The Sun.
London, England, 1841-02-26 00:00:00

MORNING EDITION

GREAT WESTERN RAILWAY.

The Half-yearly Meeting of the Great Western Rail-
way Company took place yesterday at the Company's
Offices, Prince's-street, Bank. At twelve o'clock the
Chair was taken by CHARLES RUSSELL, Eaq., Chairman
of the Board of Directors. The room was crowded in
very part.
The advertisement calling the meeting having been read,
Mr. HEYWORTH suggested that they should have the
proceedings of the last half-yearly meeting read in the
first instance, in order to refresh their memories.--( Cries
of " No, no.")
A PROPRIETOR objected to such a step. They had given
notice of certain proceedings which were to take place,
and he thought no other matters could be entered upon.
The CHAIRMAN said the Directors had much satisfaction
in presenting to the Proprietors that which had been placed
in their hands that morning, more particularly as the pre-
sent was the last account which they would be called upon
to render of unfinished works; and, in the next place,
because there was a sum which the Directors thought
might to justly applied, for the first time, to the
payment of a dividend.—( Cries of " Hear, bear.")
Hs would remind the meeting that not one shilling
of the interest on loans was charged aga net the capital of
Company.—( Cheers.) Mr. Brunel's Report contained
a se7 full statement of the pleura state of the works;
and it would be satisfactory to the meeting to find that
the corks between Wootton Basset and Bath were in so
satisfactory a state, and that so large a proportion had been
done. At the last hall-yearly meeting it had been earnestly
urged upon the Directors to accelerate the works, and
some a idi.ienal expense bad been consequently incurred
on teat point.. He hoped, however, the result would be to
eea'sbe the Directors to open the entire line during seve-
ral of the most productive months of the summer.—( Hear,
hear.) Siuce tee last ere esing they had completed a line
wish the Bristol add Exeter Railway Company, and he
was happy to be able to communicate to them that the
Lords of the Treasury had come to tt e resolution of mak-
ing Dartmouth tile station of the West India packets,
s.hieh could not fad to be very beneficial to the
Great Western line.—( Hear.) It must be obvious
that in working and constructing a line of that magni-
tude, ems.de.ab.o sums of money must be locked up for
tke moment in a manner which would prevent its being
applicable for the finishing of the line. The Directors
would be justly chargeable with impruvideece if they had
not sought t) find an equivalent f.r there sums, and left
teen:stele :s when they required all their
eeisesgies th -devotes to the completion of the line.
He was satisfied, therefore, that they would concur in
the proposition coatsiaed in the Repoli, just fled as it
was by the exieeeey of the case.—( Hear, her.) He
was net aware teat there was any other topic in the Re-
pert to which it was rsesetsary to cirect their attcutien.
But the e was one toi is which occupied a good deal of
public atreu ion a' the present moment, and upon which
he (the Chairman) bed f armed very strong opinions. lie
alledsd to Lord Seymour's Bill of last year fur the regu-
lation of railways, which bad been followed by another 10
the present year, and would no doubt be followed by
offs rs in future Sessions of Parliament. lie did
not hssitate to state his opinion before them, as
he ha I stated it elsewhere, that ho considered
t e whole course of legislatiosi upon that sub-
ject tirogresve and aggressiva as it was in its
very nsture, was uesouud, unjust, unwise, and once -
t tesery.—( Hear, hear.) It was unsound because it was a
violation of all the rine4 les which be believed to be
ewe-tementel end unive.sal in all commercial matters, and
nbie r was sell expressed by the French phrase of
" nous faire."—( Heir.) It was unjust, because
it si lected one cla s of interests only for legisla ive cen-
t el. It aas unwise because by diiding the responei-
biity beta eon the Companies and the Government, in-
stead of increasing it rather dirni,..idied that responsibility.
It was unnecessary because :t proceeded on the assumption
of a 1 esuliar danger tteing attached to r. ilway tra‘e deg,
whereas all the experience that had been calmly and die-
ea sionately directed to it had shown that peculiar safety
attached to that mode of travelling.—( Hear, hear. and
cheers.) What said the officers of the Board of Trade on
that subject? They nil there was no inhescat danger
in rai' way travelling—that the danger was very
small, and even upon the pre.e system it was
less teen attached to any other mode of conveyance.—
( Hear, I.e r.) What said the Postmaster-General in his
correspondence with the &and Junction Raileay Com-
pany ? Why, tbat his Lordship, according to the best
(spin th the could form on the subject, considered the
acci feats few in comparison with those which in all pro-
bability would bele: occurred if the Fe.vice had been per-
formed by the mail coaches, accelerated as they had been
of late years to the greatest degree of speed. lie would
now refer the meeting to what Mr. Labouchere had said
on the first reading of the Bill. Tint Hon. Gentleman
said that a great deal a panic had been created by the ac-
cidents, but on the whole there was no mode of convey-
ance so safe as railways. Sir Robert Peel, en the second
reading of the Bill, observed that with regard to the Lee-
don anti Birmingham and the Grand Junction, too of the
longest 1 nes that had been opened, the traffic had been
enormous, hundreds of thousands of passengers had been
carried, and there had been very few accidents. He was
happy to say thn. their experience corroborated these state-
ments. It had been open far twoyears arid nice months, and
had carried 2,160,863 passengers, and yet, notwithstand-
i,g that long duration of time—nets. i hstanding these bun.
dreds of thousands, nay, millions of passengers, and not-
withstanding the hundreds of mi lions of miles travelled,
they bad had but one accident that deserved that name.
That accident had occurred to a goads' train, and it un-
fortunately happened that an engine man and guard.lost
their lives, and three passengers were seriously hurt ; but
a very searching and rat •liigent Jury emphatically and
pointedly accompanied the verdict by a statement that no
blame attached to the Company or any of th, it officers.
( Hear, hear.) It was right that merit should be given
where merit was due, and he should not, he thought, be
doing justice in referring to this remarkable exemption from
accidents if he did not say that that was mainly to be as-
cribed to the vigilance and ability of the executive officers.
—(Cheers.) In spite of these testimonies, and of that
experience, he admitted that a considerable apprehension
did prevail in the public mind, and unfortunately it so
happened that all the great railway accidents acre
crowded into three months after last autumn. What was
the course of reasoning that followed? These accidents
were assumed as the data—they were then multiplied by
4, and the people, lifting up their hands and turning up
their eyes, said such was the whole consumption of life
by those horrible railways.—(Hear, hear.) That was
the sort of reasoning and calculation upon which these
accidents were computed, and if the public were so influ-
enced, so far from legislating, it should be a reason for
suspending legislation. What could be so unwise or so
unjust as to legislate, to adopt Mr. Labouchere's own
words, "on a panic." It appeared to him, however, that
in the present state of opinion in the House of Commons,
with the present views of the Government, and in the

panic prevailing in the public mind, they must have a Bill,
and he thought it was their duty to render that Bill as far

as possible conducive to the public interests. Its great
recommendation was that it was a police and not a fi.eal

measure. It interfered largely with the power and con-
trol of the Companies, but the Government would see
the propriety of not interfering with their pecuniary con-
ceras. In its present form many of its enactments
were extremely unjust. Take for instance the clause pro-
i i 'log that a railway might to left unemployed for ten
days after its cot-opt:Aim:. Let it be assumed that its
profits would ba 1,0001. a day, and he asked them could
anything be more unjust than ti render a Company liable
to a fire of 10,000 L, when the pica of the public saf.dy
could nut be urged ?—( Haar, hear.) Take the clause
providing that fifteen minutes should elapse between each
train; that may be a very useful enactment in long lines,
but in short ones it would be almost impossible to carry it
out. If there were two or three delays in the railways in
the early part of the day, when that occurred the common
sense practice was to remove the obstruction on the line,
and get back as quickly as possible to the regular time.
The first clause welch prohibited the opening of the rail-
way, on certain circumstances, fur ten days, Mr. La-
bouchere had himself distinctly admitted to he a hardship.
Mr. BRANDRETTI.—.What reason was assigned for the
introducion of such a clause ?
The CHAIRMAN. —He believed the object was to give
the Government officers time for inspection. But the
probability was that that clause would be modified. These
however were the two leading principles of the Bill, and
they gave a large and unlimited discretionary power to Vie
Government, and with regsrd to the system of licensing
he did not think they would make any material alte-
ration. He certainly objected very much to the large
discrctiorary power which was to Le invested
in ,the Government. It was bad enough when ex-
ercised
by parties holding the highest official situatioi. ,
and giving t! e strongeA
responsibility for the due did-
charge of their functions, but in matters of routine these
things invariably fell into the lands of clerks and snbox_
dinatn officers.—( Hear,
bear.)
conviction
whetheron i
hid
licensing be certaiolv entertaine
it would work well. The i •er t ye, and would
The other subject of
very
deliberategrar on e doubts
mind was, that it would be totally iop
of their lace a great [rely difficulties in the
obtain-
ing the best mi n when the supply
in proportion to the demand. It would be
wa
with a great t cal of inconvenience, but the subject
he g
wasl'ayalrea't3tYensdoeldimaitlesod
altegether ore of so much delicacy and difficulty, that
could re.t properly discuss it at that moment. All he
coeld say sea., that it wet not desirable that it had cot 1
beers advecated, and was approved not
of by the Great Wcstera Railway Company. In his capacity as their Chair-
man' he had been appointed one of the Committee
.to
look after the interest! of the Railway Proprietors, and
he
wished to say that while acting as sucb he.had not hastily
camprornhed what he believed to be' the' legitimate inte-
rests
of the railwapyx;_oor:panie, and the' best guarantee for
the safety of the.
lillitiird;wahnidch he
sanction to a Bill, 'Would' 'never give his
sanction
his 'deliberate opinion,s
be gravely dissented.e'lie would'.nv"enture- to add,' that if
the Bill passed into et law, noniny would 'reiarier
more prompt obedience to it than tlineGareat Western Rail.
) Ha would now call upon
way Company.— ( Hear, hear.
the Secretary to read the Report.
The SECRETARY then read the Report, and also the
Report of the Engineer, Mr. &mei : and the statement
of receipts and expenditure for the previous half
Mr. BRANDRETII rose with great pleasure tteanir.ove
" That the Report be adopted, more particularly as their
work now approached its completion." It was said that it
:at
bad been an experimental railway, but it was no longer
one, for it had fully and completely succeeded. Although
the late severe weather, the frosts, and the floods, In al
retarded the completion of the works, on the other hand,
it should afford them some satisfaction, as it had CM'.
pletely tested their stability. They had all heard of ti o
that
tat
immense nod/
had. taken place at Brentford, and all
lendid
viaduct,
nod/ of water bad passed beneath the
;Ten.
,which a copy was exhibited behind
(Hear hear, hear.) Chairman,doing it the smallest injury._
as well as himeseif) He believed most of the Proprietor=,
he was sure they would had
travelled on their railway, and
was undoubtedly thetdesatgree with
him
in
saying
that it
)aisorailway is the kingdom.—(Ge-
neral cheering.
on the first dividend that w
congratulated the Proprietors
about to be made. He be-
lieved when the London anclakßai_borminfiham line pail their ,
Ant divid it was less
7
.-., ""Y 'Me nevi to receive. Ho 1
/- ----
..r." /-