pected that they should be active and not very scrupu lous promoters of it. To illustrate the vigour and skill with which they further new undertakings, a few facts may be cited. Not far from London, and lying between two lines of railway, is an estate that has been purchased by one of our engineers. He has since obtained Acts for branches to both of the adjacent lines. One of these branches he has leased to the company whose line it joins; and he has tried to do the like with the other, but as yet without success. Even as it is, however, he is considered to have doubled the value of his property. Again, an engineer of celebrity once very nearly succeeded in smuggling through Parliament, in the bill for a proposed rail. way, a clause extending the limits of deviation, through a certain district, to several miles on each side of the linethe usual limits being but five chains on each side; and the attempt is accounted for by the fact, that this engi neer possessed mines in this district. To press forward extensions by the companies with which they are connected, they occasionally go to great lengths. Not long since, at a half-yearly meeting, certain projects which the proprietary had already once rejected, were again brought forward by two engineers who attended in their capacity of shareholders. Though known to be personally interested, one of them moved and the other seconded, that some new proposals from the promoters of these schemes be considered without delay by the directors. The motion was carried; the directors approved the proposals; and again, the proprietors negatived them. A third time a like effort was made; a third time a conflict arose; and within a few days of the special meeting at which the division was to take place, one of these engineers circulated among the shareholders a pamphlet denying the allegations of the dissentient party and making counter-statements which it was then too late to meet-nay, he did

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more; he employed agents to canvass the shareholders for proxies in support of the new undertaking; and was obliged to confess as much when charged with it at the meeting.

Turn we now to contractors. Railway enterprise has given to this class of men a gigantic development, not only in respect of numbers, but in respect of the vast wealth to which some of them have attained. Originally, half a dozen miles of earthwork, fencing, and bridges, was as much as any single contractor undertook. Of late years, however, it has become common for one man to engage to construct an entire railway; and deliver it over to the company in a fit condition for opening. Great capital is necessarily required for this. Great profits are made by it. And the fortunes accumulated in course of time have been such, that sundry contractors are named as being each able to make a railway at his own cost. But they are as insatiate as millionnaires in general; and so long as they continue in business at all, are, in some sort, forced to provide new undertakings to keep their plant employed. As may be imagined, enormous stocks of working materials are needed: many hundreds of earth-wagons and of horses; many miles of temporary rails and sleepers; some half-dozen locomotive engines, and several fixed ones; innumerable tools; besides vast stores of timber, bricks, stone, rails, and other constituents of permanent works, that have been bought on spe.ulation. To keep the capital thus invested, and also a large staff of employés, standing idle, entails loss, partly negative, partly positive. The great contractor, therefore, is alike under a pressing stimulus to get fresh work, and enabled by his wealth to do this. Hence the not unfrequent inversion of the old arrangement under which companies and engineers employed contractors, into an arrangement under which contractors employ engineers and form companies.

Many recent undertakings have been thus set on foot The most gigantic project which private enterprise has yet dared—a project of which, unfortunately, there is now no hope originated with a distinguished contracting firm. In some cases, as in this chief one, this mode of procedure may, perhaps, be advantageous; but in a far greater proportion of cases its results are disastrous. Interested in promoting railway extensions, even in a greater degree than engineers and lawyers, contractors frequently coöperate with these, either as agents or as coadjutors. Lines are fostered into being, which it is known from the beginning, will not pay. Of late, it has become common for landowners, merchants, and others personally interested, who, under the belief that their indirect gains will compensate for their meagre dividends, have themselves raised part of the capital for a local railway, but cannot raise the rest-it has become common for such to make an agreement with a wealthy contractor to construct the line, taking in part payment a portion of the shares, amounting to perhaps a third of the whole, and to charge for his work according to a schedule of prices to be thereafter settled between himself and the engineer. By this last clause the contractor renders himself secure. It would never answer his purpose to take part payment in shares likely to return some £2 per cent., unless he compensated himself by unusually high profits; and tnis subsequent settlement of prices with one whose interests, like his own, are wrapped up in the prosecution of the undertaking, ensures him high profits. Meanwhile, the facts that all the capital has been subscribed and the line contracted for, unduly raise the public estimate of the scheme; the shares are quoted at much above their true worth; unwary persons buy; the contractor from time to time parts with his moiety at fair prices; and the new shareholders ultimately find themselves part owners of a railway which,

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nprofitable as it originally promised to be, had been made yet more unprofitable by expensiveness of construction.

Nor are these the only cases in which contractors gain after this fashion. They do the like with undertakings of their own projection. To obtain Acts for these, they sign the subscription-contracts for large amounts; knowing that in the way above described, they can always make it answer to do this. So general had the practice latterly become, as to attract the attention of committees. As was remarked by a personage noted for his complicity in these transactions" Committees are getting too knowing; they won't stand that dodge now." Nevertheless, the thing is still done under a disguised form. Though contractors no longer enter their own names on subscription lists for thousands of shares; yet they effect the same end by making nominal holders of their foremen and others: themselves being the real ones.

Of directorial misdoings some samples have already been referred to; and more might be added. Besides those arising from directly personal aims, there are sundry others. One of these is the still-increasing community between railway boards and the House of Commons. There are eighty-one directors sitting in Parliament; and though many of these take little or no part in the affairs of their respective railways, many of them are the most active members of the boards to which they belong. We have but to look back a few years, and mark the unanimity with which companies adopted the policy of getting themselves represented in the Legislature, to see that the furtherance of their respective interests-especially in cases of competition-was the incentive. How well this policy is understood among the initiated, may be judged from the fact, that gentlemen are now in some cases elected on boards, simply because they are members of Parliament,

Of course this implies that railway legislation is affected by a complicated play of private influences; and tnai these influences generally work towards the facilitation of new enterprises, is tolerably obvious. It naturally hap pens that directors whose companies are not opposed, exchange good offices. It naturally happens that they can more or less smooth the way of their annual batch of new bills through committees.

Moreover, directors sitting in the House of Commons not only facilitate the passing of the schemes in which they are interested, but are solicited to undertake further schemes by those around them. It is a very commonsense conclusion that representatives of small towns and country districts needing railway accommodation, who are daily thrown in contact with the chairman of a company capable of giving this accommodation, will not neglect the opportunity of furthering their ends. It is a very common-sense conclusion that by hospitalities, by favours, by flattery, by the many means used to bias men, they will seek to obtain his assistance. And it is an equally common-sense conclusion that in many cases they will succeed that by some complication of persuasions and temptations they will swerve him from his calmer judg ment; and so introduce into the company he represents, influences at variance with its welfare.

Under some motives, however-whether those of direct self-interest, of private favour, or of antagonistic feeling, need not here be discussed-it is certain that directors are constantly committing their constituents to unwise enterprises; and that they frequently employ unjustifiable means for either eluding or overcoming their opposition. Shareholders occasionally find that their directors have given to Parliament pledges of extension much exceeding what they were authorized to give; and they are then persuaded that they are bound to endorse the promises made for