The Sun.
London, England, 1845-10-27 00:00:00

RAILWAYS.
SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

STANDARD.—The Times perseveres in its efforts to
create a panic in the railroad share market. The project has
all the temptation of extreme facility. Let a child or an
id!ot raise the cry of fire in a crowded theatre, and the sa-
crifice of the lives of many will be the probable, if not cer-
tain, consequence. If it is asked what other temptation the
Times can have to produce such a calamity as a great com-
mercial alarm, the answer will be foundin the uniform
conduct of that journal. It is enough that the Times is
likely to be named in connexion with any topic of general
interest to ensure that the Times will press that topic pro-
minently upon public attention, without the least regard to
the evil that it may produce by doing so. There may be
other motives understood at Capel-court for the line taken by
our contemporary, but as we know them not, we shall not
more particularly advert to them, and the motives that
we have already assigned are quite sufficient to explain
the conduct of the Times. That journal, in an
article of this morning, prosecutes its design by treating all
railway projects in the mass as bubbles. Now we have al-
ready answered this misrepresentation. A railway project
cannot be a bubble, because it proposes an object of solid es-
tablishment, and permanent duration. That such a project
may be indiscreet, or that men may speculate indiscreetly
upon a project., prudently conceived, is what. no man familiar
with the spirit of commerce will be disposed to deny; there
is fully as much rash speculation in the ordinary material of
trade as can be charged against railroad enterprise. This
von cannot help, if it were desirable to prevent it, but are
you far that reason to extinguish all trade and all enterprise ?
That there is in the country an amount of dormant capital
adequate to two fold the cost of the projected railways, and
that this dormant capital is in a course of rapid increase, no
one will deny, at this time of day. Why, then, must
there necessarily be a deficiency of means to com-
plete the works in contemplation ? If some indi-
viduals without capital have committed themselves by
taking shares, their places will soon be occupied by parties
competent to complete every engagement; and this simple
operation will be executed without noise and without injury,
if alarm and tumult are not created by the means which the
Times is now employing. It is to be remembered that the
outlay upon railways must be necessarily gradual, extending
even upon the present scale, very little beyond the annual ac-
cumulations of the country, and therefore leaving the vast
amount of dormant capital already accumulated as a reserve
fund. If the country, indeed, is unable to meet the railway
demand, how could it support a single year of that war
into which the Times has, by its libels upon the French
Government, .the French army, the French marine, and
the French people, been for years labouring to plunge
us. It may be that though the ultimate ability
of railway shareholders generally to meet their en-
gagements is admitted, serious difficulties threaten
the details of the process. We are told of an extraordinary
demand for money to supply the instrument of deposit, but
we believe that the deposits may be made by very slightly
trespassing, if at all, upon, the general circulation. Exche-
quer-bills, probably, or transfers of stock will serve the
purpose of money except in the case of the very smallest
depositors, and even in their case the demand for Bank
notes or cash cannot be more than transient, certainly
cannot go beyond the license of issue lately given to the
Bank. As to the absurd hypothesis that money must be
withdrawn from trade in order to meet railway engagements,
an hypothesis exposed by us long ago, the Times does not
venture to reproduce it. What, then, is the danger attending
railway enterprise, that mast not attend every great im-
provement, and that may not be obviated by the exercise of
courage and common sense? In all cases of vast enter-
prise there will be much gambling; this is inevitable. But
are we, therefore, to sit with our arms folded and our legs
crossed, sullenly resolved to abstain from all means of im-
proving our circumstances, because forsooth a few pennyless
adventurers may be tempted, by moving in our company, to
expose their rimes
and want of principle. We would go
as far as the Times in recommending reasonable caution in
every enterprise. But to recommend reasonable caution is
one thing, and to proclaim to men they are ruined, when
hothieg but the effect of such a proclamation can injure
them, is another and a very different thing. We are as
firmly convinced as we can be of ally thing, that there is no
danger whatever of failure in the railroad share market,
unless the failure be artificially produced by an artificial
panie such as the Times is labouring to produce. The spirit
in which the Times writes upon this subject will be seen by
the following extract:—
" If the country can complete the railways already autho-
rised without a most serious and, for the time, a most incon-
venient drain on its capital—if it can without an immense
aggravation of the inconvenience authorise next session only
half as much as it did last—if 15,000,000/. are next February
duly paid to the Accountant-General without a great con-
vulsion, not only in the share-market, but in the money-
market, then, of course, the event will show the worthlessness
of our anticipations. Strange is it that people shOuld be found
to indulge in intemperate rage, when our error, if error it is,
will soon bring its own conviction and its own penalty. The
great Athenian moralist observed, that the worst you could
wish a bad man was that he might prosper as much and as
len; as possible. A rational hostility would leave us alone to
reap the mature fruits of our own perversity."
If we are not mistaken, the Times has here borrowed a
leaf from the book of its former prompter and patron, Mr.
O'Connell. As we remember the convulsion was a few weeks
ago threateeed for November; it is now postponed to
February. This is just according to Mr. O'Connell's practice.
When his prediction appears likely to be falsified at its first
appointed date, he is sure to borrow a little time, and in this
way he has been annually repealing the union for fourteen
years. In one respect the Times improves upon him. Mr.
O'Connell pledges his head, which, whatever its value (and
like the Count St. Paul's head, we can imagine it in a place
where it would be useful), still exists in rerum natura. The ;
Times pledges only its character on the worth of its antici-
• pations ; the stake is indeed small, but in February we shall
be on the watch to claim it. And it is chiefly on this account
that we preserve the foregoing extract.
TIMES.—The course we have thought proper to pursue
with reference to the mania for railway speculation has ex-
cited considerable alarm among those who depend for their
profits upon a certain temporary value being attached to
what is essentially a worthless article. It is not the dabblers
in allotments and the speculators in scrip alone whose harvest
is likely to be cut short by the bursting of the railway bubble.
There are many others whose interest it has been to keep the
morbid desire for speculation alive, and who when it receives
its death-blow will find themselves deprived of a source of
income which, having never been fair and legitimate, will
assuredly not be permanent. The clamour raised against us
by our Contemporaries is natural enough; for while the most
scurrilous and corrupt of them has been saved from
well-merited bankruptcy, three or four have been called
into existence by the insanity which had taken possession
of the public mind, and they all feel that their gains will
cease when people are brought to their right senses. The
folly of buying shares in railways that will never be made is
quite in keeping with the absurdity of paying for advertise-
ments in journals which nobody reads, and the proprietors of
these concerns are acutely sensitive. to any attack on trashy
scrip, a depression in which has a tendency to bring all
waste paper down to its proper level. Such has been the
mania for railway advertising that papers have been started
which were never intended to be sold or read, but only
to catch some of the money that was being thrown away
daily in preliminary announcements and prospectuses.
Of course, all this kind of emolument will cease
when the public mind has been brought to a sound
and healthy condition. We could not blame the
conductors of the journals who profit by the folly which
seeks their columns as a medium of publicity, but we do
censure the dishonesty which some of our contemporaries
have been guilty of in reporting all the exaggerations and
fallacies spoken at railway meetings for the purpose of deceiv-
ing the public,—a fraud in which a portion of the press has,
for the sake of a bribe, allowed itself to participate. Of
course, it would not have been consistent with our principles
or our position to have betrayed our duty to the community
at large in the manner to which we have alluded ; but it is
amusing to find ourselves charged with inconsistency by one
of our contemporaries, because we will not lend our influence
to the support of schemes to which we allow the
benefit of cur advertising columns. We are accused,
oddly enough, of "writing against our own sentiments;"
because our opinions have been freely expressed against
bubble companies, some of which have, of course, sought
publicity through the medium of our paper. We should be
strange compounds indeed if we were compelled to adopt the
" sentiments" of our numerous advertisers, the mere attempt
to do which would. involve the impracticable task of reading
every announcement brought to our office, and deciding
whether it was one in which we could sympathize. The folly
of this doctrine is so apparent,that we wonder at the amazing
stupidity which could have committed so egregious a blun-
der as to charge us with inconsistency for hot supporting all
the schemes and projects to which in the way of business our
advertisin, columns are open. We can understand the won-
der with which our contemporaries contemplate the contempt
is ith which we can afford to regard the minor considerations
of extra advertisements, or the purchase of a few hundred
copies by a company wishing to see its proceedings re-
ported at a length they do not deserve; but we cannot
comprehend how we can be accused of venality for not
engaging in this paltry and dishonest traffic. We are, as we said
before, in a position that renders it impossible for us to stoop
to a participation in a fraud upon the public, fur our interest
stands on much higher ground, and it is to the knowledge of
oar being placed far above all other considerations than
that of duty to the public that we owe—we say it without
any desire to boast of it—our transcendent influence. The
remarks we have felt called upon to make on the subject of
the in-one speculation in railways that has lately occupied
almost every class of the community, have, we are happy to
perceive taken the effect we desired—namely, that of causing
the public to pause and discriminate before risking money in
every project that was advertised. We have never said that
ail tee new projects are bad alike, but nearly all of them have
been at a premium, which the prospect of their value as a per-
nueeat investment ham not warranted. Every scheme that
is forced up, either by fraud on the one hand or credulity on
the other, to a price much higher than is justified by its
act ual worth, will ultimately find its level. Some one will
be the safferer when the crash arrives, and our warnings have
been directed against the madness of buying that which,
being really nothing bet waste paper, must eventually be
scouted as such from the market. We have been accused of
checking enterprise, but a parcel of pickpockets disturbed in
their successful practices by the entrance of the police might
raise the same outcry. Our warnings have been alreadyeus-
titled by the effect they have produced; and we feel satisfied
that many will haVe cause to thank us hereafter for having
saved them from ruin. The conduct of those who profit by
the excitement, and are desirous of stimulating it for their
own advantage, is intelligible, if not :excusable. Our inter-
ests are of a higher kind, and we cannot sacrifice the perma-
nent confidence of the public in order to gratify its indulg-
ence in a temporary humour, which is likely to prove most
disastrous in is s effects, if the evil be not firmlygrappled with.
CIIZONICLE.—Our contemporary, the Times, displayed
something of a better feeling yesterday in his commentaries
oil railways. The importance and usefulness of the railway
movement is now admitted, and credit is asked by him for
having on previous oecasione decanted with some enthu-
siasm on the :splendid results which the completion of rail-
eve s teeouglieut the island would produce upon the social
coaeOrte of the people. Ile even looks forward to the time
when every village ill England will be within a walk of the
%Wien, and every individual Eitglishman brought within a
dey's journey of each other. This is seeing further into the
future than we have yet attempted to do, but the main
spring of the prevailing speculation is, that the bulk of the
middle classes look at the question in a similar light. Con-
yineed that the country will in the end be cut upend crossed
in evert- quarter by railroads, they desire to participate in
the
Ilili tprolits of making them. They expect that the new lines
Th-ile be made upon less cost than the old ; that 15,0001. per
_n ern go as far now as 30,000/. did when the system was
i its infancy, and thatalthough, . fares must be reduced, di-
vidends need not be leas.ongeilding their faith on the price
of the shares of the and Birmingham, Great
Western, and some other leadingeal lines, they expect that
other companies will be desirable investments,
and afford the same amount of dividends. Actuated by these
motives, which are cherished by the great mass of the na-
tion, from the highest to the lowest, they have rushed forward
with avidity to obtain shares in every scheme announced,
and scrips have been bought up with avidity at a premium
he the market. The splendid visions of wealth thus conjured
into existence have received a check of late, and speculators,
who might have made a "good thing of it" had they been
contented with moderate profits, now haunt the alleys near

bandry, they should be very anxious about their el
rality. To the poor man character was of the utai(!
importance, and the more it was appreciated amor'g't '
themselves, the more it would be benefiting society t
tile
large, tending as it would to increase the strength o. ,
nation to an extent and in. a manner none of us Coed
sufficiently appreciate.—(Cheers.) He had ventured ;
throw out these observations ; there was nothing De"'ll
them, he was aware, but in delivering them he had, a
least, gratified himself. He hoped they would be takee,'
as be had no doubt they would, in good part by them er'
and that they would at all times strive to do their Sett,
far there might be times when they would be glad to de'
pend upon each other.—(Fiear.) He had nothing were
to say than to ask them to drink with cordiality,`6l:l;
cess to the Worksop Labourers' Friend Society." ,A,
trusted it alight always flourish, and he trusted also, l'ld
though this was his first time of meeting them, it '•'.oei„
not be the last. He hoped he might be present on finer"
occasions, when they-would not only celebrate the pros'
parity of this Society, but of every establishment COr
fleets d with the people's good.—(Cheers.)
Sir T. WHITE proposed the health of his Grace the
Duke of Nea castle.
The Noble CHAIRMAN thanked them very kindly fl
the handsome manner in which his health had been
received. Sir Thomas White had mentioned one, or
currstance in coanexion with his name, end that was
with respect to garden-allotments to the poor. It there
was any merit attached to that it belonged to his frieilfd
Mr. Wilmot, who was always forward in the cause.,,,
benevolence, and in all those worthy actions w'ut-
tended to benefit the poor. It was to him that he (the
Noble Duke) seas indebted for adopting the systemo
garden-allotments, and for a great number of others !e
provements on his estate ; and to him, therefore, I, 0
merit was justly due. The only merit he (the NT s
Chairman) could claim was, that he subscribed to its
had been so kindly and benevolently proposed by itar.
Wilmot.
The health of Sir T. White and several other tomb
having been proposed,
The Noble CHAIRMAN rose to propose " the sigriell‘
tural Labourers." It had become of late almost ,i'
fashion to sympathise with the poor. There could°
be a more worthy and excellent fashion, but e,
that view might be carried too far, and they d:dg
by injudicious representations and injudicious
do more harm than good. If they took a mad„,
of his situation, and made him discontented by te_e",,,7
him poverty was a misfortune, they would be we--
considerable mischief, and making his mind uneasy 4530,
point on which he had no occasion to be uneasy el nbo
because, though his station was inferior to those w 0
employed him, and though he could not possess dohs;
comforts which wealth had at command, yet he tei. ,
be a happy man, and would be, if he were not wade ,6130 . .
contented.—(Hear.) He (the Noble Chairman) had
strong a feeling for the poor man as any one, but tee
would not do anything that would sacrifice his fide
peace for the sake of his present hopes ; he should 0.0,
think he was (king his duty by holding out the Prdwiasr
of an object which it was utterly impossible the P°:d
man could obtain. There were high and low, x4°11101.1
poor in this world, and we should be contented and itPgo
in the situation in which we were placed. There, 1104
nothing more deserving of respect than a well-heleol
poor man ; his conduct always commanded the to
feeling of those who witnessed it. He trusted „df..
would all do their best to better the poor man's et be
tion without ever hinting to him that he ought, "",,00
what he never could be. The rich man depended Pro
the labour for his wealth, and the poor man on billitiov
employment, and thus there was a mutual dePee.gtiensle
which it was highly essential to preserve. The
the
Duke concluded by speaking in warm terms etT tits
.-
farmers and farm labourers of Nottinghamshire' to
latter of whom were as well or better paid than
labourers in any other country.

THE LATE JOHN JACKSON, EGQp
DENOMINATED THE COMMANDER-IN-CP"
OF THE P.R.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUZI.