RAILWAYS, HIGHWAYS, AND CANALS. 165 



public, which are professedly gratuitous, are always the worst 

 performed and the most expensive. Besides, one trust managed in a 

 slovenly or improper manner, and that is but a short line of road 

 upon which there shall not be at least one trust of this description, 

 vitiates the whole line to the traveller using it all ; because, without 

 additional power, expense, and hindrance, the whole road should be 

 estimated by the worst part of it. Thirdly, the tax thus levied is 

 levied unequally, which would not be the case if the toll bars were 

 removed, the roads put under proper systematic management, and 

 the expense paid out of the general revenue of the country. Mr. 

 Grahame brings Sir Henry Parnell's plan of expediency in favour of 

 trusts very nearly to this point; 1,200,000/. a-year is the sum at 

 which Sir Henry estimates the annual cost of turnpike roads in Eng- 

 land ; and he thinks the public would grumble at paying this sum in 

 a general tax. But lie forgets that the trial was never made, and 

 overlooks that the public have paid far greater sums for purposes in 

 which they had no interest whatever. So that a case of " distrust in 

 the government," as alluded to by Mr. Grahame, is not made out 

 here ; and we have already said that the grand measure is the re- 

 moval of the distrust, and not the withdrawal from government of 

 the management of the most general and the most useful accommo- 

 dation which the public possess. All parties admit that the business 

 would be in itself better and more cheaply done ; and it is not an 

 over estimate to suppose that a full third, or 400,000/. annually, 

 would be saved in wages, salaries, and other unprofitable items, 

 named or nameless. 



As is well remarked by our author, the joint-stock corporation 

 system is worse in principle than that of trusts, and not better in 

 practice. Very many of these undertakings have been jobs from the 

 very outset, in which the sanction of the public legislature has been 

 obtained by private parties, for the direct and avowed purpose of en- 

 abling those parties to make a profit at the public expense, which 

 they could not gain without the assistance of the legislature. We 

 may naturally suppose that matters are better now, and it may be 

 that they are altogether pure and patriotic. But every one who has 

 been familiar with parliamentary business, and is old enough to re- 

 member times long gone by, must be aware that local acts for the 

 establishment of such corporations were among the chief sources to 

 which these ancients looked for getting back the purchase money of 

 their seats, together with reasonable wages for their parliamentary 

 labour, and some small opiate to keep conscience tranquil. Further- 

 more in these olden times there were solicitors, professing engineers, 

 and other , busy-bodies, who made a regular trade of getting up 

 schemes for these joint-stock corporations, and also parliamentary 

 committees and majorities to carry them through, so much so, that 

 people lived in constant fear of having the burden of a parliamentary 

 improvement imposed upon them. The expense of this was enor- 

 mous ; and it is exceedingly doubtful whether, if all the property of 

 these joint- stock corporations in England were brought to the hammer 

 at this moment, it would sell for as much as would pay for the par- 

 v amentary expenses alone. 



