Chapter XV · PRIVATE BILL LEGISLATION

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In the early morning, long before the curtain rises on the larger and more prominent stage of the House of Commons, work, useful and practical, of which the public hears but little, is being done in the committee-rooms upstairs. This is the consideration, laborious as well as meritorious, by Members of both Houses of Parliament of the details of the numerous and important Private Bills which are introduced every session. A visitor to the Central Hall of the Houses of Parliament between eleven and twelve o’clock will witness a spectacle of a kind entirely unexpected in association with the Legislature. An eager throng passes by and disappears up the broad staircase that leads to the committee-room corridor. It is a mixed and varied crowd indeed. There are company promoters, barristers, surveyors, clerks, porters—carrying huge plans and maps—Members of the House of Commons, peers, scientists, fishermen, artisans, farmers, railway directors, shopkeepers, solicitors, engineers, mayors, town councillors—all interested in the fate of those Private Bills containing, often, large and far-reaching powers, involving the expenditure of hundreds of thousands of pounds, promoting great commercial and municipal undertakings, affecting the convenience and comfort and social well-being of the community. It is a scene that appears more appropriate to the Law Courts than to Parliament.

By a Private Bill is meant a Bill in which a company or a local authority seeks for powers to carry out a commercial undertaking, or a social scheme, involving interference with public rights or the rights of property. Parliament alone can abrogate public or private rights. Therefore, when a municipal body or a company desires to build or extend a railway, to provide a local community with gas or water, to lay down a tramway, to open a cemetery, to construct a system of sewerage, to erect municipal buildings, to make a canal, to provide harbour and dock accommodation, or construct works of any kind, which, in their execution or operation would trench on public rights or private interests, it must embody its scheme in a Bill and submit it to Parliament, which alone possesses and can alone confer on an outside authority, the power, for instance, of acquiring land compulsorily—subject, of course, to proper compensation to the owner; and no step can legally be taken by the promoters in the carrying out of the scheme until the Bill has passed through Parliament.

Every Private Bill—a Bill, say, empowering a little country town to provide itself with gas—has to go through precisely the same stages in both Houses of Parliament as a Public Bill dealing with a matter in which the whole country is interested. It must be presented in either House and read a first time, pass its second reading, be committed, or referred to a committee for the consideration of its details, reported to the House, read a third time, then go up to the Lords, if it originated in the Commons, or down to the Commons, if it originated in the Lords, where it must again go through all the same stages, and finally receive the Royal Assent which transforms all Bills into Acts of Parliament. Nevertheless, there are certain marked distinctions between procedure on a Private Bill and procedure on a Public Bill. The proceedings in committee on Public Bills is of a purely legislative character, whether the committee is a Committee of the whole House sitting in the Chamber itself, or a Grand Committee meeting in one of the committee-rooms upstairs. But a committee on a Private Bill always sits upstairs and exercises judicial as well as legislative functions.

There is also a striking difference in the manner in which Public Bills and Private Bills are presented to Parliament. A Public Bill is introduced in either House without any preliminary proceedings outside. But before any Private Bill can be presented in either House, a petition for such a Bill, together with plans of the proposed scheme or undertaking and an estimate of its cost, must be deposited by the parliamentary agent of the promoters in the Private Bill Office. Copies of these documents must also be sent to the Government Department interested in the scheme—the Board of Trade, in the case of railways, and the Ministry of Health, in the case of undertakings by local authorities. Due notice must be given to all persons affected, such as the owners and occupiers of the land and houses proposed to be compulsorily acquired under the Bill. Each House has an official known as the “Examiner of Private Bills,” whose duty it is to see that the Standing Orders regulating Private Bills have been complied with. They sit together at Westminster about a fortnight before the meeting of Parliament, to hear the parliamentary agents of the interested parties—the promoters and opponents of the scheme—as to whether or not there has been proper compliance with the Standing Orders.

Parliamentary agents are usually—though not necessarily—solicitors. Any person, save a Member of Parliament (a term which includes, of course, Lords as well as Commons), or an official of either House, may become a parliamentary agent, by writing his name on the register of agents in the Private Bill Office, and by entering into a bond for £500 for the payment of the Private Bill fees, and for the due performance of the declaration he is also required to make, to obey the rules, orders, regulations, and practices of Parliament.

If the examiners find that the Standing Orders have been observed, the Private Bill may be presented in the House of Lords or the House of Commons. But if they report a breach of the Standing Orders, such as insufficiency of notice to parties concerned, or inaccuracy in the plans, the matter is referred to two committees—one appointed by each House at the commencement of every session—and known as the “Committee on Standing Orders.” These committees decide between them, on written statements supplied by the promoters and opponents of the scheme, whether the Bill should be allowed to be proceeded with that session, and if so under what, if any, conditions.

The next stage in the progress of a Private Bill is the selection of the House through which it shall first pass, for, as I have said, it must pass both Houses before it becomes an Act of Parliament. This question is settled by the Chairman of Ways and Means in the House of Commons, and the Lord Chairman of Committees in the House of Lords, who meet at the commencement of each session, to determine, in conjunction with the Counsel to Mr. Speaker, the House in which the respective Private Bills should be first considered. Private Bill legislation is in that respect almost equally divided between the two Houses.

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Let us follow a Private Bill in its initial courses through the House of Commons. After the preliminary proceedings which I have described, the Bill is lodged by the parliamentary agent in the Private Bill Office, and printed copies of it are delivered to the doorkeeper of the House for the use of Members. Every Private Bill is endorsed or “backed” by the names of two Members, at the request of constituents or the promoters; but these Members have, as a rule, nothing further to do with its progress through the House. All notices in relation to the Bill which appear on the “Orders of the Day,” except notices of opposition, are given by the parliamentary agent of the promoters. It is he who fixes the day for the first, second, or third reading, subject, however, to the revision of the Chairman of Ways and Means. But as no stage of a Bill, private or public, can be passed except by a motion made and put in the usual manner from the Chair, one Member of the House—generally an old and respected Member—undertakes the duty of moving these motions in regard to Private Bills.

The first thing the House of Commons does after prayers, with which it opens each sitting, is to proceed with any Private Bills that may be down on the notice-paper for consideration. The normal aspect of the Chamber at this hour is empty and listless. Half a dozen Members or so are scattered over the benches at each side. The responsibility of Ministers in regard to public legislation does not extend to Private Bills. Indeed, Ministers, as a rule, abstain from any interference in these measures. The only occupant of the Treasury Bench is the obliging unofficial Member, who, to the great convenience of the House, as well as of the parties interested in the Private Bills, has undertaken to see these measures through the different stages.

The proceedings are purely formal. The Speaker rises and says, “The Clerk will now proceed to read the titles of Private Bills set down for consideration this day.” There may be six or eight such Bills some days, and on other days no more than one or two, in various stages of advancement. But be the list long or short, it is generally gone through in a few minutes. The Clerk, reading from the “Orders of the Day,” says, “The Essex Railway Extension Bill—second reading”; the Member on the Treasury Bench lifts his hat to indicate that he moves the Order, and the voice of Mr. Speaker is again heard reciting the formula of putting a question: “As many as are of that opinion will say ‘Aye’; the contrary, ‘No.’” No one responds to the Speaker’s invitation. Not a solitary “Aye” or “No” is heard from the few uninterested and inattentive Members present. But, nevertheless, the Speaker imperturbably declares he thinks the “Ayes” have it, and then pronounces the irrevocable decision, “The ‘Ayes’ have it.” And so on through the entire list. The Clerk reads the title and stage of each Bill; the occupant of the Treasury Bench raises his hat; the Speaker declares the order passed.

But all Private Bills are not disposed of in this formal manner. Many of them closely affect for good or ill the well-being and convenience of large masses of the people, and naturally, are strongly opposed. Private Bills of this character are often debated for hours with great animation, not, however, at the opening of the sitting, but at a quarter-past eight o’clock, till which hour opposed Private Bills are adjourned. The progress of the average Private Bill through the House is even and uneventful, and it is only when, after second reading—by which the House has affirmed the general principle or expediency of the measure—it is referred to a committee, sitting upstairs, that it finds itself in troubled waters.

Before we follow the Private Bill upstairs, let us see how the committee, which is to decide its fate, has been appointed. The committee consists of a chairman and three other Members who are selected—like the Members of Grand Committees to which, as I have already described, Public Bills are referred—by the Committee of Selection. Each Member must sign a declaration that his constituents have no local interest, and that he himself has no personal interest, in the undertaking which is the subject of the Private Bill; and that he will not vote on any question which may arise before the committee without having heard and attended to the evidence. Members of the Administration do not act on these Private Bill Committees. Ex-Ministers are also excused. Professional men, such as doctors and lawyers, or men actively engaged in business, are rarely called upon to serve. Work in the committee-rooms is important and useful; but it is also responsible, wearisome and obscure. Many Members accordingly try to escape it; and it is notorious that many succeeded in doing so—professional men especially—with the connivance of the Whips, by whom lists of those in each Party available for service are prepared for the Committee of Selection.

But no Member selected for the duty is allowed to shirk it without sufficient reason—aye, though he may have been suspended from the service of the House for disorderly conduct. Any Member failing to attend a committee for which he has been appointed is reported to the House by the Committee of Selection as “a defaulting Member.” He is then required to attend in his place in the House and explain his neglect of duty. Should he still prove contumacious, he may be brought to the Bar and admonished by the Speaker, or he may even be sent to the Clock Tower, as the House directs. Curiously enough, in almost every other branch of parliamentary work attendance is optional. There are on record only two cases of Members reported for absence from Private Bill Committees. One was due to a misunderstanding. In 1860 Pope Hennessy, an Irish Member, was reported to the House for disobedience of the summons of the Committee of Selection to serve on a railway committee. He was ordered to attend in his place in the House and give an explanation. Two days later the Speaker announced that the hon. Member, had sent him from Cork a telegram, which ran: “Railway Committee had escaped my recollection. I most respectfully apologize to the House. I hasten to London without delay.” Next day Pope Hennessy appeared in his place. His explanation was accepted, but he was directed to attend the committee forthwith. In 1846 another Irish Member, Smith O’Brien, refused to serve on a Private Bill Committee, to which he was nominated, as a protest against the Irish policy of the Government. He was committed to the custody of the Serjeant-at-Arms, and was detained in prison at Westminster for as long as three weeks before the House ordered his discharge. Two years later he led the Young Ireland Party in rebellion, and was sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered, but was reprieved.

To such a committee, so selected and so composed, a Private Bill, if it be objected to—that is to say, if after the first reading a petition against it has been lodged in the Private Bill Office, in which the petitioners pray to be heard by themselves, their counsel, or their agents—is referred for the consideration of its details. Of unopposed Private Bills it is only necessary to say that they are sent to a committee over which the Chairman of Ways and Means presides. The procedure of a Private Bill Committee partakes more of a judicial than of a legislative character; or, perhaps, it would be more accurate to say that it is partly judicial and partly legislative. The Members first sit as judges. They hear evidence on behalf of the promoters and opponents of the Bill; they listen to speeches of counsel; and finally they adjudicate upon the merits of the undertaking. If they find against the Bill—if they decide to report to the House “that the preamble has not been proved”—the Bill is thrown out. But if they declare that the preamble, or introductory portion of the Bill, in which its intentions are defined, has been proved, they then proceed, in their legislative capacity, to go through the clauses, and approve, amend, or reject as they think proper.

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The rooms in which these committees sit are along a magnificent corridor, running the whole length of the Palace of Westminster, facing the Thames. Access to this busy hive of commercial legislation is obtained from the Central Hall by a broad flight of stairs. To the right are the Lords’ committee-rooms, and to the left the committee-rooms of the Commons. On days the committees are sitting—the Lords’ from 11 to 4, the Commons’ from 12 to 4—the long corridor presents a scene of bustle and excitement. Serving the same purpose as the central hall of the Law Courts, it is thronged with parties interested in the Private Bills—barristers in wig and gown passing to and fro from one committee-room to another, agents and their clerks, witnesses of all kinds. Each room has a distinctive number. One of them, “Committee-Room 15,” in which were held the famous meetings of the Irish Parliamentary Party in December 1891, which culminated in the split of the Nationalists, the deposition of Parnell, closely followed by his tragic death, will always be an apartment of historic memories. There are two entrances to each room, one for “Members Only,” the other the “Public Entrance”; and at each door also (at which a policeman stands on guard) is a framed announcement, in large letters, of the name of the Select Committee sitting within.

There are nineteen of these committee-rooms. Each is a large and lofty chamber, with windows commanding a view of the river. A table, in shape like a horse-shoe, fills half the room. On a raised seat at the top of the table sits the chairman, flanked at each side by his colleagues. Fronting them, inside the table, is seated the witness under examination. At a small separate table close at hand is a clerk of the Private Bill Office, who keeps minutes of the proceedings; but the evidence is fully taken by an official stenographer, who sits at a table close to the witness-chair. At the end of the horse-shoe table there is a long table for the accommodation of counsel, the parliamentary agent, and the local solicitors on behalf both of the promoters and the opponents of the Bill. At the back of the room stand the witnesses waiting to be called and others interested in the Bill, with occasionally a sprinkling of the general public, who are being shown over the Palace of Westminster by Members of Parliament, while at a detached table close to the windows several newspaper reporters are busily at work. The walls are generally hung with huge maps showing the route of the proposed railway, canal, or tramway, or plans illustrating the scheme under consideration, the details of which are indicated by the witnesses by means of long pointers. The witnesses, of course, are brought up by the parties interested. The prospect of big fees, liberal expenses, and a pleasant holiday in London secures their attendance. But if these inducements should fail in the case of a person whose testimony, in the opinion of the committee, is essential, he is reported to the House, and if extreme measures are deemed necessary to compel his attendance, Mr. Speaker issues to the Serjeant-at-Arms a warrant for his arrest.

An inquiry before a Private Bill Committee can hardly be described as exhilarating. Sometimes the proceedings have that intellectual interest which is aroused by the contradictory statements of eminent experts on opposite sides, by a clever cross-examination of these professional witnesses, or by a passage at arms between opposing counsel. But on the whole it is dull work. The investigations are often protracted as well as irksome. Richard Cobden was appointed on a railway committee in the session of 1845, and his letters to his wife and brother in reference to the exacting nature and the tediousness of the service are just as applicable to the state of affairs to-day. On June 24, 1845, he writes to his wife:

There never was such a case of petty persecution as I am enduring in this railway committee. We have been nearly five weeks sitting, hearing witnesses and listening to the tedious harangues of counsel about a lot of paltry lines among the little towns and villages in Norfolk and Suffolk. I thought we should have got to the end of our work in a fortnight or three weeks, but now we are threatened with another week or ten days. And the great misfortune is that we have no power to put any restraint upon the tongues of the counsel, who are paid in proportion to the length of time they can waste.

At the same time Cobden was groaning over his ill luck to his brother, who was communicating to him pressing and unpleasant business affairs; he writes:

June 6th.—I am sorry to say it is impossible for me to come down even for a day. Our committee have determined to sit on Saturdays, and the rule of the House precludes me from being absent even for an hour. God only knows when this odious committee will come to a close.

June 19th.—Your letters keep me on the tenter-hooks, for I know not in what extremity you may be placed. I am in the same predicament as ever. The committee will in all probability last a week more. To-day we have been treated to a three hours’ speech by a counsel upon a mere fraction of the group. What makes it more difficult to escape is that the committee does not give a decision on any part until we have heard the whole, and consequently nobody not acquainted with the evidence already taken could step in to fill my place. Sir Benjamin Hall, very luckily for him, was pitched from his horse on his head the second day of our meeting, and he was excused from further attendance.

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It is no wonder, then, that Members of Parliament should desire to escape service on these committees. There is a popular belief that they are paid five guineas a day, but it has no foundation in fact. They get no special remuneration whatever for their time and labour. They have, however, one curious privilege. A seat in the House of Commons for the evening is secured only by attendance at prayers. From this rule Members serving on committees are exempt. On their way to the committee-room in the morning they may enter the Chamber and slip a pink card—as distinguished from the white card of Members who have been at prayers—into the slit at the back of the seats they desire to retain. But it is doubtful whether many of them are satisfied with that as an adequate compensation for the inconvenience of having to appear in the committee-room so early as twelve o’clock, after, perhaps, a late sitting of the House the night before, and give attention for hours to long statements of dull facts and figures and dry technical details.

So tied are the Members of the committee to their task that not more than one of them can be absent at the same time, for it takes three of the four to form a quorum. If two Members absent themselves, the sitting is suspended for an hour; if at the end of that time one of them does not appear, the committee is adjourned till next day, and, unless a reasonable excuse can be given, the defaulters are reported to the House. The presence of the Members in the committee-room is therefore essential to the progress of the proceedings. On the chairman—always a man of experience, with a special aptitude for business and familiarity with the procedure on Private Bills—falls most of the burden of the work and responsibility. He gives all his attention to the inquiry. He sedulously listens to the arguments and most carefully weighs the evidence. The example he sets is followed by the other Members, though, perhaps, at some distance. Nevertheless, this kind of service is more enjoyed by some Members than that of making speeches in the House, or hearing them, because they feel they are “doing something real.”

At a quarter to three o’clock, the time the House meets, one of the messengers pops his head into the committee-room and shouts: “Mr. Speaker at prayers.” The committee, however, do not join the Speaker for devotions. They remain to wrestle with the question whether or not some little town newly sprung to municipal dignity should be allowed to make its own gas or run its own trams. But should a division take place in the House during the remaining hour or so the committee sits, the Members jump to their feet at the first sound of the signal bell, rush headlong from the room and down the staircase leading to the Legislative Chamber, and knowing little or nothing, perhaps, of the issue which hangs on the division—a vital issue, it may be, of national policy—pass into the lobby pointed out by the Government Whips if they are supporters of the Government, and go into the other lobby if they are of the Opposition. Then, after this remarkable display of devotion to Party, they return to the committee-room, and resume the consideration of the municipal question at the point at which it was interrupted by the summons of the division bell.

But apart from this diversion, which does not often happen, the monotony of the inquiry is unbroken even by an interval for luncheon. A waiter brings a Member, on his order, a sandwich, or a few biscuits, with a glass of milk, or a bottle of ginger beer, and this modest fare is partaken of while listening to a prosy counsel or a tedious witness. Disraeli once said that a Member of Parliament who desired to be a success in the House should live on Blue-Books and biscuits. Of all our representatives, the Members of committees on Private Bills more closely attain to that ideally heroic state of parliamentary existence.

In the committee-rooms of Parliament there is not the same strictness as to the manner of examining witnesses that is maintained in the Law Courts. The witnesses are not sworn, except at inquiries of a special character. To ask “leading questions” is a matter of ordinary practice. A well-known member of the Parliamentary Bar appearing in one of the High Courts of Justice had not proceeded far with his examination of a witness when he was interrupted by the Judge. “No, no,” exclaimed his lordship. “That may be good enough for Westminster, but here we take evidence according to the laws of evidence.” The Members of the Private Bill Committees are similarly unfettered by rules or precedents. The decisions are guided by no fixed principles. Accordingly, they are without uniformity, and, indeed, are sometimes contradictory. It is also the fact that some Members nominated on Private Bill Committees are unqualified by experience or training to act as judges on the business matters at issue. There is a story told of a young Member, sitting on a committee to decide on the engineering merits of two rival lines of railways, who, after days of silence, aroused himself to ask, “Pray, what is a gradient?” But, on the other hand, it may be said that an average share of shrewdness and common sense is alone sufficient to guide the committee to a proper decision on the question of public expediency or policy at stake in a Private Bill.

“Do the advantages, or services, offered to the public by the scheme justify the interference with private rights which the execution of the scheme involves?” That is the main question, and when the evidence is concluded, and counsel on each side have been heard, the committee deliberate upon it with closed doors. If the committee decide the question in the negative, the parties are called in, and the chairman simply says: “The preamble of the Bill has not been proved to our satisfaction.” That is all. The committee on a Private Bill never give reasons for their decision. If the committee decide that the preamble of the Bill has been proved, the clauses are then taken up and gone through, one by one, as in the case of a Public Bill before the Committee of the Whole House, or one of the Grand Committees. Amendments may be moved, or new clauses submitted, on behalf of both promoters and opponents; but, of course, the questions are decided solely by the Members of the committee. The chairman votes in every division, and if the numbers are equal, he also gives a casting vote. It is the interest of the community directly concerned, or the general public benefit, that the committee keep in view in deciding all questions. They limit the amount of taxes, rates, tolls, or fares which the company may charge the public, and even restrict the profits the company may divide among the shareholders.

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Having passed successfully through the committee stage, the Bill is reported to the House of Commons, and some day it is formally read a third time. It then goes up to the House of Lords, where a similar ordeal awaits it. Its first reading and second reading are generally mere formal stages, but if it embodies a scheme which is stoutly opposed it is referred to a committee—consisting of a chairman and five other peers, appointed, as in the Commons, by a Committee of Selection—before which the same evidence is given, and the same counsel appear for promoters and opponents, exactly as before the committee of the Commons. The Bill may even be rejected by the committee of the Lords. After hearing the evidence, the Lords may find that “it is inexpedient to proceed with the Bill” (the form in which committees of the Lords declare their judgment), and the Bill is accordingly thrown out, without any reasons being assigned. In that event, the expense and time and worry of getting the Bill through the House of Commons have all led to nothing. That this sometimes happens, the story of the Manchester Ship Canal Bill for making a seaport of Manchester—one of the most important Private Bills ever promoted—affords proof. In 1883 the Bill was introduced in the House of Commons, and, though strongly opposed on behalf of Liverpool, passed successfully through all the stages, including an inquiry, extending over thirty-nine days, before the Commons’ Committee; but was rejected, after another prolonged investigation, by the Lords’ Committee. In the following session the Bill was first brought into the House of Lords. It was referred to a committee in the usual course, and this time it passed triumphantly through the trying ordeal of an inquiry which lasted forty-one days. Then it came down to the Commons, got through its first and second readings in the House, but came to grief at the end of twenty days’ investigation before the Commons’ Committee. The Bill subsequently passed through the same stages in both Houses, and became law—as the existence of the Manchester Ship Canal sufficiently indicates—but the long and arduous contest over it added £100,000 to the expenses of the undertaking, and probably cost the Corporation of Liverpool and the railway companies which opposed it at least the same amount.

However, every Private Bill has not to go through this double inquiry before different committees of both Houses of Parliament. The opponents, if defeated before the committee of the House in which the Bill originated, allow, as a rule, the Bill to go through. It is only in the case of an undertaking of great magnitude that the opponents use the second committee as a court of review in regard to the decision of the first. The high fees tend to restrain vexatious proceedings on the part of promoters and opponents alike. Moreover, even if the investigation should be twice repeated, it is seldom that a Bill which has passed the committee of one House is rejected by the committee of the other, though it happens occasionally that the production of new evidence before the second inquiry leads to the material amending of the Bill. But in most cases a Private Bill that has passed through one House is referred, if the House be the Commons, to the Chairman of Committees in the Lords, or, if the House be the Lords, to the Chairman of Ways and Means in the Commons, and the approval of the one chairman or the other renders the passage of the Bill through its remaining stages, in the Lords or in the Commons, easy and expeditious. Nothing now remains but the Royal Assent. When that is given, as it is in due course, the Private Bill becomes an Act of Parliament.

Parliament derives a substantial revenue from fees charged to promoters and opponents of Private Bills. The aggregate sum paid to Lords and Commons is, on an average, about £80,000 a year, and is applied as appropriations in aid towards the salaries and expenses of the officials of the Private Bill Office of each House. Altogether, a sum of about £800,000 is spent, on an average, in each session on promoting and opposing Private Bills. The biggest items in this expenditure are the payments to counsel and professional witnesses. The Parliamentary Bar, as it is called, is quite a distinct branch of the legal profession, at which specialists in the law relating to Private Bills practice exclusively. The work is usually compressed within three or four months of the session. Within that period the “leaders” live lives of tremendous pressure. They are usually briefed to appear for or against all the Private Bills under investigation before the committees sitting the same day, and so they may be observed hurrying from room to room—always calm and bland, nevertheless—examining a witness here, making a speech there, conducting a cross-examination elsewhere, their movements being regulated by their watchful clerks, who keep them informed of the progress of events before each committee in which they are interested. It is said that a few of the “leaders” earn in these three months £20,000. At any rate, I remember reading in a speech by the chairman of the Manchester Ship Canal, delivered during the protracted proceedings, with varying fortunes, in relation to that gigantic engineering scheme, before different committees of both Houses, during four or five sessions, that the promoters paid 80 guineas per hour (or 120 guineas per day of four hours) for each hour each Select Committee sat on the Bill, to four counsel, only one of whom was present at any time in the committee-room.

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The acceptance by a Member of the House of Commons of a bribe for advancing or defeating a Private Bill is punished by expulsion from the House. To solicit a bribe is visited with imprisonment. Happily, Private Bill legislation is absolutely free from all taint or suspicion of corruption. There is no instance known of a Member of Parliament having been guilty of personal dishonesty in the exercise of his legislative functions. There is one case of the solicitation of a bribe. In 1879 the chairman of a committee which sat to consider the Tower High Level Bridge Bill reported to the House of Commons that a Member of the House, named Grissell, had represented to the agents conducting the opposition to the measure that he would control the decision of the committee and procure the withdrawal or rejection of the Bill for the sum of £2,000. A solicitor named Ward was involved with Grissell in the charge. Both were found guilty by the House, and the Serjeant-at-Arms was ordered to arrest them and bring them to the Bar for judgment. Ward was apprehended. Grissell escaped to Boulogne, whither he was followed by a messenger of the House; but as the warrant of the House runs only within the kingdom, the absconder could not be brought back. Ward was committed to the Clock Tower during the pleasure of the House. After a week’s imprisonment, he sent a humble petition to the House expressing the deepest contrition and was set at liberty. Grissell returned to London and surrendered himself to the Serjeant-at-Arms. But this was two days only before the termination of the session, when, as Grissell was well aware, any order of the House in regard to his imprisonment would lapse. He was committed to Newgate on August 13, and was released the next day on the prorogation of Parliament, but was informed he would be arrested again in the next session. On the assembling of Parliament in 1880 he expressed his sincere sorrow for his offence, but he was again committed to Newgate for having evaded in the first instance the warrant of the House. His imprisonment ended, perforce, with the end of that session.

This system of Private Bill legislation, under the direct authority and supervision of Parliament, has existed for centuries. On the whole, it has worked excellently well. Under these Private Bills which are passed session after session great municipal and commercial undertakings are carried out. The kingdom has been honeycombed with railways and canals. Docks and harbours have been built in its seaports. The cities and towns have been provided with drainage systems, supplies of water, gas and electric light and tramways. The prosperity, health and comfort of the community have been immensely promoted. Spacious cemeteries have been opened in urban areas for the decorous disposal of the dead. And exacting and laborious though service on committees is to Members, Parliament has always rejected proposals for the transference of the work to an outside body, such as a Government department or judicial tribunal. Parliament is reluctant to part with any of its direct power and authority over matters involving the abolition of existing rights or the creation of new ones. Even the setting up of joint committees of Lords and Commons to consider Private Bills—thus dispensing with that duplication of the detailed hearing of the arguments for and against a Bill by separate committees of the two Houses—to the saving of time, money and labour, though sometimes resorted to, is usually received with disfavour. Here we have an illustration of how jealous each House is for the preservation of its ancient privileges and customs.

What Parliament has done is to relieve itself of some of the work associated with inquiries into Private Bills by means of the system known as “Provisional Orders.” Such Government departments as the Home Office and the Ministry of Health are authorized by various Acts of Parliament to grant these Provisional Orders on the application of local authorities. The Orders are, however, limited mainly to the repeal, alteration or amendment of existing local Acts. Under them no fresh powers can be granted. Until it has been confirmed by Parliament the Provisional Order does not become law. But the system enables local authorities to obtain the necessary parliamentary sanction for the execution of certain local works with greater expedition and at much less cost than by Private Bills. A Provisional Order can be got through Parliament in a week or two when a Private Bill would take months to pass. The promoters of Provisional Orders are exempt from the payment of fees, but should an Order be opposed, which is a rare occurrence, the opponents are obliged to pay the same fees as in the case of Private Bills. It has been calculated that the average expense to local authorities in promoting Provisional Orders is £233 per Order, as compared with an average cost of £2,178 for a Private Bill.

In 1899 the weary shoulders of Parliament was still further relieved, by the Unionist Administration, of a part of this burden of Private Bill legislation. A new tribunal for dealing with Scottish Private Bills by a separate procedure was established. All private legislative proposals from Scotland are deposited at Westminster in the form of Provisional Orders. The Chairman of Committees in the Lords, and the Chairman of Ways and Means in the Commons, meet and consider whether these proposals should go forward as Provisional Orders or as Private Bills. If they decide in favour of Private Bill procedure, the proposed schemes must receive parliamentary sanction at Westminster. But should the decision be in favour of Provisional Orders, as it generally is, the proposed undertakings, if opposed, are sent down to the locality concerned to be inquired into locally by a committee composed of two Scottish peers and two Scottish Members of the House of Commons, having no interest, local or personal, in the matter. If a scheme should be unopposed, it is simply examined by the Government department to whose province it relates. But though the inquiry be local or departmental, Parliament watches and controls the acts and decisions of the new tribunals. All these Provisional Orders, unopposed or opposed, have ultimately to receive the sanction of both Houses of the Legislature.