The Express.
London, England, 1866-03-26 00:00:00

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LONDON, MONDAY, MARLS 26.

Tsui byegone resolutions prohibiting members
of Parliament from voting upon questions affecting
their personal interest should escape remembranoe
is not surprising ; but that Parliament should dis-
regard enactments passed only last year, framed to
regulate its own proceedings, is remarkable ; and
is in many ways to be regretted. This forgetful.
ness is shown by the many motions, of almost
nightly recurrence, designed to throw out private
bills upon their second reading. Last year this
mode of opposition was an unfortunate, but not a
self-stultifying transaction. The canvass by the
agents in the lobby and the benches of the House
of Commons, crammed not to promote the welfare
of the nation, but the supremacy of one commer-
cial undertaking over another, was never a
creditable sight ; nor was it ever satisfactory that
railways should thus wage open warfare against
each other in the House itself. Moat of the votes
also given on such occasions were against the spirit,
many against the letter of express resolutions in-
tended to restrain the prevalence of partial influ-
ences in Parliament. Decisions, however, of this
nature, inspired by such motives, were last year
to beiregretted only because of the misconstruc-
tion and the feelings of distrust that they inevitably
occasioned. Now, of course, these proceedings
are not the less inherently objectionable; and they
are the more indefensible, because they nullify the
operation of a statute passed last session, and be-
cause its provisions are an additional reason why
Parliament should refuse to entertainthese motions.
The Private Bill Costs Act is the statute referred
to. It is set aside, and the remedies it offers
are made fruitless by the rejection of these bills on
their second reading. This Act enables committees
to punish the vexatious promoters of an unjusti-
fiable measure by enforcing repayment at their
hands of the expensestheir proceedingaentail upon
others. But the persons they have thus injured are
of course debarred from this advantage if they an I
prevented from appearing before the committee.
Nor is this an inappreciable loss, even when the
bill stands for its second reading. Opposition
must be organized when the attack begins. The
committee room is certainly the culminating point
of the parliamentary contest ; yet as soon as notice
of the meditated invasion is received, solicitors and
agents must be set to work and counsel retained.
This is the injury, and it may be a very real
one, which a hasty rejection of private bills may
inflict upon the suitor. And, passing beyond his
interests to that of the whole community, no
better restraint could be obtained against the re-
pealed re-introduction into Parliament of ill-
advised measures th►n is provided by this Act.
If the bill be indeed an unrighteous job, so
glaringly obnoxious as to justify Parliament in
putting summary arrest upon its progress, a com-
mittee is as open to conviction as the House itself,
and is also now empowered, as we have stated, to
charge upon the promoters the heavy bills of costa
which the persons whom they have harramed have
incurred. Undoubtedly the annual rejection of
private bills has often been followed by their
annual re-appearance before Parliament. Hitherto
this has not been a very unsafe venture. If
thrown oat on the second reading, even if
thrown out by the committee, the cost it entailed
on its opposers was far higher in proportion than
the expenses risked by the promoters. The terrors
thus created were not unmarketable. This specula-
tion must, however, cease to be profitable if the
" Costa Act "is firmly applied. No purse could
often supply the whole outlay, the expenses on
both aides, of parliamentary litigation. Even the
game of " heads we win, tails you lose," that has
been so long played in the committee rooms by the
great companies might by this means be effectually
concluded.
The protection, however, afforded by the Pri-
vate Bill Costs Act to the suitor is not, valuable as
it is, so valuable as is the protection it might afford
to both branches of the legislature. If its scope
were properly understood, it would guard them
from pronouncing decisions to which they are
swayed by the personal, self-seeking bias of their
colleagues; from making the proceedings of the
House itself the battle-field of rival commercial
speculations. Experience shows that neither sense
of their high trust, nor respect for the rules of
Parliament, will prevent members from advocating
there by speech and vote, their own pecuniary
interests. Yet it is impossible that the majority
can willingly suffer such a misdirection of their
power. ; nor can they willingly endure the mis-
conceptions that these actions must occasion. And
this act undoubtedly supplies means of escape from
the director-led (audition to which Parliament is
tending; it furnishes an unanswerable argument
wherewith to rebut these interested solicitations—
namely, that sot only will a committee scrutinize the
details of the olmoxionaßill far more dispassionately
and critically than mold be accomplished by the
House ; but if the scheme be as objectionable as
it is described, its rejection will be accompanied
with the severe penalty of repayment of all the
costs it has occasioned.