§ LORD MONTEAGLElaid on the table a Bill for providing a more effectual Audit of Railway Accounts. The existing system of audit by persons more or less connected with the governing body, must naturally be open to the suspicion that statements more favourable than the real facts would warrant, might be given out to the world, to induce the public to purchase shares; and, without attributing frauds to the railway companies generally, he could state that accounts had been periodically published, upon the faith of which invest- 1406 ments must hare taken place, but which proved, when tested before a Committee of that House, to be utterly fallacious, representing as capital subscribed money which had been borrowed from the banker. He (Lord Monteagle) proposed in the present measure, that upon the application of a given number of shareholders, representing a given amount of the stock or capital, the directors should be compelled to submit their accounts to an inspector appointed by the Railway Commissioners, who should report upon those accounts; such application for an independent audit to be made by persons who had been six calendar months in possession of their stock, unless it came to them by inheritance, or bequest, or by marriage. Ill-managed railway companies, if liable to such an inspection as this, in case of apprehensions being entertained by their shareholders, would probably amend their system, and thus the indirect effect of such a measure as this might be greater than the direct; and as for any objection about a supposed invasion of private right, Parliament, which created these companies, might be deemed to be trustees for the public to see that the functions bestowed were rightly exercised.
§ Bill read 1a.