ONE CLASS.
IN a very interesting contribution to Monday's Times by a correspondent, there is a singularly curious dis- cussion of the proposal of Mr. Buckley, the Chairman of the Cambrian Railway Company, to do away entirely with the first and second class railway-carriages, and to limit the passenger traffic to what is now called the third-class only. On the Cambrian line, it appears that all the pas- senger traffic, except 2.3 per cent., that is, 97-7 per cent., is by third-class carriages, and on the Hull and Barnsley, actually 99 per cent, of the whole traffic is third-class, leaving only one in every hundred travellers who goes first-class. In fact, the Company supplies first-class accommodation by every train, and on an average carries only one first-class passenger by every other train. Clearly on such a line as that, it cannot pay to have first-class carriages at all. Yet there are very curious varieties in the local taste for differences of grade in various parts of the country. In Scotland, where there are no second- class carriages, a great number of people dislike travel- ling third. And as a result, four millions in every eighty millions, or one in every twenty passengers, travel first-class, and very often numbers of the lowest section of the trading class are found travelling first. In Ireland, again, where there is a very wide preference for distinctions of grade no less than about a quarter of the whole passenger traffic is either first or second class, and only about three-quarters go third; the exact proportion being that out of 241 millions of passengers, 11 millions go first and 44 go second. Again, on a purely urban line like the North London, only 60 per cent. go third-class, and the remaining 40 per cent, go either first or second. And by express trains even Mr. Buckley himself admits that there is so great a preference for some kind of "re- served accommodation," that even if this is not to be called by the name of a higher class, it would practically be a first-class, since such reserve of places could only be obtainable at an advanced price,---the objection to travelling long distances and with few stoppages, in disagreeable company, being very strongly marked. On the whole, it seems very clear that the suppression of all first-class accommodation would be a considerable loss to most railway companies, especially on urban and suburban lines, and by express trains everywhere. Men of business will not go up in the same carriage with their own subordinates, and, consequently, on suburban lines there is often, by the later trains, almost more de- mand for the first and second class than for the cheapest class itself. In trains of this kind, the wish for some dis- tinction in social position is almost imperious. Thus it would seem to be very unlikely that the extinction of all but a single class of carriages can ever take place except in very limited districts.
And, indeed, it is not merely a question of social position. As the habit of travelling daily by railway, and that perhaps for as much as an hour, or in summer an hour and a half at a time, begins to extend, it is a simple matter of business to secure, if possible, at least a quiet carriage where no noisy conversation is likely to be going on. A professional man wants to study his papers, a journalist to make some acquaintance with the leading facts of the morning's news, a student to master his study during the early hours of the day. To such travellers time is at least as valuable as the transport itself. A man who can do a considerable portion of his professional work in the train finds it well worth his while to pay for quiet, if he can so secure it, as well as for transport. The emptiest carriage he can find is for him in effect the cheapest. And the emptiest carriage is pretty sure to be one of those for which the charge is highest. And, indeed, there are other motives as well as the wish for quiet which induce many men to choose an empty carriage if they can find it. Chatter early in the morning is very fatiguing to many of us. It doubles the fatigue of a journey to hear the steady ripple of small-talk going on all the way. Your mind wants to rest on the main work before you, even if you are not bound to read or write for business purposes. A story used to be told that Bishop Wilberforce always crowded the seats of his first-class carriage with his papers to gain himself a separate carriage, and when asked if these seats were occupied, would reply, "Yes, occupied," adding, in a low voice as the applicant went away, "but not engaged." Even if first and second class were abolished, we should find a good many passengers willing to pay more for an empty third.
Nor do we see why there should not be some mode in- vented for securing the luxury of privacy without paying the guard for it instead of the railway company. Of course the difficulty is that if you are to buy the right of exclud- ing other passengers it will generally cost too much, and only a very rich passenger, here and there, will avail him- self of it, while a fee to the guard does not involve any great expense. But why should it be impossible to issue excess tickets for empty carriages on any train which is likely to have them without loss of passengers thereby, since the greater number of trains certainly do have such carriages on by far the greater number of days in every year ? It may be said that a man would hardly pay much for the mere chance of a quiet carriage, if he knew he were likely to be dis- turbed at any station at which the train might stop by a sudden invasion of a mother, a nurse, and a baby, or by a couple of eager politicians discussing vehemently the politics of the day. And no doubt that is true. But why should not there be one or two carriages on every line divided, as the first-class carriages on the Great Western used to be divided, into separate compartments, between which a door might be shut so that at least any two vis-a-vis passengers could secure quiet for themselves ? And why might not a single compartment (say the front or back compartment) in every carriage be by the rules of the company the last to be filled up, so that by paying a. little extra a passenger might secure at least a very good chance of absolute Cr comparative solitude ? It seems to us that a. good deal more might be done to give passengers a good chance of quiet and solitude than now is done. Many a man would rather have an empty third-class compartment than a full first-class, and if only the guards of the trains could be trusted to administer a. system of that kind honestly, and not to make it a matter of private arrangement, the company might secure the advantage of such arrangements. It may be said this is nearly impossible, and so under the present state of railway discipline it may be. But after all, perfect discipline might be secured as well under a railway company as in an army, and it might become a matter of honour with rail- way servants as with soldiers not to break through the honourable understandings of the service. If every guard were supplied with tickets for excess fare, and required to supply them (unless the trains were already crowded) to passengers asking for quiet carriages, we believe that it might soon become as unlikely that any guard would cisive a private traffic in privileges of this kind as that a soldier would break the rules of the service. What is too often forgotten is that exclusiveness is not at all necessarily due to caste-feeling. It is sometimes due to caste-feeling, but more often to heavy work, to tired minds, or to a naturally solitary disposition.
On the whole, we believe that the present tendency to concentrate all the classes of railway carriages into one, is a very temporary tendency. As habitual travelling for considerable distances increases,—as it will increase in the neighbourhood of great cities,—the time spent on the railways will become more and more valuable, and we should quite expect to see before long the privilege of quiet carriages, and even perhaps of special conveniences for reading or even writing in the carriage, becoming more and more desired. And in that case the -tendency to provide special accommodation for the class of travellers who spend most time on the line, will become more and more marked. As a rule, the specialisation rather than the simplification of these kinds of conveniences is likely to proceed nari Tam, with their more frequent and habitual use.
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