. Legislative regulation of railway finance in England . e same for the company, such officer or auditor shall be liableupon conviction thereof on indictment, to fine or imprisonment. Thus the onus of proof was removed from the defendantand railv/ay officers who signed accounts were only liable to pun-ishment for making statements which they knew to be false. It was recognized by the promoters of the bill that the ; measure was not as comprehensive as was desired by some. The billwhen first introduced, was quite a voluminous document, but it wasfound, on close examination, that many of the pro
. Legislative regulation of railway finance in England . e same for the company, such officer or auditor shall be liableupon conviction thereof on indictment, to fine or imprisonment. Thus the onus of proof was removed from the defendantand railv/ay officers who signed accounts were only liable to pun-ishment for making statements which they knew to be false. It was recognized by the promoters of the bill that the ; measure was not as comprehensive as was desired by some. The billwhen first introduced, was quite a voluminous document, but it wasfound, on close examination, that many of the provisions, thoughadmirable in theory, were impracticable. Accordingly, itwas greatly reduced in size before it reached the second reading ; in the House of uords, so as to make it a small and practicablemeasure rather than a large and unworkable one. After variousmodifications and improvements, the Bill received the Royal assent on July 31st, 1868, and became the Regulation of Railways Act of 1. Economist, March 21, 2. Hansard, vol. 192. tvp. 1 Railways Act of that year. Upon the enactment of the act, the Railway Times ex- 2 pressed much dissatisfaction over the whole measure, and several memhers of Parliament also regarded the act as being too weak to tie3 of much value. More than anything else, the means for securing the object of the act was, severely criticised. Dissatisfaction Y/as especially expressed at the purely permissive character of the requirements. The only compulsory clause was that requiring the publication of the accounts in a certain forfD, Even this compulsory provision was regarded as weak. A maximum penalty of £35 per week was regarded as being ineffective to give any great stimulus to exertion, at least in the case of important companies where a body of directors at any time had much to gain by a stealthy evasion of the act. Much mischief might be done long before it could become 4 worth while to prevent the accumulating penalties. On the other
Size: 1367px × 1828px
Photo credit: © Reading Room 2020 / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectra, booksubjecttheses
