AN EXPENSIVE PARLIAMENTARY BILL.
A writer in the Popular Encyclopædia observes:—“But the most conspicuous example in recent times, which overshadowed all others, of excessive expenditure in Parliamentary litigation as well as in land and compensation, is supplied in the history of the Great Northern Company. The preliminary expenses of surveys, notices to landowners, etc., commenced in 1844, and the Bill was introduced into the House of Commons in 1845, when it was opposed by the London and North-Western, the Eastern Counties, and the Midland Railways. It was further opposed successively by two other schemes, called the London and York and the Direct Northern. The contest lasted eighty-two days before the House of Commons, more than half the time having been consumed by opposition to the Bill. The Bill was allowed to stand over till next year (1846), when it began, before the Committee of the House of Lords, where it left off in the Lower House in the year 1845 on account of the magnitude of the case. The Bill was before the Upper House between three and four weeks, and in the same year (1846) it was granted. The promoters of the rival projects were bought off, and all their expenses paid, including the costs of the opposition of the neighbouring
lines already named, before the Great Northern bill was passed; and the ‘preliminary expenses,’ comprising the whole expenditure of every kind up to the passing of the bill was £590,355, or more than half-a-million sterling, incurred at the end of two years of litigation. Subsequently to the passing of the Act an additional sum of £172,722 was expended for law engineering expenses in Parliament to 31st December, 1857, which was spent almost wholly in obtaining leave from Parliament to make various alterations. Thus it would appear that a sum total of £763,077 was spent as Parliamentary charges for obtaining leave to construct 245 miles, being at the rate of £3,118 per mile.”