The Midland Shareholders' meeting on Wednesday passed over without any
striking result. The Chairman said all that was to be said for the Directors' extravagant policy ; the meeting appointed Mr. Baines's committee of consultation to see whether there was any chance of retreat out of their costly engagements ; and the rest was all noise and recrimination. The only point which the Chairman really made was that a good deal of the expenditure had been for land, which, when their works were completed, they could possibly resell at a price even higher than they had paid for it. It was necessary to buy more than was wanted because they did not know precisely what they should want, and if they had had to buy it some years hence it would have been at a greatly advanced price. It was not pretended, however, that this explanation concerned any large proportion of the expenditure. The Chairman's couleur de rose picture of the • extending traffic, and his assurance that the 8,000,0001. of existing engagements for which money has to be raised would not ex- ceed the estimates, did not inspire much confidence even in the most sanguine of the shareholders.
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