The Express.
London, England, 1851-02-24 00:00:00

We should add to this resum4 of rumours and
events, that the "fuming Herald formally denies
that Lord STASLEY has declined altogether to form
a ministry. Whilst the Tunes, in supporting
coalition cabinet, rather attacks Lord; JOLN Russr.u,
and points to • cabinet with the Peelites, Lord,
CLMLNDON, and the ORE*.

MR. GLYN 'S half-yearly expositions of the affairs
and prospects of the Condon and North Western
Company have attached to them some of the im-
portance of Chancellors of the Exchequer's budgets;
they may not, like theirs, directly affect all our
pockets;-but they teach us the results of the best
railway management, create a standard, or test,
whereby to estimate other similar concerns, indicate
the progress of railway experience, and exhibit
(what budgets do not always) a public man in one
of the most enviable of all positions—worthily enjoy-
ing the respect and confidence of constituents compe-
tent to appreciate unostentatious ability and sterling
hammy, rewarded by practical success.
Though matters of detail only, the points discussed
at the North Western meeting on Iriday were full
at general importance. First, there was the question
of
closing the capital account. This Mr. GRAHAM
Hrremsos, who is said to he one of the largest rail-
way proprietors in the kingdom, urges is of the most
pressing of railway necessities. No doubt it is a
prudent step; for without a final closing of capital
amounts, the exact value of the property in which
shareholders are interested cannot be ascertained and
fixed; and • fluctuation in its amount must, of
course, tend, however slightly, to render unsettled
and unstable its money worth in the market. Ilut
Mr. Ilticfllsox perhaps exaggerates the evil of this
uncertainty a little ; by overlooking that the margin
of capital to be raised is always fixed, and that no
additional powers to raise money, even if obtained by
the directors, can be exercised except with the ap-
proval of the proprietary. Under the
_pretence, too,
of closing the capital account, Mr. lierewlsoN, in
the very able circular he has so largely circulated,
seems to aim at something more than the mere settle-
ment of that question. Through it he seeks to reduce
the very large powers exercised by directors, and to
determine ut once, summarily and for ever, the un-
settled problem of what is chargeable to capital and
what to revenue: matters far too important, and in-
volving too many varied considerations, to be wired
in so simple and so off hand a style as kr. Herent-
SON proposes.
Still, though Mr. HUTCHISON may be a little too
precipitate in his demand, and though he may con-
nect with its success consequences that hardly belong
to it legitimately, the importance of closing capital l,
accounts is very great. At present there is not a
railway in the kingdom that can say what its capital
precisely is; and the consequence of the ability of
the directors to spend a little more capital here and
to lay out a little more there is, that, to all appeal--
anew, the expenditure of capital will never stop. The
temptation of always having a margin to spend seems
to be unseistible. First, this little point must be
gained; then that small branch must be made ; now
a spur must he thrown out there, then another short
line is to be leased, for which rolling stock is wanted.
And thus possession of extra capital at one time,
leads to the necessity of getting fresh powers
to raise more; the schemes mad designs and
plans of all great lines become interminable,
and the real value of their property unde-
finable. Besides, there is the opportunity for
fraud, for "cooking accounts," for "making
things pleasant," that an open capital affords.
Every consideration. then, of prudence, of good
management, and of honesty, urges the closing
of the account ; but then tfie closing must be a
serious and permanent one ; it would, as Mr. GLYN
said, be worse than useless it would be deception, for
directors to close it one half-year and to open it the
nest. The preliminary is to conclude the works and
selosms of the company, and to properly stock it;
that done and well risme, there ought to be no serious
difficulty to closing the capital account ; though even
then it does not follow, as Mr. Buis lIISON contends,
it will never be reopened, for, by way of example,
Feat additions to the stuck required by un enormous
increase of traffic.
And what an argument the North Western ac-
counts contain against further extensions, new
schemes, and additional leases. In the lust half-year
41 miles have been added to the previous mileage
but, though the increase in receipts from merchandise
has been upwards of Si per cent. On the gross re-
ceipts of the corresponding half-year in 1849-50, the
increase in passengers has only been to per cent.;
figures which lead, if not to the inference, at least to
the suspicion, that felon the additional mileage nut
even the working expenses have been obtained, and
that in increasing their mileage the proprietary have
been " gaining a loss."
But another and a far stronger argument was the
stutemeut we emphatically made by Mr. GLYN, as to
the sources from which the real income and profits
of the North Western were derived. It is not from
through traffic or from the gnat termini, says Mr.
GLYN, that we derive' our main revenue or our per-
manent prosperity. "We raise the large amount
which you see quoted in the returns every week from
the development of traffic at ltia stations on our own
line's" Liverpool with America at its back and Ire-
land opposite, only yields, by ordivary trains, 1,4701.
out of the 38,0001. a week that appears in those re-
turns. _ And, in corroboration of Mr. Gtrs's experi-

ence of the superior value of short as compared with
through traffic, we may state, which has we under-
stand
been authoritatively ascertained, that the total
annual proceeds of the through passenger traffic
from all Scotland by both the eastern and western
lines does not reach 40,0(0/. a-year; and for mer-
chandise to and from Scotland, railways cannot of
course compete with shipping.
This statement of Mr. GLYst's is, perhaps, the
severest censure that could be uttered against that
mad extension and competition system which has
characterised the policy of our older railway com-
panies, and which does not appear, from the in-
creasing rivalry of the Great Western, to be yet
over. But when, by means of the Chester lines, the
Great Western shall have reached Birkenhead,
what, it may be asked, will it get there ? If Mr.
OLT) be correct. nothing worth having. While, if
be he mistaken in his calculations, all the profit will
be secured by a competition which is adverse to the
railway system and to the general interests.
That the public will ever be permanently benefited
by railway competition is very improbable. The
mass of capital invested in railways is too large and
too variously held; the working expenses are too
high, and *the divisible profits, under any circum-
stance'', are too limited for competition to prevail
long in railway traffic. And when competition once
begun has been withdrawn, the public will subse-
quently have to pay by increased charges for the loss
it involved. By the very nature of their existence,
as it were, railways must be monopolies within their
respective. spheres of action, but it does not follow
that they must be injurious or costly monopolies;
and the best way to prevent their becc;ming such is,
not to egg them into hot rivalry, but to encourage
each to view itself as a connecting link in the
great net work that now covers the face of the coun-
try. each developing traffic in its own district for
itself, but each working with others fur the benefit
of all.
Such, says Mr. GLYN, is the policy of the North
Western ; and such, we are persuaded, ought to be
the common policy of railroads in this country.
In other respects, the North Western meeting was
important. It exhibited the sustained resistance '
of the proprietary to that government system of audit
once so popular with some of our contemporaries,
and for his opposition to which Mr. GLYN brought
down on himself so much vituperation ; and it
showed how competent shareholders are, when
directors allow them the means, to devise a sys-
tem to protect themselves in the audit of their own
concerns. Thus was the half-yearly meeting en-
gaged in all the niceties and difficulties of legislation
on this most delicate question ; solving that skilfully
and successfully which has defied the ingenuity. of
Presidents of Board of Trade; and by their solution
of the audit question for the North-Western, in
reality settling it for all other companies.
It would be a very narrow view to suppose that
railways alone are benefited by the business capa-
cities thus developed at these meetings ; by them the
capacity of the country to rule and goyap itself is
being improved and enlarged.

A New PEER.—The Right Hon. Sir John Cam
Ilobhouse, But., is created a peer, by the title of Baron
Broughton da Oylford, in the county of Wilts.—Mutter.