The first scheme of this kind on which it was asked to report was one for an amalgamation between the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, the Grand Junction Railway (from Liverpool to Birmingham) and the North Union (from Warrington to Preston). The Bill was opposed by public bodies and traders in the leading towns of Lancashire, and Lord Dalhousie's report favoured the opposition; but the Select Committee on the Bill nevertheless assented to an amalgamation which was, in effect, to lead to the creation of the London and North-Western system of to-day. The department also reported unsuccessfully in 1845 against the amalgamation of the Chester and Birkenhead with the Chester and Holyhead Railway--two other lines which were first united to each other and then to the London and North-Western. It further reported against various proposed amalgamations and arrangements in the Midland Counties; so that, as the Report of the Select Committee of 1872 points out, the department would have objected strongly to such combinations as the present London and North-Western Railway, the {277}Great Western, the North-Eastern, the Midland, the Great Northern and the Great Eastern. These considerations should be borne in mind by those who might otherwise be disposed to criticise the attitude adopted by the Government of 1845 towards the special department here in question. The one experiment had been a failure--with, as we have seen, deplorable consequences for the country and serious prejudice to _bona fide_ railways; but Committees of both Houses, appointed in 1846, were now to recommend another. They advised the creation of a Board of Commissioners of Railways who were to discharge the dual functions of (1) seeing that the railway companies did not contravene the provisions of their special Acts or of any general Statutes; and (2) report to Parliament, if so directed, upon any pending railway Bills. An Act to this effect was passed in 1846; but in the following Session there was introduced a Bill which proposed greatly to increase the powers of the Board of Commissioners. Clifford says, concerning this Bill, that it made the Commissioners, in effect, arbiters of all railway legislation. Promoters were not even to survey an intended line until the Commissioners gave permission. When the survey was made one of their officers was to report upon the project. With them plans and sections were to be deposited; they were to examine into compliance with Standing Orders and report to Parliament upon engineering merits and proposed rates. Considerable authority was also vested in them over existing railways. They were to report annually to Parliament upon tolls, fares and charges, and upon the regularity or irregularity of trains; and they might call for returns as to traffic and many other details of management, inspect the books and documents of railway companies, and settle disputes between companies having termini or portions of line in common.