An interesting question arose on Tuesday night, after the discussion
of the private Bill brought in by the London and North-Western Railway had been read a second time by the unusually small majority of 79 (203 to 124). Sir W.Houlds- worth, who was on the Board of Directors of the company, and who had taken charge of the Bill, had voted in the majority. Accordingly, Mr. Lloyd George moved and Mr. T. M. Healy seconded a motion that Sir W. Houldsworth's vote for the Bill should be disallowed as that of an interested Member; and Sir W. Houldsworth having explained that his personal interest in the company was not a large one, though he is on the Board of Directors and had taken charge of the Bill as a director, retired while the House discussed the question of allowing or disallowing his vote. Mr. Bal- four reminded the House that the very same question was discussed with reference to the vote of Mr. David Planket, and that the House had decided by a very large majority, namely 218 (254 to 36), against dis- allowing the vote, but Mr. Haldane said that there was this distinction between the two cases, that Sir W. Houlds- worth had admitted that it was in his capacity as a director, and not in his capacity as a Member of the House of Commons, that he had supported the Bill which had just been read a second time. This was not so in Mr. David Plunket's case. After a warm discussion, Mr. Courtney proposed that a Committee should be appointed to examine and report on the principle that should govern the House in dealing with the votes of Members who had a direct in- terest, whether as shareholders or as directors, in Bills before the House, a suggestion in which Mr. Balfour acquiesced, to the satisfaction of the House, which is evidently in some bewilderment how it is best to deal with cases of this kind, where it is unsatisfactory to have private interests swelling or perhaps even producing a majority, and yet it is almost impossible to discover and disallow all the private interests of so many Members.
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