OBSTINACY IN THE " ACCIDENT " SYSTEM.
MORE accidents of a very shocking character have stimulated pub- lic attention to Railway affairs. In these brief periods of horror, the public mind is temporarily open to distinct ideas and con- victions on the subject ; but one fact tends to dishearten every ef- fort at obtaining improvement : however much the causes of rail- way accidents may have been reduced to demonstration—however convinced the public may be, and indignant at the neglect of proper improvements—scarcely any essential improvement is made In bringing about better arrangements. We think that we have discovered the reason. The causes of railway accidents are analyzed ; the public thoroughly understands them ; everybody is agreed that such and such are the causes; and the managers of railways, without directly combating these representations, fall back upon a species of controversy in mental reservation. They stick to two old excuses,—that railway travelling, as compared with other kinds of travelling, is proved by statistics to be peculiarly safe ; and that the causes of railway accidents, traceable re- spectively to the two parent causes defective condition of the per- manent way and under-manning, are ascribable to the interference of
• Government, which forced down prices by the Parliamentary train, conveyance of soldiers, &c., and thus obliged railway companies to make dividends at the expense of wages. Now, both these representations, as used, are false. It is an untrue excuse to plead that railways are safe as com- pared with common roads. It would be quite as just to represent that an English gentleman, who killed people through negligence or violence, did not commit so many murders as a New Zealander or a Sioux Indian. The old method of travelling by coach was furnished by many bands, separated from each other. The coach- builder, the driver, the guard, all had comparatively slight rela- tions with each other. The coachman was an ignorant man ; the very packing of the luggage was a thing of chance. The maker • of the roads had nothing to do with any of the persons al- -ready named. There had been many improvements, and accidents grew rarer ; and they were still properly called accidents, for the term is rightly applied to events of which the causes cannot be traced beforehand.
On the railway, all is different. The supply of the road, of the carriages, the arrangements of the servants, from one end to the other, and the system of packing, are all brought under one direc- tion. The direction possesses the means to employ the most scien- tific persons in fitting one part to another ; and it boasts amongst its own members many of the most enlightened men in the country. The causes of railway accidents have been enumerated too often for repetition ; every reader of every journal knows them as dis- tinctly as he knows the chief capitals of Europe, and can name them as readily. But events of which the causes are known are not "accidents." They are events which can be calculated be- forehand ; and as they can be prevented, however few they may be, they are crimes permitted to happen through negligence or bad feeling. If an English gentleman were to plead that life is inse- cure in Affghanistan or Central Africa, but that, in the course of so many years, he had indulged in only three murders, the answer would be, "But you must commit none; and if you do enjoy but one, you shall be hanged or transported for it." The plea that Government has brought about these homicides, by forcing down fares, is also an untruth. It is true that Go- vernment did at once beat down prices and stimulate a growth of traffic beyond the natural development of the railway system, too fast for it, and therefore productive of accidents. That plea was an excuse so long as the cause of accidents remained in obscurity ; but as soon as it was known that accidents are produced by speci- fic causes, the knowledge that Government originally brought about these causes became no justification of the persons who per-
severed in a line of conduct that ends in homicide. It might be a good plea for compensation, or for aid in repairing the overstrain- ing which the railway system has undergone, and so rendering it fit for the overgrown traffic that has been prematurely: forced upon it. But when a conscientious man finds that any implement of his has been damaged, by whomsoever, so that it endangers the life of his fellow creatures, he discontinues the use of it, or he be- comes chargeable with homicide.
But it is not necessary to continue that system of working which is so hazardous. It is not the amount of business, we fully be- lieve, done in the aggregate upon the whole railways of the country, that occasions these disasters; but it is the neglect of very obvious rules. It is a branch of the extenuating plea, that the low scale of the exchequer obliges railway managers to give low wages, and thus to use a low class of labour; and that a low class of labour, being unintelligent, tends to irregularity and accident. Now the tendency is true but the necessary result is false. Sailors and common sol- diers belong to a very, low class of intellect, speaking generally ; yet explosions of powder-magazines are almost unknown. In gun. practice, a disaster of the kind is nearly impossible ; but why ? Because adequate precautions are provided : the blanket path—the list shoes—the locking and relocking of the case—the closing of it until the word be given that the last supply has passed —these are the reasons why an accident is nearly impos- sible with a class of intellect certainly not elevated above that of the railway servant. But in the Army or Navy they preserve a practice which has not yet been instituted on the railway. In the Army or Navy, it is not the disastrous result that constitutes the offence, but the breach of orders tending to that disastrous result. If an officer disobeys orders and gets either ship or men into positions where they should not be, he is called before a court-martial, and is punishable whether or not death or loss ensue. That is the first rule that railway managers must adopt if they want to absolve themselves from responsibility for homicide. The next is, distinctly to ascertain what their railway, their stock, and their force of hands, can accomplish with regularity, and then to attempt no more. We believe that they would not sacrifice much. But at all events, whatever profit they derive from that part of their traffic which is precarious in its right accomplishment is the price of blood, and no plea that Government made them do it by some unfair treatment five or ten years ago can be their ab- solution.
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