The New York Rapid-transit Subway

Proceedings.] DISCUSSION ON NEW YORK SUBWAY. 69 made in London by small private companies. Further tubes Mr, Galbraith, must be the work of a powerful body able to give tube railways their proper chance of doing the work at a fair price and getting a fair dividend for the money expended. Over and over again he had noticed that, when a Bill was promoted by a small company, immediately it came before Parliament sheaves of petitions against it were lodged. In one instance within his knowledge there came, first the London County Council, then the borough councils, then the Thames Conservancy, the Gas Light and Coke Company— as a matter of fact, there was a general provision for pipes, but the Gas Light and Coke Company had a petition of its own— the water-companies, the telegraph- and telephone-companies, and the railway-companies. He believed that in some Bills there was a provision that the accesses to railway-stations must not be ob- structed even by interference with the streets, and the large railway- companies victimized the small ones, who had no money to fight with and were therefore obliged to- yield. Finally came the private owners, followed by the Crown in the shape of the Commissioners of Woods and Forests. In the presence of Mr. Fitzmaurice he wished to express his indebtedness to the Engineers of the London County Council in this matter. He had worked in the most amicable way with them, and felt nothing but gratitude towards Sir Alexander Binnie and Mr. Fitzmaurice for their treatment of the tubes. But they were not all-powerful; there were other officials. Besides petitions against the undertakings, the tubes had to face the demands of the County Council for the widening of streets, in connection with stations, in the entrances and exits of which that body had a voice. The Oxford Street station was very costly, and yet the County Council wanted a bigger one. Probably they did not know what it would cost. The railway went to arbitration with the Council, and he was glad to say the railway won. If more tube railways were to be built in London, the owners of the tubes must not be left at the mercy of such a host of petitioners. Immediately he received a notice, a man went to his solicitor and the result was a petition. He agreed that the shallow subways of New York, if they could be introduced into London, would be first rate things, but his deliberate conviction, based on his experience, was that they could not be introduced. The public would never sanction them—he believed there would be a sort of revolution if they were attempted. He noticed on the table some photographs of what the streets of New York were like when the work was going on, and he would be afraid to put his neck into the noose by attempting such work in London. With regard to the engineering work of the New