THE IMPORTANCE OF SPEED TO COMMERCE.
[To TIER EDITOR OP TEE "EPDOTAT011.1
Ackworth's letter is hardly ad rem.,—the temporary loss of his empty portmanteau and the other petty grievances he enumerates are annoying enough, but hardly affect the commercial supremacy of the Empire. Where long distances have to be traversed and an appreciable saving in time can be effected, say twenty-four hours in the journey to New York, the advantage in speed is incontestable ; but in this little island our distances are too short for speed to be of much advantage. For instance, what possible difference can it make whether a bale of goods take two hours or six hours to traverse the thirty miles from Manchester to Liverpool, or whether a truss of drapery leaving Manchester to-night reaches London at 4 or at 6 or even at 8 o'clock the following morning P What practical advantage is there in the recent acceleration of the morning trains from London to Scotland? No man to whom time is an object would travel by a train which " cute to waste " the whole business day; but if he did, what better is he for reaching Edinburgh at 6 p.m. instead of 6.15 or 6.30 P In either case he is too late for business, too early for dinner. No, it is not greater speed that is wanted, it is greater cheapness, and this Sir Alfred Hickman and those gentlemen who recently with him waited on the Presi- dent of the Board of Trade to urge the importance of im- proving the slower but cheaper canal communications of the country, see plainly enough. The real trouble with us all, whether railway companies or manufacturers, is that dealt with in your very able article on " The ITnproductiveness of British Labour," and also the enfettering effect of the legisla- tion of recent years.—I am, Sir, W. D. PEn,LiPrs.
North Staffordshire Railway, General Manager's Office, Stoke-upon-Trent.
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