The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1844-10-01 00:00:00

TUESDAY 1110RAING, OCT. 1, 1844.

- We called public attention recently to the neglect
of the comfort and convenience of the poorer classes
of travellers, evinced in the regulations of the Grand
Junction Railway. The return made to us has
been our exclusion from the advertising favours (!)
ot' this powerful company--several of which have
since gone the round of the Liverpool papers, with
the marked exception of the STANDARD—and the
ill-will of some of its directors, whom we had a right
to class amongst the number of our friends. The
pecuniary portion of the sacrifice we did not care
for, although we regretted to observe the littleness
of mind which could prompt its infliction upon us.
We were consoled, however, by the reflection that,
in the altered regulations which immediately fol-
lowed our remarks, we had secured for a portion of
our fellow-townsmen and fellow-countrymen, whose
interests are too little regarded by railway projectors
and managers, that accommodation, which they had
a right to expect, and which it was no less the inte-
rest than the duty of the Grand Junction Company
to afford. There is no longer thrown in the way of
the poor travellers by this line those inconveniences
and slights which, previously, rendered the journey
from Liverpool to London by anything less expen-
sive than the first-class trains, an undertaking which
no one, except in the utmost emergency, would
venture upon.
Since this submission of the Grand Junction
Directors to the pressure of public opinion, another
company (the Liverpool and Manchester) to whom
we had also addressed remonstrances which we felt
were called for, with respect to the extravagant rate
of their fares, have consented to provide, for the
poorer description of their travellers, the accommo-
dation of a third-class train, the charge for which,
for the distance between Liverpool and Manchester,
is to he 3s. for each passenger. So far, we are quite
ready to say " well done," although we must wait
to see that the promised boon is not one which is
encumbered and in part neutralised by accompany-
ing inconveniencies. There still remains, however,
the extravagant and extortionate charge of 78. for
the first-class carriages, which we have on former
occasions denounced, and of which, we contend, the
public are entitled to demand the reduction. This
charge is, within a fraction, at the rate of 3d. a
milei and, in the present flourishing condition of
the company, its exaction ought not to -be permitted,
neither will it he permitted, by the public.
A mere glance at the prices of the Liverpool and
Manchester stock will suffice to spew the reasona-
bleness of our demand for reduced rates, putting.
the good policy of according it entirely out of the
question.
The £lOO shares, £lOO paid, are worth £206.
„ £5O do. £5O „ 59 £lO2.
„ £25 do. £25 „ 5/ £5l.
„ £4O do. to be called up to pay
debt.. £36.
Here then we have a nominal capital of £215 per
share, of which only £175 is paid-up capital, worth
in the' market no less than £39s—or a clear profit
of £220 upon each share of £175 ! Surely a body
of proprietors, so favoured by circumstances—so
eminently successful—are entitled to be called upon
to pay some little deference to, and even to submit
to some small sacrifice of their exorbitant profits for,
-the public convenience.
But it may be well worth enquiry whether any
sacrifice at all is involved in the reasonable reduc-
tion of the fares by this line. It is incontestably
certain that, with the increased comfort to be given
to the second-class passengers, by the new arrange-
ment, a large number of those previously using the
first class only will be induced to travel by the se-
cond class, and save the 25., the difference between
the two ; whilst there is nothing, or very little, to
induce those previously travelling by the blue car-
riages to leave them, where two shillings can be
saved by using the same carriages under the name of
the third class. The prospect at present is, that the
first class, with all its cushioned carriages, and even
added luxuries, will be comparatively deserted,
whilst the bulk of the passengers will travel by the
second and third classes (perhaps most by the
last) at the reduced fares of ss. and 3s.
We are convinced that the company might, pro-
fitably for themselves, have adopted a still lower and
better-proportioned rate of fares than the one now
resolved upon. Five shilling bears still the same
ratio to seven shillings that they did a month ago ; and
if two-fifths were all the difference in value between
the first-class and the blue train then, there can be
no greater difference now, the carriages in each
train being the same. An intermediate price might
have been fixed upon for the second-class carriages,
which would not have been complained of. The
Company would have found the benefit of their mo-
deration and desire to consult the public conve-
nience, the increasing traffic between the two ter-
mini being quite sufficient, independently of the in-
creve of travelling caused
-by low fares (of which
the recent cheap trips are a strong proof), to warrant
the ultimate success, in a pecuniary view, of such a
submission, gracefully made, to the requirements.
-and the advantage of the public.
We leave the subject with these remarks, merely
reminding the directors that the demand now made
upon. their consideration may, if slighted, assume a
less reasonable and moderate form. There are
other routes by which a line may he brought
from Manchester to Liverpool than the existing
one; and if we are not wrongly informed, there
is a company, whose power the directors of the
Liverpool and Manchester Railway have already
felt, who are only" waiting for the time to arrive for
attempting the construction of such a line. In the
present improved condition of the science of railway
construction, such a competing project is not to be
'lightly hazarded.

The recent proposal of Dr. Maunsell, to hold a
triennial session of the British Parliament in Dub-
lin, is, with all its absurdity, important, as indicat-
ing a feeling amongst the Conservative party in Ire-,
land, which is anything but a pleasing object of
contemplation. The time is not yet ripe for a step,
by Irish loyalists, the whole length of repeal. The
milder measure of a federal union has not, as yet,
many adherents amongst the educated and Protes-
tant portion of the Irish people. It is plain, how-
ever, that there is a growing disposition to advance
in the direction of the vaunted specifics for Ire-
land's maladies—a disposition to attribute a portion
of those maladies to the want of legislation upon the
spot, and to claim for Ireland a greater influence in
the Constitution than she possesses or is entitled to
receive; and if that feeling continues to progress,
with.as great rapidity as it has done of late, the time
is perhaps not so far distant as some politicians
imagine when the cry for Repeal of the Union, in-
stead of being an exclusively Popish watchword—
the cry of a faction aiming at religious domination