sults be embodied before them, would be shocked at the cruel injustices they had committed-men who in their private business, where the results can be thus embodied, are sufficiently equitable.

Further, it requires to be noted that most of these great delinquencies are wrought out, not by the extreme dishonesty of any one man or group of men, but by the combined self-interest of many men and groups of men, whose minor delinquencies are cumulative. Much as a story which, passing from mouth to mouth, and receiving a slight exaggeration at each repetition, comes round to the original narrator in a form scarcely to be recognized ; so, by a little improper influence on the part of landowners, a little favouritism on the part of members of Parliament, a little intriguing of lawyers, a little manœuvring by contractors and engineers, a little self-seeking on the part of directors, a little under-statement of estimates and over-statement of traffic, a little magnifying of the evils to be avoided and the benefits to be gained-it happens that shareholders are betrayed into ruinous undertakings by grossly untrue representations, without any one being guilty of more than a small portion of the fraud. Bearing in mind then, the comparative laxity of the corporate conscience; the diffusion and remoteness of the evils which malpractices produce; and the composite origin of these malpractices; it becomes possible to understand how, in railway affairs, gigantic dishonesties can be perpetrated by men, who, on the average, are little if at all below the generality in moral character.

With this preliminary mitigation we proceed to detail the various illegitimate agencies by which these seemingly insane extensions and this continual squandering of share holders' property are brought about.

Conspicuous among these is the self-interest of land

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GREED OF LAND-OWNERS.

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its

owners. Once the greatest obstacles to railway enterprise, owners of estates have of late years been among chief promoters. Since the Liverpool and Manchester line was first defeated by landed opposition, and succeeded with its second bill only by keeping out of sight of all mansions, and avoiding the game preserves—since the time when the London and Birmingham Company, after seeing their project thrown out by a committee of peers who ignored the evidence, had to "conciliate" their antagonists by raising the estimate for land from £250,000 to £750,000-since the time when Parliamentary counsel bolstered up a groundless resistance by the flimsiest and absurdest excuses, even to reproaching engineers with having trodden down the corn of widows and "destroyed the strawberry-beds of gardeners "-since then, a marked change of policy has taken place. Nor was it in human nature that it should be otherwise. When it became known that railway companies commonly paid for "land and compensation," sums varying from £4,000 to £8,000 per mile; that men were indemnified for supposed injury to their property, by sums so inordinate that the greater part has been known to be returned by the heir as conscience-money; that in one case £120,000 was given for land said to be worth but £5,000—when it was bruited abroad that large bonuses in the shape of preference shares and the like, were granted to buy off opposition-when it came to be an established fact that estates are greatly enhanced in value by the proximity of railways; it is not surprising that country gentlemen should have become active supporters of schemes to which they were once the bitterest enemies. On considering the many temptations, we shall see nothing wonderful in the fact that in 1845 they were zealous provisional committee-men; nor in the fact that their influence as promoters enabled them to get large sums for their own acres; nor in the fact that they

committed various acts sufficiently reprehensible from any but their own point of view.

If we are told of squires soliciting interviews with the engineer of a projected railway; prompting him to take their side of the country; promising support if he did, and threatening opposition if he did not; dictating the course to be followed through their domains, and hinting that a good price would be expected; we are simply told of the special modes in which certain private interests show themselves. If we hear of an extensive landowner using his influence as chairman of a board of directors, to project a branch running for many miles through his own estate, and putting his company to the cost of a parliamentary contest to carry this line; we hear only of that which was likely to occur under such circumstances. If we find now before the public, a line proposed by a large capitalist, serving among other ends to effect desirable communications with his property, and the estimates for which line, though considered by the engineering world insufficient, are alleged by him to be ample; we have but a marked case of the distorted representations which under such conditions self-interest is sure to engender. If we discover of this or that scheme, that it was got up by the local nobility and gentry-that they employed to make the survey a third-rate engineer, who was ready in anticipation of future benefit to do this for his bare expenses-that principals and agent wearied the directors of an adjacent trunk-line to take up their project; threatened that if they did not their great rival would; alarmed them into concession; asked for a contribution to their expenses; and would have gained all these points but for shareholders' resistance-we do but discover the organized tactics which in process of time naturally grow up under such stimuli. It is not that these facts are particularly remarkable. From the gross instance of the landowner

PRESSURE OF THE LANDED INTEREST.

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who asked £8,000 for that which he eventually accepted £80 for, down to the every-day instances of influence used to get railway accommodation for the neighbourhood, the acts of the landed class are simply manifestations of the average character acting under special conditions. All that it now behooves us to notice, is, that we have here a large and powerful body whose interests are ever pressing on railway extension, irrespective of its intrinsic propriety.

The great change in the attitude of the Legislature towards railways, from "the extreme of determined rejection or dilatory acquiescence, to the opposite extreme of unlimited concession," was simultaneous with the change above described. It could not well fail to be so. Supplying, as the landowning community does, so large a portion of both Houses of Parliament, it necessarily follows that the play of private interests seen in the first, repeats itself in the last under modified forms, and complicated by other influences. Remembering the extent to which legislators were themselves involved in the speculations of the mania, it is scarcely probable that they should since have been free from personal bias. A return proved, that in 1845 there were 157 members of Parliament whose names were on the registers of new companies for sums varying from £291,000 downwards. The supporters of new projects boasted of the number of votes they could command in the House. Members were personally canvassed, and peers were solicited. It was publicly complained in the upper chamber, that "it was nearly impossible to bring together a jury, some members of which were not interested in the railway they were about to assess." Doubtless this state of things was in a great degree exceptional; and there has since been not only a diminution of the temptations, but a marked increase of equitable feeling. Still, it is not to be expected that private interests should cease to act. It is not to be expected that a landowner

who, out of Parliament, exerts himself to get a railway for his district, should, when in Parliament, not employ the power his new position gives him to the same end. It is not to be expected that the accumulation of such indi vidual actions should leave the legislative policy unchanged. Hence the fact, that the influence once used to throw out railway bills is now used to carry them. Hence the fact, that railway committees no longer require a good traffic case to be made out in justification of the powers asked. Hence the fact, that the directors and chairmen of boards having seats in the House of Commons, are induced to pledge their companies to carry out extensions.

We could name a member of Parliament, who, having bought an estate fitly situated, offered to an engineer, also in Parliament, the making of a railway running through it; and having obtained the Act (in doing which the influ ence of himself and his friend were of course useful), pitted three railway companies against each other for the purchase of it. We could name another member of Parliament, who, having projected, and obtained powers for, an extension through his property, induced the directors of the main line, with whom he had great influence, to subscribe half the capital for his extension, to work it for fifty per cent. of the gross receipts, and to give up all traffic brought by it on to the main line until he received four per cent. on his capital; which was tantamount to a four per cent. guarantee.

But it is not only, nor indeed mainly, from directly personal motives that legislators have of late years unduly fostered railway enterprises. Indirect motives of various kinds have been largely operative. The wish to satisfy constituents has been one. Inhabitants of unaccommodated districts, are naturally urgent with their representatives to help them to a line. Such representatives are not unfrequently conscious that their next elections may pos