The Sun.
London, England, 1846-02-18 00:00:00

COMMITTEE ON RAILWAYS.

The Select Committee, appointed to consider the mode In which
the House shall deal with railway Bills proposed to be submitted to
the House during the present session, have further considered the
matters referred to them, and agreed to the following report:—
The number .of petitions for railway Bills, which have been pre-
sented this session, have been stated to your Committee to amount
to 562 ; viz.:—
For Railways in England and Wales 395
Scotand .. • • . • • . • • • • 120
Ireland • • • • • • • • • • • • 47
As, however, many of these schemes may fail from non-compliance
with the standing orders, the number of Bills presented to Parlia-
ment may possibly fall considerably short of this amount, and your
Committee are of opinion that it will not be necessary or expedient
in the present session of Parliament to refer mere projects to Com
mittee, as was done, owing to peculiar circumstances, in the last
session.
From a statement prepared by the officers of the Board of Trade,
it would appear that if the same principle of grouping which was
adopted last year should be followed in the present session, the rail-
way schemes in England and Wales might be formed into 51 groups,
and those for Scotland into 10 ; about 6I Select Committees would
therefore be required.
As the House has already ordered that all Irish railway Bills and
a certain limited class of English Bills (the latter of which are in-
cluded in the foregoing statement) should commence in the House of
Lords, it is impossible to say hors• many of these may be sent down
to the House of Commons. The number of groups into which rail-
way schemes for the. United Kingdom were divided last year was 52,
but owing to various circumstances only 45 Committees appear to
have actually sat.

so great a number of railway Bills, in
Theaddition n e ct
oe s it
othery of considering
private idßeriliinsg, may certainly be expected to produce
an unusual and inconvenient pressure upon the time of Members of
the House ; but your Committee trust, that as Committees on rail-
way Bills may in this session begin to sit at an earlier period than in
the last, it will not be founlimpracticable to constitute the requisite
number of Committees during the progress of the session.
Under these circumstances your. Committee have sot 'deemed it
advisable to recommend to the House to make any selection from,
or to place any limitation to the number of railway schemes to be
submitted to the consideration of Parliament during the present
session.
_

As your Committee, however, believe that much of the time of the
Select Committees on Railway 13111 s is consumed, with little public
benefit, in minute and detailed inquiries into the amount of traffic
and the probable profit to the projectors, your Committee are of.
opinion that the standingorders on these points should be altered, and
that it should no longer be obligatory on Committees on Railway Bills
to make special reports on them.
At the same time your Committee have no wish to fetter the dis-
cretion of tile Select Committees to make such inquiries as they may
judge proper with regard to population, and to the extent of accom-
modation that would be afibrded to the public, where they consider
such. information to be required.

Your,Committee beg further to suggest, that power be given to
Select Cammittees to refer the consideration of any unopposed Rail-
way Bill incltided in the group referred to them to the Chairnien of,
Ways and Means and-the Members ordered to prepare and bring in
the Bill, to be dealt with as other unopposed Bills.
February 17,134(1.