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Bill con

ferring large powers

upon a government

depart

ment.

Bill containing a government

guarantee.

Bill concerning Turkish loans.

Public

bills intro

to be a public bill, as it merely sought powers for public Chapter bodies who already had a statutory interest in the property.1

In 1900, on the second reading of a private bill promoted by the Metropolitan Water Companies, the Speaker called the attention of the house to the large and important powers which were proposed to be conferred by it upon a public department (the Local Government Board), and which, according to the practice of the house, ought to be secured by a public rather than by a private bill; and the bill was accordingly withdrawn.2

In 1861, the Red Sea and India Telegraph Bill, which amended a private Act, was introduced and proceeded with as a public bill, as it concerned the conditions of a government guarantee.3

In 1877, notices were given of a private bill for settling a scheme of arrangement for the Turkish loans of 1854, 1855, and 1871 but its subject was obviously not one to be dealt with by a private bill, and it was not proceeded with.

When a private bill is thus withdrawn, a public bill for duced vice the same purpose has in many cases been introduced in bills with its place, and passed; but a bill, begun as a private bill, cannot be taken up and proceeded with as a public bill.4

private

drawn.

1 128 C. J. 114. 115. 140.

In 1905 a public bill for the establishment of a central Canal Trust was introduced, containing a provision which did not apply to canals generally, but which compulsorily transferred to the trust the undertakings of certain canal companies, only, who were specified in a schedule. The notices, that would have been necessary in such a case with regard to a private bill, not having been given, the bill was ordered to be withdrawn (160 C. J. 201. 210. 214216). Another bill was then similarly introduced which had the same general object; but it contained a different provision respecting the specified undertakings (requiring that the Canal Trust should take steps to acquire them by agreement or through a Provisional Order), and

to this bill the standing orders re-
lating to private bills were held not
to apply (160 C. J. 289. 327). In
1873 exception was taken to the
Union of Benefices (a public) Bill
on the ground that, as it deprived
certain parishes of powers which they
possessed under the Union of Bene-
fices Act, 1860 (23 & 24 Vict. c. 142),
it ought to have been brought in as
a private bill or to be treated as a
hybrid bill; but it was held to be
strictly a public bill (114 H. D. 3 s.
282. 508).

2 Metropolitan Water Companies
Bill, 1900, 155 C. J. 30. 124.

3 116 C. J. 36, etc.; Mr. Speaker Denison's Diary, p. 78.

In 1865, the promoters of the Middlesex Industrial School Bill, dissatisfied with some amendments made in committee, determined to

XXV.

XXV.

public Acts

bills.

Chapter It has been questioned whether public Acts may Repeal of properly be repealed or amended by a private bill; and the by private inconvenience of their repeal or amendment by an Act which, being passed as a private bill and being of a local character, is not printed among the public general Acts, has sometimes been urged as a reason for refusing to sanction this course.1 No rule, however, has been established which precludes the promoters of a private bill from seeking the repeal or amendment of public Acts. A private bill is itself an exception, of some degree, from the general law, or seeks for some powers which the general law does not afford; and the fact that it provides for a repeal or an

2

abandon it; whereupon Mr. Pope
Hennessy gave notice that he should
proceed with it as a public bill: but
it was held that such a proceeding
would be irregular, and it was not
persisted in (Mr. Speaker Denison's
Diary, p. 182).

1 In 1832 a public General Act
(7 & 8 Geo. IV. c. 31) was amended,
so far as the city of Bristol was
concerned, by means of a private
bill (2 & 3 Will. IV. (local and per-
sonal) c. lxxxviii.). This case was
quoted by Mr. Speaker, on the 18th
July, 1864, when an objection was
taken to the Metropolitan District
Railways Bill on the ground that
it amended the Thames Embank-
ment (a public or hybrid) Act
(176 H. D. 3 s. 1619). Cf. also the
questions raised, in the Lords, on
the Brokers Bonds and Rent Bills,
1864 (176 ib. 408-411), the London
(City) Tithes Act, 1864, which re-
pealed a public Act of Henry VIII.
(176 ib. 480), the Dover Harbour
(Corporation) Bill, 1887 (311 ib. 656-
668), and the Woolwich Borough
Council Bill, 1905 (146 Parl. Deb.
4 s. 1075-1087); and, in the Com-
mons, on the London Valuation and
Assessment Bill, 1895, the Belfast
Corporation Bill, 1896, and the
National Telephone Company Bill,
1899, infra, p. 684, n. 3.

2 The provisions of some public general Acts are regularly amended,

in some degree, with regard to par-
ticular localities, by means of private
bills. In the case of sanitary enact-
ments, for example, new circum-
stances may necessitate modifica-
tions or relaxations, in individual
instances, of the stringent provisions
of the general law; and it is now
quite regular practice for Parlia-
ment to modify or alter provisions
of the Public Health Acts with re-
gard to particular localities. Simi-
larly, nearly every tramway (private)
bill amends the provisions of the
(public) Tramways Act of 1870, in
consequence of the new requirements
of electrical traction; and the pro-
visions of the Electric Lighting Act,
1882, as to the accounts of local
authorities, are frequently amended
by private bills. Amendments by
private bills of the Municipal Corpo-
rations Act, 1882, are less frequent;
but in the Plymouth Corporation Act
of 1904, the provisions of the public
general Act were in effect repealed,
so far as this corporation was con-
cerned, and new and more stringent
provisions were substituted with
respect to the audit of the corpora-
tion accounts (4 Edw. VII. (local
and personal) c. xcviii., s. 6; and cf.
158 C. J. 178).

In 1894, a bill to consolidate and
amend the enactments relating
to Streets and Buildings in Lon-
don, and a bill consolidating and

2

XXV.

amendment of public Acts is far from always being a fatal chapter objection to its being introduced as a private bill.1 But the scope of the public Acts which a private bill proposes to repeal or to amend, and the nature and degree of the proposed repeal or amendment, have to be considered; and provisions of this kind in private bills demand peculiar vigilance, lest public laws be lightly set aside for the benefit of particular persons or places. On the 14th February, 1895, in the case of the London Valuation and Assessment Bill (introduced for the purpose of forming a common basis of imperial and local taxation), objection was taken to proceeding with the bill as a private bill, on the ground that it entirely changed the law of assessment and rating, and repealed numerous Public Acts of Parliament. Mr. Speaker stated that the Acts proposed in this instance to be repealed were of vast magnitude and covered a vast area: that the Bill affected not only local rating but imperial taxation, involved interests which were much more than local, and proposed to create a new Court of Record in the matter of assessment; and that, in view of its scope, it ought to be introduced as a public, and not as a private, bill.3

amending the statutory powers of the Thames Conservancy, were both passed as private bills, although in each case various public Acts were repealed (57 & 58 Vict. (local and personal) c. ccxiii. and clxxxvii.).

1 Mr. Speaker Peel (30 Parl. Deb.

4 s. 708-709).

2 Ib.; and Mr. Speaker Gully (38 Parl. Deb. 4 s. 335).

3 150 C. J. 32. 38; 30 Parl. Deb. 4 s. 706-710. This ruling was cited in support of similar objections taken on two subsequent occasions -but in each case unsuccessfully— to private bills. On 6th March, 1896, on the second reading of the Belfast Corporation Bill (to extend the city of Belfast and for other purposes), it was objected that, as the bill dealt with very large interests, embraced a very large area,

and also repealed important sections
in certain public Acts, it ought not
to have been introduced as a private
bill. But Mr. Speaker stated that,
although the bill referred, as many
private bills do, to some public
matter, and sought to enact that
public statutes should not apply or
should be partially repealed, these
provisions were not so numerous or
so important as to necessitate its
introduction as a public bill (30
Parl. Deb. 4 s. 335). On 6th March,
1899, objection was taken to pro-
ceeding with a private bill to en-
large the powers of the National
Telephone Company under the pro-
visions of the Telegraph Act of
1892, on the ground that the
area affected was the whole of the
United Kingdom, that the bill
established a new jurisdiction, and

Chapter
XXV.

fication of

their

identical

classifica

When a public Act is repealed or amended by one passed The classias a private bill, the fact is noted in the annual volume of bills as the public general Acts; but these volumes do not include public or private those Acts themselves which have been passed as private during bills. Nor do they now contain public Acts which are passage through purely local in character. With regard to Acts passed Parliaprior to 1798, it is difficult to determine whether they ment not were, in fact, public or private, the only Acts included in with their the latter category being estate, divorce, naturalization, tion when and other Acts of a personal character, while Acts for the passed and printed as making of roads, bridges, &c., and for other local improve- Acts. ments, were printed with the public Acts. In 1798 the distinction between "Public General Acts" and "Local and Personal Acts was first introduced into the Statute book; and from that year until 1868 the classification of the printed Acts into one or other of these two divisions was determined by whether they had originated as public or as private bills. But since 1868, public bills of a local character have, when passed, been printed among the local Acts of each year.2

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In treating of petitions, the origin of private bills has Origin of private been already glanced at (see p. 523): but it may be referred bills. to again, in illustration of the distinctive character of such bills, and of the proceedings of Parliament in passing them. The separation of legislative and judicial functions is a refinement in the principles of political government and jurisprudence, which can only be the result of an advanced civilization. In the early constitution of Parliament these functions were confounded; and special laws for the benefit

that the powers asked for should be
granted, if at all, to the Postmaster-
General. But Mr. Speaker pointed
out that the Bill was of far narrower
application than the London Valua-
tion and Assessment Bill of 1895,
and that it proposed under certain
conditions and in certain places to
exempt a company, carried on for
purposes of profit, from the opera-
tion of a particular subsection of a
public Act; and he held that it would
be in order, and in accordance with

the action of the House on other
occasions, that the bill should pro-
ceed as a private bill (Telegraph
Act 1892 Amendment Bill, 1899;
67 Parl. Deb. 4 s. 1335-38).

In the "Table showing the
Effect of the Year's Legislation."
Cf. the volumes of 1894 (pp. 657.
666) and 1904 (pp. 139. 140).

2 As to the Classification of Local
and Personal and Private Acts, see
infra, Chap. XXXII,

private bills.

XXV.

of private parties, and judicial decrees for the redress of Chapter
private wrongs, being founded alike upon petitions, were
not distinguished in principle or in form. When petitions
sought obviously for remedies which the common law
afforded, the parties were referred to the ordinary tribunals:
but in other cases, Parliament exercised a remedial juris-
diction. Other remedies of a more judicial character, and
founded upon more settled principles, were at length
supplied by the courts of equity; and from the reign of
Henry IV., the petitions addressed to Parliament prayed,
more distinctly, for peculiar powers beside the general law
of the land, and for the special benefit of the petitioners.
Whenever these were granted, the orders of Parliament, in
whatever form they may have been expressed, were in the
nature of private Acts; and after the mode of legislating
by bill and statute had grown up in the reign of Henry VI.
(see p. 459), these special enactments were embodied in the
form of distinct statutes.1

Peculiarity Passing now to existing practice, the proceedings of Par-
of proceed-
ings on
liament, in passing private bills, are still marked by much.
peculiarity. A bill for the particular benefit of certain
persons may be injurious to others; and to discriminate
between the conflicting interests of different parties involves
the exercise of judicial inquiry and determination. This
circumstance causes important distinctions in the mode of
passing public and private bills, and in the principles by
which Parliament is guided.

The functions of

in passing

In passing public bills, Parliament acts strictly in its Parliament legislative capacity: it originates the measures which appear for the public good, it conducts inquiries, when are purely necessary, for its own information, and enacts laws aclegislative. cording to its own wisdom and judgment. The forms

public

bills

in which its deliberations are conducted are established
for public convenience; and all its proceedings are
independent of individual parties, who may petition,
indeed, and are sometimes heard by counsel, but who
have no direct participation in the conduct of the
1 See Statutes of the Realm, by Record Commission, 9 Henry VI.

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