The Express.
London, England, 1850-02-07 00:00:00

AUDIT OF RAILWAYS.

(hoc the IlaiiirSers.)

MR. LABINTITERes expectation that a measure for
metering a sufficient audit of railway affairs will be
submitted t. Parliament by shareholders themselves,
is, pahaps, under all circumstance/4 a very natural
arid proper one. For the kw, it is obvious, cannot be
allowed to rimain in its existing insufficient state.
A: preecut some railway companies have not by
their own acts any legal system of audit, and yet are
exempt from the °per...doe of the Companies Clauses
Act. Others, agem, have an audit system of their
can, which, defective though the general law may
be, is still more defective. Whilst the more recent
companies are subject to the provisions of S Via.
chap. 16—and they have proved inadequate
to secure truthful and honest railway accounts. Now,
though there may be good reasons why, ou other
points of management, the earlier railway companies
are Lot to be faced against their wills to submit to all
the regulations of the Companies Clauses Act, no good
mime can be shown why their accounts simuld not be
properly audited ; and uniformity of audit system by
all railways is one of the beat securities for honest
accounts that shareholders can have. What is, there-
fore, wanted, is a good railway audit law applicable
to all companies, and to be worked independently of
the executive government.
So far, there seems now to be a general concurrence
of opinion. The next question is, by whom ought
such a law to be prepared. Hitherto all general
statutes on railway affairs have been drawn up by the
executive government, and passed by parlianseet on
their authority. Now, admitting that the prepara-
tion of these ants was the duty of the Ministers of the
',:rown, it has hitherto, notoriously, been a duty most
,cetiiciently performed; for ills impossible to imagine
legislation of a looser, clumsier, costlier, more obstruc-
tive, and more partial and one-sided character than
the collection of statutes collected in the worthy Mr.
useful little volume " Public General
Acta for the Regulation of Railways." Whe-
ther it be the Companies Clauses Act, the
Lstil tisuses Act, or the Railway Clauses Act, it is
difficult to say which is worse : for each is a mass of
rapid ieconsistencies, a cause of endless confusion
and dela% , a source of frightful and enormous cost, a
means e3ns'ant directorial mismanagement, and
the provocation to an amount of litigation that has
nearly overborne the Common Law Courts, and whiob
Li. k. pt the Equity Coasts going since 18!5 to the
Present time. Indeed, a finer specimen of landlord
legislation than the Land Clauses Acts, the Corn Law
of Psi 5 does not scarcely afford. The less, then, the
Nliusters have hereafter to do with the preps-
ton of rail say statutes, the more are the public, both
as travellers and sa shareholders, likely to be benefited.
IG+ide, in this question of railway audit, the govern-
ment, haviag attempted once to legislate on &principle
se, uhjeci.teiable that it was repudiated by parliament,
art bused to abstain from further interference, until
the advocates of the opposite principle have ',oh-
m, ittod their plan to the- legislature. And this Mr.
LAetwr neat appears willing to do. Only, he sake,
that en a/feasible delay shall take place in its pre-
Pitetion and introduction to pillow"
Railway shareholders have, *boor to propound
their triune. Assenting to Mr. Ltileitxuene's
wish, that there shall be no aocidabis delay
in tit matter, we must, nevertheless, add that
ea &subject of eo nook importance, and when there
are o, many oarless companies to consult, no great
passim of haste ought to bs placed on the parties