The Sun.
London, England, 1848-11-08 00:00:00

ET'lllll' of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.
FROM TrIF. MORNING PAPERS OF THIS DAY.
T E 3.— We admire the complacent tone in
which some people can talk of a gigantic railway
mJD oioly. It has been pointed out in these columns,
and ,v,,l;e is to las? fully realised on all sides, that the
queston really at issue is whether all the railway
companies in the island shall be amalgamated, retain-
ing, at the same time, their present comparative in-
dependence of the State. The process of fusion once
bugun will not stop till the whole is absorbed. Every
radius in the wheel competes with its fellow. The
London and South-Western has a dangerous rival in
the London, Brighton, and South Coast. The railways
of Kent and Sussex will find, it their interest to be
under one direction. The London and North-
Western and the Eastern Counties are in active com-
petition. We have omitted unfinished lines in still
closer and more obnoxious juxta-position ; nor is it
necessary to pursue the spread of amalgamation into
the entangled we of the Midland and Northern
Companies. Could we suppose the Legislature sit-
ting down quietly to record and sanction the amal-
gamation of three great companies on their present
terms, it will soon be asked to perform the same
ceremony for the rest. Company after company
will pronounce fnr the junta. Ten thousand miles
of rail will form one mighty line. The internal
communications of this empire will be the private
property of a mercantile association, and under the
management of three or four active principals. Her
Majesty will still be the Queen of her "highway,"
but some other less responsible personages will be
kings of the rail. Now, no specious reasoning, no
gratuitous supposition, or illusory promises shall ever
persuade us that this would be a safe and tolerable
event. It is according to all precedent, to all princi-
ple, to all analogy, and to the plainest common sense,
that the State should take care that the means of com-
munication are available, cheap, and good. The
State, of course, cannot overcome all the difficulties
inherent in the material and form. We readily admit,
too, that it is hound to fulfil all such engagements
as it could properly contract, and to reward
within reasonable limits the genius and spirit
at private adventure. But we will not hear
it said that railways are merely private
speculations, or that in so vital a subject we
may safely trust the prudence and generosity of an
irresponsible board. A board of directors dominating
over all the lines in the island will, in the first place,
be able to secure their monopoly, or at least to
struggle hard for it, by the enormous patronage at
their disposal, by the interested support of share-
holders representing many millions of capital, and
by many less describable means of influence with
members of the 'Legislature. Having secured their
monopoly, the board will be able to work it to the
utmost advantage. Every degree of profit will be
considered to justify the expectation of a higher. It
will at least be thought reasonable that the Parlia-
mentary 10 per cent. should be gained on the whole
union. We do not believe that the interest of the
public will be found identical with the interest of' the
shareholders, or that lower fares will frequently leave
the net profit undiminished. We cannot trust such
visionary hopes. The public will not have'the utmost
possible use of the railway. Nay, it is hardly pre-
tended that they will, as it is still urged with great
zeal that railways are merely private property—which
we deny. It is true that railway legislation has fallen
into the ordinary form of private Acts. We need not
inquire why it has done so, and why twenty years
since that was the most customary and natural form
of procedure. Before three-fourths of the present
authorised total of railways was ever introduced into
Parliament, we warmly contended for a more
distinct recognition of the State's own rights and
duties in the affair. Unfortunately routine and
precedent prevailed. Private Bill waslthe form at
hand. It was, indeed, found absolutely necessary to
alter the standing orders, but substantially the forma-
lities of railway legislation have been the same as
those which have been employed for the most private,
most personal, most local and trivial applications of
legislative power. The great arterial lines connecting
the metropolis with the provinces, the north with the
south, and the east with the west, have been made
with the same preliminaries as those which had grown
up in " navigations," tram-roads, bridges, harbours,
and even such affairs as family settlements. A pro-
cedure sufficient for superfluous undertakings was
applied to our national necessities. If it be asked
why the State consented that the railways of the em-
pire should be done on a narrow and mercantile
system, and why Parliament should be absorbed into
the Stock Exchange, we must say that the parties
most to blame are the promoters themselves. They
-now profess great indignation and disgust, as well they
may, at the millions thrown away in Parliamentary
conflicts; but the truth is, the railway chiefs in that
costly campaign preferred to fight it out in that form.
They would have it so. The railway world had the
option of referring the whole laying out of the
country to a Railway Board; and we should think
there is little doubt that a few such men as Lord
Dalhousie would have arranged a scheme much
more convenient to the public and remunerative to
the undertakers than that which chance and passion
have, accomplished. But this did not then answer
the purpose of our railway kings. They preferred
the open fight on Committee, the private canvass of
the Commons, the transaction with the noble land-
owner, the distribution of scrip, the profitable
amalgamations of lines as yet without existence, and
all the accidents and opportunities of a hazardous
and complicated game, to the dull certainty of a
national scheme, done without battle, heat, or risk.
To some of the promoters the procedure adopted
has been highly advantageous; not so to the ma-
jority. But, we repeat, " the railway world" has to
thank itself for the many millions absolutely wasted
in the preliminaries of Bills passed, rejected, c,r now
laid aside by the too successful promoters. We also
protest against any inferences that may be drawn
from the simply private form of railway legislation.
There are two alternatives now before Parliament
—a moderate competition, or an increased degree of
national control. At present the public has not had
much reason to complain. Nay, there are cases in
which it could not reasonably complain if rival com-
panies understood one another better than they do
now. But on the whole the present fares and accom-
modation are as good as may he expected, under the
existing traffic. If, however, the present competition
is to be set at rest, and the iron rule of a giant mono-
poly to take its place, we demand in that case that
the rights of the people shall be guarded by the
State. We demand that t'ne enactment ef the mono-
poly shall be coupled with ample securities for the
public good. It is unnecessary, and indeed ridicu-
lous, to assume at once that the convenience of share-
holders and passengers will always entirely coincide.
Nor is it necessary to suggest lower maxima of fares
that may be insisted on in the event of a great in-
crease of traffic. What we require, and what the
public will also require, is, that if the companies pre-
sent themselves to Parliament for a further increase
aad consolidation of their existing power and mono-
poly, the gain shall not be wholly on one side. There
shall be a quid pro quo. There shall be guarantees
against the abuse of absolute power, or rather against
the possible inconvenience of having to arrest its en-
croachments.
CHRONICLE—The acquiescence of the Senate
of Cambridge in the measure of reform proposed to it
last Tuesday, solves, for the present, all questions
bearing reference to the quality of University educa-
tion. Not so, however, with respect to the method of
imparting it. As the former system is retained in its
integrity, and all the alterations have taken the form
of additions, it remains to be seen whether the old
framework will bear the new weight. The changes
effected presurpose the continued existence of triple
calkaeFssalmistes, andre s
at
emulative examinations, in precisely
present. resent. It is possible, and in-
deed probar a
,le,
that th
studied, by increase) increased number of subjects
g prominent
rom nstrain on the old arrange-
ments, may render t certain defects which
have been hitherto unnotienee(lotrerwhich have been
postponed to matters of greater
immediate im-
portance. We suspect that further appeals to the
good sense of the University Legislature will be
necessary; and happily, after a step like
that the
that of
last week, it is bairdly to be supposed
Senate will repudiate amendment of the merely
formal portions of its system. There is something
peculiar, however, in the nature of the mischiefs of
which we anticipate the disclosure—something Which
renders it particularly desirable that their existence
should be pointed out to the resident executive by
persons not immediately connected with the business
of University training. They are evils, the effects of
which, though marring the promise of many a splen-
did University career, seldom show themselves till it
is closed, and occasihnally not till it has been forgot-
ten. But they are actual and strongly operative;
and, remediable as they are at any moment, it cannot
be idle to indicate their character and source. A
morning contemporary, in commenting on the Se-
nate's decision of last Tuesday, has noticed certain
results of the old Cambridge system, as proving its
vicious constitution. The results are, unfortunately,
not to be disputed as matters of fact ; but our con-
temporary seems to think that they render inevitable
'tie wholesale condemnation of the old educational
training. We should be sorry to adopt such a belief,
since the old training was not abolished last Tues-
day, but expressly, and with honourable mention,
preserved ; nor is there the slightest probability that it
will fall into disuse or disrepute, except in the event of
some very unlikely contingencies. Our conviction is,
that the changes just introduced are calculated in
themselves to aggravate the evils from which the re-
sults in question flow; and we are disposed to anti
eipate future improvement, simply because these
evils will hereafter be necessarily more prominent,
and because the ,Senate has given a sufficient gua-
rantee that it will remedy a prominent defect. Our
contemporary states, as the ground of his charge
against the system, which he erroneously supposes to
have been abolished, that it has ceased to form.minds