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    the Peers ; the Law Lords meddling not with law , but constituting a kind of speaking dummy to deliver judgment when there is no Lord Judge in presence . If retiring judges are created peers for life , we get a recruitment of tnis section of the highest court of appeal , while we avoid saddling the country with provisions for succeeding peers—perhaps also saddling the country with foolish heirs who do not inherit their fathers' capacity , certainly not their fathers' law education .

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    THE POOR SHAREHOLDER . Wn appeal from General Meeting drunk , to General Meeting sober , on "behalf of the most helpless creature of the comnrunity— " The Original Shareholder . " The question of his property , of his actual salvation , is urgent . The judgment of the general meeting in the matter of Bruce and others versus "Waddington and Co ., is the condemnation of the Original Shareholder . The case fox the prosecution appeared to us to be perfectly clear , and it has

    not been effectually gainsaid . The Committee of Investigation have shown that the amalgamated company has launched into all kinds of collateral enterprises—the line that is tenanted by Messrs . Peto , Bates , and Brassey , the Coal Company with which Mr . GoocHwas connected , the steam-boats and port in which the Chairman has had an interest , the dancing saloon at Woolwich on which a local officer had set his heart , and a variety of other undertakings in which strangers had primary concern ;

    the shares be offered to the original Bank proprietors ; let the two enterprises be amalgamated under the name of the " Eastern and Western Banking and Oyster Company ; " let the Oyster interest be allowed to vote by proxy ; let the new shares take the profits by preference , and we shall have the exact parallel of the Eastern Counties anomaly . The Bank probably would be left without profits on the original sliares , or- with a sixpenny profit at the best ; but the amalgamated dividends siding off in the preference shares

    to the Oyster Interest might be considerable while the oyster season lasted . Broughams and Hansoms would biing the lordly , honourable , and distinguished representatives of the Oyster interest to lead the eloquence at the general meeting of the Banking and Oyster , with proxies in their pockets ; The " policy of peace" between banking and oysters would display its star-spangled banner of union , and the meeting would give its triumphant vote to the Napoleon of the alliance ; but the grave business bankers would shake their heads , and

    turn round to see in what court they could find redress ? In none . This amalgamation dodge , this paying away of dividends in the name of preference shares , is a manoeuvre not within the cognisance of tlhe Courts , civil or criminal . At the close of , the poll on Tuesday we find that , of the number of persons present , 508 voted for the Committee of Investigation and a business management of the railway , 160 voted for Mr . " Wjuddrstgton , the peace policy , and that " making things pleasant " which carries off shares . The absentee

    shareholders preponderate against the present proprietors through the proxies in the pockets of Mr . Waddikgton and his supporters . It is clear that according to the dominant railway system , where amalgamations and extensions are admitted , the poor Original Shareholder is at the mercy of intruding speculators , absentees , and alien shareholders .

    while the Eastern Counties Railway has literally been made the path for those strangers at the cost of the proprietors . This is a totally new view of the uses of a Railway Company , Certain persons were invited to put together their money for the purpose of establishing and carrying on the Eastern Counties Railway , and they did , put together their money for the purpose . It is quite evident that if they had stuck to their purpose , they would have built their railway , have carried on the traffic , and have made a profit by the investment and the business . But somebody else

    thought tliat other undertakings might be made profitable by using the Eastern Counties as a stepping stone . A new capital Avas required ; the foundation of another capital is called an extension of the Eastern Counties capital , which gives the intruders , with those members of the original company that have alien interests , a right of coming in and managing the Eastern Counties . But the new part of the Company is to take its dividends in the name of " preference shares , " before tlxe original proprietors . The junior partner is to take his profits first !

    The plan which is applicable in one case , is applicable in a hundred others . It is as easy for a Tilbury line Company to be a junior partner in the Eastern Counties as a Lowestoft Harbour Company , or an Antwerp Bout Company ,- or a Dancing Saloon Company ; and on this plan of allowing the stranger to come in and manage , they can so arrange that the Original Shareholder shall lend liis money to the junior partners , while the junior partners shall take their profits first .

    Ihe idea should be caught up in other branches of business . A man wants to establish an oyster saloon in tho neighbourhood of Professor Andeuson . The incitement of au oyster suloon , especially if it bo calculated to attract noble and distinguished coavives , tends to tho circulation of cash , and is boneiioiul , therefore , to tho Banks . Now any enterprising Director of one of tho new Metropolitan Joint-Stock Uuuk . s would see the polioy of encoura ging tho oyster saloon . The process in dear . Lot a largo capital for tho founding oi the Saloon be formed into shares ; let some oi

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    could obtain no redress . We have , therefore , attached his property . This would be the natural course to pursue in a civil process for the recovery of a debt . But it is not on such grounds that we have put in an execution against Mahommed Amjud Ali . We do not pretend that he is a defaulter , or that we have any pecuniary claims against him . We accuse him of malversation , of his people ' s revenue , of cruelty , oppression , and other felonious practices . And yet we avoid proceeding as against

    a criminal . We simply place Colonel Outram in possession . He is the Government bailiff—Lord Dalhousie ' s " sedentary man . " The motive for adopting this line of conduct is very apparent . It was no doubt deemed inconsistent to annex a kingdom in Asia , while we are waging war in Europe to prevent Russia from doing precisely the same thing , and on very similar grounds . Appearances must be kept up at any cost . The national "

    respectability" must be maintained , for that alone , now-a-days , distinguishes us from the rest of the world . We do not indeed object to stretch a point where merely crime is involved , if any advantage may be thence derived ; but we protest strenuously against a scandal . In the very heart of the British oak there lives a toad " ugly and venomous . " It is torpid , indeed , but its poison exudes through the sturdy timbers of the tree—the rough bark alone conceals its action . That toad is called

    among men , " Respectability ; " to the gods it is known as ' - ' " Hypocrisy , " " Behold our forbearance , " we say to the world . " We might justly have annexed the kingdom of Oude ; but we respected your prejudices—it is only sequestrated . " The ' . distinction is certainly ingenious . Ancient Pistol held it a sign of wisdom to call theft , " conveyance . " In like manner we plume ourselves on waiving the honest process of annexation—we merely take possession . This is more in accordance with the spirit and

    A KINGDOM SEQUESTRATED . One cannot avoid feeling something like awe at the startling brevity of the electric telegraph . Plain facts are stated in such plain terms . There is no periphrasis , no attempt to disguise the naked truth . A pregnant sentence of a couple of lines announces a victory , or a defeat , and tho death of so many thousands of human beings . There is nothing which surpasses it in suggestiveness , unless it bo a common almanac with such an entry as this : " June 18 th . Battle of Waterloo , 1815 . " At another time we road in as few

    words , that the ruler of millions of men died at such an hour , —not many minutes before we received the news , though , perhaps , a thousand miles or so away . The next day , it may be , it is told with equal calmness that a dozen ships with all their crews have gone to the bottom , and on the morrow that a kingdom has been sequestrated . A man becomes deeply involved in debt—his creditors obtain the

    sequestration of his estate . A clex-gyman lives last and outruns the constable , as they say , and Ins living is sequestrated . This is quite intelligible , and it is also quite fair . Biit wo have not yet become accustomed to the idea of treating aa entire- country as the estate of one man . It therefore sounds strange to hear that " the kingdom , of Oude has been

    sequestrated . " Among the so-called liberal nations oi Europe the idea has for some time been gaining ground that the sovereign was the chief servant of the people ; in the East , it appears , the pimple-arc still the property of the sovereign . Tho King of Oudk has long-, since afforded us ninny legilinialo subjects of complaint . ^ Y < J complained accordingly , but

    habits of a commercial people . The costs will be thus increased . Besides , a more tangible grievance is likely to arise out of such an anomaly . And then we shall be compelled to reduce Oude to the state of a province , pleading in justification the ill effects of our present forbearance . It may possibly be a highly respectable mode of proceeding , but it is assuredly neither wise nor dignified ; just as it may be more genteel to make two bites of a cherry , than to put the whole fruit into

    one ' s mouth j though in the former case there is danger of blunting one ' s teeth upon the stone , while in the latter the impediment may be ejected after baring it to the shell . The illustration is homely , and therefore suitable to a homely subject—sequestration ; a subject that comes home to very many of us , now that we all live beyond our incomes—all the more easy , that few have any real income to live upon . But how came the country and people of Oude to be the property of Mahoxjmed Amjud Ah ? It is worth while to cast a

    hasty glance at the rise and progress of that now famous kingdom . During the decadence of the empire of the Great Mogul the viceioyalty of Oude bocaine hereditary in the family of Saadut Kuan . The real name of this successful adventurer wns Mahommud Amkkn , but having mado Iiimself useful to his Sovereign in ridding him of a troublesome subject , he was appointed

    Viceroy of Oude , with tho above-mentioned title . Jlis nephew and successor , Sutder Juno , was invested with tho Vizierat , but without losing bis viccroyalty . He again , was succeeded by his son , iSooJAii-ooD-Dowi . Air , who , having provoked the animosity of the British suitlioiities by the countenance he ruToriled to Cosani Ai . i , lived to see British troops in possession of his capital city , Luck-

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    February 2 , 1856 . ] THE LEADER . 109

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 2, 1856, page 109, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2126/page/13/