The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1838-10-23 00:00:00

THE GREAT WESTERN RAILWAY,

(From the Railway Times.)
The prevailing opinion among those who interest them-
selves in railway matters, with respect to the last Great West-.
ern Meeting, is, that the gentlemen of the north were notfae
enough swills for those of the, south; that is, in a word, that
they were sadly bamboozled and outwitted. We do not share
in this opinion. We think the Liverpool delegates knew very
well what they were about; and that, however weak or in-
consistent their conduct may appear -to the generality of
lookers-on, the could give, if they chose, very plausible,' if
not sufficient, reasons for it. The gentle Men of the north
are, from all we can learn, quite as much dissatisfied as ever
with the past conduct and management of this great under-
taking ; they see clearly enough that the whole affair is " out
of joint'—Direction as well as Engineering; but they 'ima-
gine, at the same time, that "they (alone) were burn tO'set
them right." The only radical cure is, in their judgments,
a little infusion of Lancashire blood into the direction. 'Bet
to accomplish this infusion, without the consent and cencur-
rence of the present directors, they apprehend to be nciT..kasy
matter: and henee it has seemed to them good pOliq to'CO'n-•
ciliate Mr. Chairman Sims and his colleagues by every means
in their power. Divide el impera is the motto on their ban-
ner. Censure for Mr. Brunel, but all manner of cemplirnent
to Mr. Brunel's masters; among whom •they' hope, very
shortly, to see two or three of their own party playing a pro-
minent part. Witness the fulsome praise bestowed, by some
of the Lancashire speakers at the meeting, on the directors;
though, if there be one. word of truth its the fault found- by
them with the proceedings of the engineer, the directors, who
have sanctioned these proceedings, and persist, up to the
present moment, in defending them, Fare quite as much to
blame as Mr. Brunel. Having a good end in view—nothing
less than the salvation of the concern—they think that jti-sti-
fies the adoption deny means, however questionable, to effect
it. Once before—not, indeed, very long agti—Abey adopted
a different course, but got, as we have heard, :only jibes and
jeers for their pains. They began with declaring that the
Great Western Directors had entirely forfeited the-confi-
dence; not only of the Lancashire propretary, but of .the pub-
lic at large; and thereupon they proceeded to redimmend
that some halt-dozen of them should make way for an equal
number of infallible and sturdy Lancastrians. The answer
to this modest requisition was a poser—` It it-betrtte,- as. you
state, that we have forfeited the confidence of the propeie-
taty and of the public, how can you, Gentlemen of Lancashire,
propose to youselves to act with. any number of men who
have so disgraced themselves—far less with a majority of su
trustless a
set; for, as yet, your proposition extends no fur-
ther than to admit a few of your -party into the -direttiau."
And so it happened that the mouths of the Lancashire geri,7
tlemen being stopped by this answer, they found themselves
in an exceedingly false and ridiculous position—not far wrong
us to the forfeiture of confidence incurred,-but wholly wrong
as to the mode by which they proposed to impart new life
and energy to the concern; and lot the moment, therefore,
altogether powerless either for good or evil. Indecd, so much
stronger did the Great Western Railway Directors feel in
consequence of this erroneous move of their
though a vacancy occurred smut after, in their body, through
the resignation of Mr. Tite (Why, by the bye, did Mr. 'rite
resign ?—he was the ablest, by tar, of the whole Board at the
time,) they refused to let even one Lancastrian in to supply
his place; and filled. it up with a Mr, Nobody, whose name
and additions at the present moment we fu'get. To recover
the ground thus lost, they Lancastire gentlemen have this
time gone upon quite an opposite tack. Now they are as full
of confidence in, and respect fat, the directors, as before-of
distrust and contempt. Most upright and gentlemanly .per-
son s the directors all are; and uo pleasure to be imagined so
great as that of acting cordially along 'With them for the com-
mon good! The directors, seeing the pleasing change,
(pleasing to them,) which has come over the spirit of sheer
opponents, have not been slow inttirnitig it. to as good account
as they previously did their blundering rudeness.i_ "If you
refuse to pass this our report," say the directors, " we shall
take it as a personal insult." " Nothing," reply the Liverpool
gentlemen," is further from our intention—we wish to 'lever-
sonally ou the best terms possible with you all—but our duty,
to ourselves and our brother proprietors requires-7'
"This only, that you should satisfy yourselves that the engi-
neering of the line isall right, to which we, the directors,- cart
hive nu objection; but it does not require that you should
persist in refusing to pass our half-yearly account-of receipts
and disbursements, for every penny of which we have good
and sufficient vouchers. ' It is 00 joke, we can assure you.
to be left under such a cloud of suspicion as your last refusal
has thrown upon us. Only think what our•feelings as gentle-
men insist be—think of what your own would be, were you in
our situations." "Ali, to be sure," " And do not forget that
there is at this moment a seat at our Board •vacant.. Through
the loss of our late dearly-beloved colleague, I\ll. Hopkins,
which we cannot fill up—though most anxious ate we to do
so, with some gentleman of judgment-and experience,
ing significantly hard towards the Liverpool squad)—until
yen have certified, by your sweet voices, that the post is one
• which a gentleman may fill without dishonour.' " Not
wend more, Mr. Ghairman—(Heyworth 40(110—we feel
all the delicacy of your situation ; we have no 'wish to ern-
harass you—far Irma it--we have the highest epimon of your
integrity, and only impute to you a want of that railway ex-
perience which wegeutlemen of the north possess in such
abundance—and 'in order that you, the directors, may be,
placed quite at your ease, and enabled to fill up the place of
Mr. Hopkins—which ought, by all means, to be dune home'
diately—we will withdraw our resolution eif censure, in reg!tra
to the engineering, for the present, and agree to the adoptio°
of the report."
We have given what we believe -tO be a tolerably exact
version of the course of policy pursued by the Liverpool gen,
tlemen on the present
.occasion; but we beg we may not
be considered as at all approving of it. We think the mutt'
duction of two or three intelligent men of business from the
north, into the Great Western Direction, would be one of the,
best things that could happen for the concern ; but we would
have this brought about in an open and straight-forward note:
nor; we would have them borne its upon the force of publg
opinion, and not by virtue of a paltry intrigue. We cannot
imagine that any good can come, in the long-run, of seen,
crooked :ways and hollow professions as our pen has
traced. No end, however goeid, Can in our humble judg-
ment, sanctify such unworthy means:
The respectability.Of the opposition to the Great Wester!!
Railway Management has, we make no doubt, already t""
fered greatly in the public estimatieri, from the palpable at!'
xiety for place displayed by those wlio,have taken the lead 1.1
it. The Great Western Directors will not, 'we think, a
• wisely, if they omit the oppOrtunitY which they now hate
of strengthening their hands by the addition of sortie Liver-
pool pool gentleman to their body; by
ceitaiu it is, uevertheles
that if • they should take it into their heads to pass a-secoc
'd
_e
affront upon their northern friesids, by supplying the
of Mr. Hopkins from souse other quarter, all the world will o'
disposed rather to latigh with, than blame them.