other, the lawyers aiding and assisting, and
chuckling with delight."

But now comes the question whether the
chief highways of this country are to remain an
inharmonious system of private roads, levying at
discretion a high and widely-varying rate of tolls
on our land traffic, or whether it is possible to
bring them under popular control, make them
our own, and have the utmost use of them.

ln the year eighteen 'forty-four, an act of
parliament was passed to give the country
power, if it had the will, to buy on certain terms
all the railways made on our own soil after that
date. The country was to come into possession
of this power, on the expiration of twenty-one
years from the date of the act. The term expires,
therefore, in this year 'sixty-five, and the
time has arrived when the public may consider
whether it will exercise the power it acquires
over five-sixths of the existing railway mileage,
and whether, in the present state of the railway
market, the other sixth would not be glad to
take part in a bargain that would benefit alike
the country and the railway shareholders. The
act of 'forty-four was introduced by Mr. Gladstone,
then President of the Board of Trade,
and was founded on the inquiries of a committee
nominated and presided over by himself. Before
that committee, Mr. Baxendale, head of the great
carrying firm of Pickford and Co., and chairman
of the South-Eastern Railway, said, "I have
always considered that the commerce of this
country has prospered to the extent it has done
in consequence of the great freedom of
communication; I have always considered that the
roads of the country belonged altogether to the
people, just as much as the light of heaven."
And Captain Laws, who, as manager of the
Leeds and Manchester Railway, first introduced
third-class carriages in England, thought that
the iron roads might be managed for the country
on a method intermediate between the
companies' system and the penny post system, or with
rates little above the working expenses and the
interest of money, as a means of "giving very
great facilities, and greatly promoting every
description of domestic industry, whether of
manufacture or agriculture." He thought that
a great saving might be effected by an uniform
and far less costly management, and the cessation
of feuds and parliamentary contests; and
that the system, as then established, not only
had much of the character of a monopoly, but
that every extension was calculated to increase
that monopoly immensely, and to establish a
continuation of monopolies.

Of the act of 'forty-four, when it was intro-
duced, Sir Robert Peel said: " They were about
to say to the railway companies, You shall not
have a permanent monopoly against the public;
but, after a limited number of years, we give you
notice we shall have the option of purchasing
your property." The limited number of years
is now expiring, and it is for the public
to consider whether it can wisely take to
itself and make its own, the great and costly
network of the private roads that have almost
exclusive mastery over our means of inland
communication. As an element in such
consideration will be a study of the present cost of
railway conveyance, upon that, subject the
commission is now sitting, which will arrive at facts
such as those we have here given from a volume
upon Railway Reform, by MK. WILLIAM GALT,
who has done more than any other man to fix
public attention on the facts and principle
involved in the whole question.

If the people should elect to purchase, the
first obvious question is, Where will they find
all the money? Even Great Britain cannot
write a cheque for the fair price of all the rail-
way property in the United Kingdom. If the
railway companies were unwilling parties to the
bargain, they could probably demand cash payment,
and so destroy all chance of arrangement.
But the standing interests of the companies
are not opposed in this matter to
those of the public; so purchase would mean,
simply the exchange of railway shares for a
certain amount of government stock: the
shareholders giving up property from which they
receive an uncertain dividend for a fixed annuity
secured in perpetuity. The transfer of railway
into government stock might be made in proportion
to the average dividends paid by each
company for three years previous to purchase, or
with reference to the current market price. The
act of 'forty-four fixed the rate at an equivalent
to twenty-five years' purchase, estimated on
an average of profits for the three years previous
to sale, and provided valuation, determined in
case of difference by arbitration, for railways
that were not paying dividends of ten per cent.
Railway property has declined so much in market
value during the last twenty years, that it all
falls under the latter clause, and the arrangement
for transfer of stock proposed by Mr. Galt
is, that railway shares should be exchanged for
government stock with an average bonus of
about fifteen per cent upon their actual market
value. He would be an odd shareholder who
would object to such a bargain.

But would the railways under the new
system be a good security to underlie the
public funds? All the territorial property of
England is security for the Three per Cents.
For the additional charge, there would be the
same security with all the railways added.
If there were a short-coming of railway profits,
it would be because the public, while having all
its powers of prosperity enlarged by the increased
facilities of travel and traffic, still kept in its
pocket cash that, under the old system, came out
of it; and the Chancellor of the Exchequer would
know how to get at that. But, in fact, since it
has been proved by experience that a sacrifice
of at most one per cent from a five and a half
per cent dividend will secure a reduction of fares
to one-half or one-third their present rate, the
development of wealth and prosperity by all the
aids that could then be given, would probably
pay back even that one per cent in a hundred
indirect ways: to say nothing of the immediate
profit from a purchase advantageous to both