The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1846-01-06 00:00:00

THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD.

THE CORPORATION OF LIVERPOOL AND
THE BIRKENHEAD DOCK COMMISSION-
ERS. - IMPORTANT ENQUIRY PRELIMI-
NARY TO ARBITRATION.

The arbitrators appointed by the two bodies named, to
decide upon the value of the reversionary interest of the
Corporation in the land held by them, on seventy-five
years' lease, on the south side of Wallasey-pool, met on
Tuesday last, at the Adelphi Hotel. Mr. Sergeant
Byles was the arbitrator appointed by the Corporation,
and Samuel Martin, Esq., Q.C., by the Dock Company.
The Solicitor-General, Mr. Fitzroy Kelly, and Mr.
Crompton, appeared as counsel for the Corporation, and
J. H. Lloyd, Esq., for the Dock Company. The two
arbitrators, accompanied by the Town-Clerk, Mr.
M`Gregor Laird, and the Corporation surveyors, crossed
over to Seacombe in the morning, and returned by Wood-
side, after taking a cursory survey of the land, as was
agreed upon by the parties. At one o'clock the enquiry
was resumed. The Solicitor-General opened his case in
a speech which occupied two hours. An adjournment
then took place until ten o'clock on Wednesday morning,
and on that day the Corporation examined their wit-
nesses.

Mr. HODGSON, clerk of the peace for Chester, gave
evidence as to the plans, and produced sections of a dock
and other works proposed to be consti acted on the south
sida of Wallasey-pool, which had been duly deposited,
according to the standing orders of the House of Com-
mons.

Mr. JOHN STEWART, architect and surveyor, of Liver-
pool, was then examined by the Attorney-General. He
said he had been thirty years in business, and that during
that time great improvements had arisen in landed pro-
perty, particularly at the sides of the river. He had ex-
amined the plans of the Birkenhead Commissioners' pro-
posed works, according to the several acts, and he now
explained what they were, in docks, sea-walls, &c. Such
works would not have been undertaken except with a
view of Birkenhead becoming a great commercial town.
The intended great dock would be of very little use un-
less the land on the side of it were converted to mercan-
tile purposes. The land belonged to the Corporation of
Liverpool, except the part between high and low water,
which belonged to the Crown. The two properties, to be
useful as an investment, must'be united. He had been
employed by the Woods and Forests to value the Crown
portion of the land, and had valued it at £57,000. He
would consider it advisable for persons having a seventy..
five years lease of the other land, to purchase the Crown
land for that sum, so as to make an uninterrupted pro-
perty. Except for commercial purposes, the Corporation
land was not worth £lBO,OOO or £200,000, or whatever it
might be. A railway was to terminate upon it, which
would give it additional value. It was suitable for docks
and quays, &c., only, and would be worth little without
them. Without them it might not be worth ss. or Gs. a
yard. For docks, it would be advisable to lay out the
money upon it according to the plan produced. The
south side of the pool was preferable to the other, for
there was there the nucleus of a great place, which the
other side had not. It was on the Birkenhead side which
had extended largely and wonderfully, giving great addi-
tional value to property on that side. The construction
of the proposed docks and warehouses would occupy about
five years, and if they were completed, the annual value
would, he estimated, be £153,6287, and the fee simple, in
possession, at £2,483,262, at eighteen years purchase.
After deducting 10 per cent. for repairs and maintenance,
the net clear annual value would be £137,957. He esti-
mated the land at 355. per square yard, including the
docks and warehouses upon it. After giving his estimates
for warehouses, counting-house, sheds, docks, waEs, &c.,
draining, engineering, interest, &c., separately, the wit-
ness gave the following items as a total :

Works
Land ..
Interest

£1,093,000
949,900
294,855

£2,336,755
This would be about the cost, and in five or six years
the property would be worth more if a revenue could be
shown to anything like that amount. A good warehouse
in Liverpool produced, of a❑nual rent, a guinea to 25s a
yard, for every yard of land they stood upon, and if they
were close upon the dock sides they would produce more.
lie put 355. throughout for land per yard, and £8 lOs for
building. This included the outlets and approaches of
the warehouses. The actual land on which they stood he
would estimate at £5 or £6—say £5 10s. for the land,
and £8 10s. for the buildings, so that £l4 would be the
fee-simple. He then went into calculations relative
to warehouse property in Liverpool, concluding by
valuing the fee-simple of the land there at £l7 10s.
per yard, and these not close upon the docks, which those
of Birkenhead would have the advantage of in cartage,
&c. The Birkenhead docks, warehouses, &c., would in
6 or 6 years be worth between two and three millions
sterling, and from bis experience he thought it would in-
crease in a great ratio in 40 or 50 years. In Liverpool
land on the water side has greatly increased, in some in-
stances ten or fifteen fold..

In cross-examination, witness admitted that he con-
sidered property in Liierpool more important and value-
able than in Birkenhead. Liverpool was a fact ; Bi, ken-
head a contingency. His calculation made the return 6
or 7 per cent. upon the project. The Trustees of the
Liverpool Docks purchased the Harrington Docks two
years ago, at 325. a yard, and about £50,000 had then
been expended in forming part of a dock wall. The slob
and shore land, at the North Shore, cost them less than
£1 in fee-simple. An outlay of upwards of £1,000,000
would be required to call out the value of the land at
Birkenhead as it now was. If the money could not be
raised for the completion of the project the land would
let, near the water, for trades requiring water frontage,
but not for much One shilling a yard might be the
minimum. At Wallasey Pool, 30 years ago, the land
would not have let for pasturage for more than ten shillings
an acre. Though Birkenhead town had increased, the
pool was not a place for building houses upon. The
crown land would have to be made, and if it were an-
cicsed between the sea-wall and the corporation land, it
would reduce the latter to very little value. In this point
of view the crown land was as valueless as the other, if a
power was bad to interpose the crown land between the
water and the corporation !and. Either, alone, are of
little value, hut put together they are valuable. The
crown land (86,700 yards,) he valued on an average at
12s in cash for the fee-simple. He considered £7OOO
the relative value of the reversion or three per cent. upon
£37,000 which would be £1,7101a-year, and he took 4 years'
purchase upon that as a return. (Much was here gone
into relative to the manner of striking the reversion.) He
reckoned a 16 years' purchase for a lease of 75 years, and
the interest an equivalent of 6 per cent, to the lessee.
On this plan the corporation proceeded. The formation
of Docks at Birkenhead was discussed in Liverpool and
through the papers, but little in the council. Many years
ago there was a talk of a ship canal through Wallasey
Pool. Plans were made for it to the Dee. At that time
the Corporation purchased the land from Tobin, Laird,
and others. Some of it cost 18s and some 30s; but he
did not know the average. He believed the land was pur-
chased in order to stop the project. He remembered the
sales of land at Wallasey made by the corporation. It was
said in the council that it was well sold. 1 would not
have parted with it, as I thought something was going on
which would make the Pool valuable. Others thought
so too. The Pool would have been a valuable adjunct to
Liverpool whether Birkenhead had risen or not. If
made into a floating dock it would be valuable to Liver-
pool, by receiving vessels from the overcrowded docks.
The witness here explained a number of transactions in
hand which he was agent for, for the Earl of Derby. He
had sold 5000 yards of land on both sides of Great Howard-
street, for 30s. a yard in lee simple. The value of a re-
version depended on no abstract value of land, but on the
probability of what it would be when buildings covered it.
On re-examination, Mr. Stewart said he believed the
('rown land would be sold to the Birkenhead Commis-
sinners for the sum he had valued it at—X7.ooo. He
considered the lessees would be amply indemnified in the
73 years after erecting all the docks and buildings. The
greater part of the witness's evidence afterwards given
was in explanation of the principle he adopted in regard
to reversionary interests.

Mr. Was. TITS, surveyor of London, said he thought
the Birkenhead Commissioners would be justified, and
act wisely in laying out the amount stated on the docks
and warehouses, as it would bring them into successful
competition with the Liverpool docks. He approved of
Mr. Stewart'sprinciple of reversion. Eighteen years pur-
chase of such property was, he thought, moderate.
Mr. JOHN NA EIGHTMAN, architect and surveyor of
Livepool, examined.— His evidence was much to the
same effect as Mr. Stewart's, as to the rising value of the
land at the Pool, if laid out for mercantile purposes ac-
cording to the plans. It was desirable in a lessee of the
corporation land to purchase the lease for 73 years only,
of the crown land a!joining, though at the end of that
time it would pass from him. (In questioning this wit-
ness and Mr. Stewart on other points, the interrogator
always put the supposition that the Dock Company's
Act had never passed.) If the property were so converted
as intended, and its value should be £2,400,000, at the
end of five years, it would be much more valuable at the
end of 73 years. The fair value of the reversion to the
Corporation was what at three per cent. would make up
the entire value at the end of the term.

Mr. JOHN H ARTLEY, assistant surveyor of the Liver-
pool and Hull Docks, was next called. He banded in a
detailed estimate. In reply to Mr. Lloyd he said he es-
timated the cost of the sea-wall along the margin of the
pool and the others, at £3O per running yard. A wall
bounding the property at lease, and not built so strong as
a river wall, would cost £l3 a yard, and satisfy the con-
servators. The proportion of frontage to the depth back-
wards of the Harrington Docks land was more than two-
thirds.

Mr. RICHARD EARLE, agent to the Earl of Derby,
spoke to the vast increase in the value of his lordship's
property contiguous to the new North Docks, and the
quantity of property built on 75 years' leases there and
over the town. In rising neighbourhoods there was no-
thing so valuable as reversions. He thought 3 per cent.,
as required by the corporation, the proper sum, at the
end of 75 years.

Mr. W.'S. SR- 'CAWOOD attended for Mr. Leigh, a large
proprietor of Liverpool. He concurred with the other
witnesses as to the rise in the value of property in the
contiguity of commercial improvements. He adduced
instances in Mr. Leigh's property. The operations in Bir-
kenhead would increase the value of property here: it
would give an impetus to this side. "There was nothing
like bringing people out n little."—The Solicitor-General
here remarked, that Birkenhead would no more injure
Liverpool, than the Surrey side injured London.
Mr. FRANKLIN, the corporation surveyor, said the
part of the Birkenhead corporation property let on lease
to Mr. Cole, was formerly let for £1 an acre—at least
about 53 acres of it. That part was sold for 73 years, on
lease, at £l2OO an acre. This he certainly considered a
good bargain, as they bad only paid LI an acre.

- This closed the nixie for the corporation, and the inquiry
was adjourned.

On Thursday, (the third day,) it was resumed.
The SOLICITOR-GENERAL, said that as no witnesses
were to be called on the other side, he should address a
few words to the arbitrator; and again with respect to the
duties and difficulties touching the right of the corporation
to compensation, in respect to the reversion of this crown
land, and the power of purchasing the reversion for
£7,000; and he had put his observations on paper, which
he should read, so as to allow Mr. Lloyd to reply to them.
Mr. LLOYD claimed permission to reply in writing,
which was agreed to.
The document read by the Solicitor-General was of
considerable length. It was to the effect that, under the
Ist of the commissioners' acts, the corporation had ac-
quired a power of purchasing the reversion of the crown
lands, as owners of the reversion of the adjoining land ;
bthat the surveyor had valued it for sale to them for
£7,000; that if the Dock Company's Act had not passed,
the corporation would have purchased the reversion and
absolute right to that land, with all the buildings upon it,
at the end of 73 years ; that the company threby take
from the corporation the power to purchase for £7,000
about one-sixth of the combined property, which in five
years would probably be worth two-and-a-half millions,
and in 73 years five millions. But he did not admit this
to be the legal effect, and would the crown sell at that
price? He submitted that the arbitrators should ascer-
tain, by a communication with the Woods and Forests,
whether they were about to sell for that price, and also
ascertain whether the company were about to purchase it.
If the company have actually purchased, they have, under
the compulsion of their act, taken from the corporation
the power of purchasing the reversion of the property,
and made the corporation no compensation at all. The
corporation, he added, were willing that these proceedings
should be put an end to, the company going on with their
75 years' lease, if they left the corporation the reversion.
And if there was any doubt that the corporation, as
owners of the adjoining land, could obtain the reversion
from the crown for £7,000, he suggested the postoone-
ment of the award for two or three weeks, and in the
meantime the corporation would obtain a conveyance
from the crown at that price. If the crown refused to
sell, or demanded more than £7,000, he would be content
to stake the case upon it.

It appeared that if the award were not made in three
months it fell to the ground.
Mr. STEWART, on being further questioned, said the
average price per yard of the land in fee-simple in pos-
session, the valuation of which he made at £7OOO was
about 12s. in its rude state. It was an universal price for
free-shore land, except under such circumstances, under
an act of parliament. He never before heard of the rights
of shores being valued so high, but his attent on was
called by the crown officers to the fact, that the crown
had given very lengthy free rights of shores for the foun-
dations of commercial ports; anal that that land was to
adjoin certain works, and to form part of those docks.
After some further unimportant matter,
I Mr. LLOYD proceeded to remark upon the case, in be-
half of his clients, in an address which occupied three
hours. No doubt, he said, the Solicitor General would
fain that the Birkenhead Company should withdraw from
these proceedings, leaving the Corporation of Liverpool
to the enjoyment of their reversionary interest, but that
was but a bait. The commissioners knew that without an
act of parliament they would never overcome the obstacles
between them and the corporation ; they alo knew that the
certainty of the obtaining the whole title to themselves was
indispensable to the complete success of their schemes. The
objects of the corporation were obvious. Twenty years ago
when a project was started to improve the whole of Birken-
head,they had stepped in and purchased the land to prevent.
They had kept that land unproductive for 20 years ; and
now they asked the company not to take the fee-siml.le,
but leave it to the corporation of Liverpool. The solici-
tor-general had not fairly put the question between the
parties, in requiring any doubt to go in on behalf of the
claimants ; for the scheme it was admitted would be of
public benefit, and though the company had private in-
terests in it those were not to be treated utijustly. So
much as the land was worth, so much the corporation
should have, and no more. No person should be allowed
to stop a public benefit. A fair value was all that should
be given. The land should be taken at its marketable
value. The mode of assessing it by the mere contingent
and speculative value of property—which never might
be improved was fallacious and unjust. The question to
ascertain was, what was the improved rental on which the
years' purchase was to be calculated. The rule was in
property to be improved, to look to the class of buildings
to be put upon it, then to the rental, and what rental will
be produced ; then to say so many years' purchase for the
lease, and so many for the reversion, and the difference
between them according to the term unexpired, will be the
value of the reversion at that moment. The Corporation
proceeded, according to Mr. Stewart, on the same prin-
ciple, in renewals. It had been said that Birkenhead was
to become a second Liverpool, but this was speculative
and visionary. The scheme might go on well, and the
Corporation at the end of seventy-five years, pocket a
million and a half, whilst the adventurers, the company,
might lose their all. The Corporation were to be paid an
enormous sum for the lease of their land, and would
have that over and over again in the shape of reversion.
The assumption was that Birkenhead would become a
most magnificent port, but history furnished many
instances of failure in schemes still more flattering
in the beginning. It was quite clear the Corporation sold
the land, with a full knowledge of what was to be done.
The first act enabled the purchasers to dam up the pool.
The second went further ; it enabled them to enclose the
sides by a sea wall, and make a roadstead. The mere
contracting the pool, rather went to injure than benefit
the lessees, by the second act, unless something else were
done. Wee it fair to suppose that £4,000,000 of money,
besides the interest upon it while the works were going
on (making it not less than £2,000,000), should be laid
out by a few individuals simply purchasing a lease of the
property ? The lessees were not bound to lay out the
enormous sums stated by Mr. Stewart, in order to bring
themselves round. The speculative value of the reversion
being gone, the arbitrators must put out of their consi-
deration the existence of this company, and of this project,
and they must assume what, at the end of 75 years, would
be the value of the reversion, just as of any ordinary pro-
perty belonging to the Corporation. Here was the datum
then : that with the buildings it would be worth ls. a yard,
or very nearly 7 per cent. on £294,284. Taken at 18
years' purchase, the reversionary value would be £362,450
at the end of 73 years. The present value, therefore, of
this sum, at 3 per cent. per annum, was £42,700; at 4
per cent. per annum, it was £21,092. Either way, taking
Mr. Stewart's own calculation, it came to very much less
than he had supposed. Why should the company be
saddled down with the burthen of this very heavy rever-
sionary price, which it was now sought to fix upon them ?
They were called upon to lie out of their interest for five
years, and pay £141,000 as a permanent charge on the
land created by the co-property too, at the end of 75
years to go into the hands of the corporation. The cor-
poration would then, forsooth ! be content; but it would
put an end to the speculation on the other side of the wa-
ter. They (the corporation) knew that • their object was
that. That corporation was made up of! individuals hav-
ing interest in warehouses in Liverpool, and they would
exert themselves to prevent anything coming into play
which they suppose wonld injure Liverpool interest so far
as they were their own. The witnesses called were all
(with the exception of one) were interested in preventing
the scheme on the other side from being carried into
effect. In conclusion, he said that it would be incorrect
to adopt the system pursued by the witnesses, and assume
property in Birkenhead to be estimated according to the
improved value of property in Liverpool—the latter being
a great fact, the other a speculation, the success of which
was still uncertain. He left the case with confidence in
the hands of the arbitrators.

The arbitrators then appointed Mr. Leigh Andrews as
umpire between them, in the event of their differing upon
any point ; and it was also agreed that counsel should af-
terwa,ds be heard on those points.
After some conversation relative to the payment of
costs, to which the corporation were entitled, the case
closed.