The President of the Board of Trade has brought in
a very dull 'but, as we suspect, very important Bill, to prevent the great carrying companies, railways, and canals from worrying each other and the public. Those companies are bound by the Act of 18.54 to afford reasonable facilities for receiving and forwarding traffic without favouritism, but they do not obey the law, and the Board of Trade, with its present machinery, cannot make them -do it. It cannot, for instance, prevent the railways from coercing the canals into amalgamation by failure to deliver
their goods, and other annoyances. It will be still less able after the amalgamations now tetpectecl, while the failure will be still more important to 'the public, which may be placed under an ineupportable tyrattay. Mr. Fortescue's Bill, therefore, appoints a Board of three Commissioners, one of whom must have legal and one railway experience, and confers on them all the powers ad hoc of the Board of Trade. The "Railway Interest," we predict, will fight that Bill very stoutly, and we rather hope they will succeed. The more unbearable they make themselves the quicker we shall be rid of them, and of the National Debt, which the railways, if they belonged to the State, would one day pay.
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