Note 53 — Chapter VI

The following is a statement of the traffic receipts and dividends on unguaranteed stock, for 1865, of the leading English railways. For their mileage see page 107. London and North-Western, receipts £6,312,056, dividend 6⅝ per cent.; Great Western, £3,585,614, 1 per cent.; North-Eastern, £3,529,288, 3 per cent.; Great Eastern, £1,690,269, no dividend; North British, £1,309,865, no dividend; Midland, £2,728,131, 5⅜ per cent.; London and South-Western, £1,477,843, 5 per cent.; Caledonian, £1,432,475, 5¼ per cent.; Lancashire and Yorkshire, £2,150,643, 5⅞ per cent.; Great Northern, £1,064,799, 7⅛ per cent.; London, Brighton and South Coast, £1,055,116, 5¾ per cent.; London, Chatham and Dover, £446,896, no dividend. It is a fact worthy of notice, that some of the smallest lines pay the largest dividends. Thus the Whitehaven, Cleator and Egremont (10 miles), paid 10 per cent.; the Whitehaven Junction (13 miles), 10 per cent.; the Furness (53 miles), 10 per cent.; Taff Vale (76 miles), 9½ per cent.; Blyth and Tyne (36 miles), 9¾ per cent. In Ireland, the Dublin and Kingston 7½ miles long, is guaranteed nearly 9 per cent. by the Dublin, Wicklow and Wexford Company. The reverse and black side of the picture is, that there were no less than ninety-one railways in England, twenty-eight in Ireland, and eleven in Scotland, which paid no dividend at all.