In issuing the prospectus of a railway, an estimate is given of the probable amount of traffic of :.11 kinds; but in every case, sometimes to a surprising degree, the traffic exceeds expectation. Railways have not improperly been compared to navigable rivers. To inland and not easily-reached towns they impart the character of a seaport placed in ready communication with all the world. The exciting of a desire to travel. and the developing of local trade and resources, accordingly attend on railway undertakings, and the consequence is a universal activity and prosperity, and,the creation of wealthy industrial centers.
Railways were at first detached undertakings between one large town and another, hut now many of the companies have for mutual advantage amalgamated in groups; and in a number of cases, for economy in working, lesser lines have been leased to compa nies of larger means. In this, as in most other commercial concerns in Great Britain, the tendency is to concentrate business in the hands of monopolists possessing large cap ital. or at least those having a great capacity and disposition to borrow. One of the advantageous results of a union of railway interests is, that passengers are able to pro cure "through-tickets" to carry them forward for hundreds of miles without delay or change of carriage; but it is not less conspicuous that the " railway interest" has become a formidable power in the state, and is able to carry lines almost anywhere, in disregard of land-proprietors or town-authorities, as if the destruction of rural amenity wholesale ruin of dwellings were matters of perfect indifference. Making every allow ance, therefore, for the high social value of the railway system, it has certainly reached a point of despotic overbearance that requires some species of control more effectual than that which is embraced in the irregular action of parliamentary committees or of the board of trade.
This question has lately been attracting much attention. Tho government has tried In various ways to ameliorate the evils arising from its early apathy, and to control the excesses of railway enterprise. The latest of these efforts was the appointment of a joint committee of lords and commons, and a bill based on the report of that committee was in 1874 before parliament. One of the conclUsions arrived at by this committee is worth noting: " That no means have yet been devised by which competition can be maintained. Nor is there any reason to suppose that the progress of combination will
cease until Great Britain is divided between a small number of great companies." Two great propositions for amalgamation made recently have been negatived by parliament. It remains to be seen whether the act will prove more successful than ante cedent legislation. Its principal feature is the appointment of a mixed tribunal—com posed of three eminent men—for the regulation and control of the working of railways.
The only alternative proposed to the present. system is the government purchase of railways. An act of parliament was passed in 1844 for the purpose of enabling went to purchase all lines after they had respectively been 21 years in existence, dating from the passing of the act. This statute came into operatlon in 1F65, but the joint committee of 1672 report that they do not think the terms of the 1844 act suited to the present condition of railway property, or ever likely to be adopted by parliament.
There is much to be said on both sides of this question; most of the argument* advanced pro and con may be found in articles respectively in the Quarterly Review and British Quarterly Review, April, 1873.
CONSTRUCT1ON.—Railways in the United Kingdom are of two kinds—double and single. The double consists of two lines of rails—an up-line, conducting toward, and a leading from the metropolis or principal center of traffic. By far the larger number of lines are of this double variety. Single lines, with places where trains may pass each other, are mostly of recent construction, and have received their chief devel opment in Scotland. On some of the main lines to London it has been found necessary to rdd a third, and in sonic, cases a fourth line to accommodate the enormously increased traffic. Whether double or single, all the lines are inclosed. At the chief terminus there is a group of buildings for offices, workshops, sheds for locomotives, etc. Within late years the terminal stations at the larger towns have assumed vast proportions, and in them comfortable waiting and refreshment rooms are provided. In many cases, also, hotels on a very large scale have been erected as part of the buildings at the termini..