ly urged upon us by carriers, merchants, and
practical men acquainted with the course of traffic, is, that Bristol,
like London, is a great emporium and shipping port, through which a
comparatively small portion of the goods which enter by Railway require
to be forwarded in transit without repacking and assortment. The
facilities for water communication with Bristol also give the public a
better alternative than they would enjoy elsewhere of avoiding the
inconvenience of the change of gauge, and thus afford the best possible
security, that if the interruption be fixed there, the Railway Companies
interested will use every possible effort to reduce the inconvenience to
a _minimum_.

For all these considerations, we can have no hesitation in expressing our
preference, on public grounds, to the alternative that proposes to fix
the break of gauges at Bristol and Oxford, rather than at Birmingham and
Rugby.

Another important advantage offered by the London and Birmingham scheme,
and intimately connected with the question of the gauge, is the
arrangement by which it is proposed to lay down an additional double line
of rails throughout the mineral district, to be devoted entirely to the
accommodation of the mineral traffic.

We have already seen that the production of iron of the district requires
a continued interchange of coals, lime, ironstone, and other raw
materials among the different mines and works, to the extent of about
4,000,000 tons annually.

It is only by obtaining ready access to the Railway by means of short
branches or tramroads from those mines and works, that the benefits
contemplated from the introduction of Railway communication can be fully
realized. But if this is to be the case, and if any considerable portion
of this immense local traffic is to pass by Railway, it is manifest that
the rails so used could not be rendered available without extreme danger
and inconvenience for the general traffic. Even the export trade alone
in coals and iron could not be conducted with convenience upon the same
line of rails as the passenger traffic, and would require a separate line
of rails in order to allow the waggons passing and repassing from the
different works within the district to reach without interruption some
principal station at its extremity, where trains of the proper size could
be formed and dispatched to distant points. This object would be very
imperfectly fulfilled by the plan proposed by the