The Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1860-05-09 00:00:00

THERE appears to be considerable excitement in
the metropolis at present, on a subject which is
very important in itself, but which is rendered
much more so by certain other matters connected
with it, all affecting in a most material degree the
comfort and convenience of the metropolitan
public. We allude to the proposed embankment
of the Thames; to consider which, Sir JOSEPH
PAXTON has obtained the appointment of a
Select Committee of the House of Commons.
This is to be regarded as the foundation of one
other great project, at least—that of providing
an additional thoroughfare, from one end of
London to the other, in order to relieve the
present thoroughfares of some considerable por-
tion of their enormous traffic, and to obviate
those obstructions to which they are at present so
continually liable. According to the account of
the proceedings in the House upon the question,
Sir J. PAXTON opened his case by observing, as
is literally the fact, that the communication be-
tween one end of the metropolis and the other
is becoming more impracticable day after day.
He remarked, and without the least exaggeration,
that to go from Paddington to London-bridge
took as long as to go from London-bridge to
Brighton. And the Times maintains that "in
reality, this is understating the matter, for an
hour might be easily consumed in going not
merely from the South-Eastern terminus to the
Great Western, but from the same point to
Charing-cross. As the season advances, the diffi-
culty becomes greater and greater. The broadest
streets are now often blocked up. Holborn is as
likely to be impassable as old Fetter-lane used to
be, and it is quite a chance during certain hours
of the day whether you can get along Regent-
street." There are other local considerations of
great moment why the work should be imme-
diately undertaken. With these, however, we
here in Liverpool are not so immediately con-
cerned. Our object in alluding to the subject at
all, is to interest our townsmen, not so much in
the sundry metropolitan improvements which are
involved in the case, as in that particular one of a
more convenient and expeditious means of com-
munication throughout the metropolis and its
suburbs, as being a matter in which the people of
Liverpool cannot but be interested, since they are
so much in want of a similar communication
themselves.

The proposal for an embankment of the Thames
was wisely based by Sir JOSEPH PAXTON on the
ground of providing further and better metro-
politan communications, leaving altogether as a
subsidiary consideration the question of the river
itself. Not that the importance of this question
of the river is lost sight of, or in any wise dispa-
raged. But, important as it is, the subject of furnish-
ing greater facilities for locomotion in the great
metropolis, and for communication with its sub-
urban districts, is a still more pressing necessity.
As the Standard well observes, " There can be no
doubt that some arrangement must be made for
the overgrown street traffic of London. When
things have come to that pass that it takes a
longer time to go from London Bridge to the
Great Western Railway than to Brighton, they
are sure to mend. Indeed, unless they do mend,
the evil being of a cumulative character, a dead
lock will soon be the consequence." Now with-
out dwelling a moment longer on the ease of the
metropolis, let us bring the subject here to our
own doors. We have not yet, it is true, quite
such crowded thoroughfares—our streets are not
so subject to obstructions as in the metropolis.
But we do quite as urgently need, according to
our circumstances, some better, more convenient,
and more expeditious means of communication
between distant parts of the town, and between
the heart of the town and its suburbs, than we
have at present. The only means of passenger
traffic at present are the huge lumbering omni-
buses, which are a great nuisance in the streets,
and an intolerably slow and otherwise undesira-
ble public conveyance—utterly out of character
with the present age of progress and improve,
ment. It is not merely that a full hour or more
has to be wasted in passing to, or from a suburban
residence to a place of business in the town,—
and from how large a proportion of those engaged
in business is not this loss of precious time
exacted ?—but it is also the uncertainty they so
often present of affording the accommodation at all,
when it is most wanted, and the further waste of
time that has thereby to be incurred.
We have more than once lately pointed out the
radical remedy fox this inconvenience. Street

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ritihyuys, running out to the full extent of the
• • - -

principal suburbs, are found in the United States
of America to provide a means of intercourse
most admirably suited tct Ow wants of populous
towns, in 411 those respects in which both London
and Liverpool require to be accommodated. By
such means,---at once so convenient and so

prompt,—the interests of all classes of the people
may be promoted. In the ordinary every-day
intercourse of business life, they provide oppor-
tunities of intercommunication which, are invalu-

able ; while to those wllo, have any distance to

go Iletween their dwellings and their places of

business, they aro an accommodation, the
importance of which must be experienced to be

fully understood. Of Liverpool, as Weil as of
London, may it, according to its degree, be said,
that as its population is rapidly increasing, " its
traffic will augment in proportion, and as business
May be expected to be in a ratio of increase far
beyond the addition to the inhabitants, the street
conveyance to meet this mass will soon be some.
thing enormous." To relieve the present street
thoroughfares, then, of as much of
this trafhe as
possible, is of itself a tRoAt iniporta,n,t object ; and
this
\741114 IN 011 e direct result of such a system
of intercommunication
as we allude to.
There is another important consideration. The

pany of Scotland's Melrose branch has been
arrested in London, on a charge of appropriating
to his own use large sums of the bank's money as
it passed through his hands.
_ _

The Morning Herald, in directing attention to
the present condition of affairs in Eorope—than
which, it declares, nothing can be more unsatis-
factory, since " each Power on the Continent is
either actively engaged in intriguing against its
neighbours, or is the object of intrigue on the
part of its neighbours,"—argues strongly for the
necessity of Prussia preparing for the worst, and
of being " more intently occupied with army
reforms than with designs upon Schleswig-
Holstein, or with angry declamations against the
hegemony of Austria." Still more important is
the duty that is pointed out, that at such a mo-
ment as this, when Prussia is watching anxiously
every movement made by France, she should do
her utmost to promote union in the great Ger-
manic Confederation, instead of fomenting dis-
cord, as is now unhappily the case. "If Russia,"
it is remarked, "for purposes of her own, intends
to enter into a close alliance with France, per-
haps with a special view to an attempted humilia-
tion of England in the East, it is doubly important
for the two great German Powers to stand
steadily together, and to check, at the commence-
ment, that terrible ambition which once, for many
years, proved to be irresistible." There can be
no doubt of this. And well, therefore, may the
hint be given, that " it may be discovered, before
long, that disunion among those Powers which
are disposed to resist the aggressive policy is only
the precursor of a long and general war."
The report that Prince Metternich was about
to resign his office of Austrian Ambassador at
Paris is stated, it will be seen, in a telegram
from Vienna of yesterday's date, to be entirely
unfounded. Considerable political importance,
we believe, had been attached to the report.
The Pope is obtaining a large accession of
Irishmen, we learn, to his army. As many as a
thousand were said to have left Trieste one day
last week for Ancona, to be there enrolled.
The Spanish Princes, the Duke de Montemolin
and his brother, having executed their relinquish-
ment of all claims to the throne, have been released,
and have left Spain. '