ment of its object was, to employ a number of competent engineers to survey the kingdom, and to determine the main lines with reference not only to the general features of the country, but also to the interests of the several large towns, and to their internal and foreign relations. On the first of May, 1834, a law was passed authorizing the government to carry their project into execution. Mechlin was taken as the centre of the system, with four branches extending from that town, in different directions, to each frontier.'

The report then gives a summary of the lines resolved on, and goes on to state

'The people have had the advantage of a much earlier introduction of this important means of communication than if the undertaking had been left to private speculation-without risk to individuals-without the interference of private interests-on lines, perhaps, which of themselves would have offered no temptation to private enterprise, but which, as part of an extensive system, will repay, either directly or indirectly, the money expended upon them. The government will, in all probability, recover its outlay from the profits of the undertaking, but will assuredly be repaid by an augmentation of revenue arising from the increased commerce and traffic throughout the kingdom. If it be objected that the government will be enabled to exercise too despotic a power over the means of public communication; the experience of similar private undertakings in our own country may give rise to a question whether the control of the state is likely to be more absolute than that of the directors of a chartered railroad.',

Look now at the proceedings, as they are described by the Railway Commissioners, attending the birth of a railway project in England; always bearing in mind that every farthing of the enormous expense incurred therein, must fall eventually upon the passenger, and thus impose a clog upon communication.

The plan of a railway in these countries originates, as already mentioned, in nineteen cases out of twenty, with an engineer, solicitor, or other ingenious projector, who conceives and draws up a proposition calculated to be attractive.

The plan is laid before a certain number of capitalists and associates, who form a company, collect a sum of money for the purpose of proceeding with detailed surveys and the preparation of a bill.

When arrived at that point, the engineer, the solicitor, and the salaried agents obtain very lucrative employments.

The survey is made, prospectuses and advertisements issued, and the share list filled up, chiefly by parties who look to profits by dealing in

shares.

'This list is filled with more or less facility, according to the attractions held out, and likely to be maintained for the necessary period; frequently the influence and reputation in such concerns of the engineer or solicitor will be sufficient for the purpose.

'The bill is presented to Parliament; and, if it be strenuously opposed,

particularly by a rival company, then commences the rich harvest of counsel, solicitors, engineers, and persons summoned and retained in London for the purpose of giving evidence: discussions are entered into respecting every abstract professional matter connected with railways: the principles of curves and gradients, of friction and gravity, are investigated-questions on which, in many cases, the counsel, the witness, and the court, are all equally ignorant. Then a formal effort may be made, and perhaps with success, to reject a measure, after an expenditure of tens of thousands of pounds, not on account of some very essential grounds of objection, but frequently for some such trivial cause as that a notice to the proprietor of a small piece of waste land was left at No. 23, instead of No. 24, in a given street.

Thus a project, though possibly of great value (for that does not alter the case), may be defeated for two or three sessions of Parliament, having the whole to recommence each time; and the same process would have to be gone through before the committee of each house, but that the Lords do not admit of so discursive a system.

After the company has once battled its way, at an enormous expense, through Parliament, it has still to contend, under many disadvantages, with the landed proprietors and others to whom compensation is to be made; after which it has its own way, and is in a condition to make reprisal upon the public for all these unnecessary expenses and vexations.

'These are among the natural consequences of leaving such undertaking (according to the received popular notions), entirely to the exertion of private capital, ingenuity, and enterprise; when it is manifest that the projects thus urgently enforced are often taken up for mere temporary objects, and that the great body of the same parties, having made their account of them, will readily enter upon others whose only prospect of success may depend upon the ruin of the first.'

Having contrasted the motives which, in the two countries we are considering, have led to the establishment of railways, and the expenses attending their commencement, we might naturally conjecture that the wasteful expenditure in the one country, and the exemplary economy in the other, would be followed by a corresponding cost of construction. And such is the result. In Belgium, the average cost of the lines already completed amount to about 85261. a-mile. The lines executed in England, have cost from 30,000l. to 40,000l. a-mile. The greatest expense incurred in the execution of any portion of the Belgian line is about 10,000l.,-equal to the lowest sum incurred in the construction of the cheapest line in England; while it does not amount to one-fourth of the expense which hundreds of miles in England have cost.

Here, again, let us remember that all this expenditure must ultimately fall upon the public, and retard communication; and that an immense portion of it might have been avoided, had the Government in England taken into its hands the management of the undertaking. The Parliamentary costs, amounting sometimes

to 10007, rarely to less than 5007 a-mile, might, as in Belgium, have been saved. The flagrant extortion of proprietors, sometimes amounting to 10,0007. a-mile, might have been prevented. A government undertaking a work of this description, and looking only to the public interest, would act with less extravagance than a company; they would be aware that the community was at their mercy, and that every shilling squandered in extravagant outlay, and costly establishments, must ultimately be defrayed by the public, whose purse must be at their disposal.

That the fares of railway travelling in England should greatly exceed those in Belgium, is a necessary consequence of the distinct objects proposed in the formation of railways, and the difference of outlay expended in their construction, in the two countries. The following table will exhibit at one view the extraordinary cheapness of railway travelling in Belgium, as compared with England. The fares between Antwerp and Brussels are the same as those charged on the other lines.

Table of Fares on various Railways in England and Belgium.

One of the most remarkable facts exhibited by this table is the great contrast between the fares to which the lowest class of travellers are subjected in two countries;-the charges in England being generally from three to four times greater than those in Belgium. Now, when we remember that (as was truly stated in a recent debate by Sir R. Peel), one of the chief advantages of railway travelling is the facility it affords those whose ca'pital consists in labour-and that it is almost impossible to estimate this advantage,' we see an invincible argument for adopting the principle acted upon in Belgium; in other words, for look

ing only to such a return from railways as may be sufficient to cover their expenses, instead of (by making them a source of private profit), counteracting those incalculable benefits which they are peculiarly adapted to afford the labourer and the artizan. How quickly the lowest classes avail themselves of the facilities which cheap travelling affords them, we may judge from the fact, that of the total number of passengers conducted by the railway between Brussels and Antwerp, during the six months ending October, 1836, more than nine-tenths were those using the cheapest class of carriages.

The effect of low fares, and increased facilities of intercourse, in multiplying the traffic of passengers, is strongly exemplified by the following statements; which we quote from the same 'Statistical Report,' we have already referred to; in which the increase of traffic on the Liverpool and Manchester railway is compared with that on the Brussels and Antwerp line.

'The Liverpool and Manchester railroad offers a very favourable comparison for this country, as the intercourse between those two towns is perhaps greater than between any other two places at an equal distance. The number of passengers booked at the company's offices on that line, since its opening, has been as follows:

In 1830 (from 16th September to 30th December).

71,951

445,047

356,945

386,492

436,637

473,849

522,991

The population of the towns on this line, exclusive of the adjacent districts, which teem with inhabitants engaged in commerce and manufactures, was, in 1831, Liverpool, 196,694; Manchester, 170,963; Warrington, 19,153;-total, 486,812. This number could not have been less, in 1836, than 523,000, which is the number of passengers using the railway in that year. On an average, therefore, each inhabitant may be supposed to take one trip in a year.

'In Belgium, the number of passengers booked at Brussels, Mechlin, and Antwerp, inclusive of two intermediate stations, in each year since the opening of these lines, has been as follows:

1835 (8 last months). .

1836 (Antwerp only 8 months), 379,588 265,048 226,671

871,307

1837,.

475,155 361,317 305,995

1,145,467

1838 (only 10 months).

The population of these three towns did not, in 1838, amount to onehalf of that on the English line, namely, Brussels, with its suburbs, 134,302; Mechlin, 22,895; Antwerp, 75,363; total, 232,960; and neither the population nor the commercial activity of the surrounding districts can be compared with those of its competitor; yet the intercourse in 1837 was more than twice as great, and with reference to the difference of population, was five times as great; the average number of trips to each inhabitant having been five per annum. A comparison with the intercourse on both lines previous to the formation of the railroads is equally favourable to the Belgian undertaking. On the Liverpool and Manchester line the average number of passengers which the coaches carried, in the year 1825, was estimated at 450 daily, or 164,250 per annum. The number actually conveyed by the railroad, in 1836, was 523,000, showing an increase of 218 per cent., or rather more than three times the former number; the fares having been reduced from 10s. and 6s., to 5s. 6d. and 4s.-the higher rates one-half, and the lower only one-third. On the Belgian line the number of passengers between Brussels and Antwerp, before the opening of the railway, is said to have been 80,000 yearly. The rates of conveyance have been reduced from 4s. and 2s. 6d., to 2s. 6d. and 1s. 0d.; the higher fares two-fifths, and the lower three-fifths; and in 1837 the number of passengers booked at Brussels and Antwerp, excluding Mechlin, whence a portion of the passengers were proceeding on other lines of railway, was 781,250, showing an increase of 876 per cent, or about nine and a half times the former number.'

How completely, then, do the results of the system acted upon in Belgium bear out and confirm our principles. In every point of view is the superiority of that system apparent. If we look to the cost of construction, we find it on an average not onefourth of that incurred in England. The fares in the latter country we perceive three and four times greater than those charged in Belgium; and pressing with peculiar and mischievous weight upon the lowest classes of society. We see in England, under the operation of those heavy fares, an increase of traffic less by two-thirds than that which cheapness of travelling has created in Belgium; while we find the lowest classes of the Belgian community enabled to avail themselves of, and actually enjoying, that facility of intercourse so intimately connected with their prosperity, from which we see the English labourer debarred.

Surely, then, theory and fact triumphantly bear out the proposition-that the state should undertake the establishment of railways-a work, on the proper management of which the welfare of the community so largely depends; and that the advancement of that community, and not the aggrandizement of individuals, should be the end proposed.

But, with respect to Ireland, we have no choice of systems; the question is not between the execution of railways by private