The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1840-07-14 00:00:00

RAILWAY COMMUNICATION.

The fourth report of the select committee on railway corn- 1
munication has been printed by order of the House of Coin-
mons. They had taken under consideration a number of
petitions suggesting the expediency of altering the present
system of taxing railway passengers, paying particular atten-
tion to see whether it at all compromised the accommodation
which such a mode of conveyance ought to afford to the la-
bouring classes. Referring to the revenue derived from the
duty on railway passengers in 1810, which was £72,716, they
found that of this sum £53,000 was received from the Grand
Junction, the Great Western, the Liverpool and Manches-
ter, the London and Birmingham, and the London and
Southampton; so that the railways in the north of England
and in Scotland, which derive their income from the poorer
classes, who consequently suffer most from the present taxa-
tion, contribute to the revenue in a very small degree. The
act 2 and 3 William IV., c. 120, which fixes the present rate
of duty, states that " the proprietor, or company of proprie-
tors, of every railway along which any passenger shall be
conveyed for hire, shall pay for all such passengers at the
rate of one-halfpenny per mile for every four passengers so
conveyed ;" that is to say, every passenger is taxed one-
eighth of a penny per mile, whatever be his fare ; and the
committee, taking into consideration the difference of the
fares paid by different classes of passengers, find they are
taxed by this system most unequally. In some instances it
is found that a first-class passenger is taxed only 3iper cent.
on his fare, while a third-class passenger is taxed 12, and
even 15 per cent. This inequality operating as a discourage-
ment to the labouring and poorer classes, who would natu-
rally compose the greater part of the third-class passengers,
is the more hard, as the railroads have, in many instances,
destroyed the communication by means of waggons, which,
although very slow, had the advantage of being a cheap ac-
commodation to the poor man. On many lines of railway
the pressure of the tax is now felt for the first time, as in
former years the lords of the treasury exercised a power
which they possessed, and allowed in some cases an annual
composition instead of the tax—an indulgence which is
now no longer granted. From the evidence of the chairman
of the Leeds and Selby Railway, the commissioners bad
learned that in the year 1836 that company had raised their
fares to such an extent that they diminished indeed the

number of passengers, but the increase of fare was enough
to augment their profits by £l3OO. The taxation per head
per mile offering no security against a proceeding of this
kind, but even encouraging such an act, taxation being dimi-
nished with decrease of passengers, notwithstanding increase
of profit, another objection appeared to the present system,
which according to the commissioners, tended to render the
interests of the railway companies and of the public (parti-
cularly the poorer classes) opposed to each other. The com-
missioners, therefore, are decidedly of opinion that the pre-
sent system should be altered, and examined two suggestions
by which this would be effected. One suggestion is, to sub-
stitute for the present tax a per centage on the gross receipts
derived from passengers, it being calculated that five per
cent. would produce about the same amount of revenue as is
raised under the present system. The other suggestion,
which the committee regard as more favourable to the public
interests, is to establish a gradual scale of taxation, by which
the amount of tax would be regulated by the amount of fare,
and act as a check on undue increase of the latter. A scale
was proposed to illustrate this plan. Many railway compa-
nies are limited by statute to a maximum charge of 31d. per
mile for a.passenger. The.proposition was to allow a duty of
10 per cent. on all fares exceeding 70 per cent. of the maximum
allowed by the act, a duty of tire per cent. on all fares be-
tween 40 and 70 per cent.' and a duty of 2/- on all fares below
40 per cent. This scale the committee consider too high, but
they approve of the principle, and recommend, that when no
maximum has been fixed by parliament, 3/d. per mile should
be considered as such for the purposes of taxation, while for
fares exceeding 70 per cent. of the maximum, they fix 7/ per
cent. as the duty. The rates of 4to 9/ per cent. they leave
the same as in the scale proposed. They recommend that
facilities be afforded for the rapid conveyance of troops from
one part of the country to another, in cases of emergency, on
payment of a " reasonable sum" for railway conveyance.
The new method of conveying intelligence by means of elec-
tricity is incidentally mentioned, from the circumstance that
experiments have been made on the Great Western. From
the readiness of communication which this method affords,
the committee conceive it may be inconvenient to leave the
exclusive possession of it in private hands, suggesting that
government should be furnished with similar means, and ex-
pressing a belief that no railway company will object, on fair
terms, to giving facilities to government for electrical coin-
rnurlication. •

- mss.--The most intense dissatisfaction prevails
y where in consequence of this tax, as it is levied by
various re-surveys, and the litigious manner in which the
chafges are made • even the glass doors which open in the
middle are counted as two windows.
SHARP PRACTICE.—A grazier came lately to Nottingham
by the railway from Derby, for the purpose of attending
Len-
ton fair. Whilst he was in the carriage a stranger accosted
him with great civility, and after chatting about a variety of
topics, elicited from him that he was
going to Lenton fair.
" That's the very place to which I am going," replied the
iger, who expressed his desire to accompany his new ac-
quaintance there. An animated conversation ensued, which
was kept up with great vivacity by the stranger visitor to
Lenton, until the arrival of the train at the Nottingham sta-
tion. The parties having alighted, the mysterious but plea-
sant stranger suddenly exclaimed, " I have altered my in-
tention ; I shall not visit the fair ;" and very politely bid the
Lgraiier good morning. The latter proceeded on his way to
Lenton, but having occasion to feel in the pocket in which he
had put away his money, he discovered that he was minus
three £lO notes; and immediately suspecting that his very
polite and insinuating fellow-traveller had picked his pocket,
he hurried back to the station-house, where he learned that
his companion had returned by the following train to Derby.
After a short consultation he consented to be strapped to an
engine, which was to be despatched to Derby instantly, and
in the incredibly short space of SEVEN MINUTES AND A
kLN, overtook the train just before it reached the station-
house at the above place ; the grazier pointed out his friend,
who was seized, and the stolen money found upon him.—
Hull Tries,

WINDOW TA