The Sun.
London, England, 1846-04-30 00:00:00

In all other kinds of meat exceedingly little business was transacted.
Beeffrom 2s 6d to 3s 6d ; Muttou, 3s 4d to 4s 6d ; Lamb, bs 4d to
6s 8d ; veal, 48 4d to 5s 4d. ; and Pork, 3s 6d to 5s per Sibs by the
carcase.

RAILWAY COMMITTEES.

(THIS DAY.)

HOUSE OF LORDS.

DUELIN AND ErmasnaLLEra, xßisz
NORTH MIDLAND, Dun Law AND YE ~
FAST 3UNCTION, AND WAVAN 1314. AN CH.
The Committee on these Bills met this morning at eleven o'clock
In Abingdon-street. Present, the Marquis of Salisbury (chairman),
the Earl of Jersey, Lord Charleville, and the Bishop of Oxford.

Mr. 011.xumc occupied the whole of the morning, in addressing thp
Committee in favour of the Dublin and Enniskillen Railway, and in
opposition to the other two projects. lie expatiated at great length
on the advantages which would accrue to those portions of Ireland
which the line was proposed to traverse on account of its dirpot
character, and as being the course which was admitted by all the
witnesses to embody a greater stream of traffic than that possessed
by any other part of the county. After commenting with great
severity on the evidence of Sir John M'Neile, the engineer of the
Irish North Midland, he proceeded to say that the fact that share.
holders in the line which he , represented having been able to pay pp
IN. per cent., whilst their opponents had only paid 151., showed that
they could command the necessary capital for its construction l heiddes,
inhere was any doubt in the minds of theCommittce as to the wishes of
the shareholders with respect to it, the promoters would, if allowed
time, call a meeting, and adduce evidence before the Committee that
the shareholders as a body were anxious not to withdraw the Bill
from Parliament, but to proceed with it. He concluded by calling OP
the Committee to pass the preamble of the Bill.
A petition, purporting to be from sevsral shareholders of the line,
praying that the Bill might be abandoned, and the Company
dissolved, was placed hefoke the Committee, but was rejected on
account of the signatures not having been appended by the persons
whose names appeared, but by a Mr. Barnett, a clerk in the empl,,y
of Mr. Layard, who had sent a circular to the various parties on the
subject, from some of whom he bad received authority to append
their names to the petition, which was accordingly 49n0,
The Committee held that this was sllogeNT ifiadMissible, and re-
jected the petition.

The Cn4imtati then csrderod the room to be cleared, in order that
the Committee might give their decision on the Bills.
On the admission of the parties,
The CHAIRMAN stated that the Committee had Come to the fol.
lowing resolution:—

" The Committee are of °pluton that the line from Newtonbutler
to Cavan with a hrangla to Beiturbet, should be given to the Dublin
and Enniskillen Company. -That' the. line from Kelis to Navan
should be also given to them, On Q9lldition of their making a junction
with the Navan and Drogheda, and that it be recommended to the
Belfast Junction to take advantage of their present Bill to form this
junction. The Committee will not adopt any line south of Navan,
The Irish North Midland have not proved their Bill."
The Committee then adjourned until to-morrow, when the clauses
of the successful pills will he proceeded with.

HOUSE OF COMMONS.
GROUP IV,
The Select Committee appointed to consider the merits of the Bills
comprised in this group, re-assembled at the usual hour this morning ;
Mr. B. Hopp in the elixir.

THE GREAT NORTH or SCOTLAND.
The CHAIRMAN said he wished, before resuming the evidence, to
call the attention of the parties to the fact, that a meeting of the
Perth and Inverness shareholders had been held at Inverness, at
which it was decided by a majority of 46 to 2 not to go on with the
Bill

Mr. Sergeant BELLASIS said that decision could not be taken as the
opinion of the great body of the shareholders, for they were spread all
over the line, but a small portion of the whole body. But there was
the remarkable case of the London and York.
The CHAIRMAN—What is that?

Mr. Sergeant BELLAsts—Why in that case a large number of share-
holders were for stopping the line while the scheme was in a most
healthy and flourishing condition.
34r. AUSTIN said it might be as well for him to state that a similar
meeting to that alluded to by the Hon. Chairman, had been held at
Perth. It was pretty certain that the London and York scheme was
on its death-bed.

21r. Sergeant BELLasts presumed the wish was father to the
thought.

The Duke of Richmond was .the first witness examined this morn-
ing. His Grace said that he preferred the Great North of Scotland
line, because it cave more accommodation to his tenants, and to the
public, and gave a decided opinion that there was not traffic enough
to justify the construction of an inland and a coast line. There could
hardly be a doubt, his Grace thought, that the Great North, of Scot-
land was the most preferable of the two coast lines, inasmuch as it
followed the natural channel of the traffic, while it passed through
vast tracts of land capable of improvement.
His Grace, on cross-examination, admitted that the Banffshire line
might benefit Fort Gordon, but that was a small fishing village of
little importance. He did not admit ofits being an inconvenience to
go round a distance of 61 miles to get from Perth to Inverness, be-
cause if they avoided that detour they neglected the local ac-
commodation which the important counties of Aberdeen, Banff,
Maury, and Perth gave. Certainly it would not be a benefit to the
public to have both lines, because it was quite impossible that both
could pay, and railways only benefited the public, in his opinion,
when they paid. The Aberdeen and Elgin line passed through the
most expensive part of the country, and he was fully convinced the
line could not subsist upon its local traffic. He did not anticipate
that drovers would avail themselves of the railway, because, as
there were few tolls in Scotland, it was cheaper to drive cattle over
the bills than send them by railway.
By the COMMITTEE—The Aberdeen and Elgin line crossed the
river Spray in an objectiomble manner. On the whole his evidence
amounted to this—he should prefer the two lines, if they could be
made to pay, but as he thought the traffic would only admit of one
line being effectively worked, there could only he one line; and of
the two he thought the Great North of Scotland line was the best.
Another discussion here arose as to the mode of proceeding in
cross-examinations. The Committee seemed to think that the
Nairn and Perth line was not a competing line with the Great North
of Scotland; and, therefore, the Learned Csunsel, who appeared for
the former, had no right to cross examine the witnesses called by
the latter.

Mr. t.:ergeant BELLASIS said the Perth and Nairn line would not
pay without they had the management of the tra e between Nairn
and Inverness; and they were, therefore, a competing scheme with
the Great North of Scotland, as between those two places. The
Aberdeen, Banff, and Elgin line depended for support upon local,
and not through traffic, and for local traffic, and as a local line, it
was a competition with the Great North of Scotland.

IX.
This Committee met in the room No. 1 (House of Commons) at
12 o'clock, having adjourned till to-day before Easter. Lord Worsley
took the chair.
CALEDONIAN (GLASGOW TER.IVIINX AND
BRANCHES).
This Bill was called on, but the parties were not prepared with
their case, And it as therefore adjourned till Friday.
The Committee hen rose, and adjourned till that day.

GROUP XI.
This Committee met to-day at twelve o'clock, Mr. Henley in the
chair. Members present, in addition to the chairman—Hon. W. 0.
Stanley, and Viscount Alford. Mr. W. Smith O'Brien was absent.
A ter some conversation, it was arranged to take the unopposed
Bills first.
SLAMANNAN AND DORROVISTOUNESS.
This was the first Bill taken, for which Mr. Graham appeared.
Mr. M`George was shortly examined on the points required by Mr.
Duncombe's resolutions. He stated that the number of shares issued
was 4,200, at 251. each. Powers were sought in the Bill to raise
105,0001. The list of provisional directors was next put in, the
number of shares taken up by each being 100. The Parliamentary
deposit, the witness stated, had been paid out of the money raised
from the depositors.
The various points required by the resolutions having been gone into,
Mr. GRAHAM explained the objects of the Bill. It was to construct
a branch railway from the _existingaminanan Railway, which ran
from the town ofAirdrie to the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway, near
to Linlithgow. The branch commenced at the latter point and was
proposed to be constructed to the portof Borrowstouness, on the river
Forth, the end sought being to connect the mineral fields east of
Glasgow with the port in question. It would be a single line of rail-
way and was mainly intended for mineral traffic.
Mr. Eadie, civil engineer, gave evidence as to the engineering
features of the line. The gradients for a mineral line were very
good. They descended towards Borrowstouness. There was at the
one end an inclined plane of lin 58. The severest after this was 1
in 100. The estimate of the expense was 105,0001. Parties along
the route of this line were generally in its favour, and especially the
inhabitants of Itorrowstouness ; two roads were crossed at a level.
Mr. Geddies, mining engineer, deposed as to the increased traffic
that would be accommodated by the proposed branch. It would be
of the greatest service in giving the iron and coal of Lanarkshire an
outlet by the port of Borrowstouness. There was also a great amount
of mineral veins along the line that could be brought into profitable
working if such a line was constructed. At the Kinneil Iron Works,
which this railway would serve, the coal used per annum was 60,000
tons, and of iron-stone 50,000 tons. There were four furnaces in
blast here. At Airdrie, one of the termini of the main line, there
were sixty furnaces, which consumed about 15,000 tons each yearly,
or a total of 930,000 tons. From 300,000 to 400,000 tons of pig-iron
was made per annum by these furnaces. A considerable portion of
this would go by Borrowstouness.
Mr. Hardy ofßorrowstonness, generallly deposed as to the benefits
the line would confer on the district through which it passed.
Mr. Sanderson of Glasgow, who had been engaged to take the
traffic on the line, put in the tables he had prepared. According to
those tables the traffic, after paying working expenses, would pay
7 per cent.
This closed the case on behalf of the Bill.
The Committee immediately declared the preamble proved.

XIX.
This Committee met at twelGROUPve o'clock, in Room 14 ; Lord Harry
Vane, in the chair. There were also present the Earl of March, Mr.
Scott, and two other lion, Members.

MIAMI) CANAL.
The evidence as to this line was now completed, but the Com-
mittee reserved their decision until they should obtain the opinion of
the Attorney-General upon several points.
They next took the case of the

BRISTOL AND EXETER (CREWICERNE
BRANCHES).
The general evidence as to the necessity for such a line as that
proposed, the advantages it would confer upon the people of
the districts through which it passed, and the probable
amount of traffic, occupied the Committee the greater
part of the day. A portion of the engineering evidence was given,
but in the absence of Mr: Stephenson- it could not be completed. It
appeared, however, that the steepest gradient was 1 in 40, which
only occurred in one place, near one of the stations. The prevailing
gradient was 1 in 100.
At two o'clock, the parties being unable to proceed with the case
until Mr. Stephenson's evidence could be given, the case stood over,
and
The Committee rose and adjourned till to-morrow at twelve o'clock.