resignation, which ministries hold out in extreme cases, are commonly made by railway-boards to stave off disagreeable inquiries. By no means regarding themselves as servants of the shareholders, directors rebel against dictation from them; and construe any amendment to their proposals into a vote of want of confidence. At half-yearly meetings, disagreeable criticisms and objections are met by the chairman with the remark, that if the shareholders cannot trust his colleagues and himself, they had better choose others. With most, this assumption of offended dignity tells; and, under fear that the company’s interests may suffer from any disturbance, measures quite at variance with the wishes of the proprietary are allowed to be carried. The parallel holds yet further. If it be true of national administrations, that those in power have the support of public _employés_; it is not less true of incorporated companies, that the directors are aided by the officials in their struggles with shareholders. If, in times past, there have been ministries who spent public money to secure party ends; there are, in {54} times present, railway-boards who use the funds of the shareholders to defeat the shareholders. Nay, even in detail, the similarity is maintained. Like their prototype, joint-stock companies have their expensive election contests, managed by election committees, employing election agents; they have their canvassing with its sundry illegitimate accompaniments; they have their occasional manufacture of fraudulent votes. And, as a general result, that class-legislation, which has been habitually charged against statesmen, is now habitually displayed in the proceedings of these trading associations: constituted though they are on purely representative principles.