THE question as to the comparative advantage of the ownership and aduiinistration of the railways of a country by the State or by private Companies comes up every now and then. The advocates of State ownership point to! the administration of the postal and telegraph services in England as an indication of the admirable manner i which n similar department of railways would be conducted, while there is no question that there would be great inde, by the abolition of numerous boards of Direc-with a separate staff for each The advocates of the present assert that the absence of compe which would result from the railways being transferred to the State, would check all improvements und induce a dead level of content with the condition to which the railway system has uow been brought. Oficial arrogance and red tape would be very irksome tu travellers, who have to be cultivated by rail~ way Directors at present, and itis to be foured that passengers would be treated with ecaut courtesy, when the humblest porter felt himself to be a Government employe. Meanwhile no one is satisfied with the present administration of the English railways, The Chambers of Commerce all over the Kingdom are constantly complaining of the discriminating tariffs established by the Com. panies, which gouorally favour foreign, at the expense of native Lrade; and the recent dictum of " learned judge, that railway companies are at liberty at limo that seems good to then to suspend their ordinary traffic, and run special trains at their discretion at any ture that may seem desirable, has not been accepted with nny great gratifica. tion, It has virtually been decided that, with the exception of one parlia~ mentary train a day, a railway company is under no legal obligation to ran trains at all, the theory being that it is merely called upon to maintain perniauent way, on which anyone who chooses to pay for the privilege, may run his own train, In New York quite recently, the Directors of the Blevated Ronds actually suspended the trafic altogether on two out of the four lines, in revenge for a strike among their employes, Things being in Ulus anomalous condition in England, the Associated Chambers of Commerce have done well to employ Sir Bernard Samuelson to compile a report on the railways of Continental Europe, with special regard to the charges for trans port of goods. The countries chiefly considered in the report ure North Germany, Belgium, and Holland, In North Germany, out of a total length of some. thing over 22,000 miles, less than 1,500 miles remain in the bands of private companies, and the result of the transfer of nearly the whole of the railways to the State has been completely favourable, It has produced, ae was hoped, decided economy in the cost of Germany that euch a step would be to working the traffic, grenter uniformity everyone's advantage except that of lin rates, and increased accommodation the few railway Directora who would to the public; and as Sir Beranrd be turned out of employment, He asserts that these advantages have been eummarises his deductions from the secured without any drawbacks, the facts that he has gathered during his English traveller in North Germany survey of the Continental railways must comfort himself with the con-! ander four heads, which, interested tion that the bureaucratic hauteur we all are in the rivalry of English with which he is generally treated on a/ and German trade, are worth noting German railway, is due to the national he fiuds—character, and not to the fact that all; 1,—That the competition between the officials consider themselves direct} Northern Europe and Great Britain has servants of the Crown, and therefore renched such an acute stage, that Bug-not called upon to be polite to the lish railway rates mast be reduced, if our common herd, In Belgiam out of a: tradal supremacy is to be maintained, total length of uenrly 2,700 miles,! 2.—'T'raffic fates on English railways about 1,900 miles are in the hands of must be arranged on a more scien the State. Here the advantages of basis, and must not be left to the dis-State control are not so evident as in! cretion of the directors, but should be Germany, for while the working ex-! revised by representatives of Wade and penses on the Government lines amount agriculture and be submitted to Pare to 60 por cent. they are only 544 per liament for its sanction, cent, on the private lines, The ment should arrange in of freight however are very moderate someformtheconsolidation oramalgama. on all the lines, and there may be) tion of competing lines, 80 that the loss special circumstances which account which priseont pro for the difference of the net earnings sary multiplication of train services, on the different systems, In Holland, both for passengers and goods, may be the railwase, with a total length of! obviated, To gain this point was one about 1,300 miles, belong partly to the of the principal motives which decided State and partly to private companies, the Prussian Government to purchase but they are all worked by private their railways. companies who wake a return tothe} 4—'he Railway Commissioners, or Government of a certain fixed propor~. some similar body, should have more tion of the net income earned by the! power to control the railways, for the lines owned by the State, It was Can-! protection of, the public and of traders, ning who wrote—They should be able: to prevent rail.
In matters of commerce the fault of the "958 charging higher rates on home Dutch than on foreign produce: and should Is giving tov little, and asking too much: prevent them fixing their tariff ea as {and the Dutch railway pri ad- to favour one trade or locality more here to this principle even in dealing with than another. rheic own Government, for the average It will be soon at once from the annual receipt of the Government duc.; Above deductions, that Sir B. Samuel~ ing the Inst five years on their share of #04 practically recommends, though nob the capital sunk, has been only 1.18, iv so many words, the acquisition of per cent, while the private share- the railways by the State, If the holders Lave received in the sune period Failways are to be so controlled, for from 4.56 to 7 per cent. a year. The, their own and the public good, us be freight charges in Holland are us suggests, they had better belong to the anomalous nud unssstematic as (hey State altogether; and we have thought are in England, The German Govern. it worth while to draw attention to is ment tariff is the model, according to report, at" time when so many more Sir Bernard, which our railways should oF less disinterested persons are pr aim at copying. It is a compromise ing their schemes of railway construc. between the system of charging no cord. tion on Chinn, There were no pregto the value of the goods, nnd cedents when railways were first started erging according to the bulk and the in Bugland and they have grown gras tance traversed. The native trade dually and tentatively into the mighty ig much better eared for in Germany organisms which they now are; but than it is in England; for the result of this gradual and unsys. foreign produce carried between the tematic growth is that they are fall same points at lower rates than native of nuomalies and excrescences, which produce, nor are the railways allowed attempts erenow being made to regulate, to reduce their rates in order to com.
China has the advantage of having at pete with consting steamers, On the! her disposition the knowledge painfully whole, the German Government tariff and Inboriously collected in the West, is much more favourable to commerce and Western experience -will teach her than the English tariffs are, and) how best to avoid the mistakes which withal, although the State paid the! other countries have committed. private proprietors full prices for the lines, the State has made a profit on THE BIRTHDAY OF THE GERMAN EMPEROR, the purchase. Sic Bernard does not—22nd Murch. go so far as to recommend the imme-Ir is now more than a quarter of a diate acquisition of our railways by the century—the exact date being the 2ud State; but be proves by the example of of January, 1861—sinoo Friedriobe
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.