480 NEW COMPOUND RAIL. 



in round numbers the sum of c;^600,000 before eiglit years expire in 

 running the ordinary rail, while about {§^300,000 would be sufficient 

 to replace the wearing surface of the improved rail in double the peri- 

 od. In other words, while the renewal of the common rail would 

 prove an annual drain of ^§^7 5,000 on the earnings of the Company, 

 the improved compound rail would annually draw upon receipts to the 

 extent of from ^18,000 to ^19,000 only. 



It may be observed that the strongest claim which this improvement 

 possesses is, economy in maintenance, and unless this advantage be sat- 

 isfactorily established the adoption of the system on new or existing 

 lines cannot be hoped for. The fact that railway investments have 

 almost universally turned out profitless to the stockholders, while the 

 public has received and daily receives unmeasured benefits, is a suffi- 

 cient reason why all improvements in railway construction or in rail- 

 way management, should have a tendency to distribute the benefits 

 in a more equitable proportion. The public ought not to have a 

 monopoly of them. The parties who invest their capital in railways 

 should have a fair return for their money and their enterprise ; indeed 

 it would be infinitely more satisfactory to the thinking public to know 

 and feel that they were in the enjoyment of the most perfect system 

 of internal communication without loss or it may be ruin to the pro- 

 prietors. Railways must be made to pay, or their extension into 

 unoccupied fields must cease, and thus suspend the progress of modern 

 civilization. Before they can pay one of two things is neceesary, either 

 the receipts must be increased or the expenditure diminished. Expe- 

 rience goes to prove that the amount of traffic which centres in any 

 particular railway is limited by variable local circumstances and the 

 laws of commerce, and beyond this limit the traffic cannot safely be 

 forced ; if the earnings cannot be increased beyond what the limit of 

 traffic will allow, then, to make the enterprise pay, a reduction of ex- 

 penditure must be attempted. In this latter respect it is thought that 

 the change now proposed in the construction of the permanent way 

 has every appearance of being one step in the proper direction, and 

 I avail myself of the facilities furnished by the Canadian Institute 

 for giving such publicity to the proposed plan as may bring it under 

 the notice of those most interested in the removal of the evils which 

 it is designed to avert. 



