The Sun.
London, England, 1844-12-14 00:00:00

RAILWAY INTELLIGENCE.

IMPORTANT MEETING OF THE GRAND
JUNCTION RAILWAY COMPANY.
LIVERPOOL, WEDNESDAY EVENING.—At the special
meeting of the Grand Junction Company, held here
to-day, the chair was taken by
JOHN Moss, Esq., who addressed the meeting
nearly as follows :--Before desiring Captain Huish to
read the Directors' report to you, I will beg leave to
occupy a few moments of your time ; first, for the
purpose of stating that the London and Birmingham
I3oard having, since this meeting was called, proposed
an interview between deputations from their Board
and ours, that meeting took place yesterday ; and
although we are not in a condition to report to you
that anything has been done, yet, in conformity with
their suggestion, it is our intention to propose to you
an adjournment of this meeting till the 30th instant,
without (unless required by you) entering at all upon
the second important subject on which we called you
together. I trust that you will agree with us that,
as matters now stand, any discussion would be inex-
pedient. Having said thus much on behalf of the
Board, I desire to avail myself of this, the first
convenient opportunity, of making one or two
remarks on a matter concerning me personally. You
are all, doubtless, aware of the statement made by the
Chairman of the London and Birmingham Company,
at their late meeting, as to a correspondence between
him and myself, and of the published resolutions of
our Board thereupon, and of the London and Bir-
mingham Board's reply, which has just appeared. It
appear," by thst reply "that the London and Bir-
ming Directors are content to leave the question
where it now stands." And, under these circum-
stances, I am sure the Grand Junction may be con-
tent also, awl I am greatly rejoiced to be able thus
summarily to dispose, I hope for ever, of so painful a
matter. The only thing remaining for me is to ex-
press my regret at the construction put by Mr. Glyn
on my letters, that I was indisposed to admit that I
had received a letter from him on the 19th of August,
unless he would consent to have our private corre-
spondence published ; in this he certainly misunder-
stood me. In answer to his request of the 9th of
November, when he enclosed me a copy of his note of
the 19th of August, I wrote by return of post in the
following words :
" I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of
the 9th instant.

" Certainly I should in all cases be not only ready,
but most anxious to correct an erroneous impression
caused to the prejudice or the annoyance of yourself,
or any other gentleman, by any act to which I had
been a party ; but, after reading your letter and its
enclosures, I must candidly say that they leave me
nothing to explain, axcl that I am, after a perusal of
them, more and more satisfied of the perfect accuracy
of our published statement.
" Though I cannot now doubt that I received this
note, I cannot lay my hands on it ; and I do not at
all wonder at this, because it appears that it was a
private note, marked private,' and you had before-
hand formally apprised me that no such notes were to
be considered as from your Board, or even from you
as Chairman ; its contents, therefore, and even the fact
of its receipt, had escaped my recollection."
And I added

" You are at liberty to publish this correspondence,
and all the rest, from beginning to end, both official
and private ; for you cannot be more anxious than I
am to have everything connected with this case, and
all the others, fully known and sifted."
And again, in the very last letter I wrote him—
namely, on the 25th of November—l endeavoured to
make more plain my reasons for declining to make
the mere dry admission that I had received a par-
ticular letter, by saying :
" I cannot be a party to contradict the published
statement of the Grand Junction Directors, the truth
of that statement remaining to this hour untouched;
and the question not being at all whether a letter of a
particular date was ever received by us, but whether
a letter of a particular purport."

I will only add that I regret that Mr. Glyn misun-
derstood these letters, for I admit that he was entitled
to have it made clear that he had written to me a
letter on the day he said he had, if he thought that
material under the circumstances, and it was always
my intention (however our differences with his
Board might have stood at this meeting) to have
availed myself of this public opportunity of stating
that he had done himself, as well as me, injustice, by
supposing that I was unwilling to admit that he had
so written. I can safely say, for myself and my bro-
ther Directors, that we have been most desirous to be
on the best possible terms with the London and Bir-
mingham Directors, and particularly with the Chair-
man, knowing the importance it is to both our con-
cerns. I sincerely trust nothing has occurred to
prevent us being so hereafter. I would say more did I
not feel that the two Boards and the Proprietors must
wish to see what has 'passed buried in oblivion. These
being my sincere feelings, you will not expect me to take
up your time by any lengthened remarks upon the
London and Birmingham's construction of our July
agreement ; but I am unwilling, occupying the posi-
tion I have the honour to occupy, to allow any oppor-
tunity to pass without expressing my most entire and
unqualified dissent from such a construction of such
an agreement. I am not sorry, however, for the
opportunity afforded me by this, I may truly say,
forced expression of my feelings, of referring to an
instance in which the view I conceived it my duty to
take of an agreement entered into for " mutual de-
fence" has left me for a long time back under the
imputation of a want of foresight in not purchasing
fur the Grand Junction Company the Chester and
Birkenhead Railway—an imputation which has re-
cently been often repeated to my prejudice, and
which, on that account, I am sure you will excuse
my taking this opportunity of trying to remove. Now,
what are the facts ? The Grand Junction Company
entered, some years ago, into an agreement with the
Liverpool and Manchester Company, involving stipu-
lations for mutual defence, and for the promotion of
each other's fair interests. The Chester and Birken-
head Railway was more than once offered to me on
very low terms, such as made me feel anxious to pur-
chase it. I considered such a purchase, without the
consent of the Liverpool and Manchester Company,
would be inconsistent with the spirit, if not the let-
ter, of our agreement with them. They declined to
consent even to our using the line, feeling that the
result would be the abstraction of traffic which other-