276 History of Inland Transport 



stone's Committee to meet the requirements of the situation, 

 was complete. In giving evidence before the Select Com- 

 mittee of 1 88 1, the secretary of the Board of Trade, Mr 

 T. Farrer (afterwards Lord Farrer), referring to the work of 

 Lord Dalhousie's department, said the reports made " were 

 very able, but they were thrown over immediately they got 

 to the House." When, he declared, the Board of Trade 

 had taken all the means in their power to make a full report, 

 " it was treated as waste paper. The Board might just as well 

 have made no report at all." On the other hand, he admitted 

 that the reports had not been of much actual value, the Board 

 of Trade having no power to call the parties before them and 

 take evidence. 



Apart from a feeling of jealousy entertained by members 

 in general and Private Bill Committees in particular towards 

 any curtailment of their powers, privileges and functions by 

 departmental officials, experience had shown that the Private 

 Bill Committees, after examining witnesses, getting expert 

 testimony and hearing counsel, were better able to ascertain 

 the facts of particular schemes than the special department, 

 while the latter had lost credit, also, on account of its recom- 

 mendations in regard to amalgamations. 



The first scheme of this kind on which it was asked to report 

 was one for an amalgamation between the Liverpool and 

 Manchester Railway, the Grand Junction Railway (from 

 Liverpool to Birmingham) and the North Union (from Warring- 

 ton to Preston). The Bill was opposed by public bodies and 

 traders in the leading towns of Lancashire, and Lord Dal- 

 housie's report favoured the opposition ; but the Select 

 Committee on the Bill nevertheless assented to an amalga- 

 mation which was, in effect, to lead to the creation of the 

 London and North- Western system of to-day. The depart- 

 ment also reported unsuccessfully in 1845 against the amalga- 

 mation of the Chester and Birkenhead with the^ Chester and 

 Holyhead Railway two other lines which were first united 

 to each other and then to the London and North- Western. 

 It further reported against various proposed amalgamations 

 and arrangements in the Midland Counties ; so that, as the 

 Report of the Select Committee of 1872 points out, the de- 

 partment would have objected strongly to such combinations 

 as the present London and North- Western Railway, the 



