The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1838-12-18 00:00:00

INFLUENCE OF RAILWAYS IN DEVELOPING
THE RESOURCES OF A COUNTRY.

The Irish Railway Commissioners, in their second report,
have collected a number of interesting facts on this important
subject, to show the astonishing effects of increased facility
of intercourse. The outline which follows enumerates the
principal of these:—These effects are not confined to any
country or district, although they are, of course, more strik-
ing and rapid in rich commercial ones than in others. The
extent to which intercourse is not only increased, but actually
created by the facility of accomplishing it, would be incredi-
ble but for the numerous and authentic examples of it to be
seen in so many different localities, and under as various cir-
cumstances. The omnibus conveyances between different
parts of London and its principal suburbs (the same thing,
it might have been added, having previously taken place in
Paris and other capitals), are a familiar and striking instance
of this fact. And yet the number, a daily increasing one, of
these has not prevented the establishment and success of
steamers continually plying between Westminster and Lon-
don bridges, and daily conveying many thousands of persons,
although it is a contiguous and parallel line to one of the
chief directions of the omnibus traffic. Equally surprising
is the number of passengers carried by the steamersdown the
Thames.
.Upwards of 500,000 persons were conveyed last
year by the steamers to Greenwich, and about 300,000 to
Woolwich and Blackwall, independent of the tens or perhaps
hundreds of thousands conveyed to Gravesend, Herne Bay,
Margate, Ramsgate, &c., and of considerably more than
1,000,000 who travel to and from Greenwich hy the railway.
It is, perhaps, still more astonishing that the land convey-
ances have, nevertheless, increased with almost equal rapi-
dity. Two coaches, running each twice a-day, formed the
only passenger conveyance between London and Woolwich
not longer than thirty years ago. The omnibuses alone now
perform the journey forty-eight times per day, besides the
numerous vans and coaches which ply between Woolwich and
Greenwich, to take passenger's to and from the railway.
Only two generations back there were no means of reaching
London from Horsham, in Sussex, a distance of 36 miles,
but on foot or on horseback. Upwards of thirty coaches
now pass through Horsham daily to and from London,
besides post-chaises, private carriages, &c., while the traffic
of goods exceeds 40,000 tons per annum. This change has
been solely caused by the construction of a good road. On
the Stockton and Darlington road the passengers conveyed
amounted only to 4000 annually previous to the opening of
the railway; they now exceed 16,000. The average number
of passengers on the Bolton railway is now 2,500 per week,
although it did not previously amount to 300. The coaches
running between Newcastle and Carlisle prior to the railway
were only licensed to carry 13 persons per week, or both
ways, 686; now 1,596 are on the average conveyed the whole
distance every week. On the, Dundee and Newcastle line
the railway has increased the annual number of travellers
from 4,000 to upwards of 50,000. Between Liverpool and
Manchester the number of passengers by the coaches was
formerly 146,000 in the year; it is now more than 500,000 by
the railway alone. The same, if not a more surprising, re-
sultihas taken place in foreign countries. The former traffic
between Brussels and Antsveep, consisted of about 75,000
passengers per"anniim ; the railiOad has raised it to inure
than 1,200,000 ! Similar effects have been experienced in
the United States, both in the increase of travelling and in
the rapidity and denseness eith which the vicinity of rail-
roads and of steam navigation has become located and peo-
pled. Hence the great stimulus which has been given to the
construction of railroads in that country : in January. 1835, full
1,600 miles of railway had already been completed in the
United States, at a cost of about £8,130,000 sterling.—'These
are direct proofs, observe the commissioners, that Ireland is
as capable as other countries of being influenced by the
same cause, and the backward state of the country presents
a stronger obligation, as well as a wider scope, fur improve-
ment. The reports and evidence of engineers and of the
Board of Public Works, describes the striking effects pro-
duced by the opening of good roads through districts pre-
viously shut out from that means of intercourse. The traffic,
in most cases, immediately surpassed the most sanguine ex-
pectations, and gravel roads frequently became so worn in
the seccnd year as to require a substantial covering of broken
stones. Until within the last twenty years coaches and other
public conveyances were almost entirely confined to the main
roads leading from Dublin to the principal towns, the cross-
roads from one town to another being without any such
accommodation. At that time, Mr. Bianconi, native of Milan,
(said to have been, like so many of his countrymen, a vendor
of images, in which humble trade he had, by great industry
and frugality, saved a few pounds,) undertook the speculation
of running a car between Clonmel and Cahir, though almost
unacquainted with the English language, and scarcely pos-
sessing the means of buying a horse and .car. The attempt
was, however, successful, and his business has so steadily in-
creased, that his cars now travel all over Munster, and
through Kilkenny to Wexford, Carlow, and Mounternellick,
in Leinster, and into Sligo and Leitrim in the north-west.
He has now ninety-four well-appointed two-horse cars (the
description of carriage adopted by him, and one of the best
means of conveyance in Ireland) in constant work, and run=
ning more than 3000 miles per day. The same improvement
followed the introduction of steam navigation. On the Lower
Shannon, front Limeirck to Kilrush and Tarbert, a steamer
was established in 1829, going and returning on alternate
days. Inuependent of the great benefit to those towns, a
thriving bathing village has been created at Kilkee, on the
previously deserted shore, and the neighbouring villages have
become places of considerable resort and importance. The
traffic now gives full employment to two steamers of large
dimensions, which perform the the voyage every day : they
carried last year 22,417 persons. A similar increase ofinter-
course has taken place on the Upper Shannon by means of
one large and several smaller steamers plying between Lime-
rick and Shannon Harbour, whence it is continued to Dub-
lin by the Grand Canal. The steamers between Cork and
Cove also carried upwards of 10,000 passengers in 1836. Be-
tween Great Britian and Ireland the traffic and intercourse
are calculated to have augmented at least twenty-fold since
the establishment of steam navigation. The annual number
of passengers conveyed between Liverpool and'Dublin by
the Postoffice packets alone is now about 26,000, and 15,000
persons passed last year between the small port of Drogheda
and Great Britain. The increase of traffic in goods between
Ireland and Great Britian has been fully equal to that of per-
sonal intercourse. Steamers now regularly ply from Cork,
Waterford, Wexford, Dublin, Drogheda, Dundalk, Newry,
Ardglass, Belfast, Coleraine, and Londonderry, to Loudon,
Bristol, Liverpool, or GlaSgow : from two to four of those ves-
sels cross between Dublin and Liverpool every day. Nine-
tenths of this traffic (such as that iu fat cattle) is entirely new,
and even the rest has assumed a degree of importance pre-
viously never dreamed of. The value of the eggs exported was
alone estimated, in'lB3s, at £156,039. Even the manner of
transacting business has changed. Country dealers now
find it worth their while to go themselves to Great Britain to
sell their goods and make purchases, instead of employing
agents in Dublin and elsewhere as they did formerly. A
well-arranged system of railways in Ireland would have the
effect of continuing and extending through the country the
benefits the out-ports have obtained by the introduction of
steamers. For instance, the fat cattle and sheep sent to
Great Britain are now entirely drawn from the counties ad-
joining the eastern ports, or connected with them by canals,
as fat animals cannot, without serious injury, be driven any
considerable distance. The great feeding counties of Lime-
rick, Clare, and parts of Tipperary and Queen's County, are
therefore precluded from participating in these advantages,
but a railroad passing from Dublin through those counties
would open to them the markets of Liverpool, Manchester,
and Birmingham. Among the inducements worthy of no-
tice, as holding out a prospect of support to railroads, may
also be mentioned the numbers from all parts of Great Bri-
tain, and even from the continent, who would resort to Ire-
land to view the natural beauties of its splendid and varied
scenery, and some, no doubt, to acquire a more perfect know-
ledge of the character and condition of its people. The
line proposed to Cork passes within a morning's drive of
Killarney, and through a highly picturesque country; and
should a railroad be eventually constructed to Holyhead, or
some other port in North Wales, as the shortest, and safest
communication with Ireland and America, the tourist might
then combine in a journey of a few days, and at a very mo-
derate expense, the magnificent scenery of North Wales,
and the moat beautiful and remarkable places in Ireland,
from which source a large accession of passenger traffic could
not fail to arise during the summer and autumn months.
But the moral effects of this intercourse would soon even
outweigh the pecuniary- consideration connected with it.
Notwithstanding the public discussions to which Ireland
has given rise for years past, she is really little known to
the British people. Such an influx of miters to that coun-
try would therefore produce the most beneficial results, by
greatly tending to dissipate that ignorance of each others
habits and feelings, by drawing the inhabitants of the three
countries into a closer connection and intercourse, and by
giving a more practical reality to the hour" of the union. It
would be endless to point out the various other advantages
which would arise from this large increase of intercourse and
rapidity of communication between Great Britain and Ire-
land. Among these, the immense benefit from the great sa-
ving of time in the transmission of letters, in travelling, and
in the conveyance of goods, will readily suggest itself to every
man engaged in business. Another prominent advantage
would be the effect on the military service of the country, and
its influence on the public petite, front the facility and ra-
pidity with which large bodies of troops, with their artillery
and stores, and arriving quite fresh at the scene of action,
instead of worn out with long and forced marches, could be
conveyed at an hour's notice across the kingdom, either to
repel foreign aggression, or to suppress domestic outrage.
"it would, in fact," adds the report, "be folly to attempt to
impose limits to the future influences of this principle in
creating new resources for the population, or in giving di-
rections as yet unknown to those already possessed. What
has already been done upon its very threshold, and as it were
in the dark, seems but an earnest of advantages to come, when
experience shall have shed its full light upon the subject, and
brought this wondrous power more within the grasp and the
command of man."—Times.

NATIONAL BOARD_Or EDUCATION--GENERAL

BREAK UP

So far back as Friday, the 12th of October last, we stated
that serious differences had arisen between the Government
and the Commissioners, in consequence of the malversation
of the funds, and peculation in the departments ; and we
further asserted, that deficiences to a considerable amount
would be found on the making up of the accounts. These
statements were met with the usual brutal contradiction on
behalf of the Government by its paper, and the Commissioners,
forsooth, threatened us with an action. Well: subsequent
events proved that our information was pretty correct; and
the alterations in the management of the establishment—the
dismissal of one class of officers, and the removal of others—
gave a corroboration to our statement sufficient to satisfy the
public that we were right.
Some shbrt time since we announced that Mr. Carliie,
having ceased to be a master, had dwindled into a servant ;
and that, abandoning the high-sounding, title of "Cont.
missioner," he had sunk into that of " Professor" of Edu-
cation. We have now to state that this gentleman is no longer
connected with the establishment in any way, and that he is
now as awkwardly removed from the institution, as he was in
the first instance abruptly, and unhappily for himself, intro-
duced into it.
We have another announcement to make, calculated to
produce a still greater amount of surprise ; and that is, the
sudden resignation of Mr. Kennedy, one of the commission-
ers, to whose skill and experience we believe was entrusted,
the examination of the accounts; and to whose zeal and in-
tegrity the public are indebted for an attempt at the reforma-
tion of the nefarious system previously carried on—the dis-
missals and retrenchment being, as we understand, entirely
attributable to him. The right hon. gentleman is a Whig,
high in the confidence of the Irish government, and holding
an ostensible situation as head of the Irish treasury. His
sudden resignation, after six months of laborious duty, must
be explained in parliament, and will add another count to
the indictment, and give an additional motive to the many
already in existence, for successfully resisting any further
grant to any institution which has failed altogether upon
public grounds, and whose private transactions have been of
a very questionable character.
Why did Mr. Kennedy feel it necessary to resign ?—Was
it that his official strictness and unbending integrity made
him objectionable to the jobber ? or did he feel that he owed
it to his integrity and his character to disassociate himself
from a hoard and a body, by the acts of which he could no
longer honourably hold? These things require explanation,
and explained they must be. •
Doctor M'Hale—or. as the Castle organ irreverently de-
signates him, John M'Hale, Esquire—has had sweet revenge;
for we look upon the Education Board, and the system, as
virtually at an end.—Dublin Mail.

Lord Duncannon, as Chief Commissioner of Woods and
Forests, has subscribed £3OO, in her Majesty's name, towards
the erection of a new church in the Isle of Portland.
Brown, so long the favourite of the Liverpool public, took
his benefit at New York on the 7111 ult., and we are glad to
say it proved a bumper,