264 History of Inland Transport 



Mr G. C. Glynn, chairman of the London and Birmingham 

 Railway, in a speech (at a meeting of his company) quoted 

 by Francis, protested in the following terms : " Then comes 

 the last item of local taxes and parochial rates ; these, 

 gentlemen, we do take exception to. ... The county assessors 

 and the parties to whom appeal from them is made seem 

 actuated by one principle, namely, to extract every farthing 

 they can from the railway property. We ask no boon, we 

 ask for no favour from Government on this subject ; but we 

 do ask for justice." 



The railways had to submit to the taxation, but they won 

 the day as against certain excessive and, as they considered, 

 intolerable demands made upon them by or on behalf of the 

 Post Office. 



In 1838, based on the recommendations of a Select Com- 

 mittee of the House of Commons on the transmission of 

 mails by railway, the Government introduced a Bill which, 

 in effect, placed the entire railway system of the country, 

 then and for all future time, at the command and under 

 the supreme control of the Postmaster-General. That func- 

 tionary was empowered by the Bill to call upon the railway 

 companies to provide him with at their own cost special 

 or ordinary trains for carrying the mails at any hour of the 

 day or night, proceeding at such speed, and calling or not 

 calling at such places, as he might direct, the companies 

 giving security to the Queen by bond for duly complying with 

 all Post Office orders, and being made liable to a penalty of 

 20 in respect to every railway officer, servant or agent, who 

 might disobey any Post Office order. If the Post Office wished 

 to use its own engines and conveyances it was to be at liberty 

 to do so without paying any rates or tolls whatever ; and it 

 was, also, to be free to clear away any obstructions to its 

 engines, and use any of the railway company's appliances it 

 wanted. The railway companies were, in return, to be assured 

 a " fair remuneration " for (in effect) the wear and tear of 

 the rails ; but, lest this payment might be too much for the 

 Post Office, the Postmaster-General was further authorised 

 to recoup himself by carrying, not simply the mails, but 

 passengers, in the trains he might think fit to command or to 

 run, thus competing on the railway lines with the companies 

 whose property he was virtually to annex. 



