1349.] 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



175 



Council might likewise have the discretion of giving the privilege 

 on speciiil application. 



Cases for non-liability of sleeping partners would be steamboat 

 companies, common road and canal conveyance companies, pawn- 

 broking, theatres, brickworks, limekilns, and coke ovens. 



A very significant illustration of the working of our system, and 

 one very humiliating to our pride, may be found in the electric 

 telegraph. Here we have one company, badly worked, over- 

 charginir, and badly paid : the United States are already covered 

 with telegraph wires. AVhy ? They have neither more money nor 

 more business than ourselves, but they have better legislation. 

 Tiie state of New York, with a population of some three mil- 

 lions, has passed a general law for electric telegraphs, under 

 which companies can at once be established with a limited lia- 

 bility. 



If we look beyond these islands, we shall find our miserable 

 system equally blighting elsewhere. We have so lately spoken 

 upon railway and steamboat enterprise in India, that it is needless 

 to say more than that this subject affords a memorable instance of 

 the way in which the national interests are trifled with. A good 

 law would give facilities for steam navigation to Australia, for 

 whaling companies, for cotton cultivation in Hindostan, and sugar 

 making in the West Indies. 



Some curious information is given in the Report for 1848 of the 

 Registrar of Joint-Stock Companies. One hundred and twenty- 

 three companies were provisionally registered, and of these no less 

 than ninety-si.x companies proceeded no furtlier. Among these 

 were the following: — Patent Galvanised Iron Company, Morley 

 Gasworks, Wolverhampton Market, 'Wolverhampton Railways 

 Approaches and Town Improvement Company, London Marine 

 Electrical Telegraph Company, Britisli Fishing Company, Lich- 

 field Market Hall, Caldwall's jPatent National \Vindlass, Farmers' 

 Estate Society of Ireland, Hydraulic Telegraph, Bungay Naviga- 

 tion Tontine, Arley Coal, Iron, Brick, Lime, and Coke Works, 

 South Hams Flour Mill, Bangor and Coytmoor Slate AVorks, 

 Camborn Consols Mining Company, Henley and London Water- 

 works, Belper Gasworks, Coggesliall Patent Plush Manufacturing 

 Company, Walsingham Gasworks, West Hartlepool Shipping 

 Company, Royal Slate and Slab Companj', Banbury Carrying 

 Company, Cornwall New Mining Company, Wimshurst Patent 

 Submerged Pi-opeller Company, Bury St. Edmund's Gasworks, 

 British Smelting Association, 'Aberdare Gasworks, Kirrage's Pa- 

 tent Sewer Block, Alnwick Gasworks, Tynemouth Gasworks, Sal- 

 combe Market, Great Ayestern Fisheries, Cardiff Steam Towing 

 Company, Dawley Gasworks, British Southern AV^hale Fisheries, 

 Leeds Stock Exchange, Sanitary Baths, Edinbridge Corn Ex- 

 change, Mossley Gasworks, South Hayling Building and Ferry 

 Association, Brierly-hill Gasworks, Surrey Consumers' Gasworks, 

 South Tyne Colliery, Ampthill Gasworks, Kent Indurated Stone 

 Company, Torquay Market, Patent Electric Light Company, 

 Hartlepool Baths, New Steam-Tug Company, Combined Vapour 

 Engine Company, Kingsbridge Public Rooms Company, Wareham 

 Docks. 



In this list are no less than thirteen companies being for new or 

 small towns, and the utility of which may be considered as little 

 liable to question, — but of which the prospects are very doubtful, 

 as most of the undertakings fall through from tlie legal and par- 

 liamentary difficulties in their way. If this be the case in those 

 classes of enterprise which are well established, matters are much 

 worse as affecting the prospects of getting capital for working 

 patents and new processes. 



A very great evil in this country, which should not be left un- 

 noticed, is tlie want of proper courts for deciding matters affecting 

 trade. By the invasion of tlie lawyers these liave all come into 

 their hands, to their very great emolument, and to the very great 

 loss and hindrance of all men of business. Formerly in this coun- 

 try the jurisdiction as to trading cases was in the hands of men of 

 business. The several merchant guilds had full powers to settle 

 all cases affecting their members, and the several trades guilds of 

 the City of London still hold the power by charter, though ousted 

 of it by the lawyers. All cases between masters, working-men, 

 and apprentices, or between masters and the others, ought rightly 

 speaking to be settled by the guild of the respective mystery; but 

 this is all done away with, and great evil has arisen therefrom. 

 Elder brethren of the Trinity House are still called in in running- 

 down cases, but commonly the lawyers sit alone. Abroad, we have 

 the name of a nation of shopkeepers, and it would be supposed we 

 can manage our own mercantile matters; but who is there abroad 

 who would believe that even in arbitration they are referred to 

 lawyers, and not to men of business? AV'hoever heard of a judge 

 recommending a patent case to be referred to an engineer? No 



one; for the recommendation always is to a member of the 

 bar, — and the consequence is, that awards are not unfrequently 

 given which are wholly incapable of being carried out, and the 

 parties have to come to an arrangement irrespective of the arbi- 

 trators. 



The only tendency in the right direction was by the appointment 

 of men of business as official referees; but otherwise, the tendency 

 is to exclude men of business. Thus, even those cases of trade dis- 

 putes, and differences upon the registration of designs, of %vhich 

 the jurisdiction was given to the justices of peace, as being many 

 of them men of business, have come under the cognizance of 

 police magistrates, who are only lawyers. In the Court of Chan- 

 cery, where the references are constantly of matters of business, 

 as of accounts, and framing schemes for managing estates and 

 trading transactions, those references are made to the Masters in 

 Chancery, not one of vvhom is a lawyer; and if he knows anything 

 of business, it is in despite of his legal education, which utterly 

 unfits him for anything of the kind. Indeed, lawyers are kept 

 so closely to the tether of law by the solicitors that they are de- 

 barred even from literary exertion, or the pursuit of the higher 

 studies, without which a right exercise of the reasoning powers 

 cannot be acquired. 



In France they liave been wiser than we are: every small town 

 has its Tribunal of Commerce, the judges of which are men of busi- 

 ness, and are chosen by the men of business; and most trades have 

 a conseil de prud' homines, while scientific and practical evidence, or 

 that of experts, is imperative in all cases of a nature to call for it. 

 It has been very well advised in a pamphlet lately published, 

 under tlie initials "'A. P. P.," that our commercial legislation should 

 be in the hands of the trading classes, as well as the administra- 

 tion of the law. As it is, we are a law-ridden people. 



If a stranger looks at the institutions of England, in the mat- 

 ters now under our consideration, and looks likewise at those of 

 other countries, lie may come to the conclusion that the working 

 of those institutions has placed us in a condition of decided in- 

 equality. That it has not done so, constitutes one of the difficul- 

 ties in the way of reform, for persons are blinded to the imme- 

 diate consequences of our commercial legislation, because these 

 are happily counteracted in some degree by other circumstances. 



As there is much misapprehension on this subject, we think we 

 cannot do better than devote to it a few words. In England we 

 have the resources of a great accumulation of mechanical power, 

 of large capital, and great natural enterprise. These have a 

 powerful influence, and are wholly wanting in France and Belgium, 

 and partially so in the United States. 



When the Fleming has made a sum of money in trade, instead 

 of applying it in the extension of his business, in joint-stock en- 

 terprise, or even government stocks, he lays it out in land. Every- 

 thing favours the small purchaser of land' in Flanders, as much as 

 everything here hinders him. He has a simple registered title, 

 and "pays only ad valorem duties. He can therefore go on buying 

 field after field, while here the cost of stamps and long deeds of 

 conveyance often comes to more than the purchase money; and the 

 result is, that here the small cajiitalist is quite shut out of tlie 

 land market, to the great injury of the latter, no doubt, and he is 

 therefore restricted in the application of his capital to purposes of 

 trade. Here the capitalist never becomes a land-owner until lie 

 has realised a large sum ; and commonly, only a small part of his 

 capital is so applied. It is the next generation from the money- 

 maker which buys land. In Flanders, the resources of trade are 

 always being drained off by the land market; and although theo- 

 retically this should find its level, it has not yet done so, but the 

 price of land is enhanced, so that sometimes sixty years' purchase 

 is given. Under such circumstances, nothing but the Code Napo- 

 leon keeps the great establishments of Ghent and Liege at work. 

 Where a large factory is established by private enterprise, it is 

 commonly by foreigners, Hollanders and English. Indeed, most 

 of these were established and upheld by the King of Holland, 

 AVilliam I.; and on his withdrawal, it was necessary to make them 

 joint-stock undertakings. 



In France, the ambition of the tradesman is likewise limited. 

 AVhen he has got together 2,000/. or 4,000/., enough to keep him 

 quietly, and provide for the conventional family of one son and 

 one daughter, he gives up trade, retires to the faubourg or banlieu, 

 and becomes a rentier or proprietaire, a fund-holder or a holder 

 of house property. Few are those who stop to double their stakes 

 or to engage in larger undertakings. The sou becomes an em- 

 ployee of the government, or, what is the same thing, a profes- 

 sional man; his friends are employed in buying a charge or lodged 

 in the Caisse des Consignations. Everything beyond this career 

 is e.\ceptional, and all tends to keep the trader within it. The 



