Owen, Mr. Channing, Mr. Bill, Mr. DOGS REGULATION BILL. Brigg, Commander Bethell, and Mr. Against, from London, Melton MowLloyd George; Presented and read first bray, and Worthing; to lie upon the time; to be read second time on Mon-Table. day, 16th May, and to be printed. [No. 197.] SALE OF INTOXICATING LIQUORS (IRELAND) BILL AND SALE OF INTOXICATING LIQUORS ON SUNDAY BILL. In favour, from Rothesay, Barrhead, RETURNS, ETC. IRISH LAND COMMISSION Copy presented of Return of Proceed Ashford, Hull, Newhaven, Yeador, Rom-ings of the Commission during the month sey, Dundee (2), Camperdown, Glasgow, Irvine, Edinburgh, and Reston; to lie upon the Table. of February, 1898 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table. SUGAR BOUNTIES (COMMERCIAL, No. 3, 1898). Copy presented of Correspondence re SALE OF INTOXICATING LIQUORS lating to Sugar Bounties [by command]; (IRELAND) BILL. In favour, from Thornaby-on-Tees, Hogland Nether, Middleton, Leeds, Kincardine O'Neil, Friockheim, Cloughmills, and Belfast; to lie upon the Table. to lie upon the Table. SALE OF INTOXICATING ON SUNDAY BILL. LIQUORS TEMPORARY LAWS. In favour, from Forest Gate, Beving- Register of Temporary Laws for the ton, Maidstone, Accrington, Newbury, Fourth Session, Twenty-sixth Parliament, Weston-super-Mare, Mexboro' (2), Syden- of the United Kingdom of Great Britain ham, Manchester, Wilsden, Canonbury, and Ireland, pursuant to Report of the Stony Stratford, Oving, Mickleton, Select Committee on Expiring Laws in Danby Bottles, Long Eaton, Barnsley, Session 1866; to be printed. [No. 190.] Dorset, Bath, Chelsea (3), Norwell, Stanley, Masham, Heeley (2), Sheffield (10), Brinkworth, Fulham, Hereford (6), Brightside, St. Leonard's on Sea, Topsham, London (2), Bow, Kiveton Park, Return ordered, "of the Accounts, as York (4). Lambeth, Winterwell, White- they are respectively made up, of the inch, Salford (2), Nottingham (2), Up- Metropolitan Water Companies to the holland, Preston (2), Ilfracombe, New- 30th day of September, and the 31st ton Abbot, Ashburton, Rawmarsh, Hali- day of December, 1897 (in continuation fax, Bolton, Hollinsend, Rochdale, Rams- of Parliamentary Paper, No. 366, of Sesgate, Castle Donington, Ripley, Hull, sion 1897."-(Mr. T. W. Russell.) Jordanhill, Norwich, Exeter, Marylebone, Torquay (3), Leominster, Milnsbridge, Amesbury, Awsworth, Letton, Burraton, Bearwood, Thornaby, Morley, Friockheim, Dumbarton, Kincardine O'Neil, Stockton-on-Tees, Hoylake, and Edinburgh; to lie upon the Table. VIVISECTION. METROPOLITAN WATER COMPANIES (ACCOUNTS). From Peckham, for prohibition; to Preston): I may at once say what view lie upon the Table. the Government take as to the attitude one. how far they are working together. We do not know what their relations one to another may be. We do not know which of these two great railway companies is to control the other, which is to have the predominant voice; and only recently, within the last few days, there have been various proposals made. One of these railway companies has proposed to buy up the Lismore and Fermoy Railway, and ford, Dungarvan and Lismore Railway. Therefore, we do not know how far they are working in co-operation at all, and, if they are working in co-operation, what their mutual relations are; and we do not know what their real intentions are with regard to the Bill. Under these circumstances the opinion of the Government is that this Bill should be read a second time, and that it should be referred to a hybrid they should assume with regard to this Bill. There is a certain Motion down on the part of my honourable Friend sitting below the Gangway referring it to a Select Committee, or I should say a hybrid Committee. That instruction we shall undoubtedly agree to, as we shall also agree to the Instruction which he proposes to move with it. Our reasons are very plain. There are two things which are wanted with regard to this Bill. We the other proposes to buy up the Waterwant a great deal more light thrown upon it than we have had at the present moment. In the next place we must show that there is complete agreement between the Irish Members sitting on both sides of the House and the Government, that, although we are anxious that there should be an alternative route of communication between England and the south of Ireland, we are also most anxious that that route shall be a competitive Committee. That, so far as I can see, I never recollect a Bill brought before this House as to which the House was so little in possession of the real facts as we are with regard to this Bill. From time to time, ever since the negotiations began, there have been constant changes going on. Those changes have been going on even till within the last few days, and what is the result? The Southern Railway, what we are anxious result, undoubtedly, is that we hardly to do is, knowing that they are the owners know who really are the promoters of of the present road to Dublin, to prevent this Bill at all. We have got a shrewd them having the absolute command of suspicion, and more than a shrewd sus- both routes. I hope, therefore, that the picion, that the nominal promoters are not Irish Members will, one and all, support the real promoters at all. Then, in addi- the Government, and show a firm front on tion to that, we do not know how far this this matter, which we all believe is one Bill--which deals with a complete scheme, of very great importance to the south of a scheme which would open out com- Ireland. If the matter is properly munication from Rosslare on the east to handled, I believe that a scheme may be Cork on the west is intended to be evolved which would be a great advancarried out, or how far it is the intention tage to the south of Ireland; and, of of the promoters to pick out parts of the course, I should be sorry to say one Bill, with the object of later on introduc- single word which would in any way dising a scheme, not the same scheme that courage the Great Western Railway. I is in the Bill, but a scheme of a totally would rather give it encouragement, and different character. Then with regard to on the part of the Treasury we offer it those whom we know to be the actual that encouragement. We feel, as all the promoters of the Bill, we do not know Irish Members feel, that this is such an Mr. Hanbury. is the only possible way in which full light can be thrown upon the intentions of the promoters. I should think that everybody would be of one mind as to the fact that it would be a great advantage to the south of Ireland to get a company like the Great Western there. And on the other hand, with regard to the Great important matter, involving, as it does, so | well that the whole matter should much of the future prosperity of the be discussed here and now, SO south of Ireland, that we ought not to be that everybody concerned outside this left in the dark with regard to it. We House may clearly understand what are therefore think that the hybrid Com- the points upon which the Irish Memmittee, which the honourable and gallant bers and the Treasury are agreed. If Member proposes to consider it, would be ever there was a case in which the inconthe best means of obtaining the light venience of discussing Irish private Bills that is so urgently required. in this House was apparent it is the present one, because the subject at issue in this Bill is an intricate and complicated one. There have been many and varied and ever-changing negotiations, spread over a large number of months, and with several railway companies; and although all the circumstances, or most of the main facts, at any rate, connected with this question, are familiar to the Irish Members, it may be truthfully said that those main facts are quite unknown to the general run of Members of this House. But it is essential, in my opinion, that the main facts of this case should be understood, not only in this House, but by the public outside, as soon as possible, and it is for that reason that I venture for a very few minutes to occupy the attention of honourable Members while I endeavour to state those facts. The history of this Bill is a most extraordinary one. There is, in the county of Waterford, a line of railway known as the Waterford, Dungarvan, and Lismore Railway, which was built a considerable number of years ago, and in connection with which there was a guarantee given by the ratepayers of the county and city of Waterford; and for a large number of years those ratepayers have been pay. ing this guarantee at the rate of £14,000 a year, and I believe they are still liable for another 17 or 18 years to continue that payment. In addition to that, the Government-the Treasury-hold a mortgage of nearly £100,000 upon this line, and last year the Treasury determined, in consequence of the accumulation of arrears of interest upon their debt, to foreclose the mortgage and to sell the line. In conjunction with this line there MR. J. E. REDMOND (Waterford): I have a notice on the Paper to move that this Bill be read a second time this day six months, and that being so, I naturally have listened with the greatest possible interest to the statement which the right honourable Gentleman has made. Speaking of that statement generally, I am inclined to say that it must be immensely satisfactory to the Irish Members who are interested in this matter to find that, on the main question which is at issue, the Government, as represented by the right honourable Gentleman, are at one with them. Under these circumstances I am not quite sure that it would be a wise course for me to adopt to persevere with the Motion of which I have given notice; but at the same time I must candidly say that I think the arguments which the right honourable Gentleman has just addressed to this House might all of them have been used with great effect in support of a Motion refusing to give a Second Reading to the Bill. At any rate, everybody concerned must admit that this Bill is one of such large and far-reaching importance to the whole south of Ireland, and the circumstances under which it has been presented to the House at the present moment, are of so strange and so extraordinary a character, that a full discussion, or at least some discussion at this stage of its procedure, ought to take place. I do not think that the interest which we all have at heart would be served by simply agreeing, without discussion, to the course which the right honourable Gentleman has suggested. I think it would be is another short line running from Lis- | monopoly, and would not have a commore to Fermoy, which belongs to the plete control over the new route. So Duke of Devonshire; and when the Trea- much for the one scheme. The other sury last year threatened to sell the Water-scheme was put forward by a rival comford, Dungarvan, and Lismore lines, two pany, the Fishguard and Rosslare Railrival proposals were made by two different ways Company, which also proposed a railway companies to purchase these two new route, which was to run from Fishlines, each of those companies undertak guard to the port of Rosslare, and thus ing to relieve the ratepayers of a certain have a new line across a part of the portion of the guarantee, each of them county of Wexford to Waterford, and from promising in addition to provide a new Waterford, by the two local lines and independent route-a through route which were to be purchased, to Fermoy, -from Cork to London. This new route and from Fermoy, by a new line to would manifestly be of enormous value be built, direct to the city of Cork. to the south and south-west of Ireland, In this case there could have been no so long as that new route was one which doubt, at any rate, that the new line would be in competition with the existing would be a competitive route that it route-that is, in competition with the would be an alternative route to the route which is run at present by the Great Southern and Western of Ireland Great Southern and Western Railway Railway, and a competing one. But of Ireland, and which now enjoys what has now happened is this: that the a monopoly of the route from Cork Great Western Company and the Great to London, and which, in matters of Southern and Western Company of Irefreight and matters of through fares, land, having failed in their joint negotiadoes exactly as it pleases, quite irrespec- tions, have abandoned their original tive of the interests of the public. One scheme, and have purchased the scheme of these rival proposals for the purchase of their rivals, the Fishguard and of these two local Waterford lines came Rosslare Railway Company, and now jointly from the Great Western Railway come before Parliament to champion the of England and the Great Southern and Rosslare scheme the Rosslare scheme Western Railway of Ireland, and they with certain very essential differences. proposed that the new route should be They propose now to carry out the from Cork to Fermoy-over the two Rosslare scheme with this difference: local lines in Waterford, and then from that from Waterford, instead of going Waterford to Milford. This proposal over the local lines in the county of when it was made public, though it Waterford to Fermoy, and thence by a received some support in the city of new line to Cork, they propose to go Waterford, and in one or two other from Waterford over the Waterford and places, was vigorously opposed in most Limerick line to Cork, running by parts of the south of Ireland, and it was Limerick Junction and Mallow; and in opposed chiefly upon this ground: that order to carry out this purpose, the it would not be a competitive route at Great Southern and Western of Ireland all, but would still maintain the mono- Company have entered into an arrangepoly of the Great Southern and West- ment to purchase the Waterford, Dunern of Ireland Railway; and the upshot garvan, and Lismore Railway, and also of it was that eventually the negotia- the Central Railway Company of Ireland tions which were going on between the in addition, and the result will be that, Treasury and the Great Western and the the Great Southern and Western Railway if this new arrangement is carried out, Company will not only have their present monopoly increased and perpetuated, and, as I will show, safeguarded in such a way that never at any time can there be a competing route, because the new proposal is not merely what I have stated, but it is also to purchase the the two local Waterford lines-the Water Great Southern and Western of Ireland Railways for the purchase of these lines |