The Sun.
London, England, 1845-03-22 00:00:00

fitarniin

LONDON, SATURDAY, MARCH 22, 1845,

The motion of Mr. MoRIsoN, on Thursday night,
had for its object to make Parliamentary provision for
that which ought long since to have been guaranteed
to the public by the Legislature. The Hon. Gentle-
man called upon the House to affirm three resolutions
of a declaratory and economic character, to the effect
that the public should be secured the utmost amount
of accommodation in railroad travelling, at the lowest
rates of charge, which may be compatible with a fair
interest or return, to the several railway companies,
on the capitals invested by them in such under-
takings ; that the arrangements introduced in respect
of some former railway Acts for guarding the public
against the exaction of unreasonable or even exorbitant
fares had been found to fail, utterly, in practical
working; and that, in all future railway Bills or
agreements to be made between the Board of Trade
and the directors of companies, the latter should be
required to assign, beforehand, the highest rates
of fares which they would be content to take as the
extreme limits within which the charges that
would adequately remunerate them should be fixed.
Whatever force may attach to the objection taken by
Lord GRANVILLE SOMERSET to the terms of these
resolutions, especially of the latter, which we agree
with his Lordship would not necessarily secure to the
public the maximum charge by ascertaining the mini-
mum demand to be made by future railway com-
panies for fares—it must be allowed that the pro-
positions which they involve are reasonable enough.
Mr. MORISON showed very clearly that from the
favour with which the present system of railroad tra-
velling has been adopted by the public, it is rapidly
superseding all other modes whatever of moving from
one part of the kingdom to another. We quite con-
cur with him also in considering the marvellous faci-
lities of locomotive communication and intercourse
which we have already attained, as being at once the
result and the evidence of an extremely advanced de-
gree of civilisation. But in this—as in so many
other branches of economic labour and art—the neces-
sity of progress is an indispensable condition attached
to permanency of suness. When the improvement
of material forces, and of machinery for their
exhibition, shall have reached a point of ap-
parent perfection, there will still, doubtless,
be discovered many new and important im-
provements in the system and details of
Administration connected with these vast undertakings.
Now it is not less essential to this principle of pro-
gress, and its concomitant prosperity in railway con-
cerns, than it is to the convenience, service, and benefit
of the public, that the former should not take too large
fares for travelling from the latter. The palpable in-
fusion of the monopoly principle in the constitution of
every existing railway company, sanctioned by the
dangerous laxity of the Legislature in passing the
Bills for their establishment in a form and with
powers enabling them to enforce such principle to its
fullest extent, is already felt as a serious grievance
under a variety of circumstances. Excessive fares
are an imposition of which the public soon be-
comes cognizant. In point of fact, no worse
policy could be well pursued by any new
company than the attempt to exact unreason-
able fares from those who are to support them ; and
in that point of view, perhaps, there is not much
reason to apprehend that new companies would, in
such a manner, compromise their own welfare.
But, as it was remarked in the course of the
debate, the remedy for any abuse, however
oppressive in railway management, is of so
cumbrous and protracted a character that it will
be but seldom, and only in the last necessity, resorted
to. Under the high-road system of travelling, for
extortion, misconduct, or incivility of any kind, there
was always a means of punishment and redress at
hand to those who were habitual sufferers by such
proceedings. It was a work of little difficulty and of
no overwhelming expense, distributed as that expense
was, among a few subscribing residents and pro-
prietors along the line of road,—to establish an oppo-
sition coach with all its appointments, relays of horses,
stabling, staff of coachmen, &c. &c. An opposition
railroad is quite another affair. The most credulous
speculators in railroad projects would be disinclined
to subscribe a second capital of one or two millions, in
order to construct between two termini already so
connected, a second railroad, even were Parliamen

for such a purpose, disposed to negociate with ase

cond set of parties far the purchasing up of a second
strip of freehold through fifty or sixty miles of
the kingdom. The Duke of WELLINGTON alone,
among the Peers, had the sagacity, we well remember,
to foresee, when the Bills for some of the earliest esta-

blished railroads (such as the London and Birmingham,
Great Western, and London and Southampton Line
Bills), were before the House of Lords, the extent and
inconvenience of the monopoly which the Legislature
were sanctioning. His Grace strongly urged upon
the Lords the necessity for taking guarantees from
these companies that the public should not be placed
in a worse position, as to the fares to be demanded for
travelling by rail, than they were in then, in respect

of fares for high-road travelling and posting under a
long matured system, which had at that time attained
its culminating point of perfection, and has ever since
been rapidly declining to decay. For once, the Duke's
remonstrances were disregarded by Parliament. With
all our respect, and even admiration for the excellent
management and general liberality displayed by our
great railway companies, we must say that subsequent
events have largely justified the Duke's solicitude.

Mr. MoßisoN's resolutions seem excellently adapted
(at any rate, with regard to new or future companies)

to supply the ?aches of Parliament in not having
sooner devised and organised those guarantees
which the Honourable Gentleman so justly demands

on behalf of the public. We are pleased to observe
the consideration and marked favour with which they

were entertained by the House, and have no clout;

that Lord G. SONIERSET, when they shall have been

shaped to meet the objection suggested by his Lord-
ship on principle, and so as to avoid some technical
informality which is supposed to attach to their

original wording, will give them the benefit of
his sincere and efficient support. The service which
Mr. MORISON proposes to render to the public was
clearly demonstrated in a speech distinguished, as the
speeches of that Honourable Gentleman always are, by
its neatness and ability.

We have often directed public attention to the la-
mentable and fatal consequences to be apprehended
from the continued practice of interring human
bodies within the churches and in the burial-grounds
of the metropolis and other great towns. In advert-
ing to the " Reports of the Committee on the health
of Great Towns," we have over and over again had to
deplore the fatuity which perpetuates a prejudice re•
suiting in consequences the most revolting and dis-
gusting to all the instincts of our nature, and in
defiance of the most awful visitations of infection and
disease that can visit on the living the most dis-
astrous reminiscences of the dead. It would be a
painful task to refer our readers to the tedious details
disclosed by witnesses to whose credibility no excep-
tion could be taken or was attempted to be hazarded.
But we may remark in few words that they esta-
blished the existence of a system of desecration of the
sanctuary of the grave in the churchyards, situated in
the most populous localities of our metropolis. The
custom of those to whom the care of these receptacles
of the last remains of mortality is confided by local
and parochial authorities, as well as by the common
law of the land, has evidently been to levy a guilty
revenue from the abuse of the functions invested in
them. The parties who have possessed the interest
in the land devoted to the reception of their corpses
who are summoned by the &at of PRovunzicri to re-