, and they supported their theories by
ex post facto criticism on the blunders of railway companies,--on the
astonishing dividends of Mr. George Hudson's lines,--and on the hard terms on
which capitalists had agreed to execute French railways for the French
government.

These ingenious reasons did not prevail. People were reminded that the steam
boats, the public works, the "Woods and Forests" under government charge,
were not managed with remarkable success or economy. The tempting dividends
melted away, and projects for French railways, on the principle of the State
taking profits and the speculators the risk, which had excited the admiration
of Cato Morrisson, first hung fire and then exploded, so that rich districts
of France which, on the system of "profits to private enterprise," would have
enjoyed railway conveyance ten years ago, are still left to the mercy of the
slow diligences and slower waggons to this hour.

To a commercial country like England, the waste of a few millions on railways
badly planned, are of little importance compared with the national saving
effected by the cheap conveyance of produce. The great importance of the
direct line between Rugby, Macclesfield, and Manchester, is not that it saves
an hour in the transit of an impatient traveller, but that it places in easy
communication purely agricultural and thoroughly manufacturing communities,
so as to render an interchange of produce easy. Shareholders sometimes
suffer, but the public always gains. On the other hand, Parliament should
take care that railway extension to blank districts is not prevented by
conceding parallel lines to directors hunting for a dividend, by dividing
instead of increasing the existing traffic.

When an alteration of the law settlement has released from parish bondage and
vegetation those adscripti glebae agricultural labourers, the advantage of our
network of railways will be still more felt.

* * * * *

STAFFORD TO SHREWSBURY.--The third line diverging from Stafford, counting the
continuation of the London as a fourth, is the railway to Shrewsbury, passing
through NEWPORT and WELLINGTON, where it joins the direct line from
Wolverhampton, and affording, by a continuation which passes near Oswestry,
Chirk, and Llangollen, {138} to Wrexham, Chester, and Birkenhead, another
route to Liverpool, and, through Chester, the nearest way to Holyhead and
Ireland.

* * * * *

NEWPORT.--The first station after leaving