The Sun.
London, England, 1854-09-08 00:00:00

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company in the superintendent's department, and of the
difficulties which had occurred in it, in regard to ques-
tions of public safety, to move .a resolution, the conside-
ration of which should take precedence of the appoint-
ment of a general manager. My resolution was in these
terms :—" That the circumstances attending the ap-
pointment of A. B. C. to the charge of the Godstone
station at the time of the late accident, and the circum-
stances attending the late accident at the Spa-road
station, be taken into consideration." And here I may
mention that in 1845 I moved the directors of the com-
pany to establish the electric telegraph forthwith over
all its lines and branches, in anticipation of the period
when we should have erected it in the natural course of
things, and, in compliance with our engagement with
the Government, in consequence of the frightful accident
which took place at Penshuret, which accident would not
have happened if the telegraph had been in use ; and
ever since the application of the telegraph has been
maturing, till in October last, a general order was issued
by my directions. Well, gentlemen, some of my reasons
for proposing this amendment are to be found in the
following correspondence. (The impatience oft e meet-
ing did not allow Mr. Macgregor to read all the corres-
pondence, and the following are the only p?rtions of t
that he was enabled to lay before the rorietors) :
South-E July Railway, London Terminus,
J3O, 1852, 11 a.m.
"Dear Sir,—l heard enough of the evidence yesterday
regarding the accident at Headcoro. to satisfy me that the
man (Wyke) in charge of that station is unfit for the duty
of a station-master.
" Just observe the facts :
" He shunts a pick-up train from the down line to the
up line to make way for the mail train, and leaves that
pick-up train on the up line for 44 minutes without corn-ere'
municating to the station below the fact that it is there,
or taking any extraordinary precautions whatever to
pro-
tect the lives of the passengers or the property of the com

pany.
" Whatever the close of the investigation may elicit
with regard to the conduct of the engine-drivers, or their
non-observance of signals, it is still clear to me that it is
impossible that the conduct of the station-master can be
justified, or that he can put himself in a situation to show
that he has deserved the confidence of the directors.
" I place these views before you without loss of time,
in order that you may have the advantage of my opinion,
and not lose by delay the credit which wouldbe due to you
for a prompt and correct view of the case.
" The station-master at Headcorn was not justified,
under such circumstances as occurred, in trusting to ordi-
nary signals, or to sending a man down to wave his lantern
on the line, and in my view he cannot be continued in the
responsible office of station-master—where, whatever be
the regulations, something must always depend on sound
discretion.
"I have written to Mr. Drane to lay an estimate befote
the directors of the cost of placing distant signals at every
station, and I shall move the board, who will meet specially
to-morrow, to adopt them at all stations at once.
'` I shall be glad to have an amended time-bill for
August, to-day.—l am, dear Sir, yours tru
Mly,
"J. ACGREGOR.

" Captain Barlow, Superintendent."
The general order which was omitted to be enforced
on this occasion was as follows :
"South-Eastern Railway, London-bridge
Terminus, Oct. 11, 1853.
" GENERAL ORDER.

" No. 101.
" On and after this date, section 20, page 69, of the go.
neral regulations is cancelled, and the following order sub.

stituted-:
" After a train or empty engine has left or passed a
station, the danger signal is to be kept up until the station
beyond has telegraphed that such train or empty engine
has arrived, and that the line is clear. If a train or empty
engine breaks clown between two stations, and requires
assistance, the directions given in section 32, page 72, of
the company's regulations, are to be carried out.
" To prevent unne.iessary delays, the arrival or passing
of train or empty engine must be immediately telegraphed
to the back station.'"
He went on to say—The nature of the accident at
Godstone was of this kind. A regular express train of
the company started at its proper tine from Redhill
for Godstone, on its journey with continental traffic.
Redhill had received the electric signal from Godstone
that•' the line was clear. The engine-driver had cleared
the Bletchworth Tunnel, and then saw with dismay' the
signal against him and a truck on the line. What
had occurred ? A truck had been shunted on the line
without the knowledge or authority of the station-master
—indeed, it appeared, without any authority at all—
..

by porters. Most fortunately no life was lost, nor did
personal injury occur. But, though the station-master
proved to have been at his breakfast, and not cognisant of
the facts, who did this station-master turn out to be ?
Why, a person placed temporarily in power by the super-
intendent. And who was that person ? Why, the unfor-
tunate man who had been, in my view, the cause of the
accident at Headcorn. It is true that after the ap-
pointment was made, at a subsequent board, when I
suppose the majority of our board of directors saw
the grave responsibility which might grow out of
such proceedings, they gave me an opportunity, by a re-
solution which they put on their books, of inquiring into
the circumstances to which I had referred. Gentlemen,
I wanted no inquiry into these circumstances myself.
For my information I had satisfied myself that there was
matter for grave and serious consideration, that great re-
sponsibility grew out of them, and it was to give my
honourable colleagues an opportunity of making the in-
quiry themselves that I moved the resolution. Now,
gentlemen, I think it will be obvious to you that I am
entitled to be freed from all share of responsibility re-
garding a measure carried in the face of my resolution,
and without inquiry into thecircumstances to which that
resolution adverts. In the performance of the duty of
the practical management of the company's affairs there
is an amount of anxiety and responsibility which, I
think, can only be appreciated by one who has been put
in the painful and responsible position of managing di-
rector. When accidents occur and are inquired into, it
will naturally be supposed that it is not the object of the
managers of the company, by recrimination among each
other, to make bad worse, or aggravate the sense of in-
jury which those who have suffered must feel ; but at
the same time it is due to you, when such great changes
take place, and when such interests as yours are, as I
think they have been, imperilled, that you should hear
something of the internal condition of your affairs, and
of those incidents which have aggravated, sometimes be-
yond expression, the sense of responsibility which I have
felt in your service. We have lately had a melancholy
instance of what may be brought about by the want of
forethought and the want of perfect discipline. On that
circumstance I shall make no further comment ; but I
claim for myself, as I think I have a right to do, your
belief, that whilst I held the office that you conferred
upon me, I used all the ingenuity I possessed in anxious
consideration for our general welfare, and in the most
heartfelt solicitude for the punctual performance of
your service and the safety of those who availed
themselves of it. It is far from my wish to deprecate
the good intentions •f any one charged with the dis-
cipline of your line, but I do say, that after the
honour you conferred upon me in entrusting me for
so long a period with the conduct of your affairs
that it was due to you that any opinion that I had to
express upon a matter of importance and urgency
should have been weighed and considered, and that no
appointment should have been made that could in any
way prejudice your position. The majority of the board
of directors tell us in the report that the result of their
deliberations has been some immediate and a large
prospective reduction of expenditure. Gentlemen, I
venture to state to you, what you may gather, that this
statement has not been borne out by the report and
accounts. Does my withdrawal from office free you
also from the charge of the amount of salary which you
gave to me ? That is not the case. Other salaries
have been raised and other appointments made, and the
expenditure under the head of management will even-
tually not be reduced. I see, indeed, in one item of the
accounts, there is a large deduction—namely, in the
wages to police, points, signal-gate, and watchmen.
Gentlemen, I state emphatically, that if any reduction
be attempted, beyond the fixed staff to which I assented
after the closest inquiry in November last, in the num-
ber of officers and individuals necessary for the conduct
of your traffic, and the amount of which staff at every
station was put in print for the better knowledge of
your directors, that that reduction will inevitably be
followed by an amount of charge upon you for casualties
of which no calculation can be made, and which in their
character must amount to something not short of crimi-
nality itself. Gentlemen, nothing is so easy as to find
fault, nothing so easy as for men at the end of ten yearn
to lap up a story of parliamentary expenditure, and to
tell you, when asking you to raise an additional half
million of money, that 479,7111. has been from 1845 to
1853 lavished in promoting losing branches and lines, in
parliamentary and law expenses, averaging the enormous
sum of 53,301/• perannum. The majority of the board
cannot
of directors have informed themselves suf-
ficiently of the circuomstances under winch it was abso-
lutely necessary t
ncounter this outlay in applica-
tions to Parliament e
for your own lines, as well as in
opposing successfhaulvlyereee!. lines ; and when it is set forth
that these sumspartiesennitiatd a heavy reduction of your
dividends, the
this assertion ought to
have known that without thlinsgexpenditure you probably
swould have had no dividends
ort that if the directors of
to
had folded
at all, for I fearlessly
parliament for all
as-
their arms, and left others to :papuir
yonld without
the extensions from time to timye suggested,o
iot have
their opposition on your behalf,
have ben to audit
worked your line to return any profit atn all, and the
From the on
I
only use of a public meeting would
accounts, not to receive dividends.
to learn the true
direction of our line we have been peculiarly open tra,.
members
orread
tack, and it is not from your newh directors, elected in
1854, that I have, or that you
history of the comp tlemavene,
s for
to you two letters addresseda.ny to one of thewmmern
recollection what
East Sent, which will recall to your
you have done on former occasions, and what I have
thought in relation to this class of expenditure. The
letters are short, or I would not venture to ask your at-
tention to them. On the 26th May, 1846, I had occa-
sion to explain the policy of the company in answer to
inquiries having a tendency to parliamentary_ influence
on your position, and I did so in these terms,in a letter
addressed to Mr. Plumptre, the member for East
Kent :
" South-Eastern Railway Office, 35i, Great George-
street, Westminster, May 26, 1846.
" Sir,—l beg, as chairman of the South-Eastern Com-
pany, to say, iu answer to your inquiries, that the directors
of that company employed Mr. R. Stephenson to lay down
such railways in Kent. as he should recommend them to
apply to parliament for powers to execute, in order to com-
plete a comprehensive system ofrailway- communication in
that county in connection
. Railway. These instructions
the existing South-Eastern
batlon of the ions were given with the appro.
four successive general proprietors of our company, confirmed at
meetings.on The bona fide spirit in
w hieto the resolution founded upon Mr. Stephenson's
'7Be4tafaentation was carried out
ut may be gathered from
"ithti fac' that 16 per cent, of the capital estimated for the
•,,ciatteirnet4m of the whole of the projected lines of railway
had been paid up by the proprietor circession of a
portion only of that large scheme of Kentish railways by
Hied 'committee, whose report has jut been made, has
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