The Northern Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1856-01-26 00:00:00

Metropolis, at which the

railway in England were

A.nd. the standing

committee they have appointed, can only be looked
twon as a Peculation and Fraud. Det

Lion Society

object is to expose mal-practiso and bring

reproa

santly mulcted of their principal, and bamboozled
out of their dividends.

Parliament, though they were composed of
nothing but railway directors, must investigate
the whole question of railway management, and
make themselves acquainted with the expenditure
and receipts of those important undertakings.
Shareholders are not extortionate. They do not

to place the country at any disadvantage by

iemanding for their exclusive benefit—as capitalists

who have provided the immense sums invested in
All they

railways—an em

ssive rate of interest

ask is 4 per cent. ; and the,'railway that cannot pay
this dividend ought to be broken up, and the land
it occupies returned to the plough. The sum ex-

pended on railways is estimated at 28

which would require 11,440,000/. to pay a dividend
In 1834 the total railway receipts
),.215,0001., which would leave a

A 4 per cent

.mounted to

action over
'vested, t

per cent. on the entire capital

working and all of
the Legi

And the question fo
le is

a to dec

whether railways, taltii

one line with another, can be worked for, say 30
per cent. We believe they can ; yet, should it be

found on investigation they cannot, railway share-
holders must be contented with three and a half
or three per cent. But, whatever they may be
entitled to, Parliament is bound to see that they
receive it fairly and honestly, and that they are not
fleeced out of their rights by the dronishness of
directors—who leave everything to the integrity of

harpers by whom they ar

surrounded—

and a syste.

nts which appears
to be designed to keep the heads of departments

lowing what the other is doing, and to
prevent Directors and Shareholders from getting an
insight into their affairs.

To raise the scale of charges, with a view of
obtaining a dividend, would be a gross injustice to
the whole community; and we question if it-would
secure the desired end. It ought not, however, to
be attempted until the public are satisfied that
really fair and honest administration of railway
affairs had failed to secure a dividend of four per
cent. There are many in favour of funding the
entire railway capital of the country, and guaran-
teeing to shareholders a dividend of :31 per cent,
But this would require the transfer of the manage-
ment of all railways to the Government—a subject
which we consider too vast to think of entertaining
until every other expedient has failed. It
is quite certain that the railway pro-
perty of the country cannot be left as it is. Such

a prodigious amount of the nation's substance
cannot be given up as so much prey to jackalls
and wolves. We have not much confidence

now

ever, in committees composed of men who, some
day, hope to fill the vacant places of chairmen,
vice chairmen, and directors, to whom they are

opposed. The subject is one for the most search-
ing Parliamentary enquiry, in which the share-
holders of every badly managed line in the
,dom should be represented by counsel and

ineers, not mixed up with the present system
A legislative tribunal only can
bring to light all that remains to be told.
If railways bel.mged to some half dozen private
individuals, who were managing them for their

of management,

own benefit, is it reasonable to suppose that they
would be satisfied with a dividend of even 4 per
cent? The Bank of England, the East India
Board, our underwriters and large insurance offices,
—which have as large a capital afloat, and whose

risks are as great as the majority of our

railways—pocket something more than 4 per cent
on their business ! But, if they do, they ar(

indebted to the frugal and honest management of

I by rule ; and that railway shareholder

anxious to follow their example is certain. Only

a few days since, an application was made to a
leading man in trade in this town—who has so
arranged his business that he carries on one of the
largest establishments in Liverpool, and another
still more extensive in London, in

such a

way that they give him little or no trouble—to
accept the vacant chairmanship of the Eastern
Counties Railway. And this gentleman does not

hesitate to state emphatically that within a
very few years he would resuscitate that gigantic
Company, and place it in a thoroughly sound and

prosperous condition

But, as he very justly

observes, who would undertake that very responsi-
ble situation, and lay himself open to be assailed
by dissatisfied and captious shareholders at every

half yearly meeting, for 2,000/. a year ? Railway

constituencies should get honest and practical
They

men of business to conduct their affairs
should pay them properly, and having placed them
in a position to guard their interests, they should
treat them with all due respect. The chairman
of a railway board should devote his life to the
interests of his company; and if he were a clear
headed man of business, he would be able at any
moment to satisfy the shareholders as to the
condition of every portion of their property.
It only requires system and honest super-
vision to accomplish this : and with receipts
steadily increasing, year after year, the
railway property of the country would inevitably
become a source of increasing remuneration to
those whose capital it has absorbed and whose
money is now squandered by boards of directors—
the majority of whom never handled a ledger,
and could scarcely tell you the debtor from the
credit side of any one book used in the offices
of the companies whose daily transactions they
direct.