one respect, business men seem to be practically at issue with the self-styled Teaders of public opinion, To judge from the tone adopted by an important section of the Home Press, the time had arrived when all attempts at improved communication were to be given up, and Great Britain was to relapse into the quiet easy going way of the early part of the last century, when a week was a decent time to perform a journey from London to York. Quick trains and quick steamers seem to be bugbears to be got rid of by any means; and every accident, preventible or not, is put down to some inordinate desire for speed on the part of the owners of railways or steamboats. That practical men really demand speed, and that it is solely to meet this demand that owners endeavour to accelerate passages, seems hardly thought of; nor does it seem to strike the writers that the measures necessary to be taken to ensure speed are not of avery different nature from those dictated by ordinary efficiency. In point of fact, the accidents directly traceable to an inordinate desire for quick passages on shore or afloat are few in comparison with those resulting from the carelessness and inefficiency engendered by a disregard of time and a desire to economise at all risks. Tt is amongst colliers and tubs scarcely able to get out of their own way, that the most casualties occur; and the Pall Mall Gazette was hardly to the point when, in a disquisition on Ocean Racing, it alluded to such cases as the Ville clu Havre as instances of its evil effects.
Last year, a great cry was made about the practice of racing homeward for China, a view which certainly received some support from the case of the Drummond Castle. That that vessel did run ashore in an attempt to shorten her passage is undeniable; but we venture to say that, were the inducement to make good passages taken away, the inefficiency, false economy and undermanning of steamers, against which so much complaint has at present to be made, would become the rule instead of, as at present, the exception on all decently conducted lines. Indeed we had an instance of this state of affairs on the first opening of the Suez Canal, when every old and done-up collier was thought good enough to be turned into a "canal boat." Fortunately for our lines and our insurance premiums, the requirements of the trade superseded this class of steamers by others maze effective and better suited for the trade; and in the new steamers of the P. & O., the M. M, Holt's, and the Glen and Castle lines, not to speak of many others, we have vessels at once safe, adapted to our requirements, and capable of making the passage in periods which few years ago would have been considered practically out of the question. The qualities which enable the master of a steamer to make a good passage, are mainly those which make him a good commander. Care and vigilance and proper discipline are above all things necessary, and care vigilance and discipline are the surest safeguards on the ocean as elsewhere, Whether casualties are more likely to occur to a vessel like say the Agamemnon or the Cawdor Castle, or to an ill-found ship like the Ville clu Havre plunging along at a rate of some five or six miles an hour, we may safely leave to the judgment of practical men.
The same may be said of railway management in England. It is not on the lines where speed is considered necessary, that continual accidents have to be reported, An undue pressure did indeed Inst year produce several terrific accidents, and these were undoubtedly the worse the higher the speed of the trains to which they curred, But most of the accidents were directly traceable to causes in which speed was of little account. The overwork of attendants, the long hours during which signal-men had to be on the alert, the imperfect arrangements for shunting baggage trains which had increased largely in number; these were the real causes. The remedy is to be sought, not in decreasing the speed of travel, which would be far more likely to encourage inefficiency, but in insisting on proper accommodations for traffic, and punctuality in the working of trains. Punctuality is the surest guarantee of efficiency, and though actions for the delay of a few hours may seem frivolous, there is little doubt that, if carried out persistently, they would tend greatly to improve the management of railway companies.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.