The life of George Stephenson, railway engineer - Lighthouse ...

470 RAILWAY SYSTEM AND ITS RESULTS.
ern). No less than four hundred and fifty allegations were made
against it before the Standing Orders Sub-Committee. That Sub-
Committee was engaged twenty-two days in considering those objec-
tions ; they ultimately reported that four or five of the allegations
were proved ; but the Standing Orders Committee, nevertheless, allowed
the bill to be proceeded with. Upon the second reading it was
supported by Sir Robert Peel, and had a large majority in its favour.
It then went into Committee. The Committee took sixty-three days
to consider it, and ultimately Parliament was prorogued, before the
Report could be made. Such were the delays and consequent ex-
penses which the forms of the House occasioned in this case, that it
may be doubted if the ultimate cost of constructing the whole line was
very much more than the amount expended in obtaining permission
from Parliament to make it.
This example will sho'vy the delays and difficulties with which Par-
liament surrounds railway legislation. Another instance will illustrate
the tendency of its proceedings to encourage competition. In 1845 a
Bill for a line now existing went before Parliament with no less than
eighteen competitors, each party relying on the wisdom of Parliament
to allow their bill at least to pass a second reading ! Judged by such
a case, the policy of Parliament really would seem to be to put the
public to expense, and to make costs for lawyers, and fees for officers.
Is it possible to conceive any thing more monstrous, than to condemn
nineteen different parties to one scene of contentious litigation ? Bear
in mind that every additional Bill received by Parliament entailed
additional expense, not only on the promoters of that one bill, but on
all the other eighteen competitors. They each and all had to bear the
costs, not of parliamentary proceedings upon one Bill, but of the par-
liamentary proceedings upon nineteen Bills. They had to pay not
only the costs of promoting their own line, but also the costs of opposing
eighteen other lines ! And yet, conscious as Government must
have been of this fact. Parliament deliberately abandoned the only step
it ever took, on any occasion, of subjecting railway projects to inves-
tigation by a preliminary tribunal.
Railways have suffered by Parliamentary legislation from other
causes. During every one of the twenty-five years that Parliament
has legislated on the subject, it has always had a crotchet. One of
these will be remembered by every Civil Engineer under the name
of the " Datum point," which, for many years, offered a fatal objection
to scores of projects. Perhaps some of the best proposals ever made
for the benefit of the Public fell through, because Parliament insisted
on its " Datum point." Yet there is not an Engineer in the kingdom