The Sun.
London, England, 1850-03-05 00:00:00

timing anit

LONDON, TUESDAY, MARCH 5, 1850.

Although the principal railway companies have
endeavoured, to the utmost of their power, to meet
the wishes of the Government, by appointing dele-
gates to determine the proper measures to be adopted
for additional legislation on the important subject of
the efficient audit of their accounts, the matter is, it
appears, to be taken out of their bands. It was well
known that not a single hour bad been lost, and that
the delegates had made the greatest progress in the
arduous task with which they were charged—that the
leading points of a Bill had been actually agreed
to, and that it would, most probably, be ready
for introduction within the present week ;
and yet, although the Board of Trade was fully ap-
prised of the great diligence that had been exhibited,
we find its Vice-President, the Berl of VrRANITILLE,
last night bringing forward an Audit Bill, and delibe-
rately stating in the House of Lords, that " as it
was not very likely that any large number of railway
proprietors would combine to bring in any Bill of
that kind during the present session, it did not ap-
pear right in the Government to delay any longer
the task of informing the public of the course which
her MAJESTY'S Ministers intended to pursue." This is
neither fair nor just. It is casting a most
unwarranted aspersion on the gentlemen who, at
considerable personal inconvenience, took upon them-
selves the duty of deciding upon the provisions of
a measure which would at the same time afford full
security to the public and the different companies
that an accurate statement of affairs was periodically
published, and which would not deprive the share-
holders of the control and management of their own
concerns. In answer to this most unwarranted as-
persion, thus recklessly cast upon a body of respect-
able gentlemen by a Minister of the Crown, it may
be well briefly to refer to the real facts of the case.
Last year it was announced that the Go-
vernment was about to bring in a measure
by which the different companies would no longer be
permitted to appoint their own auditors, but that all
the accounts should be submitted to gentlemen se-
lected by the Board. of Trade, without whose sanc-
tion no dividend could be declared, and whO would,
in fact, be invested with paramount authority over
every line of railway. Directors and shareholders
were alike alarmed. They knew the evil conse-
quences that might follow if the principle of " 4to-
yernment interference" were for a moment sanc-
tioned or tolerated. They knew that it would be im-
possible to say where it would stop if the sharp end of
the wedge were once introduced. They believed
that they had acquired sufficient experience to
avoid the errors into which they had formerly fallen,
and they naturally objected to have new and valu-
able patronage conferred upon Government, by the
creation of lucrative offices, the salaries of which
were to be provided out of the diminished funds of
the companies. The project was, therefore, received
with the greatest alarm throughout the length and
breadth of the land, and directors and shareholders
forgot all minor differences in exhibiting an uncom•
promising hostility to a " Government audit."
It was, however, felt that something should
be done to restore confidence to the public
mind, and certain directors were nominated by
the boards of the leading companies to prepare a
Bill, which it was hoped would be received with ge-
neral satisfaction. Many meetings were held' but it
ultimately appeared that the parties selected were
unable to agree among themselves, and that the Bill
which had been prepared was abandoned on the part
of directors. Nothing then remained but to bring
the subject under the consideration of the share.
holders, and the most fitting opportunities appeared
to be the ordinary meetings that were held for the
purpose of declaring dividends and transacting the
general business of the companies. Delegates were
accordingly appointed to consider the subject by the
North-Western, Great .
Western, South-Western,
.Eastern Counties, Brighton, Blackwell, Great
Northern, Midland, and other influential companies,
and, as we have already stated, considerable pro-
gress was made in the preparation of a Bill which
might be considered as emanating from the share-
holders—the parties chiefly interested in the welfare
and prosperity of railway property—through their
chosen representatives. Many of the meetings were,
however, only held during the past week, and it was
obviously impossible that the parties then appointed
could be prepared, within a few days, with a
fully-matured and well-considered measure. All
that was practicable was, however, achieved. The ,
principles on which the contemplated Bill should be
based were decided, and even the details of the mea-
completed.
sure nearly
The Bill thus approved of is,

we believe, actually printed, and will be fully sanc-
tioned during the present week. And we also believe
that the Board of Trade is fully informed on these
points. It is, therefore, we contend, unfair and un-
candid on the part of the Government to assert that
"it is not likely that any large number of railway
proprietors would combine to bring in any Bill
during the present session," and it is inflicting
an unmerited slight on the gentlemen who have so
zealously and energetically exerted themselves to
carry the wishes of their brother shareholders into
execution without a moment's unnecessary delay.

We shall not now enter into the merits of the Go-
vernment measure. It is undoubtedly, in many
respects, an improvement on that of last year. But
still we submit that, however desirable it may appear,
it should not be considered until the Bill prepared by
the delegates is ready for presentation, so that the
two may be compared together. We submit that the
parties whose property, to the extent of 200,000,0001.
sterling, is to be affected are entitled to a respectful
audience, and that until their wishes be fully ex-
pressed any legislation on the subject is, to say the
least of it, premature and uncalled for.

While M. PONSARD is preparing for the first re-
presentation of his tragedy of Charlotte Corday, and
while M. ADOLPEIB ADAM is entertaining the Pari-
sian dilletanti with his conjecture that Madame
SONTAG is not herself, but her own daughter—a
notion about as ridiculous as that entertained by the
venerable RIP VAN WINKLE on the occasion of his
recovery after the gigantic game of skittles—France
is silently getting in readiness for the election, on
Sunday next, of sundry new representatives. Here it
is that the infinite advantages of ?collecting by ballot
the votes of the population become peculiarly mani-
fested. With every possible material scattered about
in abundance, capable of transforming at a moment's
warning a street broil into a rebellion, the French,
yea, even the French of this generation, children
though they be of a Past and creators of a Present
revolution, find themselves deprived of the capacity,
or rather, shall we say it, of the opportunity of
sounding the tocsin of a general rising. Every one
of those explosives of demagogism which have, from
one period to another, proved sufficiently powerful to
raze the whole political institutions of the land to
their founiations ; every one of those evil passions
which have, at intervals, manifested their diabolical
energies in the crimes perpetrated and the victories
won by the multitude are still as fruitful,
as vigorous, and as much at hand as ever—but
through the beneficent operation of the ballot the
most murderous conspiracies are, so to speak, rendered
incapable of detonation. It were well for us, if in
this particular, the Legislators of the British Parlia-
ment would take a leaf out of the Republican Con-
stitution of our neighbours. Not that there is much
fear of any revolutionary excitement becoming mani-
fested round the polling booths of our different borough
or county constituencies, but that there is an absolute
certainty, that under the existing system of voting in
these islands the' possessors of the elective franchise
are too frequently subjected to intimidation. Much as
was said last evening in the 'House of Commons
about bona fide votes being given to opposing candi-
dates, it is but too certain that as matters are at pre-
sent managed there is very little chance of a bona fide
vote being given anywhere—anywhere at least where
the aristocratic influence can be brought to bear
against the democratic in the instance of tenant-
farmers and dependent tradesmen. We are not
speaking now upon a dim or fanciful hypothesis. We
are talking of an evil notorious to the whole com-
munity. Let us hope, that when the Honourable
Member for Bristol brings forward his annual motion,
on Thursday evening, the Liberal and Radical Mem-
bers of the House of Commons will bear this evil
keenly in their remembrance. And let us
hope, too, that while recollecting the perni-
cious effect of the polling-booth system as
manifested with terrible distinctness among our-
selves, they will bear in mind the beneficial, and we
may even repeat our previous and more emphatic
epithet, the beneficent operation of the ballot-box
system as shown repeatedly with the clearness of a
mathematical demonstration among our neighbours.
There, in France, the hot-bed of revolt, the vol-
cano of revolutions, the land of the Phrygian cap
and the barricade, the people have been effectually
" bound over to keep the peace" by the introduction
of the ballot into the republican constitution. The
utterance of this assertion, strange as it may appear, is
not the expression of a passing fancy, but the record of
a great and all-important fact. It is a fact proved by
no less than three most memorable occurrences, those
occurrences being the election of the National As-
sembly, the election of the Legislative Assembly, and
the election of the first President. On each of
those remarkable occasions France was ripe for
another political explosion, as irresistible, but, in all
human probability, not as bloodless as that of the days
of February—" those fatal days of February," ac-
cording to M. THIERS—" those glorious days of
February," according to M. DE LAMARTINE. While
the glorious days of February—for, as might be con-
jectured, we make no hesitation whatever in accept•
ing the designation of M. DE LAMARTINE—whiIe the
glorious days of February ;demonstrated the
magnanimity of the vast majority of the
French multitude, the calamitous days of
June revealed, underneath that magnanimous
majority, a minority as ferocious, as sanguinary, and
as depraved as the knitters who applauded the
Mountain in the Convention, or as the hags who
danced round the tumbrils on the Place de Greve,
singing the hideous verses of the " Carmagnole." To
straggle the atrocious passions of this minority, to
save the lives, and the property, and the institutions
of the people from its grasp wa., of course, the
chief object of those statesmen who were selected to
administer the affairs of the Republican Go-
vernment. Signal as has been the abi-
lity displayed by them, by the Ministry of
M. ODILON BARROT, and by the Ministry of M.
FERDINAND BARROT, under the presidential super-
intendence of the Prince LOUIS NAPOLEON, ',this
much must be borne in mind to the depreciation of
their achievements as defenders of the peace of the
country, that the principal portion of the difficulty of
this repression of revolt was already removed by that
system of thg ballot which had been adopted in the
framing of the Constitution, and the original adop-
tion of which had been one among
the many glorious acts of the Provisional
Government. But for the protective influence of the
ballot the National Constituent Assembly, notwith-
standing the dictatorial authority reposed by it in the
hands of kieneral CAVAIGNAC, would have found it
impossible to prevent another great revolutionary ex-
plosion on the ever-memorable occasion of the elec.
tion of the 10th of December. Again, but
for the assistance afforded to the Executive
by the same felicitous arrangement, the Cabinet
of the President BONAPARTE would have found
itself incapable of maintaining tranquillity on
the subsequent occasion of the election of
the Legislative Assembly. At both periods the pub-
lic mind of France, it will be remembered, was pro-
foundly agitated, and yet :at both periods, through
the beneficent operation of the ballot, the elections
passed off without even the slightest attempt at
disturbance. These circumstances have a signifi-
cant force in the discussion of the question of the
ballot even among our orderly fellow-countrymen,
even in this island, where, during a century and a
half, revolution has been altogether unknown : for
they proclaim in very audible language that our
most volatile neighbours consent at last to an in-
convenient obedience and an irksome quietude, be.
cause through the aid of the ballot they can satisfy
themselves in their representatives.

RETURN Or THE COURT TO BUCKINGHAM PA.
LACE FROM WINDSOR CASTLE (THIS DAT).—Her
Majesty and the Prince Consort, accompanied by
their Royal Highnesses the Prince of Wales, Prince
Alfred, and the Princesses Royal, Alice, Helena, and
Louisa, and attended by the Countess of Mount
Edgecumbe, Lord Byron, Lord Alfred Paget, the
Hon. Colonel Charles Grey, and Colonel Bouverie,
arrived at Buckingham Palace this afternoon from
Windsor Castle. The illustrious party travelled by a
special train from Windsor to the Great Western
Railway to Paddington, and were escorted to the
Palace by a party of the 11th Hussars. The Court
is expected to remain in town until after the royal
accouchement. Prince Albert, on behalf of her Ma-
jesty, will hold a 'time to-morrow at St. James's
Palace.

Our readers will not be surprised to hear that the
petition against the return of Baron Rothschild as the
Member for the City of London has bees withdrawn.

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