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made with the Bill beyond second reading and a reference
to a Select Committee.*
(e) LONDON SUBWAYS AND OVERHEAD WIRES BILL
This was a measure also promoted by the London County
Council, to enable them to make Subways under Streets
and to provide for the control and regulation of overhead
wires. The powers which it was proposed to confer upon
the London County Council, with regard to Subways
in particular, were felt by the Board to be of so extraordinary
a character, and such as would involve such
tremendous interference with the public ways of the District,
that the Board felt they had no alternative but to offer a
most strenuous opposition to the measure. A Petition was
accordingly presented to the House of Commons against the
Bill, and the London County Council finding that they
could not contest the arguments which had been used
against their proposals, abandoned so much of the Bill as
referred to Subways. The proposals as to Overhead Wires
were not such as the Board hoped would have been put forward
in any measure promoted by the County Council, as
the Board objected that, if the Bill became law, it would
extend and legalise a system which they felt to be dangerous
and injurious to the property of the public by perpetuating
the system of Overhead Wires, and that the proposal which
the County Council sought to make law, with regard to the
rights of private property, were an unjust interference, and
ought not to be permitted. The Board, therefore, determined
to oppose that portion of the Bill, and presented a
Petition to the House of Commons against it.
The Bill has been read a second time and referred to a
*The Bill has since been passed by the Select Committee.