The Sun.
London, England, 1850-04-18 00:00:00

WATERFORD, WEXFORD, WICK-
LOW, AND DUBLIN RAILWAY COMPANY.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.

SlR,—The necessarily brief notice of the discus-
sions "at the bar of the House of Lords," in your
papers of the 16th, 19th, and 233, and your "edito-
rial summary" thereof, as well as the proceeding
itself, place the interests which I have to maintain in
a position, and with an aspect so unjust, that I trust to
your sense of fair play to let me make the matter
more intelligible from the evidence.
A brief summary of the facts will demonstrate the
' injustice inflicted. Two questions were raised. The
first, that a " statement" sent into the " Railway
Commissioners" was a forgery, because it had been
mistaken by them for an "original," instead of being
a " copy ;" and an opprobrious phrase was applied to
it, and is continued in your reports, although that
mistake was corrected the same day through the
feelings of justice entertained by the Peers. After
it had been demonstrated to ordinary business
minds that there was a "mistake," and that there was
not, and could not be, any intention to mislead, nor
object to gain thereby, the second aspect was put to
the discussion, namely, the " volunteering informa-
tion" to the " Railway Commissioners for their use,
if they thought proper ;" that was the second ques-
tion, and the " breach of privilege" involved, based
on the following evidence :—An " order" was made
by the " House of Lords," on 31 May, 1849, for a
" return of share capital, &c., of every railway com-
pany" (Lord Brougham's order). It was not made
upon any one; and, having revised it, I am able to
say that it was framed advisedly so, and to enable any
one (commissioners or shareholders) to comply with
it; the object being to get that unpalatable informa-
tion on the financial condition that session. The
object failed so far as the leading companies did not
comply with it before the prorogation of 1849. In
concert with nearly all the genuine shareholders in
this hopeless company (five hundred of whom coin-
cide in our objects, and not fifty are aginst them),
I was anxious to see what information our
officials would give to Government, which they had
refused to us on our financial position ; but no return
was made, nor has it been made up to this hour, al-
though the directors are promoting a Bill through
Parliament, based on our financial position. I had
long been in communication with the Railway Com-
missioners, especially frequent since Christmas. Our
opposition was notorious. I had also offered to supply
them with the information required by the " order ;"
and having afterwards received requests for written
statements of any facts we wished to lay before them,
and it being material to our interests to have our true
position known, and any returns by the company
corrected, as inaccuracies existed in former returns
by them, I prepared the financial " statement" in
question (in the form of a return to the order), and
sent it in to the Commissioners, after the House of
Lords had made a peremptory order for the returns,
and after letters inviting or sanctioning our making a
statement of facts.

That was signed by me with my own name and ad-
dress, and on behalf of a "committee of shareholders,"
accompanied by a letter from myself for the " Com-
mittee." There could be no mistaking of us for the
"company." We have knocked often at the doors of
Parliament and the commissioners " for inquiry" into
the position and management of our company. At-
tached to that " statement " were three appendices
verifying its allegations. Eight and a half pages were
in my own ordinary writing, and the signature in
question (to Appendix 3) also written by me, in my
usual style, to perfect the copy; the rest were copied
by a clerk, and corrected by me. " Appendix 3"
was referred to thirteen times in the body of the
" statement," as a copy of a " Return made to Par-
liament in 1846," under the " Duncombe resolutions"
(which required information from all companies of
their financial affairs at that time). Those papers were
lodged in Parliament by the directors. Every railway
and Parliamentary man of business could not help
knowing that the paper was only a copy. It was
headed "Return made to Parliament," and my addi-
tion of " Courtown, Chairman" was made so as to
correspond to the original, and not with any such
absurd intention as to mislead, or pass this off fur the
original, which ought to be in the Parliament-office.
Certainly if the paper had stood alone, or I had sup-
posed that any official would look only at the last
page, and not into the interior, I could, and would
have removed all chance of error, by writing " copy"
at the top and bottom, sides, and back of the paper un-
der discussion. The handwriting was familiar to the
Commissioners, Lord Courtown and his solicitors,
they having had many communications in the same
writing ; and my writing was well known to their
solicitor, as I had the honour of being a fellow-clerk
with him.

I handed in the fac similii of the writings which
also demonstrate the non-resemblance. All these
papers are printed by the House, and a copy lies in
the cofft e-room here for inspection.
If the original has been mislaid since the spring of
1848, whose interest was it to supprsss it? Not
ours; fur it is essential to our cause to preserve and
have it. Have the papers of the House of Commons
been kept or removed by wholesale from place to
place, so as to warrant the statement that they are not
?

The documents show that up to the day this matter
was mentioned in the House (16th of March) I was
in frtquent communication with the Commissioners,
who were calling for more statements, yet never asked
one word about that document which they had had for
seven weeks from me.

I hope the House will not content itself without an
inquiry into the truth of the statement itself, and the
oppression exercised, and wrongs inflicted upon a body
of shareholders.

I am, with apologies, yours respectfully,
CHARLES R. NASH.
Fenclairs Hotel, Westminster, April 4,

BISHOP OF EXETER.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.

Sin,—Agreeing with you entirely that " it is the
law, and the law only, that can decide between the
Bishop of Exeter and Mr. Gorham," I consider you
have done good service in giving so able an explana-
tion of the matter in The Evening Sim of Thursday
last. The lay members of the Church, es by law
established, seem particularly uninformed as to the
nature, origin, and maintenance of their Church po
licy, and consequently more liable to be easily im-
posed on by the representations of jesuitical divines
longing to reacquire the ascendancy enjoyed by the
Catholic priesthood of yore. It is, indeed, one of the
many remarkable features of the present day, that
those divines who desire to usurp (under the flatter-
ing name of the Church) a papal supremacy in mat-
ters of faith, afford in themselves the most striking
proof of our Church being pre-eminently " an Act of
Parliament religion." Whence got they their bene-
fices and rich endowments and scholarships but through
that mighty arm—the law of the land ? that law
which a rebellious prelate would fain set aside. For
the dissenting part of the community they indeed re-
quire little enlightenment on the subject, seeing they
pay for keeping up a boasted uniformity which exists
nowhere in reality, and certainly not in the Church
of England at the present day; the only matter of
surprise is, that the Dissenters have not long since
demanded of the Prime Minister which schism of the
Church is to be upheld, which to be condemned.
The clergy will do well to consider that men who pay
towards the support of a set of doctrines which they
approve not themselves, must ever do so reluctantly :
if the law compels them to contribute, they have on
their parts an undoubted right to protest against any
misapplication of such payments from their legitimate
purpose. The value and boast of an Established
Church has ever been that it upholds uniformity of
belief (that dreaded nightmare which has so often
scared the human intellect), but what becomes of this
boasted plea, when in the same Ghurch we find one
set of divines insist that eternal salvation depends on
a few drop% of the material element being scattered
on the infant forehead, whilst another as firmly
maintain that nothing man can do will ever lead to
life eternal—a blessing granted only to those who
believe in the doctrine of atonement as set forth by
themselves ?
Will not the English Protestant learn from these
discrepancies what the most Catholic King discovered
three centuries ago ? "That as two watches could not
be made alike, it was fully to attempt bringing men's
minds to an exact conformity." However much it
may. amuse theologians to enter into long discussions
on infant baptism, prevenient grace, &c. &C., they
may rest assured the more they write on such matters
the more will the common reader discern, and feel too,
that real religion in its earnest simplicity is little un-
derstood by these men ; that the mercies of God are
not poured out to us according to the desires and
conceits of man, but in every country " He who feareth
God and worketh righteousness, is accepted of him."
I would not undervalue the forms of baptism, sacra-
ment, &c., or any of those helps to devotion which
frail human nature so gladly clings to ; these are
indeed the outward expressions of our inward faith,
beneficial as means to lead to our improvement. They
become dangerous only when we rest upon them as
ends to be attained.
The grand aim of our Saviour's mission on earth,
all pious Christians in all ages must agree, was to
plant his religion in our hearts; to every .Church and
every sect he left the freedom to choose its own pe-
culiar form and rite, as best might suit the frailty of
our nature ; to none did he give permission to lord
it over his fellow man. When, therefore, anndivt-
dual, be he prelate or otherwise, dares to limiti the
rich, free, and everflowing mercies of th e Almighty
Maker of this stupendous Universe, be has gone be-
yond the bounds of his natural province, is amenable
to, and requires to be brought up at the bar of com-
mon sense, there to receive the verdict of censure
which he has so justly merited.
That before this truly English tribunal the Pusey
oection of the clergy, along with their evangelical