and an undue waste of the soil of the country. * But in the interval, between 1836 and 1846, parliament, proceeding with the same disregard of the public interests, had conceded numberless Lines and Branches without taking any security against extortionate fares; and Mr. Gladstone's Act of 1844 left matters in a worse condition than it found them in, as the hopes it held out of revision were utterly illusory. There was, however, also a probability that one or more of the old Lines would not be able to afford sufficient accommodation to the enormous and continually increasing traffic of the country, and Lines had been projected affording more direct communication to many important Districts, which, by the exercise of ordinary care on the part of parliament, through a competition with the old Lines, might, I thought, compel them to the adoption of greatly reduced fares and charges.

Strongly impressed with the necessity of a change in our Railway system in accordance with the views in question, on the 19th of March, 1846, I moved for the appointment of a Select Committee to inquire whether, without discouraging legitimate enterprise, conditions might not be embodied in Railway Acts, better fitted than those hitherto inserted in them, to promote and secure the inte

It may be doubted whether, strictly speaking, the portion of soil taken for a railway is wasted. If the area is diminished, the productive power of the land intersected by the Railway is so much increased by the facilities it affords for the conveyance of manures, and other means for fertilizing soils, that this increase more than compensates for the ground appropriated to the Line. But when more is paid for the land than its worth, in order to buy off threatened or apprehended opposition, the excess is as much a waste of capital, as the extravagant fees paid to counsel.

rests of the public. In introducing that motion, I stated that I expected to be able to show that the system of cheap fares, not in England only but the other countries of Europe, had been found most advantageous and profitable, and that in almost every case the Companies which had tried the experiment had not been injured, but benefited by it. I stated also that I proposed to inquire into the

*

* It has been alleged that there is an inconsistency between the statement that cheap fares are profitable to Railway Companies, and that, in almost every case, the Companies which had tried the experiment had benefited by it-and the course of argument pursued by me, to show the importance of the legislature preventing the enhancement of fares, in order to raise the rate of dividend. But the inconsistency is only in appearance. There are, in the first place, districts in which high fares would have the effect of preventing all traffic on Railways; and again, there are other districts where high fares can be levied without producing that result. The distinction is clearly drawn by Mr. Peto. (Railway Acts Enactments, Min. of Evidence, p. 242.) "I am at present constructing a Line in an agricultural district; and in conversation with the Directors, I have told them several times, that unless they make their rate of fares upon the Line very low indeed, they will get scarcely any traffic; if they put it as low as we did between Norwich and Yarmouth, they will have a very large traffic, but not otherwise.

*

*

In another district, where there is a sufficient class of inhabitants all together, say in the vicinity of London, and where Lines are very costly indeed, there are a number of people coming to business every morning, they can afford to pay rather more, and you would get them under any circumstances.” In p. 48, a quotation is made from the evidence of Mr. Robert Stephenson before the same Committee, that "you increase your income by diminishing your fares up to a certain point; and beyond that point, if you go on diminishing the fares, you diminish your income." One Railway may exact fares which will destroy the traffic on its Line, while another Railway may exact fares considerably higher, without producing any such result. Again, there are Lines, forming joints of a long trunk, which, if not prevented by parliament, can charge with impunity very high

practicability of relieving Railway Committees from the weight of business which oppressed them; and also into the important subject of substituting leases of Lines for concessions in perpetuity. Without endeavouring to effect an absolute uniformity in the scale of charges, which must vary to some extent with the circumstances of each particular case, I expressed a belief that considerably reduced fares would be found of advantage to all parties, and that the right of revision should be reserved at periods considerably under twenty years apart. I briefly contrasted the French and English Lines, and the circumstances of the two countries, alluded to the then recent failure of the Railway Department of the Board of Trade to effect a beneficial change in our Railway system; and by way of illustrating the advantages which England possessed over France for Railway undertakings, I gave the population of ten of the principal towns in each country, with the shipping of the ten principal English and French ports.

*

The motion was not opposed, and a Committee was appointed; consisting of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, (Mr. Goulburn,) Lord John Russell, Mr. Hudson, Sir George Grey, Sir George Clerk, Mr. Wilson Patten, Mr. Warburton, Mr. Labouchere, Mr. Sidney Herbert, Mr. George Hamilton, Mr. Parker, Mr. Hume, Mr. Charles Russell, Sir John Easthope, and myself.

Without entering into a detailed account of the evidence taken by the Committee, it may be briefly stated that the cheapness of the fares in foreign countries,

fares indeed, as the through passengers are obliged to use them, and must consequently submit to almost any amount of exaction. * See p. 153.

as compared with the fares in England, and the greater consideration paid in the former to the humbler classes of passengers, were abundantly proved, whilst it was equally proved that the cost of the materials used in constructing the Lines, of earthwork, and the expenses of working the Lines, were higher abroad than in this country. Mr. Reed, who had been secretary of the Southampton Line, and was a Director of the Paris and Rouen and Rouen and Havre Railways, whose evidence, in that respect, was confirmed by Mr. Brassey, the well-known contractor, stated that the cost of earthwork is much the same in England and France, that the rails and chairs which on the Southampton Line cost £2,790 per mile, cost £4,635 per mile on the Paris and Rouen Line; that the working of the former Line cost about 1s. a mile, while it was about 1s. 4d. on the Paris and Rouen Line; that the locomotive power and carriages cost about 144 per cent. on the former, and 16 per cent. on the latter. The advantages of England in point of cheapness appeared still more conspicuous, when a comparison was instituted between the French and some of the other English Lines, which pay much less for their coke, than the Lines of the south of England. The details of the expenses of constructing and working nearly all the English and Scotch Lines, are to be found in the documentary evidence annexed to the Report.

From the first, parliament was merely considered an arena for the struggles of the projectors of conflicting Lines, having hardly any regard for the mode in which the public would be affected. System, as I have already observed, was out of the question. Some of the witnesses examined

give a very striking account of the arbitrary mode in which Companies were suffered to deal with the country, and highly illustrative of the character of the tribunal before which their struggles were conducted. "I would say," observed Mr. Robert Stephenson,*" that the London and Birmingham ought to have been commanded some years ago to have made their Northampton and Peterborough Line. The London and Birmingham, again, have a branch to Aylesbury; I think they ought to have been compelled to extend that branch to Thame: that is a town left between the Great Western and the London and Birmingham, without the benefits of Railway communication." And with respect to the partitioning the country, the same gentleman observes,t "I will take the case of the struggle between the Great Western and the London and Birmingham for particular Lines, and essentially other contests will be the same; it was a mere battle who should get the casting vote of the Chairman in that Committee." These struggles led, when the sharemarket was high, to results in many cases much more agreeable to those to whom it afforded the means of pocketing high premiums on new shares, than to those who purchased shares unduly enhanced in price as a permanent investment. It has been found that many of the Branch Lines, however convenient they might have been for the creation of stock when shares were at a premium, have, on their completion, afforded small returns, and thus lowered the general rate of profit derivable from trunks and branches taken together, and as this

*Second Rep. Railway Acts Enactment, Min. of Evid. p. 200. + Ibid. P, 196.