ABSTRACT

TH E clearer view we have now obtained of the raison (Têtre of the" pooling " arrangements under the Six Towns and Octuple agreements furnishes the key to a problem which in the last chapter must have seemed somewhat obscure to the reader. I refer to the persistency of the London and North Western Company, in 1854, in forming its new and closer alliances with the Midland and Sheffield companies, despite the knowledge that such alliances were distasteful to Parliament, contrary to the spirit, if not to the letter, of the Cardwell Act, and moreover that they might be upset at any time, as the Great Northern's private alliance with the Ambergate had been, by an injunction from the Court of Chancery. As we remarked at the time, the Euston manager, Captain Huish, appeared deliberately to avert his eyes from this last-mentioned risk, and to think only of the more immediate dangers which the new private treaties themselves prevented, namely, the opening of the junctions at Retford and Hitchin to the Great Northern; and now we see why the prevention of this in 1854 appeared to him so important as to justify almost any cost and any risk. It was in preparation for the renewal of the Gladstone "poo l " in the following year.