Sir Edward Watkin has been in a high state of
indignation at the rough criticism that he has received from the Press. His proposal to abolish the workmen's trains on the South-Eastern Railway is justified, he contends, by expediency and economical considerations, and he has been denotmeed as if he had proposed some outrageous act of oppression. Some time ago, the Company thought it well to solicit the patronage of the working-men of London, and as Woolwich, Charlton, Blackheath, Plumstead, and other suburbs have plenty of small houses to let at a cheap rate, when the South-Eastern line offered to carry third-class passengers into London by six o'clock in the morning, and to take them back to their suburban homes any time after four o'clock in the afternoon for a fivepenny fare, the boon was eagerly grasped at. The Company cannot complain that their trains have been unprofitable ; they have, in fact, been more than filled, and two have lately been run every day, instead of the one promised, to meet the increasing traffic. But Sir E. Watkin alleges that the contrast to carry the workmen at the rate fixed is not a paying one for the Company. What then ? Has the Company a right to induce numbers of working-men to leave London and settle in Woolwich OT the neighbourhood, with the full belief that they would be carried in and out of the town, to and from their work, for a moderate sum, and then to withdraw the privileges which tempted so many bard-working people to change their dwelling-places, and to Undertake new responsibilities ? The fact is that the Companies, not very long ago, were alarmed by the general outcry at their reckless demolition of working-men's houses under the compulsory powers of their private'Acts, and offered them wdrkmen's trains' as in some measure equivalent. Now, when they want to coerce the Government into giving up the passenger duty, they threaten to withdraw from their bar- gain. The question is whether it is fair that they should do so, without any consideration for the people whom they have attracted to the North-Kent suburbs, and who have rented houses there, on the faith of What everyone believed to be a permanent contract.
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