Page:The Working and Management of an English Railway.djvu/260

 the arguments of the counsel employed on each side. The opposition usually proceeds from private land-owners, from Corporations and Town Councils, and from other Railway Companies who foresee competition from the new comers; but where a good case can be made out, and the Committee can be fairly satisfied that the construction of the new railway is required and will be for the advantage of the public, the powers sought for are usually granted, and the opposition is satisfied as far as may be necessary by the insertion of accommodation or protective clauses in the Bill.

The Bill having been sanctioned by Parliament, the company next proceed to purchase the land, and here they find the advantage of the powers they have obtained; for if they find a landowner unreasonable and exorbitant in his demands, they can serve "notice to treat," and claim to have the merits of the case investigated either by a sheriffs jury or by arbitrators, who will hear evidence and decide what is a fair price to be paid, which price the landowner is bound to accept. The case was widely different with the promoters of the early railways, who had to submit to the most excessive demands on the part of the landowners as the price of their consent to sell their land for the purposes of the railway, and we are told, for instance, that the land for the London and Birmingham Railway, which was liberally estimated to cost £250,000, actually cost three times that amount, or about £6,300 per mile, the most extravagant sums having to be paid for compensation, for consequential, damages for fancy prospects, and other unreasonable demands, in order to buy off the opposition of the landowners. Claims such as these are not heard of in these days, or if they were, they would at once be