ABSTRACT
IT was no wonder that King Hudson opposed the London andYork Bill with all the resources at his command, for its passing into law cut his kingdom in half and involved him in a conflict of duties and interests which even his ability and influence could not possibly reconcile. Even had the Eastern Counties Extension Bill been passed in preference to the London and York, Hudson would have had a hard task to combine the chairmanship of a trunk railway to the north from Shoreditch with the prior claims which the Midland shareholders had upon his interest, and to reconcile both with the positions which he held on the boards of the companies which were to complete the East Coast through route north of York. Now that a direct line from London to York was authorized with which it was the obvious interest of the East Coast lines to join hands, while to the Midland, York, and North Midland and Eastern Counties it was a dangerous rival, the position of the man who was attempting to hold the reins of all these undertakings in his single pair of hands became not honestly tenable.
