The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1848-02-01 00:00:00

SPECIAL MEETING OF THE COUNCIL.

On Tuesday a special meeting of the Council was held
to consider the new Dock Bill, with the chief features of
which our readers are by this time sufficiently familiar.
The Town-clerk read several memorials against the bill,
principally because of the omission of the rating clause.
Amongst them was one from the Guardian Society. A
memorial was read from the Coopers and the Cartowners'
Association against the bill, in consequence of the erec-
tion of Dock Warehouses interfering detrimentally with
their respective trades. Memorials were also presented .
from the Select Vestry, the Warehouse Occupiers' Asso-
ciation, and the House Owners' Guardian Society,
against the prosecution of the dock bill, in any form,
without rating clauses being inserted. Another remon-
strance was also presented from the Association of Land
and Warehouses.
Mr. Alderman BRAMLEY-MOOSE, in one of the most
able speeches ever delivered in the Council Chamber, in
introducing the motion, of which notice had been given,
took a review of the proceedings of the Council on this
subject. It appeared to him that this question was now
assuming a new feature. It was a rating question. but
now it was a question whether they should have ware-
houses round the proposed Wapping docks, not even by
the warehouse owners. As regarded their opposing the
warehouses round the Wapping dock, they are entirely
out of court, for the simple reason that the Dock Com-
mittee were about to destroy warehouses of much larger
cubical contents than would be erected round the Wap-
ping dock. With respect to the rating clause, if the
Council passed a resolution to insert such a clause, he
should feel bound to use his best endeavours to carry out
such a clause in parliament. But he believed that if they
struck the words " the management" out of clause twelve
in the original bill, the powers of the Act 4th Victoria,
would he transferred to the new warehouses, and answer
all the purposes of the rating clause.
The TowN-cLERK said he agreed with the Chairman
of the Dock Committee.
A very long discussion then took place, during which
several members expressed their disapprobation of the
bill in very strong terms.
Mr. EVANS could not conceive, with regard to the
rating clause, what would content the Council if they were
not satisfied with the security already afforded. He re-
commended that there should be a reinstatement of the
preamble which so truly declared the value and necessity
of dock warehouses, and also a reinstatement of that
clause which pledged them to go to parliament to carry
out unreservedly the injunction which it contained. They
did not want docks. They wanted warehouses.
Mr. HOLME thought it would be well if the Dock Com-
mittee would add one clause to the bill—a clause to make
that committee paramount, and to rid themselves of any
veto by the Council. (No, no," from Mr. Moore.) He
admitted the importance of the docks of Liverpool.
Parliament had now permitted the Dock Committee to
become a trading company, and the trustees of Liverpool
were the only trustees wielding public money for public
benefit who were permitted, to trade with that money.
He contended that the Dock Committee had become to all
intents and purposes a trading company. They had been
permitted to take the public funds and compete with
private capital, and every man knew that when such was
the case the most indomitable energy failed, and the most
unflinching industry became unsuccessful in such a com-
petition.—(hear, hear.) He had been told that it was
absolutely necessary to cheapen the port ; but it had long
been declared in that Council, and by high authority too,
that Liverpool was at present the cheapest port in the
whole empire, and, by a comparative statement of charges,
here and in London, it appeared that the difference was
somewhere as 7 was to 12. Let not the Council then
be led away by such a bugbear.—(Hear.)—He found that
the committee already paid £324 of assessed taxes to
government, and if they paid assessed taxes to govern-
ment he saw no reason why they should not pay their fair
proportion of the parochial rates of Liverpool.
At three o'clock the Council divided, and the votes were
taken as follows :—For going to Parliament—Messrs.
Shand, Evans, Tyrer, Horsfall, Holt, Tinne, Robinson,
Rimmer, Royden, Tobin, Plumpton, Lawrence, Benn,
Mann, Aldermen Nicol, Wood, Bramley-Moore, Moly-
neux, Chilton, Turner, and the Mayor. Against it—
Messrs. Jas. Holme. Woodruff. RathboNe, Morris, Pres-
ton, Stitt, Hill, Littledale, Hornby, Henderson, Har-
bord, Rogers, S. Holme, Kaye, Gardner, Danson, Earle,
Bennett, Parker, Lace, T. Lloyd, Aldermen Hodgson,
Cooper, and Procter.
The motion was lost by 24 to 21. The bill was conse-
quently thrown out.