Page:The Economic Journal Volume 1.djvu/378

 356 ECONOMIC JOURNAL is altogether re-assuring on this point. How is it to be provided that the worst should level up to the best and not vice vers  How is any district to protect itself against arbitrary action on the part of a board of directors ? The answer is not clear. From the one man system of the United States we are, happily for our country, ahnost free. The usual organization of an English railway Consists of a board of directors, who retain a general control, the executive being in the hands of the general manager, whose powers however vary very greatly on different lines. The chairman may or may not interfere in executive detail. It appears as if the tendency were that he should not s. interfere, but that committees of the board should be formed to supervise the various sections of the administration of the railway, dealing. through the heads of departments and more especially through the eneral manager. The questions of interest for the public are How is such a Board to escape petrifaction or senility ? What security is given that experiments shall be tried ? How can it be arranged that financial--even possibly Stock Exchange considerations--shall not overrule the primary duties of a railway company to its district '? It seems that the English system, on the larger companies at any rate, has escaped the evils suggested in these questions to a wonderful extent. English public opinion is so focused, and the press so strong that the gross financial swindles of America are unknown. Th.e railways, too, have been largely constructed with money subscribed in the district through which they pass, so that a good deal of pressure can be and is exercised by local shareholders. But the fact remains that a body of shareholders is a very bad and a very weak constituency. The great danger seems to be the want of expansion or fresh ideas in administration. There are plenty of engineering schools, but no railway schools in the country. There is no real railway club, no first-rate railway paper published in the country. The difference on the other side of the Atlantic is eat. Fresh ideas are welcomed, and some of the most acute minds in the United States have devoted themselves to the theory of railroading. ' All technical questions are discussed there with a freedom from obstinate or conservative prejudice which is quite refreshing. The public take an appreciative interest in technical railway improve- ments, and understand that the primary object of a railway is to carry passengers and goods as cheaply and as well as possible.