The Express.
London, England, 1868-08-04 00:00:00

1'

THE EXPRESS, TUESDAY EVENING, AUGUST 4, 1868.

can, and will naturally forbear t,. ~.sure a charge
which would deter instead of attract pas-
seng( rs. The proper level can only bearived at
by actual experiment ; and, if the proases are
dissatisfied with the present state of their tedallee-
*beet, they are quite justified in making tentative
alterations in their fame. A tradesman who finds
that his business does not pay him a fair par cent-
age on his capital is not to be blamed if he tries
whether higher prices may not mean larger
profits.
The fallacies in this argument are so numerous
as to make the work of selection extremely diffi-
cult. That which underlies all the rest is the
obstinate refusal to remember that the concession
of exceptional privileges implies and demands the
maintenance of exceptional control. The ordinary
pleas in favour of leaving railways to manage
their own concerns might be sound enough if rail-
ways were subject to the ordinary laws which
regulate commercial enterprise. But those who
benefit by protection have no right to appeal,
when it happens to be convenient to them, to the
principles of free trade. If the Legislature had not
interfered it is doubtful whether a single railroad
of any considerable length could ever have boon
constructed. The very groundwork of the whole
system is the grant of compulsory powers to buy
land. Parliament does not interfere with the
rights of property, and force a man to sell ground
which he would much rather keep, merely to give
railway shareholders good dividends. It confers on
them these unusual facilities for carrying out their
purpose because that purpose promises to
result in a public benefit ; but there is a reserved
right vested in the Legislature to see that the under-
taking for which these facilities have been granted
does not insensibly change its character, and become
a mere device for filling the pockets of those engaged
in it. In the case of metropolitan railways this
argument applies with peculiar force, because, in
consideration of the ultimate convenience of the
community, they have been authorised to inflict
great present suffering on individuals. We have
let them pull down houses by the hundred with-
out providing either room or shelter for the in-
habitants, and we have done this on the faith that
their fares would be sufficiently low to enable the
dispossessed poor to live a little way out of Lon-
don without any material increase in their rent.
Of course if the railwaycompaniea could honestly
come to Parliament and say, " We undertook
" to work our line on the temp proposed by
" you; but after doing our utmost to make it
" pay, we find that the present charges do not
" allow of that reasonable profit to secure
" which is our only motive for continuing the un-
" dertaking," the application would be proper
enough. But they are not in a position to do any-
thing of the kind. They have lost money not by
carrying passengers too cheaply, but by their own
reckless extravagance and mismanagement in
other ways. Let us suppose a parallel cane.
The proprietor of a ferry wishing to make it
useful to the inhabitants on both sides of the river
farms it to a ferryman on condition that he shall
carry passengers at a penny a head. If it turns
out that there is not sufficient intercourse be-
tween the two banks to make it worth
the man's while to work the boat, the owner
will only be consulting the general interest in al-
lowing him to raise the fare. But supposing the
ferryman squanders all the money he makes, and
then proposes to compensate himself for his losses
by charging threepence instead of a penny, the pro-
prietor will justly answer, If you had been commonly
prudent you might have made a fair income out
of the present charge, and I shall not mulct the
innocent passengers in order to compensate you
for your extravagance. This is exactly the state
of the case as regards railways. If they had been
prudent and economical they could have made
their original fares pay; they have failed to do so,
not because the fares were too low, but because
the management of the funds has been improvident
and suicidal. But as the fault has been the Com-
panies' so ought the loss to be. If they
cannot make two ends meet without exorbitant
charges, they must share the fate of other insol-
vent traders, and make way for some one who can
work the undertaking with more forethought and
self-restraint. Instead, therefore, of there being
any occasion for giving the railway companies
power to charge higher rates, the true want of the
time seems to be a thorough revision by
competent authority of the existing tariff.
Whatever be the figure at which it can be
proved that passengers may be carried, with fair
profit to those who undertake to carry them, and
with proper regard to comfort and safety—that
ought to be the figure prescribed by Parliament
to the railway companies. Only in calculating
that figure it ought to be assumed that the
management is prudent, and that when it is
otherwise it is not the public upon whom the con-
sequent inconvenience must fall.

the relentless exigencies of newspaper space. The
MILTON topic is at least new, sad in this has an
ventage over its time-worn long-lived eonipa-
doll Letters.
PIIVBIOI,I4N
TITS Athenorual,, in a paper on the Medial Pro-
fession, considers it is time a change were
effected with regard to fee* ; that a young
physician should be permitted to take less than
the orthodox guinea, and a physician of esta-
blished reputation be at liberty to demand morn
In _point of fact, however, the soak of payment
does vary considerably. There are physicians and
consulting surgeons who expect a guinea at each
visit ; there are others, with a reputation
equally high, who see their patients twice
for the same sum. Moreover, if a physician at-
tends a consultation he makes his own terms,.and
the sum expected is intimated to the friends
of the patient through the family doctor. To
general practitioners still greater freedom is
allowed. They charge what they please for
medicine and attendanoe, and often in propor-
tion to the wealth or supposed wealth of their
patients. The annual bill is seldom disputed, for
who would wish to have an altercation with his
doctor ? and it rarely happens that a clever medical
man loses practice in consequence of the ex-
orbitancy of his charges. We shrug our shoul-
ders, perhaps, and grumble, but are consoled by
the thought that if our apothecary, TOVICINEI,
charges more for his attendance than Meats.
fisrrn and Baows, his superior skill entitles him
to a higher remuneration. It is so comfortable
to believe that we have made a wiser choice than
some of our neighbours, and so reasonable that
we should be required to pay something extra for
the comfort. After all the fashion adopted in the
far Bast has much to recommend it. Better to
pay a doctor for keeping us in sound health than
for relieving us in sickness.

THE ATLANTIC CABLE.

Tux time has gone by when the intelligence that
the Atlantic Cable has failed arouses consternation

among either shareholders or the public. Failure
to be ruinous must be permanent, and experience
has shown that suspended communication can be
restored as well at the bottom of the Atlantic as
upon land. The message received from Valenti&
by Sir Iticamin 01.&88 yesterday and promptly
forwarded by him to the Stock Exchange simply
said, " 1868 cable has failed ; will report after
testing ;" in other words, communication has been
stopped for the time, and the cause has yet to
be ascertained. But the exquisite scientific ap-
pliances in use enable the electricians to pronounce
to a nicety the portion of the line which has given
way, and probably the next thing hoard by the
public will be the exact number of miles from
Valentin or Newfoundland, at which the " fault"
is situate. This known, the rest is easy. Sir
&Lunn. Carmtio or Mr. CLIFFOEU), or both,
will be despatched by the Telegraph Maintenance
Company, with an efficient staff and an ample
supply of picking-up machinery on board ship.
These gentlemen will steer straight for the place
indicated by the electricians, will fish for
the cable, find it, cut out its damaged
portion, substitute for it a new piece,
and having re-spliced the mended part in
such a way that it is as strong as ever,
will re-commit the whole line to the deeps.
It is all very wonderful, but it has been done too
often now fer even the most inexperienced to hare
doubts as to the result. Some sub-marine lines
are so often broken by the action of the sea upon
a rocky bottom that a steamer and a competent
staff have to be kept on the spot, and they are
picked up and mended as often as broken. The
present injury to the Atlantic Cable of 1886 will
doubtless be remedied as we have said. Mean-
while, it is satisfactory to know that the Cable of
1863 remains perfect, and is more than sufficient
even for the rapidly increasing messages between
England and America. The present accident will
have no effect upon the rapidity with which com-
munications are sent and received.

OUR CONTEMPORARIES.

ii.-- 114 lb"401:.3 DAY.)
'''..- 1 i ' ,KZ Or PAWN.
talsou -.'. ITIIO C. t ... ing the paten pf ell
geese institutions Which,desily rose and de Ike
sees of Phigliahrnen four OfitlV• years since, the in t
ed the Cour Imperial*, the Tittln remarks, comes lissm be
all Who have ever bees induced to take • share in •
limited company. The suit was against the directors to
compel them to reimburse a subscriber the sums
he had paid to increase the capital of the company, on
the ground that he bad been induced to assent to it by
false and fraudulent repeeeentations. This is what the

Cour Imperial. has determined, and having found the
facts establishing the deceit the decree lays down the prin-
ciple that the responsibility of directors for their personal
acts is of a higher character than their responsibility for
excessive confidence reposed by them in persons or trans-
actions insufficiently overlooked, and therefore the court
condemned the MM. Pereire, M. Salvador, and two others,
who were on the direction of both companies, and must
have known the whole truth, to repay to the share-
holder his instalments, but exonerated M. Cheva-
lier and three others, who bad not this double
qualification, of all share in the responsibility.
The condemnation of those directors to whom a complete
knowledge is brought home to repay the shareholders they
deceived will be sufficient to make many Englishmen in-
quire whether they could not have the same remedy.
Some of them may plead that they were shareholders in a
()Wit Mobilier and Foncier ; that there was a separation
of functions and a reconstitution of their society ; that as-
sets represented as valuable have shrivelled up like the
magic money of the Eastern tale; and that they have
paid calls on the faith of promises which cannot be rea-
lised, and as those who uttered them ought to have known
Oliver could be realised. Could not they get back some of
their money P It is no part of our business to advise
them, although there are certainly dicta which might be
construed favourably to their hopes.

ilfE WEBLZYLN BODY.

The Daily News describes political churchmen watching
the proceedings of the Wesleyan oonferenoe now WM.
bbd at Liverpool with a degree of interest which has not
been excited for many years by that annual gathering.
But there is reason to believe that the speech delivered by
the new president represents the opinions of the powerful
►ody of which he is the head. The notion of entering
the southern church establishment has not been enter-
tained for a moment. The Wesleyan are far too much
attached to an organisation which they have found admi-
ably fruited to their wants and to their freedom in the use
01 lay agency to think of that. But this is not all. The pre-
tentious development of sacramental principles and priestly
pretensions within the church during the last ten years
has effected a vast change in the Wesleyan body. Any
public movement clearly favourable to the Bomish church
would unite them to a man; but with the fact in full view
that statesmen of all parties from time to time make the
invidious privilege and indefensible position of the Irish
establishment a reason for giving aids and compensations
to the church of Rome, the conference will not take a step
to defend that institution in this its hour of trial.

FORCE.

In the opinion of the Post the War-office circular shows
a complete misapprehension of the disaster at Windsor,
which occurred, not from a failure on the part of the
volunteers to obey their officers, but from the officers
themselves being unacquainted with "the usage of the
military service," being ignorant of their duties, and
abandoning their functions and their posts. The supply
of officers is the weak point of the volunteer force;
and if it is to prosper, officers must be obtained
who know their duties, and who will com-
mand the respect and obedience of their men.
But the first preliminary to the proposed change of system
for supplying officers to the volunteers must be the increase
of the capitation grant—which the present government so
injudiciously refused—for until this be done it will be im-
possible to select officers for their attainments and qualifi-
cations instead of for their wealth.

For several reasons the Telegraph concludes that for
the present the extension of the franchise will be less than
was generally anticipated within the first year. We have
only just created a new and complicated machinery, and
a considerable time is required to get it into full opera-
tion. It is therefore true only in a limited sense that the
appeal is about to be made to the new constituencies.

Even if the cumbrous process of the Reform Act should
not be simplified and amended hereafter even if the law
next year should be just the same es it is now—it is certain
that another registration will be more productive than
that which is now impending.

F 9,11. N 60401. NEWS.
FL ('ling- DAY.)
PEW DJ FFERINCE BETWEF,N EXILE
AIPD EMPIRE.
Apropos of the dispersal of the meeting of French
liberals in Mines, by the police, the dlr,nir
National prints the following extract from the
Progri's du Pas-de-Calais of Oct. 4, 1843 :

Ought we not to blush—we, a free people, or who, at
all events, think ourselves so, for we have made many re-
volutions to make ourselves free—ought we not to blush,
ssy, when we find that even Ireland—wretched Ireland—
enjoys in oertain aspects greater liberty than Enlace P Here,
for example, twenty persons cannot meet without the pre-
vious sanction of the police, whilst in the country of
O'Connell thousands of men assemble, discuss their inte-
rests, threaten the foundations of the British empire, with-
out the minister daring to violate the law which protects
the right of meeting in England.

L 01713 NAPOLZON BONAPLZTZ.

(TICIOVOII RETITIfIe I lOSInIT.)
FRANCE.
N 1111123, Atm= 4.

The election of a Deputy to the Corps Legislatif
for the department of the Gard have terminated.
There were 34,093 electors registered ; 22,619 of
whom voted. K. Dumas, the govermnent candidate,
was elected. by 13,832 votes. The opposition can-
didates were IL Larcy and IL Cazot, who
obtained 2,427 and 4,338 votes respectively.

HUNGARY.

PESTH, Auotrrr 4.

In to-day's sitting of the Lower House of the
Hungarian Diet, the draft of an agreement with
Croatia was laid before the house by the special
commissioners, who had been negotiating with
delegates of the Croatian Diet the terms of com-
promise. They propose to abolish the entire
system of border-militia hitherto in force along
the whole length of the Turkish frontier.
The question whether the district of the free sea-
port town of Fiume shall belong to Hungary or
Croatia has not been settled by the delegates of
the two Diets. The general debate on the Army
Be-organisation Bill continues to occupy the
House.