on
matters and details which ought to fall beneath the province of a
lower tribunal: do not leave it in the power of any fool or knave--and
there are many such actively employed at this time--who can persuade
half a dozen of the same class with himself into gross delusion of the
public, to occupy the time, and monopolize the nobler functions of the
legislature, in the consideration of some miserable scheme, which
never can be carried into effect, and which is protracted beyond
endurance simply for the benefit of its promoters. We do not mean that
Parliament should abandon its controlling power, or even delegate it
altogether. We only wish that the initiative--the question whether any
particular project is likely to tend to the public benefit, and, if
so, whether this is a fit and proper time to bring it forward--should
be discussed elsewhere. A recommendation of the Board of Trade, which
still leaves the matter open, is plainly useless and inoperative. It
has been overleaped, derided, despised, and will be so again--we
scarcely dare to say unjustly; for no body of five men, however
intelligent, could by possibility be expected to form an accurate
judgment upon such an enormous mass of materials and conflicting
statements as were laid before them. And yet, preliminary enquiry
there must be. The movement is far too great, and charged with too
important interests, to permit its march unchecked. Of all tyrannical
bodies, a railway company is the most tyrannical. It asks to be armed
with powers which the common law denies to the Sovereign herself. It
seeks, without your leave, to usurp your property, and will not buy it
from you at your own price. It levels your house, be it grange or
cottage, lays down its rails in your gardens, cuts through your
policy, and fells down unmercifully the oaks which your Norman
ancestor planted in the days of William Rufus. All this you must
submit to, for the public benefit is paramount to your private
feelings; but it would be an intolerable grievance were you called
upon to submit to this, not for the public benefit, but for the mere
temporary emolument of a handful of unprincipled jobbers. Therefore
there must be enquiry, even though Parliament, strangled with a
multitude of projects, should delegate a portion of its powers
elsewhere.

And why not? It required no great acuteness of vision to see, that,
even had the railway mania not risen to this singular height, some
such step must erel