The Express.
London, England, 1855-12-10 00:00:00

CII•P PUI 8' P♦TINT&
am dr DATLIOUT lIMIALTOIS
el sway poodle ilwarddes. sid et ell Oar
Is episodes at dr Peadiee's Werdieesto ilk lbeisisiel.
Ilsodoekey, IS, It. Urpassi

ine expreos.

TO CORICISTONDINTS. - -
brow lir ~M
Ilwalospoper.
am If. Ihrivid. toy Iv* Visit ea SW
IN

• !UGH WAIT= AT LONDON DAIDON.
Tan Dat—Woribg. 111616 Ow
Ibaiesiiir—Masing. 11. 1126

LONDON, MONDAY, DECAMBHit 10.

Tim resolutions adopted by the shareholders of the
Eastern Counties Railway. on Friday, are good as far
as they go; the means* of peening them might have
been improved. Mr. WADDINGTON and the pecout
directors are doubtless great offenders; bet the share-
holders are not themselves entirely free from blame.
We recollect being present at the first meeting of
this Company, over which Mr. Henson presided as
Chairman of the Board of Direst:es. A more painful
spectacle of gross Mammon worship we never wit-
nessed. No Mandarins ever ko-toosd before the
throne of the Hamann of the Box and Moos with
sore intense servility and utter forgetful's.' of @str-
eamed than did the dense crowd of bread-clothed. pro-
vincial respectability which crammed the large rum
of the London Tavern on that occasion, belay the
ex-Railway King. It was not batman they thought
Mr. HUDSON a high•siaded man above jobbing and
pecalatiou ; it was not bemuse they had confides.*
be his ability to manage their railway for their own
and the public benefit ; it was simply because they had
faith in his skill In " rigging the market" and W-
easeling the pries of shares. Disappointed is their
mutations of Mr. HUDSON, they deposed him sad
satiated Mr. WADDINOTON in his plate. Mr.
WADDINGTON had been the abject tool of Mr.
HUDSON as long as Mr. HUDSON was pompanos;
but when the day of Hr. Hopson's adversity sues
Mr. WADDINGTON thread hie heel against him.
This appears to have bees Mr. WADDINGTON'S great
recommendation to the shareholders of Eastern
Comities Railway. They imagined they saw a cleverer
HUDSON IS WADDINOTON, and therefore they made
him Chairman of their Board of Dinners. Their
choice of directors appears, in some oases at least, to
have been realised by similar °pandered's& LordA.
POINT was never understood to know anything of
railway business, and his Court duties essupisd mush
of his time; bat then he was supposed to possess
Parliamentary intones, and he was elected a director
to do the Company's jobbing in Parliament. Th.
truth is that the railway Jeered has never got
free of the taint that it contrasted at the time of
" the railway mania.* At that en, railway scrip and
railway shares were bought and begged, not with a
view to hold them as a property that would yield a
fair reasonable income, bat to sell thus at a premium
and thus realise a sudden fortune. Notwithstanding
the bitter lessons taught so many of then gambler',
railway property has continued to be regarded by
the great mem as something quite exceptional; as
a wares of profit by indirect means, net by
watchful steady industry in its management.
The consequence has been that the value
of railway property has been sought to be bolstered
up by Parliamentary jobbing to secure exclusive
privileges; by factitious dividends to spread a false
impression of its productiveness; by every insane, in
abort, except good management of railway in ceder
tuners a lucrative traffic, sad good keeping of on

counts in order to wore the intimate of the shire-
holders. The condition of the Eastern Counties Rail-

way is a pregnant illustration of the necessary results
of stein a system, by which it is to be hoped all rail-
way proprietors will take warming.
The truth is that there is no " royal road" to
wealth by railways, any more than then is
a " royal road" to learning by quack systems
of doodles. If railways are to be made
profitable, it must be in the same way that any
ether stook in trade is made profitable—by painstak-
ing, persevering attention to besieges; by judicious
Homy g by clear accounts ; by the employment of
honest and able servants. By deposing their Chair-
man, sad Galling upon oboe:does directors to resign.
the shareholders of the Eastern Counties Railway
have only cleared the ground foe laying the fonder
dim of a better system of maaagement. They must
themselves put their shoulders to the wheel; they
meet in future mind their own businses—if they
would see their annual income and the value of their,
property improve; and even then they mast have pati-
ne& forit is not one or two years that will develop the
great natural resources of their line, after snob a long
perseverance in a false and delusive policy. They
must have the courage to estimate their property at
its real present value, and set themselves to work to
improve it by judicious and honest means.
Moth will depend upon their choice of Directors
and a Chairman at the next annual election. They
have had ample experience of the oonseqsenews of
choosing sharp men and Massada' men to fill these
°Moss ; let them now, were it only for a variety, try
what can be done by choosing good, steady men of
Ulises& with high moral principle.
More may be done by improving the organisation
of their administrative body, with a view to ensure
a thorough responsibility on the part of dada*
and judicious motion en the part of share-
holders. Much has been sesomplished in our
day by associated capital and associated labour,
but the organisation of joint stook companies is yet
in its infancy. The shareholders mad in future attend
to their own business, and keep a sharp eye over
their servants, instead of trusting everything to a few
individhals who, they are told, are knowing fellows,
and possessed of influence. Clear. truthful reports
the year's operation, and fell " uncooked' w-
omb of income and expenditure, ought to be cir-
Gelded before the statutory meetings, lug enough
to suede the most remote shareholders to be present,
if need be. The system of giving proxies to direc-
tors, or any central committee, ought to be dimes-
tinned. Let the shareholders in every locality, as
soon as they receive the periodical semen* meet
and prepare a report upon them to be pre-
sented to the general meeting, if son of them
find it convenient or necessary to attend. If
deemed advisable, let the proxies of these loss' share-
hoiden be given to one se more of their suenber.with
in to attend the gourd meeting and set
en their behalf. Let a Chairman or Managing Bime-
tal be appointed, with undivided authority, and un-
divided responsibility t let him receive such a salary
es will free him from the aseessity 1 attending to
any other business, sad raise him then di Issopta-
tion to jab his patrousge, or seek baked reale by
eateries, into entrusts peejedisial to the intsesthe of
the Company; let him have a mad' to amid
with their stein but let him have fell pewee to
set es ►is own dieted's. slier meshing that ad-
vise; Ist him appoint all the Made of departments,
sad be iseposeible for their dkissey mad integrity;
and let the heads of departments in tars snout

their subordisates, and he responsible to the shalt-
mas for their elledesey sad integrity ; let theshsir-
mon have the power to dislike mg Mad et a &MO:
must, the head of a dope:twat 11! ' dismiss art
sabirdinate, at a moment's gift and it the
Oempany retain to itself the power of West
dismissal by the Tots it a tp4dettir, with' Tigard
to the &einem. It is not to be minted,
aor is it aseessory, that the shareholders should
'ham a minute prestige& knowledge of railway
mausgemest. They can judge by the balance of
looms and expenditure whether their affairs are
wall seadasted; they sae judge by the whole bearing
of their Managing Director, whether he is to be re-
lied apts. It is not gesessary that the Managing
Director have an intimate actimintanoe with practical
engineering, its; enough if he have snob general
notions of these matters as will enable him to
choose easiest beads of departments, sod an exten-
sive and intimate ampaintasee with the trails of
the district through which the railway passes The
smalgamatiga of many lime if railway is to be de-
precated as Melding to introduce a somplioation of
rival and irrsoonsileable interests into the Company.
Them hints are thrown out merely as indicating
the considerations by which the shareholders ought
to be guided in their attempts to perfect the orga-
nisation of their Company, and improve the
character of their *Saab. There is no hope for
them unites they improve their system and
infuse new and better blood into their management.
It these points are aufacieatly attended to, a son pros-
perous era may be opened for their railway than they
hammer yet known. Bat time will be required to deve-
lop the advantages of the improved system. "Boise
was not built in a day." It may take years to extri-
cate railway property from the slough of despond
into which it has been plunged. But it would be
madness is shareholders to throw away their property
at its present price. They who can afford to hold
on may rest assured that by judicious management
and patient perseverance it may be made as valuable
a property as any in the kingdom.