The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1858-04-06 00:00:00

Crabe anb Commerce.

LONDON SIMUT ilf•nctr.—Ram is held at full prices;
but the demand for it does not improve. Brandy com-
mands full quotations, with • fair inquiry. Grain,spirit
as last advised.

SUGAR—Good and fine raw sugars are in moderato
request at last week's currency; but low and damp
qualities may be considered in favour of buyers. The
stock in London is now 42,000 tons, against 37,000 tons
in 1857. Refined goods are in fair request, at Hs. to
555. for brown and middling grocery.

TEA.—Advioes at hand- -from -China state that the
total ex ..rta of tea to the 15th of February were
39,800, i Übe., against 49,000,000 to the same period in
1857. Our market is firm, and prices generally are well
supported. Common sound Congou, is. id.; Ning
Yong and Oolong, Is. 9d. to 2s. ; Souchong, Is. 3d. to
2s. 6d.; Flowery Pekoe, 2e. 6d. to 4s. 6d. : Scented
Caper, is. 3d. to Is. 10d. ; Orange Pekoe, Is. W. to
is. 4d.; Scented Orange Pekoe, Is. Bd. to Is. id;
Twankay, 9d. to Is. 3d.; Hyson Skin, Bd. to is. 3d.;
Flyson, is. 2d. to Is. 10d. ; Young Hyson, 10d. to Is. 2d.;
Imperial, Is. to Is 4d.; Gunpowder, h. to 9e. 6d.;
Assam, 3e. 10d. to 4s. 6d. per lb.

Tug REVENUE—The revenue accounts for the quar-
ter ending March 31, are much snore favourable than
had been anticipated. The Customs exhibit an increase
of £644,752, the Excise of £353,000, Stamps of £146,196,
and Taxes of £48,013. The Income-tax shows the enor-
mous decrease of £3,551,882. consequent upon the aboli-
tion of the war ninepence. The net decrease on the
quarter amounts to L'2,508,831, which is much less than
was apprehended. The total decrease on the year as
compared with the previous year amounts to £4,452,550,
which, however, is chiefly attributable to the operation
of reduced taxes.

It is understood that Mr. Mowatt, the secretary of the
Great Northern Railway Company, was dismissed on
Wednesday from his position in that establishment.
The circumstances connected with this step are likely,
it is said, to be fully laid before the public by Mr.
Mowatt, who was recently designated by Mr. Denison,
the chairman, as one of the most able officers of the
company, but towards whom a sudden change of feeling
seems to have occurred.

RAILWAY TRAFFIC RIFFORNS.—The traffic returns of
railways in the United Kingdom published for the week
ending March 27 amounted to £409,940, and for the
corresponding week of last year to £106,870, showing
an increase of £3,270. The gross receipts of the eight
railways having their termini in the metropolis amounted
for the week ending as above to £189,268, and for the
corresponding week of last year to £185,732, showing an
increase of £3,534. The increase on the Eastern Coon.
ties Railway amounted to £1,012; on the Great Northern
to £1,804; on the Great Western to £1,373; on the
London, Brighton, and South Coast to £1,373; on the
London and South-Western to £1,130; and on the
South-Eastern to £752; total, £7,444. But from this
must be deducted £3,891, the decrease on the London
and North-Western, and £l9 on the London and
Blackwell; together £3,910, leaving the increase as
above, £3,534. The reoeipta on the other lines in the
United Kingdom amounted to £240,874, and for the
corresponding period of 1857 to £240,938, allowing a
decrease of £264 in the receipts of those lines, which,
deducted from the increase on the metropolitan lines,
leaves the total increase £3,270, as compared with the
corresponding week of 1857.

_
RAILWAY COMPETITION.—The London and North-
Western Railway runs from London, says the Times, to
Manchester; the Great Northern Railway, in connexion
with a line between Mumhester and Lincoln, does the
same. The distance between the capital of England and
the capital of Lancashire is some 200 miles, and very
naturally might the public be gratified at being carried
for a couple of guineas, and in five hours and a half,
over a journey which in the old times of patting would
have cost two days and £2O. It happens, however,
that these two railway companies have now quarrelled.
They have deliberately set to work, each in its own
sphere, to destroy their own resources, cut away their
own profits, and consume their own funds. Each, in
order to destroy the other, makes the most desperate
and incessant attempts at suicide. The immensity of
the interests at stake may be inferred from the fact that
the last published reports set the receipts of one single
week at £95,419 for the London and North-Western,
£21,906 for the Great Northern, and £9,142 for the
Manchester, Sheffield, and Lincoln. The remunerative
fare required from a passenger between London and
Manchester was 425. where the speed was express; it
dropped to 355. and 258. for the Ist and 2nd classes
respectively in ordinary trains, but the work could not
be done for less than 15s. Bd. even at the lowest rates
prescribed by Parliament for the benefit of the million.
In other words, £1 lie. 4d. represented the very
smallest sum for which, except under the indulgent con-
ditions of return tickets or excursion trains, the hum-
blest class of passengers could be conveyed from London
to Manchester and back again. Now, however, the
companies have respectively announced their readiness
to carry people over this very ground for the sum of se.
—that is to say, for a sixth part of the lowest proper
charge, so that they deprive themselves by their own
acts and deeds, as far as this great branch of the traffic is
concerned, of at least five-sixths of the receipts which
they are fairly earning. The 'trunk, is to see which
can bold out longest against ruin on the shortest possible
road to that end; and the prospect, if the thing could
ever cocas to an end, is that one company will lose its
all and the other be left only one degree better off. Two
great trading companies, representing capital to the
amount of millions upon millions, are engaged in the
work of destroying their own property, and have pitted
themselves against each other in the job. Bo vast a
capital is now embarked in railways that its manage-
ment is an affair of national interest. The amount of
money invested in railways is equal to a third of the
whole national debt. A difference of 1 per oent, in the
returns of this capital is equal to a difference of
£3,000,000 a year. The complaint of everybody is that
railway property is unjustly depreciated; and hereafter
these rivals will recruit their finances by increase of
fares, by reduction of accommodation, by retrenchment
in the general expenditure upon the line, and by all
those expedients which curtail the money's worth of
their customers, while the exhaustion of their resources
will be appealed to as precluding the adoption of any
improvement.