The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1860-08-21 00:00:00

atlXuati Entclligrnce.
GREAT WESTERN.

The report of the directors of this company has just I
been issued. It states that a comparison of the revenue I
accounts during the past six months with those of the I
same period in 1859 shows that the increased receipts on
the Great Western amounted, on passengers and mails,
to £.15.022 ; on goods, mineral., and live stock, to
1:48,e80; and on parcels and all other income, to
£3,891; total increase £07,783, and the increased
charge. £19,010. The directors recommend that a divi-
dend, at the rate of 3 per cent, per annum, should
now lee declared out of the disposable balance of
£120,040 4s. Oil., to be payable on the 14 of September
to the proprietors of Great Western consolidated stock
and Windsor shares, leaving the sum of i:5,4147 lc lid.
to be carried forward to the next half-year. During the
present session of Parliament the only Bill promoted
by this company has received the Royal assent—vis., for
making a short branch line and station near to Yeovil,
where the South-Western Exeter Railway crosses over
the Great Western Weymouth line. Orders have been
already given to proceed with the works, as the means
of emilecting those two systems of railway, and provi-
ding accommodation for the public similar to that
afforded for the interchange at Basingstoke. There are
several measures which have been successfully pro-
looted by idle r parties before Parliament, calculated to
confer advantages of a prospective character upon this
company. The Metropolitan Railway Company have
not only obtained further powers for completing their
Iline into the city, but also • power to extend that rail-
way up to the new meat-market, which the Corporation
of London are authorized to construct in Smithfield.
Your directors have considered it of great import-
ance to secure • portion of the basement under that
intended structure, with a good road of access to it;
which will not only enable them to bring from the
country direct into the market, at the least expense
and with the utmost despatch, all descriptions of sale-
able provisions, but will also form a general depot in the
heart if the city for al merchandise passing over their
lines of railway. The annual saving of expense to this
company in the transport of goods, lie., between Pad-
dington and the city will amount to a considerable sum ;
irrespectively of the many other alvantages to be
derived from those measures. The City Corporation
have subscribed the sum of £200,000 towards the con-
struction of the Metropolitan Railway, and your direc-
tors wish to record in this report the fact that the Board
commented to take for this company 300 additional shares
of £lO each, out of a large number taken by others for
the same purpose, at the time when it became neces-
sary to make up the entire capital in that undertaking.
as • condition precedent to the Corporation of London
being required to pay on their subscription. The works
of the Metropolitan Railway are in active operation,
and the directors anticipate • considerable accession of
traffic at no very distant period, from their completion.
The amalgamation of the Oxford. Worcester, and Wol-
verhampton Railway with the Worcester and Hereford
and the Newport and Abergavenny Railway Companies,
under the title of the West Midland Railway, has been
a subject of much consideration by your directors, hold-
ing, as this company does, so large a stake in the ordi-
nary capital of the former company, besides being
deeply interested in the traffic of the district. The
directors felt bound to resist that amalgamation, until
they were assured by the chairman of the Oxford, Wor-
cester, and Wolverhampton Company, that, by
laying down the narrow gauge on the Great
Western line between Reading and London,
great good would result to both companies; and that,
in his opinion, it would be difficult to over-estimate the
amount of traffic which would flow off the Oxford and
Worcester lines from South Wales for London when the
Worcester and Hereford link shall be completed. Faci-
lity clauses for the interchange of traffic were subse-
quently introduced into the West Midland Anialgamna-
tion Bill. Previously, however, to making any applica-
tion to Parliament., the board propose to submit the
whole question of laying down such narrow gauge rails
for the consideration and decision of the shareholders at
• special general meeting, to be hereafter summoned for
the purpose, before which time the various bearings of
the case, involving the amount of outlay and means of
raising the capital, shall be embodied in a report to be
circulated among the sharehohlers a month previously
to their being convened for a decision on such ques-
tions."
The directors recommend to the proprietors the appro-
val of agreements for working the Birkenhead, the East
Somerset, and the Llangollen Railways, as being con-
ducive to the welfare of the general undertaking.