The Globe. FRIDAY, MARCH 19, 1875.

Globe, Volume III, Issue 242, 19 March 1875, Page 2

The Globe. FRIDAY, MARCH 19, 1875.

The Chamber of Commerce held their usual monthly general meeting yesterday afternoon. Mr Maepherson brought before the Chamber a want which is generally felt, and which will, we hope, soon be satisfied. Mr Macpherson’s request for a later train between the Port and Christchurch is a fair and reasonable one, and the present bad management of the railways should not prevent the boon being granted. Many of the members of the Chamber, however, were against Mr Maepherson, and the grounds of their objections were of course those of expense, and the fact that the running of the desired train would entail the keeping the men employed on the line for some considerable time longer at their work. The objections thus raised are just as fair as the proposition, and it remains with Mr Maepherson to show that the required train would pay the expenses, or at all events that there should be no more loss attached to its running than there is to that of any other train. It is, we believe, possible for persons urgently requiring to proceed from Christchurch to Lyttelton or vice versa, to procure a special train on payment of the sum of £5. It would therefore appear that this sum should cover the expenses of an extra train between the two places interested, as in spite of Mr MurrayAynsley’s assertion that this sum does not pay, we cannot believe that the Government have been in the habit of running special trains at a loss, whatever they may have done with regard to ordinary trains. It would of course be possible, on the supposition that £5 covers the expenses for a train which is only run occasionally, to run a train more frequently at a reduction of price, and the necessary amount that the Government would require to be, as it were guaranteed to them, would surely not be at the rate of £5 'per diem for the whole year through. With regard to Mr Murray-Aynsley’s tender care of the interests of the hotel-keepers in Port Lyttelton, we confess to a feeling of astonishment, that he should have attempted to set up the interests of a few people, who have the reputation of being perfectly well able to take care of themselves, as against the convenience of the general inhabitants of the province, and also against that of travellers. The case, surely, cuts both ways, and the hotelkeepers in Christchurch have as much right to complain as their brother bonifaces in Port. The proposed train would be a convenience to both the residents in Lyttelton and Christchurch, and would also allow of letters being posted in Christchurch to a later hour than is at present the case. The late train asked for must be conceded sooner or later, and we can see no reason why, if Mr Maepherson chooses to agitate the matter amongst those interested, he should not in a very short time be able to collect a number of good and sufficient reasons for the required boon being granted at once, or at least as shortly after the management of the Canterbury railways has been brought into something like order as possible. Let us hope that date is not far 4i|taat s