The Sun.
London, England, 1847-05-14 00:00:00

of the report of the Board of Trade on the respective
merit of the gauges, and stated that a clause was inserted
to show what the gauge should be, and unless the Committee
were prepared practically to repeal an Act of Parliament,
which they were only called upon to administer to the satis-
faction of the public. The Great Western Company would
get to London by their own broad gauge line, and
westward of Cheltenham there was an uninterrupted
chain of communication on the same gauge. The question
then was, on what principle were they to act in joining these
two portions of the line between Fishguard and the metro-
polis. Mr. Hildyard had rightly stated that public enter-
prise had taken its tone from the reports of the Board of Trade,
and those reports had evidently shown that if the commu-
nication between the Welsh coal-fields and the manufacturing
districts of the north, it was equally necessary and advisable
that the communication east and west should be on the
broad guage. Mr. Talbot then read the Earl of Dalhousie's
remarks in the report, to show how Newport, Swansea, and
other places would be affected, and to prove that there was
an absolute requisition for a coast line to bring them into
contact with the districts eastward. The South Wales
line, therefore, was the line for the mineral traffic,
and if for the mineral traffic there, for all other speeies of
traffic, that could be brought upon it, and they had therefore
to judge whether they would take the narrow gauge in the
bush in the place of the broad gauge in the hand. They had
already got the broad gauge at Hereford, and all the evidence
which their opponents had gone to show that the traffic of the
now gauge ought to be, and was, naturrally northwards.
M. Hildyard had not been content with attacking the line
under discussion, but had levelled his remarks at the main
line of the South Wales itself ; and had stated because it
hugged the coast, as he termed it, that it was unnecessary,
from its adjacency to the River Severn and the Bristol
Channel. Why, it was well known that the very reason why that
railway was necessary was the tediousness, the uncertainty,
and the risk of that passage. And certainly wonders would
never cease, for it was perfectly astounding that the North-
Western Company should allege such an argument in the
teeth of the very fact, that they were themselves reaping in-
ordinate profits from conveying merchandise to Edinburgh, in
competition with the very best system of steam navigation that
this country had ever possessed ; and had, in consequence of its
powers, almost absolutely ruined some of the best canals of
the country. The learned counsel then entered into an
examination of the relative advantages of the two schemes
to the public, from the facilities which they gave at the ports of
Gloucester and London, and showed that whatever might be the
present possessions of the North-Western Company the
Great Western bad at least as powerful means for meeting
the necessities of public accommodation, and stated his belief
that in these days it was impossible to live in apathy or
quiet, and it was therefore evident that this line would be
made by some party, and the Great Western Company were
in his opinion entitled to its construction. The Learned
Counsel then went into an examination of the convenience
that would be obtained by the construction of the Bir-
mingham and Oxford line, and the consequence that would
flow from the establishment} of the several projects, which
extended to the south-west, and concluded a long and power-
ful speech a little before four o'clock, when
The Committee intimated that they ,would give their de-
cision as soon as they received the report of the Railway
Commissioners, unless something should transpire in the
course of the cases about to come under their consideration
that they ought to postpone the declaration of it till those
cases had been heard.