336 ATTACK^ BY RAILWAY COMPANIES. 



with expropriation of parts of their areas by railway 

 companies or local authorities, but fortunately these 

 attempts have almost always been defeated. 



In 1877 a determined effort was made by the 

 railway companies to prevent interference with their 

 schemes in this respect. A proposal came before 

 Parliament on behalf of the London and Brighton 

 Kail way, to make a branch line through the centre 

 of Mitcham Common, severing it in two and taking 

 eight and a half acres for the purpose of the line 

 a project which would have practically ruined the 

 Common. 



I moved the rejection of this Bill on its second 

 reading. The railway companies gathered together 

 all their force of directors in the House. They were 

 supported by the Government whips, and by the Chair- 

 man of Committees. They defeated the motion by 

 143 to 100. The majority was mainly composed of 

 railway directors. They only achieved this victory by 

 agreeing to waive objection to the locus standi of the 

 inhabitants of Mitcham to be heard before the Select 

 Committee. As a result of their evidence, the Com- 

 mittee rejected this part of the proposals of the 

 Company, and the Common was saved. * In the same 

 year the Croydon Local Board proposed in a Bill to 



* It has frequently been the case, as in this instance, that a 

 motion on second reading, though rejected by the House on a division, 

 has saved the Common or open space threatened by the Bill,, by 

 leading to the subsequent rejection or amendment of the Bill by the 

 Select Committee. 



