The Sun.
London, England, 1864-08-27 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, SATURDAY EVENING, AUGUST 27, 1864.

extension and the Victoria station, and after paying
the Mid-Kent rent, would leave £3OO or £4OO, and
not a shilling for the debentures. There was also a
debt for interest in respect of the Dover extension
of £67,000, which would have to be paid in some
day. He believed that Mr Forbes had stated that
a traffic of £B,OOO a week would pay all the pre*
ference charges on the main line, but that must be
the average for the whole year, since then
£2,000,000 had been added to the capital. He esti-
mated that £12,500 a week would be required to
pay 5 per cent. all round, which he hoped they
would have some day, They had now power to
raise altogether £16,500,000, and it would require
a traffic of £31,750 a week to satisfy every one.
Mr ADAMS estimated the present capital at
£16,900,000.

Mr HARRISON estimated that the loss on working
the steamers must be something like £30,000 a year,
allowing for depreciation and everything.
Mr SURGEY thought it perfectly useless to talk
over their affairs in that manner, while several lines
were in course of construction, the traffic greatly
increasing, and before their present system was
completed. We should at least allow some time for
the development of the traffic after the completion
of the undertaking.

Mr FORBES, the general manager, explained that
if the traffic continued to increase as it had done,
everything would be amply covered in a reasonable
time after the opening of the company's lines now
in rapid course of construction.

The report was then unanimously adopted.
The meeting was then made special, and the
directors were authorised to raise additional capital
of £1,600,000 for the metropolitan extensions, by
the issue of 160,000 ten-pound shares, to rank pari
yam with the deferred A shares ; also under the
Act of 1864 to raise on debentures, £533,333 in re-
spect of the metropolitan extensions, They were
then authorised to convert 82,500 A deferred shares
of the metropolitan extension into A deferred stock.

On the motion of Mr REES, seconded by Mr
HAitTRIDGE, a vote of thanks to the chairman and
directors concluded the proceedings.

LEEDS, BRADFORD, AND HALIFAX
JUNCTION.

The half-yearly meeting of this company was
held yesterday at Bradford, Mr. W. Brown in the
chair.

The report having been read,

The CHAIRMAN expressed his confidence from the
receipts of the Great Northern Company during the
past half year and the prospects of the company in
the coming half year, that the shareholders of the
Leeds, Bradford, and Halifax Junction Company
would, under their agreement with the Great
Northern, receive in the present year a dividend
after the rate of from 7 to 8 per cent.
The report was adopted, and a dividend after the
rate of 6 per cent. per annum for the half year end..
ing the 30th of June was declared.
NORTHERN COUNTIES UNION.

The final meeting of the shareholders in this
company was held on Thursday at the London
Tavern ; Mr. U. Pease, M.P., in the chair.

The repost stated that since the last meeting, in
February, 1860, when a dividend of ls. per share
was declared, other sums had been received,land the
available balance was .£1,510, out of which the
directors proposed to give Mr. C. L. Webb, the
secretary, tha sum of 1:500, and leave the balance
at the disposal of the shareholders.

The report having been adopted, a resolution was
proposed to give the balance to the directors for past
services, they undertaking any further liabilities
that might arise.

Vote of thanks to the directors and secretary for
their valuable services were passed, and the proceed-
ings terminated by dissolving the company.

MORETONHAMPSTED AND SOUTH DEVON

The half-yearly meeting of the company was held
on Wednesday at Newto❑ Abbott; Mr. J. Divett
presided-

The report stated that the land purchases were
being proceeded with us rapidly as possible, and
that the contractors would shortly be in possession
of the whole of the land required for the construc-
tion of the line. In consequence of the alterations
made by the Tcign Valley Railway Company in
their undertaking, the directors felt it their duty to
co-operate with the South Devon Company in their
opposition to the proposed extensions,which resulted
in the rejectio❑ of the bill in the House of Lords.
The Dartmouth and Torbay Railway had now been
completed, and the directors entertained no doubt
that the extension of the railway;system to the har-
bour of Dartmouth would have a material influence
on the future traffic of the line.

The report was adopted, and Mr Margery said the
Line would be opened for traffic in the early part of

next summer.

calls which the directors would make. He thought
the prospects of the company were satisfactory.
The report was adopted.
Mr J. B. AVanklyn and Mr Cash were re-elected
directors, and the meeting closed with a vote of
thanks to the chairman.

cess, are now, we believe, cordially approved by all classes
and parties in the Confederacy. The only difference of
opinion, still giving rise to disputes, is whether the State
Government should or should not be placed on the same
footing in regard to trade as the Confederate Government.
There is much to be said on either side of this discussion.
Against the proposed equality there occur to us two formi-
dable objections. One, in theory, is that it could give to
the States with seaports of their own and large stores
of cotton, like Georgia, the two Carolinas, and Alabama,
an advantage over others not so circumstanced, and
especially over those which are wholly or in.
part overrun by the enemy, like Tennessee and
Louisiana, and such an advantage is incompatible with
that solidarity of interests which makes all the States a
unit against the invader. The other object is a practical
one, and it is that greedy adventurers and speculators upon
the public necessity would have the chances in favour of a
lax application of the law increased in proportion as they
had to deal with 11 Governments instead of only one. Per-
haps the beat way to reconcile justice and expediency with
the principles of the Confederate partnership of States,
would consist in the Confederate Government becoming the
factor and agent for the individual States in such importa-
tions and exportations as they might reasonably require on
their separate accounts. This is what, we believe, is sub-
stantially the present practice.
The prohibition of luxuries is a necessary corollary of the
system. Sumptuary laws, such as virtually are the regula-
tions which we publish in our advertising columns, read
oddly in this 19th century, and it will be said shock the libe-
ral spirit of the age, that a nation of professed Republicans
vows to subjugate and exterminate, by fire and sword,
another materially weaker nation of Republicans, in the
name of liberty and self-government. These prohibitions,
during the struggle, mean nothing more than that every
bale of cotton which goes to pay for something the nation
does not actually need is wasted, and that every ton of ship
room filled with needless cargo excludes the same weight or
size of articles which cannot be done without. The nation's
needs are those of a workshop ; when with peace the
amenities of civilised life shall return, it will be time enough
again to buy fine linen, costly silks, and elegant furniture,
and richly-flavoured wines. There is a moral justice, too,
in this, and a few giddy and foolish persons shall not, by
an untimely ostentation, mock and insult the stoic temper
of a whole people.

We must not conclude without briefly referring to a sub-
ject in connection with Southern finances which cannot be
treated here as its importance deserves. A passage in the
report of the Secretary of War, which we publish last week,
gives us hope that the Confederate journal has it now under
deliberation to apply to its internal economy the same prin-
ciple which has worked so well abroad. This principle is
to substitute cotton, of which there is plenty, as a standard
of values for gold, of which there is none, There is now
in the Confederacy a stock of cotton of at least three
million bales, of which probably not less than one-third is
in a condition fit for immediate exportation. Of a large
proportion of this the Government is the direct owner. If
instead of this property the Government had the value,
even at only 6d a pound, in gold, who can doubt that the
Confederate currency would never have lost a specie basis ?
Why should not a cotton basis, equally available for pre-
sent. purposes, be adopted ? Grant that the precious metals
are abstractedly immeasurably superior to a perishable com-
modity as a standard of values. But if one cannot have
what one wishes, why not make use of what one has ?
Suppose the Government, in its future disbursements at
home as well as abroad, should give promises to pay cotton
instead of promises to pay gold ? It is under any conceiv-
able circumstances better able to keep the former than the
latter, An order on the Government storekeeper for 100dol
of cotton at peace prices would therefore at worst be mole
intrinsically valuable than an order for gold on the Treasury
to the same amount. If the expericient succeeded. the
cotton promises might be gradually exchanged for the gold
promises already issued. To give the cotton promises a
saleable value abroad, it would only be necessary to exempt
the holders from certain restrictions, whether present or
prospective, on the exportation. Already the Government
has undertaken to pay the interest on one description of its
domestic funded debt in cotton; why not extend this
expedient to the principle of its future unfunded debt ?
The plan would be condemned by a certain class of shallow
political economists, who, when they have learned the for-
mulus of the science by rote, fancy they know every pos-
sible application of its laws. But must it be necessarily
condemned, because of being exceptional and anomalous,
by the practical statesmen of a country in which everything
is at present anomalous and exceptional ?—l7ee