THE MIDLAND RAILWAY.
WE see no reason for ecstasies over the latest move of the Midland Railway Company. It will, we believe help, after a year or two, to swell the dividend, but it will also inflict
great annoyance on every lady and some annoyance on every man with a black coat who travels by that system of lines ;
and being Radicals, and not Democrats, we do not see why these classes should be annoyed more than anybody else. The Directors of the Midland Railway, being 'either astute persons, or what is the same thing, able to take advice from persons abler than themselves, resolved some eighteen months ago to attach third-class carriages to every railway train. The reform was a mere act of justice to the electors from whom the Company derive their monopoly and other privileges, but as Railway Com- panies are not accustomed to do justice, it was popular, and proved in a moderate degree financially successful. The re- ceipts from the third-class were immensely increased, rising from £556,000 to £983,000; but the receipts from the second-class declined from £366,000 to £189,000, and as second-class car- riages were still run, and the number of third-class carriages was expanded to meet the enlarged demand, the expense of " haulage ;" i.e., the cost of running each train in actual expense of coals, staff, and wear-and-tear of metals, must have been very large. Still a large revenue and large expenditure are better than a small revenue and small expenditure, because, cceteris paribus, the dividend is safer, and because there is a wider margin for retrenchment. The Directors, therefore, surveying their affairs, agreed to adhere to their innovation, and not to raise third- class fares, as some Boards intend to do, but to drive the re- duced number of second-class passengers into the half-empty first-class carriages, and so at once fill the trains, and reduce the haulage by the whole weight of the second-class carriages. In order to effect this rapidly, they decided to withdraw the second-class altogether, while reducing the first-class to second-class fare,—that is, to three-halfpence a mile. The resolution was bold, risking, as it is said to do, some £70,000 a year ; but it was sure to be popular, the majority seeking, before all things, reduction of fare ; and it -will, as far as we can calculate, succeed. The motive of everybody who goes second-class is to go cheaply, yet separate himself from the third. He scarcely saves his dignity, and he does not save his bones, but he does save his money and " fastidi- ousness ;" and accordingly, as he can save both equally by going first-class at the same rate, he will go, and be rather grateful. We should say the Midland Company would secure for the first-class five-sixths of their second-class passengers, would fill all its carriages which are now half-empty, and would save nearly the full expense of the haulage of the also half-empty second-class carriages. Moreover, they will concede something, though not much, to the democratic taste of the age, will make their accounts simpler, and will render it much easier to give some additional comforts to third-class passengers, who have been made uncomfortable lest the second-class should be tempted into the cheaper compartments. So far so good. The Midland Railway Directors have clearly hit on a method of increasing dividends, diminish- ing expenses, and improving the position of the majority ; and in a world like ours, governed as it is at present, we do not know that anybody has any right to complain, or even to withhold a weed of applause from men who have done ut Ell one important service. They have broken an unreal charm. People had begun, in the English fashion, to believe that the division of travelling mankind into Three Classes was—like government by Kings, Lords, and Commons, like trial by Jury, or like the use of forks—part of the law of Nature, or at all events, based upon that imprescriptible continuity of custom which in England no man who values his reputation for sanity has the audacity to disturb. The abolition of the " Second Class " by administrative order is a sort of social revolution, a hint which no one can mistake that classes in a train are social arrangements open to revisal, a proof to all men that the Usual can be changed for something new. There is an end of the sacredness of what is in Railway travelling, and though we doubt this particular ex- periment, still, railway travelling being uncomfortable, an end of the sacredness of what is in railway travelling is a good thing. .Everybody will take heart of grace from such a revolutionary "6-ample, and we should scarcely be surprised to hear of still vaster changes,—that the Great Eastern was selling tickets all day at open counters, instead of crushing its victims into queues ten minutes before starting-time ; that the Great Western had secured a porter who knew the stations on the line ; or that a Scotch train had arrived within ten minutes of its advertised time. The last is, of course, too much to hope for. The event has occurred once since Railways began, and was so unexpected that it produced an accident ; but still, when directors of a first-class system of railways abolish the second-class, anything except a perfectly satisfactory audit is within the limits of possibility. The Revolution has begun.
Nevertheless, though we acknowledge the courage of the Directors, and believe in their financial acumen, and cordially cheer them for breaking the thick black ice of Railway Manage- ment, we are not disposed to be enthusiastic about this par- ticular experiment. The corduroys gain, but the black coats lose. In some directions they lose, no doubt, only what they ought to lose. They have no real right to claim seats in half - empty carriages, comfortable though empti- ness in a railway-carriage is ; and less than no right to secure seclusion, valuable as seclusion may be, by bribing guards. Human nature is not proof against the temptation to get a carriage to one's-self and one's own belongings by a tip of half-a-crown, but the tip is none the less a clear invasion either of somebody else's right to his chance of a half-empty carriage—which means room for your bags and your wife's bandbox and your own feet—or to the Company's right to take a carriage off, and so diminish the weight of the train. These privileges will be swept away by the reform, and may rightly be swept away ; but something else is swept away with them which ought to be retained, namely, the right to buy in open shop freedom from a certain kind of annoyance on one's travels. First-class passengers pay extra fares not only for oushions and comfort, but for freedom from the invasion of the Third-class,—a freedom they have a right to de- sire, if they choose, and as a matter of fact, do desire intensely. We can understand and fully appreciate the spirit which decides that upon the highway, as in the Church, all men must be equal ; that there can be but one class, and that if the rich are not satisfied, then let them grumble and swear and buy shares till everybody's position is alike im- proved. But we do not understand the spirit which decides that dear and cheap boots being allowed by law, nobody who buys dear boots shall be allowed to buy boots which fit him. Why not I The admission of two classes is the denial of equality, and equality—which is impossible—being once recog- nised as impossible, why should not the first-class be permitted to buy what it wants ? It does not want cushions particularly. It does want a certain kind of exclusiveness particularly. We will not say that exclusiveness is in the Englishman's blood, for, as a matter of fact, the great people who used to buy separate compartments have, except in very exceptional in- stances, abandoned the practice; but it is certain that there are forms of annoyance which Englishmen resent, and which can only be prevented by exclusion. The first-class are quite willing to travel with the present second-class. The latter are often merely economical, and footmen, convicts, and drunken students excepted, are rarely objectionable in any way, but the over-spill of the third-class is, on occasion, most objectionable. The dif- ference of civilisation, particularly in language, between a respectable first-class passenger in an English railway train and a disrespectable third-class passenger is, unhappily, nearly as great as that between an Ashantee and a European; and when- tyer the third-class passenger of that kind is drunk, or excited, or in high spirits, the difference is immeasurable. Let any one who thinks we exaggerate just come home from the Crystal
Palace after the fireworks have ended, or stumble by mis- take into an excursion-train, or pass a county town when the local races are on, and decide on the evidence of his own ex- perience. It is when the crowd is at its height, and the third- class carriages are full to repletion, and the " rough," not getting his clear and paid-for rights, is half-enraged, half- gleeful at the prospect of a " row," that the first-class passenger will feel the new system, and feel it in a way which will make him detest railway-travelling ever more. That is to say, in a carriage smaller than half an ordinary dressing-room, already occupied by eight persons, he will have eight more half- drunken and wholly vicious desperadoes thrust upon him, who for the next half-hour will rejoice in every outrage which a not very strict law will permit them to inflict. It is safety from this kind of thing which the first-class passenger buys, and we do not see why, because the ordinary third-class passenger is an inoffensive individual, he is not to have it. Why is it more objectionable for him to buy seclusion on a railway than to surround his garden with a wall ? The necessity of two classes being granted—and nobody as yet disputes the necessity —why should not each class be perinitted to buy precisely what it wants The just dislike to the new system will be very great, and it is difficult to see how, without Three Classes, the fair claims of the First-class passengers are to be satisfied at all. The Direc- tors may, of course, add on more police, maintain a stricter order, and absolutely refuse passage when their carriages are full, but we all know they will not do this. They may also adopt the American plan, and reserve carriages for ladies and ladies accompanied by gentlemen ; but that, though a great improvement, still meets only a portion of the difficulty. The unprotected black-coat travelling alone has still his share of a right to decency and order. The Pullman cars, should they become numerous, will no doubt meet the difficulty, but their adoption will be merely a return in another form to the division into three classes. The introduction of the Swiss system, under which the cars are patrolled, would ensure order, but would require an immense renewal of rolling-stock, and a nearly complete prohibition of luggage within the carriage, to English notions a serious annoyance. By far the best device, if it were possible, would be the introduction of the "
limited- Mail " system upon a great scale,—that is, the introduction of first-class trains setting off just before the third-class, and travelling a little quicker, but this might greatly increase the risk of working a crowded line. A plan very like this is adopted by the Great Eastern in summer, when " relief expresses " follow each other in rapid succession ; but to work it in safety the Block-system must not only be used, but enforced by the criminal law. We shall come to this in time, we suspect ; but meanwhile, unless the Midland Directors strengthen their police staff, absolutely prohibit the intrusion of one class on another, and introduce carriages for ladies and ladies travelling with escort, they will, we fear, lose, in the reluctance of women and fastidious persons to travel at all, all they will gain by cramming their carriages till the cost of haulage is reduced to a minimum. The " reform " amounts to nothing more than that, and though it is not unjust, there are thousands who will regret the old, careless, wasteful, and demoralising but com- fortable mode of travelling in comparative seculsion.
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