The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1851-01-21 00:00:00

STATISTICS OF.THE BUILDING TRADE IN
LIVERPOOL.

By the kindness °tithe Surveyor of Buildings to the
Health Committee, we are enabled to give the following
return of the number of dwelling-houses and warehouses
erected in the borough of, Liverpool in each of the years
specified :

2 £25 £35 and Total,
to £25. to .6'35. upwards.

houses

1576
1761
2027
1390
2451) 76
1212 2027 332 177 3728 86
710 2328 236 • 186 3460. 44
59 905 11/7 89 1220 3
74 506 48- 28. 656 6
90 258 63 35 446 4
41 297 41 41. 420 8

Grand ;Total

It will be seen that there has been a falling off in the
number both of dwelling-houses and of warehouses—the
latter particularly—since 1845, which shows that within
the borough at all events, whatever may have been. the
case in the suburbs, the building trades have been in a
declining condition. It'must be borne in mind, too, that
during the past three or four years, whilst we have thus
been restricting the erection of new houses, we have not
only got rid of a great portion of our occupied cellars,
and condemned a considerable number of courtdwellings,
but we have pulled down whole streets of houses and
warehouses to form ground for the Lancashire and
Yorkshire Railway at the north, and the Wapping Dock
at the south, end of the town.

THE CORK. STEAM-SHIP COMPANY,

The history of steam navigation between this port and
Cork is, of course, of comparatively recent date. The
first ship that ever entered the harbour of Cork from this
country was the George the Fourth ; it was the property
of a Bristol company, and was built to ply between Cork
and that port. The voyage from Cork to England, which
heretofore occupied about a fortnight, was thus mnst
amazingly abridged. The importance of direct and
speedy communication between a place like Cork and
this country had been long foreseen, and the initiation of
a project for securing this desideratum was appreciated by
the inhabitants of the city, and the agriculturists in the
immediate vicinity.

The present Cork Steam-ship Company was formed in
1843 ; at the head of this company was. Mr. Eben Pike,
a wealthy shipper. It was agreed that none but residents
of Cork should hold shares, in order to avoid what was
conceived to be a fault in the former companies. The
capital was nominally £200,00, made up of £5O and
£lOO shares. The board commenced operations by
expending £90,000 in the purchase of the defunct corn-
pany'a vessels. These, however, were soon replaced by
splendid new iron vessels, at a cost of from £20,000 to
£30,000 each. They did not, however, confine their
operations to the mere business of steam navigation ;
their capital was made available to the employment of
labour in Cork in another way. By erecting their own
boats, they became the permanent employers of a vast
number of shipwrights and artisans in every branch of
the shipbuilding trade, and thus added materially to the
prosperity of the place.
So far all was cheering. Of late, however, a blight has
fallen on the gay scene. The company have been com-
pelled to restrict their hitherto extensive benefits, and to
concentrate their energies and capital in resisting the
competition of another company, who have reduced the
deck-passenger fare to Liverpool from 10s. to 6d., and to
London from 10s. to Is. 6d., freight charges being propor-
tionately reduced. Notwithstanding this formidable
opposition, the Cork Company have been enabled to
maintain a scale of charges more likely to return a
dividend to the shareholders than such a table of fares as
that referred to by possibility can. They have made
reductions on their old scale which are at once moderate
to passengers and shippers, and remunerative to them-
selves. In this rational endeavour to maintain themselves
in the face of a powerful opposition the company have
met with the sympathy and support of the trade. The
mercantile classes have rallied round them with a deter-
mination to carry them through the trying ordeal; their
storehouses and quayage still present a thronged and
bustling appearance, and each succeeding tide bears upon
its bosom the varied products of a hundred localities—
butter, eggs, cattle, sheep, and pigs, provisions, leather,
feathers, poultry, grain, and other agricultural produce,
with malt and spirituous liquors, which find ready and
remunerative sales in the English and Scotch markets.
In order to retaliate upon their opponents, the Cork
Company have made a call of £lO per share, with which
they have been enabled to place vessels upon lines
hitherto used almost exclusively by the Dublin Company—
a proceeding, as may be inferred, not at all agreeable to
the latter.—Daily News.