The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1839-09-10 00:00:00

THE MORECAMBE BAY SCHEME.

A prospectus of the proposed company entitled " The
West Cumberland Railway and Morecambe Bay Enclosure
Company," has been issued, by,which it is proposed to raise
a capital of £1,500,000 in 30,000 shares of £5O each. The
prospectus, after speaking of the importance of connecting
by railway the capital of England' with the manufacturing
districts of the, north, gocs on to point oat the advantages
which must result from the construction of the nraposed line
across Morecambe Bay. The West Cumberland Railway,
says the prospectus, " will be in reality a continuation of the
Lancaster and Preston, the North Union, the Grand Junc-
tion, and London and Birmingham lines, thus completing a
perfect chain of railways, from the Metropolis to the border
of Scotland, through the principal manufacturing districts
of Cumberland. On the Scotch side, the line of communi-
cation is almost equally perfect. The Maryport and Carlisle
railway is in a very advanced stage. Surveys of a very fa-
vourable character have already been made from Carlisle
to Kilmarnock. The line from Kilmarnock to Glasgow and
Edinburgh, and the important towns of Paisley and Ayr, as
well as the not less important districts in which they are
situated, and the improving port of Greenock, may be said
to be already secured by means of the Glasgow, Kilmarnock
and,Ayr, the Glasgow Paisley and Greenock, and the Glas-
gow and Edinburgh Railways. The circumstance that the
whole of these important lines, must of necessity contribute
greatly to the traffic of the West Cumberland Railway, places
the success of it beyond question, for it will be seen that
without such intermediate link, these lines cannot receive
the full measure of revenue which they would otherwise com-
mand—a consideration sufficient to secure the cordial co-
operation of their respectable and influential proprietors, in
carrying this line into execution, and which has already to
some extent been manifested by six of the communicating
railway boards having contributed towards the preliminary
expenses. Moreover, the line passing through the town of
Whitehaven and Maryport, will supply the easiest, cheapest,
and most expeditious means of communicating with the
port of Belfast and the whole of the north of Ireland."
Some idea of the probable traffic on the intended line of
railway is then given.l The traffic has been estimated as
carefully as the relative position of the line will allow, a
small part of the passengers, and no part of the goods at
present conveyed by steam being included, and is found to be
as follows :

Passengers by Coaches passing between
the Termini. 104,775 0 0
Part of the passengers by steamers bet-
ween Liverpool and Glasgow, White-
haven, Ulverston, and Belfast
Posting and short passengers..
Mail bags, iron ore, copper, coals, lead,
lime, freestone, cattle, and agricul-
tural produce, fish, groceries, and
small parcels

42,887 10 0
14,600 0 0

23,177 10 0

£185,429 0 0
Deduct for maintenance of way and cur
rent expenses, 45 per cent, which
considering the unusally favourable
gradients must be regard6d as quite
ample....

77,919 0 0

Leaving a nett income 0f... £107,501 0 0
It is also proposed to reclaim 52,000 acres of land from the
sea, and upon this point the prospectus speaks as follows :
" The nature of the soil is acknowledged to be of a loamy
and most productive character, and capable of being render-
ed, at a very trifling outlay, fit for tillage. Its value is well
known to many persons in the neighbourhood, who have at
various times reclaimed considerable quantities. Terms have
been agreed upon with her Majesty's Commissioners of Woods
and Forests, and with the Chancellor and Council of the
Duchy of Lancaster for surrendering to this Company the
rights of the Crown to the reclaimed land in these Bays, and
their sanction to the application to Parliament is insured on
one sixteenth of the land to be recovered being reserved to
her Majesty. Taking the value at £25 per acre, which to all
conversant with it is extremely low, the whole reclaimed land
would produce £1,300,000." From this £200.000 is deduct-
ed for the rights of the Crown and other expenses, still leav-
ing " £1,100,000 applicable for the general purposes of the
Company : thus getting a Railway of sixty-six miles in
length, constructed for the comparatively small sum of
£400,000, on which there will be a surplus revenue of at least
£lOO,OOO per annum."
The above are the chief points adverted to in the prospectus.
[We cannot, even to please our numerous readers in the
"1 far west," who, we are glad to hear, are steadily increasing
in number, advocate the project to which the above prospec-
tus refers until it shall be proved that it is impossible, or poi-
sible only by the expenditure of a sum too enormous to be
seriously thought of, to form a railway inland from Lancaster
to Carlisle ; and it will be found that when the matter comes
before Parliament, unless one of the two points just men-
tioned be established beyond dispute, the legislature will ne-
ver listen to the project. We throw out of consideration the
question of the difficulty of the Morecambe Bay scheme, be-
cause if the railway could be constructed on dry and sound
land along the coast the objection would still exist that it was
a coast line. It is singular that the promoters of this under-
taking do not at once see the host of objections to their pro-
ject which are comprised in those two words, " coast line."
When the project comes before Parliament this objection is
raised in limine—that as regards the inland tract of country
there might just as well be no railway at all as the More-
cambe Bay one. This fact is undisputed. Well then, what
are the advantages which are to outweigh this overpowering
objection. They all resolve themselves into the single cir-
cumstance, that goods and passengers would reach White-
haven a little sooner by the projected railway than they could
by an inland line. There is an end of the case at once, and
we venture to say, that not even the member who may bring
the project before the committee of the House of Commons
will venture to vote in its favour. Of course, as we said be-
fore, the whole aspect of the question will be changed if it
can be proved either that it is impossible to form an inland
line, or that the expense of forming it would be so great that
no persons could be found to incur it. Then Parliament will
pass a bill for the Morecambe Bay railway, and then we will
zealously advocate it. We entirely agree with a correspondent
that whether the Morecambe Bay, or the inland line be
adopted, the Maryport and Carlisle Railway must become an
important and valuable undertaking.]--Carlisle Patriot.

Large importations of sheep continue to arrive at South
Australia. A new site, supposed to be more elegible for a
port to the infant settlement, had been fixed on. at Boston
Bay, to be named Port Lincoln.

Lord Cantalupe has offered himself as a candidate for the
representation of the borough of Lewes at the next election,
in the tory interest.—Brighton Guardian.
USEFUL.—There is a finger-post on the road. near Lake
Erie, which bears the following inscription :—" When this
post is six feet under water, this road will be impassable."