DANGERS OF THE NORTH-WEST PASSAGE AT HOME.
IT may be only a wonderful coincidence, but the public will not fail to put these facts together. The North-western Railway Company recently engaged a su- pervisor of locomotives reputed (justly or unjustly) to be a " screw" in managing the men and their salaries. The tried engine-drivers of the railway are discontented; they appeal to the directors, obtain no satisfaction, and leave their employment. They declare that their places are filled by men disqualified through want of knowledge, of skill, or of steadiness, and that the lives of the public are endangered; and they appeal to the Government. The Ministers refuse to interfere. The railway directors declare, through their chairman and secretary, that the service of the line is provided for, and that there is no danger. After that declaration, the managers of the railway apply for a contingent of men trained in engineering at Woolwich; and after Ministers have refused to interfere on the appeal of the railway men, twenty men are permitted to leave their employ- ment at Woolwich. After all these transactions—after the as- surances of the directors—happen two alarming accidents on this very railway. By one, the passengers are "shaken "—though, providentially, none were killed—and the line is strewed with the fragments of the carriages. A passenger narrating the dis- aster, says, "I understand that all the drivers and stokers were fresh hands." In the other accident, the engine-driver—himself the sufferer—was one of the Woolwich men.
The malcontent railway-men have been perfectly explicit in their statements ; explaining in detail the nature of their grievance, the nature of their demand, the nature of the change in the service of the railway, and the mode in which the lives of passengers are endangered. The directors, in their counter-statements, have been meagre and inexplicit. They declared that they had provided for the service : they afterwards take a very unusual step to provide for it. They denied danger : there are accidents.
Government refused to interfere : men in official employment are placed at the command of the directors who are carrying on that dispute with the men that led to all these transactions.
It is said that Government cannot interfere to control the com- pany. Even if there is fatal danger, then, there can be no pro- tection? The travelling public must take its chance of being smashed. But to a powerful Government "cannot" is a word of nonsense. There is a point at which Government must inter- fere, in some way; and it would be a satisfaction to know how many of Queen Victoria's subjects must be smashed before that conviction will be carried home to the official mind.
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