The Sun.
London, England, 1849-04-17 00:00:00

r We have no more space for extract, but there is much
further evidence that goes to show that it was necessary
to purchase the shares, and the price was not named by
Mr. Hudson. That he had the right to sell, is evident,
and that he had the right to make a profit is the only
question; but who ever cared as to how their profits
were made by rail Nays ? Mr. Hudson's error
has been a want of prudence in considering
his position. Had any other person done what
he has done, the circumstance would not have
been noticed, but his circumspection must be in propor-
tion to his elevation, and that he has discovered. Ws
greatest fault, after all, is that of parsimony—allowing
more money to be put to his credit than law, or, per-
haps-, strict equity, entitled him to ; but is not that more
the fault of those who gave him such advantage !
Now, let us ask, what good has resulted, or is likely
to result, to the shareholders, from this attempt to
damage Mr. Hudson ? has it, or will it improve the
value of their property to break up confidence in public
men, and especially a man who has been raised
to such a pinnacle as Mr. Hudson ? On the con-
try, it must, we should think, have a very damaging
effect on railway property, and we must beg emphati-
cally to impress on candid minds, how very different a
transaction appears under altered circumstances. Things
were done and sanctioned in the heyday of railway pros-
perity which now would not bear investigation. We put
it to the shareholders of the York, Newcastle, and Ber-
wick Railway, whether, if such a transaction which has
now taken place, had been proposed to be investigated in
the glorious days of 1845 and 1846, the proposer
would not have been ejected, not from the door, but
from the window of the room in which he had the har-
dihood to moot the question. But now times are
changed—dividends have sunk from ten per cent. to six,
shares from 100 prem. to discount; and this is Mr. Hud-
son's real crime—he has ceased to be able to make the
fortunes of his shareholders, and therefore he has ceased
to be an angel in their eyes.
Such is the fate of every one who experiences a tran-
sition from prosperity to adversity. The my share-
holders, whose throats were hoarse with receiving Mr.
Hudson with acclamation, and would receive him aga'n
with acclamation if he could raise their dividend from six
to ten per cent., will now perhaps be most vociferous in
his condemnation; we say, perhaps, because it is just
possible that a true sense of their own interests may in-
duce them, at the next meeting of the shareholders of the
York, Newcastle and Berwick line, to receive the report
of the Committee of Investigation but refuse to adopt it.
Let them remember that Mr. Hudson has never hesi-
tated to incur any amount of personal responsibility
whenever the interests of the company were concerned;
and if, in times of adversity, they forget put services,
and because a man is discovered by a hostile committee
to be, after all, but human, this is no reason
why suck services as Mr. Hudson has ren-
dered, and is capable, from his vast knowledge
and experience, of rendering to the railway world, are to
be cast aside. And we do hope, for the sake of the rail-
way interest generally, and for that of the shareholders
aogf
ahi ina lis
t naensy, esa tpteecim apl
tl y,
to thatinj u
ra decided
Hudson tan d w
anl b
feu made
e r
than he offers to injure himself, via., by taking upon
himself the obligation as well as the duty of trustee. Let
the shareholders be generous as well as just, for no good,
rely on it, will arise from carrying hostility beyoi!d
what the actual circumstances of the case w

justify. Let shareholders remember that directors
are, after all, but mortals ; and that, in nine cases
out of ten, it is the fault of shareholders themselves
if matters go wrong, by their not exercising sufficient
vigilance and control ; and that it is most detrimental

to their interests, and speaks but little in their favour
as men, that they were willing to take all the good they
could from the hands of Mr. Hudson so long as he could
bestow it, but the moment a day of adversity arises they
forsake him, and verify the adage, that " gratitude is
but a lively sense of favours to come."
Neither shareholders nor company will, it is clear,
receive any pecuniary damage from the share transac-
tions of Mr. Hudson; and the shareholders, if they are
wise and wish to benefit their property, will not be made
the tools of an interested clique, whose only object is
to depreciate the shares, and profit by sowing distrust
broadcast. At the same time, the duties of directors
should be more clearly defined; and it would be highly
beneficial to joint-stock companies generally, if directors
were nude to feel that they are but trustees, and that in
future the duties of trustees will be strictly enforced.
(From the Sunderland 7 imes).
The committee appointed by the proprietors of the
York, Newcastle, and Berwick Railway, at the general
half-yearly meeting at York on the 20th February last,
to investigate the Great North of England Purchase ac-
count, have at length made their report, a copy of which,
'along with the evidence upon which it professes to be
based, we give at length in our present number. It is
obviously impossible to enter into a minute discussion of
all that passed in review before that committee, and it is
the less necessary owing to the salient points of the whole
case, which the discriminating reader will have no diffi-
culty in separating from the mass of verbiage in the
mazes of the volumnious report having been ably taken
up and disposed of by a metropolitan contemporary, in
a couple of articles, which we hare much pleasure in ex-
tracting into our own columns, and whose testimony is
the more valuable, inasmuch as it cemes from a quarter
politically opposed to Mr. Hudson, and from an autho-
rity, moreover, whose honesty of purpose is as unques-
tionable as are the ability and point of its observations.
On the most careful and dispassionate examination, we
can come to no other rational conclusion than that the
whole resolves itself into an unprecedented case of much
to do about nothing. But, withal, it is difficult to re-

strain the working; of a just indignation on witnessing
the consummate effrontery and painful pertinacity with
which the committee strove, after having already ar-
rived at all the material facts respecting which they were
appointed to inquire, and after those facts had unques-
tionably exonerated Mr. Hudson, strove to elicit, not-
withstanding, meeting after meeting, extending over ten
days, matter which they hoped might afford them a han-
dle to deliver a criminatory report. The main accusers
were both judges, prosecutors, witnesses and jury. The
whole, in fact, turns out to be the scheme of the stock job-
ber from London who occupied the chair, and his scarcely
less suspicious coadjutor, Mr. Love, to damage in public
estimation a man whom they would have been better
employed in imitating than in seeking by a species of
interminable and relentless persecution to browbeat and
condemn. Finding they could not extract anything to
suit their malevolent purpose from the ample materials
for investigation furnished by Mr. Hudson, they at-
tempted, in succession, but unsuccessfully, to prey into
the private affairs of certain respectable share brokers in
London, and overhaul the accounts of the York Union
Bank and the Great North of England Railway. "No-
thing," in short, " was too small for their rapacity;
nothing too large for their ambitioa." Even the chair-
man of the committee did not think ft beneath him
to become a vindictive witness rather than leave any
stone unturned that gave the chance of procuring a con-
viction against the man into whose conduct he, being
the accuser, was so improperly appointed to inquire.
And what, after resorting to all the expedients which
the fertile malignity of Messrs. Prance and Love could
dictate, have they accomplished ? Why, the direct
effect is to place the character of Mr. Hudson higher
than it stood before. A verdict of acqaittal from an un-
biassed, or even friendly, committee could not have done
half so much for him, as the fact that a committee,
a hose chief members were avowedly hostile partizans,
have, after doing their worst, over a protracted inquiry
of ten days, been unable to elicit anything detrimental
an
and lair
to his position or derogatory to his charactere
of such opinions, dictated as they are in every
ex-
pressions
of the vindictive partizan,
line by the spirit an
desperate attempt to
ftaomme.r.Tihiue
dospoinn opinions smgoirveent
hi hoenreepionrstt
aanrceel;nd bute.d
thhoestile
accomplish, by a ferocious p
asai
Isssetdixit what the absence
ce had rendered them
edrt which, in express words, acquit
Even those
passages ,evidence
y
Mr. Hudson, could not be allowed to go forth without
hopelessoc fa
n allon l
criminatory
etn: idreneoagirtna:grprdYo in any other way.
being interspersed with insulting and groundless
inuendos. The publication of the evidence, however,
enables the public to judge for itself of the correctness of
the conclusions of the report. For our own part, after a
careful examination, we feel satisfied that there are few
indeed who will fail to perceive that those parts of the
report which impute blame to Mr. Hudson, and for the
most part to the directors also, as they are utterly un-
supported by anything in the evidence, must be taken
for neither more nor less than the simple opinions of
hostile partisans upon a matter which the publication of
the evidence enables the entire proprietory of the rail-
way to judge of as well as the committee themselves.
Entrusted, as Mr. Hudson is, with the management
of interests so immense that no single individual can
enter into all their intricate details, much of the
minutia is necessarily entrusted to the care of as-
.

sistants, one of whom, in the case of the 151. shares,
which is the principal item in Mr. Hudson's sales,
undoubtedly did commit an error in assigning to Mr.
Hudson a price 31. more than was paid to others in the
open marke;; but it is admitted, even by the men most
anxious to construe everything to Mr. Hudson's disad-
vantage, that this error, which was wholly uninten-
tional, in no degree casts the slightest suspicion of im-
proper motive upon any of the parties interested; indeed
it transpired that prior to the meeting Mr. Hudson had
himself noticed the error and put it in the way of being
rectified, and this would have been done though Mr.
Prance had never spoken, and though no committee had
been heard of. This head and front of the offending,
the prime point which was to engage the investigations
of the committee, thus, by :universal admission, Mr.
Hudson's "enemies themselves being judges," being
explained, what remains upon which to hang a charge
detrimental to the Honourable Gereleman? Why, in
the other classes of shares sold by Mr. Hudson to the
company, a tebular statement is exhibited in order to

show that, basing the figures upon Mr. Ple-ws-'s
calculations, Mr. Hudson had fixed the rate so as to re-
ceive a few hundred pounds for his shares above the
market price. Even the committee, however, are not
agreed that on this point blame attaches to either Mr.
Hudson or Mr. Plows, and they accordingly content
themselves with reporting what they call the facts to the
shareholders. But whether the facts are correctly stated
is questionable. It is easy to say the rate fixed by Mr.
Hudson and Mr. Plows was above the market price; but
a market price is an exceedingly arbitrary thing.
' Nothing is more common than for no shares to be ob-
tainable at what is stated as the market price. And even
though we admit that the prices alleged was the market
prices, still if, on the showing of the report, the purchase
of these shares by Mr. Hudson enhanced the market quo-
tation, the purchase of them by the company it was evi-
dent must necessarily have enhanced it also; and when to
this we add that Mr. Hudson was no needy speculator,
obliged to sell at any price, and that
price considerably above what he received in
1846 was guaranteed to him in 1850, then it
will not appear at all surprising that, though no-
minally above the market price, the quotation given to
Mr. Hudson by the company might not unlikely in re
gouty, be below it. Any real ground of complaint being
Ono Otietvd, then Ju oiwl semen ;owl t?tkoa