The Sun.
London, England, 1840-11-18 00:00:00

((vi./1e ssaitlx.

LONDON:
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 1840.

A very important subject was brought under the
notice of the Queen's Bench, and of the public, on
Monday—the monopoly, lately created in favour of
railway proprietors of the means of forwarding
passengers and goods. The faculty of locomotion
in the entire nation has been in a manner placed
under their control for their advantage. Sir F.
POLLOCK then moved for a rule, calling on the
Grand Junction Railway Company to show cause
why a mandamus should not issue to compel them
to act on the 3d Victoria, cap. 49, intended to make
Railway Companies treat all their customers,
whether carriers of goods or passengers, o❑ equal
terms. He made the application on the part of
Messrs. PICKFORD, the well-known carriers, who
complain that so much favour is shown to Messrs.
HoßriE and CHAPLIN that they cannot carry
goods on the railway to any profit.

In the course of his remarks, Sir FREDERICK
stated that the Legislature empowered other per-
sons than the Railway Companies to run locomo.
ti ve engines on the railway, but that this power,
crying to the exclusive possession by the Companies
of the stations and places of supply, was a com-
plete dead letter. It is plainly necessary, as the
late accidents fully prove, to give each Company a
complete control over the time at which engines
and trains leave. We may add, too, that the Com-
pany must, to a certain extent, regulate the speed
of each and every train, otherwise collision would
be inevitable. This provision, therefore, which
the Legislature intended as a protection to the
public, is no protection at all, and, by the very
nature of railways, the proprietors must have a
complete monopoly.

Sir FREDERICK POLLOCK dwelt much on the
fact, and insisted that the Company, against which
the motion was made, not only enjoyed a monopoly,
but that it was in no wise backward in claiming
and exercising it. The same may be said of all
Railway Companies. The Court granted the rule,
and when cause is shown the whole question will
be fully argued. That it should be fully argued,
and the bearings of this new mode of travelling, of
which the Legislature has granted several monopo-
lies, should be fully explained and known, is at pre-
sent of very great practical and public importance.
Only a portion of the country is yet supplied
with railways, and a number of Bills will be brought
into Parliament next Session to form additional
railways. The discussion may perchance open the
eves of the Legislature to the effects of what
it has done, and is about to do, on the subject, of
which we believe it to have been, and yet to be,
most profoundly ignorant. Is it, or was it, aware
that it was conferring on the proprietors of railwa) s
an absolute control, and almost without the possibi-
lity of competition, of all the traffic both in carrying
goods and passengers wherever they were esta-
blished ? From the inherent superiority of railways
this must be the case, till some better and cheaper
means of conveyance be discovered. But the owners
of railways are not the discoverers of the principle,
nor, except as they are so created by Parliament,
the exclusive possessors of the means of carrying i
into effect. They only seize the discoveries of other
men, a portion of the general convenience which
art and skill have called into existence, and that
seizure the Legislature has sanctioned,and has made
them, within certain boundaries, the legal, and as
far as it can, the rightful and the absolute owners.
In conferring these powers the Legislature has
taken very inadequate means of providing for the
JJ
public security, or protecting the public against the
monopolies it has established. If it had expressly
reserved the right to resume the grant, or given the
monopoly for a period, till it was ascertained how
the new contrivance could be carried into effect, or
had set about making railways itself, or had passed
some general law for making them on some general
principle, and subject to certain conditions, while it
had empowered the Executive Government to in-
stitute a species of di,:cipling for the whole, suitable
to the circumstances, it would only have done its
duty to the public, and been enabled to protect
them. Now it can do no
_such thing, It has
established tie monopolies a 3 property, and I,ro. j