The Sun.
London, England, 1865-12-19 00:00:00

criterion.
THE " SATURDAY REVIEW" ON RAILWAY LEGIS-
LATION.—It is not a little surprising that, after two
unusually heavy sessions, an increased number of
private bills should have been deposited for the en-
suing year. Although, however, the great addition to
the capital already invested in public undertakings
renders fresh applications to Parliament necessary,
the list of bills but loosely indicates the amount of
labour which must be devoted to private legislation.
A large proportion of bills will be unopposed, and
many petitioners will agree to a compromise before
their claims are ready for adjudication. Experience
will show whether many litigants avail themselves
of a late standing order which enables the referees,
by consent of parties, to dispose of the entire case.
Some questions of great importance must be decided
by. select committees, unless contending parties can
agree among themselves to some satisfactory ar-
rangement. It is proposed to open new routes to
Brighton, to the South Wales coalfield, and to Scot-
land, and it may be confidently assumed that in
each case local feeling wine favourable to the pro-
jectors. There are few inviries more difficult than
the comparison of vested interests in existing rail-
ways with the public convenience which is appa-
rently involved in the establishment of a competing
system. Those who have occasion, as parties or as
judges, to consider similcr questions, are aware that
it is impossible to refer decisions on complicated
facts to any general rule. Popular opinion inclines
alternately to extreme zeal for the interests of
shareholders and to exclusive regard for the sup-
posed advantage of the public. Professed econo-
mists sometimes declare that railway companies re-
quire rest, that capital accounts ought to be speedily
and permanently closed, and that competition is but
another name for combination ; yet the same
theorists are ready when the fashion changes to de-
nounce the opponents of mmecessary undertakings as
monopolists, and to protest against their being even
heard against a scheme vhich may perhaps reduce a
flourishing company to poverty or insolvency. The
evils of wasted capital have been greatly exagge-
rated, for nine-tenths )f the railways constructed
in England are legitimate undertakings, which
may, under proper management, be fairly ex-
pected to return a reasonable profit ; but thd wildest
adventurers wouuld ne-ter have sunk their money in
railways if they had thought it possible that they
were to be submitted to unlimited competition at
the will of private perms. It has often been sug-
gested lately that the only parties really concerned
in an inquiry as to a proposed railway are the capi-
talists who offer to make the line, and the land-

owners who are to be expropriated by contract or
compulsion. It is argued, therefore, that Parlia-
ment ought to approve of every bill which is unop-
posed by landowners; and the further inference
that a private owner ought not to place a veto on a
public undertaking follows with a certain logical
force. The Lands Clauses Act provides compensa-
tion for property wbtdris-t-aken, aial the interest of
the projector is represented as a sufficient security
for the public utility of the enterprise. It is a start-
ling discovery that every man has a right to take
the property of every ether man for purposes which
he may consider profitable to himself ; yet, if it
were true that the public interest would be promoted
by the sacrifice, it might be difficult to oppose the
doctrine which has been so loudly proclaimed. It
is strange, however, that the professed advocates of
the Continental plan of exclusive concessions should
also recommend a system which is characteristically
described as free-trade in railways. Much ignorant
praise has been bestowed on the reports of 19 years
ago which were publisied under Lord Dalhousie's
sanction, because they discouraged the competition
of new-comers where existing companies were wil-
ling to construct necessary or desirable branches.
The entire withdrawal of all preference and protec-
tion is recommended by the same popular instruc-
tors, without any apparent consciousness of incon-
sistency. A general antipathy to railway directors,
and to all their supposed accomplices, is equally
gratified by charges that they are neglecting the in-
terests of their shareholders, and by complaints that
the proprietors themselves enjoy a pernicious mono-
poly. Common enmities are said to cement friend-
ships, but those who depend for their livelihood on
railway dividends will rot easily be persuaded to
join the assault which, through their agents, is
directed against themselves. A board which
has been repeatedly attacked for not closing
a capital account cannot le expected to watch pas-
sively the opening of a capital account by a
rival, for the professed purpose of abstracting
traffic, or rather of obtaining power to abstract it.
Additional accommodation would thus, it is said, be
provided for passengers and freighters, and the
landowners would receive the value of the property
which would be taken. The illustration may ap-
pear extravagant, from the absurdity of the sup-
posed results ; but it is by no means certain that
the enterprise would not be profitable and safe.
The owner of a second line between the same ex-
treme points can at once compel the older compe-
titor to divide his profits—and if the mileage, the
gradients, and the other conditions are equal, the
new-comer can claim half the proceeds of the com-
mon purse. Half the receipts of the Great North-
ern main line would perhaps pay a fair dividend on
a capital which would be considerably less than the
cost of the existing undertaking. The fares would
be lowered, the number of trains would probably
not be increased, and the interests of the two com-
panies would be in all respects identical, although
the junior partner had forced himself into a share
of the business. If the new line were longer, or if
the gradients were heavier, it might not improbably
be found profitable to send the entire traffic by the
existing line, although the new proprietors would
take their share of the profits. In this case three or
four millions would have been expended for pur-
poses of plunder, without producing the smallest
commercial or material advantage to the general
community. The supporters of a theory have no
right to object to an extreme case which shows the
fallacy of their doctrine. It is not improbable that
direct piracy of the plan Df a flourishing undertak-
ing might be the most profitable application of the
system of unregulated competition. It would, how-
ever, be better for both parties that a contractor
should be brought off tilts' that he should waste his
money in making a duplimte line. There is scarcely
any limit to the amount if black mail which would
be levied on railway proprietors if Parliament no
longer required proof 9f the necessity or expe-
diency of a proposed indertaking. When ade-
quate advantages are rally offered by a compet-
ing line, it is almost invariably sanctioned. Every
great commercial town is now reached by two,
three, or four railways There was a time when
the London and North-Western Company carried
all the Northern traffio, and Lord Dalhousie re-
ported against the utnecessary competition of
the Great Northern. Is far as a rule can be ex-
tracted from a legislation which necessarily follows
the diversity of circumstances, it is now a settled
principle that, when irtermediate districts require
railways of their own the new parallel lines are
allowed to extend themselves to terminal points,
although the.through traffic has been sufficiently
accommodated. It is not likely that parliamentary
committees will adopt the fallacy that existing in-
terests have no claim consideration. A reason-
able amount of certairty is an indispensable condi-
tion of the expenditureof capital on useful enter-
prises. The contractors who have pushed railways
into some of the leatt promising districts of the
country have conferred great and unexpected benefits
on theinhabitants aid on the owners of property.
In some instances tley create a profitable traffic,
anda
have
e beenthey
their own adventure. Their capital would never
h
mrisakyedfaii:ltyieexypbesedt toreap the benefit of
supposed
that compe-