The Express.
London, England, 1850-04-24 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, WEDNESDAY EVENING, APRIL 24, 1850.

ante eiTortoo.

at battled'se and shuttlecock with the Wanes and'
the happiness of thousands, who sought better interest
for their money in the public works of their country
than the funds would yield.
The great earthquake of Lisbon and the terrible
harriceues of the Antilles, were more merciful in
their ruin and devastation than these successions of
railway panics. Those mighty convulsions of nature
engulphed or swept away their victims at once, and an
huge exemplars of painless extinction. Our railway
panics have gradually and remorselessly destroyed
people's ty before their eyes, and tormented
them witraPesrense of prolonged and agonising help-
lessness and hopelessness. The weaker and the poorer
have been ruined by fright; calls have been paid only
to disappear In the next day'. share list ; and those
who have " hedged" their high-priced stook by pur-
chases at what seemed low figures, have only done so
to find that by longer delay a still greater deprecia-
tion would have enabled them to have produced a yet
lower "average."
No doubt there are many good reasons for the pre-
sent depression. %i hen seven great lines completed
and in operation, and a larger number of secondary
lines, have not paid any dividend during the last half
year; when the last North Western dividend was a
deubtfal 5 per cent.; when the Great Western is ask-
ing for nearly tour millions of additional capital;
when the Caledonian is in a state of insolvent repu-
diation; and when several important lines, the
opening of which involves for the first time the princi-
ple of ore concileable competition, are just approaching
completion; no %wider public faith in railways is
shakes. But just as little doubt is there that there
are as many bad reasons as good ones for the depres-
sion. Alarm in pecuniary matters has always a ten-
dency to beccme exaggerated; and the prices of rail-
way shares, even it the result of bona Ma sales,
have indicated an exte-it of fear which, after
all, the traffic returns scarcely warrant. But
those prices are not altogether, the beet au-
thorities aro of opinion, the consequencelpf actual
sales. They are, it is generally believed, in no alight
degree caused by the fictitious operations of mere
speculators. And the conclusion which tame little
iiquiry on the point has led us to, is that of late
the number of shares actually transferred in the book'
of the leading companies bears no proportion to the
amount of business done; and that for one real trans-
, action there are, at least, half a di zen time bargains.
No little part of the depreciation is, therefore, caused
by those gambling propensities which it is hopeless to
attempt to cure, whether they break out in the dingy
regions of St. Bartholomew or in the more airy (fe-
males of St. James; whether they fled an object in
Midland stock or in the favourite for the Derby.
What Spanish formerly was, railway shares have
now become to the Stock Exchange.
But although it is hopeless to cure, there may be
some means of checking these propensities; and two
modes of doing so have been so fiequently 'egg( stedi
and are in themselves so easy and simple, as to render
it matter of surprise that they have not been resorted to.
Ono is, that every railway company should issue a
weekly or semi-monthly return of the number of its
shares, or the amount of its stock actually transferred
on its books. The other, that all 'mad fide sellers and
buyers should insist on immediate payment for their
sales or the immediate delivery of their purchases,
as the case rosy be. By the former, the full extent of
the actual operations of sales in each compsny would
I be made public •, and by the latter speculative share-
brokers would be somewhat restricted in the op:iort u-
pities they now have of founding en their clients'
sales or investments fictitious operations of their
own. The various stock exchasgee have certainly a
perfect right to fix Fettling days on which to pay tor,
receive for, and otherwise arrange their internal
transactions; but their clients are under no obligetiun
to be bound by their rules. There cm be little
difficulty in selling for money, and in buying for de-
livery, instead of for " the account ;" and it is some-
what intolerable that there should now be, through-
out the kingdom, an organised fraternity speculating
on the distresses and misadventures of the property
of the very people by whose brokerage they: at least,
prefers to live.
. .

OUTGOING MAILS.
The malls WA Marseilles, to the Mediterranean, Egypt
Ceylon, ludia, Hoag-Hoeg, to., will be wade up this
anulag.
The wails few British North Agonise and the Uaited
Stites will be made up as the evening of April 26.
The mails for Lisbon, Spain, and Gibraltar will be made
yap on April 27.
The West India Mello, including Bermuda, Havannah,
Nam, Headwall, New Orleans, and Mexico, sad excluding
Mese toe Madeira, St. Juan-de-Nicaragua, New Granada,
Chili, and Peru, will be median ou May 2.
The mails for Modern, the Brasile, and Buenos Ayres, will
be made up on the 4th of May.
The malls for Gibraltar, Malta, Grime, the lonian Islands,
lir&Ceylon, India, and China, via Southampton, will
up as the morning of key 20.

MON WATER AT LONDON =IDOL
Ti. O..—AINTANL 20..
Dram° 1,-lAmskag, 1% *amiss% ia. lea.

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 24.

WE think that fair hopes may be entertained of
the settlement of the Greek difference. This is
plainly to be discerned in the altered tone of that
great Russo-Greek organ, the Times. A week ago
that journal informed the world that "if Lord PAL-
3111ASTON did not recede, Russia would advance!"
Yesterday it drew in its horns, by acquainting us
that the Greeks " had little to hope from the actual
or forcible intervention of any gnat power," inasmuch
as " Admiral PAHICER'6I squadron was more than
match for any fleet that could be sent against it."
We congratulate the Times on having made. how-
ever tardily, this brilliant discovery. On Monday
we read in that paper, on the credit of M. ZOGRA-
PIIO9, that if the English fleet did not quit the
Piraeus, the Czar would invade Turkey. We did not
see at the moment, why the poor Sultan should be
made to pay for what England might do or might
not do in Greece. But the limes re-assures us by
observing, that "the boldest operations of Russia
could afford but a distant diversion is favour of
Greece."

The fact is, that the East is still the land of illu-
sions, or, in more vulgar language, the head-quarters
of lies. All the potentates and statesmen of that
region indulge in dreams, and in the big and empty
words which
.people talk in dreams, and which have
neither meaning nor truth. There is no greater
dreamer than the Czir, and no caliph of an
Arabian tale given to utter more grandi-
loquent words or more empty threats. What
his Imperial Majesty slid t 3 M. ZOORAIIIOB,
and what M. ZOGRAPIIO3 reported to his govern-
ment, and which thriugh that government reached
the world through the trumpet i r g of the MI" we care
not. Bat we appreciated from the first, as the nnes
itself his done at last, the emptiness of such threats,
and the bellownesa of such words.

Poor King Onto, 1;;;;;;;Tke the Tunes, has
been the dupe of this grandiloquence. And, indeed, we
should premise that his Majesty is very much given
to put trust in dreams, and to feed his fancy
upon visions. His whole reign has been more that of
a chewer of opium, than of a politician who atended
to business. He was scarcely promoted to ttc Greek
throne, by indeed an almost fabulous, and certainly a
blind award of fortune, than he imagined that it was
but one step further from the Greek to the Turkish
throne, and that a telling Wart would do it. In this
illusion he spent much money, and indulged
in a vast deal of treachery. Later, he found
prosaic England opposed to his entering upon
another war of Troy, whilst French and even Rule
liana flattered him with the idlest hopes. England
told him that if his aim was aggrandisement and con-
quest, he had the surest means in his hands, which
were to govern justly, economically, liberally. But
OTno despised this vulgar mode of conquest. Ile
preferred playing the little, passionate, prodigal
tyrant, checking the development of Greece ard pre-
venting the foundation of his dynasty. This policy
favoured Russian vi* ws; and the miserable idiot of
a king trusted the insidious councils of Russia, not
the honest and constitutional ones of England.
This, however, meters not to us. If Russia and
France will aid in nullifjing Greece, and making its
government despicable and detested, we cannot help
it. Rut we cannot permit, that petty veNeanee
should be taken upon us for giving good counsel.
We cannot petret our subjects to lc robbed, and no
attention even paid to their reclsmations. Neither
can we permit a boat's crew of British sailors to be
taken, and dragged with blows to a guard-house,
without the shadow of a cause for the outrage, and
with the determined denial of the smallest repara-
tion for it.

• Considering the restrictions and the burdens placed
on railway property by law and legislation, and
how severe their effects on it are during its de-
pression, directors and boards are, we think, scarcely
lexhibiting sufficient activity, energy, and combination
in their intercourse with government. Those restric-
tions and hardens are three-1, The low rates of
fares imposed on railways ; 2, The vicious principle
on which they are assessed to poor rates; 3, The in-
justice of the passenger duty on railways. Now these
arc points which ought to be continually pressed g
the attention of government and parliament. Yet we
cannot discover that any representations on them
have been made to ministers by the various railway
directorates in any united form.
It is now demonstrated in the most convincing of
all forms, viz., by reduced dividends, that the assump-
tion and the calculations on which the legislature
fixed railway fares were purely imaginary and chi-
merical; that so far from railway profits generally
averaging, as it was long supposed and estimated
they would, 10 per cent., it will be considered a fortu-
nate railway which yields a dividend of 5 per cent.
on its original cost; and that, owing chiefly
to the enormous powers parliament conferred
on landowners in their dealings with rail-
way companies, the parliamentary estimates
on which this 10 per cent. calculation was
based, hate been necessarily and unavoidably ex-
ceeded. And such being the case—it being now
established beyond all doubt that legislation as to
farts was founded on defective information and on an-
ticipations ridiculously sanguine ; railway companies
certainly have a strong case on which to ask the
legislature, at least, to reconsider the subject of fares.
Already the Railway Commissioners have, under a
sensed accurate mileage, relieved some companies from
that height of absurdities—the " geographical clause"
—by which they were bound to charge in certain
cases by distance, as " the crow flies," instead of by
the number of miles the passenger was actually car-
ried. And the time is, we think, approaching when
a further step will have to be taken in reference to
fares.

On this poit t especially, the insult offered to the
officers and crew of the boat of the Fantome, we do
think that the British government has "how° a very
culpable Teraina'''. Instead of a fleet coming to de-
mand reparation for it after such a length
of time, it should have been sent instanter.
Nor is it by a seizure of merchant vessels
that such an insult to the navy of England ought to
have been reeented, but by a broadside pointed at the
very palace of the King, the boy-monarch whom our
arms placed where he ir, and who having made use of
that position to insult us, and deny a word or a tittle
of reparation and of justice, should have been taught
a much severer lesson. Mr. WYSE is perfectly right
in consenting to no terms and signing no °lnvention,
in which there is not an express apology for the
insults offered to the officers and boat's crew of the
Fantome.

But his Majesty will yield, we have no doubt. Nor,
indeed, would he have resisted at all, had not those
who fed him with illusions, and who are themselves
under the influence of the same illusions, buoyed up his
resolve. M. THOUVENEL promised him nothing lees
than the speedy coming of a French fleet. Since that
has proved vain,M. ZoGRAPHOII has telegraphed from
St. Petersburg he coming of a Russian one. The
Times hail zealously chronicled each of these threats,
conveyed to it through the PISCATORT or conservative
French porty. And when our sagacious contemporary
was deceived by the illusion, no wonder that poor
Onto was their dupe. The Tinter, however,
read yesterday its recantation, and poor Onto
has by this time probably read his. For the truth
must come out at last, even from St. Peters.
burg. And this truth, telling King Orno that
he had no material assistance to expect from the
Czar, must inevitably have disposed that monarch to
descend from the cloud. of cis Olympus, and enact
the part of an every day and a sensible monarch.
Amongst the foolish falsehoods got up on this sub-
ject, none are more glaringly contradicted, than that late
events have either humbled England with the Greeks
or rendered them odious. On the contrary, the first
feeling of irritation evaporated, the Greek press and
public discern and admit, that England could not put
up with such repeated slurs and Nampa, and that
the court and ministers were alone to blame. Rusin
by having pushed the King on to residence, and then
abandoned him, will have earned for itself the most
unenviable reputation in Greece.
Another error, which our letters enable us to dispel,
is the assertion that Greek trade is utterly paralysed
by our blockade, and that the consequent loss is
enormous. The Greek shipowners and merchants
are too apt to repeat this grievance ; natural enough,
as they demand indemnity from the government.
And government will echo it for their purposes. But
we believe the fact to be, that previous to the block-
ade, the Greek marine was, the greater part,
lying idle, no freights to be had, no bag.
nem doing. The great corn trade of 1847
had prompted the building of an immense quantity
of shipping, for which in 1850 there was literally no
employ. And we point out this fact, not merely to
meet the grievance of the Philhellenes, but to appease
the fears of the protectionists, who, in their dreams,see
large fleets laden with corn tame from the Black Sea
and the Levant to inundate our ports. There is
stagnation of trade in the Mediterranean; and how-
ever the Greeks and the government may accuse our
blockade of their ruin, this ruin must be accounted for
by other eansee, patent to every observer, and at-
tested by every correspondent.

It is for the public benefit that railways should be
a remunerative investment : for, with insufficient
profit on the capital invested, trains must become
fewer and slower, travelling kis fah and more irre-
gular and uncertain. If we turn to those lines on
which speed is highest, punctuality most unde-
viating, and safety greatest, we shall find them to
be the companies whose dividends are still highest
And the argument that the country generally may be
benefited though the profits of railways are unremu-
nerative, is shallow in the extreme : for, the more the
question is investigated, the more clearly will it appear
that the best of all tests of public advantages from
railways is tbe amount of dividend they pay to their
proprietaries.
But if the legislature will restrict railway fares, by
so much the more is it bound, in reason and justice, to
relieve companies of the undue pressure of both local
and national taxation. No one contends that railways
ought not to be assessed to the relief of the poor ; nor
does say one claim for them an exemption from the
tax on conveyance to which other modes of public
travelling (except, indeed, steam-boats) are subject,
however indefensible any tax on locomotion may be
in principle. But what is contended for is, that rail-
ways ought to be assessed to poor relief in the same
manner and rate as land generally, and that the net
profits, not the grew receipts, of traffic ought to be
taxed.

We have so frequently shown how oppressively the
present poor-law assessments operate on railway;
that now the Railway Commissioners are about to
issue a report cc the subject, we shall not further
enlarge on the question; except to remark, that the
placing railway assessments on the same footing as
that of othegisealna, would, it is calculated, give to
companies y an increased dividend of 10s.
per cent.

- The paseseger duty of 6 per cent. on the gran re-
ceipts might have been a trifle when profits were 10
per cent. ; but now that on many lines there is no
dividend at all, such a duty on gross reesiss is, in point
of fact, a confiscation, whereby the creditors of pro-
JEW. companies may be damnified. Mr. WHITEEIZAD,
of the Stock Exchange, in me of the series of useful
little pamphlets he le just now inning, has therein a
table of 30 companies, by which be shows that this
tax of 5 per cent on their gross receipts is a duty of
never lees than 7 par amt. on the nett receipts of
railways, and that it sometimes reecho as high as 14,
15, and even 17 per cent. Now, rarely this is a bur-
then from which railways in their present plight
might be somewhat relieved—at lesst, to the extent
of transferring the 6 per cent. from the gran to the
nett receipts.

Tim sent state of railway property is certainly
vary disheartening. Confidence in its security at an
investment appears to be suspended; in what was
Mx months ago thought to be its " lowest depth," a
" lower still," has now been discovered, but without
any certainty that the bottom Immo yet been reached ;
North Westerns (the Consols of the railway share mar-
ket) once at 2401., have at lest touched • discount ;
Lancashire and Yorkshire Fifths are not to be got rid
of without paying ten shillings a share to any one
rash enough to finger such explosive commodities;
and the gamblers of the Stock Exchange are playing