The Sun.
London, England, 1845-02-14 00:00:00

Mr. HAWES did not think they could proceed satisfactorily
upon this Bill now.
Lord GRANVILLE SOMERSET said that to refer the
Bill to a Committee would be to defeat it. It would have to
be given up for the present session, and it was very desirable,
seeing that there were so many schemes on foot, that some
general principle should be adopted with respect to them. He
doubted whether these Committees would be attended by legal
gentlemen.
Mr. JARVIS thought a Select Committee would be a most
unfit tribunal. He thought some clauses might be devised ap-
plicable to the state of things, and to the protection of the pub-
lic. He would wish to see the responsibility of preparing these
clauses thrown upon the law officers of the Crown.
Mr. WAKLEY said the clause which had occupied their
attention was very loosely and very clumsily drawn up, and he
entirely agreed in the observations of the Hon. and Learned
Member for Chester.
Lord G. SOMERSET said that after the opposition which
had been exhibited by Hon. Members opposite, he despaired
of pushing on this Bill with any degree of success. He would
now move that the Chairman report progress, and on Monday
next he would declare the course he intended to pursue re-
garding the measure.
After a few words from Mr. HAWES and Mr.
AGLIONBY the House resumed.
The other Orders of the Day were then disposed of, and the
house adjourned at Half-past Eleven o'Cluck.

RAILWAY INTELLIGENCE.
LONDON AND BIRMINGHAM.
Wednesday the twenty-third half-yearly meeting of the Pro-
prietors of this Company was held at the Euston Station.
Mr. George Carr Glyn, Chairman of the Board of Directors,
presided. Amongst the Directors present were :—Mr. Led-
earn, Deputy-Chairman ; Captain Moorsom, Manag-
ing Director of the Chester and Holyhead ; Mr. Ross
Mangles, M.P. ; Mr. Boothby, Director of the South
Western ; Mr. Cropper, of Liverpool ; Mr. Hodgson ; Mr.
Rathbone, Chairman of the North Union ; Messrs. Cooke,
Walker, Prevost, Young, Smith, and Saltmarshe ; Mr.
Robert Stephenson, engineer ; Mr. Bidder, engineer ; Mr.
Bruyere, superintendent. The attendance of Proprietors was
very numerous.
Mr. CREED, the Secretary, having read the notice con-
vening the meeting,
The CHAIRMAN rose and said, that the last half-year,
as would be seen by the account, had presented very
favourable features. He would not analyse that state-
ment, nor stop to consider the position of the Company
as regarded the lines at present before the public,
he meant the projected railways to York. As re-
garded these, lie would rather leave them in the state in
which they at present stood, never having seen any answer
to the statement put forward by his hon. friend, Mr. lludson,
respecting those lines at the last meeting of the Midland
Counties Railway. lie left that unanswered statement to
occupy the attention of the Proprietors. All that he would
say was, that if by any chance any one of those lines should
eventually be carried, the Directors had the power of assur-
ing the Proprietors that the very small quantity of traffic
that would be abstracted from the Birmingham line would
be amply compensated by the new source of traffic that
would be developed in connexion with the Birmingham line.
—(Applause.) Since the last meeting several important al-
terations had been made in their internal system and work-
ing. It had been the object of his colleagues and himself to
carry out whenever they should have fixed the dividend upon
a proper basis—namely, that of 10 per cent. return—to look
forward to their being enabled to make a reduction in their
various rates and charges. They had already, as regarded
the passenger traffic, carried out some reductions, but he
should be.very sorry were it thought that those were the
only reductions that they were to make on that head,
though at the same time they were not disposed to
carry out their operations too rapidly or too prema-
turely on that point. They now contemplated
making a considerable reduction and alteration in
the rates on their goods traffic, and had already an-
nounced publicly that they were ready to carry coals upon
the line at a reduced charge of one penny per ton per mile.
They had also announced to the iron masters that they were
ready to carry their material for a penny farthing per ton
per mile, the Company finding waggons for their use. In
other branches of the goods traffic they had likewise already
made considerable reductions; but they contemplated a still
more important step, that of carrying out, with the concur-
rence of the other companies with whom they worked in
concert, a mileage system rate. He meant by that, a fixed
rate between particular places between London and any
other portion of the country, the coat per mile to be divided
equally between the different companies. He was sure there
was not a single Proprietor present who would not rejoice in
this, if the sacrifice they were called on to make should,
particularly in the case of the Grand Junction, be the means
of an amicable settlement with them. They had already
considerably extended the buildings for the use of the car-
riers at Camden-town, but did not think that the accom-
modation was at all sufficient for the mass of traffic which
they hoped ere long to bring upon the line, and they
thought that a favourable opportunity was afforded for
relieving themselves from that mass of traffic by accepting
the proposal made to them by the West London Rail-
way Company, by means of which they would get a ready
access to the river Thames, a point of very great importance,
as connected with that heavy traffic in minerals and iron,
besides giving increased accommodation to the general
business of the carriers. He said nothing about the pas-
senger traffic on the line ; he was afraid of doing it. They
had already had recorded in the facetious pages of one of the
periodicals of the day such an account of that traffic, as would
render it superfluous on his part to make any observations
on it. He hoped that when it passed into other hands the
line would be more successful than it had been in the hands
of their predecessors. When they reflected on the population
to which the line led, which was, in point of fact, larger than
the population of many a town, for which many a Bill in
Parliament had been applied for, he thought that with pro-
per management they would be able to make something out
of it, though lie would not promise a great deal under the
head "passenger traffic." They had also taken measures in
consequence of this to increase their locomotive power. Since
they last met, the Board of Trade had commenced its very
important functions in connection with the railway interests,
and as far as the Directors could at present discern from the
nature of the decisions given, they could not complain that
existing interests, whenever they had shown the same dis-
position to accommodate the country as new projects, had
not been duly secured.—(Applause.) It was probable that
the parties in whose hands these decisions rested, might,
in consequence of these inquiries, have arrived at the
conviction that although competition was a very plausible
theory when carried out in some cases, yet that it
did not quite apply to the system of railway
arrangements. They, therefore, fancied that when there was
only one traffic to be found, if it would not quite answer the
public purpose to have that traffic competed for by two com-
panies, and by two separate capitals, either competition must
go to the extent of causing great deterioration in the work-
ing of the companies, or they must arrive at the other con-
clusion of keeping up a very high rate of toll and fare on
both lines. The Directors had, therefore, considered that,
situated as railways were in this country, the best course
that could be chalked out for the public and the Proprietors
was, a well-regulated monopoly. He was inclined to think
that after sonic time the opinion which the Directors had
tended to in conducting the proceedings of that court for
some years past might become more acceptable to other rail-
way companies than hitherto it had been—namely, that it is
the interest of railway companies themselves, and to the interest
of their Proprietors, to place themselves under the control,
superintendence, and revision of a public Board, responsible
to Government, the Parliament, and the public.—(Loud ap-
plause.) That was the feeling entertained by the Directors ;
upon that they had acted, and upon that they thought would
be based the future interests of the Company.—(Renewed
applause.) The lines which more immediately concerned
the Company, with reference to the decisions of the Board of
Trade, were those of the London and Worcester and South
Straffordshire Railway, the Churnet Valley, the Trent Val-
ley, and the Shrewsbury, though not directly interested in
it. The first line they called by its new name ; but it was, in
point of fact, the line to which the Proprietors had given their
sanction at the last special meeting, under the title of the
Tring, Worcester, and Wolverhampton line. It had, as
they were aware, received the sanction of the Board of
Trads. Rival lines to those which they now proposed
were supported and advocated by the Great Western Rail-
way Company, and it became a question, in point of fact,
between the two gauges, between the broad gauge and the
narrow guage, as to which the country should be supplied
with. He would not enter into the merits of that particular
question, but the consideration which had created a great
deal of interest in the north of England was, as to which
Company should take possession of the district. They felt,
and justly felt, that if the wide guage was brought up to
Wolverhampton and Rugby, a very serious and detri-
mental influence would be exercised on their traffic ; and
without pretending to go into the reasons of the Board
of Trade for the decision they had given, setting aside
the idea the Directors entertained that the line they
offered to the public was superior in many respects as
regarded the mining interests of those districts, and su-
perior to that which their rivals offered, they arrived at the
conclusion that, from the wording of the decision, the
narrow gauge was preferred to the broad gauge. But
they made no remarks on the extraordinary circumstance
of the Great Western Company trying to establish them-
selves in South Staffordshire, since it seemed to the Directors
of the London and Birmingham to be a little out of their
legitimate district, according to the common tracings of the
map.—(Applause.) The Shrewsbury, Wolverhampton and
Dudley, and Birmingham line was entirely out of their
hands ; now, as far as any immediate connexion of gua-
rantee went. The other lines to which he should allude
were the Churnet Valley and Trent Valley lines, which
had just received the sanction of the Board of Trade. At
the last meeting they had given the strongest possible deci-
sion in favour of the former line.—(Applause.) But the Di-
rectors, in the interval, thought it their duty, considering
the interests of the Birmingham Company, to pause and
wait the decision of the Board of Trade ; and now, that it
had been given, the Directors considered that the time for
action with regard to the Churnet Valley had arrived. The
ground upon which that line appeared to be advocated at
the last meeting was, the fact of it being a direct line of
communication between Manchester and London. The
Directors had ventured to enter on a more extended
field of action, thinking the time had come when
it was advisable that Manchester and London should
be put in direct relation with each other. There
had been proposals made to them by the Manchester and
Birmingham Railway, and after a little consideration
they had connected these proposals with those that had
been made to them by the Trent and Churnet Companies;
and resolutions would be proposed for the amalgamation of
two of those lines, and the perpetual leasing of the other. The
terms had been settled between the three parties on good and
fair understanding, and lie hoped the arrangement would
have a tendency of placing the property of the London and
Birmingham and the three other undertakings on the firmest
possible footing. Instead of there being four lines, under
separate Boards, the management would be conducted by one
Board of Directors. Ile would not go into details, though he
had them before him, but would rather put it to the vote on
the broad ground of its being a fair bargain between the par-
ties, and as calculated to consolidate the position. and in-
crease the influence of the lines between Manchester and
London, by placing the great manufacturing capital of Great
Britain in connexion, by means of a continuous line, with the
metropolis of the empire.
Mr. CREED, the Secretary, then read the Directors' report,
which stated that the revenue for the half-year ending on
the 31st of December last, amounts, according to the state-
ments laid before the Proprietors, to 456,447/, of which
450,4791. is derived from the ordinary traffic, and 3,968/. from
interests on the employment of cash balances, and from rents.
The charges amount to 182,5431., of which 96,4131. is the
portion which immediately attaches to the working of the
traffic, and 86,130/. is for parish rates, Government duty,
fund for depreciation of stock, rent of the Aylesbury line,
and interest on loans. The ordinary traffic exceeds the
amount in the corresponding half-year of 1843 by 18,1221.
The charge for working it is less by 2731., making the cons-
per cent. in 1844, to
parative rate of half yLai.rl7y charge to receipt as
.3d. in 1843. The net proceeds,
273,904/., added to the surplus 5
21/. Bs. Id.
profit
f of the preceding half-year,
15,9371., leave a clear
the Directors recommend that a 28,8411., and on this amount
dividend of 5/. be again de-
clared on every 100/. of the Company's
othecapital stock, leav-
ingurre.nt half year.
Directors
c
sta
a rest of 47,093/. to the credit
Although this excess might, under ordinacr
es,
have justified an increase of dividend, theye
briefly state the motives which determine them not town-