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THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECrS JOURNAL. 



[Oct. 



low bill-broker or sherifT's oflicer. If wc were to give a cool and candid 

 opinion, » e Bhuuld say tliat the present parlianieDt contaius as much wealth, 

 respectability, and iutL'lligence as any parliament which has ever sat within 

 the precincts of St. Stephen's. M'e are quite ready to believe that there 

 are adventurers in the present house, but we do not believe that there are 

 more than usual in an assembly to which the mode of admission alfurds no 

 guarantee of moral worth, still less a security against moral corruption. 



There is a class of persons in this country and in all others, who so far 

 from allowing that there is nothing new under the 6u»,can scarcely believe 

 that the night falls and morning breaks day by day, and that the whole 

 scheme of creation, life and death, death and life, rolls on in the course of 

 its accomplishment. For them, everything that is new is a prodigy and an 

 alarm, and they are kept in a perpetual state of worry by the untuward 

 events of their times. No hen was ever more alarmed at seeing ducklings 

 take to the water, no sclioolboy was ever more annoyed at a wet holiday 

 when he had nailed the barometer to " set fair," than are the class to whom 

 we have alluded, at the obstinate movement of a slate of society which in 

 their mind's eyes ihey have nailed to stand stock still. For them, the irrup. 

 tion of railway men into the House of Commons is a new cause of wonder, 

 and we shall have a new Sybil or a new Coningsby on a fact which sets 

 itself so audaciously against the middle ages, aud which is only .1 new- 

 proof of the material aspect of these degenerate days. Alas ! the House 

 of Commons has been always in this slate of revolution. It began by ad- 

 mitting the small squirearchy, the manorial lords who rose under the 

 r.dwards; it received an accession of traders under the Tudors, of Puri- 

 tans under the Stuarts, aud of army colonels under the Cromwells. Oueen 

 .\nne's people were taken aback by the admission of stock-jobbers and fund- 

 holders. King George's by the strange accummulation of nabobs ; then we 

 were frightened by West India planters, by bankers, those who had en- 

 riched themselves with government contracts, and by horde upon horde of 

 the nomeaux riches who had enriched themselves tout nouvellement . The 

 vested interests in the house arc all innovations : there were no array 

 officers before there was a standing army, no country bankers within a cen- 

 tury, no fundholders before there was a national debt, and the staticians 

 have made no allowance for the decline or extinction of lottery office- 

 keepers, AVest India planters, government contractors, and nabobs. The 

 accession of railway chairmen and directors is a fact, and ^- uii fait ac- 

 compli," but no more ; the House of Lords will not be turned into a first- 

 class train, the House of Commons into a second-class train, nor will Mr. 

 George Hudson be made First Lord of the Treasury, nor Mr. Chaplin 

 Commander-in-Chief. It is a great pity for those who have excited them- 

 selves lo the pitch, but there will be no railway revolution. 



All that it amounts lo, and the only real siguilicance is this, that those 

 who were before distributed among the squires, bankers, and merchants 

 are now grouped as railway directors, and that we have admitted a new 

 classilication of men of wealth, ability and intelligence. So far as in- 

 vestigation may be entered upon, we are sure that the result will be to 

 show undoubtedly that as a nation we are none the worse olT than we were 

 before ; though, by couforming with the w ants and exigencies of the limes^ 

 we may be in some degree the better. 



Whether we will or no, conform we must to the progress of events ; we 

 cannot fasten old habits on to new institutions ; there is no travelling out- 

 side an express train, nor can it be made to stop for a parcel of game at a 

 hall door, — all that stage-coach system has been done away with. The elec- 

 tric telegraph will not frank ladies' gloves and fans, nor can we give ^\'est 

 India pines a hot-house flavour. New establishments create new institu- 

 tions. Kailway companies have created railway directors, and railway 

 directors have become members of parliament ; — we must submit, and not 

 be surprised when the next change comes. We may soon have telegraph 

 men as candidates, and the successful management of the correspondence 

 of the country may be a claim for the honours of representation — and why 

 not? What harm is done ? 



By some the mention of railway members of parliament is met by the 

 counter-cry, " What can the management of switches and sidings have to do 

 ■with legislation, or why is successful jobbing to be held as a proper train- 

 ing ?" Certainly, if England were a country of doctrinaires, which it is not, — 

 or an empire of mandarins, which it is not, — or a Prussian police district, 

 which it is not, — railway directors would as such have no qualification, and 

 they would be bound to prove the extent of their political studies and capa- 

 city. We are not aware of any free country being successfully governed by 

 literati or theoretical politicians, and both Rome and England are examples 



I of countries not governed by literati ; nor do we think that the latter country 

 is likely to come under the system. We must therefore take it as we find it, 

 and in so doing, it may be worth while to consider how far railway directors 

 as such are likely to prove efficient law-makers and public counsellors. 



England is a practical country, and a preference is always given to practi- 

 cal training over tlieoretical training, and we question whether Englishmen 

 would not any day much sooner elect a good brickmaker tban thepreatest po»t 

 or dramatist on whose fame they ever prided themselves. Give a man a 

 good practical training, and he may set his hand to anything — that is, the 

 English teaching aud schooling : and we are none the worse for it. It is per- 

 fectly national to see Kichard Cobden and George Hudson in their present 

 positions, and it nould not be surprising to find them exercising still greater 

 influence. The standing of these two is an exposition of the national sym- 

 pathies and character — not what some have been pleased to call it, the wor- 

 ship of Mammon, but the result of that innate appreciation which the Eng- 

 lish have of business habits applied to business purposes. We are very cer- 

 tain that as much would not be done for Charles Dickens, and we are not 

 ashamed of it. Dickens has his reward in another way. We give to a 

 Cobden or a Hudson political power and influence, but we do not award to 

 them the undying esteem of all ages. It is the pride of genius to labour for 

 the applause of posterity ; the politician has only a life intereit in the pre- 

 sent. Whether it be better to become a Shakspeare or a Cobden it lies 

 with the aspirant to judge, but he must not complain if he do not receive 

 the rewards of both. Wc know that there is a large party who complain 

 that in this country literary and scientific men do not receive political re- 

 wards ; we cannot see that there is any ground for sympathy with this com- 

 plaint. We think a successful railway potentate much more fitted for a law- 

 maker than a proficient poet, physician, or artist. A man who can look 

 well after his own afiairs is, in the common acceptation, best fitted to look 

 after the affairs of his neighbours ; and railway kings comply much better 

 with this condition than poets, painters, mathematicians, musicians, or actors. 

 The sample we have had of literary men in the House of Commons has not 

 been encouraging enough to induce us to wish for more ; and while there is 

 no specific exclusion of them, and while they have the means of purchasing 

 a qualification by the very liberal remuneration of their labours, we are not 

 disheartened nor ashamed that Dickens, .Vinsworth, James, Leigh Hunt, and 

 Sheridan Knowles, are not members of the House of Commons. It is quite 

 as open to them as it is to Bulwer, D'Israe'.i, and Macaulay ; and when they 

 can command the political confidence of the public, let them demand politi- 

 cal honours. 



We consider the training of a railway man as particularly qualifying him 

 or parliamentary duties. He must be a man in whose pecuniary ability and 

 trustworthiness a large number of persons have placed their confidence. 

 He is trained in the habit and feeling of public responsibiUty and accounta- 

 bility. He must have working habits of business as the member of a board, 

 for without he has adequate command of temper and ability, he cannot con- 

 tinue as the colleague of a dozen or twenty men of standing. The crotchetty, 

 prattling, meddling, or ill-tempered man is either sifted out, or he has his 

 rough points polished off. He acquires a considerable degree of financial 

 and fiscal knowledge in dealing with large sums of money. He is compelled 

 to enter upon the consideration and application of many newly developed 

 principles, which require close discussion and accurate comprehension. He 

 is schooled in meeting the exigencies of new and progressive institutions. He 

 js called upon to conduct important negotiations with able men, and to make 

 arrangements which shall be applicable to circumstances of great difficulty 

 and complexity. This is no exaggeration of the capabilities of a railway man, 

 and we consider it not a bad stock whereon to engraft the responsibilities of 

 a seat in the House of Commons. 



Except among our Indian functionaries of the civil service, it will be diffi- 

 cult to find men who have had a wider field of administrative practice than 

 our railway directors. Kesponsihililies far exceeding those of the finance 

 minister of many an independent nation devolve upon Mr. Glyn, or Mr. 

 Hudson. The yearly expenditure of millions, the management of a floating 

 capital of twenty millions, and of a current revenue perhaps of two millions, 

 with the administrative control of a thousand subordinates, allbrd a wide 

 field for the attainment and exercise of practical ability, — and we opine that 

 that is what is wanted in the House of Commons. We have speakers enough 

 and writers enough ; we want thinkers and doers, and the more of them th 

 better. 



A fair examination of the question can only have one result — the recogni- 

 tion of the eligibility of railway men, even if we cannot get so far beyond the 

 fear of ridicule as to allow their superior capacity. We believe the present 



