum for it, because they might have a monopoly of the article. Why should this be allowed, when the material to be used was to be devoted to keeping roads in order, and which roads greatly improved their own estates? He thought the proprietors of the soil had no cause to complain of having the stone taken without compensation, seeing that they had the benefit of the roads made, and he did not believe many such complaints were made. What was objected to was the distance to which metal was taken from an estate. There was a case which came under his notice in the county which he represented, where the stone was taken from one quarry to repair nine miles of road. He had had a representation made to him on the subject by the owner of the land, in reply to which he pointed out the Government limit of three miles. His correspondent quite agreed to the alteration, and he (Mr. Barclay) thought the proposal of the Government might be accepted as doing away with the injustice of taking the material so far.

said, he thought many hon. Members were under a misapprehension as to the effect of Clause 80 of the General Turnpike Act. It certainly provided that materials for maintaining roads might be secured without compensation, but only from uncultivated or unenclosed land, and if removed from enclosed or cultivated land all surface-damage had to be paid for. Therefore, there was not that injury done to property which hon. Gentlemen assumed. He had never heard of any inconvenience arising in consequence of stones being taken for road purposes from landed estates. The one evil which remained was, that a quarry might be opened in the neighbourhood of a residence; but he rather thought that the influence of anyone whose residence was likely to be in that position would be sufficient to provide that no damage was done in that respect. He thought if hon. Members would look fairly at the whole clause, the difficulties which many hon. Members thought might occur would not arise.

said, he had looked at the whole clause and studied it with the best attention he could bestow; but he could not observe that clearness about it which the hon. Member who had just spoken had hinted at. As to the argument that no damage was done, as the stone was of little value, he replied that in fairness compensation should be given, and if the stone was not worth much the less the sum which would have to be paid. What he wanted to be informed of was, why any private property should be dedicated to the public use without compensation? The views which had been enunciated on the other side of the House as to the public rights and interests were not such as were generally heard coming from that quarter. At a subsequent stage of the proceedings he would propose that full power be given to the trustees to take such land and material as might be required for the purpose of making and maintaining roads on the terms prescribed by the Lands Clauses Consolidation Act, which applied to cases where land was taken for railway or other purposes. He did not see why the public should be dealt with differently from railway or canal companies, or why they should not pay for metal to be used in making and maintaining roads. The hon. Member for Wigton (Mr. Vans Agnew) had said that stone was only taken, without compensation, from unenclosed land. But he (Mr. Ramsay) would remind the Committee that in many counties in Scotland, the land, though cultivated, was not enclosed, and was it desired to give power to the trustees to enter such land without compensation? He did not believe the majority of those who sat on the Liberal side of the House would consent to the present practice being adhered to, and he hoped the Government would assent to the adoption of a course which would put an end to the existing state of things.

was of opinion that some alteration ought to be made. It ought to be remembered that when the Turnpike Act was passed Scotland was in a very different condition to what it was now. It was very easy to get the material for roads then; but since then the country had been greatly enclosed, and the difficulty of obtaining requisite material was greater than before. Some portions of the country were very highly cultivated and yet not enclosed, and the first part of the section applied to uncultivated and waste land; but there was also a proviso for entering enclosed land under certain circumstances; but the word "enclosed" did not protect owners of land which was very highly cultivated but not enclosed. There were many complaints in his county as to the working of the General Turnpike Act, and he was of opinion that some change was absolutely necessary.

said, it had been the custom in Scotland from time immemorial to take stone for the maintenance of roads, and there was now an immense number of quarries open. What he desired to know before he committed himself to any particular decision was, what was done for the maintenance of roads in England?

said, the English General Turnpike Act was almost word for word the same as that which affected Scotland.

said, as the same arrangement applied to England, he scarcely thought the House would be justified in making any alteration in so far as the case of Scotland was concerned. This arrangement had never, to his knowledge, caused any discontent in his country. He was surprised to find his hon. Friend the Member for the Falkirk Burghs holding the views he had expressed, especially as the case of England and Scotland was identical.

said, he had desired to mention to the Committee that the English and Scotch practice was the same. Under the English Turnpike Act he had known cases where the trustees had taken possession of cultivated fields to obtain stone; and although this was not a pleasant proceeding, yet it was one which must be submitted to for the public welfare. He wished the Lord Advocate would extend the three mile area for which stone and gravel was to be supplied to England; because, in that country, one particular spot was liable to find stone for the whole of the trust, which very often extended over many miles. Therefore, England would very greatly benefit by the three mile limit being adopted.

said, as it had been the custom from time immemorial to take the material, he did not see how it could be objected to now. He was glad that the whole question had been mooted, for he thought the time had now come when the House ought to decide how far stone should be taken for road purposes without payment, as in many districts the supply had become very scarce. He knew one locality, where a hill had been practically demolished for the purpose of supplying stone to roads at a considerable distance from that quarry; and it was now necessary that the supply for that neighbourhood should come from a distance. Therefore, he thought the distance should be limited; but the three mile limit, as suggested by the Lord Advocate, should be somewhat extended. He considered the Act should expressly provide for compensation being given to the proprietors of unenclosed, yet cultivated, lands which were entered for the purposes of providing material for the maintenance of roads, and even, of uncultivated lands though unenclosed, because such land was becoming very valuable in Scotland.

thought a very strong evidence that no inconvenience resulted from the present custom was to be found in the fact that, in the Acts which had been voluntarily obtained by counties, no attempt had been made to change the practice under the General Turnpike Act. That being so, he considered no great inconvenience could have been felt from the old custom.

said, he had been curious to hear the discussion, because the county he had the honour to represent was peculiarly situated both as regarded the carrying of metal for a long distance and also the hardship inflicted on proprietors by the compulsory taking of the stone. Much had been said about there being no right of entry, without compensation, on enclosed land; but he knew a case in East Lothian where a farm had been nearly severed by a quarry. This had been carried out in consequence of the difficulty of getting good metal elsewhere. He objected to metal being carried a long distance; yet he knew one case in which a quarry on an estate had been so worked out that the owner of the soil would soon be unable to get from his estate metal for his own roads, and he would have to draw it for a very long distance. This fact showed that the power to take stone over a large area bore hard in some cases; on the other hand, it was evident that the metal must be got from somewhere. That being so, the Government had acted apparently with a desire to draw what they considered to be a fair line between the two alternatives. Whether that limit should be three miles was matter for consideration—at any rate, he did not think the proprietors in his county would object to the power being retained.

said, that the right existed under the former system, and then it might just as well have been argued that the proprietors who furnished metal for the roads should not pay tolls. The Bill abolished tolls, and the assessment imposed was in lieu of tolls. It was a somewhat strange thing that the extreme doctrines of the rights of private owners as against those of the public should be advanced from his as well as the other side of the House; but he did not believe the hon. Member for the Falkirk Burghs (Mr. Ramsay) would have much support from the Liberal benches. The landlords suffered no real injustice by the provision for taking stone, as compensation was given for actual damage. It had been argued that the metal should be paid for as the supply was getting scarce; but if stone were becoming less, it would be dangerous to deprive the authorities of the power to compulsorily take it, as otherwise the landowners might fix an enormous price for the article of which they had the monopoly. Therefore, he hoped that the Amendment would not be accepted. Also, he was inclined to think that it would be dangerous to limit the right to three miles, as was proposed in the Bill. As to the argument, that so great had been the demand for stone that one of the Scotch hills had been nearly demolished, he could only say that as they had so many hills in Scotland they could well spare a few.

said, he had known cases of very great hardship which had come upon small proprietors by the operation of the Turnpike Act. He was in no way interested in the matter. The hon. Member for Glasgow (Mr. Anderson) was in error in supposing that local Acts contained no provisions on this point. An Act, which he then held in his hand, provided that the trustees should have power to acquire land and such material as was needed, subject to the terms fixed by the "Lands Clauses Consolidation Act." This would prevent an extravagant price being charged—and, in fact, it really became a matter of arrangement. He feared that the conferring of a compulsory power on the trustees would place one great obstacle in the way of the adoption of the Bill. With regard to the cost of the material, he had never known any charge to be made by landowners for the stone used. He would have liked that the law in this particular should be that the Land Clauses Act should be the guide for determining the cost of material.

said, it had not been shown that the rule that obtained in Argyllshire, where the material could be found by the side of the roads, was that which the Committee were bound to follow. Everyone knew that there were hundreds of miles of road where good metal was not to be got at all.

said, although the subject was worthy of attention, he hoped that the Government would not accede to the Amendment. He was sure the proprietors would not object to the stone on their property being used in their own neighbourhood. He thought that the taking away of the power of the trustees to take material from the roads would raise a very serious question. There was a quarry on the Glasgow and Carlisle road which had been cut almost through a hill, and had become not only an eyesore, but a danger to the district where it was situated. But if power was given to carry stone to a considerable distance, it might be taken 50 or 100 miles to districts where there was a want of materials. He hoped the Government would retain the clause, and that his hon. Colleague would not press the Amendment.

said, in deference to the feeling of the Committee, he would beg leave to withdraw his Amendment.

wished to ask the right hon. and learned Lord Advocate, whether the road trustees were to be left to drive a bargain with persons who might happen to have a monopoly of material? He moved, as an Amendment, to omit that portion of the clause which contained the limit of three miles beyond which material was not to be removed.

said, with regard to the Amendment of the hon. Member for South Lanarkshire (Sir Windham Anstruther), he had already intimated that the Government considered the limitation of three miles an exceedingly reasonable one, and that under an improved system of road making it would not be right to permit road material to be carried from the land of one proprietor to a road that he had nothing to do with, without compensation for the injury sustained.

said, he had given previous intimation of his intention to move a similar Amendment to the clause.

said, in that case, he was quite ready to withdraw his Amendment in favour of that of the hon. Member for Edinburgh.

begged to move, as an Amendment, that in line 22, page 50, the word "three" be omitted, and the word "six" inserted. It was the case that some proprietors would possess harder road metal than others, and the clause would enable them to obtain for it a higher price, the effect of which would be an inducement to the trustees to put worse metal on the roads. Another consequence would be a greater expense in the end, as the roads would be more expensive to keep up with inferior metal than with good. The operation of this part of the clause would increase the burden on the particular district concerned, while the favoured individual who sold the metal would get a high price for it at the expense of the ratepayers and the other landowners. He considered that the radius of six miles, which was fixed by the Amendment proposed by him, was a much more reasonable one than that contained in the clause.

did not think any sufficient reason had been shown for changing the existing law, and he considered that in that respect the Lord Advocate was proceeding illogically. Either there was a custom on the footing of an old servitude, or there was not. If there was, the existing law should be maintained; if there was not, he did not see why there should be a compromise by a restriction to three miles. It was true the Amendment of his hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh (Mr. M'Laren) was a compromise; but it was also one of a very reasonable character—a large portion of the metal used had to be carried more than three miles. He trusted that the Amendment would be considered, seeing that otherwise the clause would make a very great alteration in the existing law and practice.

said, he had already indicated his views of this part of the subject. The real practical question of limitation, which he thought to be reasonably fixed at three miles, was one that the Committee should be quite ready to deal with, without having to make comments on the system of macadamising the roads. One very strong reason for the limitation was, that if they did not make it they enabled trustees to prey on one proprietor for the benefit of others who might have long frontages on roads on which he never set foot.

wished to know, whether a proprietor was to be allowed to place whatever price he chose on the metal, or whether it was to be settled by the trustees, or by some other mode of reference? It might be that where a proprietor had a monopoly, he would exact a price that would be unreasonable; and, in view of that, he could not help thinking that some power should be vested in the Sheriff, or somebody else, of fixing a reasonable one.

said, the question was not an important one. Had the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Lord Advocate proposed to confine the use of materials to the estate from which they were taken, he could have understood what was intended.

begged leave to move, in page 50, line 27, the insertion of the words "or continued in force hereby," after the word "herewith."

said, he quite agreed to this addition.

said, he objected to the Amendment, considering that the powers intrusted to the Board under this clause were of a delicate character, and that damages ought not to be recoverable unless the surveyor was in a position to certify that they had been sustained by the road.

thought it would shorten the discussion if the right hon. and learned Lord Advocate would state what he proposed to do with regard to the passage of heavy weights, traction engines, &c., along the public roads. A great many Notices had been given by hon. Members with the object of removing evils which were likely to arise there from, and their course would be made clearer by the expression of the intentions of the Government.

said, if it was the intention of the right hon. and learned Lord Advocate to accede to the clause which would be proposed by the hon. Member for South Lanarkshire it would meet the case.

said, he had understood that the question was to be dealt with separately by a Bill regulating the use of engines on highways. A series of clauses had been proposed by the hon. Member for South Lanarkshire (Sir Windham Anstruther), the terms of which were the same in effect as those contained in the Highways Bill for England, promoted by the Government. He, therefore, had no objection to those clauses being inserted, and made applicable to Scotland; but, at the same time, it was to be remarked that, while regulating, they did not provide for damage occasioned through the overloading of engines. He thought the Amendment was not in the least inconsistent with those clauses.

said, he was a member of the deputation which waited upon the Home Secretary and the late Lord Advocate a few years ago with reference to this question of locomotives, when a Road Bill was introduced which contained provisions affecting them. The objections to those provisions were so strongly urged that the Home Secretary withdrew the clauses, and they had not been re-introduced. If those who were interested in the use of locomotive engines had known that there was any intention on the part of the Government to introduce such a regulation giving the trustees power to tax engines, he thought they would have made representations that would have produced the same effect as before. As locomotives were in common use all over the country, they ought to be dealt with by a special Act, and it was clear that a regulation for taxing them would be a revival of the toll system. How was the case of locomotives to be dealt with that, perhaps, went only once or twice a-year a distance of two or three miles in a county? The clauses proposed to be introduced with regard to extraordinary traffic would be very difficult to work. He hoped the Government would not commit themselves to deal in this Bill with the question of road locomotives, seeing that it was generally understood by those interested that they would not do so.

said, he was quite impartial on this question. He was not at all willing that any undue taxation should be imposed on these engines; but, at the same time, no one could shut his eyes to the fact that the mischief and destruction caused by them was enormous and almost incalculable. Not long since, a case was brought to his notice of a traction engine that was rented for £5, doing damage to the extent of £500 during the first year of its use. The strong point in favour of traction engines was their great advantage to the farmer, who could not only by their use thrash his crop wherever he chose, but in a far better way than under the old system. Looking from that point alone, it would be a great loss and injury to the country if a stop were put to the use of traction engines on the roads; but it was a great grievance that persons should use traction engines for the purpose of transporting hundreds of tons of lime, coal, or bricks, thereby rendering the roads practically impassable. It was only fair that some step should be taken; and if the matter were left to the road trustees he felt quite satisfied that, as they were connected with the tenantry of the district and anxious to promote their welfare, they would be able to make equitable arrangements for the protection of the roads. While taking precautions for that purpose, they would have in their own hands the power of making regulations for the proper management of traction engines. There were several points connected with the question which, no doubt, must crop up again; meanwhile, he was glad to support the hon. and gallant Baronet (Sir Alexander Gordon) who moved the Amendment.

urged that the matter should be deferred until the new clause dealing with it was brought up.

pointed out that the framework of the clause was not adapted to deal with this particular question. The particular clause was meant to give power to trustees to bring people before the Sheriff in cases where they caused extraordinary damage by extraordinary traffic. He, therefore, joined the hon. and gallant Member for Renfrewshire (Colonel Mure) in urging that they could better deal with the subject in a new clause.

thought the disadvantage of discussing the question at that moment, and, indeed, in connection with the Bill at all, arose from the fact that those who were interested in the use of traction engines were under the impression that the subject was not to be dealt with by the measure. It was certainly a question of importance, but the public had not had it under their consideration. To no one, he might add, was it of more importance than to agriculturists who employed steam power in their farming operations. He would suggest, that if a separate clause dealing with the matter were to be introduced at a subsequent period of the discussion on the Bill, it would be better to remove all reference to it in the clause before the Committee.

said, his Amendment did not necessarily apply to locomotives.

said, he was of opinion that it would not be wise to insert the Amendment in the present clause. It would be much, better to make the question which it raised the subject of a separate clause. He would remind the Committee that, besides traction engines, there might be other heavy weights employed in the traffic upon the roads, and their case, he contended, the Amendment would not meet. If the operation of the clause were to be made to extend to "building operations, haulage of wood, and construction of works," a great injustice, he could not help thinking, would be done, and much strife in almost every district would be the result. What was the meaning, he would ask, of the words "haulage of wood?" Did they not apply to the case of a proprietor who cut down his own wood? If so, was it fair that under such circumstances a proprietor should be called upon to pay additional taxation for the temporary use of the roads.

I am sure the hon. Gentleman will excuse me for interrupting him. The words "haulage of wood" have already been dealt with, and are included in the Bill.

maintained that there should be in the Bill no provision for the purpose of compelling a proprietor to pay additional taxation who might not have used a road for the "haulage of wood" more than, perhaps, once in a period of 50 or 60 years. Let him suppose, too, the case of a gentleman in a villa, who had no house, who went by railway to and from his residence, and who at last thought fit to build another house—why should he, he would ask, be subjected to additional taxation for the temporary use of the roads? He could not regard the position in which the Bill would place a man so situated as a fair one. The result would be litigation without any corresponding advantage; and he hoped, therefore, that such cases would be excepted from the operation of the Bill.

said, he wished to propose the omission from the clause of the words—

"Arising from working of quarries, building operations, haulage of wood, construction of works, or other exceptional or temporary cause,"

said, he had an Amendment to propose which came before that of the hon. Baronet. It had, in the course of the discussion which had just taken place, been stated that it was not desirable to deal with locomotives until the new clause which had been referred to came before the Committee. He must, however, point out that that clause, while it was proposed by it to regulate the traffic of locomotives, would give no remedy for "extraordinary damage" done by them. The clause before the Committee, however, was one which provided a remedy for such damage, and there was no doubt that the greatest injury which had of late been sustained by the roads in Scotland was due to the passing over them of traction engines. He had received from a gentleman residing in the county which he had the honour to represent, an account of an enterprizing individual who had started as a carrier in the town of Stranraer, and who took goods about on a traction engine over roads which were utterly unsuited to such traffic. Eight or 10 tons of manure or lime were at a time conveyed in that way; and although, in consequence, a farmer might be saved 10s. or 15s. in the shape of carriage money, the roads were broken up to so great an extent by the traffic that more than £10 worth of damage was done to the roads by the engine—which was running daily—in a single trip, for parts of the roads in the particular district to which he was referring formed merely a thin crust over a mossy sub-soil. That, however, was a comparatively small matter, for considerable danger and annoyance to ordinary travellers was caused by those engines, because a great many of the less important roads were not wide enough to admit of a cart or carriage passing a traction engine; and the result was that it was no uncommon thing to see an engine break through the crust, and sink up to the axle, thus completely stopping the traffic until it was dug out at the expense, not of the owner, but of the road trustees. As the present clause was that which applied to the payment of damage to roads, he thought it afforded the proper opportunity to enter upon the question of the regulation of the traffic of locomotives, and on that of the remedy which should be given for the damage done by them when used by their owners for their own profit on roads which were unfitted for them. As matters now stood, there was no law in existence to prevent the owner of a locomotive from employing it over any road in any county in Scotland; and although, if it broke down a bridge, he could be made to pay for the damage, yet it might damage any number of miles of road and he would not be liable to the payment of a single farthing. He begged, therefore, to move the insertion in the clause, after the words which had been last inserted, of the words "passing of traction engine or other locomotive, or by."

said, he did not approve of the clause at all, but he thought it would be made worse if the Amendment of the hon. Gentleman were adopted. An Amendment which had already been agreed to by the Committee would, it seemed to him, meet the case, because it applied to excessive weight passing along the roads.

said, that so far as he could see, the only advantage which could result from assenting to the Amendment would be that it would have the effect of making the clause somewhat more plain.

said, he did not see why he should have been forestalled by the hon. Member for Wigtonshire (Mr. Vans Agnew). His object was the same as that which the hon. and gallant Member for South Ayrshire (Colonel Alexander) had in view. His hon. and gallant Friend wished to move to increase the number of cases to which the clause should be made applicable, and to specify them. Now, in his opinion, any attempt to define the particular cases which might arise under the operation of the clause would only serve to land the Committee in difficulties. It would be far better, he thought, to have the clause simply general, so as to leave the power of applying a remedy to unforeseen cases of extraordinary traffic. He himself had experienced serious difficulty in the endeavour to draft a clause to provide for exemptions in a Bill which he had introduced in that House last year. There were a number of cases which were governed in the end by the same authority; and if a new case arose, though the traffic might be extraordinary, and the damage done very great, it could not be dealt with unless it was specified in a clause which professed to be specific. He would put it to his hon. Friend the Member for Wigtonshire (Mr. Vans Agnew) whether it would not be better to leave the clause general, so that the road authority might be enabled to recover for damage done, in a summary manner, before the Sheriff. He claimed the support of Her Majesty's Government for that appeal, because in the Highways Bill, which had lately been amended, the words "temporary cause" had been omitted. The interpretation of those words was a matter of some difficulty, because there would be no remedy where the excessive use was not temporary; and, as he had pointed out, there would be great difficulty in defining the word "temporary." His Amendment, if adopted, would exclude from the clause the words—

"Arising from working of quarries, building operations, haulage of wood, construction of works, or other exceptional or temporary cause."

wished to say at once that he was quite prepared to accept the Amendment of the hon. Baronet.

said, he had no wish to insist on the words which he had proposed, provided it was made perfectly clear that the damage done by locomotives was to be taken into account.

said, he had no objection to accept the Amendment.

could not agree with the right hon. and learned Lord in the opinion that there was no similarity between the two cases to which he had just referred. The proprietors of mines and quarries had, he thought, some claim to consideration in those cases in which their traffic was carried over railways constructed by themselves. Unless that consideration was extended to them, great injustice, he contended, would be done by the Bill as between man and man in several instances. From the first, he had maintained that the toll system possessed certain advantages for those who used the roads, and that that system could not be changed, and the cost of keeping the roads in repair thrown upon the rates without causing great inequality and injustice. That was a state of things which it was, he thought, the duty of the Committee to face. If a case were shown in which it was desirable to make an exception, they were bound to deal with it. For his own part, he had based his case mainly on the question of mines and minerals. Public works were as a rule, no doubt, rated pretty heavily; but still at a rate far less in proportion to their value than many other descriptions of property in their immediate vicinity. Mines, on the other hand, were taxed not merely on the full rental, but upon an annually decreasing profit. He knew of cases in his own county in which mines were actually worked out, and had yet been rated as if their value had undergone no diminution. But that upon which he chiefly rested the case of iron and coal mines in the present instance was that ample provision was made for carrying on their traffic quite independently of the roads of the country. Indeed, it was only upon such conditions that mines could be properly worked, and if they were taxed for the carriage of minerals which were conveyed upon their own roads, an injustice would undoubtedly be done so far as they were concerned. He was quite aware that a strong prejudice existed against making any general exemptions; but the facts relating to mines were so staggering that they were entitled to be fully considered by the Committee. The question was one which had been considered by a Royal Commission, although in a different sense, and that Commission proposed that as the traffic of minerals cut up the roads very much, an extra tax should be imposed whenever it was proved that it had had that effect. That was virtually what was proposed to be done by the present Bill; but he contended that if it were only once generally known that, so far from unusual traffic on the roads being caused by the carriage of minerals, they carried on their traffic independently of those roads, it would unhesitatingly be admitted that they had a strong claim to exemption. The case he was endeavouring to lay before the Committee had been so very fairly put in a Petition which had been laid before the House within the last two or three Sessions, that he need do nothing more than remind the Committee of a remarkable fact which it stated, and that was that in the case of one of the largest ironmasters in Scotland, only 243,000 tons of minerals, out of a gross total of 10,168,000 tons—or less than an average of 2¼ per cent—had been carried along the public roads in Scotland during a given period, the rest having been conveyed along roads which had been constructed by iron, coal, and other mining proprietors themselves. There were, of course, mines the traffic of which was worked by means of country roads; but with these he did not propose to deal. He would only add that if there were any doubts entertained with respect to the facts of the case, it was the plain duty of Parliament to cause an inquiry to be instituted into the matter. The result of any such inquiry would be, he firmly believed, to substantiate the view of the case which he had deemed it to be his duty to lay before the Committee.

expressed a hope that the right hon. and learned Lord Advocate would re-consider the decision at which he had arrived with regard to the Amendment. It seemed, he must say, to be a very fair proposal. He represented a county which was very similarly situated to that which the hon. Baronet who had just sat down represented, and he could bear testimony to the fact that the mineral proprietors of Ayrshire made no use of the public roads inasmuch as they had constructed private railways; while the increased taxation to which they would be subjected if the clause were to pass in its present shape would be something enormous.

said, he also stood very much in the same position with respect to the question as the hon. Baronet the Member for North Lanarkshire (Sir Edward Colebrooke), and was strongly of opinion that it was most desirable the right hon. and learned Lord Advocate should reconsider his decision in regard to it. The Committee were aware that the iron trade of Scotland was not at the present moment in a very satisfactory condition—a fact which was, no doubt, to be, to a great extent, attributed to the general depression of trade throughout the country; but it must not be forgotten that the mining interests in Scotland had also been greatly burdened by the action of labour, and by those imposts which had already been placed upon it for the protection of labour. In order to show the condition to which, in consequence, the iron trade had been reduced, he might mention that he was informed Scotch builders were procuring the iron which they required from Belgium, and that the iron used in the construction of the magnificent new railway station in St. Enoch Square, Glasgow, had to be got from Belgium, owing to Scotch ironmasters not being able to compete with their foreign rivals. The present, therefore, was not a time when the Government should refuse to accept so reasonable an Amendment as that of the hon. Member for Glasgow. He would call the attention of the right hon. and learned Lord to a few figures which had been supplied to him by one of the great ironmasters in Scotland. He would quote those figures in order to show the great increase of burdens that would be caused to that particular firm if the Bill were allowed to pass in its present form. He would not mention the name of the firm, but would state that the approximate cost of one of the sidings and the railway to their ironworks and collieries was between £70,000 and £80,000. The length of the railway was 40 miles, and the cost of its maintenance was £4,200 per annum; whilst the amount of the yearly rent upon the minerals for which they were liable was £33,728. At present the company paid £150 a-year; but they calculated that, under this Bill, they would be mulcted in charges to nearly six times that amount—that was to say, they would have to pay to the amount of £870. He thought that this was, at least, a case for inquiry, and that more notice should be taken of it than had been done by the right hon. and learned Lord. He knew that the Committee laboured under a difficulty when discussing questions of this kind in an almost empty House, and when hon. Members came rushing in from the dining rooms to vote against an Amendment, of the principle of which they actually knew nothing; but he ventured to say that, as far as mercantile interests were concerned, more notice ought to be taken of the provisions of the clause than had been shown by hon. Gentlemen sitting on the other side of the House. He hoped sincerely that the Home Secretary and the Lord Advocate would not set aside the claims of the mineral interest in Scotland, but would grant them those advantages to which they were entitled.

thought that the Amendment of the hon. Member for Glasgow (Mr. Anderson) opened up a wide question. It might be true that the minerals from the quarries might not pass over the roads; but surely machinery, provisions, and other things necessary for their working were at times conveyed over them. They could not expect in a Bill of that kind to make all interests even. Were there no inequalities in the case of agricultural land and sheep farms? Take a sheep farm with a rental of £2,000 or £3,000 a-year. The farmer in such a case never used the roads except once or twice a-year; the sheep were never passed over the road if the farmer could possibly help it; and yet the sheep farmer was to be taxed in the same way as the ordinary agriculturist who was using the roads every day. If they once got into this question of exceptions, there would be no end to them. He hoped the Government would stand firm upon the point.

said, the point of the whole thing was, that the ironmasters had made their own roads; whilst the owners or the tenants of the sheep farms had made no roads at all. They had made nothing except their sheep-walks. What he wanted to point out was, that a very large amount of capital had been expended in making roads for mineral purposes, and if the proprietors were not to obtain some advantage for the expenditure of their capital, a great hardship must ensue.

begged to dispute the view taken by the hon. and gallant Gentleman opposite (Colonel Mure). He did not think that the amount of money which had been laid out by mineral proprietors at all affected the question of principle. They had laid out their capital for their own good. He had no doubt the sheep farmer also did not use the roads; but that did not affect the general principle, whether all property should be assessed at the same rate or not. There were thousands of people who did not injure the roads at all. They only walked along them. Every little village in Scotland had a general interest in the roads; and it might just as well be said that their inhabitants should be exempted, because they did not use the roads except to get their meat and bread. In the same way, as had been pointed out, the people belonging to the mine used the roads for getting their tea and bread and a hundred other things. If these mines caused extraordinary damage to the roads, they would be rated at a higher figure; but if they did not damage them, they would only be in the position of every poor body in Scotland who did not use the roads, but was yet taxed on his £5 of rent to maintain them. If there was hardship in the one case, there was also in the other. There was another description of property to which the argument applied. He had been asked by a gentleman interested in the salmon fisheries to say that he did not send his fish over the roads, and therefore he considered it a hard thing that he should have to pay for them. All property, however, was interested in the roads of the country generally, and the argument of his hon. and gallant Friend opposite, he thought, was not one that should be adhered to. It appeared to him that the Bill of the right hon. and learned Lord Advocate did substantial justice to all interests.

could not agree with the noble Lord opposite (Lord Elcho), nor with the clause. If there was any infringement of the principle of the Bill, it was that the Government had introduced a clause enabling them to charge for extraordinary traffic. He thought the Motion of the hon. Member for Glasgow (Mr. Anderson) was a logical and equitable sequence to that clause. In the majority of cases the proprietors of minerals did not use the public roads at all. They used their private roads, made at their own expense, for the purpose of having their goods conveyed to their destination, without ever passing over the public roads at all. He should have preferred the Amendment of the hon. Member for North Lanarkshire to that of the hon. Member for Glasgow; but the principle of either the one or the other was exactly the principle of the clause. He did hope, therefore, that the Amendment proposed should be agreed to—namely, that a reduction should be given—a corresponding reduction—where it could be shown that any mineral owner was not using the roads. Unless that was done, the Bill, if agreed to, would be the means of inflicting a positive injustice, because it would give power for the mineral owners to be assessed at the full rate. Supposing a man had two mines, one of which he approached by a public road and the other was reached by means of a railway, and a public road was not used at all. According to the Bill he would be assessed on both mines for his use of the public road; and no corresponding reduction would be made in respect to the mine that was approached by the railway. It was obvious that in such a case injustice would be done. He thought it was quite obvious they might use the term injustice without any abuse of language in such a matter as that; and he hoped the Committee would agree to the Motion of the hon. Member for North Lanarkshire.

said, it was impossible to disguise the fact that the Amendment of the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Anderson) raised a very important question—one of far greater importance, if the Committee examined the principle of it, than had ever yet been suggested; because, if they were to take the test of absolute fairness and equality in the matter of assessment imposed upon lands and heritages in Scotland, it would lead to a revisal of almost every local and public burden in Scotland. It would not do to depart from the principle of the Bill. He ventured to say, however, in many cases—in all cases since the valuation roll was established by the Act of 1854—the ownership of lands and heritages of whatever kind, except in one or two cases, had been taken as the basis of taxation. The hon. and gallant Member for Renfrewshire (Colonel Mure) introduced the present state of trade in reference to the question, and he (the Lord Advocate) ventured to say that they would get into the greatest difficulties if that matter were entered upon. They could not stay to inquire what a person was making in relation to the valuation on which he was assessed. If the case of two householders was taken, one living on one side of the road and another on the other side, in the one case there was a small rental and a large establishment, and the man used the roads. The other man paid a far larger rental and never used the roads. He contended that in those cases the assessment could not be made to differ. If there were works in that district which used the railways, those works could not be carried on without local supplies; and there wore hundreds of other cases on behalf of which the same argument could be advanced—such as railways and canals—but in these cases they made their own roads, for in effect they were roads and competing roads. In this matter the principle of the Bill should be adhered to, and the question of differential rates should not be taken up. The hon. Member for Glasgow said the Government had departed from the principle of the Bill, but that he (the Lord Advocate) denied. He could not accept the Amendment proposed.

considered that some allowance should be made; and, therefore, he would suggest that the words "one-fourth to one-half" in the Amendment should be omitted, and that it should be left to the authorities to allow such reductions as, in their opinion, the circumstances called for. It seemed to be assumed that it was the traffic alone that destroyed the roads. It had not been shown that frost and rain would create injurious effects, even if there was no traffic at all. There were many roads which, if they were left for four or five years, without even a cart going over them, would require to be repaired in that time. The owners of the shipbuilding yards on the Clyde might say that factories behind them, valued at the same amount as themselves, would only pay one-fourth; whilst they, in respect of their yards, would be charged at the full rate, and yet they never used the roads at all. There would be no justice in making exceptions in the cases of mines and not extending it to all other cases. The Amendment stated—

"And similarly, in exceptional cases, where it can be shown that mines, quarries, and other works, convey their products or goods by rail or canal, and not by road."

said, there must be equal rules for assessment as far as concerned the rates for the use of the roads all through the country. It was absolutely impossible they could say A should pay so much and B so much. They would never be able to arrive at any accurate conclusion. The only thing was, that everyone must pay alike, as they all paid taxation alike, in order that the roads might be kept up. A man was called upon to pay taxes, although he might not get the benefit of the actual particular tax which he paid; but when the question of excessive use was come to, that was another matter. The maintenance of the roads fell upon all alike A and B might not use the roads for any purpose whatever; but they might prevent others from using them by absolutely destroying them. Hence it was absolutely necessary that all should contribute. He should, therefore, vote against the Amendment.

thought the Committee could not possibly agree to the Amendment, as there were so many classes of property—shootings, fishings, sheep farms, and the like, which would claim exemption, and consequently great difficulties would arise.

said, that notwithstanding the important principles laid down by the Lord Advocate and the Home Secretary, he should support the Amendment. It seemed to him that the objections made to the Amendment were not valid ones. They would be answerable as against a proposal to exempt owners of mines and others from payment; but the Amendment asked for a reduction only, and he could not see why it should not be conceded. The fact that the mineowners, and the owners of quarries, and other works, had made roads for themselves, was conclusive that they abstained from the use of the public roads, and thereby spared them. It might be said that the existence of such centres brought a population around them who used the roads; but it must be known to everybody that they only used the roads for walking upon, or for having provisions brought to their homes. He maintained, therefore, that in certain cases a reduction in the assessment should be made.

said, that notwithstanding what had been said by the Government, he should support the Amendment. The sheep farmers, who never made a road, used those made by the counties; whereas, in many cases, the mineowner did not use them at all, but passed his goods over his own railway. Under such circumstances some exceptions should be made; for it was most unjust to assess at the full assessment. An abolition of the tax was not asked, but they simply desired to effect a reduction. If the clause was passed, mineowners would be made to pay not only on the value of their buildings, but on the railways by which the tear and wear of the public roads would be saved, and on the fixed rents or royalty of the minerals which were being exhausted, and thus the assessment would be raised enormously.

although fully admitting the strength of the arguments used by the right hon. and learned Lord below him (the Lord Advocate), did not feel inclined to oppose the Amendment, seeing that it was of a permissive character—the road trustees having power to make the proposed reduction, or not, as they thought fit. In that respect, it seemed to him that the Amendment compared very favourably with other Amendments moved to the same effect by the hon. Member for North Lanarkshire, who left the question to be decided by the Sheriff of the county. Perhaps, as this was a mere permissive power, the Lord Advocate would see his way to grant it.

hoped the right hon. and learned Lord would not yield to the Amendment. He believed it would work unfairly, because the traffic passing along roads from mines was really very great indeed compared with the ordinary traffic. So far from lightening, this Bill added considerably to the burdens of the landowners; and he thought it would be very unfair to that class, and to small burghs, to allow the exemption proposed. He knew that the argument was that mineowners had not hitherto paid much toll, but they had shown that they had suffered very largely by changes that had been made. It was very true that they had hitherto paid many tolls. It seemed to him it would be unfair, when Parliament was making this great change, if they made any exemptions—they should all sail together. Landowners, mineowners, and manufacturers all sailed in the same boat, and he was sure the benefits they would all derive from improved roads would make up for any immediate inconvenience which the Bill might entail upon them.

said, there seemed to be an impression in the House that they wanted these parties exempted. They wanted nothing of the sort. The principle of composition in the matter of value had always been recognized, and the Amendment provided nothing more than that it might be resorted to in certain cases.

remarked that the arguments of the right hon. and learned Lord (the Lord Advocate) would have been very good indeed, if he had never introduced the clause at all; but that, having introduced the clause, he had set an example for exceptions and had entirely cut away the ground from under his own feet. The right hon. and learned Lord said the two cases were not analogous, because he said he only allowed an extra charge for "abuse of the roads." Now, one so-called abuse was the "construction of buildings or works." That, surely, could not be properly called an abuse. Instead of being an abuse, it was only a temporary extra use for the purpose of creating new rateable subjects to pay for the roads. He was aware the words "construction of buildings or works'' had now been struck out of the clause; but the Government intentions must be judged by the clause as they introduced it. He contended that it was extra use, not amounting to abuse; and if an allowance ought to be made for that, it equally ought to be made for "reduced use," which was the principle of the Amendment. The case of railways had been so well argued that he need not mention that the railways were evidently fed by the roads. All the railways touched upon the roads, and the traffic was supplied by them. He asked for no complicated exemptions, but for a small reduction, in the fixing of which considerable latitude would be allowed. He was not wedded to his own words, and if the principle he contended for were conceded, he would accept any reasonable form of Amendment which the Government might propose. Failing that, he should feel it his duty to take the sense of the Committee on his claim, which appeared to him a perfectly just one.

maintained that, in placing an Amendment on the Paper for a modification of valuation in certain cases, he was not proposing any new principle; but was only asking for some modification of valuation in special cases, in order to adapt the valuation to the special circumstances of the case. It was notorious that such modifications had been made in the General Police Improvement (Scotland) Act, and in various other measures relating to canals, railways, gas, and water, &c. Indeed, he did not see that his opponents had a leg to stand on. The railways actually benefited by the roads. There might be cases in which a road was a rival to a railway; but they were exceptional, the rule being that roads were the feeders of railways.

denied that the proprietors of sheep farms were unlike the proprietors of mines in this respect—that they did not make roads. He knew many proprietors of sheep farms who had made roads at their own expense, and he himself had constructed upwards of 20 miles of roads for his tenants.

warned the Committee that if the exemptions now asked for were granted, he should claim a similar one on behalf of manufacturers whose establishments were connected with railways by sidings, and not by roads.

pointed out to the hon. and gallant Member for South Ayrshire (Colonel Alexander), who had the next Amendments on the Paper, that these Amendments scarcely came within the scope of the clause.

said, the Amendment appeared to him to embody the principle upon which the Committee had just pronounced its opinion.

said, that under these circumstances he would not move it.

said, he did not think it would be necessary for him, in now addressing the Committee, to enter in detail into the circumstances which had led to the introduction of the clause he was about to propose. There was no doubt that the position of the City of Glasgow towards the adjacent counties of Lanark and Renfrew was a very peculiar one. After the Bill of last Session had been withdrawn, he took occasion to institute inquiries into this subject; and after the Report which was made to the Home Office had been communicated to those who were interested on both sides, effect was given in the clause he was about to move to the recommendations which had been made. He did not think it was necessary for him to say any more on the subject, and therefore he would content himself with simply moving the clause, reserving to himself the right to make further observations upon it, in case he should deem it right to do so. He moved, after Clause 85, to insert the following Clause:—

(Special provisions for highways in counties of Lanark and Renfrew.)

"Whereas it is expedient to make special provision in this Act in regard to the highways within the counties of Lanark and Renfrew: Be it enacted as follows:

"This Act shall commence to have effect within the counties of Lanark and Renfrew (including the burghs situated or partly situated therein) on the first day of June, one thousand eight hundred and eighty-two, but subject to the provisions following (that is to say):

"(1.) The debts affecting the turnpike and statute labour roads within the counties of Lanark and Renfrew, including the burghs therein situated, after having been valued as here in before provided, shall be charged, and are hereby allocated upon the said counties and the burghs therein situated, in the proportion of their respective valuations at the commencement of this Act, as appearing from the valuation rolls then in force. The debts so allocated shall in all respects be deemed to be debts allocated in terms of this Act, and all the provisions of this Act with respect to debts which have been valued and allocated shall have effect with reference thereto;

"(2.) The city of Glasgow, and the burghs of Rutherglen, Govan, Partick, Maryhill, Hillhead, Crosshill, Kinningpark, Pollock-shields, and Govan Hill, shall jointly contribute the sum of twelve thousand five hundred pounds annually towards the cost of maintaining the roads, highways, and bridges within the counties of Lanark and Renfrew. The said sum shall be a charge upon and be paid by the said city and the said burghs, in the proportion of their respective valuations at the commencement of this Act appearing as aforesaid, and shall be divisible between and be paid to the said counties, or any districts into which the same may be divided in terms of this Act, in the manner and in the proportions which shall be determined by a Commissioner appointed for the purpose by the Secretary of State, and shall be applied towards the maintenance of the roads, highways, and bridges within such counties or districts respectively, and in diminution, pro tanto, of the assessments for such maintenance leviable therein in terms of this Act. The amount falling to be paid by each such city and burgh to each such county or district respectively shall be payable at the expiration of one year from the date at which tolls shall cease to be exigible within such county or district, and at the expiration of each successive year thereafter; and if not paid when due, may be recovered with expenses in the Court of Session, at the instance of the County Road Clerk of the county. The Secretary of State may make orders as to the remuneration and travelling or other expenses of the said Commissioner, and as to the parties by whom such costs shall be paid, and the funds or assessments against which they shall be charged; and the Court of Session may interpone their authority to any order made by the Secretary of State as to such costs, and may grant decree conform thereto, upon which execution and diligence may proceed in common form;

"(3.) If it shall appear to the local authority of Glasgow, or of any of the burghs mentioned in this section, that any road, highway, or bridge, within two miles of their respective boundaries, is not, in whole or in part, maintained in a sufficient state of repair, having regard to the traffic passing over the same, it shall be lawful for the clerk of such local authority to apply, in a summary way, to the Lord Ordinary on the Bills in the Court of Session, and the Lord Ordinary, after inquiry, may make such order as to him shall seem proper to remedy the evil complained of, and may ordain the said order to be carried into effect by, and at the sight of, such persons as he may think fit, and at the expense of the county, or district, as the case may be, and such order, which may also dispose of the expenses of the application, shall be final and not subject to review. The sums expended in terms of this section shall be deemed to be sums expended in the execution of this Act;

"(4.) From and after the date at which the annual contribution mentioned in this section shall commence to be payable, the sum of eight hundred and sixty pounds now payable by the lord provost, magistrates, and council of Glasgow as coming in place of the board of police of Glasgow to the statute labour road trustees of the barony parish of Glasgow, and the sum of sixty pounds now payable by them to the statute labour road trustees of the parish of Govan respectively, shall cease to be so payable;

"(5.) The populous places of Govan, Partick, Maryhill, Hillhead, Crosshill, Kinningpark, Pollockshields, and Govanhill shall, irrespective of their population, be deemed to be burghs within the meaning and for the purposes of this Act."

pointed out that the sum to be paid by Glasgow was only £10,000, and not £12,500, as the hon. Member had stated.

said, the total amount was £12,500, which was divided between Glasgow and the little satellite burghs that surrounded her. About £2,500 a-year would have to be paid by them, and £10,000 by Glasgow proper. Over and above that, it was proposed to saddle Glasgow with the payment of the debt on the county roads with which the city of Glasgow had nothing whatever to do. If one proposal could be more unjust than the other out of two extremely unjust proposals, this was, perhaps, the more unjust of the two. The counties of Lanark and Renfrew had not paid their debts on the road trusts, but had gone on accumulating them, and had never paid the first cost; Glasgow, on the other hand, having made streets at an enormous expense, had paid for them, and had given the counties the free use of those streets all along. A great deal of the traffic in the streets of Glasgow was county traffic purely. Coal, iron, stone, and farm produce passed through Glasgow to go to the railways or the Broomielaw district and elsewhere, and it did not contribute anything at all to Glasgow for the use of the streets; and to ask the city of Glasgow to pay £10,000 a-year to the county roads and to pay the county debt, because the county chose to accumulate it, he held to be a proposal altogether unjustifiable. There was, indeed, a small debt of about £140,000 on the Glasgow streets; but that was a mere trifle compared with what the streets had cost. If the proposal had been to throw the two debts together, and to enact that the city and the counties should pay equally, there might have been some approach to justice in it. His hon. Colleague (Dr. Cameron) had placed on the Paper an Amendment to that effect. They would accept that, if they could not get the proposed arrangement done away with altogether. If the Government would not regard the rights of the people of Glasgow, they could, of course, beat them easily on a division; but he hoped the Government would reason the matter out fairly, and would endeavour to show some good reason why the inhabitants of Glasgow should pay any share of the county debt. They did not object to pay it jointly, if the counties also paid the town debt jointly, and there was on the Paper a Motion by the hon. Member for Forfarshire (Mr. J. W. Barclay) which they would be willing to accept; but they wished to endeavour, in the first place, to stop this injustice altogether, and to be dealt with in the same way as the rest of Scotland. He believed that the only reason for this unjust taxation was, that there would be an exceptional amount of taxation on the roads near Glasgow for the upkeep of the roads on which there was a great traffic near the city. But it must be remembered that the very proximity to Glasgow had raised the value of those lands; and therefore it was perfectly fair that the counties ought to pay for, as well as reap, the advantage of being so near Glasgow. It would be quite as reasonable for Glasgow to say to the counties of Lanark and Renfrew—"We provide you with miles of fine streets, and you send through them your coal, your iron, and your farm produce. Up to the present time we have not charged you anything for the use of our streets; but in future we will charge you £10,000 a-year for their upkeep." This would be just as fair as the present proposal of the Government that Glasgow should pay £10,000 a-year for the upkeep of the county roads. He should certainly take the sense of the Committee on the clause. The fact was, that the tolls outside Glasgow were not paid by Glasgow, therefore the counties ought to pay for the roads, and not Glasgow.

said, he would not go into all the questions which had just been raised by his hon. Friend (Mr. Anderson), because; if he did so, he should have to occupy the time of the Committee with a very long argument. The greater part of the allegations adduced by his hon. Friend had been over and over again made and controverted in the House of Commons. The roads referred to benefited not only the country districts, but also the towns; and therefore it was right that the latter should contribute to their maintenance. It would be in the power of any local authority or burgh, if they felt themselves aggrieved by the provisions of the Bill, to go to the Home Secretary and get a Provisional Order for redress. The Government had, however, thought it right to deal with the difficulties presented by the case of Glasgow by introducing a new clause. If the Commissioner who was sent down to inquire into the circumstances had determined in favour of Glasgow, his hon. Friend, instead of impugning the decision, would have asked the Committee to confirm it. Under all the circumstances, he should support the proposal of the Government. Throughout his argument his hon. Friend had represented this as the case of Glasgow only. His hon. Friend forgot, apparently, the important suburban burghs, some of which contained between 40,000 and 60,000 inhabitants. It was an extraordinary fact, which he begged the Committee to bear in mind, that all those burghs had acquiesced in the decision of the Commissioner. It was only Glasgow that stood out. The counties of Lanark and Renfrew were perfectly content with the arrangement. On the whole, he thought the proposal of the Government to lump together all the burghs connected with turnpike trusts was an equitable one; and he should, therefore, be prepared to give it his support.

wished to make an explanation, in consequence of what had fallen from the hon. Member for Glasgow (Mr. Anderson). He had thought at first that the hon. Gentleman was referring to the last discussion in Committee. It now appeared, however, that the hon. Gentleman was alluding to some observations which fell from him (Lord Elcho) on the second reading or on the Motion to go into Committee. What he said on one of those occasions was that Glasgow was surrounded by toll-bars; that about £44,000 a-year was levied for those tolls; and that if Glasgow were relieved from this circle of toll-bars, it ought to pay a certain sum towards the payment of the debt. That was the remark he made and he still adhered to it, notwithstanding the speech of the hon. Gentleman.

said, he considered the clause which was now under discussion to be the great blot on the Bill. The clause ought, in his opinion, to be resisted to the very uttermost by the inhabitants of Glasgow. It was one of pains and penalties such as hon. Members could not point to in any other measure, unless they went back to the days of the Stuarts. Here was a large sum fixed upon; but nobody knew how, or upon what principle. All that was known was that it was the result of the inquiries of a Commissioner appointed by the Home Office, who had conducted these inquiries in secret. He (Mr. M'Laren) had been one of the Royal Commissioners appointed nearly 20 years ago to investigate these subjects, and in that way he had acquired some knowledge of the matter now under consideration. That Commission, he found, on looking back to its printed Reports, sat for eight days in Glasgow. It examined 33 witnesses connected with Lanark and Glasgow. It summoned all the leading officials of the county and the city, and it took the evidence of men of all classes upon the subject, who offered themselves as witnesses. The result was a Report which showed that the Commissioners then appointed had arrived at an entirely different conclusion from that to which the secret Commissioner appointed by the Home Office had come. It was very important to contrast the recommendations of the two Commissions and the reasons upon which they were founded. The result of the inquiries of the Home Office secret Commissioner, who took his evidence in private, was that the city of Glasgow should pay £12,500 for ever to maintain the roads in the county of Lanark. The Report of the Royal Commissioners, who examined 33 witnesses, and who had sat for eight days in open Court, stated that Glasgow should not pay one shilling for maintaining the roads of Lanarkshire. The secret Commissioner had also said that the debt of Lanarkshire should be paid in proportion to the valued rental of the city as compared with the county; and the effect of that would be that about one-half of the whole debt of the county would be paid by Glasgow alone, whilst the Royal Commissioners said that Glasgow should pay only a proportion of the debt on those trusts which entered into the city, and according to the mileage within and without the city boundaries. These were remarkable discrepancies, and he left the Committee to judge whether one man or five men were most to be trusted in the matter. He did not mean to say one word in disparagement personally of the secret Commissioner appointed by the Government. Although little was known of that gentleman's proceedings, he would assume that he was as well qualified as anyone in London could be for the task to which he had been appointed; but no man, however great his talents, being a stranger to the subject, could compete successfully with others who possessed valuable local knowledge on a question of this kind. Who were the Commissioners of 20 years ago? He was one of the number; but he put himself out of the case, except as a witness, who knew something of what had been done. Well, then, the Chairman was Mr. Smythe, of Methven Castle, Chairman of the Commissioners of Supply, Perthshire—a county in which he believed there was the largest number of trusts of any county in Scotland—a man of great experience, formerly connected with the Poor Law Board, and a man enjoying the confidence of the great county in which he held this important position. Had no other man than Mr. Smythe been upon the Commission his Report alone, from his local knowledge and experience in the management of roads, would have greatly outweighed the Report of any secret Commissioner. But Mr. Smythe was not alone. One of his Colleagues had been Sir John M'Neill—a man so distinguished as to have been selected to go to the Crimea, to investigate into the difficulties and abuses which had existed there, who made a Report, which was received with great satisfaction, and for which he received high honours from the Crown—having refused to accept of any pecuniary compensation. A third Commissioner was Sir James Fergusson—a gentleman who was long a Member of the House of Commons, who had occupied the position of an Under Secretary of State, and who had afterwards been appointed by Her Majesty's Government Governor of two of their greatest Colonial Dependencies. Sir James was a man of known experience and ability, and he had no doubt that if he were again fortunate enough to secure a seat in the House, his services would be taken advantage of in some important Office by Her Majesty's Government. A fourth Commissioner was Sir Andrew Orr, who had been chief magistrate of Glasgow, and who was a landowner in the county of Stirling; and all the four were large landowners. These gentlemen concurred in the Report to which he had referred, and the clause at present in debate, emanating from the secret Commissioner, was, therefore, backed with a very small amount of weight as compared with that which was against it. As he had said, 33 witnesses had been examined by the Commissioners, and all those witnesses, with one exception, were in favour of Glasgow maintaining its own streets and its own streets only, while paying only the proportion of the debt which he had already stated. The one exception was Mr. Graham; but even that gentleman was not in favour of the "pains and penalties'" plans, but approved of a settlement similar to what the hon. Member for the Falkirk Burghs (Mr. Ramsay) shadowed forth, but with a zone of five miles beyond the city. Again, one of the witnesses who were at that time examined was the clerk to the Lanarkshire Commissioners of Supply, and that gentleman gave strong evidence in favour of the views which the Commissioners had expressed. He laid before the Commissioners two Reports which had been made by large Committees of the county gentlemen appointed in two successive years to consider this subject. What occasioned the appointment of those Committees was that a Bill had been brought into the House in 1858 for the abolition of tolls, and Lanarkshire took up that measure, and appointed a Committee to examine and report upon it. Another Committee was appointed in the following year, and both those bodies reported in favour of the plan which had been afterwards adopted in substance by the Royal Commission. On the back of the Bill which was introduced in 1858, he found the names of Lord Elcho, Mr. Moncreiff, and Sir Edward Colebrooke. He had not had the pleasure of hearing the speech of the hon. Baronet that evening; but he hoped that he had advocated before the Committee the views which were embodied in Clause 20 of the Bill—namely, that Glasgow should pay for the support of its own streets only. He found a statement in one of the County Reports, copied into the Blue Book issued by the Commissioners, to the effect that the whole roads and bridges within burghs should be placed under the charge and management of magistrates and town councils, and that the roads in counties should be placed under the administration of County Boards; and that statement was signed by Lord Belhaven officially, as convener of the county of Lanark. And Lord Belhaven had himself given very strong evidence to that effect when examined as a witness. He had also stated that the abolition of the toll system would effect a saving of from 25 to 30 per cent in the county. Another gentleman, Mr. Scott—factor to Lord Douglas—had followed in a similar strain. [An hon. MEMBER: Agreed, agreed!] He heard an hon. Member cry "Agreed;" but he would tell that hon. Gentleman that he intended to go on until he had finished. There was always one alternative for hon. Gentlemen who did not care for certain speeches—they could retire from the House; or, if they did not do that, it was open to those whom they interrupted to move the adjournment of the House until they came to a more docile temper. He had been referring to gentlemen who had been examined before the Commissioners, and, amongst others, to Lord Belhaven, who had been convener of Lanarkshire, and who represented the Crown at the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland—an appointment which showed the opinion entertained of him by the Government of the day. It was important that the Committee should consider the views on this subject of such men as he had mentioned, especially when those views had, as it now appeared, to be weighed against the slender opinion of one who was a stranger to Glasgow and to Scotland, and the reasons for whose report could only be guessed at. He would also remind the Committee that the Commission of 20 years ago was no Radical Commission, nor appointed by a Radical Government. It was appointed by a Conservative Government, and its proceedings were conducted in such a manner that no man could have told what the politics were of those who composed it. Although, as a matter of fact, these Commissioners comprised three Conservatives and one Liberal, politics never showed themselves in any shape or way. There could not, therefore, have been any prejudice against the counties and in favour of the burghs in a Commission so constituted. The thing was utterly impossible. Had there been any bias at all, the bias would have been shown in favour of counties and against burghs, but no such bias existed. In addition to the gentlemen whom he had already named, Lord Provost Galbraith, chief magistrate of Glasgow for the time being, had said in effect—and he recollected his statements well—that the traffic on the streets of Glasgow for county purposes—of goods passing through the city to the county, or from the county through Glasgow to other counties and for shipment—was such that the wear-and-tear of Glasgow roads by county people was very much greater than the wear-and-tear of the county roads by Glasgow people—in other words, suppose that the county traffic through the streets of the city might represent £5,000, the traffic of the city through the county would not represent nearly so large a sum. It had been stated by the hon. Member for Dumbartonshire (Mr. Orr-Ewing), that the tolls around Glasgow yielded about £42,000 a-year. But the Return recently obtained by the hon. and gallant Member for Renfrewshire (Colonel Mure), showed that the total expense of maintaining all the turnpike roads in the county of Lanark was only £23,616, together with £2,485 for management, including in these sums the maintenance of roads within certain new burghs and populous places. It had been computed, on good authority, that this total amount of £26,101 would be reduced to £21,000 when these burghs maintained their own roads, as they were bound to do by the Bill. The total rental of the county being now £2,060,927, a rate of 2½d. in the pound would more than suffice, even if no saving of the expenses of management, or otherwise, took place, to maintain all the turnpike roads within the county. He did not refer to the statute labour road question, because Glasgow was not interested for or against the new arrangement; but the effect of it, manifestly, would be to relieve the agricultural interest of a large part of the present statute labour taxation which fell upon them, by throwing it on other interests within the county. These being the facts, and being perfectly cognisant of them after hearing the evidence and taking part in the examination of witnesses, he had felt it his duty on the present occasion to protest with all force and energy which he could command against a gross injustice which, as he conceived, would be perpetrated if this clause were to be passed into law. He hoped that such a clause would never be allowed to pass, and he thought that those who were opposed to it would be justified in using every means in their power to prevent its adoption.

said, he was not surprised that the hon. Member for Edinburgh (Mr. M'Laren) should have addressed the Committee at some length on that important question. There could be no doubt that the clause proposed by the right hon. and learned Lord Advocate violated the principle of the Bill, which was, that the money levied in each county should be expended within the county itself, and should not be drawn from extraneous sources. The Committee had, however, by a majority, violated the principle of the Bill in the postponed clause which had just been passed, by imposing additional assessments for extraordinary traffic, and now it was proposed to aggravate the injustice of that clause by imposing upon Glasgow a sum admitted to be so large as £10,000, not for the purpose of being expended on roads within the city, or for the behoof of the citizens; but for the purpose of being expended on roads which were within the county, and which were administered by the county trustees as they thought fit. He considered that no greater violation of the principle of the Bill could possibly be conceived, and hoped the Committee would agree to reject the clause; but, if not, he should hereafter propose an Amendment, the nature of which he would not occupy further time by discussing.

said, he thought the citizens of Glasgow could not be too fully indebted to the hon. Member for Edinburgh for the exceptionally calm and lucid speech which he had delivered on that occasion. He did not think that the Committee could be entirely aware of the injustice proposed to be done to the city of Glasgow if the clause of the right hon. and learned Lord Advocate were adopted. It was proposed to cause the city of Glasgow to pay to the counties of Lanark and Renfrew a sum of over £400,000, in direct opposition to the recommendations of the Royal Commission. That, in short, was the meaning of the Government proposal, and it was one against which he must also emphatically protest. The people of Glasgow did not object to bear their fair share of the cost of the up-keep of the roads; but the Government wanted them to pay besides the sum of £12,500 a-year, in perpetuo, to the counties of Lanark and Renfrew. It was proposed, further, that Glasgow should pay nearly half the entire road debts of Lanarkshire and Renfrewshire, while they were obliged to pay their own road debt into the bargain. His hon. Friend the Member for North Lanarkshire (Sir Edward Colebrooke) had said the road debt of Glasgow was a statute labour debt, and that statute labour debts were not taken into consideration by the Bill. Of course, the debts of Glasgow were statute labour, for the streets of Glasgow were all supported by assessment; but it arose in this way—as they took over the turnpike roads they were converted into statute labour roads, and therefore the debts of Glasgow were as much turnpike debts as were those of the county. An exhaustive inquiry had been held, and the Government last year sent down a Commissioner; but he held his Court in secret, and when the production of the Report was asked for, it was denied, and he had never seen it. They were now asked to take the dictum of this one Commissioner against that of the very important Commission which was held a considerable number of years ago. The hon. Member for North Lanarkshire had further said that the burghs around Glasgow did not object to this proposal. Their case, however, was not so hard as that of Glasgow, because they had no debts of their own to pay; while Glasgow was asked not only to pay its own debt, but that of the county also. They were willing to make some sacrifices to get rid of tolls; but he did not think they ought to be called upon to go to the extent of the proposal in this Bill, seeing that the traffic brought into Glasgow from the counties outside wore out the streets as much as the traffic of the city itself. To tax them to the extent of a capitalized sum of £400,000 was what they protested against; and he hoped the Government would re-cobnsider the matter, and not treat Glasgow in this exceptional manner. If the Bill was not altered, a most flagrant and palpable injustice would be committed.

said, the hon. Member for Edinburgh (Mr. M'Laren) was perpetually quoting the Report of the Commission of 1859. Now, if the hon. Member had consented to the carrying out of the recommendation of those Commissioners, this Roads and Bridges question would have been settled long ago. In 1861, a Bill was brought in by the then Lord Advocate which was a Permissive Bill, and again, in 1865, a Permissive Bill was introduced; but that measure was opposed by hon. Members on the ground that it was permissive, and it did not pass. In regard to what had fallen from the hon. Member who had just spoken (Dr. Cameron), he begged to remind the Committee that the great proportion of the roads out of Glasgow were made not for the benefit of the county of Lanark, but for the benefit of the city of Glasgow—as, for instance, the Glasgow and Carlisle road, the debt for which was contracted in order to improve the connection between Glasgow and the South. When hon. Members talked about roads, they must not merely think of the land through which they passed, but must take into consideration where the road began, where it went to, and the large towns it connected. Judged by that standard, they would find that the great proportion of these Lanarkshire roads were made for the benefit of Glasgow. From what had been said by the hon. Member, it would appear as if he thought Glasgow had had no opportunity to state her case before the Commissioner. Now, the Lord Provost of Glasgow, the Lord Dean of Guild, the City Treasurer, the Chairman and Vice Chairman of the Parliamentary Bills Committee, the Chairman of the Glasgow Statute Labour Commission, an ex-senior magistrate of Glasgow, the town clerk, and clerk to the magistrates and administration of the Police Act, the city architect, and two bail-lies, were all heard before the Commissioner appointed by the Home Secretary. The case of Glasgow was most ably argued before him, and the result of the evidence which he heard was that he decided against the city. One reason why Glasgow should contribute this sum was because the roads in the agricultural districts of the country were maintained at something like £32 per mile, while the roads in the immediate vicinity of Glasgow cost £260 per mile and more. Why should Lanarkshire be subject to this increased taxation for the benefit of Glasgow, unless Glasgow was prepared to bear her share of the burden?

thought the Government ought to state the reasons which had induced them to propose this exceptional legislation with regard to Glasgow, because it could not be denied that it was an exceptional proposal in favour of Lanarkshire at the expense of the city of Glasgow. It had not been attempted to be proved that the burden of maintaining roads in the counties of Lanarkshire and Renfrewshire would be greater than it was in other counties. No doubt, if this Bill passed, the burden of maintaining the roads in those two counties would amount to £49,000; but that amount would be made up by an assessment over the valuation of the two counties of not more than 5d. in the pound. Now, in the county which he represented they paid as high as 9d., and, in some cases, 1s. in the pound for the maintenance of the statute labour roads apart from the turnpike roads. In Aberdeenshire the assessment was 6d. in the pound. This was an argument, he considered, in favour of there being no exceptional legislation with regard to Glasgow. He was surprised to hear the attempt which had been made to prove that Glasgow had profited most by these roads. It should be remembered that the principal outlet of Glasgow was by way of the Clyde, and it was the counties of Lanarkshire and Renfrewshire which had benefited by the existence of Glasgow in their neighbourhood, thus giving them an outlet for their minerals and coals. The enormous rental which was derived in those counties from coals and minerals was wholly due to the roads connecting them with Glasgow. In the course of the discussion on this measure, it had been said that this was a landlord's Bill; and that, to his mind, was conclusively proved, when they found a clause introduced to the prejudice of the city of Glasgow, and wholly in the interests of the counties of Lanarkshire and Renfrewshire. He again called upon the Government to give the Committee some reasons for the course they had adopted in proposing this exceptional legislation.

said, it had been stated that the tolls immediately around Glasgow amounted to £42,000. That was the statement; now for the fact. At the time when the Commissioners made their Report, the whole expenditure for all the roads in the county of Lanarkshire was £29,162. That was exclusive of the roads within burghs, which were maintained by the county, and those amounted to £9,500. Now, according to a Return which had been since made of the tolls taken in the counties of Lanarkshire and Renfrewshire, it appeared that the total expenditure for the county roads of Lanarkshire had been reduced to £23,000. Many hon. Members might be surprised that the amount had not increased, instead of diminished to the extent of £6,000; but that was due to the fact of the multiplication of branch railways, and those had taken away a good deal of the traffic which formerly went along the public roads. The expenses paid by the counties for roads within the burghs was now £6,100. At the time of the Commission the rental of the county was £1,014,000; it was now £2,066,000. Whatever sum, therefore, was required to maintain the roads of Lanarkshire, only half of what was then needed ought to be taken now. Even if the whole £29,000 were required, a rate of 3½d. in the pound would be sufficient.

, lest the Committee should be carried away by the statistics of the hon. Member for Edinburgh (Mr. M'Laren), would like to tell them what was the fate of the Commission to which allusion had been made. The Commissioners went down to Glasgow, and inquired into the whole circumstances connected with Glasgow and Lanarkshire and Renfrewshire, and after they had reported to Parliament, a Bill was introduced by the Lord Advocate of that day. That measure recommended that tolls should be abolished, and that there should be no exemptions; but a Committee of that House made it permissive on Lanarkshire and Renfrewshire, because it appeared unfair to them that those two counties and Glasgow should be placed upon the same footing. Lord Elcho subsequently introduced a Bill, and the county of Renfrew was entirely exempted from its operation. This question had therefore been considered by Commissions, Select Committees, and by that House, and it had always been held that Lanarkshire and Renfrewshire stood in a different position to Glasgow. As to the impartiality of Mr. Smith, the last Commissioner, he might mention that when he heard that he had been appointed to inquire into the question, he wrote and asked to see him; but Mr. Smith replied that as he (Colonel Mure) was interested in one of the counties, he did not think it would be right to see him, unless he desired to be examined as a witness.

said, it was quite impossible to say that any of the arguments which had been used in the course of the debate had the merit of novelty. During the last 10 years this question had been before the House on several occasions, and it had always been admitted that the case of Glasgow in relation to the two great counties of Lanarkshire and Renfrewshire was exceptional. Two objections had been taken to the proposal made in this clause. It had been maintained that it did not embody a fair settlement between the parties; and secondly, that it was against the principle laid down in the recommendations of the Commissioners in their Report of 1860. Now, he was happy to say that the iron rule for the treatment of all burghs in reference to a county, laid down in the Report of the Commission, had been deliberately departed from in this Bill already; for the Committee, foreseeing that such cases would arise, had provided by the 9th clause of the Bill for their future determination by means of a Provisional Order to be obtained from the Secretary of State, subject to the conditions contained in such Order as to debts for highways in the neighbourhood of any burgh; the effect being to confer on the Secretary of State the power of a Provisional Order to make the county pay part of a burgh debt, or a burgh pay part of the county debt, and to make one contribute to the other, as the case might be. Various other clauses had been inserted, for the purpose of enabling burghs, at present having the maintenance of their own roads, to make common cause with the county, where the assessment was burdensome to the burgh, upon such fair and equitable terms as should be settled by the Sheriff of the jurisdiction. On the questions of disputed fact, the conclusion of the Government was, on the whole, that the people of Glasgow had been using to a large extent the roads for a considerable distance outside the city, and not only that they had been users of the roads, but that they were the persons who had paid for the roads. The Government, therefore, without much hesitation, had come to the conclusion that the substitution of this payment for the tolls they had been in the habit of paying would be a pecuniary advantage to the city.

took entire exception to the last statement of the right hon. and learned Lord, that the inhabitants of Glasgow would gain any pecuniary advantage by this arrangement. The statement begged the whole question, and he (Mr. Anderson) claimed to know on what facts the right hon. and learned Lord had based his conclusions. A Royal Commission, consisting of probably the best men that could be selected for the purpose, had made an inquiry on this subject. They heard evidence in open court, so that the value of the conclusions at which they arrived was capable of being estimated, and their Report was totally opposed to the arrangement which, would now be made by the clause. That was what they complained of, and also that the Government, in the face of that Report of a Royal Commission, had preferred the secret report of a Treasury clerk. ["No!"] An hon. Member said "No." Well, he might not have been a Treasury clerk, but he was some person sent by the Government to make a secret inquiry. He wanted to know the grounds upon which that person came to his decision? but these the Government declined to give. He certainly took evidence, but in what way he hardly knew. The evidence was not taken in open Court. The Report ought to be laid on the Table, so that the grounds of the Government decision might be known. The Ministers, however, seemed to have intrusted a copy of the Report to the hon. Member for North Lanarkshire. They were bound in his (Mr. Anderson's) opinion, therefore, to lay it on the Table before inflicting upon Glasgow this most unjust legislation. The right hon. and learned Lord adduced no argument worth a straw to prove that those roads were made for the benefit of Glasgow. The county Members who supported the clause likewise gave no arguments of any weight; the only one he had noticed was that of the hon. Baronet the Member for South Lanarkshire, who said that three carriages left Glasgow for every one that came in. He (Mr. Anderson) should like to know what would become of all the Glasgow carriages in course of time, if that were the case? The roads were made for the benefit of both city and county, so were the streets of Glasgow, and the county people used those streets freely, sending their goods over them to the Glasgow harbours and railways. For this use they paid nothing; and it was unfair to make Glasgow pay £500,000 for the benefit of the counties over and above all that the city had to do for themselves.

said, he was certain that it was not the fact that no one had seen this Report; but he did not like to interrupt the hon. Member, without refreshing his memory by referring to the Gentleman who usually advised him in these matters. He found that the Report was read over to the two deputations who waited upon him in the earlier part of the Session at the Home Office on the same day in separate rooms, and it was explained to them at those meetings, and it was given to them on the same day. By his orders, a great number of copies were sent to the town of Glasgow as well as to the counties interested. He also gave orders that copies should be sent to everybody who desired them.

Was it a complete Report, with the evidence?