The Sun.
London, England, 1857-08-27 00:00:00

RAILWAY INTELLIGENCf.

METROPOLITAN.
The half-yearly meeting of this company was held
yesterday at the offices, Great George-itreet, Westmin-
ster—Mr. L. Simpson in the chair.
The report stated that the negotiations with the Great
Western and Great Northern Railway Companies did
not lead to a satisfactory result. The bill for the eaten-

sitn of time had received the royal assent. The
whole of the powers of the company are therefore intact
for another year, and the directors are consequently in

a position to enter into arrangements with any persons
who may desire to possess the powers enjoyed by the

company. The reasons which induced the promotion of
the line, and obtained for it the sanction of the Legisla•

ture and the co-operation of the Great Western Railway
Company, have been not only generally recognised, but
have grown in -public estimation, from the repeated in•

♦~stigations to which they have been since subjected, and
from the additional evidence which subsequent expe-
rience has furnished. The Post-office having undertaken
the carriage of book and small parcels has rend3red the
new line the more necessary for the accommodation of

tbat department. The opening of the cattle market at
Copenhagen-fields has created a necessity for the railway

to connect the cattle market with the dead-meat mar-

kets in the city. The extensive use of the North Lon-

dcri Railway for goods has demonstrated the advantage
which a similar extension for the accommodation of the

goods traffic of the Great Western and Great Northern

Railways will prove to those
,companies. The large

accession to the street traffic which has since grown upon
the already overcrowded thoroughfares of the metropolis
has increated the urgency of the demand for the relief
which this line will in that respect afford ; and the in-
creased use of the cheap above-bridge river steamers,
coupled with the immense passenger traffic of
the North London Railway, has confirmed the ex-
pectation of the great number of persons who will avail
themselves of the facilities of the Metropolitan Railway.
The directors•call the attention of the proprietors of the
Great Western Railway Company seriously to these mat-
ters, and urge upon them not to allow the opportunity to
be lost which this line affords of remedying what is very
generally considered the patent defect in their system—
viz., the remoteness of the Paddington station from the
city and the busier parts of the metio?ots, and which is
alone, perhaps, sufficient to account for the depression of
their undertaking. The directors have settled the large
el tinis for professional services that had accrued during
the four years which have elapsed since the incorpora-
tion of the c,mpany, the gentlemen cc ncerned having, in
consideration of.the circumstances in which the company
is placed, consented to a large reduction in the amounts
respectively claimed by them. The accounts still out-
standing are but few and of small amount, and the direc-
tors see no reason to alter materially the opinion ex-
pressed at the last meeting that the ultimate loss would
not exceed Gs. per share. Looking, however, at the large
amount borrowed from the bankers of the company, the
directors thought it necessary, for the safety and protec-
tion of al) parties, to make a call of 103. per share. In the
event of the favourable s iuding up, which they confi-
dently anticipate,,such call would of course be repaid, in
addition to •the 14s. per share of the original deposit of 11.
per share. The capital account showed that 147,4831.
had been received, and 66,2481 expended, leaving a
balance of 81,2351, consisting of 71,2501. in the hands of
the Accountant-General, 3,1101. due by the Royal Bri-
tish Bank, and 5,5941 at the bankers. The balance now
in the hands of the Accountant-General, atter payment of
the July dividends, amounts to 84,5551.
The CHAIRMAN, in moving the adoption of the report,
reminded the proprietors that at the last half-yearly
meeting a distinct understanding was come to between
the directors and the shareholders that a final effort
should be made to induce the Great Western to do some-
thing to insure the carrying out of the undertaking,
either by way of additional subscriptions cr by tak-
ing shares; arid it was also hoped that the Great
Northern Railway Company might be induced to
exeroise the power they had from Parliament to raise a
sum of money to make that part of the line between the
Great Western terminus and the city. The negotiations
entered into with those companies, though carefully con-
ducted, had entirely failed. The letter received from
Mr. Saunders, the secretary of the Great Western Board,
declining to afford any assistance, being conclusive as to
that company, the directors felt that it would be idle to
iccur further expense to do that which appeared indis-
pensable to the development of the Great Western sys-
tem. The opinion of the board as to the necessity of
the line was unaffected by anything that had taken place;
on the contrary, every circumstance that had arisen had
only tended to confirm them in the conviction of the
absolute necessity of such an undertaking being carried
cut at no very distant period. That opinion, too, was
shared by all men of experience in railway matters. The
lase chairman of the Eastern Counties Railway, at the
meeting of that company on Friday last, urged the im-
portance of metropolitan connexion strongly upor,
his late colleagues at the board and the shareholders, aK
being a great advantage to that company, and, if to
the Eaetere Counties, how much more so was it to the
Great Western, the London and North-Western and the
GreakNorthern 1 He bad no doubt that many gentlemen
drawnt
hteso etahpei t figures
earnings per mile ; and bad observed the disagreeable
shooing present hadthe hadpro theirre
ee f r
e attentioneond fcondition
o o
position occupied by the Great Western in the scale of
comparison—a position which he believed was mainly
Th e attributable to
necessity
fort
he
soonfac
at tthe ar
nt they
lab
oe ye
fboard
tnhoe cityline
st enr
orth o 1
the Thames seemed to be generally recognized. But
when the directors found themselves -in a position it.
which they could not carry it out in a manner which
they considered consistent with the interest of the