3
discussion, if, in accordance with the wish I expressed long ago the Attorney-General had attended the Committee like any other member to express his views, and then he could have heard from the hon. members the views they have now expressed. The question is that the clause stand part of the Bill.
The ATTORNEY-GENERAL--Your Excellency, the remarks you have just made, make it right and only respectful to the source from whence they come, that I should say one or two words of explanation as to the attinate I have taken in this matter; and, first of all, that it is not, as stated by your Excellency, without any notive I I have objected to these clauses, because yester- day I called attention to the exceptional character of the provisions of these clauses and intimated my objection to them. It is not for me to follow your Excellency into the account you have been pleased to give the Council of the proceedings of Government outside the walls of this Chamber with reference to the subject of this Bill. That is a range of observations which I apprehend is open to your Excellency exclusively in this Council; but I may be allowed to observe that if this is an objection made by me without previous notice, the statement made by your Excellency that these clauses are Go- vernment clauses is an intimation made to me at all events for the first time, and had 1 been so informad beforehand I should too well have understood the nature of my obligations to the Government to have raised here for the first time the objection I have now urged, and upon your Excellency's assurance that this clause has been determined on by your advisers, of whom I do not appear to be one, I shall of course withdraw the opposition I have made to the clauses, but I think it right I should make that explanation, because your Excellency refers to this clause as one decided upon by Government and by your Excellency after consultation with your Excellency's advisers. It won't do for me to allow it to pass unnoticed that those advisers did not include myself amongst their number.
His EXCELLENCY-The hon. gentleman who has charge of the Bill yesterday twice remarked that these were clauses suggested by the head of the Government. He was tight, because when first this measure was brought under our notice, then, publicly, at this Council table, the necessity of having clauses of this kind introduced was stated by me. It is unfortunate certainly that
the Attorney-General had forgotten that fact. It is unfortunate also that he did not yesterday pay attention to what fell from the promoter of the Bill, and again the Colonial secretary in his re- marks to-day says, and truly says, these clauses were carefully considered by the Government, The Attorney-General told us yesterday or the day before that the only amendments he thought it necessary to suggest in the Bill were verbal amendments. This is not a verbal amendment. The amendments which the Attorney-General submitted to the Colonial secretary for my con- sideration, and which did not include this, may be verbal amendments, but certainly no one can say this is a verbal amendment. But now, gen. tlemen, the opposition has been withdrawn.
The ATTORNEY-GENERAI-Will your Ex- cellency allow me to explain one word with regard to which I have been misunderstood, that is, with regard to verbal amendments, There were certain amendments which it would have been right and proper for me to move in Select Committee had I been a member of that Committee, but I apprehend it is open to me and to every member of the Council, upon every other question which suggests observations in the Comunittee of the whole Council, to rise and suggest alterations. He is not precluded by the fact of having seen a copy of the Bill as reported by the select Committee from making such suggestions, and even moving such suggestions. If that were so I should be apparently the only member of Council debarred from taking part in the discussion to-day.
The motion that the clause stand part of the Bill was then put and carried nem, con.
The succeeding clauses of the Bill having been passed, clauses 17 to 21, adjourned from the pre- vious sitting, were taken up. On clause 18, giving the company the maintenance of the whole road--
The ACTING COLONIAL SECRETARY said he be lieved the disagreement was as to what authority was to look after the roads. The Surveyor-Ge- neral said he did not wish to press the point with regard to that part of the road on which the tram- way was laid, but with regard to the other parts
of the roads, there were many reasons why their repair should be kept in the hands of the Sur- veyor-General, and executed by the Government. He should like to draw attention to a letter which had been received by the select Committee from Messrs. Brereton and Wotton, who gave them one reason why the repair of the roads should not be carried out by the Surveyor-General. The part which he wished especially to draw the atten- tion of the Council to was that it was stated that when repairs were needed to some part of the road, the surveyor-General might be in the position of not being able to carry them out on account of not having the requisite funds. Those gentlemen gave what they termed a case in point to bear out this view of the case, which was likely to lead to the forming of a false impression, if it went abroad. Messrs. Brereton and Wotton stated that the sewer in Duddell Street at one time was in need of repair, but the Surveyor General had not the funds to carry out the work, and therefore the expense fell upon the owner of the adjoining property, his hon. friend (Mr. Delilios). This was really not the case. The sewer had to be altered for the pupose of allowing certain buildings to be con- structed for the advantage of the hon. member. The surveyor General executed the work by the desire of his hon, colleague, upon whom the entire expense fell. This matter raised a ques- tion as to the funds in hand, and to a contin- gency which the Government had to guard themselves against. Of course hon. members] knew that every year, various sums had to be voted for the keeping up of the roads in Victoria and other parts of the colony. The Surveyor General was supposed to keep with- in those votes, excepting in the case of damage being done to the roads by an unsually heavy rainfall, or some other unforseen oc- currence which would cause heavy expenditure upon the roads, and in such cases, the Government was always ready to vote a further sum for the keeping up of the roads. If they allowed the keep- ing up of the roads to be in the hands of the Tram- way Company, they would constantly be having bills sent in; and if the road was to be kept in lawn tennis ground order, the surveyor-General might find, before the end of the year that he was without funds. He did not see, therefore, that they would be so well off if such a course was adopted, as they would be if the keeping up of the roads were in the hands of the Surveyor- General, because that officer knew the amount which had been voted, and would keep himself within it. He (the speaker) further considered it unfair that the Government should have to pay the whole expense of keeping those parts of the road in repair on either side of the tramways, for the tramways would cause the traffic on those parts of the road to be much greater than it was before. The tramways occupied the greater part of the road, and his experience led him to believe that coolies and jinrickshas would not proceed along the tramway from fear of a tramcar com- ing upon them, and therefore they would make far more use of the sides than of the centre of the road. Under other circumstances the traffic would be extended over the whole of the road. He thought another objection was that they might have such an occurrence as some fault in the road which, if not immediately reparied, would prevent the hunning of the cars. The coin- pany would at once get coolies to work to dig up the road, and put the matter right, and the work would be completed without an opportunity of supervision being accorded to the Surveyor. It secmed to the hon. member that as long as the Tramway Company were only allowed to deal with that part of the road on which the rails were laid, such a contingency would be avoided. There was another matter to which he wished to call attention, which was that by their agreement with the Gas Company the latter were allowed to open the road for the purpose of laying or repairing pipes, after having given notice of their intention to do so to the Surveyor-General. He saw that there was one clause by which the com- pany required that 24 hours' notice should be given thein before any alteration should be carried out on the road through which the tram ran. seemed to him to be very hard that the Colony should be deprived of gas for 24 hours, before necessary repairs to pipes could be commenced. He considered that the gas was of greater utility to the Colony than the tramway, and he should therefore strongly oppose that clause.
It
The Hon. F. B. JOHNSON said it appeared to him that if the Company had to send to the sur- veyor-General to execute any repairs that might
393