That the corruptions here glanced at are not exceptional evils, but result from some deep-seated vice in our system of railway-government, is sufficiently proved by the fact, that notwithstanding the falling of railway-dividends {57} produced by the extension policy, that policy has been year after year continued. Does any tradesman, who, having enlarged his shop, finds a proportionate diminution in his rate of profits, go on, even under the stimulus of competition, making further enlargements at the risk of further diminutions? Does any merchant, however strong his desire to take away an opponent’s markets, make successive mortgages on his capital, and pay for each sum thus raised a higher interest than he gains by trading with it? Yet this course, so absurd that no one would insult a private individual by asking him to follow it, is the course which railway-boards, at meeting after meeting, persuade their clients to pursue. Since 1845, when the dividends of our leading lines ranged from 8 to 10 per cent., they have, notwithstanding an ever-growing traffic, fallen from 10 per cent. to 5, from 8 to 4, from 9 to 3 1/4; and yet the system of extensions, leases, and guarantees, notoriously the cause of this, has been year by year persevered in. Is there not something needing explanation here—something more than the world is allowed to see? If there be any one to whom the broad fact of obstinate persistence in unprofitable expenditure does not alone carry the conviction that sinister influences are at work, let him read the seductive statements by which shareholders are led to authorize new projects, and then compare these with the proved results. Let him look at the estimated cost, anticipated traffic, and calculated dividend on some proposed branch line; let him observe how the proprietary before whom the scheme is laid, are induced to approve it as promising a fair return; and then let him contemplate, in the resulting depreciation of stock, the extent of their loss. Is there any avoiding the inference? Railway-shareholders can never have habitually voted for new undertakings which they knew would be injurious to them. Every one knows, however, that these new undertakings have almost uniformly proved injurious to them. Obviously, therefore, railway-shareholders have been {58} continually deluded by false representations. The only possible escape from this conclusion is in the belief that boards and their officers have been themselves deceived; and were the discrepancies between promises and results occasional only, there would be grounds for this lenient interpretation. But to suppose that a railway-government should repeatedly make such mistakes, and yet gain no wisdom from disastrous experiences—should after a dozen disappointments again mislead half-yearly meetings by bright anticipations into dark realities, and all in good faith—taxes credulity somewhat too far. Even, then, were there no demonstrated