§ SIR HENRY SELWIN-IBBETSONasked the President of the Board of Trade, If his attention has been called to the numerous accidents on Railways during the past year which come under the head of preventable accidents; and if he is not of opinion that the time is arrived when the Board of Trade would be justified in insisting upon the adoption by Railway Companies of methods of regulating and conducting their traffic which have been shown by the experience of the working of other lines, to give a much greater amount of safety to the travelling public?
§ MR. CHICHESTER FORTESCUEpresumed that the hon. Baronet wished to ask, not whether the Board of Trade should impose those conditions on the railway companies —which it had not the power of doing—but whether Parliament should do so by compulsion. Though he did not wish at that moment to give a decided opinion on that point, he was quite as much alive as the hon. Baronet could be to the importance of that question, as, indeed, most of them must be. The hon. Baronet was no doubt aware that the general introduction of the block system on railways, or the interlocking of points and signals, could not be carried out without a large amount of alteration and re-arrangement of stations and slidings, requiring considerable time and expenditure, and in many cases acquirement of additional land. In any compulsory measure which Parliament in its wisdom might adopt, it would be necessary to allow the companies sufficient time for that purpose. It was desirable, before deciding on any legislation on the subject, that the House should know what the companies had done and were now doing in that matter, and he had therefore taken steps with a view to having Returns placed on the Table which would supply that information. He did not venture to say that the Returns when presented would be as satisfactory as could be wished; but he thought it would be well that the House should be in possession of them, before deciding upon legislation of this nature.