The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1842-01-04 00:00:00

THE MANCHESTER AND LEEDS AND
I MANCHESTER AND LIVERPOOL RAILWAYS

The Railway Times on Saturday last took the opportu

I nity, presented by a onl

-sided report of a tneeti

of the
charge

,ter and Liver

lanchester and Leeds Rail
of bad faith upon the directors of the Manch
pool Line, for having declined to enter upon the formation of
the .proposed junction of the two railways by a line through
the town of Manchester. • Our contemporary. appears quite
satisfied that the former company has acted with the most
good faith throughout the agitation of this junction
line; that they have not sought to trap the Liverpool Com-
pany by the exhibition of fallacious estimates of traffic, into
a hasty adoption of a line through Manchester, which would
leave two other undertakings equally important as their own
without any junction line with the port of Liverpool, or any
chance of ever getting one : and that the conduct of the Li-
verpool directors has been, on the contrary, flagitious and
dishonourable towards their Manchester and Yorkshire
friends, who are so anxious to engross the advantages which
a direct connection with their port is likely to airord.
We are ourselves by no means so convinced of any of these
positions being correct. Nay, we incline to think that the
refusal of the Manchester and Liverpool directors to proceed
with this erroneous and unadvisable scheme is the next best
thing to their having never consented to listen to it, which
most assuredly ought to have been their course. Although
not ourselves in a position to say to what extent the traffic
estimates presented by the Leeds directors to the considera-
tion of the Liverpool end Manchester board were exaggera-
ted and fallacious, we can readily believe that they were so
from the unfair spirit, evinced at this meeting. in which
the very name of one company, which possesses important
claims to consideration in the settlement of this matter,
is not even mentioned as worthy_ of the notice of. the

perfect

Leeds gentlemen, and the question as to the choice
between the two competing junction lines is stated as
one between themselves and the Manchester and Bir-
mingham Company only. We have reason to know that
it is not viewed ►n this light by the directors of the Liver-
pool line.. Their .object is to do justice to all, and in doing
so, to embrace the only means of doing justice to themselves.
They have no unworthy jealousy—like that evinced by the

Leeds people—to induce -them. to forget the very existence
of a line so important in its future connexion with the port
of Liverpool as that in course of formation between Man-
chester and Sheffield. And although by the pertinacity with
which this selfish scheme was urged upon them by the Leeds
Company, in their anxiety to forestal the object of their jea-
lousy, they were induced to enter so far into it as to join in
the measures requisite for procuring an act of parliament,
we can see no moral or just blame which can attach to them
for having retraced their steps so soon as they had discovered
the deceptive and unfair means by which they had been hur-
ried so far into a wrongful and unprofitable course.
With a full knowledge of the locality, of the conflicting
plans themselves, and of the feeling of the people of Man-
chester respecting their comparative merits and convenience.
we can unhesitatingly say that public justice will nq be sa-
tisfied by the formation of the proposed junction line with
the Leeds railway only. That the line to communicate wit'
the Manchester and Birmingham will cost o
the it is estimated to cost by the Leeds directors, we dti not be-

-half of v

potent engineers, to cost not more than a third Of the sum
put down for it in the one-sided statements of the Leeds and
Manchester meeting. The property which it runs through
is of the most worthless description, the works required com-
paratively inexpensive, and the advantages which it affords
to the Liverpool company, when compared with those af-
forded by the other line, as furnishing a communication with
the centre of. the town of Manchester, and with three rail-
ways instead of one, are such as fully warrant the Liverpool
Company in looking forward to that as a line to be formed a
year or two hence, rather than to rush into the formation of,
confessedly, a very expensive junction with the Leeds alone,
with the certainty before them of another line having ulti-
mately to be made.
We believe that these are the considerations by which the
Liverpool and Manchester board are actuated in the course
which they are adopting in this much mooted matter. We
think that they are proper and just considerations, and we
know that they will not be driven from them by all the at-

tacks which their detractors may be inclined to make upon
them. We submit, too, that they ought not to be so driven.
and especially at such a time as the present, and by such a
company as the Manchester and Leeds; which, however mag-
nificent in its promise, has not shewn such abundant realiza-
tion in performance, thus far, as to warrant the directors of
any public undertaking in seeking an exclusive alliance with
it, to the neglect of other less imposing, more humble, but
perhaps equally valuable connexions.