ABSTRACT

I T was, of course, a severe disappointment to the London and Yorkpromoters that the decision of the House of Commons Committee which they had spent so much money and trouble to obtain had been stultified so far as the session of 1845 was concerned. Nevertheless, their partial victory was not only very encouraging for the future, but it also provided them with a most valuable new weapon in controversy. For Lord Courtenay, in his report on their Bill to the House, expressly refuted all the principal adverse arguments of the report of the Board of Trade, and therefore it was no longer possible for anyone to argue with effect either that a new trunk line all the way from London to York was not needed, or that the plans by which the London and York Company proposed to supply this need were not well laid out. Moreover, railway scrip continued to be the most popular form of investment, and so, despite the equivocal position of the Bill in Parliament, that of the London and York rose to a high premium on the Exchange.