Joint Committee on Railway Rates.
In 1873 an attempt was made by the London and North-Western Railway to amalgamate with the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway. This aroused great indignation. Liverpool was already suffering severely from the high railway charges levied upon her commerce, and it was feared that the proposed amalgamation would increase these charges. Meetings were held, and in the end all the towns in Lancashire and Yorkshire were invited to join with Liverpool in opposing the scheme in Parliament. I was elected the chairman of this Joint Committee, and we inaugurated an active Parliamentary campaign. We induced Parliament to remit the bill to a joint Committee of Lords and Commons. The bill was thrown out, and our suggestion that a railway tribunal to try cases of unfair charges should be formed was accepted, and is now known as the Railway Commission; but by a strange irony of fate, it has become too expensive to be used by the users of the railways, and is now mainly occupied in settling differences between railway companies themselves.