Vermont Watchman And State Journal

FOREIGN NEWS.

On Thursday last the Steamer Britannia arrived at Boston, in sixteen days from Liverpool. Cotton is somewhat depressed-American wool is called for-American flour and provisions are still in good demand- the potato disease is extending in Europe, -and in England the railway mania has been suddenly checked. The last is a matter of no little importance to railways in this country, since the multiplicity of projects in Europe has been mainly instrumental in carrying up railroad iron to its present extraordinary price. This crash of fancy stocks, or rather gambling stocks, in England, has not come unexpectedly or too soon, and it will doubtless be followed by like results in France and on the continent. Projects based upon substantial grounds stand all the better, when the rubbish is cleared away; capitalists, who desire permanent and safe investments will have learned to distinguish between the bubbles blown up for speculation and projects which are really sound, and the latter will therefore go on with more vigor and success than ever. The lesson is a good one for this country, though the railroad system here is far different from that of England, and the mania can bear no comparison with that in either England or France. In England the practice has been to get the capital subscribed at the outset, and then apply to Parliament for a charter. A charter is never granted without a long and expensive hearing before parliamentary committees, who hear counsel for all parties and examine witnesses without number. The cost of getting a charter merely is usually about £30,000 or $150,000! - In the mean time, the stock was in the hands of speculators, and daily going up or down as the examinations progressed before the committees. Now of these projects the number was legion, and the amount of money expended, in barely getting them up before Parliament, was of itself enough to build perhaps nearly all the roads which were actually needed at the moment or would pay handsomely. A crash was therefore morally certain in England, and the worst of the misfortune is that it could not have been produced sooner. The system in France is different as will be seen from an extract in another place; but it requires so enormous an amount of money that bad effects would seem to be inevitable.

The following extracts are from Wilmer & Smith's European Times:

LIVERPOOL, NOVEMBER 4.

The railway mania has received its quictus.- Something like a panic has overtaken the speculators in iron highways. Now the re-action has come, it brings in its train ruin and devastation, and bankruptcy to thousands. But the end is not yet. A more gigantic system of swindling has not been seen in these latter days, and the number of "respectable" persons who have lent their names to support bubble companies, make us blush for the cupidity of our common humanity. The Times has been foremost in this work of "fluttering the dovecots." It matters little what motives may have prompted the potentates of Printing-house-square to sound the tocsin; whether jealousy of their contemporaries, or vexation that they did not participate equally in the spoil, or a determination to destroy the game of those who did -all this is beside the question. "We try the act, the motive Heaven can judge." The only regret is, that it was not done sooner. But certain it is, that The Times, true to its character of seizing the right moment for acting upon public fears, or controlling the public mind, kicked the beam at the critical instant, and to some extent produced the revulsion which is now witnessed. But without desiring to undervalue the power and the influence of the Journal in question, it would be weak to attribute the prostration in the Share-market solely to its thunder. The Bank of England, the critical state in which the food of the country has been placed by the harvest, and the state of the potato crop; above all, and beyond all, the ridiculous experiments which the projectors of the numberless moonshine companies made upon the common sense of mankind -three causes, irrespective of the diurnal monsoon, have forced the declension to its present point. The wreck of fortune and of character that this temporary insanity has produced, will be felt long after the causes which produced it have passed away. As a proof of the extent to which this huge system of swindling has been carried, it may be mentioned that even ladies were not exempt from its influence. The female friends and relatives of those who pulled the wires of certain imposing puppet schemes, were in the habit of haunting the purlieus and offices of the share brokers in the metropolis, to watch the market, in order to turn their letters of allotments to the best account! One of the railway papers mentions a certain batch of female speculators who contrived to realize, by this kind of chicanery, during the height of the mania, the astounding sum of £500,000. But when the cloud, which now hangs like a pall over every species of railway speculation, has been cleared away-when the market has been thoroughly sifted of the "bears" and the "stags" of legitimate enterprise, the result will be better for the country and capitalists. Thunder storms clear the atmosphere, and convulsions in the physical, produce consequences hardly less beneficial than those in the commercial world. A better set of men-men of stability and substance, will step in and take the place of the rotten reeds which are now being kicked with scorn out of the way. The railway system requires a thorough weeding, and no time was ever more opportune for effecting it; but the reform must commence with the legislature. The cumbrous and expensive machinery for getting a new line through Parliament is monstrous, and to any parties but those with a large joint stock purse to back them would be ruinous.