The Committee of Investigation into the affairs of the Brighton
-and South-Coast Railway have presented their report. The Com- mittee comprises Lord Westbury and Sir Charles Jackson, people who know what they are saying, and they report that the manage- ment for the last twelve years has been disgracefully bad, that the capital account has been increased by 8,072,0001. and the revenue by only 113,0001., the branch lines scarcely paying their working expenses. Moreover, Mr. Schuster, Chairman of the Company, and some of his colleagues are accused of a transaction which, stated briefly, amounts to this. They built three branch lines themselves, told the shareholders that independent persons had built them, and then tried to sell them to the shareholders at a profit. This, it must not be forgotten, is an ex parte statement, to which Mr. Schuster will reply ; but one thing is clear, the governing body of this railway were either incompetent persons, or persons whose competence was only too great for the share- holders. They, of course, will have no remedy, and the moral of the revelation is, that until shareholders appoint th-e-Chairman directly, as an officer equal with and hostile to the Board—until they exchange, that is, Parliamentary for Presidential govern- ment—they may be deceived at discretion. We should prefer an official auditor to such a revolution, but even these poor sheep of shareholders will butt and jump and bleat at so " uu-English " a proposal
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