enotes a number of persons united for the same purpose in any joint concern; as a company of merchants, of mechanics, or of players. The word is applicable to private partnerships, or to incorporated bodies.

The mechanics of all corporations, or towns incorporated, are thus erected into companies, with privileges and immu- Company, nities bestowed on them by royal charter. The original object of these associations was the protection and advancement of trade; and they might have answered some useful purposes in the rude age in which they were established. But they have long ceased to be useful; and, so far from promoting, they tend to obstruct the progress of industry. The privilege which they possessed of enacting bye-laws for the regulation of their own members, enabled them to pass rules for the purpose of maintaining a strict monopoly of their trade. No one was at liberty within the city over which their authority extended to exercise his calling without becoming a freeman of the corporation, and paying the necessary dues, which were often so high as to prevent a workman from ever prosecuting his business as a master. The restraints imposed by these corporations are now, however, happily either antiquated or abolished.

The term company seems more particularly appropriated to large commercial associations vested by charter with peculiar privileges.

"There are some branches of industry which must be carried on in some degree in common, but with respect to the prosecution of which the views and interests of individuals are so very various, that government is obliged to interfere to regulate their respective pretensions. The salmon fishery is an instance of this sort. Government has not only to fix when the fishery shall begin and terminate, but it has also to decide how far the proprietors near the mouths of rivers shall be entitled to carry weirs and other fishing machinery into their channels.

"Undertakings in which the hazard is considerable, or that require, in order to their successful prosecution, a larger amount of capital than can be conveniently furnished by individuals, are usually carried on by companies, which frequently require the sanction of the legislature to their formation. And when these bodies claim no peculiar privileges, but are formed on the principle of coming into fair and open competition with each other and with individuals, there does not seem, in ordinary cases, to be any good reason for opposing their incorporation. But in the event of their claiming any peculiar privileges, or if the purpose for which they seek to be incorporated would necessarily give them such privileges, the fair presumption being that they will employ them to promote their own private interests in preference to those of the public, they should not be incorporated without the most mature deliberation. Still, however, there are many cases in which it is for the public advantage that companies with such privileges should be established, under proper regulations. A city is ill supplied with water; there is a copious spring ten or twenty miles distant, and a company offer to bring this water into the city, on their getting an act authorizing them to appropriate the spring, and to lay pipes or to construct an aqueduct for the conveyance of the water. In this case the object in view is most desirable; but it is plain that, were the authority they require given unconditionally to the company, it would be in their power to raise the price of water to the highest level, and perhaps to make an enormous profit, to the great injury of the inhabitants. The same is the case with railways and canals. It is of the greatest importance that the best means of communication should be established between all great towns; and every facility should be given for the formation of companies for their construction. But then it is to be borne in mind, that there is always some one line between any two places decidedly better fitted for a railway or canal than any other line; and if a company get an act of parliament authorizing them to appropriate this line, they get, in fact, a substantial monopoly of the traffic between the places connected by the railway or canal, and may, in consequence, supply the public with inferior accommodation, and add proportionally to their charges. And hence, in authorizing the establishment of companies for such purposes, such conditions should be inserted in the acts as may be adequate for the protection of the public interests. This important consideration has, however, been far too little attended to. In this country, we have in most cases contented ourselves with endeavouring to provide against overcharges, by fixing maximum rates of profit on the company's stock, and maximum rates of charge for the services to be performed by them. But overcharges are not the only evils to be guarded against; and if they were, experience has shown that the restrictions referred to are ill fitted to attain their object. A limitation of the rate of dividend tempts a prosperous company to engage in subsidiary undertakings, though of doubtful utility and profit; and it farther tempts them to countenance an extravagant system of management; to give by underhand methods unfair advantages to their proprietors; and, in short, to adopt every device by which they may retain the highest (or unnecessarily high) rates of charge, without apparently raising their revenue above the sum required to defray the maximum rate of dividend. A limitation of the rates of charge is equally ineffectual. The rates are uniformly such as it is supposed will yield, when the railway or other public work is about to be constructed, an adequate remuneration for the capital to be vested in it. But the fair presumption is, that the country will continue to increase in wealth and population for an indefinite period, with the same rapidity that she has increased since the close of the American war; and if so, these rates will, in a few years, yield a profit or interest far beyond any that was in the contemplation of the parties when the work was entered upon. Now, it is plain that in such cases there will be no way of abating the company's profits, or, which is the same thing, its charges against the public, except by the formation, at a vast expense, of a new, and otherwise, perhaps, a perfectly unnecessary road. Hence the obvious expediency, in passing acts for the formation of railways, canals, docks, water and gas companies, and other public works, of reserving power to government to make periodical revisions of the tolls or rates of charge for the services to be performed; to control their management, in the view of providing for the greater security and convenience of the public; and, if needs be, to purchase up the works on reasonable terms."—(M'Culloch's Principles of Political Economy.)