sion of truth and the suggestion of untruth. The only matter which remains for me to notice is what he states in regard to the appointment of the Chairman's Committee; "the effect of which," he says, "has been exactly what every person knew that it would be, and was intended to be, viz. to arm Lord Redesdale with even greater 66 powers than he had before." 66 That directors who have acted, or who desire to act, illegally in regard to the affairs of the company entrusted to their charge, should dislike this Committee is natural, and from such a person, or from some follower, this attack most probably comes. The object I had in desiring the appointment of this Committee was stated by me when I proposed it to the House. I had found provisions in various Bills legalising most objectionable acts of directors, granting pre-preference without the consent of those affected by it, sanctioning the issue of dividend warrants bearing interest, or the borrowing money to pay dividends, and for other equally improper purposes, and that the promoters were almost universally successful in carrying them. If the Bill was opposed, it was very rarely so on these points, and a Committee can seldom be induced to attend properly to any provisions which are not objected to in the petitions referred to them; and if it was opposed on these points, or if the Committee inquired into them, though unopposed, the case was never fairly brought before them. The objection to these things rests on principle, and any counsel who might attempt to argue against them on such grounds would have his own speech in some other case in which he had advocated their adoption quoted against him by his opponent; and the Committees were further embarrassed by the number of precedents quoted for similar concessions, which were accumulating every session. If the Bill was really unopposed, to prevent its coming in regular course before me, a fictitious opposition was frequently got up. Under these circumstances I advised the House to appoint a Committee, on whom it could rely, to report on any provision in a Private Bill on which the Chairman of Committees thought it desirable that the House should receive such information before it passed. The reviewer admits that "it consists of some of the ablest members of the House;" and the names of the Duke of Somerset, the Earl of Stradbroke, Lord Colchester, Lord Portman, and Lord Stanley of Alderley (the majority not being even taken from my own political friends), must preclude any one who knows anything on the subject from believing for a moment that I intended, through their means, to secure to myself any authority which could be exercised contrary to the public advantage. Directors and others interested in the continuance of railway jobs see in this Committee a death-blow to their iniquities, and it is not surprising that one of them should be found to cry ou against it. The reviewer says, that "it was not long in falling into 66 one of those mistakes which the cleverest men in the world cannot "avoid when they undertake to decide causes without hearing them;" but he omits to quote the case, for the best possible reason, -because there is none. This Committee reported on three Bills, recommending certain 2 points to the particular consideration of the Committees on them in two cases, and desiring the objectionable clauses in the O. W. W. to be struck out, as before mentioned. One Bill only, the Norfolk Railway, they recommended should not be allowed to proceed. The preamble of this Bill stated that the Wells and Fakenham Railway having been unable to raise the whole of the funds necessary for the construction of the railway, certain directors of the Norfolk Railway, acting on behalf of the Company, subscribed for 1500 shares (30,0007.), in the Wells and Fakenham: that the Norfolk Company afterwards approved of and adopted such subscription, and that all calls hitherto made on the said shares had been paid out of the corporate funds of the Norfolk Company, and that it was expedient that the said shares should be transferred into the name of the Norfolk Company, and that the application of their corporate funds to the payment of the calls on such shares should be authorised and sanctioned. The report of the Committee states that "The Com"mittee find that the directors of the Norfolk Railway Company "subscribed for the said shares in the month of December, 1853; "that it is incorrectly stated in the preamble that the directors acted "in behalf of the company in subscribing for the said shares, as the "sanction of the company had never been obtained to such subscrip“tion; that in the Bill brought into Parliament in 1854 no mention was made of the fact that the directors had so subscribed, although "the notices published of the intention to apply for that Bill would "have enabled the promoters thereof to insert provisions therein sanctioning the course pursued by the directors; that no attempt I was made during the year 1855 to obtain the sanction of Parliament to the transaction; that prior to a meeting of the shareholders "held on the 15th July 1855, it was not stated in any printed report "of the proceedings of the directors that such a subscription had "been entered into; that the advertisements convening the said 66 meeting of the shareholders on the 15th July 1855, did not state "that the meeting was held for the purpose of considering the said "subscription by the directors, but merely to consider certain arrangements to be entered into with the Wells and Fakenham Railway Company; that all calls hitherto made on the said shares, amounting to more than one half of the amount subscribed for, "have been paid out of the corporate funds of the company by the "directors, who were well aware that they had no legal right to "make such payments, or to ask for and obtain from the shareholders any vote apparently sanctioning such payments." "The agents for the Bill were heard before the Committee, and the facts and dates in the report were taken from their statements and admissions. Several applications were made to me afterwards to allow the Bill to proceed, but in none of those communications to me was it asserted that we had been misinformed on, or had misunderstood, the facts of the case. 'The reviewer dislikes the control exercised over Bills by the Chairman of Committees. It is undoubtedly great, but I should fail in my duty to the House and to the public if I hesitated to de clare it indispensable that it should be so, in order to secure something like uniformity of practice, and to prevent the enactment of great enormities through the means of Private Bills. The power of the Chairman rests altogether on the confidence which the House places in the honesty and discretion of the Peer chosen to fill that most important office. The reviewer has sought to diminish that power. I thank him, for I feel that both with the House and the public the authority derived from a firm and impartial discharge of my duties will be increased by his attack. He has said the worst he could of me, without being even particular as to truth, and has totally failed to establish a case against me on any point. He is compelled to admit that " my services would be useful to the public, "and that I should be the right man in the right place, if I was put "under proper control, and it was intimated to me that my authority was entrusted to me for the benefit of the public;" and he further pays me the very high compliment of "acknowledging that my ad"ministration of my department is in many respects an improvement "on that of my predecessor, Lord Shaftesbury." I tell him that I am always under proper control; under the control of the House, of public opinion, and above all, of my own conscience, which assures me that my authority has never been exercised but for what I sincerely believed to be the public good; and that I decline all compliments from one who evidently considers that official experience and aptitude for business would well excuse a little dishonesty. 'I send this letter in full time to enable the reviewer to see it, and to deny anything that I have stated in it, if he can. I must, however, request that you will not admit a reply which enters into new matter or argument. He had his choice when he wrote the article, and selected, of course, those cases which he considered the strongest against me. The high character of your Review appeared to me to require a notice from me of such an attack, or at all events enabled me to notice it without lowering myself; but I cannot continue a contest with an anonymous assailant. 'I have the honour to be, 6 Sir, 'Your obedient Servant, 'To the Editor of the EDINBURGH REVIEW.' The tone of this communication is not precisely what we should have expected from such an antagonist, but Lord Redesdale is the best judge of the manner in which it becomes him to repel criticisms on the discharge of his public duties, and we shall not imitate his Lordship by affecting an acrimony which we do not feel. In truth, the remarks of which he conceives himself to be entitled to complain were not dictated by any want of personal consideration for himself, or by the remotest interest in the transactions to which we referred by way of example. But we hold it to be a matter of real public interest that the property of the nation should not be wasted by this clumsy, anomalous, and often irresponsible procedure; that the proceedings of the Legislature on Private Bills should not be so confused and vexatious as to exclude the adoption of any uniform system; and that the conduct of those who take a part in these transactions should be as free from all suspicion of arbitrary power as if they wore the ermine of our courts of justice. For these reasons we believe it to be highly expedient that public opinion, as represented by an independent Press, should exercise a more active control over these subjects; and since Lord Redesdale has taken this opportunity to pass an encomium on what he terms his firm and 'impartial discharge of his duties,' we hope that this discussion will strengthen him in the performance of his legitimate functions, by reminding him that they cannot be exceeded with entire impunity. The evidence, from which we borrowed the examples Lord Redesdale complains of, is to be found in the Minutes of the several Committees which have sat upon the rival Bills of these contending lines; and although copies of this evidence are made for the use of counsel and parties, these voluminous documents are not printed without a special order of the House. These materials not being before the public, it is not in his Lordship's power, or in our own, to verify either his or our version of these transactions by an appeal to printed records. Our statements were not made without a careful examination of this testimony; but we must decline to encumber our pages by a minute analysis of written evidence, which he himself, as Chairman of Committees, has not thought fit to print, although, as he himself states, this is not the first time that similar allegations have been made. To the public at large such topics must necessarily be uninviting; but we have the satisfaction of knowing that, to those who are professionally conversant with the business of Parliamentary Committees and Railway Legislation,' the justice of our strictures is sufficiently apparent. No. CCXV. will be published in July. INDEX. A Afghanistan, English expedition into, 270, et seq.-notice of Afghan- Africa, Spanish conquests in the North of, 11. Air, importance of the amount and purity of, in prolonging life, 69. Alva, Duke of, and his government of the Netherlands, 28. Arrian, remarks on his account of Alexander the Great, 308, et seq. Athanasius, Festal Letters of, 433, et seq. Atlantic Ocean, physical geography of the, 360-the Atlantic elec- Auto-de-fé of Valladolid, 24-5. B Bailey, Thomas, review of his 'Records of Longevity,' 46, et seq. Belgium under Spain, compared with the Belgium of our own Boswell, Letters of, review of the, 456, et seq.-history of the pub- Boyne, battle of the, 156-the MS. in the Littlecote collection re- Braxfield, Lord Justice Clerk, anecdotes of, 234, et seq.—his charge C Carlos, Don, son of Philip II. of Spain, 30. Carstairs, and Scotch affairs, 168. Catherine de Medicis, her character, 35. Census, the, of the United Kingdom, 55-the, of Vespasian, 60-the, |