Mr. Bright's tendency to support the tradesman against the community,
which came out so strongly in the discussion on false weights and measures, was apparent again in a little debate of Friday. An Act was passed last year ordering Railway Com- panies to provide some means of communication between the carriages and the guard. Six months were given to them to comply with the Act, but of course the Directors treated it with contempt. By 1st April, the day fixed, nothing had been done, whereupon the Board of Trade, whose function is not to help, but to coerce these men, extended their term of graceto the 1st August, by which date Mr. Bright thought that "so far as he knew" the Act had been complied with. The idea that the use of Governments is to secure obedience to laws, by force when necessary, seems scarcely to have occurred to the President, who in the same speech took occasion to denounce the fines levied on Railways as compensation for accidents as unjust and excessive. Unjust, we believe, they very often are, the whole of the evidence sometimes being false ; but that is the result of our confidence in juries, and excessive they are not. Unless the fines are heavy enough to affect dividends the Directors will laugh at them, as they do at the passengers, the public, and the law.
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