The Sun.
London, England, 1846-08-31 00:00:00

s' ate of mind he Ras at the time, there was no evidence
to show."

luspector Tedman af plied to the Coroner to know
what he was to do with the property produced, as the
tradesmen who had been defrauded demanded to have
it restored to them. _

The CORONER said, had a warrant been issued against
the deceased, it would then have been my duty to claim
the property on behalf of the Crown ; but as it had not,
he could make no order in the case. The inspector had,
the)efore, better represent the subject to the Police
Commissioners.
The proceedings in this extraordinary case then ter-
minated.

SECOND REPORT FROM THE SE-
LECT COMMITTEE ON RAILWAY ACTS
ENACTMENTS.
The Select Committee appoined to inquire whether,
without discouraging legitimate enterprise, conditions
may not be embodied in Railway Acts better fitted
than those hitherto inserted in them to promote and
secure the interests of the public, and who were em-
powered to report their observations and opinions
thereupon from time to time to the House, have con-
sidered the several matters to them referred, and have
agreed to the following re port.
Your Committee have examined several witnesses, and
received documentary evidence on the state of railways,
and the legislation respecting them, in this and other
countries; and have called for returns from the British
railway companies illustrative of their past and present
condition : they have also to regret that the delays ex-
perienced by them in obtaining various returns, on
subjects connected with their inquiry, have not allowed
them to present these observations at an earlier period.
It appears to your Committee that, without discourag-
ing legitimate enterprise, the railway legislation of this
country may be materially improved by the adoption of
a better system of control and supervision applicable to
all railways at present existing or to be constructed
hereafti r, and by changes in the course of procedure ne-
cessary to obtain railway Bills.
The line between public and private legislation has
seldom been correctly drawn in this country. Indi-
viduals and associations have in all times been allowed to
assume the exercise of powers which properly belong to
the Executive, without being subjected to due respon-
sibility ; and in a large class of Bills, private in name,
but often affecting important public interests, the exist-
ing mode of procedure before the Legislature supplies
no adequate means for obtaining a knowledge of the
real merits of measures to other parties than those who
promote or oppose them. Without entering on an in-
quiry into the relative advantages or disadvantages of
1 such a state of things at different periods in the progress
of a nation, your Committee conceive that the time has
arrived when it can no longer be continued with safety,
and that a regard to the best interests of the community
requires the adoption of a very different system. Among
those public objects which hitherto have been the subject
of legislation in private Bills must be included the
means by which the communications between the dif-
ferent parts of a country are effected.
The roads of a country, from the very nature of
things, are public concerns; they are as necessary to a
people as the air they breathe. The very nature of
society implies that men should have access to each
other for the supply of their respective wants, whether
they live in towns, or are scattered over the face of a
country ; and the common sense of mankind tells them
that the roads and streets should be free from obstruc-
tion. In this country, from the remotest times, the title
of the Sovereign, as representing the nation, to the
control of its roads, has always been allowed. The
designation of King's highways, by which the public
roads were known, sufficiently indicates the right which
the Crown possessed and exercised over them. The
practice of entrustirg to associations locally interested
the making and repairing of roads, with the power of
levying tolls to repay the outlay required for that pur-
pose, which first became general towards the middle of
the last century, amounted merely to a delegation for a
time by the Legislature, on certain conditions, of a por-
tion of the powers of Government to meet a public ex-
igency, but never to a permanent transfer of them. The
public have always possessed the right to control the
trustees, and to withdraw from them the management of
the highways included in their trusts ; and there are re-
peated instances, in our own times, of the exercise of
this right.
The period is not remote since an extensive Parlia-
mentary inquiry was instituted into the state of the
turnpike trusts of the country, when the right of the
nation to regulate and control the management of its
highways was practically vindicated, and, among other
results, a number of toll-gates in the neighbourhood of
the metropolis, felt as an inconvenience by its inhabi•
tants, were ordered to be removed.
But of all the means of communication between dif-
ferent parts of a country, that by railways is by far the
most important. If it be necessary for the public wel-
fare that a country should never divest itself in per-
petuity of its right of property in its ordinary highways,
it is still more important that it should not part with the
right to control its railways. On an ordinary road there
could have been no monopoly of the means of conveyance;
a man might travel by it at all hours, and in any manner
he pleased ; but on a railway he can only travel at
such times and under such arrangements as those who
are entrusted with its direction may choose to adopt.
If one coach on a road charged too much, travelled at
too slow or too quick a rate, or failed in other respects
to give satisfaction, another might have been started ;
but on railways there is no option ; the passenger must
either submit to the regulations fixed by its directors or
abstain from using it. It has now been ascertained that
the hope of relief from the objectionable course pursued
on one railroad, by having recourse to a competing line,
must in a great measure be abandoned. It is confi-
dently stated by nearly all the witnesses examined by
your Committee that the public cannot count on being
relieved by competition from the consequences of au
abusive exercise of power on the part of railway com-
panies. From the very nature of things, therefore, a
railway company exercises a complete monopoly ; but a
monopoly subject to no responsibility, and under no
efficient check or control, is necessarily an intolerable
abuse ; and it can only be rendered innoxious by sub-
jecting it to rigorous control and supervision.
But besides, as a railroad is so superior to all other
means of communication that it must necessarily super-
sede them, and confers the greatest advantages on the
localities through which it runs, it becomes of the
greater consequence that the lines for railways should
be wisely selected, and that railway companies should
not be suffered, by an injudicious choice, to inflict in-
, jury either on the public in general, or on the owners of
property. That these objects were not at first suffi-
ciently attended to in this country can hardly be a mat-
ter of surprise, when we reflect on the ignorance with
respect to the nature of the change about to be effected
by the new power thus brought into action, which then
generally prevailed. The Liverpool and Manchester
Railway, executed under the greatest discouragements,
first demonstrated the possibility of realising projects
which to the minds of most men had before appeared
chimerical. But even after the success of this experi-
ment, the consequences to society which would result
from the adoption of this new means of communication,
were seldom correctly appreciated, even by men of
the best understandings ; and, under such circum-
stances, it is the less to be wondered at that extensive
powers should have been given to railway companies,
without the accompaniment of such safeguards as sub-
sequent experience has proved to be necessary for
the protection of the public. The foreign Govern-
ments which profited by our experiment, with
one exception, were at first misled by it into
an imitation of our practice ; but they soon became
aware of the evils that might result to the public from
parting in perpetuity with the uncontrolled property in
them. Belgium, the configuration of a great part of
which, namely, the Western, highly favours the con-
struction of railroads, is the only country of which the
Government from the first laid down a systematic plan
respecting its railways, which it afterwards strictly ad-
hered to ; that plan embraced the whole kingdom, and
it had exclusively for its object to communicate, at the
cheapest possible rate, the benefit of railways equally to
every part of the population. The lines in Belgium
were till lately begun and completed by the Govern-
ment itself, through the means of loans ; and it was en-
abled to fix the fares at an exceedingly low rate. The
original system has been so far departed from of late,
that several lines of railway have been conceded to
private companies, for terms of years, on conditions ex-
tremely advantageous to the public, but none of these
roads are yet open to the public.
France did not proceed so systematically. The first
railroads were constructed solely with a view to the
conveyance of coals to the places where they were con-
sumed. The success of the Liverpool and Manchester
line suggested the idea of conveying passengers, and
the line from Paris to St. Germain was conceded
to companies in 1835, the two roads of Ver-
sailles, and that from Montpelier to Cette, in 1836.
Other lines were undertaken by private companies, and
some by the Government itself. But at length the in-
convenience of numerous undertakings without order,
without any common elan or general design,
began to be felt ; and the Government occupied
itself seriously with the formation of a plan in which
these means of communication should be created and
connected with each other according to a system pre-
viously adapted. This system is explained at consider-
able length in the report of the commission charged
with examining the Projet de Loi relating to the estate
lishment of the great lines of railway presented to the
Chamber of Deputies on the 16th April, IM2. The first
general rules w is, that the great lines should all run fr( m
Paris in the direction of the frontiers by land and sea ;
Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, the Mediterranean,
Spain, the Ocean and the Channel. In these directions,
the points of Lille, Strasbourg, Lyons, Marseilles, Boise
deaux, Nantes, were to be touch, d on. The next object,
as France was not a vast plain like Belgium and Prussia,
was to select the directest and shortest lines, except
where the height of mountains might render it advisabl -
to turn them ; and the plan of conceding the lines to
private companies on leases was recommended. The lave
of 184') is considered the basis of the French system.
In the speech of M. Dumon, in the Chamber of Depu-
ties on the 31st January, 184 G, an account is given of
the manner in which the views of the Act of 1842 have
been carried into of ct. In 1842 there were voted
3,481 kilometres of railway. In 1844 the number of
kilometres of railways to be ccnstructed had increased
to 4,250. Hitherto extensive assistat,ce by the Sti to
had been granted ; but the successful results of the lines
to Orleans and Rouen led to offers by private companies
to construct some lines at their own expense, and on
these' terms the Amiens, Boulogne, Montereau, and
Troyes lines were conceded. In the session of
1845-6 additional lines were decided on, making
a total of 4,998 kilometres, or about
English miles. Of the new lines, th:anLlbotantse,
and Lyons and A vignon, were conceded witthez
andYstras.
assistance, and the lines of Touts and /§!
Bourg with assistance, but less
consid!rablyan
granted by the law of Rig! At "I°
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towbar': wuess,
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