ON AMERICAN RAILROADS BY JOHN SWANN, M.A., Oxon. COUNSELLOR-AT-LAW AND SOMETIME GENERAL MANAGER ALABAMA GREAT SOUTHERN RAILROAD TRANSPORTATION LIšnagy NEW YORK & LONDON The Knickerbocker Press Transport. PREFACE. A GOOD deal has of late years been written by experts touching the history, growth and management of railways, their duties to the State, and their relation to the people. Many valuable conclusions have been arrived at, and much technical knowledge has been made accessible to the casual reader. In the excellent and well-known work of Mr. Charles Francis Adams Jr. published in 1880,* and the late able works of Prof. Hadley + and Mr. J. F. Hudson published in 1886, historical, administrative and political aspects of the subject have been handled with accurate knowledge and in attractive form. But, if we except the necessarily cumbrous works, which deal with large masses of figures and require attentive study for their profitable interpretation, the interest of the investor, as such, and notably that of the European investor in American railroad securities, seems to have been overlooked or lightly regarded. Possibly, if the European outlook had not been somewhat stormy, and large changes in the conditions affecting property in the British Empire had not been distinctly foreshadowed, the interest of the investor, as such, might have rightly been considered a matter of small immediate moment, and undeserving special consideration. But it * " 'Railroads, their Origin and Problems." C. F. Adams Jr. is conceived by the present writer that very large changes in European investment are likely to occur in the course of the next few years, and that a liberal transfer of capital will be made from European to American securities. Experience conclusively shows that, in the past, the casual investor has given but slight personal attention to the choice or protection of his investments in American railroads. It is accordingly thought possible that a few practical observations on salient points in the situation may be acceptable to those investors who have neither time nor inclination for any approach to exhaustive investigation of the subject. The present notes are confined to a very limited aspect of the railroad problem-viz., that small range of conditions which affects the interest of the investor, as such. Even in a most superficial view of the subject, the conclusions of experts must inevitably be utilized as data for specific inferences relating to the interest of an investor. In this view, many conclusions contained in the valuable works above indicated have been used or referred to, and the writer's obligations to their authors are freely acknowledged. |