The Sun.
London, England, 1844-05-01 00:00:00

Railway, was notonly shorter than , the line which was
at present before the House, but would coat in its con-
struction much less. The line from Basingstoke to New-
bury was to be a single line, while the one from Bead-
ing to Newbury was proposed to be double. The cost
of the former would be 200,000/., while the cost of the
latter would be only 150,0001. With respect to distance,
.the Basingstoke and Newbury line was 10 per cent.
longer than the other line, and with respect to cheap-
ness for passengers, 20 per cent. Under these circum-
stances, he should propose that this report be further
considered that day six months.
Mr. LABOUCHERE considered that no Honourable
Gentleman would be willing to serve upon. a Commit-
tee if their decision were •to be brought before
the House and subjected to a revisal. Mr. Ord,
the Member for Newcastle ; Mr. Evans, the Member
for Derbyshire ; Mr. Beckwith, the MeMber for
Leeds ; Mr. Colquhoun and Mr. Pakington were
the five gentlemen who constituted • that Committee
and he here asserted that these. gentlemen were alone
influenced in their decison by the evidence that came
before them. Those were the grounds upon which he,
as a member of that Committee, was induced to give his
vote; and he hoped the House, if a decison were called
for, would confirm that vote. He hoped the House
would reject .the proposal of the Honourable Member
for Reading, who himself could not be fairly said to be
an unbiassed party in the affair, inasmuch as he was
the Chairman of the Great Western Railway.
Mr. PAKINGTON hoped the House would not look
upon this as a matter of private business, but that they
would attend to a few observations which he found him-
self bound as a Member of that Committee to offer.
From the time when the Committee framed their
report a great dissatisfaction had be( n expressed by
many persons connected with the Great Western Rail-
way; and the Committee had a right to complain of the
manner in which those objections were made. He, for
one, never heard of any intention of revising the deci-
sion of that Committee up to the present moment. The
Hon. Member for Reading had stated that he was in
possession of certain evidence which would show that local
interests prevailed on the Committee, and he (Mr. Pah-
ington) would appeal to any of the four gentlemen who sat
upon that Committee along with him, whether he was not
perfectly justified in saying that he denied, in the
strongest terms which the usages of that House allowed,
the truth of that assertion. The Committee sat for
seven days, and so anxious were they to come to a right
conclusion, that they called what might even be termed
superfluous evidence. He would ask the House to re-
flect fairly upon the relative positions in which the
Honourable Member for Reading and the Committee
we re pl aced. The Hon. Member for Reading was the Chair-
man of the Great Western Railway, while every Mem-
ber who composed that Committee could not possibly
have any ulterior object in view, but must alone have
been influenced in their decisions by the evidence which
was laid before them. With respect to the proposed
line to Newbury, and that of Woolhampton, the Com-
mittee, in deciding in favour of the latter, were
influenced by a conviction that the latter would
tend more generally to the public convenience.
He had not mentioned what he was sure would
have great weight with the House, namely, that on
every decision to which the Committee had come, they
had been unanimous. But he would ask the House
whether the rule was to be to put Committees upon
their trial in that House after they had zealously and
conscientiously done their duty—(Hear. hear)—and that
for the satisfaction of parties avowedly interested in
opposing their decisions ?—(Hear, hear.)
Mr. HAYTER said he must be allowed to ex-
press his dissent from the proposition that a
reversal by that House of the decision of a Committee
was to be looked upon as condemnatory of that Com-
mittee.—(Hear, hear.) If Hon. Members were to sit in
that House merely to enrol the decisions of Committees,
all that he could say was that their duties would become
a mere farce. In his opinion they were there to discuss
the propriety of the decisions which their Committees
arrived at, for that House sat as a court of appeal.
Looking at the reasons of the Committee, he was in-
capable of coming to the conclusion to which they had
come; although he was aware the communication could
be made easier from Newbury to Reading than from
Newbury to Basingstoke, yet be could not consent to
the conclusion come to, and must vote against the
measure.

Mr. GLADSTONE thought the House would agree
to this, that in approaching the decision now in ques-
tion, they should look with confidence on the proceedings
of the Committee—that was the great ingredient in the
case, although not the only one. Now he thought, as far
as confidence in a Committee could proceed in any case,
the present Committee had claims to the highest
degree of confidence. He was glad that the
Chairman of the Committee had stated briefly
an outline of the course on which the Committee
had proceeded. They had not come to their decision
without full examination of the evidence and arguments
that had been adduced. It appeared to him, from all he
had heard of the case, the Committee had done their
duty with the greatest care and fidelity. They had given
full consideration to local interests, and they had pro •
ceeded very 'much upon the consideratiOn not only of ac-
commodating the local traffic of Newbury, but upon the
,reneral principle on 'which railways should be founded.
The House should recollect that these questions re-
lating to railways had of late much, changed their
character, and were becoming every year more difficult,
and getting beyond the capacity of a Committee to deal
with them, as those Committees were usually cpn-
stituted. They were increasing in complexity every
year. It had become necessary, in considering them,
to calculate on distant contingencies. Projects which at
first might appear to be of a local nature might become
of national importance, and they would be in a dismal
condition if in a case like this, in which the greatest care
had been exercised by the Committee of Selection in the
choice which they had made, and in which the COrn-
mittee had exercised the greatest circumspection in the
of their duty, the result should be the sum-
mary reversal by the House of the important verdict of
that Committee.

..—.
Mr. HAWES, in reply to the observation of the Right
Hon. Gentleman, that the House came to this discussion
under great disadvantages, inasmuch as they had not
before them the evidence taken before the Committee,
would remark that such must always be the case unless,
in, every instance, the evidence were printed, and time
were given to Members to peruseit before entering en the
general discussion—a course of proceeding which would
scarcely meet with the approbation of the Right Hon.
Gentleman. When the report of a Committee was laid
onrthiseth
the table,
was perfectly competent for the House
to a question whether or not the decision of the
Committee was a sound one ; and, differing as be
did from the Committee, he should support the
motion of the Honourable Member for Reading.
The Committee had rejected the most direct line, and a
double line instead of a single line, the cheapest line
instead of the dearest one. He thought it best to
defer the consideration of the Bill until the whole 'of
the lines of communication intended to be embraced in
that wide field of consideration which the Right Min.
Gentleman had thrown out before them, were fully before
the House. Without meaning to cast any aspersion on
the decision of the Committee, he must say that if the
House adopted that decision they would impose on the
public an inferior and dearer line.
Mr. AGLIONBY said that he should give his vote in
favour of the decision of the Committed, but on grounds
entirely different from those put forward by the Right
Hou. Gentleman opposite, and by the Right Hon. Gen-
tleman the Member for Wells. lie would not enter into
any details. He agreed with the Hon. Gentleman oppo-
site, that the House was to be, to a certain extent, the
judges of the merits of a line, but to the least possible
extent. Ile voted for the decision of the Committee on
this ground, that it was the duty of the House to sup-
port the great principle that Committees ought to be
free from all local and private interests. They had to
a certain extent got rid of the burthen which existed
for many years of Committees being influenced by local
interest, and their decisions never gave satisfaction to
anybody. He thought that a new system should he
Committees more of a
t
judicial established,
charvia•chtiecrh. wiloeul d
hopedgivo see this principle e
ex-
tended to other classes of railways. The best possible
tribunals should always be obtained. All matters
were discussed with harmony and unanimity before
independent Committees. They were now about
to set aside the decision, because some gentlemen
said that better evidence might be laid before it, or
that a better judgment might be formed upon the efi-
dence. He denied that it was a good principle to set
aside the decision of the' Committee on that account.
The party impugning the decision of the Committee
must do so by laying strong grounds, by showing that
there was either gross injustice: or flagrant want of judg-
ment by the Committee. There was no evidence to in-
duce him to alter the decision of the Committee. The
Committee was the best judge which of the two lines
were best, and on this ground it was most dangerous for
the House to interfere with their decision.

Mr. W. EV ANS said there had been no such hurry
in the Committee as that which had been attributed to
it, for they had been willing to sit as long as the proper
performance of their duty required. He would not deny
that the other line was somewhat better as a London
one, but the Committee looked to the best line for all;
and, therefore, they determined upon that which joined
Newbury to the cook as well as London, and gave ad-
vantages to the entire district. They refused no evi-
dence that was offered, and they had given an unani-
mous decision, which he trusted the House would
confirm..
Lord HOWICK said, were he to exercise his own
judgment upon the present question, he certainly should
come to a different conclusion than that which the Com-
mittee had arrived ; but he was so persuaded that if
they did not support the authority of their Committees,
such immense harm would arise, that he should fel it his
duty to support their decision in this case.—(Laughter.)
He thought the interests of the companies were of minor
importance. The interest of the public was to be con-
sidered, and he thought it would be for the interest of
the public that both lines should go forward.

Mr. COLQUIIOUN wished that, consistently with his
sense of duty, he could have voted for both lines, but
when he found that there would not be traffic enough to
support both lines. That there was the strongest desire
evinced on the part of those connected with
the trade of the district that the Basingstoke line should
be completed, a desire evinced not only by expres-
sions but the coming forward with the subscriptions; and
when he found that there existed the greatest apathy
among them with regard to the other line, which, more-
over, was opposed by the greater part of the landowners
of the district, he felt that he had no choice, and was
reluctantly compelled to exclude the Great Western line.
Sir R. PEEL had not known, anything of the subject
before he entered the House ; but he wished the Com-
mittee, composed as it was of gentlemen having no local
interest on the subject, had been unanimous in the deci-
sion to which they had come. If that were the case, it
would be very dangerous if the House were to reverse
the decision of the Committee.

Mr: ORD said that the Committee had been unanimous
in their decision.