The Sun.
London, England, 1861-11-07 00:00:00

lives !

Now all this miserable state of things is the just
punishment of two things. One, Yankee conceit;
the other, Yankee hatred of negroes. The former
led them to imagine themselves able to overwhelm
the South by clamour and "magnificent uprisings ;"
the latter to refuse the abolition of negro slavery,
and thus, both to thro wiaway their most effectual
weapon, and to multiply the resources of the South.
The slaves work quietly for their masters, because
they know that the North does not offer them free-
dom, rather sends them back to slavery. The
South accordingly, though having bat half as
many white men as the North, can spare as many for
the war. Its inferiority lies in want of a navy, and
want of military stores. In men it seems as well
off as the North—in officers better off. We are
sorry to see by the behaviour of Mr. SEWARD
that the Yankees have as yet lost none of their
overweening, bullying conceit, and that their anti-
negro feeling is yet as strong as ever. The two
seem likely to defeat them. Their repentance will
not come till Europe has been obliged to acknow-
ledge the Southern confederacy. And even then,
instead of repenting of their sins, they will probably
console themselves by wrath with England.

It is not quite certain that the Reform question
will ba again got rid of easily by a Wednesday
skirmish or two as it was this year. The disgraceful
shuffling of all parties with the Government bill,
followed, last session, by the repudiation of its two
principal proposals in detail, seems, at last, to have
told on the persons who should have gained the fran-
chise. At the time, the upper sections of what may be
called the operative class, or the class which lives
on weekly wages, seemed very indifferent. Per-
haps they had not recovered from the collapse con-
sequent on the failure of the misconducted Chartist
agitation—but rather there was, we believe, a gene-
ral impression that the Government and the House
could not be so faithless and shameless as to throw
overboard the electoral claims of the people because
they were quiet. It was generally supposed that
the House and the Government, if from nothing
else, would, from a gentlemanly sense of honour,
not dishonour the draft they had so distinctly
accepted.

Working men are, however, now thoroughly un-
deceived, They see Conservatives boasting of their
feat, and Whigs not blushing for it—they under-
stand, therefore, at last, that the battle must be
fought by themselves. The eloquence of Whig and
Tory contempt is more effective than the eloquence
of their honest friend JOHN BRIGHT. The latter
held them entranced at monster meetings, and called
forth hearty cheers, but the former has caused them
to say " Let us go and fight the Government and
Parliament." The movement now commencing in
the North threatens to be no temporary and contemp-
tible one ; and it comes in aid of, and will encourage
to bolder effort, the Reform Unions which have
already been begun in several of the large cities.
The Glasgow Council of United Trades is a body
of men no administration can afford to slight, much
less a Liberal one. Here is their view of their own
past conduct, of the use which has been made of it,
of the character of the Premier, and of their own
present duty ; they say in their address to their fel-
low-workmen :—" Since the fervour of the Chartist
agitation extorted from the then Government the
admission that the time was come when the work-
ing classes ought to be placed on the electoral roll,
there has been a gradual decrease in earnestness in
pressing our claims on the notice of Parliament.
Our silence has been misconstrued into a lack of
interest in the movement; hence the enemies of
reform have successfully argued that the people
did not want to be enfranchised. We are promised
a bill next session—we were promised one last
session too. Our experience of the First Lord does
not warrant us in relying implicitly on his pledges,
yet we feel satisfied that he will not withhold a
right when demanded by a well expressed popu-
lar opinion ; he is too sagacious to do that. To
urge you to express in a manner not to be mistaken,
your opinion in the matter of political right, is the
object of the present address."

What will reader them, however, most formid-
able is their almost Hungarian policy, It does
them unquestionably the highest credit. While
not foregoing their " manhood suffrage" as a right,
they show that they mean work, notwithstanding.
They take the business-like view of insisting on
having what has been offered them, which they cer-
tainly never refused, but which a treacherous House
refused for them. Thus, they say—" What we
would suggest is, that we push for what is now
attainable, and occupy that, as so much vantage
ground to help us on to greater victories. Let us
then push Government to fulfil their pledge in the
ensuing session of Parliament—declare to them our
just claims and our determination to achieve the
same. They are pledged to a £5 franchise for
burghs and £lO for counties; and if we only show
that we are in earnest, it is certain that no less
liberal measure would satisfy the House of Com-

mons."

They then press on the attention of the various
Trade Societies—and this Council represents thirty-
five trades—that their organisation affords the best
means of organising a general movement for their
electoral rights; they show that many of the ob•
jects of the societies can be obtained only by the
possession of political power. And they end—" By
submitting their plan of action, which is, that all
trades, councils, trades societies, and such like as-
sociated bodies, at once memorialise Government to
fulfil their pledge in the ensuing session of Parlia-
ment ; after which let a monster national petition be
got up for presentation to Parliament on the day of
its opening, in favour of a comprehensive measure of
Reform ; or should it be deemed a wiser course to
send petitions from various parties, let that be
done."

We should like to know what our Premier
thinks of this. Possibly we may hear soon. He
is least of all the man to be uncourteous
towards respectable working men, or to treat them
with official coldness ; and we may hope, therefore,
in a short time to have an answer to the memorial
addressed to himself by the Glasgow Council. They
say to him—" We have no desire for a violent
change, but would accept with gladness such an
amendment of the representation of the people as
your Government has pledged itself to give. This
we claim, and this we expect at the hands of your
Government—the granting of which will gain for
you the everlasting gratitude of thousands of your
countrymen. We therefore humbly pray your lord•
ship to introduce, next session of Parliament, a bill
to amend the representation of the people to the
extent which your Government has already indi-
cated your willingness to grant."

We wish the Trade Societies all success, and hope 1
that their zeal and prudence now will more than
redress the mischief of their too quiet reliance on
the honour of Ministers and Parliament. When
reform of Parliament, and especially extension of

the suffrage, is the question, working men may
rest satisfied that their best friends in Parliament
will be powerless without their own aid. It is not
reason, but compulsion, which our aristocracy yield
to in conceding measures of liberty, civil or religious.
Even the present electors constitute an electoral
aristocracy, and need to perceive that it is not safe
to withhold its rights from the class immediately
below them. Much more is it so with the elected,
who shrink from enlarging the number of their
fellow citizens to whom they will be compelled to
defer.

However, the whole affair is now in the hands of
the working men. We and other advanced re-
formers have done our best for them; we have been
talked out of the house. It remains for the work-
ing man to say whether, when advocating their
cause, we shall be so dealt with again. With their
support, in the style indicated by the Council at
Glasgow, we shall have the next laugh on their
and our side. But we certainly shall not bestir
ourselves again till we receive, as we may say, their
orders. Let the Societies, we would only add, give
no occasion to the common enemy by acts of intimi-
dation or violence, let them follow the admirable
lead of the Glasgow people, let them be prompt
also in their action, and we are confident that they
might, in 1862, see their own leaders, where they
ought to be, in the House of Commons.

Captain TYLER, the Government Inspector of
Railways, has recently furnished the Board of
Trade with his report on the collision which took
place in the Clayton Tunnel in August last, to which
he has appended some important suggestions for
the prevention of railway accidents. The Govern-
ment:authorities have, with commendable considera-
tion for the lives of the public, forwarded extracts
of this report to the several railway companies,
calling their attention to the subject. We are
happy tosee that the Board of Trade has at length
exerted itself, if not in an authoritative manner, at
least in a way which may induce the companies to
re-organise their arrangements. The extracts from
Captain TYLER'S report will be found in another
column, and we need only draw attention to their
leading features. After showing how the rapid
and continuous extension of railway traffic has
compelled the managers of the companies to
infringe upon the rules first laid down for allow-
ing a certain time to elapse between the start-
ing of consecutive trains on the same line,
he goes on to show that the electric telegraph
enabled them, at a later date, to interpose
instead of distance time ; and in tunnels when
properly and efficaciously conducted it proved
a great safeguard. On this subject Captain TYLER
remarks :—" The greatest amount of security is ob-
tained on a double line of railway, in working a
tunnel or a section of railway by telegraph, when a
separate telegraph needle is used for each line of
rails, and when each signalman (A) blocks over the
needle of the signalman (B) next to him, by means
of a pin fitting into his instrument-handle as soon
as he (A) is informed that a train has passed that
signalman (B), and is travelling towards him,
and when he (A) keeps that needle (of B)
blocked over until such train has passed him. The
telegraph needle in this case acts simply as a signal,
by means of which A indicates " danger" or " all
right" to B, A blocking B's needle (which B can-
not alter) over, either to the " all right" or to the
" danger" side of the instrument, as may be neces-
sary, and always keeping it so blocked over, to
indicate the actual condition of the line. In the
Clayton tunnel only one telegraph-needle was em-
ployed, as I have stated, for two lines of rails, while
two trains might be passing through the tunnel
on each line at the same time. The one needle
could not, of course, be blocked over to and kept
at any particular indication, but was obliged to
remain in a vertical or neutral position, and the
necessary signals were made with it when a train
passed into or out of the tunnel in either direction.
Under this arrangement, the signalman, being
unable to make a fixed indication, trusted
to their memories during the passage of the
trains ; the signalman A being required to
remember that he had telegraphed " train in" to
the signalman B, and had not received " train out"
from signalman B during the time that the one
line was occupied ; and being required, perhaps, to
exchange signals in the meantime with signalman
B in regard to a train entering, or passing out, upon
the other line." The fault has, however, been that
the expense of working a telegragh so as to insure
safety has acted as a great drawback to its general
employment. This is a penny wise and pound
foolish system. One serious accident will cost a
company more from pecuniary loss (to say nothing
of credit or humanity) than well arranged telegraphs
and efficient employees. The late melancholy
accidents have brought to light some particulars
of railway economy which have rather startled the
public. We do not refer to any particular line, but
to the railway system generally ; and in saying that
when discontented shareholders grumbling at small
dividends, call upon the directors to curtail ex-
pense; these gentlemen have begun at the wrong
end, and reduced the staff of officials where a full
complement of clever and energetic servants is most
required, and to render the matter worse by reduc-
ing the salaries of those retained, induced men
of capacity and ability to relinquish a service
which requires long hours for small remunera-
tion ; and thus in too many cases the lives of
thousands have been daily at the mercy of men,
who, from lack of other employment, have accepted
the poor wages vouchsafed to signal-men and points
men. Railway Directors had far better reduce their
solicitors' bills for factious contentions with rival
companies, than for a paltry saving in the half-year,
making themselves liable to heavy loss by rendering,
through the inefficiency of their signal-men the
safety of any train problematical. Captain TYLER
says, and wisely, that when the traffic on any rail-
way becomes so heavy as to render it impossible to
maintain a distance of TWO MILES between a suc-
ceeding train, it is necessary to lay down more lines
of rails. This, however, is easier said than
done; the expense which on the first formation
of the lines would have been trifling, will now be a
heavy expense. When the railway system of this
couutry was in its infancy, when GEORGE
STEPHENSON so gallantly fought his up-hill fight
against monopoly and prejudice, we then foreseeing
what must ultimately be the development of the
new mode of transit, endeavoured to open the eyes
of the young companies to the necessity of laying
down FOUR lines of rails, but at that time it was
believed by those who ought to have known better
that if traffic for the two lines could be obtained
they would be more than satisfied. The cost of
the extra width of ground required would have
been next to nothing, and the tunnels and bridges
would only have had to be made a little
wider; now, however, laying down the extra rails
would be nearly tantamount to constructing a new
railway. This may perhaps be avoided or at least
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