Act_, it was further enacted that the Postmaster-General could require,
for the conveyance of mails, that trains should be run at any rate of
speed, _certified to be safe_, but not to exceed 27 miles an hour!

As I have said, the Select Committee of 1840 reported against the right
of the public to run their own engines and carriages on railways. They
made recommendations which led to the passing of the _Railway Regulation
Act_ of that year, and in that Act powers were, for the first time,
conferred upon the Board of Trade in connection with railways. It was
the beginning of that authority, which since has greatly grown, but which
the Board of Trade have in the main exercised with an impartiality, which
public authorities do not always display. The Act empowered the Board,
before any new railway was opened, to require notice from the railway
company. This power was repealed by an Act of 1842, and larger powers
granted in its place, including the right to compel the inspection of
such railways before being opened for traffic. The Act of 1840 also
required the companies, under penalty, to furnish to the Board of Trade
returns of traffic, as well as of all accidents attended with personal
injury; and to submit their bye-laws for certification.

Of the _railway mania_ period I have spoken in a previous chapter. For a
time enormous success attended some of the lines. Amongst others the
Liverpool and Manchester and the Stockton and Darlington enjoyed mouth
watering dividends; the former ten, the latter fifteen per cent.! Said
the Government to themselves, "'Tis time we saw to this," and accordingly
they passed the _Railway Regulation Act_ of 1844. This Act provided that
if at any time, after twenty-one years, the dividend of any railway
should exceed ten per cent., the Treasury might revise the rates and
fares so as to reduce the profits to not more than ten per cent. This
expectation of high dividends, I need hardly say, has not been realised,