A.—No. 30.

4

STANDING ORDERS ON PRIVATE BILLS.

It is further proposed to repeal " The Parliamentary Costs Taxation Act, 18G1." That Act was passed with a view to the protection of the promoters of Private Bills. It authorizes the Speakers to lay down a scale of charges, and to appoint an officer by whom the bills of parliamentary agents are to be taxed. It must surely simplify business to have a fixed scale.of charges instead of a separate bargain upon each transaction, and if the present scale of charges be too high, it is in the power of the House at any time to reduce it. The Committee report that " The list of charges, 150 in number, which the present orders authorize parliamentary agents to make, would disappear, thereby reducing the present book of Private Bill Orders by eleven pages." But these eleven pages contain in reality nothing more than tables of reference. The book might be still further diminished in bulk by striking out the index, but it would hardly be argued that its simplicity or utility would bo thereby promoted. The proposal to submit a Private Bill to a Committee appointed for each special case, appears to me to be open to serious objections. Looking to the nature of Private Bills, and to the functions of the Legislature with regard to them, I conceive that the existing method of appointing the Committee has an incontestable superiority. By that method a Committee, termed the Committee of Selection, is nominated by the House at tho commencement of each Session, and that Committee nominates the Committees upon the various Private Bills that come before the House. Tho question of the Committee upon any Private Bill is thus withdrawn equally from the domain of party politics and from any suspicion of undue influence on one side or the other. Where judicial functions are exercised it is obviously only just that tho tribunal should be constituted in such a manner as to secure for it the utmost amount of impartiality. On the suggestion that the Private Bill Office should be done away with, I have already observed that it is a step that may be taken without infringing any of the principles that should not be departed from. As to tho suggestion in the latter part of the clause, to treat Private Bills after a certain stage as Public Bills, I doubt its propriety. The orders relating to Estate Bills are but seven in number, and direct certain things to be done which do not conflict with the action of the Judges under " The Private Estate Bills Act, 1867." In passing the Act in question the object of the Legislature, as I understood it, was that it should obtain the opinion of the Supreme Court that no legal or technical obstacles existed to the passing of a Bill affecting private estate; but I can hardly suppose that it was the intention of the Legislature virtually to devolve upon the Judges its own responsibilities, or to leave to them the duty of deciding whether it was desirable or not, looking to questions outside mere technicalities, that a law should be enacted in the direction applied, for. As regards the rules which are appended as a schedule to the maxims which are laid down, and upon which I have been commenting, I would observe that they bear evident traces of having been prepared without sufficient time having been allowed for careful revision. I observe, for instance, that in the second order reference is made to the " books of reference," although it is otherwise declared that " it has not been considered necessary to retain the provisions for personal notice served on individual owners." Notices of the intention to apply for a Private Bill are to be deposited in the Colonial Secretary's Office instead of the office of the Clerk of the House. There is no machinery provided for examining petitions with a view to the House being satisfied that the preliminary notices have been given. There is no distinction made between unopposed and opposed Bills ; and it is proposed to appoint a Committee, by nomination, of the House, for each Bill a proceeding which, it is respectfully submitted, is open to the gravest objections. D. Monbo, Speaker.