THE RAILWAY COMMISSION.
IN dealing with the case of " The South-Eastern Railway Company v. the Railway Commissioners," in which judg- ment was given on Tuesday, it is very necessary to separate the claim of the Commissioners to make orders for the execution of structural works at railway stations, from the particular orders against which the Company appealed. Whether the Com- missioners exercised a wise discretion in requiring the Company to build what would almost have amounted to a new station at Hastings, is one thing. Whether it is for the public benefit that they have such a discretion, assuming it to be on the whole wisely used, is another thing. It is not wonderful that the Company were startled by the comprehensiveness of the improvements they were ordered to execute. The widening of the bridge by which the trains enter the station, a sub- stantial addition to the area of covered platform, an arrangement by which carriages may set down and take up under cover, and the provision of a refreshment-room and four new waiting-rooms, each at least twice as large as the largest of the present rooms, are improvements which would have made a large hole in the fund available for dividend, if the cost had been paid from this source, and have constituted an appreciable addition to the capital account, if fresh money had been raised to meet them. But the question which the Queen's Bench Division had to determine was in no way con- cerned with the character of this proceeding of the Commis- sioners. The case did not come before the Court on appeal from a particular order. The application of the Company was for a prohibition, by reason of the alleged incompetence of the Commissioners to make such orders. The Commissioners maintained that in directing these structural improvements at the Hastings Station, they were merely giving effect to a clause in the Railway Traffic Act of 1854, which directs that every Railway Company " shall afford all reasonable facilities for the receiving and forwarding, and delivering of traffic." It is unfortunate, as the Lord Chief Justice observed, that the Legislature should "have made use of language so uncertain and indefinite as the language of this enactment." This, however, is a familiar ground of lamentation, and con- sidering that the Railway Act is now more than a quarter of a century old, and that Parliament could not then have foreseen the present development of Railway travelling, it is by comparison a venial example of this too common tend- ency. The words that have been quoted were all that the Court had to guide them in applying the law to the facts, and it was only to be expected that the Judges should be divided in opinion. Mr. Justice Lush, who held that the Commis- sioners had the powers they claimed, rested his conclusion on the view of public policy which Parliament must be supposed to have taken. Before the Act of 1854 was passed, the Railway Companies were subject to no control in the matter of public accommodation. To remedy this deficiency the Railway Traffic Act was passed, and though the title and the preamble primarily had reference to the direction of traffic, Mr. Justice Lush thought that the enacting words went further, and applied also to the provision of due accommodation, and of the new works necessary for giving such accomodation.
To be able to get into the station and obtain a ticket without delay or inconvenience, and to get in and out of the trains with- out danger or exposure to weather, are included, in Mr. Justice Lush's opinion, under the head of " reasonable facilities for passenger traffic,"—and inasmuch as the existing station at Hastings does not give these facilities, he was prepared to up- hold the orders of the Commissioners.
The Lord Chief Justice and Mr. Justice Manisty place a narrower interpretation on the words of the Railway Traffic Act. In their natural sense, the former argued, the words "reasonable facilities" refer to the management of the traffic. They might be strained to mean almost anything, but the circumstances under which the Act was passed go to dis- prove any such extension. In 1854, traffic had not, as now, outgrown accommodation. " The mischiefs which had arisen were quite of a different character, and had arisen from the indisposition of the Companies to co-operate in effecting through communication, or from a disposition to unfair preference of particular persons or classes to the prejudice of others, and it was to these mischiefs the Act was pointed." The Legislature, says Mr. Justice Manisty, in- tended to make the Railway Companies use all the powers they possess to facilitate traffic. The Commissioners, in dealing with the South-Eastern Company, have gone further than this, and have called upon them to increase these powers. If the Commissioners could compel a railway company to build a new station, why might it not compel it to convert a single line into a double one ? There cannot, we fear, be much doubt that this interpretation of the Act is the correct one. If the provision of reasonable facilities for traffic includes the build- ing of new and roomy stations, Parliament must be held to have meant a great deal more than it said. Whether it ought to have meant more than it said, is a different matter, but it is very hard to believe that such very general words were designed to include large structural alterations in the buildings belonging to the Company. We say "we fear" that this is the right interpretation of the Act, because our sympathies are far more with the Com- missioners than with the Railway Companies. Public carriers who have practically a monopoly of the right of carrying you, ought to be under some direction other than that of their own self-interest. That ought, no doubt, to be unerring, but in fact it is as liable to go wrong as any other emotion. But in this case, it certainly seems not only that the Commissioners have not been invested with the powers they claim, but that it would be a little difficult to persuade Parliament to remedy the omission. Let us suppose that a coach proprietor were directed to provide reasonable facilities for carrying passengers from one town to another, such an order would naturally relate to the times at which he started his coach, to the number of stoppages on the-road, and to the fares charged for the journey. But it would not naturally include the building of large waiting-rooms for the accommodation of passengers before the starting of the train, or the conversion of the coach itself into an omnibus, in order to accommodate the in- creasing number of travellers. If the proprietor saw his way to making these improvements profitable, he would probably do what was desired without an order. If he did not see his way to making these improvements except at a loss, it could hardly be the intention of the Legislature to pro- pose the increased outlay upon him by way of fine. The same kind of reasoning may be applied to the case of a Railway Company. Undoubtedly they have a large share in a valuable monopoly, and in so far as it is possible for the Legislature to make them administer this valuable monopoly in a manner convenient to the public, it is quite right that compulsion should be applied. But this will not bear us out in insisting on changes which would make the monopoly cease to be valu- able. Such an order as the Commissioners made in the case of the South-Eastern Railway Company might conceivably in- volve a very large reduction of dividend, and we do not quite see why even a Railway Company should be compelled to give facilities for travelling which are inconsistent with the pay- ment of a fair interest on the capital invested in the concern. It is of great importance that the Railway Commission should be strengthened and made permanent, as it is almost the only buffer interposed between the public and a powerful and often arrogant interest. But the public would not gain in the long- run by a provision of which the first result would be that prudent shareholders would sell their property as quickly as they could.
Previous page
