THIRD-CLASS PASSENGERS.
WE wish greatly that some Member of Parliament possessed of the ear of the House of Commons would endeavour to strengthen the "Cheap Trains Act" which Mr. Childers is passing through the House. He might fail, but he would have large support, and he would wake up the public mind to a necessity which every year becomes more pressing. We mean the necessity for improving Third-class railway accommodation, which, though regarded as a detail of Rail- way administration, is of national importance, for two reasons. One of these no one will dispute. The congestion of our great cities must be relieved, if they are to -remain safe, and it can be relieved by nothing but cheap and easy railway communication. It is not the rich who crowd our cities till rent is the heaviest of taxes, and the amenities of life can no more be preserved than its decencies ; but the poor, the poorish, and the class which, though officially regarded as well off, is com- pelled to live with the most rigid economy. A clerk on a hundred a year is not regarded as "poor," nor is a petty tradesman, but to both rent is the one nearly insupportable burden. In London, especially, every year sees a great city like Norwich added to the population, a city composed of people of whom thirty per cent, are workmen, poor clerks, and their tradesmen, and sixty per cent, more are their wives and children. Houses cannot be cheap in presence of such an invasion, and the practical alternatives are cheap trains to the further suburbs' or a packing every result of which is bad. The second reason is less visible, but it is, as we believe, equally true. British prosperity greatly depends on the easy movement of the population, on its power of transferring itself rapidly, silently, and willingly to the place where it is wanted. If Paisley wants hands, and Spitalfields is overcrowded, every week by which movement from Spitalfields to Paisley is delayed is a loss of thousands of pounds to the hands, and of still more thousands to the mill-owners, whose "command of labour" is their life, and depends on easy locomotion. This is only one illustration, and not the strongest, for, as every landlord knows, agriculture is more weighted by what we may call the localism of labour than by any other single cause.
The perfect freedom of internal travel, by which alone existing difficulties can be removed, depends upon Third-class travelling by railway, to which neither Parliament nor the Companies have given sufficient attention. The latter will make no serious experiments in the way of vast traffic at low rates, while the former, filled as it is with rich men, will not understand that
even a penny a mile is, for the families of the poor, a pro- hibitory rate, and that third-class passengers have grievances
other than the price of tickets. The workman may pay two shillings a week in railway tickets for the sake of a decent home, but to set his family free to move about, to enable his wife
and children also to benefit by the city demand for labour, to move elsewhere at a moment's notice with all his belong- ings—to be, in fact, as free as when everything was for everybody within walking distance—is in practice impossible. It would take seven shillings a week, or two suburban rents, for locomotion alone, and even then the locomotion would be of the worst kind. Readers who give sixpence for the Spec- tator hardly know, unless they are clergymen, what the morn- ing and evening third-class trains are like, or how they "take it out of " the passengers and their wives. The rush is worse than a severe walk, the crowd pushes and almost fights, the compart- ments are sweltering pens, and the overcrowding is positively dangerous. The people will not be left behind, and submit to anything rather than lose a train, including a packing which wears out the men's tempers, and is declared by their wives "disgusting." The passengers are at such times packed like goods, while paying eight times as much ; and the Companies declare that it is their own fault, or the fault of circumstances, and that there is no remedy.
There never will be one, unless Mr. Chamberlain and the Rail- way Chairmen take the matter up in earnest, for till then experi- ments will not be tried. The notion of a penny a mile has got into people's heads, like the notiOn.of five per cent, for money, and cannot be got out., and a gigantic "interest" prohibits all changes in the wretched carriages adopted when the traffic first began. What is wanted, is an outside force to compel new efforts on behalf of the Third Class, and it can come only from the Board of Trade, armed with a power of remitting taxes and a right to inflict fines. We believe that, had he only legal rights, Mr. Chamberlain would in a short time bring round the Companies, and in accord with them try on some choked line the experiment wanted,—of running trains of cars built like the Swiss second-class, at a farthing a mile, with tickets sold at every post-office, conductors to every train main- taining rigid order, as well of words as of acts,—we should just like to send a few l.P.'s fifty miles in a hoppers' train—filled on system, instead of by a mad rush, and approached by half-a- dozen doorways and other means of access, where there is now one. Such trains should be shut off totally from the public five minutes before departure, and hurry be treated within the barrier as an offence against station etiquette. Such trains would be constantly full, there would be no waste of haulage, and the " poor " would slip in and out of them as readily as their own house-doors. Overcrowding should be prohibited absolutely and finally, and supplementary trains run where needful, at a small increase of fare' as a fitting penalty for being too late. In short, it should be as easy for anybody, however feeble, to enter a third-class compartment in the morning or evening as it is to enter a sixpenny omnibus. Is that too much to ask, or must we, in despair of other means, appeal to the democratic sentiment, declare the existence of classes an insult to the majority, and, as in America, compel millionaire and labourer to travel shoulder to shoulder ? The masses would be attended to then.
There is an effort in Mr. Childers' Bill to give the Board of Trade powers to enforce some improvements, but we doubt if the words are strong enough: The words run :—" If, on an inquiry under this Act, it is proved, to the satisfaction of the Board of Trade or the Railway Commissioners, as the case may be, that such proper and sufficient accommodation as aforesaid is not provided by any railway company, the Board of Trade or the Railway Commissioners, as the case may be, may order the company to provide such accommodation at such fares as, having regard to the circumstances, may appear to the said Board or the Commissioners to be reasonable." That seems wide enough, more especially as the Board, if not obeyed, can exact the passenger-duty ; but we want an addi- tion of two lines, and the insertion after the word " accom- modation " of the amendment, "Which shall, if the Board judge right, include the provision of decent carriages, with gangways down the centre.' Without this, the word " suffi- cient " will be interpreted by precedent, and by precedent a third-class passenger is entitled only to a narrow cattle-pen, %to which twice the legal number of drunken men may force themselves, and keep up a free-fight for miles, roaring out songs so atrocious that at last, on the solicitation of mothers in the next compartment, some non-commissioned officers pre- sent will interfere by force. That scene, which we saw our- selves, was accompanied by incidents which we cannot give, and is only a slight exaggeration of scenes which occur every day, and which, were the sufferers first-class passengers, would be stopped by force.
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