THE EXPENSES OF PRIVATE BILL LEGISLATION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXI, Issue 6936, 9 February 1884, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE EXPENSES OF PRIVATE BILL LEGISLATION.

A eetoen has been issued pursuant to an order of the House of Commons showing the expenses incurred by each railway, gae, and water company in promoting and opposing Bills before Parliament in each year from 1872 to 18S2. The expenses thus incurred in ten years by the Great Eastern Sailway amount to £111,623; those of the Great Northern to £15S, 104; those of the Great Western to £211,877. The total law and Parliamentary expenses incurred in the decade in question by the London and NorthWestern Railway are £615,057. Owing to the Parliamentary business having for many years been managed by a staff at fixed salaries, whose time is devoted to legal as well as Parliamentary business, it has not been found possible to distinguish the strictly Parliamentary from the general legal expenses,. The following are the total Parliamentary expenses between 1872 and 1882 of the railway companies named :—London and South-Western, £83,508; London, Brighton, and South Coast, £39,150; London, Chatham, and Dover, £32,94S ; Manchester, Sheffield, and Lincolnshire, £79,212 ; Metropolitan, £40,714; Metropolitan District, £38,848; Midland, £215.972; NorthEastern, £90,846 ; Soufch-Easteru, £107,470; North British, £184,487; Great Northern (Ireland), £22,483 ; and Great Southern and Western (Ireland), £25,784. In the returns furnished by the gas companies the expenses of the Gas .Light and Coke Company figure as £23,903. Among the expenses of the water companies, the Chelsea Water Works are set down as having spent £6455 ; the East London Water Works as having spent £6826 ; the Lambeth Water Works as having spent £8600 ; the New Kiver Company as having spent £9918 ; and the Sonthwark and Vauxhall Water Company as having spent £6395. The total expenses of all the companies mentioned in the return for the ten years to which it applies are as follows : —Railway companies, £3,924,712; gas companion, ,£356,226 ; water companies, £383,936.