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mentary experience had it been his happiness - he thought he might almost add, never had it been the happiness of any other man'-to lay before a committee a scheme which was able to stand so entirely on its own merits, and which needed so little encomium or explanation from him as the scheme which he now begged to introduce to their notice. He should, indeed, feel that he was offering an insult to the judgment of the committee if he dwelt on the advantages of the line which he had the honour to advocate, otherwise than in the most cursory manner. Gentlemen of the bar, he knew, did not always get credit for superfluous modesty in the acceptance of their honorarium; but certainly when he received his brief and saw the liberal retaining fee which was marked upon it he had said to himself, Now am I justified in taking this case up, where my services are really not wanted, and where the bill could hardly fail to pass without a word said, or a witness called in its favour?" He assured the comImittee that he had felt these serious scruples of conscience at undertaking a work which he felt to be, if they would allow the use of the metaphor, a gilding of refined gold, and an adding of perfume to-certainly he could scarcely compare a railway bill to a violet, but he might say to-to a scheme which was already in perfectly good odour.

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Briefly, then, he would say, that the line which his clients, whom he was sure he was hardly premature in already calling the North Cymry Railway Company, proposed to construct was to be of the length of about 52 miles. The capital, which they proposed to raise by shares, was 500,000l., and the further amount which they proposed to borrow was 166,6677. With these sums and the increased value of surplus property which they might have to dispose of hereafter he anticipated that they

*The solicitor certainly did hint that the learned serjeant objected to receive his brief, which was marked two hundred guineas. But he added that the objection was no longer made when this was altered to two hundred and fifty guineas.

would have so considerable a surplus fund on hand that it was not improbable the company would, in a few years, come again for powers to construct one or two short branches without asking for any additional capital whatever. At present, however, the feeling of the gentlemen who had subscribed the share list was, that they should put their undertaking at once and for ever out of the way of pecuniary embarrassment, and so he asked for power to raise a capital somewhat larger than the amount for which it was absolutely certain the line would be constructed. [Here Mr. Phibber, Q.C., the leader on one of the rival schemes, shakes his head and says, 'Oh, oh!' mournfully.]

He overheard his learned friend groaning, and saw that he was shaking his head in a way that must be dangerous for the fine ideas which were inside it, if, indeed, it did not quite addle them. But he could easily understand that his learned friend must feel painfully the contrast that he saw in the projects which they respectively advocated.

The town of Malley-Vron, as was already within the knowledge of the committee, though at present destitute of railway accommodation, would soon (independent of the schemes now waiting their decision) no longer be so. The line to it from Pont-Uyn was already nearly completed by the Grand Trunk Company. The question now at issue, therefore, was by whom, and by what route should the railway system be extended southward into the principality. And he had no wish to keep back the fact that this again was not merely a question between two or three small companies. For though his clients were perfectly independent, they did not wish to conceal that they were in close alliance with the Great Southern Company, and that they designed their line to be worked by that company, and in that company's interest. the other hand, the three rival schemes with which they were met, were avowedly Grand Trunk schemes, and supported by Grand Trunk capital. The committee would find, therefore, that prac

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tically the issue which they had to decide was, whether the territory of North Wales was to be handed over to the Grand Trunk Company, whose main lines were palpably inconvenient for connection with it, and who wanted it merely from a grasping dog-in-the-manger policy; or whether it was to be confided to the care of the Great Southern Company, whose lines already embraced nearly all its borders, and whose natural interests were already bound up with those of the district they sought to serve.

He was not there, however, to advocate Great Southern interests or Great Southern policy, but would address himself to the consideration of their project as a local line. And first he would ask the committee to consider the urgent necessity there was of giving an outlet southward to the rapidly developing trade of the town of Malley-Vron, which outlet his clients proposed to give first by a junction with the Great Southern line at Llangwfil, and, second, by their main line to Brynffrood. He would call witnesses to prove how greatly the want of such an outlet was felt locally, and how seriously it affected the commercial interests of the rapidly rising town which they had selected as their starting terminus,-if he might be allowed to make the palpable bull so common in railway phraseology of calling a starting-point a terminus. He would also call witnesses who had embarked large sums of money in the great industrial works which existed along the route which they proposed to take. He would call the proprietor of the immense and well-known brick and tile works of Eyton-Brymbo, who was at present, for want of means of transport, compelled to make his trade comparatively a local one. He would call the owners of the great iron-ore works of Mæsy-unwin and EbbwWem. He would call the noble proprietor of the world-renowned slate quarries of Llan-y-ffrog, and Savan-y-Rhyg, of which the committee had heard so much.

Lord Marmion here interrupts the learned serjeant to say he has never in his life heard of any of these

places. Viscount Wygram looks much relieved at this, he having apparently begun to fear that somehow he has overlooked a most important district of country.

Serjeant Blarney asked if anything could possibly strengthen his case more than this remark of his lordship's. Here were the teeming industries and the busy populations of the places which he had named going on year after year increasing in numbers, in extent, and in value, and yet so entirely were they isolated from the rest of the world for want of that railway accommodation, which had become to commerce as vital as the air we breathe is to ourselves, that even his lordship had to this day never heard of them. After such a testimony he would leave the local case, as regarded these towns, in the hands of the unimpeachable witnesses whom he should have the honour to call before the committee. There was, however, still the town of Malla with its famous lakes, and their southern terminus Bryn-ffrood, both places dear to all tourists, and which it was the object of his clients to make accessible to many thousands who otherwise might never see them. For he was sure the committee would agree with him, that however charming to those with plenty of time and plenty of money might be the idea of pedestrian excursions in this beautiful country of North Wales, there were a vast majority who had but scant leisure and shallow purses, and with whom considerations touching their poor feet and their poor pockets must always have great weight, and whose love of the beauties of nature, and whose finer feelings could only

'Shut that door,' roars Lord Marmion.

Mr. Wigsby, our junior, takes advantage of this interruption to make one or two remarks to the learned serjeant. His lordship enters into a private conversation, apparently of a jocular tendency, wth Sir Wm. Chandler. Two or three other members of the committee who have been much engaged with sherry and sandwiches become suddenly interested in the proceedings, their

attention being aroused by the cessation of the sound of the serjeant's voice. The learned serjeant takes breath, and also snuff, and waits very patiently till the noble chairman says, 'Now, Mr. Blarney, where had you got us to?'

The learned serjeant never finishes that eloquent sentence on which he was engaged, but starts a new theme. He had, he said, been given to understand that his learned friends on the opposite side, with a valour worthy of a better cause, intended to raise objections to the length of tunneling which his clients proposed to construct on the route of their railway. They proposed also, he was told, to take similar objections to certain proposed gradients and radii. But he hoped this was not correct, as he should much regret that the time of the committee should be taken up to so little purpose. At the same time, he should feel it necessary to have engineering evidence ready of a character quite unimpeachable.

Then perhaps he might be expected, before he sat down, to say something regarding the three rival schemes which were put forward as an alternative to the project he had the honour of advocating. But

really he waited in dumb amazement to hear first by what possible flight of imaginative genius anything could be said in their favour.

He

was disarmed from attack, not because he found no point of attack, but because he could see no possible defence. He felt that if he spoke against these poor abortions, he should be doing a no more valiant act than to push down a decrepit old man, or to strike a man who was down already. He would merely point out the nature of the country which these lines proposed to traverse. Why, gentlemen, it might be doubted whether it could ever be said of it with truth, that 'every rood of ground maintained its rat,' so barren was it and uninhabited. It was a district in which there was no traffic to carry and no passenger to travel. It was probably this latter consideration which had weighed with the projectors in drawing up their schemes. If they had thought it at

all probable that they would ever have a passenger to carry, his friends would never have come before Parliament with a route made up of petty junction-lines over which no one of the three applying companies would have power to work a through train. It was clear, however, that the contingency of a passenger presenting himself who wanted to go from one end of the route to the other had been thought so remote, that it was not worth while providing for it.

"In conclusion,' says the learned serjeant (and thereupon his lordship, the chairman, looks pleased), 'I feel that it is quite unnecessary for me to enlarge upon the shameless manner in which these three' vexatious and senseless projects have been intruded on the legislature, but I will just remark

And now Lord Marmion looks very sad again. For his lordship knows, from long experience, that when a learned serjeant says he find it quite unnecessary to enlarge,' that learned serjeant is just about to enlarge at very great length indeed. So his lordship lays himself back in his chair, folds his arms, and waits with resignation. And Serjeant Blarney finds so many matters on which he considers it quite unnecessary to enlarge, and he really does enlarge upon them all to that degree, that when at last he sits down, the committee instantly rises up. In fact, our serjeant, who begins by saying he has nothing to say, occupies exactly the whole of the first day in saying it, so it is evident how little even of the outline of his arguments is given here.

'We meet again at eleven tomorrow,' says the chairman, as we all put away our papers, and disperse with as much noise as a pack of urchins leaving school.

Punctually as the clock strikes eleven on the morrow, the chairman steps into the room, as if he had been waiting at the door, and business is resumed at once by the examination of witnesses on our behalf.

Our first witness is the proprietor of extensive coal mines, which will be well accommodated by our scheme, and which are at present without

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railway accommodation of any kind. The question of getting a railway to his collieries is to this gentleman a question probably of quadrupling his trade within a year or two. The number of men whom he employs; the amount he pays in weekly wages; the number of tons of coal which he raises per annum; the limited districts to which he supplies this coal; the number of men whom he could employ, and the number of tons which he could raise and sell if he had the means of railway transit;-all this is elaborately brought out, and perhaps a trifle exaggerated. All his evidence, of course, is as strongly in our favour as he knows how to make it, and cross-examination does not materially shake it.

After him we have the brick and tile makers, the iron-ore people, several large landed proprietors (a real duke amongst them), cornfactors, provision merchants, an agricultural machine-maker, a hotelkeeper, a grocer, a chemist, a gentleman farmer or two, a brewer, even a clergyman, owners of stone quarries, with many others of trades, professions, callings, and stations, too various to mention. But as these local witnesses are rarely either examined or cross-examined at any great length, they are turned off pretty rapidly, and do not attract much attention. Local evidence, indeed, though sometimes the most valuable of any, is always considered as merely preliminary to the sort of evidence on which the fighting takes place. We get through the whole of our rural magnates on the second day, and we do not consider it neces-⚫ sary to give any of their evidence in detail here.

We open the third day with our scientific evidence. First we call our local engineer, who has laid out the line. He speaks to the extremely practical nature of the route which he has selected. He admits that there is a gradient of 1 in 46, and another of in 50; but they are only short, and the engines will be specially adapted to the working of them. There are also one or two sharp curves, but not sharper than many which he knows to have been worked with safety for years on

other lines. There is about three miles of tunneling, but the rocks are of an extremely soft nature, and will be easily worked. In fact, he has the strongest possible opinion as to the general simplicity and economy of all our arrangements.

Then follows Professor Rock, the eminent geologist, who speaks very learnedly of strata, and deposits, and secondary and tertiary formations, and trap, and alluvium, and who thinks the tunnels will be made very cheaply. In cross-examination, he admits that his own property, which happens to be in the neighbourhood, will probably be increased in value by the proposed line; but he gives his evidence entirely on public grounds, and has not been biassed by personal considerations.

After the professor, we bring up one of our great guns, Mr. Bowler, C.E., the eminent consulting engineer of several large companies. He has given evidence on a thousand projects; and is known to the committee as a very cool hand indeed, and a thoroughly clever fellow, though perhaps rather slow to see any merit at all in the scheme of a rival company or a rival engineer.

Examined by Serjeant Blarney, he says he is well acquainted with the district proposed to be traversed (we wonder, indeed, with what district he is not well acquainted). He has been over the route of the proposed line, and he thinks it eminently a practical one. He thinks the local engineer is perhaps a little too sanguine in saying that it can be worked when made at 44'60 per cent. He himself should say it could hardly be worked for less than 45'10; that is, his estimate is full one half per cent. above that of his friend.

With

this exception, he agrees substantially with all the engineering evidence which has previously been given.

Cross-examined by Mr. Phibber, Q.C. Has had a day's shooting in the neighbourhood of the proposed line: has had several days' shooting, in fact, and hopes to have several more. That is not all he meant when he said he had been over the route proposed to be taken by the projected railway: probably the learned counsel's

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