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    January 12, 1856.] THE LEADER. 37

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    Mil. JOSIAH WILKINSON. We have recently ...

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    Mr. Cobden's Pamphlet. What Mr. Cobden P...

    with his apology ; and now come out three witnesses on the other side . From the chairman and officers of the Company , who goad each other into new statements , we learn the real condition of the whole enterprise . The Committee of Investigation described the Eastern Counties Railway as sacrificed to the projects which the Chairman and Directors had set on foot

    for getting up an artificially formed port of refuge and amusement at Lowestoft , a competing railway line to Tilbury , steamboat lines to Margate , Ipswich , and Hamburg , dancing saloon at Woolwich , and other enterprises by no means appropriate to railway companies ; in fact rather militating against their interests than otherwise . It described the Chairman as winking at defalcation of stores , at the employment of officers in these hostile parasites , and at a general waste of the Company ' s substance for objects adverse to their interests . Mr . Waddington comes

    out with an " Answer " which represents the Committee of Investigation as procured and animated by the invidious jealousies of the East Anglian portion of the amalgamated Company , and Mr . Bruce , Mr . Simpsox , and others as looking solely to those interests , desiring to sacrifice the remainder of the railway to their own bad purposes . To delude the general body of the shareholders this East Anglian section exaggerated the faults of the railway and its management ;

    they represented the defalcation of stores as causing £ 10 , 000 or even £ 40 , 000 , when £ 4 , 33 S or £ 1 , 338 xeally represented the figure ; and Mr . Waddington himself was the first to detect the defalcation . They represented that only £ 3 , 200 was laid out in the renewal of permanent way , -when in fact , says Mr . Waddington , although that sum was all laid " out of revenue , " the real sum expended in renewal was £ 22 , 000 ; and Mr . Fane , another director , represents his sum as

    £ 89 , 500 . The Chairman , therefore , who is accused of sacrificing the original shareholders to extraneous proposals , replies by accusing Mr . Britce and his coadjutors of deliberate lying , and lying for the purpose of sacrificing the general interests to other interests . If permanent way had been neglected , says Mr . Waddington , for dividends , the fault was that of Mr . Peter Asitcuoft , who had been the resident engineer before the present man . On this , out comes Mr . Ashcroft with a statement that throws fresh darkness on the

    whole management of the line . He had , he said , represented the necessity of renewals for yean before he resigned in December , 1854 ; he had recommended to the directors the machinery by which the work of renewal could have been done expeditiously , which was necessary oven then ; he had left materials , machinery , and capital , when he resigned his office , for the purpose of carrying out the renewals . He also states the sum at £ 22 , 000 , like Mr . Waddington ; and we have no . clue to explain how it is that Mr . Director Fane found his £ 89 , 000 to expend .

    Then comes Mr . Bruce with a rejoinder , proving that some of Mr . Waddington ' s replies obtain their effect by substituting one subject for another ; explaining , ' for instance , the state of the stores in stock , as a mode of refuting the statement that £ 10 , 000 had been wasted in the purchase of stores . It is impossible to characterise

    the style of answer imputed to Mr . Wadi > in « ton , without using terms equally counter to law and good breeding . But Mr . Bimice affirms that other projects lurked in the mind of the Chairman , and that he would have made the Shareholders purchasers of a coal mine , to make coke for the company , if he had not been prevented .

    While Chairman , Vice-Chairman , Directors , and Shareholders are thus describing each other ' s proceedings , Colonel Wynne of the Royal Engineers is sent down to look at the railway itself between London and Norwich . He finds that it is literally crumbling to pieces ; the structure having been , as Mr . Ashcroft says , of a temporary character , in great part composed of timber , and much rotted by the

    atmosphere , and the surface water m the swampy land of the Eastern Counties . Such , then , is the result of our most civilised commercial enterprise : the very thing which it was the object of the enterprise to form , the railway , is falling to pieces ; while the Directors , according to their own account , have been deluding the Shareholders , each other , and the public .

    It is common enough to say , as a proof that the commercial arrangements of civilisation , have broken down , that society at one time or other was " nearly reduced to a state of barter . " A state of barter , however , could not be so barbarous as this ultimate result of commerce . When men barter , at all events they exchange the things that they reciprocally desire . The savages in Southern Africa , who are so shy that they dare not meet strangers , and who leave the goods that they

    desire to exchange at a distance , "while they stand aloof and witness the exchange , are really not so barbarous in their mode of conducting commerce as we are . la that case , also , the things reciprocally desired are actually exchanged . Our refinement has induced commercial men to look upon the trade itself as existing for its own sake , or rather the instruments of trade as constituting the be-all and end-all . The railway exists for the sake of its dividends to them , not for the sake of the travelling that it affords to the community .

    The community may travel or be smashed , as the case may be , so long as dividends accrue . Dividends themselves are but secondary considerations , so long as the " shares" saleable ; that is the first point . The railway , the substantial thing in which' the projectors profess to deal , ceases to be a real object , —threatens to be no reality at all . Thus trade , refined to excess , overreaches itself , and instead of supplying commodities , or facilities , ends in deal - ing only with the false representatives of commodities or facilities .

    But this is a state of things which cannot continue . As soon as the less" cultivated public discovers that shares do not mean dividends , that dividends do not mean railways , that railways do not mean a real power of transit , but only a chance of journey oj- death , the railway itself will be disused , the dividends

    will cease , the shares will be waste paper , and for want of reality in the basis , the whole commerce will sink to a mockery and a bankruptcy . This is not the con elusion of theoretical speculation , but threatens to be a veritable and gigantic fact in the Eastern Counties . As in the case of Nankin cotton , a Avholesale adulteration threatens to extinguish the trade itself .

    January 12, 1856.] The Leader. 37

    January 12 , 1856 . ] THE LEADER . 37

    Mil. Josiah Wilkinson. We Have Recently ...

    Mil . JOSIAH WILKINSON . We have recently expressed our sense of the sturdy independence manifested by the new Metropolitan Board of "Works in thenelection of a man of their own order as their president , over the heads of the noblemen , the baronets , the members of Parliament , and the crowd of more or less wealthy aspirants , who came forward to solicit their suffrages for the much-coveted appointment . An < l we arc gratified to learn that the same English spirit of self-reliance is likely to assert itself again in their choice of that hardly loss important functionary , the secretary , or , to uso their own

    homely appellation , the " clerk " to the Board . Disregarding the prestige of eminent names , and the doubtful recommendation of brilliantl ysigned testimonials , they are understood to have singled out , once again , a member of their own body , hitherto unknown to the public , by birth and connexion essentially a middle-class man , to co-operate -with their president , as

    penman and legal adviser , m the conduct of the varied and important public business confided to their care . Just as Mr . Thwaites , obscure a month ago , has been lifted by their honourable choice to sudden eminence , just so does Mr . Wilkinson , distinguished by their preference as " clerk , " bid fair to rank high among those "whose difficult task it will be to

    shape out and guide , we trust to a good end , the municipal destinies of the metropolis . Watching , as ive do , with deep interest , the progress of this new administration , which we do not hesitate to describe as one of the most democratic innovations of our time , we have taken great pains to collect information as to the antecedents of the gentleman who is likely to be its principal officer ; and we propose to lay the result of our inquiries succinctly before our readers . Mr . Josiah Wilkinson , like Mr . Thwaites , has interested himself in the local affairs of

    his neighbourhood ; and we may mention , among other things , that the zealous devotion of his time ' and funds towards the establishment and conduct of an association to diffuse scientific and literary information , in the populous suburb of Islington , have met with grateful and handsome recognition at the hands of his fellow-parishioners . For many " years Mr . Wilkinson practised as a solicitoi , in partnership with Mr . Cobbold , the Member of Parliament for Ipswich ; and the course of his practice happened to be such as to "bring under his

    professional attention the details of some of the largest engineering enterprises of the day —no unfit preparation for such an office as that of secretary to a Board of Works . His industry and talent as a solicitor were crowned with so much success , that , in 1847 , he was enabled to retire from , business . But , naturally active and energetic , he soon after went to the bar , and engaged in an extensive parliamentary and arbitration practice ; which again , by a fortunate coincidence , happened to lie chiefly in affairs connected with engineering works and claims .

    Our information as to the high legal attainments and acumen which ho displayed during this period of his career , in the conduct of easea of great intricacy and magnitude , is derived from two of the brightest luminaries of the English bar ; whose testimonials , we believe—if testimonials were necessary to Mr . Wilkinsonwould be given in the warmest terms . At the late election , Mr . Wilkinson was invited by forty-eight out of fifty members of the St , Pancras vestry , to represent that important district at the new Central Board—a mark of

    confidence which had double value , as it was conferred on him spontaneously , without any canvass having been undertaken either by him or in his behalf . At the first meeting of the new assembly he was \ inexpectedly invited to act as honorary secretary ; and the remarkable ability with which , unprepared as he was for the emergenc } ' , he acquitted himself of his difficult , duty—suggesting the order of the

    business , preparing on the spur of the moment the various minutes and documents required , and answering questions as they arose— -won him the confidence of his colleagues ; and , coupled with Mr . Nicholay ' s jxidicious conduct in the chair , secured for the assembly , at the outset of its career , the approbation of the press and the public . Such , so fur as our inquiries have extended ,

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Jan. 12, 1856, page 13, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_12011856/page/13/