The Sun.
London, England, 1846-01-10 00:00:00

Etieningnt

LONDON, SATURDAY. JANUARY 10, 1846

A bulky, weighty folio has now issued from the
Parliamentary printing-press, with the names of all
subscribers to railway companies, which went to Par-
liament last year, for amounts under 2,000/. We had
the names for amounts above 2,000/. before. It would
seem to be a furor Scoticus, this passion for hunting
up railway subscribers. The first Parliamentary
return the public owed to the motion of Mr. GIBSON
CRAIG, the Member for Edinburgh; but it
was a trifle to the 440 folio pages of names
which have now come forth with the im-
primatur of Mr. HAsTrE, Member for Paisley.
It would puzzle, we suspect, all Mr. HASTIE'S Scotch
shrewdness to tell us the use of this bulky blue book.
We should like to know its cost. These blue books
are not printed for nothing.
Having no reason to expect the appearance of this
last bulky contribution to railway shareholder nomen-
clature, and referring only to Mr. GIBSON CRAIG'S
comparatively diminutive publication, which has been
out some time, we have lately expressed a strong
opinion that this parading of the names of subscribers
to railway companies is not only not productive of
benefit, but is productive of absolute mischief; and
to that opinion we adhere. It does not check the dis-
reputable railway speculator —he cares not for
publicity--and, by driving away the timid, the sensi-
tive, the scrupulous, it gives greater scope to the men
of no character. We have had the railway mania at
its height since the appearance of Mr. GIBSON CRAIG'S
Parliamentary document. No one can say that that
has checked railway speculation. It has probably
turned it into new channels, and in doing so dete-
riorated its character. The banker, the merchant,
the tradesman, the professional man, the private gentle-
man—all of whom may either fear that their
credit might be unjustly affected with the reputation
of railway speculation, or who would dislike the
publicity given to pecuniary investments, which it is
part of our national character to manage secretly—
will henceforward abstain from taking shares in new
eompanies, or will get other persons to sign the deeds
for them. Is either of these results desirable ? Is it
desirable to frighten away respectable parties from
railway companies, and so discourage and deteriorate
the speculation to which we owe all the rail-
roads that we have, and to which we must look
for further development of railway communi-
cation ? Is it desirable, again, to keep up
the form of Parliamentary subscription contracts,
and 'drive people into evading them ? You can never
prevent these evasions. It is well known that the
largest railway speculators apply for shares through
a number of dependents, and get these to sign the
deeds for them, and never appear themselves. Mr-
HASTIE'S return does not tell this. The natural
effect of the return will be, to increase this practice.
That will be one effect. Another effect will be to
discourage respectable parties from connecting them
selves with railway enterprise.

And even supposing that such a return as this gave
you all the names of the real first subscribers (which
it does not), how little have you advanced even then
in the crusade against railway speculation I You do
not, and cannot, get to the buyers on the Exchange.
It is, at best, but a fractional part of railway specula-
tion that Mr. llAsria's return can expose, his object
being supposed to be to expose railway speculation.
A more useless, even if it were net in some respects
mischievous, expenditure of public money than this
blue book of 440 pages, and 3ilbs. weight (so the

outside tells us), will, we believe, not be found in
Hansardry.

We wish, as; much as Mr. lIASTIE or any one can
wish, to regulate railway speculation, but not to ex-
tinguish it. We think that it has gone during the
last year to an unreasonable and mischievous excess;
but we would seek to reduce it by means which
would drive away the bad class of speculators, and
keep the good,—not to hold out scarecrows of Par-
liamentary returns to men of respectability, which

can have no effect upon the characterless and shame-
less. There are two measures which we think would

be particularly well adapted to check and, in
checking, improve the character of railway specu-
lation. One is to increase the per tentage re-
quired for Parliamentary deposit. It was in-
creased last session by both }louses from 5 per
cent. on the shares to 10 per cent. ; but this increase
was hardly sufficient to be felt, particularly while the
mania was on. If we remember right, 20 per cent.

had been proposed, and 10 per cent. was taken as a
compromise. Let Parliament require 20 percent. on
the shares, to be paid up in the first instance and de-
posited, and the larger deposit will infallibly check
speculation, both in applications for shares
and in purchases in the market. The other
measure which we would suggest is, the
requirement of a certain deposit on registration.
If the solicitors and schemers, who have concocted all
the bubbles of the last autumn, had been required to
find a certain sum of money—say, the Parliamentary
deposit on a fourth of the shares—before they could
attain to the first step of provisional registration, they
might have whistled for the provisional committee-
men, under cover of whose names they have been
plundering simple, unsuspecting shareholders. We
should then have had none of those lists of long bills
for solicitors, whose professional positions had
not enabled them to secure the services of
engineers fit for their work, and who have
stranded these companies; of surveyors' bills, sta-
tioners' bills, advertising agents' bills, with charges
such as were never seen before, swelled by high per
centages to the solicitors who had given them the
job. There would have been no room for the de-
grading exposures which in the last few weeks have
been frequent, and of which there are yet more to
cone. Our remarks on solicitors will not be sup-
posed to apply to the many respectable and
testa-
blished members of the profession connected with
legitimatehose to
railway undertakings. " The cap will fit"
whomiwliay tbelong A

part from any partisan
and the social
views of policy, the moral
, the confirmed happiness,
organizationof those who
perform the manual
labour of the community
the chief care of legislatiosts mustT ever constitute
does not
diffusion of
contentment among the mass
imply a something advisable on the part of
so much
Government; it amounts to a political necessity. N 0
stability, no form, no character, no available or definite
vigour, can develop themselves in a constitution,
whether of democracy or despotism, unless the
interests of the multitude are consulted in
the school •room, the homestead, and the workshop.
And as year by year the dissemination of enlighten-
ment becomes more and more visible, in a represen.