The Northern Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1857-02-13 00:00:00

PUBLIC JUSTICE

fl t Mr. Napier rose to move the following resolution :
" That an humble address be presented to her Majesty,
praying that she will be graciouey pleased to take into
consideration, as an urgent measure of administrative
reform, the formation of a separate and responsible
department for the affairs of public justice."
The Attorney General was willing to accept the
resolution, provided the reference to administrative reform
was omitted.

Afte7 a long discussion, in which Mr. Walm, Sir E.
Perry, Mr. M. Chambers, Lord Palmerston, and others,
took part, and in the course of which no objection was
offered to the resolution,

Mr. Napier replied, and the motion amended, by the
suggestion of Sir R. Rethell, wat agreed to.
Sir W. Clayed moved for leave to bring in a bill for
the abolition of Church refs. The bill is identical with
that presented by the bon. baronet last session.—Agreed to.
Captain U. Vernon nicved f,r copies of all correspondence
relating to the removal of General Polloek, G.C.8., from
the direction of the East Icdia Company.
Mr. V. Smith denied that General Pollock had been
remo,ted. Sir George Pollock was not appointed because
he had been the length of time from India which the sense
of that house had decided should be his qualification.
The motion was withdrawn.
Mr. Lloyd Davis submitted to the house the necessity
for legislation, to prevent the gross inequalities in the
weights and measures of the United Kingdom.
After a brief discussion, leave was given to bring in the
bill. _ _

...
Lord C. Hamilton moved for a Icon of the treaty

between Austria and Turkey on the 14th of June, 1854,
relative to the military occupation of Moldavia and
Wallachia.

After an exp!ana' ion from Lord Palmerston the motion
was withdrawn.

On the motion of the Chancellor of the Exchequer,
the committee on the B ink Acts was nominated, and the
committee was ordered to be one of secresy.
The house adjourned at twelve o'clock.

TILE MERSEY CONSERVANCY AND DOCKS

BILL,

The following is a more detailed report of the speeches
of Mr. Horsfall and Mr. M. Gibson on the Mersey Conser-
vancy and Docks Bill, in the house on Wednesday night,
than we were enabled to give in our impression of
yesterday:—
Mr. Gibson having moved the second reading of this
bill,
Mr. Horsfall rose to oppose it, as a measure of a most
monstrous character. The bill contained what professed
to he a history of the constitution of the Dock Trust, the
Dock Committee, the Corporation, the Conservancy and
Pilot Commissions of Liverpool and other statements of
a similar kind, and upon the suggestion of the two self-
constant ed bodies in Manchester the house was now asked
to abrogate the powers held by those different authorities,
under various acts of parliament, and to substitute for
them a body of 21 per Sons, to be elected by the dock rate.
payers. No charge of injustice or neglect of duty had been
made against any one of those bodies which it was sought
to destroy, and no case had been made out for terminat_
ing a system which had hitherto been so well administered
Tile composition of the Dock Trust of Liverpool was not
exactly understood either in that house or out of it. The
trustees were 12 chosen from the town council and 12
elected by the dock rate payers; and the body thus eons_
posed had acted usefully and for the benefit of the corn_
merce of Liverpool and of the whole coiiiiti7. It was hoW_
ever, not at surprising that there should be some misap-
prehension abroad as to the constitution of the Dock Trust,
seeing that the august Board of Trade itself had been
deceived, and stated to the World, in a report dated April,
1856, that the Dock Committee was composed as follows:
" Twelve members are elected by the column of the
borough, and twelve by the dock ratepayers ; but no
person can be elected-a member who has not both resided
in or within eight miles of Liverpool for five years, and
paid rates to the amount of aa'2s a year, either on his own
account or as an agent for Persons residing in oe near
Liverpool.° The latter statement was the very reverse of
the fact, for any agent of a Manchester house, duly quali-
fied, was entitled to vote. No doubt *objections would be
raised to the Veto which the Town Connell could exercise
up on the proceedings of the Dock Committee, but that
veto appeared to him to be an advantageous and constitu-
tional power, although it was one not very frequently
exercised. He found that since 1851 there had been only
on instance in which the power of veto had been exercised,
and daring the last 32 years there had been only 13 such
instances. It would also no doubt, be urged upon the
house that purchases of land were made from the corpora-
tion by the dock trustees. The fact was true, but what
were the conditions ? lira 1790 the corporation gave the
land and a large sum of money towards the formation
of the first dock, and since then whenever any pur-
chase of land had been made from the corporation
for the purposes of the Dock Trust the sales had
been based upon one of the four following conditions :-
-Either the land was sold for the same price which the
corporation had paid for it, or it was sold for the prise
which had been paid by other purchasers of land immedi-
ately adjoining, or the sum to be paid was fixed by the
verdict of a jury, or it was arrived at by mutual agree-
ment, sW)ject to the consent of the Lords of the Treasury.
All those modes of dealing were, he contended, fair and
equitable. Another argument would be no doubt raised,
that the Corporation of Liverpool had purchased the
Birkenhead Docks, but had not carried out their engage-
ment to transfer those docks to the Liverpool Dock
'trust. The fact was, the Birkenhead Docks, being in a
state of insolvency, were purchased by the Corporation
of Liverpool upon the distinct understanding that when.
ever the Dock Trust was in a position to make the
purchase, the docks should be transferred to them; but
from that time to the present the Dock Committ' e had
never been in a position to purchase them, although
the corporation had always been and still was willing
to transfer the Birkenhead Decks, an I place them
formally, as they already were practically, under one
management with the Liverpool docks ; and the object of
one of the bills which had just been read a second time
was to assimilate the rates and charges in both docks.
The corporation had paid £1,443.000 for the Birkenhead
docks, and would have to expend £1,500,000 more to com-
plete them. A petition had been presented in favour of
the hill, to which was attached the seal of the Great
Western Railway Company; and on another occasion he
would have an opportunity of showing how that seal had
been procured. Ha was quite sure the noble chairman of
the company would not have permitted the seal of that
body to have been affixed to a petition in favour of a bill
which was at variance with all the noble lord's expressed
ohpianireLapiivn,,,aind
aloofult,,rot4,a‘,l:tboyusne, ;fluattehreor(iNprrro.plotrosrfsaiol)r
that line protesting against what rase- oe
gross tu.sappropriation cf their corporation seal. It was
unworthy of the promoters of the bill to have recourse to
such means. It would have been far more creditable:to
have imitated the straightforward. honourable course
which had been taken by Mr. Render, he believed, of
Manchester, who had sent out a vessel yesterday without
payment of dues, and therefore was prepared to test in a
court of law the right of the Corporation of Liverpool to
levy them. • Such a course, he repeated, would have
reflected more credit upon the promoters of the bill than
the insidious measures by which they sought to obtain
their object. He moved that the bill be read a second
time that day six months.
Mr. J. Ewart having seconded the amendment,
Mr Gibson expressed his regret that the hon. gentle-
man had not followed the course which he (Mr. Gibson)
had adopted in regard to the two bills promoted by the
Liverpool Corporation, and bad not allowed this bill to
be sent at once to a select committee, where there would
be every opportunity of examination into its merits. The
hon. member had endeavoured to show that something
unusual was attempted to be done by this bill, but, in
fact, the measure was nothing more than en attempt to
carry out recommendations of the Board of Admiralty,
of the Tidal Commission, of a committee of the House of
Commons, and, above all, the requirements of an act of
parliament. (Hear.) The question of the Local Dues
on Shipping was only incidental, and did not constitute
the principle of the bill, which was that the docks of
Liverpool and Birkenhead should be consolidated into
one estate, and that the management and control of them
should be vested in one public body of trustees, and it
was obviously desirable that such body should be
independent of the Corporporathas. (Hear) To vest
the management in the present Dock Trust of
Liverpool would be to place the whole trade of the
country with that port under the control of the corpora.
tion, which would consult only the municipal interests,
and thus render the trade of the country tributary to the
local interests of Liverpool. Surely that was a subject well
worthy of inquiry by a committee of that house, and yet
the hon. member for Liverpool wished them not to allow
that inquiry, but to reject the bill at once. Let the house
consider who constituted at present the managing body of
the Birkenhead Docks: It was called the Dock Committee,
one half of the members of which were chosen by the Town
Council of Liverpool. The chairman of that committee was
selected from those members chosen by the Town Council,
and all the resolutions of the Dock Committee were liable
to be vetoed by the corporation, so that, in fact, tha corpo-
ration did possess an entire control over the proceedings
of that committee. In 1855, a committee of that house
had expressed its opinion that it would be for the advantage
of the maritime trade of the port of Liverpool and for the
public advantage that the whole dock system on both sides
of the Mersey should be placed under one public Crest.
That committee also made a special report recommending
" That the earliest opportunity should be taken of carefully
considering the constitution of the Deck Trust with
reference to the altered circumstances in which it will he
placed in consequence of this amalgamation." Mr. J.
Branaley Moore, a member of that house, and formerly
chairman of the Deck Committee had said that most of
the persons lately sent to the town council of Liverpool
were not merchants or dock ratepayers ; that merchants
and dock ratepayers ought to have greater influe ce in the
management of the docks than they now possessed ; that
they were the most proper parties to have control, as they
were directly interested in the good management of the
docks ; that the power of veto over the proceedings of the
Dock Committee, possessed by the town council, was not
desirable, as that body was at present constituted, but that
if its members were ratepayers and interested in the decks
no harm could arise therefrom ; that nearly a million
of money had been laid out in the purchase of lands
for the construction of docks ; that the money had
!sassed between the dock estate and the corpo-
ration, and that the corporation were the prin-
cipal parties who had derived advantage from the
dock estate. Mr. Bromley Moore also pointed out how
the corporation, by buying land, as it were, of itself and
paying for it out of the dock dues, levied on the trade of
the country, made the trade of the country unfairly contri-
butory to the estate of the Liverpool corporation. Mr.
Chapman, a Liverpool merchant, also stated that the town
council were most properly the conservators of the interests
of the town, but that the interests of the dock
estates were very different from those of the town,
the one being of a public and national, the other
of a peculiarly local character ; that the dock estate
had been made entirely subservient to promoting the
interests of the corporation estate ; that the two had been
in a state of antagonism for years; that the dock estate had
been plundered to an enormous extent ; and that, in fact,
the deck estate had been made a sort of milch cow to ag-
grandize the great corporation estate. It was against the
“verpool corporation making use of a great public estate
for its own peculiar benefit that the promoters of this bill
protested. The principle of the bill was nothing more than
, placing the management of these important interests in a
responsible public board. Although it was called a private

bill, it tieutt-with very important-national objects—nameiy
the completion of the Birkenhead docks and the placing at
the disposal of commerce all the natural advantages of the
Cheshire shore. When those (Nees were attained the
estuary of the Mersey would do for England all that it
could accomplish in the way of affording facilities to trade
and navigation, But if the management of these im-
portant interests were allovVed to remain exclusively in
the bands of the Liverpool corporation, their policy would
be to prevent the development of the Birkenhead dock
System, to withhold from the public the full benefit to be
derived from the natural advantages of the Cheshire
shore, to make the Birkenhead docks secondary and
subdcliary to the Liverpool docks, and to take Care
that no rival port sprang up at Birkenhead to compete with
the port of Liverpool. The interests of the public were
directly opposite. When the Birkenhead docks were com-
pleted 13 millions of money would have been expended out
of dock rates, of something like a million a year, levied on
the trade of the country. The corporation of Liverpool, as
a corporation, had no more to do with that vast property
and that large, revenue than any private individual. The
money to make the docks was supplied by the public, the
rates were levied on the public, and the public, no doubt,
wilt a due regard to any just claims which the corporation
of Liverpool might bo able to establish, had a right to see their
interests vested in a responsible board. (Hear.) With regard
to the town du^s, it Was said that this was a bill for carrying
out the Local Dues on Shipping Bill, which was abandoned
in the last session. It was nothing of the kind. It was
impossible to inttodnce a bill to carry out the recommendations
of the conituittee of 185.5, wi:hout incidently raising the
question of the town dues. In that year improvement
bills were introduced by the corporation of Liverpool,
asking for power to pledge the town dues, in order to
raise the necessary funds, Those bills were rejected so far
as they pledged the town dues, upon the ground that it was a
disputed question whether dues levied on ships and
ode carried in ships, though called.town dues; could he
properly applied to defray the municipal expenditure of
Liverpool. But when it was proposed to raise money for
the purchase of the Birkenhead dock estate by pledging the
town dues the objection of misappropriation dfd not arise.
Mr. Serjeant Wrangham, who was counsel for the Liverpool
corporation, said he could hardly conceive a more legitimate
purpose to which those dues could be devoted, contributed
as they were by vessels frequenting the harbour, and to
what were strictly harbour purposes, and under the Birkenhead
Dock Act of 1855 authority was given to pledge the town
dnes in order io raise money to purchase the Birkenhead
dock property, Wilen, therefore, it was proposed to
transfer the Birkenhead ddcles anci !.he Liverpool docks to
a public board, elected by the dock raiti;?-vers, it became
necessary incidentally to deal with the town dues; but the
mode in which they should be dealt with, would be in triv: ,
discretion of the committee. The house, in agreeing to the
second reading of this bill, would pronounce no opinion on
the principle of the measure introduced by the right hon.
gentleman the Vice President of the Board of Trade, but
merely enable the Manchester Chamber of Commerce and
the Commercial Association, who legitimately represented
the dock ratepayers of Lancashire and Yorkshire, to have
their plan considered as well as the plan of the corporation of
Liverpool. He had shown that the corporation had other
interests than those of the public, and in simple justice he
asked that the public interests should be considered in com-
mittee. (Hear, hear.)