§ MR. WATNEYasked the President of the Board of Trade, Whether, in consequence of the cord communication between passengers and guards in Railway trains having proved a failure, the Board of Trade, upon the 19th July 1872, signified that they would withdraw their approval of this system of communication from and after the 1st January 1873; whether any steps have been taken by the Board of Trade to enforce their order and to require the Railway Companies to adopt seine more efficient means of 1712 communication; and, if any and what form of communication has been approved of by the Board?
§ MR. CHICHESTER FORTESCUE,in reply, said, the hon. Member for East Surrey had correctly stated that the Board of Trade intended to withdraw their approval of the present cord communication after the 1st of January of the present year, but in consequence of the difficulty the Railway Companies had experienced in agreeing upon an improved mode of communication to be submitted to the Board of Trade, he had determined to extend the time. Meanwhile, experiments had been made of an improved mode of communication similar to that generally adopted in the United States. The experiments were made on a train in the presence of the managers of most of the Railway Companies and some of the officers of the Board of Trade. The result was that the new system, which was a system of passing a cord through the carriages inside under the lamps, and about three inches below the roofs, had been submitted to the Board of Trade. He had not been able to give his positive approval to the system, but he had given it his sanction for three months in order that it might be fully tried.