The Sun.
London, England, 1855-12-24 00:00:00

CAPTAIN BUIS"' ON RAILWAY

MANA G EMENT.

A dinner was given on Friday evening at the Clarence
Hotel, Manchester, in honour of Mr. Eborall, the
general manager of the East Lancashire Railway, on
the occasion of his leaving the district to take the ma-
nagement of the South-Eastern Railway. Captain
Huish, the general manager of the London and North-
Western Railway, presided, and a large number of rail-
way directors and officers from all parts of the country
were present.
The CHAIRMAN, in proposing the " Health of Mr.
Eborall," adverted at considerable length to the position
and policy of railway management. He said, however
singular it might seem that so gigantic an instrument
and so wide-spread a system as that of the railway in-
terest of Great Britain should be in its present state of
depression and collapse, while the railway system of
every other country, derived from this country, was ex-
tending and improving, the causes of this were palpable
to every one. In a great commercial country like this,
teeming with money and overflowing with the annual
increase of its wealth, the railway system, starting into
ex;stence full blown, and far exceeding the anticipations
of its creators, elicited a spirit of excitement, of spe-
culation, and of almost wild delirium of extension,
which we were now only too ready to regret, but
which, at the time, no one was powerful enough to
withstand. Parliament, which ought to have stemmed
the popular madness, first bounded on the commer-
cial enterprise of this country to a far greater and
more rapid extension of railways than was prudent
or expedient, and then, having excited competition
as the only means of regulating the proceedings of
these great corporations, stepped in and said, "Hay.ng
granted competition, we can compel you now, under a
sort of penal power, to assist each other to break each
other's heads." (Cheers and laughter.) It was in vain
that the older c,e-porations lifted up their voice, and
preached the doctrine that competition in railways was
combination at a later period, and that where one line
pail 5 per cent, it did not follow as an inevitable se-
quence that two lines through the same district would
pay f2i per cent. each. Parliament flung the railway
system broadcast upon the country, without any consi-
deration whatever, and left to railway managers and
directors the unhappy task of endeavouring to pick out
this tangled mass and to weave into smoothing like a
system the difficult and almost inextricable knot into
which they had tied them. (Hear, hear.) But it was
not in Englishmen to sit down contented with their
arms folded ; and, as it was useless to regret the past,
let them consider how to retrieve the grand cardinal
error which had been made in this country, to rescue
the wreck of this noble property, and reinstate it on
something like a substantial basis. He, for one, had no
hesitation or despair whatever of the railway system of
Great Britain, if placed under proper management and
judicious guidance. (Hear.) But, unless we steered a
totally diffrent course from that so fruitlessly pursued fur
years past., he feared we had not seen She end of the mis-
chief. r. rescue railway property Irons its present condi-
tion lie looked to prudence and publicity—for he thought
the more public the proceedings were to the shareholders,
the greater the element ofsecurity in railway property—but
above all, to the returning good sense of directors and
managers, in concentrating their energies rather for
good than evil, and directing their effarts rather to be-
nefit and conciliate each ether than to snatch an undue
advantage. (Hear, bear.) Railway managers had been
too apt to forget, this policy, but he confessed that in his
railway career those parts to which he looked back with
greatest satisfaction were those in which he had endea-
voured honestly, and he hoped to some extent success-
fully, to harmonise ail the surrounding interests, and
bring one groat system of fusion into profitable and ac-
cordant action. (Cheers.) However much boards of
directors might exert themselves to conduct and regu-
late railway undertakings, it was in a very great degree
on the temper, modera..ion, and spirit with which rail-
nay managers carried out their c-immunicatione with
each other that the prosperity cf the railway system
must depend. (Cheers.) Under the circumstances of
his present position in the railway world, the railway
manager must be a sort of rata azis of his kind. Ho
must, of course, be a man of general education and en-
largsd views, and he must have address and manner,
because he hail ta meet every class and description of
men, from the peer to the peasant. 'Unless he had
a large knowledge of human life, ho would not be
able to cope with the difficult positions in which he
was frequently placed ; and he must have a grasp of
mind that would look over small things and take li-
beral and comprehensive. He must have
his o
kindly
views views of neighbouring interests as well as
and ho must have long and earnestly studied his pro-
fession, both in its scientific and in its commercial
part.aware,
thought, rveebryu t littlearg e
and lie believed"g thea very
d Publiciffiaetullat large were
thought, attention, and anxiety, and how
when they travelled smoothly along a line of railway, of
how much
many aching heads, had been given to the provision of
that accommodation which they enjoyed. The manager
of a great trunk line must be aware of all the continually
changing commercial and political circumstances of the
country, and ought to be continually studying them.
He must have an iron constitution, health, and activity;
for it was no light task that railway managers undertook.
Sleepless nights and anxious days, dry weather and wet,
frost and snow, sun and sunshine, all were the same to
the railway man ; there he must be. No pursuit re-
quired more imperatively that a man must have the power
of regulating his temper ; and he would beseech the
railway manager never to lose sight of the claims of his
subordinates. (Hear.) He must be a man of regislarity
and punctuality, in the strictest sense ; and, finally, the
two qualities on which he placed the greatest value were
truthfulness and integrity. He believed immense mis-
chief had been done to the railway interest, not by the
want if common vulgar truth as betuesn man and man,
but by the absence of that delicate perception of truthful'.
nen, that horror of deceit, that repudiation of all
chicanery, and the absence of anything approaching to
trickery on the part of railway managers, which was so
much to be desired. He would not merely place the
value of integrity on the ground' that it was the best
policy, but on the higher ground that they were to en-
deavour to raise the moral character of the system
with which they were connected, and to rescue, if possi-
ble, 300,000 .of p,OOO/ roert employing some y,
hun-
dreds of thousands of men; and they could only do that
by elevating their even conduct. (Cheers.)
afterwards honoured.
Mr. EBORALL responded, and several toasts were

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TELE
QUEEN AND THE CRIMEAN OFFICERS.—/Ter Ma.
jetty the Queen is making a collection of photographic
portraits of the more distinguished officers engaged in
the Crimean campaign. Her Majesty's sympathy with
her wounded soldiers is well known, as also is the hospi-
tality and gracious attention shown to the officers who
have returned to England on leave or otherwise. To this
her Majesty has added the compliment of expressing a
wish to have a photographic portrait taken for the royal
portfolio. The artist who has been entrusted with the
taking of the pictures is Mr. Mayan, the well-known
photographer of Argyll-place, Regent-street. The most
recent addition to the royal collection is the portrait of
Sir Colin Campbell. The gallant general sat a day or
two since ; and, in spite of a fog by no means favourable
to each operations, Mr. Mayall succeeded in producing
a remarkably fine and characteristic likeness.