TOPICS OF THE DAY.
RAILWAY TRIBUNALS AND JUDGES.
AMONG the multitudes possessed by the common madness of speculating in Railway Shares, some few may take thought of the actual works which are the pretexts for this share-jobbing- the iron highways that are to traverse the country. But the proportion, we suspect, is small ; and, according to some calcu- lators the sums pledged are so vast that the execution of the
works, except also a small portion, will be impossible. Indeed, discussion is hotly pursued as to whether it will be possible even
to pay, without serious commercial disarrangements, the ten per cent deposit on the capitals subscribed. These calculations on unknown figures are almost as idle as the bubble schemes that swell the account and vitiate it. The sole thing 'certain is, that it is not of the veritable iron railways that people treat, but of "shares" merely—opportunity to profit by the intoxicated demand for a slice of some presumed or supposititious pro- perty that is to be. Like master like man—like People like Re- presentatives: the Legislature is as mad as any. Collectively, Par- liament will receive and dispose of any amount of "bills "—two hundred and fifty last session, ten times as many next. Indi- vidually, the Members are as greedy as any for " shares " : innu- merable are the interests owned by Members in railways, even where they have not overtly become Directors in railway pro- jects. Grant that the pursuit were legitimate, is it fit to absorb the whole care of the Legislature? Drop the new name of " rail- way," and call the thing road-making" and " coach-building " : is the House of Commons to be busied alone in making roads and coaches ? or has a sudden necessity sprung up, in this rather old
country, for so many new roads and coaches in one year? One is inclined to guess, indeed, that honourable Members have en-
tered upon an experiment to try whether the country cannot do without a House of Commons, its place being occupied by a mere Board of Roads. But then it may be asked whether the House of Commons furnishes the nest material for a Board of Roads ? Experience does not say much for it. Last year, Parliament was assisted in the Herculean task by the Railway Department of the Board of Trade; a department which has now practically ceased to exist. Its loss will not be uni- versally deplored ; but the fact remains, that next session Parlia- ment will be left utterly without that aid in its railway business. If unequal to the task last session, how will it cope, unaided, with
a -larger task next year? Probably we are understating the case if we compute that the actual work has increased twentyfold; and that if but half the projects on foot be really pursued, there will be ample business' not merely for next session, but for the whole duration of the Parliament which will probably be elected in 1847.
Meanwhile, if the number of projects has thus multiplied, the number of even professedly competent and impartial judges judges whose competency and impartiality technically come up to the set standard—is daily decreasing. The labours of last session severely tried the health and patience not to say the conscience, of many Members : a high authority, ir. Bernal, holds that Mem- bers have a right to object to sit on such Committees : but many, by openly becoming directors in railway companies, have dis- qualified themselves from sitting as judges to decide on railway questions and the enterprises of rival companies. Probably, disqualification was the very object with some. Others, less open in their conduct, may hope to exercise an indirect influence in furtherance of special interests : the Member for A, judging on the railway to B, in one committee-room, may favour the princi- ple on which a railway for A in the next room depends ; or, principles apart, the Member for A may vote for B, expecting to be rewarded with an equivalent vote for A by the Member for B. Even granting the absence of direct and corrupt interests it is scarcely possible to find men connected with railways, whether as
directors or otherwise, who do not belong to some school of railway systems—the broad gauge or the narrow gauge, the locomotive or the atmospheric, direct lines or lines through a circuit of .great towns, competition or protection. Few of these ex officio judges are untouched.
Even supposing that Members wished to avoid becoming mixed up with such projects, they cannot always help it, connected as they are with landed property:, and owning local as well as legis-
lative duties. Some of the judges do not blush to avow their bias on one side. The Peers, be it remembered, have a coordinate judicial office with the Commons. We lately saw a newspaper- advertisement signed "Norfolk, E. M.," in which the Premier.
Duke declared that, by every means in his power, he would Oppose a particular railway. He may personally have had sound reasons for the step ; but it would occasion no small surprise if one of the Chief Justices were, by advertisement, to declare that, in a particular cause, he intended might and main to oppose the plaintiff.
An attempt was made last session by a kind of sorting and altuflling of Members like a pack of cards, to shut out corrupt in- terests and obtain an impartial Commidee. The experience of the past justifies no hope for the future. The complicated chain of elections of electors and rOlections by which it was attempted inVenice to place the choice of a Doge beyond the reach of venal motives, showed that a corrupt spirit largely pervading a whole body is not to be vanquished in that way : name the man popular with the most powerful interest in the Grand Council, and sure enough he turned up as Doge. You cannot further cross and en- tangle the play of interests than the subtle Venetians did. Let your railway scheme have shareholders and directors in Paelia- ment, and it will gain by the alliance.
Granting that some Members of the Legislature are not mo- rally disqualified by a taint of interest for sitting in judgment on the pretensions of railway schemes, is it fair to throw upon them the whole burden of the work? Is that a fit reward for their vir- tuous abstinence from gambling in shares and in the puffing of bubble projects? Could they get through the task? Is their name legion? We believe, indeed, that if they were picked out by some divining-power, they would not suffice for the labour— there would not be men enough. Limit the number to the Mem- bers still not disqualified, and the task would be physically im- possible. Is Parliament, then, honestly to avow itself unequal to that work ; or is it to go on working in a function for which morality should disqualify it? That is the question to be grappled with, for it lies at the root of the great Railway puzzle : settle that, and all the smaller branch questions, how to pay deposits, or how the pub- lic are to test sound schemes and shams, would settle themselves.
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