Justice and reason demand it.
In the year 1845 three long Acts of Parliament came into force; the
_Companies Clauses_, the _Lands Clauses_ and the _Railway Clauses Acts_.
Between them they contained no less than 483 sections. Each Act was a
consolidating measure. The first contained provisions usually inserted
in Acts for the constitution of public companies, the second the same in
regard to the taking of land compulsorily, and the third consolidated in
one general statute provisions usually introduced into Acts of Parliament
authorising the construction of railways.
The _Railway Clauses Act_ authorised railway companies to use locomotive
engines, carriages and wagons; to carry passengers and goods, and to make
reasonable charges not exceeding the tolls authorised by their special
Acts. Since then the whole of the trade of transit by rail has been
conducted by the companies owning the lines.
The gauge of railways in Great Britain was not fixed upon any scientific
principle. At first it followed the width of the coal tram-roads in the
north of England, which was adopted simply on account of its practical
convenience (five feet being the usual width of the gates through which
the "way-leaves" led) and so four feet eight and a-half inches became the
ordinary gauge, but in the early days it was by no means the universal
gauge.
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