RAILROAD SPECULATIONS.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume V, Issue 226, 4 July 1846, Page 69

RAILROAD SPECULATIONS.

[From the Colonial Gazette, Oct. 18.]

The railway system has assuredly been a, gigantic and wonderful, if not miraculous, creation of wealth. It will require the expenditure of one hundred and fifty millions before the lines now in progress are completed. Upwards of one hundred millions have been already expended. Before this outlay will give back a net return of five per cent., twelve millions annually must be paid by the British people for the transit of goods, and the bare expense of travelling. One single line yields now a revenue of a million sterling. These are mighty schemes and magnificent results ; they seem imaginative rather than real ; but it is said that what has yet been done are " but the shadows of coming events." They are yet expected to be extended into a thousand new directions, and to be made far more productive and profitable. Cheap travelling, like moderate taxes or the penny postage rate — small profits from vast numbers — is the sound policy to be applied to them. Much less costly materials for rails ; stations less extravagant and ornamental ; cheaper and more effective agents for the production of locomotive power, are in contemplation, and likely to be introduced ; and improvement to be pushed so far, that the railway, it is predicted, will entirely supersede both canals and turnpike roads, and lines in connexion with the great trunks will run into every village, into the private estate of every landholder, if not into the yard of every leading hotel. They are destined, in fact, to be the most safe, extensive, and profitable investment for the surplus capital of the country ever yet discovered by human ingenuity and skill.

These prospects are more like the brilliant and shadowy dreams of an Eastern fable, than the sober and actual realities of life ; and yet they are not without foundation. But if such be the effect they are likely to produce in the employment and development of capital, their social results are not less mighty and hopeful. They have nearly eradicated all our former notions of relative distance. Cities are no longer congregated and centralized into a narrow and exclusive circle ; they extend their suburbs to a range which twenty years ago could not have been anticipated. London merchants have their homes and families at Brighton, and find it not too heavy a tax, either upon their time or means, to come to their offices and return daily — a distance of 104 miles. The spirit and excitement of the towns are carried into the very bosom of the country ; local prejudices are retreating before new influences, and a new order of things — the bonds of kindly brotherhood and of social connexions, are knitting the nation and the world into closer union and sympathy ; but, although this has been accomplished, the change is only at the dawn of that brighter day which waits the zenith of the future. It is admitted that there has been, and will be, a large increase of industry, wealth, and intellectual power ; but the final issues are too deep and recondite for human foresight, and are bound up in the leaves of that sealed and mysterious volume which time only can unfold.

The active and vigorous spirit of speculation which the system has inspired, not content with the field of the United Kingdom, broad and expansive as it is, has sought a new and wider expanse, by the introduction of railways into several of our own colonies. In the long array of columns filled with

these new projects,-— in addition to the lines projected, on the continent of Europe, to France, Vienna, and Italy, — there will be found prospectuses for railroads in Jamaica, bemerara, Domi-^ca, Trinidad, the Mauritius, and Central India; three lines in Canada, and a great inter-colonial line to connect Halifax with Quebec. The latter is designed so as to complete, at some subsequent period, the long chain of communication from the Atlantic, on the northwestern side of the continent of British North America, circulating the lakes of Canada, and piercing the far west, till it reaches the Oregon territory on the shores of the Pacific. It is the grand protect of a great age. Add to it the electric telegraph, and the transmission of thought, from one ocean to the other, will be more like an. act of the Deity than of man.

Governor George Grey. — His Excellency, by rendering Adelaide a free port, has added to the almost universal confidence placed in him personally, in his recent appointment as Governor of New Zealand. Although thinking as highly of him as anybody, it is necessary to warn the Anglo-New Zealand public, that Governor Grey will not have it in his power to restore, in a moment, confidence in that illmanaged colony. He may have to contend with sinister instructions — which may shackle him on his landing — from the Colonial Office. He may be unable, because unaware of the covert means which the subordinates in the Colonial Office may employ " to thwart the colonisation of the islands " — the moßt effective one has been delay in forwarding despatches, in answering letters. The late Report of the New Zealand Company, without the Directors saying one word, furnishes a striking example. Mr. Frederick Young, in the name of the Company, wrote on the Sth of August. Mr. Hope, in the name of Lord Stanley, answers this letter on the 28th of October ; that answer contains the instructions to Governor Grey : and this is the manner in which colonial affairs are managed in Downing Street. Governor Grey will be steeped in difficulties from the Home Office, and at New Zealand — the whole native mind changed, exulting from the cruel and illegal determination of the late Governor, Fitzßoy. When he heard of the "Wairau massacre, on his arrival at Sydney, he went to Cook's Straits to make a decision, which was to save the most barbarous murderer known from punishment. Marsden, who founded the missions — who practised as well as talked Christianity — called for the punishment of this identical savage ; he said — " If there is no law in New Zealand to punish a murderer, a law should be made to do so." Heki's boast was, that " Ranparaha had been allowed to kill the Pakehas (the English) in the south, and why should not he have credit for doing the same?" This change of the native mind is not the only difficulty which Governor Grey will have to contend with, from the conduct of his predecessor. The natives have been exempted from all law ; the uninhabited wastes of immense extent declared not to be the property of the Crown, but of nobody knows who; debentures made a legal tender, and various other acts contrary to national law and common sense — the Report of the New Zealand Committee of the Commons in 1844 and Lord Stanley's own act of Parliament. All these important matters Governor Grey will have to change. It is not to be done in a day : it must be a work of time. Ex-Governor Fitzßoy well knew the mischief he was doing, and foresaw the consequences, for he wrote, on the 14th of October, 1844 : — " It may be right that I should individually be censured for what I have done, and even that I should forthwith be superseded ; at such a decision I shall not be surprised."— (P. 21, Parl. Papers, 12th of June, 1845, being No. 369 of the Session.) This letter almost amounts to a proof, that, when he sought the appointment of Governor, he went out purposely " to thwart the colonisation of New Zealand." Justice will not be done to the memory of the brave men who have fallen, if Ex-Gover-nor Fitzßoy is cot made to answer for all this. As to Governor Grey, our confidence in him is such, that we believe the greater the difficulty the greater will be the persevering pains which he will take to meet it. Still we warn him that his difficulty will be in Downing Street. — Colonial Gazette, Dec. 6.

The Follies of Mankind. — I have observed one ingredient some what necessary in a man's composition towards happiness, which people of feeling would do well to acquire — a certain respect for the follies of mankind ; for there are so manyfools whom the world entitles to regard, whom accident has placed in heights of which they are unworthy, that he who cannot restrain his contempt or indignation at the sight, will be too often quarrelling with the disposal of things to relish that k share which is allotted to himself. — Mackenzie.

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