The Sun.
London, England, 1840-09-03 00:00:00

MIDLAND COUNTIES RAILWAY.

The Fourth General Annual Meeting of the Pro-
prietors of this Company was held in the Board-room
of the Station, at Leicester, on Monday; the 31st of
August. Thomas Edward Dicey, .F, e‘ r'nairman of
' the Board of Directors, r d
numerous and • . Tll rem: was a very
...aential body of proprietors present,
afc•"!,-, Ivor:n we noticed Jams Oakes, Esq., the De-
puty Chairman ; Sir W. Heygate,. Bart. (who has been
recently elected to the Board); E. IL Farnham, Esq.,
M.P., of Quorndon House ; T. W. Rathbone, Esq.,
of Liverpool ; Lawrence Heyworth, Esq., of Liverpool ;
Geor?:e Shaw, Esq., M.D., Leicester ; Edward Crop-
per, Esq., Liverpool ; Hobert Garnett, Esq., Manche -
ter ; John Ta)lor, Esq., Leicester ; John Horsfall,
Henry Youle, William Hannay, Samuel Bean, and J.
C. Wright, E qrs., of Nottingham ; Edward Dawson,
Esq., Whatton House, Leicestershire ; John Bright,
Esq., of Skeffington Hall ; and Messrs. Alfred Burgess,
Thomas Macaulay, and W. Hackett, of Leicester, Cap-
tain Watts, R.N., of Langton Grange, Darlington, &c.
The CHAIRMAN, having read the advertisement
calling the meeting, said the first business to be trims-
acted was to affix the common seal of the Company
to the register •of Proprietors. Tnis having been done,
The CHAIRMAN announced that 155 shares having
become forfeited by the vote of the Board, it rested
with the Proprietors to confirm that forfeiture.
A resolution was passed confirming the forfeiture of
the shares in question.
The CHAIR:SIAN said it was now his pleasing duty
to call on their Solicitor to read the Report of the
Directors for the past year. That report was so clear
and satisfactory, with regard to the present condition
and prospects of the undertaking, and at the same time
expressed his own feelings so fully on every subject re-
ferred to, that it would be unnecessary for him to de-
tain the meeting by any observations. When the
Report had been read, if it was the wish of the Pro-
prietors to have further information with re-
spect to the state of the Company, he would
be happy to afford all that it was in his
power to communicate; and he assured the meeting that
it was the wish of the Directors that nothing should be
withheld, confident that the more fully the affairs of the
undertaking were investigated, the more would every
Shareholder be satisfied that the Directors were actu-
ated by but one feeling—that of promoting the interests
of the Company to the best of their judgment and
ability.—(Applause.) A document had been just
placed in his hand in reference to the traffic of the line,
which he had no doubt would be gratifying to the
meeting to hear read, as he was happy to perceive that
the returns of the last week exceeded those of any
previous week since the opening of the railway. It was

as follows

Statement of the traffic of the Midland Counties Rail-

way for the week ending the 29th of August.
Abstract of daily traffic £1,780 17 0

Heavy goods and parcels
Traffic to and from the North Midland

115 6 3

Company's Station
. .

236 7 0
197 13 6

Londo:i and Midland Counties Stations ...

£2,330 3 9

Cr.
Midland Counties Stations to London ~..

327 4 0

Net total £2,002 19 9
The above statement of the traffic of this line ap-
peared to give much satisfaction to the meeting.
Mr. M ACAULAY, the Solicitor to the Company, read
the Report.
Sir WILLIAM HEYGATE, Bart., had great pleasure in
moving the adoption of the Report, to the correctness
of a considerable portion of which he could testify from
personal experience. He meant that part of it which
related to the proceedings connected with the passing
of their last Act ; and lie could assure the Proprietors
that it was impossible for any body of men to have de-
voted greater attention to the obtaining of this Act, or
to have used more strenuous exertions to prevent
clauses injurious to the interests of the Company from
being introduced into it, than the Directors had done.
—(Hear, hear.) In reference to other questions re-
ferred to in the Report, be would only express a hope
that the present would be the last meeting of the Corn-
pang at which they should be placed in circumstances
so unpleasant ; but at the same time, it was impossible
for ar,y man to look at the whole facts of the case, and
not perceive the justice and good sense of every sugges-
tion which it contained.

After some discussion, the adoption of the Report
was carried unanimously.

The following are extracts from the Report :
" It will be observed, from the accompanying ac-
counts, that the gross receipts to the 27th of June were
20,0711. 14s. Bd., and the disbursements, including all
the heavy extra items consequent upon the successive
openings of the line, arc not more than 11,320/. I its. Bd.,
and it is with peculiar pleasure that the Directors call
attention to the fact that the exact and entire expenses
of the locomotive power during the last six months,
amount to no more than sixteen pence per mile ; a
rate, they believe, below that on any line of the same
extent, where the price of coke is as high as they had
to pay during the greater part of that period ; and it is
now much reduced in price.
" The net profit of 8,767/. 17s. amounts to nearly
3 per cent. per arnum on the cost of that portion of
the railway on which it has been almost wholly earned.
" The audited balance sheets and particulars of the
income and expenditure will be submitted to the meeting.
" Into any lengthened history of the attempt now
making by the Birmingham and Derby Railway Com-
pany to divert the traffic between London and Derby
from this, the direct line originally authorised by Par-
liament, and to force it along an indirect and circuitous
line, possessing no advantages whatever over that of the
Midland Counties, but, on the contrary, being about
elei en miles further round, the Directors do not think
it at all necessary to enter, notwithstanding the un-
warranted representatiens which have been studiously
made with respect to this proceeding, and the entire
suppression
in the Report just published by the Direc-
tors of the Birmingham and Derby Company of the ex-
traordinary means adopted to deprive this Company of
part of their traffic. It will suffice to say that the Bir-
mingham and Derby Company, for the purpose of at-
tracting to their line, and withdrawing from the natural
and direct channel the London and Derby traffic, have
adopted the altogether unprecedented course of charg-
ing in respect of persons travelling between Derby and
London, only 2s. for a first class and Is. 6d. for a second
class passenger for the whole distance of thirty-eight
miles from Derby to Hampton, that is to say, at
the rate of two-thirds of a penny on a first and less than
a halfpenny per mile on a second class passenger, while
they continue to exact from all other passengers, though
in the same carriages and going exactly the same dis-
tance, their original fares of Bs. each for first class, and
6s. for second class passengers !! ! This singular mode
of charging, the Directors believe to be as illegal as it is
unfair towards the public, and, under the sanction and
advice of counsel of high professional eminence, they ap-
plied to the Court of Chancery for an injunction to re-
strain the Birmingham and Derby Company from a
practice which they are still advised is contrary to law,
and which Parliament has certainly taken peculiar pains
to prevent. In this application they proved unsuccess-
ful, but the opinions they have subsequenntly received
lead them to believe that a very different result would
attend an application to the Court of Queen's Bench in
the ensuing term for a mandamus.
" In the mean time the Directors conceive that they
have but one course to pursue—that of fixing such
terms for the conveyance of the traffic of the Midland
Counties Railway as may effectually secure it from
htirg abstracted by the Birmingham and Derby Corn-
pany—a course which happily the position of this Rail-
way enables them to pursue, without descending to the
utterly unproductive scale of fares by which alone the
Birmingham and Derby Company could have succeeded
in the temporary abstraction of any part of it, and, at a
full meeting of the Board held on Saturday, the 29th
instant, the following resolution was unanimously
passed, which the Directors cannot doubt will meet with
the decided and cordial approbation of the Proprietors :
—' Resolved—That on and after the 14th of Septem-
ber the fares by this Company between Derby and Lon-
don be invariably charged at rates not exceeding those
charged by the Birmingham and Derby Company.'
" Notwithstanding the reduction of charges which
were originally fixed upon what was considered to be
no more than a fair scale of remuneration proportioned
to the then probable amount of traffic, the well-known
tendency of a low rate of charge to produce an increase
of traffic must not be lost sight of, as some counter-
balance to the sacrifice ; and even if the anxiety of the
Birmingham and Derby Company to obtain business
upon any terms should lead them to make still further
reductions, and to convey passengers over the line
without any charge whatever, the corresponding charge
to a passenger between Derby and London over the
Midland Counties line would still leave to this Com-
pany ss. for a first class, and 3s. 6d. for a second class
passenger, and in short nothing but a subscription on
the part of the Birmingham and Derby Proprietors to
pay the London and northern travellers for consenting
to he conveyed over their line can possibly reduce the
Midland Counties fares to the rates of charge at present
fixed by that Company.
" Upon the whole, the Directors feel every confi-
dence that the measures they are about to adopt will
speedily remove the only circumstance of a disagreeable
nature which has accompanied the opening of the line,
and in the general state and prospects of the undertak-
ing they see nn cause for distrust, but many increasing
grounds of confidence in its entire and lasting success."
A PROPRIETOR wished to know whether the adop-
tion of the Report pledged the meeting to support the
Directors in the design that had been alluded to—that
of reducing the fares, if a necessity arose for it, to the
point of nil f
The CHAIRMAN, in reply, said the adoption of the
Report only pledged‘the meeting as far as the resolu-
tion went. Even supposing that the Birmingham and
Derby Company pushed their hostility so far as to
carry for nothing, still it did not follow that, in order
to compete with them, their fares should be reduced
to nil. The points between which the competition ex-
isted were Derby and Rugby ; one Company going