The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1846-07-14 00:00:00

nexion with existir

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the principle of separate management

existing lay

COminittee 1). thinks that chew

of locomotion is not secured" to the public by the
formation of two lines where one, well worked,
would nrovide the renuisite. areommorlation. Kis

in favour of cheapness of construction, at the expense
of directness of route and perfection of gradients.
F. would go as the crow flies, boring through hills
and filling up valleys. We have some impressed in
favour of lines which open out mineral deposits;
some which look at the accommodation of passengers
as the only object to be cared for. We have the
friends of a broad guage and of a narrow guage,—
in short, the different views under which committees
legislate, may almost be called Legion, and their de-
cisions are not unfrequently Quite incomprehensible.
Independently of these differences of opinion, on
the part of committees, as to what should be the re-
commendation of a railway scheme to the sanction
of Parliament, there have now crept in political and
even private influences which, at least, greatly
weaken the confidence of the public in the impar-
tiality of such tribunals. We see Members one day
giving evidence in favour of a line which passes con-
veniently through his property in some county, and
the next day, perhaps, deciding upon the merits of
a line in which a member of the committee, which
sate in judgment upon that evidence, is deeply in-
terested, or even directly mixed up. The bias as to
the merits of this or that local scheme is not unfre-
quently a material portion of the claim of a Member
to the support of his constituency. Lord Ebrington
we saw, the other day, called to account before the
electors of Plymouth, and threatened with an oppo-
sition, because of his advocacy of o-e particular
local project, in preference to its rival. His Lord-
ship's "influence" had been used in favour of the
scheme less popular with his constituents ; and how
used ? This is one of the mysterious processes which
the public want to have explained and got rid of.
There is no such thing can enter into the decision of
a question tried by any of the ordinary constitutional
tribunals of the land. What are the duties upon which
provisional committee-men, lawyers, and secretaries,
ordinarily employ themselves up to the moment of
presenting their schemes before a committee? In
securing this mysterious "influence "of noble Lords
and honourable Members. We hear of Comp nies
who have strong Parliamentary influences—who can
pass any kind of project, to the preference of rival
schemes, however excellent, if brought forward by
r parties who cannot hobnob with this Peer or that
Member, are unknown at Brookes's or the Reform
Club, and cannot chat familiarly with half the Mem-
bers they meet in the lobby of the House.
Of course we do not impute any malvetsation of
their important offices to the Members of the Legis-
lature, or any one of them. The character of an
English Peer, and of English Gentlemen, places them
above suspicion of being knowingly corrupt. Like
Caesar's wife, however, they ought to occupy a posi-
tion above suspicion ; and to enable them to do this
they must be relieved from the great responsibility
imposed upon them individually as Members of
Railway Committees, with powers so large, and so
capable of being worked to the advantage of friends
or localities, as are wielded by these tribunals.
Diffused, as railway property is now, through every
part of the kingdom—held as it is by the nobleman,
the merchant, the trader, and the smallest shop-
keeper—there are few men of the class from which
our Legislators are chosen who have not either a
direct or a collateral interest in some line, which may
be presumed, unconsciously to themselves, no doubt,
to bias their views with respect to the relative merits
of co-operating or of rival lines. To extricate indi-
vidual members from this, their unfair position, and
the difficulty into which it brings them, we should
suggest the appointment of some capable and inde-
pendent Tribunal, over whose decisions, however,
both Houses, in their collective capacity, might
have an over-riding power.

PRINCE ALBERT'S VISIT—_THE mAxon. AND
THE TWO Rom AN CNTrtOLIC B, SHOPS.

It is really irksome to have contiouilly imposed on us
the tisk of correcting the errors or the inventions of our
contemporaries. We have in another column expressed
our opinion of the mode in which his worship the Mayor
has been recently attacked by the Whig-Radical press,
with respect to his alleged conduct in insisting upon the
right to invite the Rev. Hugh M'Neile to the forth-corn-
ing banquet at the Town Hail. Whilst writing the arti-
cle in question we were not informed of the facts of the
case; but presumed upon the Mayor's character as a
high-minded gentleman that the correct truth had not
beef conveyed to our contemporaries. We have since
been more fully informed, and proceed to give the genu-
ine version of the matter.

A list of names of parties thought most eligible for in-
vitation was placed before the committee assembled, in
strict privacy and confidence, to make a selection. Of
course, tone of these gentlemen anticipated that their re-
marks, upon the fitness of this or that individual, would
be conveyed to the public through the press. After going
through a portion of the list, including the two rectors,
the Rev. Mr. Bold and others, the committee came to the
name of the Rev. Hugh M'Neile. The M iyor did not
at all, as represented, use anything like dictation as to the
rev. gentleman. He stated that he did not see how his
name could be omitted after his services to the
charity, and left the matter entirely in the hands
of the committee by whom his invitation was unani-
mously agreed upon. A number of the names were
subsequently gone through, after which Mr. Rathbone
astonished the majority of the committee by proposing
that the two Roman Catholic Bishops of the district
should be invited. The attempt to fasten on the Mayor
alone the disinclination to invite these gentlemen, is
shamefully untrue. A large majority of the committee
ot,jected to their invitation as Bishops; and his Worship
frequently remarked, that be wished anything which fell
from him to be viewed only as a suggestion, as he was
desirous of merely carrying out the wishes of the com-
mittee. Mr. Rathbone was reminded that many members
of the Roman Catholic church were already invited, in-
cluding Mr. Weld, Mr. Blundell, Mr. Chaloner, and
others. Subsequently Mr. Rathbone attempted to mo-
dify his motion, by proposing their invitation as Doctors ;
but, eventually, finding himself in so small a minority
upon the point, he withdrew his motion. Mr. Earle's
proposal of Dr. Raffles was dismissed, without anything
like the feeling alleged being displayed by the Mayor,
who remarked that he had entertained the rev. doctor at
his own table, and was always ready to receive him there.
The rest of the statements promulgated with respect to
this matter are mere abvurdities, got up app tre,tly by
some ingenious and inventive brother of the quill. who,
having perhaps got a wind of what had occurred, was
good enough to supply the imaginative portion. One
part of these statements, as to the immense number of
returned cards and refusals to dine with the Mayor,
which are said to be lying on his worship's table, is
downright absurd. The invitations are nut yet issued
The cards, we believe, are not yet printed
Really, our contemporaries ought no

toldegrade

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