The Express.
London, England, 1848-10-06 00:00:00

currency to a golden guines, although it passed every
solemn declaration to that effect, with sundry pains and
penalties decreed against all who refused to believe
and act upon the fact. It may be taken for granted,
therefore, that by no act of parliament can the dis-
counts of railway shires be transmuted into pre-
miums, or even regenerated into stock at par.
Undaunted by the failure of so many railway
Solon predecessors, the Scotch .Railteay Gazette
oomis loath with another crotchet, ander the
imposing heading, in large characters, of " Depre-
ciation of Stocks, Fictitious Bales and Prices," by
which the degradation of railway values is to be se-
wanted for, and the remedial nostrum for all railway
ills, past, present, and to come, is proposed. nil
philosopher's stone, so long sought, but found at last,
acmaista in the discovery that Stock Exchange railway
lists are lying oracles, and that Stock Ent:hangs &sl-
ings and speculations in shares are, in nineteen cases
out of twenty, " fictitious." Here is the awful dis-
covery :
The system to which we are referring is the business sow
chiefly carried on through the various Stock Exchanges. It
is in the authorised lists of these bodies that the public ex
peat to see correct estimates of the value of the different
stooks, sad in fast the quotations in those lists decide for the
time the real value of suck securities. People are accustomed
to calculate the appreciation or decline of their property by
the criteria supplied in the fluctuations of the share
But the character thus attached to the prices of shares pub-
lished by the exchanges, proceeds on the faith that the
transactions are real—that stock is bona fide transferred in
each ease—and that It is purchased with a view to in.
vestment for a longer or shorter period. Buell are the
presumption• which give weight and authority to the
quotations in the share lists. If, however, we find that
none of the conditions we have specified are actually
complied with in the bulk of these transactions, the
figures in the share lists amuse a very different charac-
ter ; and, farther, if we find that they Sr. directly op-
posed to all the presumptions usually mounted in their favour,
we need not my that in such an event they are actually
valueless, and ought to he entirely disregarded. Now, what
are the hate ? It would, of mane, be simply a mare's nest,
if we pretended to discover that a greet many of the trans-
mit:ism at the Imehaage ere fieritious. Most people are quite
aware MUM fast ; bat what we think will astonish the pro-
erreof railway Meek roman , is the fact—which we
ssesttahsed beyoed ell dwbheha there Is scarcely
ass eat of
any bat the merest bat
recorded in the share lista,
are white fictions. We know, for
example, that ia milt British stock, in Edinburgh and
Northers stack, in Caledonian stock, in Edinburgh and
Glasgow auk, the sales noted in the share lists within a
given period are generally twenty times the number of
actual transits effected in the dies of the respective mo-
n is also well known that the settlements ea the
retmges Nadel almost entirely, or at least to a vastly dis-
proportionate extent, of the payment of " differences," re-
present* the fluctuations over the period of the acoeunt,
without the intervention of any stock whatever.
The remedy to the evil proposed is, that " the
i transactions n the Stock exchanges ought to be made
real," but of the mocha operandi for effecting such a
revolution, desirable u it may be, we are left in igno-
rance.

-----
The speculative, or time bargain, system may not
arupon very strictly defensible principles of mo-
ti7; but why it should work exclusively ill for
railway shares, when in respect of all other securities,
government or corporate, it is not challenged on that
score, remains to be shown. It is evident that
the writer of the article in question is not very
clearly conversant with the nature of Stock Exchange
practice, and therefore on another occasion it may be
well to enlighten him aunt the omit, and show him.
to his surprise 'perhaps, that time bargains do not
necessatil, imply the mere payment of "differences"
on a settling, or other day agreed ; that, moreover,
were there no speculation, and that money transac-
tions only were to be recorded, railway lists would be
little more than mere blanks, and shares remain
without any presentable or understood value at all in
nineteen cases out of twenty. Having a deep
sense of the immense importance of railway pro-
perty, national property in the best sense of
the term, which represents, as the Beakers'
Mariam of this month informs no, a paid-up
capital, to last December only, of one hundred and
twenty-two millions sterling, it is the more nee=
to correct such misconceptions as appear to
and to plate to account in the roper quarters railway
=Maps and the present deterioration of share values.
=GLIM MIDS.
3 par of oa. Ae.r...;11 t arm. 1YW._411300. 24. Hardt
11141610fmk. 236 33 30 43; at, lamb, "630 30 pa
DIM Baas* SON. 323 pat Ditto, Kw* 34; IL,
Dltio =dor 0.005.33 pm. gicin.
Oordsols tar Amomi. DUI* *L. Kink ; 211
_j_slas. ar gat
105110 WOMBS.
6 per Orat Maim Davit 73 6 par Cl. Scales &mit 114 S
DUOaz &v. 951.1. b
Pusan. T 4 31 as dlr. 5 St,
per Ct. Bask er. tram
I per
ar eet.t. en= Moats,liar•
3p D itto.** 83
30er Cleat..liamait 13*
?met Ma11ati.1116,1198119 *l9 4l oat Mai& a. 26
4 per et Paragons 446
Boa/. 15 4* 4 ;110.. Offtlicalm.
xxcuAltora war.
AND KOMI 11110/112.
121.11115 In &Milt
4.-11646emer am rear it ge46.