Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1859-02-22 00:00:00

OUR:RAILWAY WARS

WHEN we wrote a brief article, the other day,
about our Railway system, we called that which

has been so ruinous .to many a Company conyeti-

—the act of endeavouring to gain what

another is endeavouring to gain at the same time

And this,

on as a contest—

whin carried

of opposition, and .with the object of

-in a spirit

injuring a

rival Company, without benefiting, but rather, at

the same time, damaging their own—this, we say,
thus conceived, and thus pursued, were surely bad
enough. .But we had not, it seems, after all,
stigmatised it so strongly as we might have done,
or as we now-have most respectable Railway autho-
rity for doing. Competi4fon is a mild term as com-

pared with that of war,--and this is the word, it ap-
pears, which we ought to have used. At the half-
yearly meeting of the. Great Northern Railway,
which was reported in our issue of yesterday, the
question of competition was clearly considered •as
one of war; and one of the shareholders did not
hesitate to say, that he " held the Chairman

responsible .fore the warkre which the Com-

piny had carried on

he actuttilN

complained that the ilinz. gentleman managed
the affairs of .The Company very much in the
same spirit, and upon the same principle,
as the Emperor of the French governed France,"
and he went on to declare, it Amild be seen, that

"pea,ee or war rested with the ,Chairman " This
great functionary, -then, he is totil to his face, has
imperial dominion. His is not a limited, but an

absolute Monarchy. Oar gracious Sovereign the
Queen cannot levy war without the concurrence
of her faithful Commons., because with them it
rests to grant or withhold the necesizry- supplies.
This is one of the wise previsions of .the British
Constitution. But a Railway King —that is the
:Chairman of a Railway Cosapany—ha/ no such
-check or control to contend with :. he has the
supplies continually pouring in to his Ex4equer,
and can appropriate them as he gisteth.
This particular potentate, it is true, has lately.
been striving to pursue a more paec policy than
formerly ; and another of the shareholders, there
fore,
very generously declared, that ;' he was to
.
be commended for bringing to a close the reckless'
competition which had for some time prevailed.'
The Chairman himself was frank enough, at
length, to acknowledge, that " if they could only,
acountthineueshaatr
peacee
h o l d e theyy:av
no u lads
ssuercaunrcee porfo stpheer i ttyr
truth
of which there can tic no doubt whatever, whether
as respects this or any other
Railway that has any
fair amount of traffic. This •
ery Chairman,
indeed, proclaimed a general conentren • ce sucliAt

conclusion, declaring, as he did, that " good judges
were of opinion •, that if Railway Companies
generally would avoid great expenditure
and competition, the trade of the country
would rapidly run up, and all Railway pro-
perty in the country become remunerative." No
doubt this opinion has not been arrived at without
a pretty costly experience of the ruinous extrava-
gance of the competitive or war policy ; and this
may account also for the earnestness with which
the same worthy Chairman assured the meeting,
that "he and his co-directors had, always been
ready to promote peace with their competitors,"
and the expression of pleasure with which he com-
municated to them, " that by friendly conference
between the directors of the London and North
Western, the Manchester,•Sheffield, and. Lincoln-
shire, and the Great Northern Companies,. and
aided by the advice,of their general manager, the
unfortunate competition between Lancashire and
London was brought to a close in November
last."

We only wish that all the other " unfortunate
competitions " could also be brought to a close.
And we say this with a thorough • conviction, that
it is not for 'the interest of the public, any more
than of Railway proprietories, that these " unfor-
tunate competitions " should be carried on. They
are unfortunate for the country, as well as the

Companies themselves ; because they involve a
wasteful expenditure. War can never really be
profitable to any body. For war, in whatever it
is carried on, has in it a spirit of violence and
injustice ; and even when it is waged between
Railway Companies, it is apt to resist the rules of
moral obligation. A wholesome competition
is quite a different thing—where competition can
really be wholesome. But whatever the public
may temporarily gain by any other kind of com-
petition, since capital is wasted by it the public
themselves must in the end be sufferers.

AORITRitN `,LILIES, TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 2'2, 1.89