The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1842-03-01 00:00:00

in the present position of the company—there is assuredly
nothing in the undertaking its2lf—to warrant a continuance
of this almost unexampled depression, which has fettered and
still fetters the efforts of the Sheffield and Manchester- di-

rection. On the contrary, we are satisfied that' were the
public mind disabused and the cloud of misrepresentation
(which has been designedly raised to prevent a just apprecia-
tion of the merits of this line of railway by capitalists) effec-
tually dissipated, there is no substantial reason► why it should

not at once assume a prominent position amongst our most
valuable railways, and the remaining funds required be
promptly and liberally furnished.

Upon this subject our Liverpool readers, who are inter-
ested in railway speculaticns, will, no doubt, listen with
somewhat greater confidence to the opinion of Mr. Locke,
the talented engineer of the company, than to any opinion
which we can be justified in expressing. " There have been,
up to this time," writes Mr. Locke in his half-yearly report,

" many causes to arrest the progress of this undertaking.
The depression which has existed in every branch of trade in
the Lancashire and Yorkshire districts has no doubt tended
to depress not only this, but every other description of rail-
way property ; and the opening of other lines not so success-
fully as was expected, has, from a sort of intuitive feeling of
inferiority, sunk this line still further in public estimation.
The truth is, that the railway public has been too much daz-
zled with the brilliant prospects of traffic, to distinguish
clearly the difference between a cheap and a costly line. It

has, until recently, passed judgment upon all railways accord-
ing to the expected income, regardless of the relative expen-
diture ; and thus it is that many great and useful undertakings
remain neglected. It is not my wish, although it may he
my duty, to make comparisons with lines more or less favour-
ably circumstanced than the Sheffield and Manchester; but
whether we look to the local or general traffic, or to the posi-
tion which this line must eventually bold in the chain of
inland railway communication, there cannot remain a reason-
able doubt that,: with an outlay less than one-half that of
such lines as the Leeds and Manchester and the North Mid-
land, the income derivable cannot be less than it is likely to
be on either of those lines. These comparisons may not be
altogether fortunate; but there can be no doubt that had
either of these lines been executed for the cost per mile of the
Manchester and Sheffield, they would hold very different
positions in public estimation to what they now do; and
there does not seem to 'me any adequate difference in the
traffic on those lines to justify so decided a preference over
the one now under consideration. This state of opinion,
however, if ill founded, will in time correct itself ; and if it
can be shown—as I have endeavoured to show—that this line
can be executed at something like .05,C00 a mile (exclusive
of its carrying stock), there seems little reason to doubt Of
its eventual success*"

To this testimony we may add, that we know of no com-
munity—scarcely even those of Manchester and Sheffield
themselves—which is more interested in the satisfactory
completion of this railway, and by whom an interest, taken

in it, would be more effectual in rescuing it from its present
neglect and difficulty than that of Liverpool.
To the vast intercourse of the trade of Sheffield with the
markets of the western world this is already the natural and
almost exclusive port ; and there can be no question that
when the connexion which this line of railway opens between
Sheffield and Liverpool is completed, not only that town,
but the important agricultural district lying eastwards from
Sheffield, and including a great portion of Nottinghamshire,
Leicestershire, and Lincolnshire, which is now supplied with
the greatest portion of its foreign produce from the Humber,
will in future be brought to this as its nearest and cheapest
port of supply for imported produce. To the Liverpool and
Manchester Railway we need not say that such a result
would bring an immense and valuable traffic ; and by the di-

lectors of this line we are confident that its importance is
appreciated. _ _

And now we may be excused if we address a few words
upon this subject to our valued contemporary, the Railway
Times. We are sure that in any editorial notice addressed

by our contemporary to the subject which .has recently been
canvassed between us, his views have been to advance the
general interests of railway nndertakings, and that no im-

proper motives have induced him to level even a side blow at
this undertaking. Upon the merits of the whole case, as
between the Manchester and Liverpool, and Manchester and
Leeds railways, we think our contemporary has been misled ;
and in giving to the world the numberless communications
which have lately appeared in his columns to the prejudice of
the Sheffield and Manchester railway, he has acted with
some little indiscretion. We. are not about to defend all
the acts of the Board of Directors of that railway. With
respect to some of them we expressed, very freely, our con-
demnation at the time ; but we cannot see that such dis-
agreement would justify us in placing before the public, in
our columns, the carping attacks of every scribbler who
might choose to address to us his unfounded or strained ani-
madversions upon the undertaking. The reputation of a
great public work, however strongly guaranteed by the cha-
racter of those connected with it, is sensibly affected by even
anonymous censure, when reiterated from week to week in
the pages of a publication so influential as the Railway
Times; and it is scarcely a justification that the same pages
which are open to the villifier are freely offered to those in-
terested in rebutting his attacks. We trust, therefore, that
our contemporary will in future exercise a little more discri-
mination in matters of this nature. Nine-tenths of his late
correspondents upon this railway, we can assure him, would
prove, if unmasked, to be either puffing proprietors of other
lines, or interested opponents of the Sheffield, and he must
know the injurious tendency of such a course of attack as has
been directed against this undertaking in his columns.