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THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



[March, 



system of Irish railways laid out by the commissioners, to be an 

 extremely defective and objectionable one, as to the distribution of 

 this intercommunication by railways through the soutlierti division of 

 Ireland, as far al regards the connecting- of the cities of Dublin, Kil- 

 kenny, Limerick, and Cork ; although the royal commissioners had 

 before them a very sen-sible and also an ably written |)a|)er by a gen- 

 tleman of the name of Sinclair, who seems to have studied the subject 

 of railways with deep attention. He states in his letter addressed to 

 I'eter Barlow, printed in the Railway Report Appendix, A. No. 12, 

 page 83, in which the following paragraph is to be found : — 



" In laying out great or general lines of railway through a country, 

 my experience of the system generally leads me to think, that it would 

 be extremely desirable to carry such main lines so near to considerable 

 towns as to siipcrsei/e the nece.iKilj/ of branches." 



Let us hear what the royal commissioners say on this subject : — 

 " It is not by selecting a line to some large town, and conferring upon 

 it the imposing title of a grand trunk line, that the object for which we 

 are contending is to be accomplished." Tlien, was it wrong to have 

 connected Liverpool, Birmingham, and London together by one main 

 line ? Was it wrong to have connected Bristol and London by one 

 direct main line, and titled it the Great "Western y Nothing, in our 

 opinion, is better than to have large cities at the termini of railways. 



The system of railways which have been proposed in the south of 

 Ireland by the Irish Railway Commissioners, has evidently been copied 

 from a small map of Ireland, containing a proposed project for making 

 a main line of railway between tlie harbours of Kingstown and 

 Valentia; the map is dated London, May, 183.), and carries the sig- 

 natureof the person tlien engineerto'theDublin and Kingstown Railway 

 Company ; and to the activity of some of the members of that company 

 has fame assigned so great an influence in the councils of the late Irish 

 Railway Commission, not only in the drawing up of parts of the 

 report itself, but also in the selection of the railway lines, as will 

 ajipear by the small map alluded to ; and so highly injurious did this 

 appear to some of the individuals in higli aiitliurity, that part of the 

 report which had appeared in the liist numbers printed, was altogether 

 suppressed in those which subsequently appeared, and this gave rise 

 to a discussion in the House of Commons, to wliich the Chancellor of 

 the Exchequer was not able to give a satisfactory reply. Tliis trans- 

 action alone is strong presumptive evidence of the partiality and 

 favouritism which has characterized the proceedings of the Royal Irish 

 Kailway Commission. 



We have been not a little surprised to find that one of the engineers 

 who had advocated and laid out the line of railway from Dublin to 

 Belfast, by Newry, along the sea shore, called the coast line of railway, 

 appears also as the engineer and advocate for the railway commissioners' 

 inland line extending from Dublin to Armagh and B'eldist. The in- 

 land line of railway is well known to be the avowed and open opponent 

 of the coast line of railway : we conceive this proceeding to be cer- 

 tainly an anomaly in the jurisprudence of civil engineering. It is 

 beyond our comprehension how a professional man could conscientiously 

 reconcile to himself such a proceeding, or continue to possess that 

 respect due to the integrity of his character, in becoming the professional 

 advocate of a competing line, destructive we should think to the in- 

 terests of the Coast Line Company, by whom he was originally em- 

 ployed. On this subject we have already, in a very forcible manner, 

 expressed our opinion that no engineer in the employment of any of 

 the Irish railway companies should liave been employed by the com- 

 missioners in laying out railways in Ireland, that they should have been 

 careful to have kept themselves free fiom any hercalter observations 

 which might be made as to such a proceeding ; but.tliis fair and straight- 

 forward course could not be done in Ireland, no, not even by a royal 

 railway commission ; their proceedings could not be conducted 

 without an open exhibition of partiality and lavouritism by the employ- 

 ment both in tlie south and also in the north of the engineers of various 

 competing and rival railway companies in Ireland. 



It appears that two systems of railways have been laid out through 

 the south of Ireland by the professional engineers employed by the 

 commissioners ; one to please tlie Royal Irish Railway Commissioners, 

 the oth'.r to please thecompanies—thosesystems being at uttervariance 

 with each other ; we ask would it not be proper to have those im- 

 portant differences first examined and investigated, and then decided by 

 an impartial tribunal, composed of the highest engineering authority 

 winch could he found, totally unconnected with either the Rojal Irish 

 railway proceedings, or those of any existing Irish railway companies 

 in Ireland. 



It is remarkable that although Mr. Nimmo, Mr. Telford, Mr. Bald, 

 Mr. Stephenson, and other eminent engineers who were professionally 

 employed in Ireland, to report on railroads, and ttiat their reports 

 '^•^"'' V'-i' an income profit would be derived from them often, twelve, 

 axid thirteen per cent.; yet, the Irish Railway Commissioners have not 



noticed those statements and valuable reports. Further it appears by a 

 printed report of .Mr. Griffiths (one of the railway commissioners) on 

 the proposed Limerick and Cork railway, that it would pay a profit of 

 1 1 J per cent., wliile on the other hand it deserves notice that the Irish 

 Haihv.ay Commissioners state that the suggested lailways in Ireland 

 will only pay from .'!} to 4 per cent. 



" And throngii whose agency do the railway commissioners arrive at 

 this conclusion? Why they employ Mr. Stanley, of the Stamp-oflice, 

 to make their calculations ; a person well qualified to close bankrupt 

 books, and give the balance whichever way the parties pleased." — Mr. 

 O'Comieirn Speech ; House of Commoim, :iOlh Jiilj/, 1838. And who 

 has since been promoted to be Secretary to the Irish Poor Law Com- 

 missioners through the influence of the Chairman of the Grand Canal 

 Company. 



A cry h.is been set up by the jobbers in public money that Ireland is 

 not able to maintain railroads. It may be observed that it has not yet 

 been shown by any kind of well grounded facts, that such is tlie case. 

 Because, the Kingstown Railway has been finished by private enter- 

 prise, aided by a loan from the state. The Ulster and Drogheda 

 Railways are in progress of execution, and so would the Dublin and 

 Kilkenny Railway, if it had not been checked in its course by the 

 unfortunate publication of the Irish Railway Report, and also the 

 Dublin and Limerick Railway. In all of which British capitalists had 

 joined with the Irish companies, being perfectly satisfied, from accurate 

 calculations, of a profitable result. Scotland has alreadv made five 

 railways, and there are five or six more in progress of execution in 

 that country. And really we think that Ireland ought to be as well 

 able to make her own railways by private enterprise, aided by Britisli 

 capital, as Scotland, if the public companies who have projected those 

 works be not inteifered with by tlie state. 



Have not all the Steam Navigation Companies in Ireland been 

 eminently successful ? and are there not fleets of steamers sailing con- 

 stantly from Cork, Waterfbrd, Wexford, Dublin, Droglieda, Dundalk, 

 Newry, Belfast, and Londonderry to the ports of Great Britain ? Has 

 not the Dublin Steam Packet (^'ompany alone raised five hundred 

 thousand pounds sterling? And is not that company as well as all the 

 others in a prosperous condition ; these well attested facts speak 

 volumes as to what private enterprise could effect in Ireland, z/' it be 

 nut shackled Uij stale monoplij, but aided and assisted by judicious 

 loans from the Government, or as recommended by a Select Committee 

 of the House of Commons in 183.J. 



As a high authority of tlie value of private enterprise applied to 

 public undertakings, we beg to quote the following observations of Dr. 

 Bowring : — 



" Dr. Bowring observed, there appeared to him to be a unanimous 

 feeling in favour of the communication by the Red Sea. At present it 

 was most imperfectly carried on ; but by the formation of such a com- 

 pany as that proposed, it would be greatly improved. An objection 

 had been offered to the proposed plan of its being left to a private 

 company, but that it should be taken up by the Government. He had 

 always thought that English commerce had spiead to the extent that it 

 had owing toils being /c^ toprivate enterprise, and that it was desirable 

 that it should be as independent of the Government as possible. It was 

 in this spirit that the French merchants replied to the great minister of 

 the day, when he asked what he could do for their advantage, when they 

 said, ' Leave us alone.' (Hear, hear, hear.)" — Steam Communication 

 with India. Public Meeting held at the London I'uvern, Hishoparjate- 

 street, Jan. ISth, 1839. 



Looking at the total exclusion of central Ireland, and the whole pro- 

 vince of Connaught, from railway intercommunication by the commis- 

 sioners, and at the imperfect and objectioiml system of railways laid out 

 by them, both in the south and in the north of Ireland — again, at the 

 numerous errors existing in the commissioners' maps, sections, levels, 

 and gradients — fully authorises us in declaring tliat they present a mass 

 of inaccuracies unequalled in any work that has yet been published 

 under executive authority by any state in Europe. The Report is 

 deficient as an exposition of Ireland's manufacturing industry ; of her 

 internal traffic ; the amount of her agricultural produce; her mineral 

 wealth ; her lake and river water power; the extent of her improvable 

 wastes and sea lands : the value of her sea, river, and lake fisheries ; 

 the number of her steam-boats, &c. ; the extent of her coal and peat 

 fuel; her lake and river navigations ; the revenue of her chief towns, 

 &c. Nor does it appear that any correct geological survey has been 

 made of any one of the Irish counties; althougli a coloured map has 

 been piiblisiied by the railway commissioners, as if it really had been 

 the result of an examination of the whole of the Irish strata, but tliis 

 document is incorrect. 



The etfect of the Railway Commissioners' Report, clothed as it is 

 with an official carb, has been to engender doubts in the minds of Bri- 

 tish capitalists as to tlie returns which they iiad previously expected 



