336 ATTACKS 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 
Railway, 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. 
