The Express.
London, England, 1847-09-09 00:00:00

"Me

towards men who see in such melancholy ,
nothing but matter for "political capital."

We lately attempted to ascertain the true value of
the terms applicable to the adjustment dim ascent
which is commonly assumed to be still usesilbd be-
tween the nation and those who have enriched k with
the greatest mechanical improvement of maters
times. In estimating these, we are oat Whoa spa
to express any opinion as to whether Sr Who Nal
or has not taken the wisest course, is Wake its
work altogether to the enterprise of private }wrack
It is quite beside the question, as it now skeet le
discuss the prudence of committing a task, the kes
portance of which might have been foreseen,
and was indeed distinctly
.pointed oat at an early
stage of the business, to their spontaneous exertions.
To any real decision of the matters which have re-
cently become the subject of debate, it is clear that no
opinion whatever as to the advantages or disadvan-
tages of the system that has been deliberately adopted
by this country, with respect to its railways—ever
since the year 1830 disclosed their wonderful powers
—can at all contribute. Economists and speculative
statesmen may amuse themselves by inquirue; whe-
ther it would have been well or ill done in the state
to have laid its bands on the direction of railways as
soon as they began to supersede the old turnpike roads—
to have tried in England whathas been attempted, with
no brilliant success, in France. They may compare the
results of the two systems, as respectively exhibited
in England and in Belgium, and conjecture how
much of our undoubted superiority in this class of
works, and in the service performed by them, belongs
to the manner in which they have been taken up
and carried out, and how much to other special cir-
cumstances. All these are questions interesting
enough in themselves, questions that might have
been of a most commanding practical importance
were the system now to be laid down ab two, and
had we now to determine for the first time
how and by whom the works should be un-
dertaken. But in the actual case before us
all that pertains to this inquiry has long since been
decided past recall. The kingdom has, with eyes
open, and amidst the fullest opportunities of choice,
by positive acts, as well as by tacit approval, decided
that the railways of England should be made in this
way and in no other—viz., that the hazard and the
labour should be undertaken by private persons, and
that they should be entitled to seek compensation for
their outlay by the earnings to be collected from the
hare they might make at rates not exceeding a
maximum which was fixed on a scale lower than
had ever been charged for inferior service before.
That this determination would certainly be adhered
to by the government, were the question to be dew
cided even at the present moment, has been proved
beyond any doubt, by what lately took place on the
subject of Irish railways. With all the experience of
past years before them, with the advantage of evi-
dence that has reduced to certainty what was some
years since a matter of 'peculation, the ministry have
positively refused to undertake the charge of estab-
lishing a railway system in Ireland, while freely
admitting the benefits to be expected from its estab-
lishment. As in this case the teak has been declined
under circumstances of peculiar urgency—when the
experiment, too, has ceased to be doubtful, and the
chance of its being duly accomplished by private
means is remote—we may be sure that on this side of
the channel, too, were the choice now open to the
government between undertaking it and leaving it, as
heretofore, to the enterprise of individuals, the deci-
sion would be exactly the same as it has been. This
must on no account be lost eight of by any one who
desires to view the question fairly.
Now that the chief part of the work is done in
Englard by the outlay of private capital, the main
communications of the country being already secured,
while the nation has never for a moment seriously
entertained the idea of providing them by any other
means, and those who have constructed them with
private means have never had the choice given them
of bringing them forward in any other way than as
private and insulated enterprises; now that these
belong to the chapter of irrevocable facts, it is surely
not on the several companies that have created this vast
system that the blame—if blame there be—of its not
being sufficiently " national "shouldfall. More than thie:
supposing a system more " national" than the one
we now have to be desirable or possible—and hitherto
no proof of the slightest value to that effect has ap-
peared—it is now too late to return to it, without
breaking through the establishments which have been
deliberately authorised to occupy the ground ; and to
do such a violence where no fault has been com-
mitted, but, on the contrary, infinite services
have been performed, would be an act in-
excusably unjust. To establish a " national sys-
tem "—us so far as any such system would
be required to differ, to the detriment of the
actual proprietor,from that we now hare—the field is
no longer open. No arrangement incompatible with
the profitable existence of the rail way companies that
now are can justly be attempted, with the view at
obtaining still further advantage. for the country at
large, by any compulsory process whatever. Unless
the state is prepared to repay the funds expended,
to make ample compensation for the loss of those
profits which it has allowed to be held out as the in-
ducement to this outlay, it cannot revise the con-
tract made with the promoters on any equitable
footing, except by offering some other equivalent
The state has little or nothing else to give in ex-
change for any new demands. Beyond the taxes,
which it is not likely to abandon, and the rates, that
the private interests of our legislators will not let it
alleviate, there is absolutely no one compensating
item which it can present, to repay further exactions
of a burdensome character. The promoters of these
works, as we have seen, have already undergone the
difficulties which local opposition—always counte-
nanced by the governing power—could raise to
profit by ; and the heavy sums that have thus
been poured into their opponents' pockets, or
that have otherwise had to be laid oat—not on
useful works, but in consequence of external hin-
drances—are spent, past recall. Competition has
been encouraged by parliament to a degree that can-
not now be much aggravated, as far as the extant lines
are concerned. Their rates have been brought down
to a scale which the traveller of 1820 never dreamed
of hearing proposed for conveyance—not at ease, and
fifty miles an hove, but even for the jolting of a
" slow coach." Of regulation, in a field where the
state might have really. done good, spared needless
waste of capital, and improved the compulsion
of the system, there has been none, er
worse than none. All that has had any
effectual reality in its operations upon the
railway world, so far, has been in the witiewo:
taxing profits, increasing burdens, cutting
tariff., impaling penalties : all that it has
to attempt fora more comprehensive usefu%rfat
the advantage of the system at large, for general
direction in laying down new lines, for the choice of
proper, the discouragement of improper, schemes, has
been utterly ineffectual. Little has been tried in this
way ; and whatever has been tried has altogether
failed. Of this no stronger proof need be given than
was furnished last year by the proceedings on the
to nadimpute. Here was a matter highly important
tional convenience, the settlement of which was
possible at the time when it was first reported on by
a royal commission—a disputethat ought to have been
settled, that private exertions could not possibly adjust.
What did the state here ? A bill was indeed passed,
throwing the commiasioners' advice overboard—set-
tling nothing, leaving, in fact, the existing confusion
■ ,vase coafounded ; and, in less than a year from the
lists of its =tig, it is itself treated in the same way.
And now, to the futility of the government in-
terference—in a case where interference was really
called for—the difficulty has become all but irreme-
diable. Such has been the usual character of state
proceedings with respect to railways : they have
rarely been efficient but at the expense of the pro-
prietors.
These circumstances, we repeat, it is necessary to
bear in mind, in order to say fair view of the position
of the railway interest, when those new regulations
were proposed last session, to have resisted which is
made, in (Retain quarters, the subject of a grave
charge. It may be proper to elucidate the fairness of
the attache by considering what was the real nature
of the bill brought in by Mr. STRUTT ; and this we
shall be enabled to do the better after having thus
examined the relation of the state, at the time, to
those whom the bill was intended to coerce.

Tux really great social questions are those which
the formation and regulation of national
s far as all legislation does this itt-
im beyond what belongs to
pottance -
aims, National educe-

concern the formation anc
character. In so far as all 1
directly, it has an importance
it by virtue of its immediate