Every newspaper reader must have remarked the frequent accidents which occur through passengers (whilst entering or leaving railway carriages) falling between the steps and the platform. This being so, it is satisfactory to remark that the Royal Commissioners have resolved to recommend that the adoption by railway companies of continuous foot-boards of sufficient width should be made compulsory wherever, in the opinion of the officials of the Board of Trade, 'the circumstances of the traffic are such as to render them necessary for the safety of passengers.'
As regards the important subject of the compensation which the railway companies are at present obliged to make whenever a passenger is--through no fault of his own--killed or injured whilst travelling upon their lines, the Royal Commissioners have not thought it necessary to make any special recommendations. They appear indeed to think that the principle of self-interest will be sufficient to make the companies introduce all reasonable improvements and take all possible means to secure the safety of their passengers. Mr Galt, however, one of the Royal Commissioners, dissents from this view of his colleagues, and we think with reason. He asks in connection with this subject the following very pertinent question: 'Does the sum paid in compensation by the companies exceed the expenditure that would necessarily be incurred for the avoidance of preventable accidents?' This question Mr Galt proceeds to regard from two points of view. First, the effect of accidents on the market value of railway shares; and second, the cost which the companies would have to incur in order to introduce various well-known means for the prevention of accidents, which have often been pressed upon their attention by Captain Tyler and other officials of the Board of Trade. The effect of an accident upon the market value of railway shares, even when it is one of exceptional severity, Mr Galt shews is only temporarily and never permanently to lower the value of the shares in the particular railway company upon whose system it occurred. The first cost, moreover, of introducing improvements upon their lines, Mr Galt points out, is felt very severely by railway companies; whereas the compensation which they pay for personal injuries does not at present amount to one per cent. of their total expenditure. Mr Galt indeed asserts that the saving which the companies would effect by the use of every available means for the prevention of accidents would 'scarcely amount to a shilling in the hundred pounds.' Hence he arrives at the very disagreeable conclusion, that so far as the _pecuniary_ principle--apart from all higher considerations--is concerned, the railway companies' interests and those of the general public are diametrically opposed to each other!