The Sun.
London, England, 1857-04-23 00:00:00

THE RUSSIAN RAILWAY ROBBERY
SCHEME.

41.
Strange to say—for it really is a fact, and a
remarkable tact—that most eminently erectu7ous

personage, the British capitalist, -does not come
forward to sow his sovereigns broadcast over the
boundless dominions of Russia: He does not cal-

eulato how many of those- precious articles it will
take to form a continuous line from St. Petersburg
to Kaffa, or to spread in the form of goldleaf over
the steppes of Crim Tartary. He distrusts an
empirci the domestic policy of which i 9 seclusion,
and its foreign policy aggression,—which plans its
internal communications for external operations,
and makes mercantile ,Value secondary to strategic

importance. His suspicions are not allayed when
he hears that the very materials of the 'proposed
lines are do 'be smuggled in duty-free, like an

Ambassador's luggage: He recoils from' a region
where it is all State, and no public.; where trade is
tariffel up to the throat, and opinion is always on
the march to Siberia. Foolish bird as he is, he
fears to venture his bill down the throat which in-

vites him ; for though, no doubt, there is a bone
to be extracted,'there are teeth also to be repassed.
In tact, our old geiatlemen and our old ladies, and
the:motley-group that always turns hp in a list of
shareholders to Bubble Banks and Diddlesex Rail-
ways, are just now in no humour fur the bait, not-
wi%hstandiug the clerical decoy-duck described in
our City Intelligence, who is always ordering
20,0001. worth of Russian scrip from Brussels or
Amsterdam. The sphere of enterprise is so distant
and so vast ; the lines are so long and so strag-
gling ; the conditions "so utterly, precarious ; the
contingencies so beyond all English calculation ;
the domestic influence so absolute, the rivalry of
all kinds so possible, and, if profitable, so certain,
that, strange to say, nobody is trying to steal a
march on the Stock-Exchange and get his cent.
per cent. by an empirical exercise of his private
Judgment. Englishmen, indeed, dearly love to win
money against tremendous, odds. They like mer-
cantile quackery, and swallow kill-oncure specula-
tions with wonderful gusto. It is a proud moment
indeed, in the most sanctified of lives, when a man
can let out to his confidential friend, and through
him to the who'e town, that he got 20,0001. "by an
investment which he alone had the sagacity or the
courage to try. What has a man to do after that
but to die in the odour of affluence ? Yet, with
this short cut to wealth now open to us, notwith-
standing its rieky and paradoxical character, no-
body comes forward, at least not openly. Ten
years hence we may possible hear that the worthy
Prebendary Saveall, whose will has just been
proved, doubled his fortune by Russian railways ;
but at present the Establishment, the Faculties,
the Half-pay List, and Dowagers keep aloof; and
the Emperor of Russia will have to rebait his hook,
to alter his terms, to give up his enterprise, or to
make his subjects construct their own railways.
Not, then, for the sake of further warning, for
'none appears to be necessary, but rather to justify
ourselves for the part we have taken, we will tell a
short story of a much more promising scheme,
in a much more improving 'region, and one much
more within the reach of 13rit•sh surveillance. Ten
years ago there was the flourishing State of Indiana,
which everybody could know as much about as he
pleased. It is needless, however, to extol its posi-
tion, its resources, its everything ; for, as the se-
quel shows, they were all considerably too good,
and are the very cause of the whole mischief we
have to tell. Ten years ago, then, this very
promising young State hid made immense im-
terovemeuts, and still found great room for
improvement ; and what with past, present, and
future improvements, both owed and wanted a
great deal more money then its Government
could just then lay its hands upon. In fact,
it had got into that stage of difficulty which we
have been lately told in the Bankruptcy Court is
certain to occur iu the second or third year of the
soundest undertakings. It owed some millions
sterling, and, having paid no interest on its debt
for six years, it was on the eve of repudiation, just
as its natural resources were showing themselves in
brighter colours than ever. So, after some negotia-
tion, a compromise was made between the State
and its creditors, a good many of whom were at
New York, but many more, we fear, in this coun-
try, which strikes us as about the most splendid
conception that.ever entered into the head of finan-
cial defaulter. We are not surprised to find a com-
mittee of the unfortunate dupes saying of the suc-
cessful performers that "they smote the rock of
financial resource, and the living waters gushed
forth ; they touched the rock of public credit, and
it sprang upon its feet." Indeed, after a caretul
examination of the whole scheme, we take the lit erty
of suggesting to the Emperor of Russia to send at
once to Indianopolis, aud secure, on any terms
whatever, the services of the gentleman_ who made
this arrangement ; for we are quite certain if any-
body can cover all Russia with a reticulation of
railways at the expense of the British, French,
Dutch, and everythin; except Russian public, it is
the patties in question. Our own immediate pur-
pose, however, in referring to it is just to show oue
own countrymen how utterly unable they must be
to estimate the prospects of any new and distant
enterprise, and bow entirely they must be at the
mercy of Governments, social influences, commer-
cial changes, and accidents of all kinds beyond
their control.
The following, then, was the compromise made
by the State of Indiana with its wearied, but still
hopeful, creditors of all nations :—Among various
improvements in progress or intended the most
advanced and the most promising was a canal.
Do not start, British reader, at the idea of an
-unfinished canal in the year 1840, or suppose
that there must also have been a gross of green
spectacles offered with it to prepare the eyes of
the creditors for the inspect:on of the bargain.
The canal was absolutely necessary to the develop-
ment of Indiana. It was fed by the river Wabash,
and ran through the State, of course avoiding as
much as much as possible other States, and joined
;the Ohio and Lake Erie. The financiers, brokers,
;and engineers marked out an extensive basin that
.tbe canal must accommodate, and whose traffic it
Must for the present monopolise. In fact, it was
the highway of the State, and what put that beyond
proof was, that some score of intended railways
wore all directed to points on the Wabash and Erie
Canal, and thus promised to fulfil the pleasing re-
lation of branches to trunk, feeders to main cuan-
nel, children to parent, or whatever else one may
ple Ise to imagine them. It was true that the Sate
of-Ohio had a rival canal, and that the State of
Illinois had a rival and all but parallel railway
lortlecoming, but what were they to Indian. ? Un-
fortunately, the Slate had no: even money enuugh
.to finish the canal, so by way o ki ling two birds
with one stone the State gut its creditors to finish
•the c inel at a cost of $BOO,OOO, and then take the
profit in payment of h. 11 f the debt. They caught
at the proposal so eagerly that, half doubting their
luck, they got a second Act to clinch the bargain,
and prevent the State from meddling withthecanal
till they had paid themselves out of its profits,
which all the most competent authorities in the
State said must be enormous.
Have our prescient readers followed the dodge ?
Not a soul of them, we will venture to say ? flow
in the world are they to enter into the mystery of
an American or a Russian financial scheme ti.l
they have actually put their finger or their foot
into it ? Why, the Wabash and Erie Canals was,
of course, prodigiously prosperous by contributing
to the construction of the railways that were' to
ruin it. It was the scaffold of the building—the
contractors' tramway and plant, to be cleared off
and Bold for waste iron as soon as the real work
was finished,lighed. As fast as the canal was pushed on
the railways on both sides were pushed on too,
and the canal supplied them and the population
flowing
into' the State with rails and materials of
all kinds. But as eaoh railway was finished it
commenced a most undutiful competition, and beat
the old canal, or rather the old boat, off the line.
The creditors opened their eyes like puppies the
second or thirsdtayteeaarbasfttarir
abstained from
bargain, and at their
entreaty the
the field against them. n); actually entering
utraihvays, of course, it
• Must have, as the neighbouringStates were making
them fast; so it passed an act allowing. the construc-
tion of railways by private enterprise, and the work
For a time,
went on apace.
which, then,o the canal
had a suicidal prosperity, course, came
to an end when the railways in this and the utieh-
bottling states were all made. It now can only
• just keep itself going, if it can do so much. The
rents and tolls are swallowed up in the expenses
they have been reduced to 20 per cent., or less, of
what they were, but, as all the profitable trac is
carried off to the rail ways, and the greater part of
• the heavy traffic too, the canal is a bankrupt con-
tern. It has answered a temporary purpose, and
is now good for nothing. The shareholders are
Coming again to 'the Legislature of Indiana—no
longer, of course, as indignant credifors—they have
lost that position—but as outwitted and ruined
mortgagees, and ask for a dole from the State Tree-
aurtr• Oar readers know, of course, how likely
they are to get it. But, cane anybody say they are
a bit.more-at the mercy of the Legislature of In-
diana, or that they have
proved themselves 'a bit
more simple and credulous than any ordinary Eng-
lishman throwing his money into Rimier' railways?
We can only say that even
now we would rather
invest in Indiana than in
Russian railway shares,
for there is 'always some hope in the justice of a
frda pod prosperous people, but none whatever in
either the power or the desire to pay of a corrupt
bureaucracy.—Times,