Following on the recommendations of the Committee of 1840, and with a view to safeguarding the public interests in regard alike to safety and to reasonable treatment, some important statutory powers had already been conferred on the Board of Trade. Under the Regulation of Railways Act, 1840, notice was to be given to the Board of Trade of the opening of all new lines of railway; such lines were to be inspected by Board of Trade inspectors; various returns in respect of traffic, tolls, rates and accidents were to be made to that body, to which, also, all existing bye-laws affecting the public were to be submitted for confirmation. In 1842 a further Act gave the Board power to delay the opening of any new line until they were satisfied that all the necessary works had been effectively constructed. Mr Glyn, chairman of the London and Birmingham Railway, said of this measure: "It is a Bill which I do not hesitate to say is, on the whole, calculated to do the interests of railways very considerable service." But the attitude of the companies was no longer favourable when Mr Gladstone's Committee of 1844 proposed to confer on the Board of Trade some drastic powers for the periodical revision of railway rates, and likewise sought to lay down the terms on which the State might acquire all future lines of railway. The proposals in question were incorporated in a Bill which was brought in by Mr Gladstone; but the measure met with strenuous opposition from the railway interests, and the modifications introduced before it became law were of such a nature that the Act has never been put into operation. In regard to the revision of rates, the Act laid down that if, after the lapse of twenty-one years (not fifteen, as proposed in Mr Gladstone's first Bill), any railway sanctioned after the passing of the Act had paid ten per cent for three years, the Treasury (not the Board of Trade) might reduce the rates, guaranteeing, however, a ten per cent dividend to {280}the company, while the revised rates and the guarantee were to continue for another twenty-one years. Needless to say, railway companies in general do not pay ten per cent dividends, though in 1844 ten per cent was regarded as quite a reasonable dividend for a railway, in view of what the canal companies had been paying; while no such guarantee as that suggested is ever likely to be made by the Treasury. Provisions authorising the Board of Trade to make deductions from the guaranteed income as penalties for what they might regard as mismanagement, and prohibiting a company from increasing its capital pending a revision of rates, without the sanction of the Board of Trade, were so vigorously opposed that they were abandoned.