4 JULY 1846, Page 13

PRIVATE BILL 'BUSINESS IN PARLIAMENT. PROFESSIONAL men set about reforms

in their modes of transact- ing business much in the same way that many proceed to extract a loose tooth. It is pushed with tongue or finger from time to time, with an intention to get rid of it; but the attachment to gum and socket is still too tenacious, the smart would be too sore, and the attempt is desisted from. Every push, however, advances the process of loosening, and some morning when nothing is less thought of, the pertinacious and troublesome inmate drops out in consequence of an involuntary shake. It is easy to foresee that this will be the case with the political loose tooth called Private Bill Business. It is a tooth with which the Legislature mumbles and cannot bite. As long ago as 1802, Mr. Windham, apropos of a bill against bull-baiting, uttered some prophetic words against the growing tendency to legislate on special questions, on matters of detail or administration more wisely left to inferior tribunals. " Such a sort of public interfe6 ranee with matters unworthy of the consideration of the Legis- lature could be productive of no consequences but such as were mischievous. To procure the discussion of such subjects, it was necessary to resort to canvass and intrigue. Members whose at- tendance was induced by local considerations, in most cases of this description, were present ; the discussion, if any took iflace, was managed by the friends of the measure - and the deciiion of the House was perhaps ultimately a matter Of mere chance."

This sound and comprehensive remark produced little effect. Elicited by a discussion on one of those sickly sentimental mea- sures of which we have since been pestered with so many, its wider application to sordid routinejobbing passed unnoticed. The Private Bill nuisance was at the time comparatively in- noxious. It had come to a head soon after the success of the first bold experiment in canal-making by the Duke of Bridgewater and Brindley ; but had subsided, public cupidity having been turned into the channel of the Funds ; the desperate efforts re- quired to raise loans for the colossal war of the French Revolu- tion concurring with the gross venality of the politicians of the day to render national stock for the time a more profitable field for legalized gambling than private shares.

The words of Windham, however, like many others which fell upon irretentive ears among his contemporaries, have been preserved to instruct their successors. Even to this day the source and mans operandi of the evil of minute legislation his not been so exhaustively expressed by any other ; but complaints of the indecency and inconvenience of special cases have been yearly multiplying. At one time they have taken the form of reflections on the relaxation of high gentlemanly integrity occa- sioned by the practices in private bill legislation ; at another of the time subtracted by these "flocci, nauci, nihili, pili," from ihe more important business of legislation. Every indirect attack of this kind has loosened the tooth; and remarks thrown out inci- dentally by individual members—Lord Brougham, for example about the desirableness of transferring private bill- business to some external board, have been so many catchings hold of the tooth to try whether the time had arrived when it could be pulled with little pain.

The report of the Select Committee of the Lords upon Railways is a rougher tug than the rotten fang has ever before experienced. Such another and it will come away easily.

" The Committee are disposed to suggest, that all objections on the ground of non-compliance with the standing orders, or to portions of line as injuriously affecting private property, should be lodged with some constituted authority, on or before the second Friday in January, or within six weeks after the lodgment of the parish plans : such authority having the power to call upon the other parties for their answers, and, if necessary, to send down their own officers to inspect, and report to them, at the expense of the company ; there being a fixed charge, calculated according to time and distance. That such constituted authority should have power to sanction corrections of inaccuracies in the plans, and to inquire into deviations suggested by parties whose proper- ties are affected thereby, mating a full report of the same to be laid before Parliament when the bill is introduced ; stating the manner in which such deviations affect all other properties, and recommending either their adoption or rejection. * * * • Such constituted authority would act in this respect as a court of arbitration, not only between companies and proprietors, but between companies themselves and under proper rules and regulations for guiding its proceedings, which experience would soon suggest." A court of arbitration of this kind, if competent judges were ap- pointed, and rendered independent by a secure tenure of office and competent remuneration, would soon supersede the Parliamentary Committee, the great source' ource of undue expense—the sly corner in which dirty tricks are played with impunity. Another sugges- tion offered in the report would give the arrangement greater completeness—" It appears to be very desirable that the standing orders of both Houses affecting railways should in all respects be, as far as possible, simplified and assimilated ; and that much ad- vantage would arise if some mode were adopted by which proof of compliance with those standing orders might be taken before some proper authority, sanctioned by both Houses of Parliament, whose report might- be received as evidence of the facts by the Standing Order Committee." These suggestions from a Committee of the Lords indicate a willingness on the part of the Upper House to move in the-right direction. If some Member of the Lower would move that a re- quest be sent to the Lords to communicate this report, and then that it be submitted to a Select Committee of the Commons, a re- port, approving of the principle, might be laid on the table even this session, and made the basis of a bill, to be introduced at tlie- meeting of Parliament next year.