In the same Session (1836) the Duke of Wellington moved, and carried, in the House of Lords a general clause, to be inserted in all railway Acts, the effect of which would have been to give to Parliament the power of dealing as it might think fit with any railway company during the next year. John Herapath thereupon inserted in the current issue of his "Railway Magazine" a letter addressed to the Duke of Wellington, in the course of which he said:-- "No person can doubt your Grace's intentions are honourable to all parties. Fearful of the consequences of overgrown monopolies, you are anxious to put some salutary restrictions to those bodies riding, as you apprehend, rough-shod over the public; and you are anxious to do this before they become too powerful to be ruled. Every honest and right-minded man must be satisfied that such are needful; nor is there a company got up on honourable principles that would object to any reasonable measure, in which a due regard is paid to their own interests, and a proper consideration is had to all the circumstances of their situation and risk. But in common fairness these must be taken into account." Defending the railways, and keenly criticising the attitude of the State towards them, Herapath further said:-- "No man knows better than yourself that these works, if they are at all likely to be beneficial to the nation--which everyone in his sober senses admits--will form a great and brilliant era in its prosperity. Nay, my Lord Duke, permit me to ask you if they have not been a Godsend towards the preservation of this country, by giving a new impetus to {263}industry and trade, and saving us from that anarchy and confusion to which distress was fast hurrying a large proportion of our population? With all these advantages staring us in the face, what have the Government done to promote railways? Have they done a single thing? I am not conscious of one. Have they removed a single impediment? Not to my knowledge; but they have raised several. Have they contributed a single farthing? Rather, I believe, by the intolerable and vexatious oppositions permitted in passing the bills, have been the cause of spending many hundred thousands, which, like another national debt, will prey to the end of time on the vitals of public industry." The Duke's proposed clause was dropped, and was heard of no more; but Herapath's prediction as to the equivalent of "another national debt" being imposed on public industry was to be verified by the course of subsequent events still more than by any avoidable expenditure then already incurred. If, again, as Herapath said, the Government had done nothing to promote railways, they had not been backward in seeking advantage from them in the interests both of the Exchequer and of the Post Office.