CHAPTER XIII.

RAILWAY DIRECTION. (1843 TO 1846.)

In the midst of these transactions I found it necessary, as I have already said, to think of means for the maintenance of my family. My choice, however, was limited, for, as I never abandoned the hope of returning to my occupation under Government, I had to avoid any engagement which would render this impracticable or even difficult. I wished, likewise, to find some post which should, if possible, have some direct relation to that service which was uppermost in my thoughts--should, even by its nature, tend to give me increased fitness for those more immediate and more detailed duties which I hoped to be one day called on to perform.

It happened that at this time the affairs of the Brighton Railway Company were in an unsatisfactory state, so much so that it was held desirable to unseat the actual directors and appoint others in their place. In this project I was invited to take part, and being put in nomination for the new board, became, by the success of the movement, one of the directors. The new Chairman was Mr. J. M. Parsons, and to him, more than to any other individual, are to be attributed the judicious and energetic measures taken, in the early stages, for the restoration of the Company's affairs. He afterwards informed me that he viewed my appointment with considerable alarm, expecting that I should urge, if not a penny rate, at least some sweeping reduction of fares, to the ruin of the Company's finances. It will suffice to say that we became sincere, accordant, and earnest coadjutors, and formed a friendship which continued warm and unbroken to the day of his death, some five-and-twenty years afterwards.

The rigorous examination immediately set on foot showed the existence of practices now too well known in railway management, whereby the appearance of prosperity is maintained amidst progress towards real insolvency. Dividends had been paid when there were in fact no profits to divide, and meantime the resources of the Company were being drained and narrowed, by waste, mismanagement, and inattention to public convenience. Distrust and dissatisfaction had gone so far that the value of the shares, originally £50, had fallen to £35. The directors soon saw that for the first half-year, at least, no dividend could justly be made; but, of course, they were not without anxiety as to the result of such an announcement on the price of shares. To our gratification, it was so well received by the public that the price almost immediately began to rise; and I may add that purchasers had no reason to regret their outlay.

After having continued some time in the direction, I had the satisfaction to find myself, on the motion of the late Mr. Pascoe Grenfell, M.P., unanimously appointed Chairman of the Company, and from this time I gave my undivided attention to its affairs. Fully convinced of its great capabilities, and having great reliance in my coadjutors, and (if the truth must be told) in myself, I had invested in its shares all my own property, and a considerable sum of money borrowed from the various members of my family and other friends, some of whom also became shareholders on their own account. In so doing, I did not look upon myself as rash, but as simply embarking the largest capital that I could command in a concern of whose soundness I was well assured, in which I was a leading partner, and from which, if expectations were not realized, I should have it in my power to withdraw with, at worst, but moderate loss.

While retrenching useless expenditure and providing for public convenience, the directors also turned much attention to the important point of security to the lives and limbs of passengers. On this point, as well as on some others, I had an opportunity for inspection, of which I made the most. I had removed to Brighton; in my trips to town, made three or four times each week, I regularly took my seat in a _coupé_ facing backwards at the extreme end of the train. By this means I could, at pleasure, take notice of proceedings and appearances along the line, and in particular mark how far the signals required after the passing of a train were duly made. The solicitor to the Company, who also resided at Brighton, soon became my frequent companion, and now and then the third place was occupied by one or other of the directors. This gave convenience for the transaction of business by the way, and enabled me to enter the board-room thoroughly prepared for rapid and decisive action.

I believe it was upon the Brighton line that systematic examination of officers previously to their admission to new duties was first established, and I took every means to make it as complete as possible.

Generally speaking, I had the hearty co-operation of my brother directors, and doubtless many of the improvements effected during my connection with the Board originated with one or other of their number; but there was one important point on which it was with difficulty that I got my own way, and I advert to this particularly, because I am convinced by a variety of circumstances that laxity thereon is a frequent cause of accident, even to the present day. This was a strict enforcement of penalties--very moderate ones sufficed--on every discovered breach of rule. Of course there was ready concurrence in this whenever the omission resulted in positive accident, but there was no less disposition to condone at other times. "Why punish the poor man?--No harm has been done," was a frequent remonstrance; and when I pointed out that the amount of blame was nowise affected by the result, my proposition, though admitted in theory, was deemed harsh in practice; so that, while no objection was raised to the soundness of the rule, almost every case seemed to be regarded as an exception. Fortunately, I had enough of support to maintain enforcement, and to this I attribute much of the benefit which followed.

Another useful practice was to diffuse throughout the Company's force full information as to the cause of accidents, wherever they might occur. For this purpose, we arranged with the proprietors of one of the railway journals, that whenever accounts of accidents were given in the paper we should be supplied with three or four hundred slip-copies of the narrative, and these were distributed to every station-master, engine-driver, guard, and pointsman--in short, to all on whose conduct the safety of the passengers depended.

Again, by occasionally travelling on the engine I discovered defects in the arrangements which might otherwise have been concealed till some catastrophe brought them to light. For instance, the road between London and Brighton at that time belonged to three several companies, each with a different code of signals, or rather, each, with certain exceptions, interpreting the same signals differently. Consequently, the engine-driver, in reading the signal, had to consider on what part of the road the train was then running. The danger of such a state of things was so obvious that I had no great difficulty in establishing a uniform code. I may remark here, that I know of few things more interesting or exciting than to travel on an engine running at high speed, especially on a dark night.

The success of all these precautionary measures was highly satisfactory. It must, indeed, be admitted that in some respects safety was easier of attainment then than now, lines being more simple and the traffic much less. But, on the other hand, experience was then comparatively short, and much was unknown which is now familiar; neither was the electric telegraph yet in use. Be all this as it may, the fact is that during the three years and more that I sat at the Brighton board the Company was subjected to, I believe, but one external claim for compensation. This exceptional case was as follows. It is well known that when a train reaches a terminus it is the duty of a pointsman to direct it into some portion of the station then free to receive it. On one occasion the pointsman at Brighton so blundered that the arriving train struck against a line of carriages, fortunately empty ones, then occupying the rails on to which it ran. As the train was of course preparing to stop, and had brought down its speed almost to a minimum, the collision was slight; and though the alarm was considerable, and several of the passengers were a little shaken, only one sustained any injury. This was a young woman who wore one of the large combs common at the period, and whose scalp was slightly wounded by its teeth. Of course the compensation was trifling. The pointsman, being brought before the Board, at once acknowledged his error, and declared his inability to account for the momentary misapprehension which produced it, but pleaded in excuse that though he had held his present post for several years, and had had on the average to perform the duty in question nearly a hundred times per day, this was his first mistake in its execution. This statement, which, so far as it could be tested, was found to be literally true, appeared so satisfactory to the Board, that, in their judgment, looking at his conduct as a whole, the man deserved praise rather than blame; though, in deference to public opinion, he was for a time removed to an inferior post.

Two improvements adopted by the Board, chiefly, I believe, on my recommendation, are now recognised as established institutions; and by their extension to other lines, and by increase in the scope of their operation, have obtained an importance far beyond any expectation that I could then have formed. These are excursion-trains and express-trains. Our first excursion-train ran on Sundays only. After a time the train was run on Mondays also.

The earliest express-train, intended to accommodate residents in Brighton whose occupation was in London, started from the first at its present hour, though of necessity it occupied more time in the trip; as no engine of the day was able to run fifty miles without stopping to take in water, while no means had yet been devised for supplying it to an engine in motion. The train, however, travelled at the rate of thirty-four miles per hour, including a halt at Redhill, no small achievement at that time. Every one must have remarked how soon the gratification of one desire gives birth to another--how soon we complain of imperfection in what would have been regarded but a few years earlier as unattainable perfection. I happened one day to travel in an ordinary carriage, and, not being known to its other occupants, heard some free remarks on the management of the line, to which I listened for my own edification. Somewhat to my disappointment, I found the late acceleration complained of as insufficient, one of the passengers exclaiming, "This is a slow-coach!--a very slow coach!" Imprudently I asked, "Are you aware, Sir, that the whole distance from London to Brighton is accomplished in an hour and a-half?" "Oh!" was the glib reply, "if they can do it in an hour and a-half, they can just as well do it in an hour!"[28]

By one expedient I sought to combine advantage to my present service with benefit to my former one. Perceiving that residence at Brighton, and therefore custom to the railway, would be increased by every addition to postal facilities between that town and the metropolis, I induced the directors to make an offer to the Post Office for the conveyance of a mail by every train without any additional expense to that department. The result of this offer, which was kept for some time under consideration at the Post Office, will presently appear.

In the course of 1845 the price of the £50 shares had risen, I think, to £75, or more than twice their market value at the time when the new directors were appointed--a price, however, which I knew to be in excess of their real value, and which was due in part to the general inflation at the time, for this, it may be remembered, was the year of the well-known "railway mania." I may observe here that, pecuniarily speaking, I had been a gainer by my expulsion from the Treasury; the rise in the value of my railway property, resulting in great measure from my own efforts and those of my brother directors, having been so great as to render my previous salary comparatively insignificant; indeed, in one year, while chairman, my total gain was as high as £6,000. Why, then, did I resign so advantageous a position, especially as I could not but foresee a danger, a fear afterwards too well confirmed, that, in the absence of my own direct supervision and control, these great profits might be exchanged for yet greater losses? The answer is to be found in the political circumstances of the day. By this time Sir Robert Peel's Government was beginning to totter, and the Liberals to have strong hopes of a speedy return to power. Believing that their return would be followed by my own recall, and feeling that my late efforts had drawn considerably on my strength both of body and mind, I resolved to obtain a long holiday--an indulgence impracticable while I retained the chairmanship. I gave notice accordingly, as appears by the following extract from the _Railway Chronicle_, which will, perhaps, be the more interesting as it announces the result of the offer to the Post Office already mentioned, and indicates probable consequences:--

"The Post Office has accepted the liberal offer of the Brighton Company to carry a bag of letters by every train _gratis_. As the South-Eastern, following the Brighton's good example, made a similar proffer, we presume that has been treated in like manner. We congratulate the Post Office on its wisdom, and we are apt to think that a large share of public thanks for the arrangement is due to the new Postmaster-General, the Earl of St. Germans. Coupled with this intelligence, so honourable to the Brighton Company, we regret to hear that the chief instigator of the proposition, the chairman, Mr. Rowland Hill, has intimated to the Board his intention to resign his post for the sake of his health, which has been much affected by his laborious attention to business.

"Mr. Hill's retirement will be felt by the Company and the public. Since he became chairman, the Brighton Railway has increased more than 50 per cent. in value, and the public accommodation on the line in all respects--cheapness, speed, punctuality, and a kind solicitude for the comfort of all passengers, from highest to lowest--may justly be said to have been raised quite to an equality with that of the best-managed line in the kingdom."

Some months after the appearance of the paragraph quoted above, I received an application which gave me much pleasure from the South-Western Railway Company. I must premise that my intercourse with this corporation had been hitherto mainly of a hostile character, its contests with the Brighton Company having been both numerous and fierce. I was now informed, however, that this Company intended to appoint a manager at a high salary, then a rather novel measure, and I was requested to recommend a fit person for the duties. Upon my inquiring as to the precise amount of salary to be given, and the specific qualifications required, I was told that the former would be about £1,500 per annum, and for the latter, said the respondent, "Let them be as much like your own as possible." The meaning of this could not be misunderstood, but, of course, under the circumstances, could not be acted upon. Other eligible offers were made to me, but, with the Post Office in view, I could accept none.

I had now passed nearly four years in the position of railway director, and though it was grief and bitterness to me to be so long kept aloof from my true work, yet, considering the close connection between railway companies and the Post Office, and the consequent importance of the knowledge I had been enabled to gain, I could not regard the time as ill-spent.

Before leaving the subject of railways, however, I must mention one occurrence, typical, I believe, of many others, the whole forming one of the great causes of that unfortunate depreciation in railway property of which the world is now but too well aware. At the time of my joining the company the town of Hastings enjoyed no railway communication with any other place. Two projects were started for connecting it with London--one by the Brighton Company, and the other by the South-Eastern. In the parliamentary contest that ensued, the Brighton Company dwelt much on the importance of a coast-line, so useful in defence against invasion, of which at that time there was no small apprehension. Of the military advantage of such a line, strong evidence was given, I think, by the Duke of Wellington. The South-Eastern Company, on the other hand, whose projected line was in effect of the same length, based its claim mainly on the fact that by taking the inland route it would open up a new tract of country of great agricultural importance. The Committee, naturally desirous of obtaining both advantages, suggested for the consideration of the Brighton Company whether it would not be worth while to construct its coast-line, even though the inland line should also be made. As, however, the Brighton directors distinctly rejected this proposal, on the ground that the traffic would not suffice for two lines, the Committee decided in favour of the coast-line; and the Brighton Company, regarding a decision made under circumstances so peculiar as a sufficient security against competition, put the works immediately in hand. In the next session, however, the South-Eastern Company returned to the charge with a slight modification of its route, made, apparently, to save appearances; but again, the modified project being referred to the Board of Trade, according to a rule recently laid down by the House of Commons, and being condemned by that authority, on the ground that the line was in effect the same with that lately rejected by Parliament, was abandoned by the Company. In the following session, however--as Parliament meantime had shown little disposition to treat the recommendations of the Board of Trade with respect--the project was again renewed. When the Brighton directors attempted opposition, they were coolly informed by the chairman of the parliamentary committee that, owing to a change in the Standing Orders of the House, they had no _locus standi_. In short, the South-Eastern Company gained its point. Railway companies have been denounced as ruining each other by competition; if so, where does a large portion of the blame lie?