The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1844-05-28 00:00:00

CARRIAGE OF GOODS ON RAILWAYS.

" Twenty Short Reasons for Railway Companies being
themselves the Carriers of Goods, without any in-
tervening Parties existing between them and the
Public; on the same Principle as they are Carriers
of Passengers."

We have received a little pamphlet, interesting to rail-
way companies and the public, bearing the above title,
and written by our respected townsman, Mr. Braithwaite
Poole, whose authority on the subject is entitled, from
his long experience, to the highest consideration. He
commences by the position that it would conduce to the
public welfare if all railway companies were compelled,
by legislative enactment, to become the carriers of goods
as well as of passengers, without the intervention, and
consequent annoyance and expense, of a third party;
who must also necessarily derive a profit, either directly
or indirectly, from the public, over and above that which
the companies are willing to accept ;" and this he ably
sustains by a series of reasons. He clearly shows that the
expense attendant on a railway company having private
carriers is much greater than if companies were carriers
of goods themselves; that cheaper and quicker methods
of transit would be available; that legitimate modes of
doing business, making payments, &c., would be intro-
duced ; that the charges by railway companies would be
equal, and not, as by private carriers, excessive ; that the
impositions and deceptions now practised by the latter
would be done away with, as well as the immorality of
Sunday work at the carriers' wharfs; that the inconve-
nience of having only one agent for two establishments
would also be removed ; that the temporary competition
originated by the railway and canal carriers, and their
meetings at which they clandestinely conspire against the
public to keep up the rates, would no longer be known;
nor would the injurious delays, through their sending
goods by circuitous routes, either by canal or railway, to
suit their own purposes. He slso urges that private car-
riers make arbitrary, unequal, and excessive charges with
impunity ; whereas railway companies are at all times
liable to the interference and control of parliament. We
quote the following passage, or Reason XIX. :
" A..decided proof of the mutual advantages afforded
to the public and to railway companies is recently shown,
in the instance of the Birmingham and Gloucester Rail-
way Company, since they have become carriers of goods
themselves. The public have had the benefit of conside-
rably reduced rates for carriage of their goods, and the
company have had the benefit of increased receipts to a
threefold extent; instead of those middle men, who ap-
propriated the profits justly belonging to the railway
company. Or, instance the Grand Junction Railway
Company, who have reduced the rates to the public full
fifty per cent., whilst the quantity of goods carried by
them has increased in the same ratio, and their revenue
is proportionally augmented. And in proof of the cheap-
ne.s, regularity, and despatch afforded by this company
to the public in the carriage of PARCELS, I may just ob-
serve as another instance, that they have succeeded in
reducing the rates between the metropolis of England
and that of Ireland from Ils. 4d. to 4s. 2d. each ! And
although parcels and packages of all sorts are delivered
here daily by the steam-packet companies, from all parts
of Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, yet the system of trans-
mission is so perfect, that, during the last three years,
not even one solitary complaint of delay, loss, damage,
or deficiency of any nature or kind whatsoever, has been
made by any person !"
Finally, Mr. Poole supplies tabular lists, proving that
where railway companies are carriers of goods, the rates
charged to the public are invariably lower than upon those
lines where intervening parties are admitted. We supply
the " Recapitulation" :

.6 o crb u:, o co o o

Td. ci
as gt 't3

• 0 c'"Z 1.--, 0 C• 1 0 0

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,

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