METROPOLITAN COMMUNICATIONS.
The Select Committee moved for last session, by Mr. Jackson, to con- sider the state of the communications in and to the Metropolis, had larger scope than the inquiry conducted in the session of 1854 under the chairmanship of Mr. Oliveira. Mr. Oliveira's Committee was limited in the main to the deficiency of bridge communication; and the opinion arrived at was that the number of bridges should be increased, that some of the existing structures should be widened, and that the toll-paying bridges should be set free; the ways and means for accomplishing this last object to be derived from the impracticable-looking source of " a rate over the districts to be more immediately benefited."
Mr. Jackson's Committee included in its inquiry bridge, street, road, and river communication; and its finding is,
" That the requirements of the existing traffic of the Metropolis far exceed the present facilities provided for it ; that the rapid increase of that traffic is constantly adding to the amount of inconvenience and loss thus caused; that, enormous as the increase has been, it is and must continue to be kept se- riously in check by the want of means for its natural expansion."
The numerous projectors of schemes for rectifying this untoward state of things duly made their appearance ; and, amidst so much that was novel and of dazzling promise, the Committee did not see their way clearly to a decision upon the relative merits. They rest satisfied with some general conclusions, and the accumulation of information and plans bearing upon their inquiry. Persons of a speculative turn of mind, ca- pable of comprehending from drawings all conceivable modes of convey- ance, personal and mercantile, through the Metropolis, cannot do better than purchase the Committee's Report. Mr. Tite, the Reverend Walter Blunt, Mr. Bennoch, Mr. George Taylor, Mr. Thomas Taylor, Mr. Pennethorne, Mr. Charles Pearson, Mr. Hawksbaw, Mr. Lionel Gisborne, Mr. Moseley, and Sir Joseph Paxton, appear as witnesses and con- tributors of plans. The Committee have evidently a leaning towards Sir Joseph's proposals- " Sir Joseph Paxton's plan for a grand girdle railway and boulevard under glass, with shops and houses attached, crossing the river three times,—once a little way above Southwark Bridge, a second time between Waterloo and Hungerford Bridge, in connexion with a branch from the New Cut to Re- gent's Circus, and again near Lambeth Palace. This vast scheme contem- plates reaching all the railways coming into London • the connexion with the Shoreditch and London Bridge stations being effected by short branches. It possesses in its details, as will be found; on a reference to Sir Joseph's evidence, many features of remarkable novelty."
The Committee recommend the encouragement of private enterprise in effecting improvements as often as is practicable ; and where this principle cannot be applied, the raising of funds by a local rate over the Metropoli- tan district. The bridges might be emancipated from the tolls, and the approaches improved. As regards the practical carrying out of im- provements, the Committee place their main reliance upon the powers to i be brought into action by the intended Metropolitan Board of Works.
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