The Sun.
London, England, 1839-03-22 00:00:00

IMPERIAL PARLIAMENT.

HOUSE OF COMMONS, Minca 21.
The SPEAKER took the Chair shortly before four
o'clock.

Mr. Bucx was introduced by Sir J. Y. BULLER and
Mr. PARKER, and took the oaths and his seat for North
Devon.
On the motion of Major WOOD, the General Ce-
metry Bill was read a second time, and ordered to be
committed.
LONDON AND BLACKWALL RAILWAY.
Mr. CRAWFORD presented several petitions
against this Bill from several parts of London.
Mr. ALSTON moved the second reading of the
Bill.

11Ir. CRAWFORD said that it became his duty as
one of the representatives of the City of London to move
as an amendment to the motion of his Hon. Friend that
the Bill should be read a second time that day six
months. Favourable as he was, and many Gentlemen
were to sending Bills of the present description to be
investigated before a Committee,•he thought he should
be able before he sat down to persuade Hon. Members
that the present measure ought to be made an exception
to the general rule. There was nothing new to be
elicited before the Committee—the grounds taken were
sufficiently before the House, and no delay would
vary the circumstances from what they at
present were. The subject of the present Bill
was first before the House in 1836. At that time there

were two contending parties to the golden harvest that
was to be reaped in carrying the plan into execution.
The party advised a line that was to enter the City of
London near Houndsditch, and have its terminus in
Leadenhall-street. That line the surveyor of the City
of London, notwithstanding the phalanx of engineers
that were against them, could not be carrie into
execution without destroying the whole of the sewers
of the City in the district through which it was to
pass. The other line was to go over the Minories, and
it had its novelties, inasmuch as it was to be a railway
upon arches. The inhabitants of that part of London
opposed that line, on the ground that their property and
trade would be injured by it ; and before the Committee
the proposers of it found it necessary to come to an
agreement that the railway should not enter the City of
London at all, hut that its commencement should take
place 200 feet from the eastern side of the INlinories,
and no land was to be purchased in the City of London.
After this agreement had been entered into, the parties
had reason to suppose they would not be kept in a state
of anxiety ; but in 1837, another Bill was brought in,
in order to repeal those clauses, to allow an extension of
the railway into the City of London, beyond where it
was intended in crossing the Minories, and to go to
Leadenhall-street. During the time the Bill was in the
House, negotiations were entered into for the
purpose of clearing away all the buildings.
They not only gave this up, but not liking the
hostility of the East India Company, they with-
drew that part of the scheme. Tney still had
to contend with the opposition of the parishes and of
the City of London. Whilst that Bill was in progress
a dissolution of Parliament took place in consequence
of the death of the late King. The year 1838 passed
over with certain threats, which kept the parties in
great anxiety, but no application was made to Parlia-
ment. He now came to the Bill before the House. The
preamble merely stated that it is expedient to extend
the railroad into the city of London, and upon that
the parties asked the House to repeal the clauses
which bound them not to do this act, to lend itself to
enable the railroad Proprietors to break faith with
the parties who had contested the original Bill. Now,
it was fair to look at the estimation in which this rail-
way was held. The shares were 251. each, and the
parties had been called on to pay 91. The price in
the market was now under 71., so that any
original subscriber wishing to abandcn the undertaking,
must be content to sacrifice 25 per cent, of the principal
money, in order to get some person to stand in his shoes.
On the part of his constituents he would appeal to the

justice of the House. Those individuals who were carrying
on business had been kept in a constant state of anxiety
since 1835, notwithstanding the engagement which the
proprietors of this railway entered into. He hoped a sense
of justice would induce Hon. Members to vote for the
amendment, which was essential to so large a body of

persons. He had not touched upon any of the ques-
tions that might arise in Committee, but had confined
himself simply to the principle, whether the House
would lend itself to breaking the agreement which
had been entered into. If the House once allowed
this to be done, it would form a most dangerous

precedent. Before he sat down he must notice a-paper
which had been put into his hand at the door of the
House. It stated that when the Bill of 1837 was in
progress in the House of Lords a contract was entered

into by the parties, that no opposition should be offered

to a similar Bill until it had advanced to the same stage.
He admitted that such an agreement took place. In

consequence of this the Court. of Common Council did
not come to a decision until the present Bill
was on the table of the House, and Sergeant
Merewether's opinion was, that the City of Lon-
don ought to oppose the Bill in every stage.
How well this accusation came from parties who asked
the House to repeal certain clauses, in order to enable
them to commit a breach of faith. He moved that the
Bill be read a second time that day six months.

Mr. G. PA LIVER seconded the motion.
Mr. R. ALSTON said he was not surprised at the
opposition of his Hon. Friend the Member for London,
because throughout the former progress of the Bill his
Hon. Friend had always been determinately opposed to
it. He (Mr. Alston) was in favour of the Bill,
because he thought that for the safety of the
public it was necessary that the number of steami
boats navigating the pool should be decreased,
and that he believed would be the effect of establishing
this Railroad to Blackwell. It ought to be considered.
that no engine would be worked within the boundaries
of the City.
Mr. HARVEY said he held in his hand a petition
signed by the owners or occupiers of every wharf on the
north or eastern side of the Thames ; and he was un-
derrating the proPerty held or occupied by those
gentlemen, when he stated, that it exceeded
half a million sterling. The petitioners opposed the
Bill on this specific ground, that when the Bill was be-
fore Parliament in 1836, the parties opposing it were
induced to withdraw their opposition on the express
understanding that the railway should not come nearer
the City than the eastern side of the Minories ; and it
was now proposed that the railway should come into
the very heart of the City.—(Cries of " Hear, hear.")
It was much to be regretted that such Bills
should be called " Private Bills." This was a
public Bill, the effect of which it would be well for the
House to observe. If this Bill passed into a law, allow-
ing the Blackwall Railway to proceed into the heart of
the city, a precedent would at once be established for
admitting all those Railroads which were now skirting
this metropolis into the city itself.—(Hear.) He would
ask Hon. Members if it were proposed that the terminus
of the South-eastern Railway, now fixed at Nine Elms,
should be removed to Great George-street—would it be
tolerated ? If it were proposed that the Birmingham
line, with all its nuisances, should be altered from its
present extremity to Holborn—would that be tolerated?
—(Hear.) Yet if once the principle was established, it
would be impossible to say when the advancing tide of
nuisances should recede. It was in his knowledge that
all the property in the neighbourhood of the Birmingham
railroad termination in London had been much dete•
riorated ; that entire streets were injured ; that the
private interests of every branch of trade were materially
affected ; and that the confusion which was aailywork-
ing in the immediate vicinity operated most perniciously.
—(Hear, hear.) But these were partial evils compared
with what would result from bringing this railway into the
heart of the City. As many houses would be swept away
as would leave the Company some acres, upon which
carriages would constantly be passing and re-passing,
till it would be as impossible to get through the crowd of
vehicles as through the dense forest of the " far west."
—(Hear, and a laugh.) As to the supposed compact
with the city, he was sure that if such compact existed,
it would be fully respected by the City, but it could not
bind the public, nor that House—( Hear, hear)—and
he entreated the House to give the subject the consi-
deration to which a great public question was entitled,
and to rescue the public from the intolerable evils
which would follow the passing of this 13i11.—(Hear,
hear.)
The House divided, when there appeared—
For the second reading BO
Against it
Majority
NORWICH IMPROVEMENT BILL.
The Marquis of DOURO moved the second reading
of the above Bill. It was to enable the Corporation of the
City of Norwich to pave and light the suburbs. That city
had increased very much—indeed, from a population of
3,000, which it was when it obtained its present powers, it
had increased to 22,000, and he was sure that the House
would consent to the second reading of the Bill in order
that such a large population might not be left any longer
without light.
Mr. SMITH said he felt called upon to oppose the
motion upon several grounds ; but before stating them,
he begged to say that his name had been put to the Bill
as one of its promoters without his leave, and. that
had been the cause of much annoyance to him, as
it was supposed that he was favourable to the Bill.
There was a distinct understanding between the Town
Clerk of Norwich and the promoters of the Bill; that
nothing should be done with it until after Easter. The
Bill contained 177 clauses, and it undertook to regulate
the paving, lighting, and watching of the town, and to
establish these Commissioners into a company for
making gas. Nothing would be more contrary to all
principle than such a proceeding. He moved as an
amendment, that the second reading be postponed un-
til after Easter.
Mr. WODE HOUSE hoped the House would sup-
port the Bill, as it was nothing more than a measure of
Municipal Reform.
Sir RONALD FERGUSON opposed the Bill, on
the ground that there was a positive agreement that
nothing should be done with the Bill till after Easter.
Lord STORMONT hoped that as there was no