Wealdstone SIR,-Comment on such a terrible thing as the recent
accident ought to be carefully worded. Your front-page commentator slipped into a regrettable phrase when he wrote, " One hundred per cent. safety on the railways may not be attainable but much more than ninety-nine per cent. can and must be achieved."
Actually, much more than ninety-nine per cent. is achieved. The number of railway-passenger journeys completed in safety is more like a million than a hundred for every passenger killed. It is prob- ably several million.
The above does not invalidate the general sense of your comment; but suggests that we do well to echo the appreciation occasionally voiced by some prominent railwayman for the watchful attention to duty of the day-to-day workers on the railways, both on the construc-
tional and on the operating side.—Yours faithfully, E. PEASE. Guisborough.
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