THE GREAT WESTERN RAILWAY.

This important road, second to the Grand Trunk only in its length, was first chartered sixteen years before it was commenced. The fine agricultural district between London and Woodstock is nearly equidistant from the three lakes, Huron, Erie, and Ontario; and as produce afloat on the latter is most valuable, being nearer its market, the original road of 1834 was one commencing at London and terminating on Burlington Bay; though power was also obtained to extend westward to the navigable waters of the Thames and to Lake Huron. Before the work was commenced, however, in 1850, the New York railways had reached the Niagara frontier, and the Michigan Central road connected Detroit with Chicago. The Great Western thereupon changed its character from that of a Canadian local and portage railway only, debouching on Lake Ontario (which was but a reproduction in iron of Governor Simcoe's road of the last century), to that also of an important section of the main line leading from Boston and Albany to Chicago, the shortest route for which is through the peninsula of Western Canada. The eastern terminus was therefore extended to Niagara, where a magnificent suspension bridge, worthy of the site, united it to the New York roads; and the western one was diverted from Lake Huron to Detroit, where a short ferry maintains uninterrupted communication throughout the

year.

The estimate was made in 1847, by an American engineer, and was (exclusive of the Galt branch) only $4,954,080, which, however, did not include the important items of right of way and land damages or rolling stock. The following exhibit shows the expenditure of the company, and how it is made up, with the excess in the cost of the main line over the original estimate of 1847:

Excess of exp. on main line over original estimate £1,766,563 19 7

This increased cost of track and buildings only, on the main line amounting to nearly $9,000,000, makes this part of the work cost nearly three times the original estimate, and is due to several causes :

1st. It appears that millions of dollars were expended on these items after the line was opened for traffic. Until February, 1852, the expenditure was confined to the Central Division, between London and Hamilton (the original Great Western of 1834), and it was only then the company felt itself in a position to strike out for the larger scheme of the through line. Notwithstanding this tardy action, it was expected that the whole line would be opened in August, 1853. In November, 1852, there was a change of engineers, when it was found that the estimates of the previous June would be exceeded by £621,295 currency, and the new engineer protested against any attempt to open, in 1853, a line on which not a mile of track had been laid before the month of May in that year. Notwithstanding this opinion, so great was the pressure to bring about an opening at the earliest moment, that large sums were offered the contractors if they succeeded in passing a train by November 1st, 1853. One of the contractors, by laying the track in unfinished cuttings, at elevations varying from five to twelve feet above the perma

nent grade, succeeded in passing a train on the 10th of November, for which performance he received a bonus of $50,000. The whole line was opened in January, 1854, but on the 1st of August of that year the engineer showed work yet to be done to the amount of $1,436,435. Of course the unfinished cuttings had to be lowered between the transits of trains; the ballasting was chiefly done under a similar disadvantage, and thus much of the work cost many times more than it could have been done for in the ordinary way. In this course the company exceeded the usual practice of American roads, where, for want of capital, the object is to expend only so much as is necessary to open a line, in order that the company may cease paying interest out of capital-have the means of paying the interest on further loans, and get these loans on better terms. It does not appear that the pressure for such premature opening arose from great difficulty in raising the amount required to cover the deficiency of original estimates, or that the earnings of the road were needed to meet the interest account. The company, which had then only received £200,000 sterling from the province, could have claimed millions of dollars as a six per cent. loan on account of the guarantee.

2d. The traveller, in riding over a perishable wooden bridge, nearly a quarter of a mile long and fifty feet high, which traverses an inlet near the shore of Ontario, sees the termination of it only a few rods from the line, where a better and cheaper crossing could have been obtained, and naturally wonders why the road was not placed there. At the western end he remarks that the track for miles runs in the water, with dry land everywhere parallel to the line and but a few yards from it, and is again nonplussed. The engineer who located the road had a weakness for straight lines; and from the manner in which the work was driven, it is probable that sufficient time was not given to amend the location of these long straight lines. Rather than sacrifice them, therefore, if a wide gulf or miles of water inter

vened, it was plunged into; or if a house stood in the line it must be removed, and the owner indemnified, coûte que coûte. Of course, the preliminary surveys in 1847 did not provide for such freaks of the location one, which was made some years afterward, and thus increased cost rolled up. An enormous amount has been expended in the location through Hamilton, and the 500 feet ascent westward from Lake Ontario (which is continuous for eleven miles), where the road first worked itself, in the course of years, into a quiet bed through many fathoms of mud and ooze; then clings to the face of cliffs, or the rapid slopes formed by the shedding of their exposed faces; and, lastly, at the summit encounters a quicksand, at the bottom of deep and extensive cuttings. This location, which must have greatly increased the cost, was rather in the interest of the contractors than of the shareholders, and does not appear to have been contemplated in the original estimate of 1847. The contracts, some of which had been entered into four years before work was commenced, were item ones, and if at all profitable, this would be in proportion to the amount of work done. There is much reason to believe that alterations and additions to the plans, and also extra works, were ordered without the sanction or knowledge of the directors, more for the chief contractor's benefit than for that of the work; and to such an extent was this carried, that this road was styled his "milch cow," to be drawn upon at will.

In England capitalists object to item contracts because, under these, the final cost is not fixed; and, therefore, in preparing the Grand Trunk for that market, a price per mile was agreed upon; which, as we have seen, did not save that company from the necessity of adding many millions of dollars to its capital. The difference between an item contract and a per mile one, as usually carried out on this side of the water, is this. In the former there is always the temptation, by increasing the quantity and altering the quality of the work, to make a first-class road:

in the latter it is just the reverse; every thing which is not in the bond (and sometimes much that is) is omitted. As to the two systems, it is but Scylla or Charybdis to a railway company, in the hands of dishonest men; and, like forms of government,

"Whate'er is best administered is best."

The original estimate was, no doubt, most insufficient in many respects-but there is very little reason to doubt that the greater part of the excess of £1,766,564 sterling, is due to the causes we have mentioned.

This company was induced, by the example of American lines terminating on Lake Erie, to embark in the steamboat business; a disastrous experiment, as it has proved even on Lake Erie, where its chances were always best. Before so many through railway lines were established between the East and the West, passenger-steamers could be patronized; but the division of the business, and the dread of sea-sickness, no longer make it practicable to sustain such expensive boats as those floating-palaces, once the pride of the lakes. A much more serious undertaking into which the company has been led, was the subsidizing of the Detroit and Milwaukee railway. Whether this was a legitimate attempt to protect itself from the encroachments of the Grand Trunk, and to be able to avoid its proffered embraces, or whether (as is too often the case) the company was forced into it by controlling spirits, who had speculated in the securities of the subsidized road, and used their temporary power to give value to their major interest at the expense of a minor one, cannot yet be determined. Railway companies will always be exposed to such hazards, so long as their directors are permitted to hold a greater interest in any other company.

The Great Western is one of the best equipped and best managed railways on this continent, and traversing a rich and populous district, to which it offers a choice of market,