LORD BROUGHAMwished to know if the Committee to be appointed to inquire into the effect of the Bank Charter on the commercial condition of the country was also to consider the effect of the expenditure on railways, in reference to recent commercial embarrassments? Would it come under the cognizance of that committee, or would another be charged with that important question? He was supposed to labour under a great prejudice on the subject of railways, but this was not the fact; he held a strong opinion on the subject, and after some experience he lamented that that opinion had not more generally prevailed.
§ EARL GREYhoped his noble Friend (the Marquess of Lansdowne) would be sufficiently recovered to move the appointment of the Committee on Thursday. The Committee would inquire into the effect the amount of capital required for railways had had in producing the commercial distress; but he thought it probable some other separate inquiry would be made with regard to the Railway Bills of the present Session, not with reference to the past, but the future. It would be better that this inquiry should be commenced in the other House of Parliament, and that a Committee in their Lordships' House should not be appointed till they knew more of the course to be taken in the House of Commons.
§ House adjourned.