Report of the Railway Department of the Board of Trade on the London, Worcester, and Wolverhampton, and on the Birmingham and Shrewsbury Districts

by Great Britain. Board of Trade. Railway Department

During the recent frost and easterly winds the price of coals in London has been as high as 40s. per ton; and during the winter the price frequently exceeds 30s. for coals of ordinary quality. When we consider how materially the comfort of all classes, more especially of those in humble circumstances, depends on a regular supply of cheap coal, and also how much the employment of industry is affected by the same circumstances, and when we bear in mind that a saving of every shilling per ton on the average consumption of the Metropolis is equivalent to an annual saving to its inhabitants of 150,000l., it is impossible not to appreciate the importance of insuring low rates of charge upon the principal Railways which are in connexion with the great inland coal fields.

In other respects also we think that the introduction of a system of moderate charges upon the London and Birmingham and its tributary Railways, will be calculated to afford great advantage to important commercial interests, and to the community at large, while we see every reason to hope that it will not be unproductive of benefit to the Company itself. We must remember, however, that this latter point is, to a certain extent, experimental, and that it is highly important to obtain voluntarily from the Company guarantees of a permanent character.

It must not be forgotten that, without some arrangement of this sort, the Company, if so disposed, has a perfect legal right to resort to charges so high as greatly to inconvenience the Public, and that, under an altered state of things, with a depressed money-market, and all fear of immediate competition removed, it is by no means certain that it might not find it for its interest to do so.

We have also the authority of the Select Committee of last Session for attaching great importance to the prospective guarantee, for the future, in the shape of options of revision or purchase, which are now voluntarily offered by one of the first Railway Companies in the kingdom, whose line could not be, otherwise than by their own consent, subjected to the operation of any conditions not contained in their original Act.

On the whole, therefore, when we consider on the one hand the superior advantages afforded by the London and Birmingham scheme in itself, and by the adoption of the narrow gauge, and on the other the great advantages offered by the London and Birmingham Company, in connexion with it, over their whole system, and the ample guarantees given against any possible abuses of monopoly, we can arrive at no other conclusion than that the scheme promoted by that Company is preferable on public grounds to the competing scheme, which is inferior in itself, and which holds out no such collateral advantages.

Having already referred to the Shrewsbury, Wolverhampton, Dudley, and Birmingham scheme, as connected, in a great measure, with those between Worcester and Wolverhampton, it will be convenient to include this scheme in the present Report.

We have stated that the general question involved in the comparison of this scheme with the competing line proposed by the Grand Junction Company is, that the latter joins the Grand Junction line at Wolverhampton, and thus affords no accommodation to the mineral district between Wolverhampton and Birmingham.

If the views which we have stated in regard to the importance of opening up this district by Railway communication are correct, this consideration alone is sufficient to give a decided preference to the more extended scheme. It also appears to us, that to entrust the branch to Shrewsbury to the Grand Junction Company would be open to the objection which we have stated in our previous Report upon the South Eastern schemes, when discussing the general policy of giving a preference to lines proposed by existing Companies for the accommodation of adjoining districts, viz. that there may be danger in giving such preference where the scheme proposed by the existing Company, although insufficient for the complete accommodation of the district to be provided for, may yet

be sufficient to throw impediments in the way of other parties coming forward with more extensive schemes.

A line to Shrewsbury, in the hands of the Grand Junction Company, would manifestly be not unlikely to be used for the purposes of protection against competition, rather than of encouragement to Extensions beyond Shrewsbury, and to the legitimate development of the traffic. It appears to us, therefore, that, under the peculiar circumstances of the case, the fact of the Shrewsbury and Birmingham line being promoted by a substantial and independent local party, is a legitimate ground of preference, in addition to that already pointed out, of the superior advantages afforded by the independent line to the populous mining district between Wolverhampton and Birmingham.