From Our Eton Correspondent.
St. Petersburg, January 25.
The Russian Railway Department has resolved to raise the price of its fares, in which decision the Trans-Siberian route is almost certain to be affected sooner or later. In an interview on the subject the Vice-Director of the Department says that " the railways Rassia, notwithstanding the enormous passenger traffic, yield every year a considerable deficit which is getting gradually larger and now reaches several tens of millions of roubles. In these circumstances the Government had to take some steps and the first wns naturally to increase the fares, which are lower here than in any other country in the world. Tu taking this step the Government did not forget, however, that cheap travelling is necessary for the people, so that it has raised the third-class fares very little. As, however, from 80 to 90 per cent of all the railway travellers in Russia go third-class this slight increase will yield an increase in the railways' revenues of more than 3,000,000 roubles: The rise in the case of the second, and particularly of the first-class fares, will be considerably greater, because it is generally wealthy persons who travel first and second and it is these two classes which are responsible for the deficit. Although only 10 to 20 per cent of the travelling pul go first and second-class, this rise in the fares will yield in their case about 7,000,000 roubles a year.
The increase will be as follows: For a journey of 160 versts (one verst—=0.86 miles) the third-class passenger will pay 10 kopecks (24d.) more than formerly, for 1,600 versts, 40 kopecks, and for 3,000 versts, one rouble, The second-class will be one-quarter dearer than the third, and the first-class three times dearer than the third.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.