The Sun.
London, England, 1853-08-19 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, FRIDAY EVENING, AUGUST 19, 1853,

all events, be equally neeiful to recognise any similar ar-
rangements of your company—an idea which has never
been suggested by any one, nor has such consent ever been
given by my directors.
"By the alliance of the London and North-Western
Company with the Midland, the North Staffordshire, and
other railway companies, they possess an uninterrupted
communication by railway, not only between the north
and south of England, but between both of them and the
west of England, including south Wales through Worces-
ter, Gloucester, and Bristol.
"The only avenue for traffic between the Great Western
system at Wolverhampton (where our line unites with the
Shrewsbury and Birmingham Railway) and the north,
exists by means of the two Shrewsbury lines, those coin-
panics being independent of the London and North-Western
Company.
"My directors are apprised by your letter that it is
nevertheless the full intention of your company to resist
and oppose subsisting traffic arrangements between the
Great Western and Shrewsbury Companies, and your
company is known to be endeavouring to obtain a cont rol
over those lines. Our alliance is treated by your company
as a violation of good faith, and you allude to 'recent dis-
closures,' &c.
the
practicepupo purpose
alleged
directorsa
n hereindividual,
to vi nc a t
myed
or e
‘d‘ elftenisdnthoteagainst
op-
posed to your views, of splitting shares to multiply votes,
which they know to have been extensively practised by
your company, when endeavouring to defeat the Great
I'Vestern agreement for the purchase of the Birmingham
and Wolverhampton lines in the year 1847. The fabrica-
tion of a common seal, in order to give pretended confir-
mation to the spurious agreements, was simultaneously re-
sorted to in that case. This has been again attempted by,
the London and North-Western adherents and agents em-
ployed in 1851 in the case of setting up a similar instru-
ment purporting to bear the seal of the Shrewsbury and
Birmingham. Company, in order to defeat a previous agree-
ment entered into by that company with the Great Wes-
tern and the Shrewsbury and Chester Companies.
If proof be required of these facts they can be readily
furnished by documents and evidence, which will show
that some of the directors and principal agents of the
London and North-western Company split numberless
shares into the names of servants, labourers, and even fac-
tory children, to carry their object. When writs were
issued to enforce the calls, your agents, Messrs. Beale and
Colmore, of Birmingham, gave the undertaking to appear
for many of them. It would be superfluous, in the face of
such proceedings, to argue with your company whether
the `alleged recent disclosures' of similar conduct on the
part of :director and officer of the Shrewsbury and Bir-
mingham Company are discreditable, or whether or not
`in violation of good faith, and contrary to the intention
of the Legislature.'
" Reverting, however, to the substance of the proposi-
tion now under consideration, my directors believe that it
may be thus explained :
" In order to promote ' a cessation of hostility between
our respective companies,' the London and North-
western Company suggest that the directors of the
Great Western Company shall, under a pledge with
heavy penalties, undertake never to charge lower
rates to the public than themselves, in order to
permit the London and North-western, with the
aid of their allies (the Midland and North Stafford-
shire Companies), to convey all the traffic which they can
obtain by equal rates between places on their respective
lines and the west of England, while, on the other hand,
the London and North-Western Company, nominally pro-
posing equal rates for the traffic of other districts, are to
be at full liberty to exclude the Great Western from ob-
taining any traffic at all, by severing, if they can, the alli-
ance, and by cancelling the working arrangements for in-
terchange of traffic between the Great Western and the
two Shrewsbury Companies. In fact, they are to be free
to seize upon and annihilate the only railway connection
between our two systems, by which at present any sort of
competition with themselves could be carried on beyond
Wolverhampton.
" The exertions notoriously made by your company to
exclude the traffic of our districts from all places to the
north of Wolverhampton, and to close up the Shrewsbury
lines against any continuity of working arrangements, may
indeed be very natural for those who are aiming to protect
the interests of a great monopoly ; but my directors must
decline now, as they have ever done, to fetter themselves,
under such circumstances, with obligations which may
hereafter be dexterously employed as weapons, on public
grounds, against themselves, failing in the meantime to
produce even the semblance of a peaceful and permanent
settlement.
" This board cannot consent to do any act or permit any
act to be done by others which is at all at variance with
subsisting engagements, and least of all will they acquiesce
in any principle calculated to embarrass themselves in
ulterior measures, without some corresponding Advantage
to their proprietors. The directors would, of course, be
glad to discover an effectual mode of settling all matters
in difference with the London and North-Western Com-
pany, but the conditions of any arrangements must be in
all respects entirely reciprocal, fair, and conclusive in their
effects. The covenants must be such as can be legally en-
forced upon all parties concerned, and due regard must be
had to the engagements of each company with their re-
spective allies.
" Remunerative rates, as it appears to my board, may
be adjusted by agreement between all parties concerned,
and rendered equal without injury to the public or injus-
tice to the companies, provided they do not aim at exclu-
sion and obstruction of trade, but as means of insuring,
adequate facilities for the unrestricted transit and inter-
change of traffic between different systems, of which prin-
ciple Mr. Cardwell's committee seems to have expressed, in
their report, an unqualified approval.
" I remain, dear sir, yours very sincerely,
(Signed) " CHARLES A. SAUNDERS, Secretary.
"Charles E. Stewart, Esq., Secretary,
" London and North-Western Railway Company,
Euston Station."

" London and North-Western Railway,
Secretary's Office, Euston Station,
London, Aug. 17, 1853.
"Dear Sir,—l have to acknowledge your letter of the
15th instant, and to express regret at the very hostile and
even bitter tone and spirit in which the proposals of this
company for a cessation of hostilities (couched, it is be-
lieved, in calm and temperate language) have been re-
ceived by you.
"Much of your letter is occupied by a repetition of cer-
tain charges, to the effect that the funds of the London
and North-Western Company have been applied to the
purchase of shares in order to defeat Great Western
purposes.
" These charges have been publicly and authoritatively
denied ; and I feel sure my board will decline again to
notice them, or to enter upon any discussions which are
irrelevant to the immediate question.
" On the 26th ult. the managers of the Midland and of
this company met you by appointment at Paddington, to
discuss the question of rates, &c., for traffic between Bris-
tol and Birmingham—traffic, be it borne in mind, with
which the Shrewsbury railways have no connection. At
that interview, however, you introduced parties, declaring
them to be the representatives of those undertakings, with
apparently no other object than that of obtaining an in-
direct recognition of the alleged agreements between those
whom they purported to represent and your company.
" Having openly declined, on several occasions, and
more particularly when a committee of shareholders had,
during last autumn, certain communications with our two
boards, to recognise the existence of exclusive agreements
inconsistent with our own relations towards the Shrews-
bury companies, it is not very apparent why you should
again raise this point of difference, and especially on an
occasion when the particular traffic in question had no re-
ference to those companies. The mode in which you in-
troduced the subject, permit me to sat, did not appear to
my directors quite consistent with that candour which
should characterise such discussions, and which it has
always been their wish to encourage.
" I feel sure I am expressing the opinions of my direc-
tors when I say, they regret that communications should
take place which are little calculated to smooth the way
for an accommodation of the differences existing between
the two companies. Thei:offer (renewed in Mr. Stewart's
letter of the sth inst.) of equality of rates, without limi-
tation of district, distance, or party—their willingness to
treat with all companies, as free and independent agents
—and the whole tenor of their communication, which con-
templates freedom of transit, sufficiently negative your
charge of their ' aiming at a great monopoly.'
"My directors entertain an earnest desire to establish
and maintain friendly relations with your company, as well
as with all others, on a fair and honourable basis. And
while they decline to compromise the just rights of their
proprietors, they will not lessen the chances of attaining
so desirable an object by raising needless points of differ-
ence, or entering upon the wide field of discussion opened
by your letter upon a variety of topics which have no re-
ference to the question immediately before them.
I am, dear sir, faithfully yours,
" For Chas. E. Stewart, Sec.,
"C. A. Saunders, Esq." "R. SAVILE.

" Great Western Railway, Paddington Terminus,
August 18, 1853.

" Dear Sir,—l venture to suggest, in reply to your let-
ter of yesterday's date, that it will be more consistent
with the professions of peace which almost invariablyform
the last paragraph of every letter received from your com-
pany, to abstain from making attacks upon those with
whom you are in correspondence, than, as on the present
occasion, after making an unprovoked taunt about recent
disclosures in violation of good faith,' to decline again to
notice charges which you affirm to have been made and
authoritatively denied.
"My reply to your former letter charged your company
with the same practices in 1847 and 1851, some of which
you had been instructed to allege as committed subse-
quently by a director of the Shrewsbury and Birmingham
Railway, in defence of their alliance with the Great West-
ern Company, upon which allegation your company now
think proper to justify resistance to agreements which you
have, nevertheless, been resisting long before the present

f "
..i Li not, in my
SBalCpflitehde Londont
(,rent western purposes,
accusation
the legal
letter, assert, as you assume, that the
they guaranteed and North Western Company have
co zptalt
the
ein,aoiwgesemt faodret ha.
the purchase of shares, in order to defeat
purposes, nor, for various reaso • reasons, is that
the
and maintained is
~e sums for the employment' of agentsyour ;
the ies ao4t,'expenses incurred in the ef-
rt
Pamy(llllla7nd defrayed fo
votes • a th,„ for ?_ agreements with thin company;
y . commln ,Y,Tr company splitshares to increase
passed to prevent the -a' was
companies independent due fabricated, and resolutions
Company ; me by e,performanceLondon
of contracts between
Com-
pany were driven tomeans theltarnd North-Western
ment, to maintain them. Chancery, and eat Western Com-
" The same plan, which eventually to Parlia-
against two companies in connexion
unsuccessfully
Western Company to the south Witjtrployed
now. in active operation with two Wolverhampton,eGreat
with the Great Western Company to ,iel,rnPallios connectedis
hampton : with this difference only, thaet north of Wolv
North-Western agents, after making. a the London neurd.
case of the Shrewsbury and Birminganut ns in in the
splitting shares in the case of the Shrewsbur;thaParkY, and
Company, by placing them in the names of 129 servants
Chester
their company, attached principally to the EnstonvaTts or
whom they sent free by special train to vote at a
saptelo.n ,
meeting, pretend to make recent disclosures in violation of
good faith, and attack them, while offering terms of Peace
to each and all of the companies whose conduct they im-
pugn, such terms being devised to admit their competition
against us, and to baffle any corresponding competition
against themselves by defeating alliance with, the Shrews-
bury Company.
" In reply to your other observations I must be permit-
ted to observe that the managers of the'Midland Company
and the London and North-Western Company did not meat
me to discuss the question of rates, &c., for traffic between
Bristol and Birmingham exclusively. If that had been the
sole object, Captain Huish's presence would have been quite
unnecessary. It was for the purpose of discussing the more
general question, and when Mr.
Joseph Sanders wrote to
me on that
L account to propose Captain Huish joining in