The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1847-11-23 00:00:00

RAILWAY AFFAIRS.

An experimental trip of inspection was made on Tues-
day from Chester to Conway on the Holyhead Railway by,
the officia is of the line, preparatory to opening some por-
tion of it in December for general traffic.
The new parliament will not be absolutely wanting in
railway business. It is stated that upwards of three hun-
dred bills have been lodged. The Great Western alone
have given forty-eight notices of application for new acts
to enlarge their line and form branch lines and extensions.
OPENING OF THE 'CALEDONIAN RAlLWAY.—Arrange-
ments are in progress to open this line from Beattock to
Edinburgh, on the 20th of December—which will com-
plete the through communication between Edinburgh
and Glasgow to London via Carlisle.
It is a curious fact yet to be explained, that the electric
telegraph will not work in the Summit tunnel of the Man-
chester, Sheffield, and Lincolnshire. This tunnel was one
of the severest pieces of boring that has been executed,
and is the longest of English tunnels, not excepting that
of Box on the Great Western.

RAILWAY WORKS.—We have just been informed that
Ministers are resolved to propose a check of some kind
on the extension of railway works—but that the plan, the
particulars or modus operandi of which has not tran-
spired, will not be of a very sweeping character.—Rail-
way Chronicle.
The Chester and Holyhead give notice of the attempt
to raise more capital—a part of it by getting the London
and North-Western empowered to increase its contribu-
tion to that line,—a power which, possibly, the share-
holders of the latter company, all circumstances consi-
dered, may not be very eager to take advantage of.
A month or so ago the London and North-Western had
nearly 50,000 labourers employed on those sections of
their system of new lines then constructing. The effec-
tive labour force has now been reduced to less than one-
half, that half being employed only upon what are called
first-class or indispensable works.
The directors of the Liverpool, Manchester, and New-
castle junction railway have given the necessary Parlia-
mentary notices for obtaining an extension of time for
the purchase of land and completion of the works ; " but,
should any general measure render further proceedings
unnecessary, these notices will be allowed to drop, and
little expense will have been incurred beyond the requisite
advertisements."
From our official returns it appears that the amount of
traffic for the last week, on upwards of 3227 miles of rail-
way, was £174,029, thus accounted for :—.06,767 for the
conveyance of passengers only, £48,027 for the carriage
of goods, and a r..mainder of £39,234 for passengers and
goods together, not respectively apportioned, being an in-
crease of £23,534 over the corresponding week of last
year, when the mileage was about 2,525.
ALARMING FACT.—The last parliamentary return states
that on the Ist of May, 1847, there were employed in the
construction of our railways no fewer than 256,509 men !
And it is a moderate computation, that, on the Ist of De-
cember, there will have been discharged, from the mere
want of money, one-half of this number ; 128,000 able-
bodied men, accustomed to the use of the pickaxe and
crowbar, turned upon the roads at the beginning of winter !

• N-1 -;}••••,.."N \

FOREIGN ly COLONIAL INTELLIGENCE.
WEST INDIES.

The steam-ship Dee arrive& at Southampton on Thurs-
day from the West . Indies, witL. dates from Jamaica
to the 25th ultimo, Antigua 28th, and Payal Novem-
ber 12.
We have received our usual files of papers by this
arrival, and learn that the islands are greatly agitated
on the subject of the sugar bill, and that petitions had
been signed in every direction to the home govern-
ment, some being couched in very violent language. All
the islands, except Barbadoes, had cordially fallen-in with
the proposed West. Indian convention, and even Barba-
does only thought the delay to be caused by that ma-
chinery would sacrifice important interests. Jamaica ap-
peared to' be-most active. in the movement ; and this island
is also suffering severely from its state of distress—it is, in
fact, described to be in a bankrupt condition. Rain was
much wanted on the south side of the island, but gener-
ally the weather was favourable ; and the whole interior,
as well as the district of Trelawny, which had suffered
from drought, are said 'by the Jamaica Dispatch to have
been profusely visited by rain. /
The House of Assembly met on the 20th of October.
and was opened by a very long speech by his Excellency
the Governor,. Sir Charles Grey. After alluding to the
depressed state of the sugar market, he observed that the
legislature was the proper organ for providing whatever
relief could be drawn from the internal resources of the
island, and for making such representations as might be
calculated to obtain remedies from the Imperial Parlia-
ment. In the course of his address he said—

" An attempt to re-establish the principle of protection,
or to renew generally fhespractice of making the prices of
commodities artificially high to the British people by the
exclusion' of foreign produce from the markets, I most sin-
cerely believe would 'be .an utter hopeless effort; and
several legislative measures have now passed into laws, all
founded on the opposite.principle, which are so connected
with each other, that it seems to be an equally vain expec-
tation that any of _them could be repealed without repeal-
ing the others. Prohibiting duties could not be re-imposed
upon foreign sugars without imposing them also on foreign
corn. The battle of .the corn laws must be fought over
again in the United Kingdom, and gained by the party
who lost it, before you could succeed in having your sugar
protected by a prohibition of foreign sugar."

„). • .‘
• •'f,_%