RATES 
 
 EDWIN PRATT 
 
LIBRARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 Class 
 
 _ 
 
RAILWAYS AND THEIR RATES 
 
RAILWAYS 
 AND THEIR RATES 
 
 WITH AN APPENDIX ON 
 
 THE BRITISH CANAL PROBLEM 
 BY EDWIN A. PRATT 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 'THE ORGANIZATION OF AGRICULTURE,' 'AMERICAN RAILWAYS,' 
 'TRADE UNIONISM AND BRITISH INDUSTRY, ETC. 
 
 <- 
 
 UNIVER 
 
 LONDON 
 JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET 
 
 1905 
 
n 
 
 p* 
 
PREFACE 
 
 THE following pages represent an attempt to set before 
 traders and general readers the actual position of British 
 railways with regard to (i) the complaints advanced 
 from time to time on the subject of rates and charges, 
 and (2) the origin, operation, and circumstances of our 
 own railways as compared with those of railways abroad, 
 and especially on the Continent of Europe. 
 
 Much has been heard from the traders themselves, 
 and from their sympathizers in the press, on the 
 subject of their grievances against the railways, but 
 comparatively little has been said with a view to 
 showing that there may be another side to the story. 
 That other side I here seek to present, and those who 
 would pass a fair judgment on the whole matter 
 should, I beg to suggest, duly consider the case for the 
 defence (if I may venture to offer my statement from 
 that point of view), as well as the case so often and so 
 energetically advanced on behalf of the complainants. 
 
 To this end I have presented many more facts than 
 arguments, hoping thereby that those to whom my 
 book is specially addressed will thus be placed in a 
 position to form definite, intelligent, and unprejudiced 
 
vi PREFACE 
 
 conclusions of their own, without necessarily unless 
 I should persuade them thereto adopting those which 
 I have set forth on my own account. They will learn 
 from my various chapters far more than probably most 
 of them have had the opportunity of learning before 
 as to the origin, legislative control, and financial posi- 
 tion of British railways ; the anomalous circumstances 
 that necessarily influence their rates and charges ; and 
 the conditions under which the general goods and 
 mineral traffic, and also the traffic in certain specified 
 commodities, are conducted. They will further learn 
 what are the leading conditions of foreign railway 
 traffic, and they will find comprehensive sketches of 
 various Continental railway systems, and the operation 
 thereof, affording much information not otherwise 
 available, but absolutely essential to a really fair com- 
 parison with British conditions. 
 
 These short histories can hardly fail also, I think, to 
 interest readers who may personally have no particular 
 concern in the main questions at issue. The story, for 
 example, related under ' The Railways of Holland,' 
 of how the energetic Englishmen who took charge of 
 the Dutch- Rhenish lines surmounted the grievous 
 problem of a deficiency in traffic by converting their 
 stationmasters and other officials into coal merchants, 
 and changed into a highly prosperous railway system 
 one that had previously been almost ruined by water 
 competition, is not only diverting in itself, but one of 
 the curiosities of economic history. 
 
 I would add that portions of the matter contained 
 in Chapters I., VII., VIII., XL, XII., and XIII., are 
 
PREFACE vii 
 
 reproduced from a series of six articles on * Railways 
 and their Rates ' which I contributed to The Times in 
 September, 1904, and that Chapter IV. comprises 
 the references to railways in a series of articles on 
 ' Local Taxes and British Traders,' published in the 
 ' Financial and Commercial Supplement ' of The Times 
 in October and November, 1904. 
 
 EDWIN A PRATT. 
 
 LONDON, 
 April, 1905. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. INTRODUCTORY I 
 
 II. RAILWAY RATES LEGISLATION - 12 
 
 III. RAILWAY FINANCE - - 29 
 
 IV. TAXATION OF RAILWAYS 46 
 V. CLASSIFICATION AND LEADING PRINCIPLES - - 60 
 
 VI. EQUAL MILEAGE RATES - 66 
 
 VII. PREFERENTIAL AND DIFFERENTIAL RATES - - 73 
 
 VIII. GENERAL BRITISH CONDITIONS 90 
 
 IX. THE SOUTHAMPTON CASE - - - III 
 
 X. SUNDRY SERVICES - - 117 
 
 XI. THE CARRIAGE OF DEAD MEAT - 134 
 
 XII. THE FISH TRAFFIC - - 154 
 
 XIII. FRUIT AND VEGETABLES - 167 
 
 XIV. GENERAL CONTINENTAL CONDITIONS - 185 
 XV. THE RAILWAYS OF FRANCE - 205 
 
 XVI. THE RAILWAYS OF GERMANY - - 241 
 
 XVII. THE RAILWAYS OF HOLLAND - - 267 
 
 XVIII. THE RAILWAYS OF BELGIUM - - 286 
 
 XIX. THE RAILWAYS OF DENMARK - 304 
 
 XX. CONCLUSION - - 312 
 
 APPENDIX : THE BRITISH CANAL PROBLEM - - 327 
 
 INDEX - - 359 
 
 Photographs to Illustrate Southampton Case 
 ix 
 
RAILWAYS AND THEIR RATES 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 INTRODUCTORY 
 
 So important is the part played by British railways in 
 the carrying on of our national commerce and industries 
 that the question whether there is really any good founda- 
 tion for the complaints which are made from time to time 
 that the railway companies are more or less strangling 
 that commerce and those industries by the imposition 
 of excessive and unreasonable rates is one to which 
 public attention may well 'be directed. 
 
 The position in regard to railway rates is one of such 
 great complexity, and one that is, almost necessarily, so 
 full of anomalies, that to bring home a full comprehen- 
 sion of the subject to the mind of the average trader is 
 an undertaking of very considerable difficulty. Few 
 persons beyond those directly connected with railway 
 operation can realize, for instance, all that has been 
 involved in the adaptation of railway rates to the 
 varying conditions of a vast number of trades and 
 interests in regard to a large number of cities, towns, 
 and villages. Thus I find that in 1846 the list of rates 
 and charges, in respect to merchandise, in force on the 
 London and North- Western Railway, for example, 
 comprised only fifty-seven articles. In 1852 it still 
 occupied only two pages of a pamphlet- sized book. 
 
 I 
 
2 INTRODUCTORY 
 
 Twenty years later it had grown to thirty or forty pages. 
 To-day the * General Railway Classification of Goods 
 by Merchandise Trains,' applying to all railways, is a 
 volume of close on 300 pages, containing almost every 
 conceivable article that any trader or private individual 
 is likely to send by rail. When, again, it is considered 
 that every station on a great railway system must have 
 its separate rate-book, giving the rates and charges in 
 respect to the transport of almost every article on the 
 list to every station on the system, and also to all the 
 points on other companies' lines to which through 
 traffic may be sent, whether at home or abroad, it is 
 obvious that the number of rates in force on even 
 a single great railway system may be almost illimitable. 
 Authorities on the subject content themselves with 
 telling one vaguely that the number in operation on 
 their own particular system may be ' anything from 
 20,000,000 to 40,000,000.' They consider that life is 
 too short, and the demands on a railway man's time 
 too numerous, to allow of a more exact calculation. 
 
 Then the conditions under which our railways 
 successors to the carriers by road or water came into 
 being ; the heavy expenses incurred in their construc- 
 tion ; the effect of Government control in depriving 
 them more or less of power of elasticity in the matter 
 of rates and charges, and, by various exactions and 
 requirements, swelling the proportions of their capital 
 outlay and working expenses ; the burden of local taxa- 
 tion, with its inevitable reflex action on railway charges 
 in general; the dependence of the British Isles on 
 imports of foreign food-supplies ; and, finally, the fact 
 that owing to our geographical position the question of 
 sea competition, or of complications resulting from 
 ocean or river traffic, is ever coming to the front, are 
 merely some of the problems and considerations that 
 
THE RAILWAY POSITION 3 
 
 arise when once the subject of railway rates is entered 
 upon with any degree of fulness. 
 
 In all these circumstances it is not surprising that 
 there should be, from time to time, a parade of anomalies 
 and grievances. Not even the most earnest defender 
 of our railways would affirm that their rates are always 
 logical in their application. It is possible that if the 
 railways themselves keeping, as it were, from one 
 generation to another their finger on the pulse of British 
 trade, and, with their widespread organization of officials, 
 knowing instantly when anything has occurred to its 
 prejudice had had a somewhat freer hand in conducting 
 their relations with the traders on strictly commercial 
 lines, the general situation would have been better all 
 round than is the case under the unduly rigid conditions 
 by which they find themselves bound to-day. Certain 
 it is that the railways have far more to hope from 
 encouraging British trade and industry than from 
 strangling it; and certain. also it is, judging from the 
 very modest return which the average railway share- 
 holder gets on his investments, that if of late years 
 British trade and industry have not prospered as they 
 should, it is not because of any excessive increase in 
 railway dividends. 
 
 As regards general complaints, attention might first 
 be directed to the argument which is constantly being 
 used that British railway rates are unreasonable because 
 it costs less to send commodities long distances by sea 
 than it does to send them comparatively short distances 
 by land. The editor of a South Wales newspaper, for 
 instance, evidently thought he had said the last word 
 on the subject when, as a footnote to a letter from a 
 correspondent, he wrote : 
 
 ' As to the pressure of railway rates in this country, 
 it is enough to say that coal for the Egyptian railways 
 
 I 2 
 
4 INTRODUCTORY 
 
 is carried from Cardiff to Port Said (3,000 miles) at less 
 cost than it is taken to London or Southampton.' 
 
 I will assume for the sake of argument that the facts of 
 the case are precisely as here stated that is, that a 
 cargo of coal can be sent by sea from Cardiff to Port 
 Said, a distance of 3,000 miles, at less cost than the 
 same quantity of coal can be taken by rail from Cardiff 
 to London, a distance of 170 miles. Is there any line 
 of argument by which this apparent anomaly could be 
 accounted for ? 
 
 Let us take, first of all, the cost that will be incurred 
 in conveying the coal from Cardiff to Port Said. Here, 
 of course, the first essential is to have a tramp steamer 
 in which to carry the coal. The capital invested in a 
 tramp steamer is inconsiderable, and when the steamer 
 has once been built, it can be taken to any port where 
 there is business to be got. At Cardiff it simply pays 
 certain dues for the temporary use of docks in which 
 the owner of the vessel or the person who charters it 
 may not himself have invested a single penny. There 
 will also be the cost of loading at Cardiff to be defrayed, 
 just as there will be the cost of unloading when the 
 vessel reaches Port Said. The intermediate expenses 
 will be value of coal burned, wages of master and 
 crew, insurance, and so on, with another set of dock 
 dues at the end of the journey. The voyage across the 
 sea costs nothing for right of way, and the difference 
 between a journey of 1,000, 2,000, or 3,000 miles will 
 be little more than a matter of coal consumption and 
 wages. And now let us consider the cost that must be 
 incurred before the same quantity of coal can be con- 
 veyed by railway from Cardiff to London, because the 
 whole question, if judged from a business standpoint, 
 must turn on capital outlay and working expenses. 
 
 In the former case we saw that the capital outlay was 
 
LAND v. SEA TRANSPORT 5 
 
 represented by one tramp steamer. In the case of the 
 railway company, the corresponding item will be a 
 locomotive and trucks. But while the tramp steamer 
 can use the docks of an independent company at Cardiff, 
 and only pay so much for the privilege, the railway 
 company must have a station of its own at the port. 
 Still more, while the owner of the tramp steamer pays 
 nothing for crossing the sea, the railway company must 
 have bought up the whole of the land over which the 
 coal train will run between Cardiff and London ; and, 
 in the neighbourhood of London especially, the cost of 
 that land will have been enormous. Along the line of 
 route thus secured the company must next have laid 
 metals for the trains to run on, and also have con- 
 structed bridges, viaducts, and tunnels ; and it must 
 not only maintain the line in good condition, but pro- 
 vide elaborate signalling arrangements throughout, all 
 these things involving the expenditure of a great sum 
 of money and the employment of a large staff of men. 
 The ship that crosses the ocean has no such expenses 
 to consider when it fixes the amount it proposes to 
 charge, and neither is it subject to anything like the 
 same degree of costly Government control and regula- 
 tion. Then in the district of each local authority 
 through which the railway will pass between Cardiff 
 and London the company must pay rates and taxes in 
 respect to every building it owns and every mile of line 
 it operates. It must help to keep the poor ; it must 
 aid in providing the local residents with sewers, etc. ; 
 it may have to pay towards the provision of baths, 
 parks, libraries, and possibly Sunday bands as well ; 
 and it may also be called on to contribute towards 
 making good the loss sustained on a variety of municipal 
 undertakings in the way of electric lighting and other 
 enterprises, including, possibly, electric tramways com- 
 
6 INTRODUCTORY 
 
 peting with its own system. Once again, the tramp 
 steamer receives no demand notes on account of such 
 things as these anywhere between Cardiff and Port 
 Said ; and while, as I have said, l,ooo miles more 
 or less in the voyage of a cargo steamer will be a question 
 mainly of coal consumption and wages of crew, every 
 additional mile added to a railway means a propor- 
 tionate increase in capital outlay and expenses. Again, 
 unlike the steamer, which can go to any port it pleases, 
 the railway, once made, is a fixture, whether the traffic 
 is remunerative or not. To begin with, therefore, it is 
 obviously unfair to allege against railways that they are 
 crippling trade merely because, in the nature of things, 
 they are bound to charge more for land transport than 
 would be charged for sea transport. 
 
 Passing on to another stock complaint against British 
 railway companies, we have the accusation that (apart 
 altogether from any difference between sea transport 
 and land transport) railway rates on this side of the 
 Atlantic are substantially higher than they are on the 
 other side. We have been told that the average rate 
 per ton per mile in the United States is, 'in round 
 figures, something like one halfpenny '; and the Presi- 
 dent of the Iron and Steel Institute told the members 
 of that body a few years ago that traffic was being 
 carried over some of the American railways at 'one- 
 sixth of a penny per ton per mile for long distances.' 
 
 If we accept the figures as here presented, there are, 
 nevertheless, several important factors which must not 
 be left out of consideration. In the first place, one 
 must remember that the greater proportion of the 
 American railways have cost very much less to con- 
 struct than our British railways have. Except in the 
 immediate neighbourhood of great cities, the land has 
 cost less in many instances it has cost nothing at all, 
 
THE COMPARISON WITH AMERICA 7 
 
 and extensive areas on each side of the line have been 
 thrown in ; the cost of laying the lines has been less, 
 and there has been a considerably smaller expenditure 
 on stations, bridges, tunnels, signalling, and working 
 staff. The American railways ought, therefore, to be 
 well able to carry traffic at a lower relative cost than 
 those of our own country. Then the character of the 
 traffic carried in the United States can hardly be com- 
 pared with that of our own. On the other side of the 
 Atlantic the freight goes mostly in huge quantities for 
 great distances. On this side it takes the form mainly 
 of small consignments carried for short distances. In 
 America complete train-loads of fruit, grain, or other 
 merchandise will travel any distance up to 1,000, 2,000, 
 or even 3,000 miles. A haul of from 800 to 1,000 miles 
 is thought no more of there than a haul of 100 miles 
 would be here. 
 
 It is the combination of this volume of goods traffic 
 with the length of haul that allows of such figures being 
 worked out as those stated above. The terminal charges 
 remain the same whether a consignment be sent a short 
 or a long distance ; but when one applies to an American 
 haul of 1,000 or 2,000 miles the principle, already 
 followed on this side, of reducing the rate per mile 
 according to the distance carried, the charge per ton 
 per mile may eventually assume very small dimensions. 
 When once the freight has been loaded up and started 
 on a long journey, the cost in respect to each additional 
 100 miles, after a certain number have been covered, 
 becomes almost nominal, though the greater distance 
 will considerably diminish the figures when one comes 
 to calculate the cost per ton per mile. Even allowing 
 for the large amount of short -journey business done in 
 the New England States, and in the suburbs of American 
 large cities generally, the average distance over which 
 
8 INTRODUCTORY 
 
 freight is carried in America works out at close on 
 125 miles, while the average haul in this country is not 
 more than about 30 miles, and on many British lines it 
 is considerably less. There is the still further con- 
 sideration that the English rates will generally include 
 the cost of collection and delivery. The American rates 
 do not. Spread over a short haul, the extra charge 
 made by an English railway company on account of 
 this collection and delivery will make an enormous 
 difference to the mileage rate. 
 
 Here, therefore, we get some fundamental considera- 
 tions which show that there is no fair basis of com- 
 parison between the average cost per ton per mile in 
 Great Britain and in the United States if no allowance 
 be made for differences in length of haul and in bulk of 
 consignments. A fairer test is to compare corresponding 
 rates for corresponding distances, so far as these are 
 within geographical possibilities on our own side. Such 
 a comparison has, in fact, been drawn up on an ex- 
 haustive scale by the officials of the Caledonian Railway 
 Company] the tables compiled by them (in order to 
 contrast 'Caledonian rates with those in operation on 
 certain leading American lines) occupying no fewer 
 than forty pages of printed foolscap. Without attempt- 
 ing to reproduce any of the elaborate tables of statistics, 
 I may say that the results of the comparison thus made 
 are especially instructive. ( Speaking generally, they 
 show that for short distances the American rates are 
 higher than those of the Caledonian Railway, while for 
 long distances they are lower. The rates for groceries, 
 draperies, and tea from Jersey City and Philadelphia, 
 for distances of from 10 to 160 miles, and from New 
 York for distances of from 10 to 50 miles, are higher 
 than the rates charged by the Caledonian Railway 
 Company for the same distances ; while for more than 
 
AMERICAN PARCELS RATES 9 
 
 50 or 160 miles the Caledonian rates are higher than 
 the American. For cotton goods, wines and spirits, 
 hardware, sugar, jellies in cases, etc., the dividing-line 
 between the rates of the two countries is at 50 miles, 
 and for grain, timber, iron and steel, and cement, the 
 dividing-line occurs at 40 miles. Under those distances 
 the Caledonian rates are lower than the American ; 
 above them they are higher. \ 
 
 Thus far I have dealt with comparisons between 
 British railways and American railways. But there 
 arises the important consideration that a good deal of 
 the ' small parcels business ' done by the railways on 
 this side of the Atlantic is left on the other side to the 
 ' express ' companies ; so that the British trader may 
 further want to know whether or not, when he sends 
 small consignments by rail, he is paying more for them 
 than the American trader pays to his express companies 
 for the transport of parcels of equal weight for equal 
 distances. Let us, therefore, see how these two sets 
 of charges compare the one with the other. 
 
 Taking, for the purposes of illustration, the parcel 
 rates of the Great Western Railway Company, I find 
 that a comparison with the rates of the American 
 Express Company in respect to parcels up to a weight 
 of 25 pounds carried distances up to 200 miles works 
 out as shown in the table on p. iq. \ 
 
 From this table it will be seen that, so far as regards 
 small parcels, the British trader who sends by rail has 
 a distinct advantage over the American trader who 
 consigns by an express company, though the charges 
 become equal when we get to a parcel weighing 
 25 pounds and going a distance of 200 miles. If 
 the comparison were followed up still further, to show 
 the respective charges for larger parcels carried greater 
 distances, the results in regard to these will favour 
 
10 
 
 INTRODUCTORY 
 
 
 Great Western Railway Company. 1 
 
 American Express Company. 
 
 Weight 
 of 
 
 Miles. 
 
 Miles. 
 
 Parcel. 
 
 
 
 10. 
 
 20. 
 
 30. 
 
 50. 100. 
 
 200. 
 
 IO. 
 
 20. 30. 
 
 50- 
 
 100. 
 
 200. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 lb. 
 
 s. d. 
 
 S. d. 
 
 s. d. 
 
 s. d. 
 
 s. d. s. d. 
 
 d. 
 
 s. d. 
 
 s. d. s. d. 
 
 s. d. |s. d. 
 
 2 
 
 5 
 
 o 4 
 o 6 
 
 o 4 
 o 6 
 
 o 4 
 o 6 
 
 o 4 
 o 6 
 
 o 4 
 o 7 
 
 o 4; oi 
 
 070! 
 
 lot 
 
 oil oi 
 
 of i of 
 
 lot 
 
 i e* 
 
 i 54 
 
 IO 
 
 o 6 
 
 o 6 
 
 o 6 
 
 o 8 
 
 I 
 
 I O 
 
 * 
 
 1 3 
 
 3 
 
 i 3 
 
 i 3 
 
 i 8 
 
 IS 
 
 o 6 
 
 o 6 
 
 o 6 
 
 o 9 
 
 I 2 
 
 i 7 
 
 of 
 
 i 3 
 
 3 
 
 i 3 
 
 i 3 
 
 i 8 
 
 20 
 
 o 6 
 
 o 6 
 
 o 6 
 
 II 
 
 i 4 
 
 1 10 
 
 o| 
 
 1 3 
 
 3 i 3 
 
 i 3 
 
 i loi 
 
 25 o 7 
 
 o 7 
 
 o 7 
 
 i i 
 
 i 7 
 
 2 I 
 
 4 
 
 i 5i Si* 5* 
 
 i 5^2 i 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 the express company. The position in the United 
 States is this : The ordinary railway companies there 
 do not care to handle the small parcels business at all 
 (not wanting to be 'bothered ' with it, as an American 
 railway official once put it to me), and they leave it 
 entirely to the express companies. These, in the ab- 
 sence of a parcels post, work the business for all it 
 is worth, and charge just as much for carrying small 
 parcels as they think the American public will stand. 
 Hence it is that the American trader will have to pay 
 is. ojd. to his express company for the same service as 
 the English trader gets for 4d. But as soon as the 
 American express companies begin to handle big 
 parcels, and carry them considerable distances, their 
 monopoly is at an end, for they come into competition 
 with the railways, and from that point their charges 
 show a substantial decrease in proportion. 
 
 With the help of these very practical comparisons, 
 we gain some actual facts with which the British trader 
 has much more concern than he has with calculations 
 as to cost per ton per mile founded mainly on hauls of 
 prodigious length beyond the possibilities of his own 
 railways ; and what we learn, in effect, is this that, 
 
WHAT A FAIR COMPARISON SHOWS n 
 
 taking the average distance for which consignments on 
 British railways are actually sent, and comparing the 
 charges made on this side in respect thereto with the 
 corresponding charges in the United States, not only 
 does the British trader pay no more than the American, 
 but he even pays less. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 RAILWAY RATES LEGISLATION 
 
 No clear understanding of present-day conditions can 
 be gained in respect to the complicated question of 
 British railway rates without some degree of know- 
 ledge respecting the events that have led up to them ; 
 and although it may be a bold undertaking to attempt 
 to give the past history of railway rates legislation in a 
 single chapter, a brief outline of the leading points may 
 be offered in the interests of the general reader. Such 
 outline should have the greater value, from the present 
 point of view, because it will help the said general 
 reader to realize the extent to which the difficulties and 
 complications that have arisen may be due, directly or 
 indirectly, to the action of Parliament itself in tying 
 the hands of the railway companies as the result of its 
 endeavours, not merely to define general principles for 
 the conduct of railways, but to regulate the commercial 
 relations between them and the traders down to almost 
 the smallest details. 
 
 In the initial stage of their history, before even the 
 introduction of the locomotive, it was assumed that 
 railroads would act as feeders to the canals, and that 
 railway companies would merely own the track they 
 provided, charging certain tolls to carriers and others 
 who would send their own horses and vehicles along 
 the new roads, paying for the use thereof in the same 
 
 12 
 
ORIGIN OF RATES AND CHARGES 13 
 
 way that the patrons of canals paid for the use of the 
 waterways. In 1823 authority was given to a railway 
 company to further supply haulage power by means 
 of steam-engines, and to charge ' locomotive toll ' in 
 addition to the road toll. Fifteen years later it was 
 still assumed that ' engines belonging to different 
 parties, coach proprietors and others,' would run on 
 the railways, in competition with those of the railway 
 companies ; but the arrangement was one that presented 
 obvious difficulties, and in course of time it was allowed 
 to fall into desuetude. 
 
 Meanwhile, a step further had been taken. Having 
 now supplied not only track, but also motive power, 
 why should not the railway companies themselves 
 become carriers alike of passengers, merchandise, and 
 live stock, instead of leaving this branch of the busi- 
 ness to independent parties ? Accordingly, in Acts of 
 Parliament passed between 1833 and 1840 railway 
 companies were authorized, ' if they shall think proper,' 
 not only to provide engines for use by other persons, 
 but also to employ such engines themselves, 'and in 
 carriages or waggons drawn or propelled thereby to 
 convey upon the said railway all such passengers, 
 cattle and other animals, goods, wares and merchan- 
 dise, articles, matters, and other things, as shall be 
 offered to them for that purpose.' In addition, there- 
 fore, to the original road toll and the subsequent loco- 
 motive toll, the companies were now authorized to 
 charge for the services they rendered as carriers, 
 though at first the scale of charges falling under this 
 third denomination was not specified, the only stipula- 
 tion being that such charges should be reasonable. 
 
 As the carrying business drifted more and more into 
 the hands of the railway companies which by this 
 time had a monopoly of the supply of locomotive 
 
14 RAILWAY RATES LEGISLATION 
 
 power on their own lines it was laid down that where 
 the companies performed all three services they should 
 charge a single inclusive toll, which would be less than 
 the aggregate of the three separate tolls. This became 
 the practice from about 1845, and the ' carrying ' work 
 done by the railways, as the outcome of the direct 
 relations they opened up with the public, steadily in- 
 creased, although the large firms which themselves 
 collected from the public, and consigned by rail in 
 bulk, still handled most of the business in general 
 goods, and even remained, for some years, the recog- 
 nised agents of certain of the lines, which left this 
 branch exclusively in their hands. One sees, therefore, 
 that the transition of railway companies into ' common 
 carriers ' was a gradual one, and it is interesting to 
 recall the fact that the first ordinary railway company 
 that carried a waggon of coal on its lines was so afraid 
 of the possible disapproval of the passengers that it 
 carefully covered the coal over with a tarpaulin. 
 
 With the Railway Regulation Acts, 1840-1842, began 
 the general powers of supervision over railways exercised 
 by the Board of Trade ; but for another ten years or so 
 the railways were, with few exceptions, left to arrange 
 the details of their business with their patrons, the 
 efforts of the Legislature being directed mainly to seeing 
 that the powers conferred on the companies were not 
 abused. It was during this period namely, in 1847 
 that the railway companies established the Railway 
 Clearing-House as a means of regulating the expenses 
 of interchange of through traffic and adjusting accounts. 
 
 In 1852 the number and magnitude of proposed 
 amalgamations between railway companies led to the 
 appointment of a Parliamentary Committee, on whose 
 report, presented in 1853, the Railway and Canal 
 Traffic Act of 1854 was passed. Under this Act every 
 
REGULATION OF RAILWAYS 15 
 
 company was required to afford all reasonable facilities 
 for the receiving, forwarding, and delivery of traffic ; 
 undue or unreasonable preference or prejudice in favour 
 of or against any particular person or company, or any 
 particular description of traffic, was prohibited ; and 
 companies whose systems formed parts of a continuous 
 line of communication were required to afford all due 
 and reasonable facilities for the interchange of traffic 
 without delay, preference, or obstruction. 
 
 In respect, however, to their rates and charges, the 
 railway companies retained a large degree of freedom. 
 Subject to specified maxima, Parliament had not 
 attempted to regulate the rates actually enforced. The 
 Railway Clauses Consolidation Act, 1845, required 
 them to ' accommodate ' their rates to ' the circum- 
 stances of the traffic,' and a Committee appointed in 
 1865 to inquire into the subject of railway companies' 
 charges reported they did ' not consider that it would 
 be expedient, even if it were practicable, to adopt any 
 legislation which would abolish the freedom railway 
 companies enjoyed of charging what sum they deemed 
 expedient within their maximum rates, when properly 
 defined.' 
 
 The year 1872 marks the dividing-line, as it were, 
 between the ancient history of British railways and the 
 modern period. Numerous further proposals for the 
 amalgamation of existing companies led, as in 1852, to 
 the appointment of a Committee of Inquiry, and on this 
 occasion the investigations instituted covered a much 
 wider ground than before. 
 
 In the way of actual recommendations, the Committee 
 advised the creation of a new tribunal, to be known as 
 Railway and Canal Commissioners, to which body there 
 should be transferred the duty of enforcing the Traffic 
 Act of 1854, which had hitherto rested with the Court 
 
16 RAILWAY RATES LEGISLATION 
 
 of Common Pleas, together with certain other duties in 
 connection with railway and canal companies. The 
 said tribunal was duly called into being by the Act 
 of 1873, for a period of five years in the first instance, 
 subsequently renewed. 
 
 The Committee of 1872 further recommended that a 
 new and uniform classification of goods was both desir- 
 able and practicable, and that the companies should all 
 be compelled to adopt, as between themselves and the 
 public, the Railway Clearing-House classification, and 
 adapt their statutory rates to it ; but Parliament did 
 not then see its way to making such classification 
 compulsory. 
 
 All this time trouble had been developing in respect 
 to the question of terminal charges. It has been shown 
 that the maximum rates which railway companies had 
 been authorized to make were really a combination, on 
 a reduced scale, of three originally distinct tolls (i) a 
 toll for the use of the track; (2) a toll for the provision 
 of haulage power ; and (3) a toll for the conveyance of 
 merchandise. But when the companies themselves 
 became common carriers, there was much that they had 
 to do besides conveying goods from one point on their 
 line to another. They had, in the first place, to provide 
 goods depots, which became the equivalent to the ware- 
 houses of the carriers they were superseding, such 
 depots being wanted so that the goods could be collected 
 and taken care of at one end before being despatched 
 by train, or received at on their arrival at the other end. 
 In the second place, there was required of them a group 
 of services which, when the carrier and the railway 
 company were separate partners, were performed by the 
 former. Among these services were loading and un- 
 loading, covering, checking, labelling, invoicing, etc., 
 together, possibly, with collecting and delivering from 
 
TERMINAL CHARGES 17 
 
 or to the residence or place of business of the consignor 
 or consignee. All these things, in combination, necessi- 
 tated the organization of a special staff of men, with 
 horses, vehicles, goods depots, etc., and the companies 
 claimed that they were entitled to impose ' terminal 
 charges ' in respect to such further services, in addition 
 to the statutory allowance for haulage by train. 
 
 As the outcome of these conditions, 'much friction 
 arose between the companies and the traders, especially 
 in those cases where the charges in respect to terminals 
 caused the sum total to exceed the authorized maximum. 
 This they almost necessarily did in the case of short- 
 distance traffic.* Grievances were advanced in other 
 directions besides, and in 1881 a Select Committee of 
 the House of Commons was appointed to inquire into 
 the working of the Act of 1873, and also into the general 
 relations between railways and traders. 
 
 The Committee investigated a large number of 
 complaints, which, generally speaking, fell under the 
 following heads : 
 
 1. Rates alleged to be often excessive and illegal. 
 
 2. Variations in rates without any corresponding 
 variation in the cost of the service to the companies, 
 and often in favour of particular towns, or of export or 
 import traffic. 
 
 3. Difficulty in obtaining information as to what rates 
 were authorized, arising from multiplicity of private 
 Acts and imperfect classification. 
 
 * Under the schedules now in force the conveyance rate in 
 respect to an article in Class 5 pianos, for example taken a 
 distance of 6 miles would be 2s. 2d. To this the railway company 
 would add js. for terminal services, exclusive of cartage, which 
 would probably come to 55. Of the total, therefore, of 145. 2d., 
 the charges for services other than haulage by rail would be 125. 
 They would remain the same if the article in question were con- 
 veyed 60 miles instead of 6 ; but in that case they would, of course, 
 form a much smaller proportion of the sum total, 
 
 2 
 
i8 RAILWAY RATES LEGISLATION 
 
 On the first of these points the Committee found that 
 the question really at issue was the right of the com- 
 panies to charge for terminal services ; and, in view of 
 the large sums which had been expended to allow of such 
 services being rendered, the Committee recommended 
 that the right to charge for ' station terminals '* should 
 be authorized, the companies being required, however, 
 in the interests of the traders, to notify in some public 
 way the amounts they claimed to be entitled to charge. 
 The ' variations in rates ' covered a great deal of the 
 still familiar ground as to anomalies and preferential 
 rates, defended by the railway companies on the ground 
 that if some goods were not carried at lower rates than 
 others the traffic would go by some other route, or not 
 be forwarded at all ; and complained of by the traders 
 on the ground that the policy in question ' diverted 
 trade from its natural channel.' 
 
 As a sample of the complaints laid before the Com- 
 mittee, reference may be made to the case of the sugar 
 refiners in Greenock and London respectively. Thirty- 
 nine towns in England to which sugar was then being sent 
 were at an average distance of 292 miles from Greenock, 
 and of only 150 from London, yet the railway rates to 
 them for the carriage of sugar were about the same, 
 whether the sugar was sent from Greenock or London. 
 In this way Greenock was enabled to compete with 
 London, and the railway companies concerned secured 
 freight which they would not have got at all had their 
 charges been fixed on a strictly mileage basis. But the 
 London refiners complained, because the lower rates 
 conceded to Greenock ' diverted trade from its natural 
 channel,' which in this instance they regarded as London. 
 The real grievance was, of course, that in the said thirty - 
 
 * This is now a technical term distinguishing charges for 
 accommodation from fc charges for"services. 
 
TRADE AND GEOGRAPHY ig 
 
 nine towns the competition of Greenock compelled the 
 London refiners to accept lower prices for their sugar, 
 and do a smaller trade, than they could have secured 
 had Greenock been virtually shut out of the markets 
 there by the operation of equal mileage rates. Greenock's 
 advantage, therefore, became London's disadvantage ; 
 but it was obviously to the public interest that the price 
 of the commodity in question should be kept down by 
 putting the two groups of traders on the same footing, 
 irrespective of geographical distinctions. This was the 
 view taken by the Committee, who said in their report : 
 
 But for the competition introduced by the low rates given by 
 railway companies, trades would be much more local, and the 
 trader who was nearest the market would probably make a larger 
 profit. On the other hand, this competition cannot but be advan- 
 tageous to the public. That Greenock sugar-refiners should be in 
 the same market as the sugar-refiners of London, while it may be 
 a grievance to London refiners, must be an advantage to Greenock 
 refiners, and cannot be a disadvantage to buyers of sugar. 
 
 On the last of the three points given above, the Com- 
 mittee made a recommendation which was to lead to 
 the starting of a new era in the relations between Par- 
 liament and the railways. They advised that a uniform 
 classification should be adopted throughout the whole 
 railway system. 
 
 The railway companies themselves were quite as 
 anxious as the traders to see a uniform classification 
 brought about, and much in this direction had already 
 been done, though the task was one of great complexity, 
 owing to the magnitude and the multiplicity of the 
 interests involved. Following on the report of the 
 Committee, nine of the principal railway companies, at 
 very considerable expense, voluntarily arranged a joint 
 classification and schedule of maximum rates, providing 
 also for terminals ; and it was hoped that this classifi- 
 cation based on that of the Railway Clearing- House 
 
 22 
 
20 RAILWAY RATES LEGISLATION 
 
 would become general. But the traders raised an active 
 opposition, based mainly on the ground that the pro- 
 posed new legislation conceded the question of terminals, 
 and the Bills introduced to give effect to the said 
 arrangement did not reach the second reading. 
 
 These events led up to the passing of the Railway 
 and Canal Traffic Act, 1888, under which the require- 
 ment was made for the revision by all railway and 
 canal companies of their maximum rates. Each com- 
 pany was, in the first instance, to prepare a revised 
 classification of goods and a revised schedule of maximum 
 rates, and submit them to the Board of Trade. That 
 body would then receive and consider any objections 
 lodged with it by traders, and endeavour to arrange 
 matters as between the companies and the traders. 
 Failing this, the Board was itself to determine upon 
 classification and schedules. In either case the revised 
 classification and schedules were to be embodied in 
 Provisional Orders, Bills for the confirmation of which 
 were to be introduced into Parliament, the rates and 
 charges set forth therein thus becoming the recognised 
 maxima of the companies concerned. Terminal charges 
 were to be included in the revised schedules, so that 
 this much - discussed question was at length set at 
 rest. 
 
 The Act of 1888 further prohibited differential rates 
 in favour of or against foreign merchandise, though, 
 subject to that prohibition, competition was recognised 
 as justifying differential charges, so long as public 
 interests are served thereby, and provided the inequality 
 cannot be removed without unduly reducing the rates 
 charged to a complainant. The system of 'grouping,' 
 under which the same rates are charged to or from all 
 the places within a certain area, was expressly legalized, 
 so long as the distances are reasonable and no undue 
 
THE ACT OF 1888 21 
 
 preference is created. It was further provided, among 
 other things, that in all cases where unequal charges 
 are shown to exist in respect of similar traffic or similar 
 services, the burden of justifying the inequality shall 
 fall on the railway company. Under a ' conciliation 
 clause,' traders and local authorities who think that 
 they, or persons in their district, are being charged or 
 treated unreasonably or oppressively by a company 
 may complain to the Board of Trade, which body is 
 authorized both to call on the company for an explana- 
 tion and to endeavour to bring about an amicable 
 settlement of the differences between the parties. 
 
 Still another result of the Act of 1888 was the con- 
 version of the Railway and Canal Commissioners into a 
 permanent body, with revised constitution and extended 
 functions. 
 
 The railway companies presented the new classifica- 
 tions to the Board of Trade by the specified date 
 February, 1889 and the Board of Trade then invited 
 the criticisms of traders. This was a case of ' opening 
 the flood-gates ' with a vengeance, for no fewer than 
 4,000 objections came to hand from over 1,500 ob- 
 jectors. Many of them, as stated in the report subse- 
 quently presented by Lord Balfour of Burleigh and Mr. 
 (afterwards Sir) Courtenay Boyle, to whom they were 
 referred for investigation, certainly dealt with details of 
 classification ; but ' evidence was abundantly forth- 
 coming to show that the chief object of a large section 
 of the traders was, not to revise statutory powers to 
 charge, but to obtain a reduction in actual rates.' In 
 illustration of this fact, the following ' characteristic 
 letter ' (as it was called) from a trader at Berwick was 
 quoted in the report : 
 
 What we want is to have our fish carried at half present rates. 
 We don't care a whether it pays the railway or not. Railways 
 
22 RAILWAY RATES LEGISLATION 
 
 ought to be made to carry for the good of the country, or they 
 should be taken over by the Government. This is what all traders 
 want, and mean to try and get. 
 
 The public sittings held by Lord Balfour of Burleigh 
 and Mr. Courtenay Boyle for the purpose of investi- 
 gating the objections raised were held partly in West- 
 minster and partly in Edinburgh and Dublin. They 
 extended over eighty-five days, and the minutes of pro- 
 ceedings occupied more than 3,700 pages. All this 
 mass of matter had to be sifted and digested by the 
 representatives of the Board of Trade, who then pre- 
 sented what they considered a ' fair and reasonable ' 
 classification and standard schedule for general adoption, 
 subject to certain modifications to meet the varying 
 circumstances of particular companies. In drawing up 
 the revised classification, the Board of Trade retained 
 the number and, except for a slight variation, the 
 names of the classes in the Railway Clearing-House 
 classification ; but considerable alterations were made 
 in the actual entries, while the new standard schedule 
 meant the reduction of a large number of rates. 
 
 The next step taken was the embodying by the Board 
 of Trade of the revised schedule in Provisional Orders 
 applying (in the first instance) to nine of the principal 
 railway companies, Bills for the confirmation of such 
 Provisional Orders being introduced into Parliament in 
 the Session of 1891. Petitions against these Bills were 
 presented alike by the railway companies and by traders, 
 and the whole matter was referred to a Joint Committee 
 of both Houses of Parliament, and made the subject of 
 a prolonged inquiry. The final outcome of the new 
 conditions brought about was thus described by Sir 
 Henry Oakley : 
 
 Practically they amounted to a revolution. The maximum 
 powers were reduced almost universally. The classifications of 
 
A RAILWAY REVOLUTION 23 
 
 the Companies' Acts were abolished, and a new and uniform 
 classification introduced ; new scales for calculating rates, fixing 
 our terminal charges and other allowances ; new scales for live 
 stock, for empties, for fish, for milk and perishables carried by 
 passenger trains, which for the first time we were put under 
 Parliamentary obligations to carry. Up to that time we were not 
 under an obligation to carry any goods by passenger train ; but it 
 was decided that we should be so compelled in the future, and they 
 fixed rates within which we must carry. . . Then there was 
 a new system of calculating rates established. It was not so 
 much per mile for any distance beyond 6 miles, as it was in the 
 original Acts, but for the first 20 miles a certain rate, for the 
 next 30 miles a certain less rate, and for the next 50 miles a still 
 further reduction, the effect being that by that mode of calculating 
 the longer the distance the goods were carried, the less the average 
 rate per mile that was to be charged. 
 
 When the Joint Committee had completed their 
 labours, the Bills confirming the Provisional Orders in 
 the case of the nine companies were passed in 1891 
 under the title of ' Railway Rates and Charges Orders 
 Confirmation Acts,' and the Board of Trade then issued 
 schedules for the remaining companies. These, to the 
 number of twenty-six, were passed in the session of 
 1892, the date fixed for the coming into operation of 
 the whole of the Acts being January I, 1893. 
 
 The task of preparing the new rate-books was one 
 that involved very considerable labour, and there was 
 comparatively little time in which to get through the 
 task. Sir Henry Oakley subsequently showed that in 
 the case of the Great Northern Railway Company 
 alone the rates in operation numbered something like 
 13,000,000, while the period within which certain of 
 the companies had to compile their new books did not 
 exceed four months. Whatever the precise degree of 
 trouble incurred by the companies, the results of their 
 labours, in the form of the new classifications and revised 
 rates, were received with what has been described as ' a 
 howl of execration.' A large number of the actual 
 rates had been reduced below the figure at which they 
 
24 RAILWAY RATES LEGISLATION 
 
 previously stood, but others had undergone changes 
 which, while the maximum authorized by Parliament 
 had not been exceeded, represented an increase over 
 the actual rates enforced before the new scales came 
 into operation. The traders had been ready enough 
 to accept all the reductions they could get, but any 
 increases were regarded as involving a serious dis- 
 location of business. 
 
 In the discussions that arose much was said as to 
 the railway companies having adopted a policy of 
 ' recoupment.' The results complained of were, no 
 doubt, due in part to a desire, when the whole system 
 was being reorganized, to effect a ' levelling up,' in which, 
 while some persons gained, others might be prejudiced, 
 such desire being further stimulated by an anxiety on 
 the part of the companies to avoid any serious reduc- 
 tion in their revenue. To what extent the adoption of 
 such a policy as this was, or was not, legal, logical, and 
 justifiable, is a disputed question, which I need not 
 now stop to discuss. It may be, also, that in trying to 
 get rid of * anomalies ' of the type of some of those 
 investigated by the Committee of 1881, the companies 
 satisfied one set of traders, but only at the expense of 
 another. 
 
 It is still further possible that, owing to the extreme 
 pressure at which the work of compiling the new rate- 
 books had been done, errors were made which repre- 
 sented genuine hardships to individual traders ; while, 
 on account of this pressure and the impossibility of 
 completing the task within the allotted period, certain 
 ' special rates ' had been temporarily suspended alto- 
 gether, and the traders thrown back on the ordinary 
 ' class rates ' at a higher figure until the companies 
 could finish the work of revision, on which they were 
 then still engaged. There was, no doubt, an error in 
 
A DIFFICULTY AND ITS SOLUTION 25 
 
 tactics on the part of the railway companies in not 
 explaining their position on this particular point more 
 clearly, and at an earlier date, than they did, instead of 
 leaving traders to assume that the substantial increases 
 with which, in some cases, they were suddenly faced 
 were permanent. Had such earlier and fuller explana- 
 tions been given, the outcry would probably have been 
 less acute ; though, on the other hand, the traders 
 themselves were not warranted in their further general 
 assumption that a * revision ' of railway rates neces- 
 sarily meant a ' reduction ' thereof. 
 
 Whatever form, however, the ' howl of execration ' 
 against the railway companies might take, it could not 
 be suggested that they had exceeded their statutory 
 powers. There was nothing in any of the Railway 
 Rates and Charges Confirmation Acts of 1891-1892 
 (which formed the new charters of the railway com- 
 panies) to indicate that the companies were not to be 
 at liberty to charge their revised maxima. On the 
 contrary, the schedules of those Acts as well as the 
 Act of 1888, authorizing the revision expressly stated 
 that the maxima fixed by them were ' the rates and 
 charges which the railway companies should be entitled 
 to charge and make.' 
 
 It was the railway companies themselves who pro- 
 vided a solution of the difficulty that had arisen. 
 Accepting, as, of course, they were bound to do, the 
 reductions enforced upon them through the action of 
 Parliament, they announced that otherwise the rates 
 were not necessarily final, and were being revised ; but 
 meanwhile the companies were willing to give an assur- 
 ance that there would be no increase of rates that would 
 interfere with trade or agriculture or diminish traffic, 
 and that, unless under exceptional circumstances, no 
 increase at all would be made exceeding 5 per cent. 
 
26 RAILWAY RATES LEGISLATION 
 
 above the rates current in 1892. In this way they 
 hoped to cover any prospective loss of revenue, as the 
 result of the revision, with as little disturbance as 
 possible to the trade of the country. 
 
 It was still regarded as a grievance, however, that 
 there was no jurisdiction to question the reasonableness 
 of increases of rates and charges within the maxima 
 already authorized by Parliament, and this matter was 
 considered by a Select Committee of the House of 
 Commons appointed in May, 1893. The Committee 
 presented their report in the following December. They 
 recommended that if, when a trader complained that a 
 rate had been raised excessively or unreasonably, the 
 powers of the Board of Trade under the Conciliation 
 Clause of the Act of 1888 failed to bring about an 
 amicable settlement, the Railway Commission should 
 be empowered to decide whether the increase was 
 reasonable or not, such power being retrospective, so 
 as to meet any increases of rates since the revised 
 schedules came into operation that is to say, since 
 January i, 1893. The Committee further expressed 
 the opinion that 'the margin between the old actual 
 rates and the present Parliamentary maxima was not 
 given by Parliament in order that immediate advantage 
 should be taken of it, or that the policy of recoupment 
 should be carried out.' The attitude thus taken by the 
 Committee presented Parliamentary control over the 
 railway companies in an entirely new phase; for, 
 whereas it had expressly and repeatedly laid down that 
 certain specified rates and charges were those which 
 the companies should be ' entitled to charge and make,' 
 the companies were to be called severely to account 
 when they made use of the powers thus conferred upon 
 them by Parliament itself! 
 
 The report of the Select Committee of 1893 led to 
 
THE FINAL OUTCOME 27 
 
 the passing of the Railway and Canal Act, 1894, under 
 which power is given to the Railway Commission (after 
 a complaint has been made to and considered by the 
 Board of Trade, under the Conciliation Clause of the 
 Act of 1888) to hear and determine complaints with 
 reference to any increase of railway rates or charges 
 since 1892 alleged to be unreasonable, even though 
 such rates should still be within the statutory maxima ; 
 while it is further enacted that ' it shall lie on the com- 
 pany to prove that the increase of the rate or charge is 
 reasonable.' 
 
 The final outcome of the whole situation is thus 
 summed up in Butterworth's ' Maximum Railway 
 Rates ' : 
 
 So that the legislation of 1888-1892 presents this remarkable 
 result that Parliament in 1892, after probably the most protracted 
 inquiry every held in connection with proposed legislation, decided 
 that certain amounts were to be the charges which railway com- 
 panies should for the future be entitled to make, and in 1894 
 apparently accepted the suggestion that many of the charges, 
 sanctioned after so much deliberation, were unreasonable, and 
 enacted that to entitle a company to demand them it should not 
 (to quote the words of the Act) 'be sufficient to show that the 
 charge was within any limit fixed by an Act of Parliament, or by 
 any Provisional Order confirmed by Act of Parliament.' 
 
 I leave the reader to make his own comments on 
 these matters of history, and to draw therefrom such 
 moral as he should think fit. Opinions may vary as to 
 what that moral should be, but one certain fact, as the 
 outcome of all this Parliamentary intervention, is that, 
 under the operation of the existing laws, railway com- 
 panies now have to be exceedingly careful before they 
 reduce any particular rate even when they could afford 
 to do so because of the difficulties they would encounter 
 if circumstances might require them to raise it again 
 (after due notice given) to its original level. In other 
 words, legislation intended to safeguard the interests of 
 
28 RAILWAY RATES LEGISLATION 
 
 the traders has deprived railway rates to a considerable 
 degree of that element of elasticity from which, had the 
 purely commercial relations of railways and traders (as 
 distinct from main principles) been less hampered, 
 advantages much more practical than those secured 
 under actual conditions might have been gained. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 RAILWAY FINANCE 
 
 LATER on in the present volume I propose to offer some 
 facts showing the very considerable extent to which the 
 public funds of various foreign countries have been 
 involved in the actual construction of railways, in the 
 buying up of railway companies which have drifted into 
 financial difficulties, or in the assistance rendered in 
 various ways to the companies which have survived. 
 I should here like to say that the railway system of 
 Great Britain occupies a position almost unique, in the 
 fact that it has received absolutely no State aid of any 
 sort whatever. 
 
 I shall, perhaps, be told that the railways of the 
 United States, owned entirely by private companies, 
 represent another important exception. But, as already 
 shown, these railways in their early days often received 
 substantial aid, in the concession to them, not only of 
 land for the construction of their lines, but also of wide 
 strips of territory alongside which they could dispose of 
 to settlers as these ' came along ' a practical endow- 
 ment fund thus being handed over to the companies. In 
 addition to this, freedom from all taxation for a specified 
 term of years was often conceded as a further grant in 
 aid. On this side of the Atlantic, if a railway company 
 enlarges its station, solely for the purpose of offering 
 
 29 
 
30 RAILWAY FINANCE 
 
 greater conveniences to the public, and with no expecta- 
 tion of increased traffic resulting therefrom, the local 
 rating authority will immediately raise the assessment. 
 The railway company has thus to pay a penalty, in the 
 form of higher local rates, for the benefit it has con- 
 ferred on the public. 
 
 In the United States such an incident as the following 
 related to me by a railway man in New York has 
 happened even in recent years : The residents in a town 
 on the Atlantic seaboard considered that their local rail- 
 way-station was not sufficiently near to the majority of 
 the houses. It took business men some minutes longer 
 to reach their ' deepot ' in the morning than, as persons 
 accustomed to ' hustle,' they liked. They talked the 
 matter over with the railway company and the local 
 authority, and eventually it was arranged that a plot of 
 land, free of cost, should be provided on the exact spot 
 where the station was desired, the company to pay for 
 new buildings and removal only. The arrangement 
 was duly carried out, but one can hardly conceive of 
 such an experience as possible here. 
 
 In Great Britain the railways have been constructed 
 from first to last as commercial enterprises pure and 
 simple, and not only have they received no financial 
 aid or its equivalent from either the State or local 
 authorities, but no condition or circumstance has been 
 lacking that was needed to render their construction 
 the most costly, in proportion to their mileage, of any 
 railway system in the world. In a small, settled, and 
 densely-populated country such as ours, the cost of 
 land must in any case have been greater than that of 
 land, not only in the backwoods of the United States, 
 but also on the flat plains of Germany or the broad 
 stretches of inland France. In the most favourable 
 of circumstances, therefore, the item in respect to land 
 
COST OF CONSTRUCTION 31 
 
 must have been heavier here than elsewhere ; but the 
 figures were swollen to still bigger proportions by the 
 greed of landowners, who extorted from the railways 
 every sovereign they could possibly get ; and they 
 have been swollen still larger by the cost of carry- 
 ing out extensions and widenings especially in and 
 around London, where the value of the land and 
 property acquired has been exceptionally great in 
 order to meet the exigencies of present-day traffic 
 conditions. 
 
 There is no need to go into great detail on this 
 point, but a few examples may be offered in the 
 interests of traders and travellers who may be apt 
 to think that English railway companies, and especially 
 those having London termini, charge unreasonably 
 for the accommodation they offer or the services they 
 render. 
 
 When the Great Western Railway Company came 
 to Paddington, half a century or so ago, they fixed the 
 site for their station on what was then an expanse of 
 green fields, so that, including subsequent costly ex- 
 pansions, the total amount of capital expended in the 
 construction of station and approaches does not exceed 
 2,000,000. When the Manchester, Sheffield, and 
 Lincolnshire of former days, now the Great Central, 
 wanted to come to Marylebone, as they did six years 
 ago, they had to clear out a thickly-populated area, 
 buying up a large amount of property and unhousing 
 a considerable number of people, for whom the company 
 were obliged to provide fresh dwellings elsewhere, on 
 terms which, one may safely assume, left little or no 
 chance for any reasonable return on capital expenditure. 
 The cost of the extension to Marylebone had been 
 estimated at 6,000,000. By the time the work was 
 finished the outlay amounted to 13,000,000. The last 
 
32 RAILWAY FINANCE 
 
 three miles into London cost 1,000,000 a mile. Prior 
 to the extension the company paid dividends on 
 ordinary stock, but nothing has been paid thereon 
 since. Eventually the extension should be a re- 
 munerative investment for the company, but in the 
 meantime the shareholders have made a big sacrifice, 
 and the public who travel by the extension, or send 
 their goods by it, are getting the real benefit. Whether 
 or not in the circumstances they should grumble at the 
 fares or the rates they may be asked to pay, I leave 
 them to settle with their own consciences ! 
 
 Then, the cost of enlarging stations already estab- 
 lished in London, and of widening lines in and around 
 the Metropolis, in order to meet the exigencies of 
 increased traffic and especially increased suburban 
 traffic has added some big items to the accounts of 
 various railway companies. No one could possibly 
 have foreseen when these stations or lines were origin- 
 ally constructed that the traffic would attain to such 
 formidable dimensions, and when the time came for 
 the unavoidable improvements, land had to be bought 
 that was either covered with dwellings or occupied 
 by factories or other business premises, built close up 
 to the existing lines, necessitating a very substantial 
 outlay on the part of the railway companies, indepen- 
 dently of the cost of the works themselves. Thus, the 
 enlargement of Liverpool Street Station in 1894 in- 
 volved the Great Eastern Railway Company in an 
 expenditure of 1,200,000 ; the London, Brighton, and 
 South Coast Railway Company are spending over 
 2,000,000 on the rebuilding of their Victoria Station 
 and the provision of more lines leading into or out of 
 it ; while the capital expenditure on widenings, etc., on 
 the South-Eastern section of the South- Eastern and 
 
ENLARGEMENTS AND WIDENINGS 33 
 
 Chatham Railway in recent years has attained the 
 following substantial proportions : 
 
 Charing Cross line widening ... 677,679 
 
 Greenwich line widening ... ... 1,132,064 
 
 Corbett's Lane to New Cross loop 
 
 line 190,763 
 
 St. John's to Orpington widening 651,988 
 
 Chislehurst loops ... ... ... 96,522 
 
 Total to December 31, 1904 ... 2,749,016 
 
 Here, as in the case of the Great Central, the 
 public have gained a more immediate benefit, in the 
 form of increased accommodation, than the railway 
 shareholders, considering that since 1899 (when 
 i 173. 6d. per cent, for the year was paid) holders 
 of South - Eastern * deferred ordinary ' have had no 
 dividend. 
 
 Yet, in spite of such figures as these, there are critics 
 who assert that British railways are extortionate and 
 badly managed, because their rate per ton per mile on 
 a 20 or 30-mile haul into London works out higher 
 than the American rate per ton per mile for, say, a 
 i,ooo-mile haul across, it may be, a stretch of almost 
 continuous prairies and deserts ! 
 
 Nor is it the relative cost of land alone that must be 
 considered. There is the question also of the require- 
 ments made by the British authorities in regard to the 
 methods of construction and system of operation 
 requirements not to be surpassed in both compre- 
 hensiveness and costliness in any other quarter of the 
 globe. In his speech at the half-yearly meeting of the 
 Great Eastern Railway Company in January, 1903, 
 the chairman, Lord Claud Hamilton, referred to the 
 
 3 
 
34 RAILWAY FINANCE 
 
 making by the company of a new line in the suburbs 
 of London, between Ilford and Woodford, represent- 
 ing a total length of only about 12 miles. After 
 mentioning that the cost of land for the purposes of 
 this line represented an outlay of 518 per acre, he 
 continued : 
 
 In constructing the Woodford and Ilford line a sum of nearly 
 60,000 has had to be spent in dealing with the public road 
 bridges which had to be constructed in connection with the new 
 line in complying with the requirements of the local authorities, 
 and in various accommodation works for landowners. In America 
 a large proportion of this expenditure would have been absolutely 
 saved, for there trains are allowed to run on the level even through 
 crowded streets. A further large sum of about ,50,000 has had 
 to be spent upon the stations, all of which have to comply with the 
 latest demands of the Board of Trade and the standard practice 
 of this country, whereas in America we should probably have 
 escaped with a third of this amount. In order to make an 
 adequate provision for the staff working the line, thirty-six cottages 
 have had to be built, so as to insure the men being ready at hand 
 and available for fog-signalling, which, again, would not be the 
 case in America. The next item is that of signalling proper. 
 The cost of the signalling generally will amount to a sum of 
 between ,10,000 and 12,000. This sum, again, represents the 
 latest requirements of the Board of Trade, and as in America 
 the railways are not governed by such exacting authorities, the 
 signalling for this line would have been of a much more simple 
 character, and consequently in this item also a very considerable 
 saving would have been effected. Thus, whilst in the United 
 States the total railway capital a year ago was ,2,357.638,598, or 
 about 11,933 per mile, here it was 1,008,107,000, or about 
 45,661 per mile, this extraordinary difference being due not only 
 to the cost of land, but to the stringent regulations of the Board 
 of Trade in this country as regards the quality of the road, 
 platforms, signals, points, bridges, and fencing, which requirements 
 practically do not exist in the States. 
 
 The legal expenses in connection with railway con- 
 struction are also heavier in Great Britain than in 
 probably any other country. In Holland the giving of 
 a concession for a new line of railway is within the dis- 
 cretion of the responsible Minister. In England there 
 
OTHER COUNTRIES 
 
 35 
 
 are lines of railway which have cost between 4,000 
 and 5,000 a mile in legal and Parliamentary expenses 
 alone before the Bills authorizing them could be 
 secured. 
 
 How, under the variety of circumstances here stated, 
 the cost of construction of railways in Great Britain 
 compares with that of railways in the other countries 
 of the world is shown by the following table, which I 
 take from the ' Bulletin of the International Railway 
 Congress ' for November, 1904 : 
 
 CAPITAL OUTLAY ON RAILWAY CONSTRUCTION. 
 
 Countries and Railway Systems. 
 
 Year. 
 
 Miles. 
 
 Total. 
 
 Per Mile. 
 
 EUROPE. 
 
 
 
 
 
 Great Britain and Ireland 
 
 1900 
 
 21,850-9 
 
 1,176,000,000 
 
 53,913 
 
 Germany 
 
 1902 
 
 32,3 I 4*4 
 
 664,100,000 
 
 20,825 
 
 Austro-Hungary 
 
 
 
 
 
 Austria : The entire system 
 
 1902 
 
 12,409-6 
 
 279,500,000 
 
 22,523 
 
 Hungary: State railways 
 
 1901 
 
 4,990-2 
 
 94,250,000 
 
 J 9,759 
 
 Belgium 
 
 I9OI 
 
 2,515-4 
 
 79,300,000 
 
 3 T ,537 
 
 France 
 
 1900 
 
 26,7207 
 
 676,550,000 
 
 25,320 
 
 Switzerland ... 
 
 I9OI 
 
 2,442-0 
 
 50,500,000 
 
 21,429 
 
 Russia (without Finland) 
 
 
 
 
 
 The entire system 
 
 1901 
 
 33,155*0 
 
 5I9,OOO,OOO 
 
 15,653 
 
 Finland : State railways 
 
 1902 
 
 1,677-7 
 
 11,200,000 
 
 6,566 
 
 Norway 
 
 1903 
 
 1,4317 
 
 11,400,000 
 
 7,966 
 
 Sweden 
 
 
 
 
 
 State railways 
 
 1902 
 
 2,391*7 
 
 24,800,000 
 
 10,376 
 
 Private companies 
 
 1900 
 
 4,536"I 
 
 20,700,000 
 
 4,557 
 
 Italy 
 
 IQOI 
 
 9,888-1 
 
 SJ/) A -T fv fVV^ 
 
 22 670 
 
 Roumania ... 
 
 A *-J\J L 
 1895 
 
 1,703-2 
 
 25,050,000 
 
 14,719 
 
 Servia 
 
 1900 
 
 336*2 
 
 4,9OO,OOO 
 
 14,600 
 
 Bulgaria 
 
 1897 
 
 418-2 
 
 4,250,000 
 
 10,138 
 
 Spain: Northern railway ... 
 
 1900 
 
 2,271-6 
 
 45,000,000 
 
 19,802 
 
 Netherlands 
 
 1897 
 
 1,653*5 
 
 28,700,000 
 
 J 7,35o 
 
 Denmark 
 
 1893 
 
 1,286-3 
 
 11,100,000 
 
 8,626 
 
 Total and average for) 
 Europe J 
 
 
 
 163,992*8 
 
 3,950,450,000 
 
 24,089 
 
 32 
 
RAILWAY FINANCE 
 
 CAPITAL OUTLAY ON RAILWAY CONSTRUCTION (continued). 
 
 Countries and Railway System. 
 
 Year. 
 
 Miles. 
 
 Total. 
 
 Per Mile. 
 
 OTHER PARTS OF THE GLOBE. 
 
 
 
 
 
 United States of America... 
 
 I9O2 
 
 202,432-0 
 
 2,548,200,000 
 
 12,588 
 
 Canada 
 
 1902 
 
 18,864-5 
 
 230,750,000 
 
 12,232 
 
 Chili: State railways 
 
 1898 
 
 i 5 375'i 
 
 15,800,000 
 
 11,302 
 
 British India 
 
 1902 
 
 25,893-0 
 
 237,850,000 
 
 9,186 
 
 Algiers and Tunis 
 
 1900 
 
 2,228-9 
 
 27,650,000 
 
 12,394 
 
 Colony of 
 
 
 
 
 
 New South Wales 
 
 1902 
 
 2,952-2 
 
 41,400,000 
 
 14,016 
 
 South Australia 
 
 1902 
 
 i,736-i 
 
 13,550,000 
 
 7,799 
 
 Victoria ... 
 
 1902 
 
 3,264-0 
 
 41,450,000 
 
 12,691 
 
 Queensland 
 
 I9O2 
 
 2,800*6 
 
 20,500,000 
 
 7,329 
 
 Western Australia 
 
 1902 
 
 i 5 355-9 
 
 7,550,000 
 
 5,575 
 
 Tasmania 
 
 I9OI 
 
 457-3 
 
 3,900,000 
 
 8,473 
 
 New Zealand 
 
 I9O2 
 
 2,226-4 
 
 18,550,000 
 
 8,325 
 
 Argentine Republic 
 
 1898 
 
 9,710-3 
 
 104,700,000 
 
 10,906 
 
 Java ... . . 
 
 l8Ql 
 
 607-1 
 
 6 200,000 
 
 IO Q2I 
 
 Japan 
 
 L * J 7 J 
 1902 
 
 3,961-9 
 
 31,850,000 
 
 A W, y 4, i 
 8,041 
 
 Cape Colony 
 
 1902 
 
 2,i95-3 
 
 24,500,000 
 
 11,166 
 
 Natal 
 
 1902 
 
 635'i 
 
 9,450,000 
 
 14,892 
 
 Uruguay 
 
 1899 
 
 997-3 
 
 11,050,000 
 
 11,089 
 
 Total and average for\ 
 other parts of globe J 
 
 
 
 283,693-2 
 
 3,394,900,000 
 
 11,967 
 
 One learns from this table that, inasmuch as cost of 
 construction, among other items of expenditure, can 
 only be covered from the rates, fares, and charges im- 
 posed by a railway upon its patrons, such rates, fares, 
 and charges must almost necessarily be higher (apart 
 from other considerations) in Great Britain and Ireland, 
 where the lines have cost close on 54,000 a mile, than 
 in Germany, where they have cost less than 21,000 a 
 mile; France, 25,000 a mile; Belgium, 31,000 a 
 mile ; Holland, 17,000 a mile ; Denmark, 8,000 a 
 mile ; or the United States, where the cost of construc- 
 tion has averaged 12,000 a mile. 
 
WORKMEN'S TRAINS 37 
 
 Then, apart from the large cost of construction, the 
 working expenses have been swollen and the revenue 
 prejudiced by a variety of causes beyond the control of 
 the railway companies. The increase of local taxation 
 is a matter of such gravity that I must devote to it 
 a separate chapter. Board of Trade requirements of 
 various kinds, whether they have been reasonable or 
 not, have undoubtedly had no slight effect in sending 
 up the item of working expenses. Then there is the 
 vexed question of workmen's trains, as to which a great 
 deal of misapprehension prevails on the part of the 
 British public. 
 
 \JThe popular idea is that the workmen's trains move- 
 ment originated in a ' bargain ' made between the 
 Government and the railway companies, and enforced 
 as a legislative enactment through the Cheap Trains 
 Act of 1883, to the effect that the Government would 
 take off the duty hitherto paid on third-class fares of 
 over one penny per mile, the railway companies in return 
 for this concession running workmen's trains. In point 
 of fact, the origin of such trains was an obligation which 
 had been entered into in 1864 by the Great Eastern 
 Railway Company to carry workmen between Waltham- 
 stow and Edmonton and London at twopenny return 
 fares, instead of putting up workmen's dwellings to re- 
 house the people disturbed by the building of Liverpool 
 Street Station. There was no question whatever as to 
 any remission of the Government duty. This repre- 
 sented an entirely different movement, carried on with 
 great energy for many years by the Travelling Tax 
 Abolition Committee.* \The position was certainly a 
 
 * 'When the Taxes on Knowledge were repealed, Mr. Collet 
 and I attempted to procure the repeal 1 of the Passenger Tax on 
 Railways. For forty years after the imposition of the tax of Lord 
 Halford, 1842, the workman was taxed who went in search of an 
 
3 RAILWAY FINANCE 
 
 most iniquitous one. The companies were practically 
 collectors of the tax, which they levied on passengers 
 and paid over to the Government, as the French com- 
 panies do to-day ; but there was this grievous anomaly : 
 that while exemption was granted in the case of third- 
 class fares not exceeding one penny a mile by trains 
 which stopped at every station, the duty was still im- 
 posed on the third-class travellers by express trains, 
 because these did not ' stop at every station.' 
 
 Prior to the Act of 1883 many of the companies had 
 been charging more than a penny a mile for third-class 
 passengers, except in the case of * Parliamentary ' trains, 
 for which one penny per mile was compulsory. On the 
 passing of the Act they reduced the ordinary third-class 
 rates to a penny a mile, so that the public secured at 
 once a substantial proportion estimated at about one- 
 half of the amount saved by the remission of the duty. 
 As against the remaining proportion, which rested 
 
 employer. When a poor sailor, arriving in London after a long 
 voyage, desired to visit his poor mother in Glasgow, the Government 
 added to his fare a tax of 35. to encourage him in filial affection. 
 In the interests of locomotion and trade, two or three associations 
 had attempted to get this pernicious tax repealed without success. 
 It was remarked in Parliament in 1877 that no committee repre- 
 senting the working class asked for the repeal of this discreditable 
 import which most concerned them. This was the reason of the 
 formation of the Travelling Tax Abolition Committee, of which 
 Mr. Collet became secretary and I the chairman. We were assisted 
 by an influential committee of civic and industrial leaders. After 
 six years' agitation, we were mainly instrumental (that was in 
 Mr. Gladstone's day) in obtaining the repeal of the penny a mile 
 tax on all third-class fares effected by Mr. Childers in 1883, which 
 ever since has put into the pockets of working-class travellers 
 ^400,000 a year, besides the improved carriages and improved 
 service the repeal has enabled railway companies to give. We 
 continued the Committee many years longer in the hope of freeing 
 the railways wholly from taxation, which still hampers the directors 
 
 and is obstructive of commerce.' G. J. HOLYOAKE : Bygones 
 
 Worth Remembering^ vol. i., pp. 42, 43. 
 
THE REMISSION OF THE TAX 39 
 
 with the railway companies, the latter undertook to 
 carry military, navy, and police at reduced fares ; while 
 provision was also made in the Act that in the event of 
 a railway company not running proper and sufficient 
 workmen's trains, it might be required to supply such 
 trains, at such hours, as the Board of Trade might think 
 reasonable. But Mr. J. B. Meers, who gave evidence 
 before the Select Committee on Workmen's Trains in 
 1903, on behalf of the Inland Revenue Department, 
 and had been * intimately connected,' as he said, with 
 the passing of the Cheap Trains Act, declared that ' he 
 did not think the word " bargain " entered into the 
 question at all.' 
 
 Whether it did or not, it is a complete delusion to 
 suppose that the railway companies made a large gain 
 by the remission of the Government duty, and may 
 therefore justly be called upon to run workmen's trains 
 at fares they declare to be unremunerative. Here are 
 a few figures which illustrate how the matter really 
 stands : In 1882 the proportion of the third-class fares 
 (omitting, that is, the fares by ' Parliamentary' trains) on 
 which the Great Western Railway Company paid Govern- 
 ment duty, was 75 per cent, of the whole. Had the fares 
 in the year 1902 remained the same as they were in 1882, 
 then, on the basis of Government duty being levied on 
 75 per cent, of the total number of third-class passengers, 
 the amount taken in fares by the company in that year 
 would have been 2,652,103, instead of 2,320,000, a 
 difference of 331,513. Out of the amount thus saved 
 by the travelling public and lost to the railway com- 
 pany, the latter would have paid 132,605 to the 
 Government in the form of duty, leaving a net loss to 
 the railway of 198,908. But in this same year (1902) 
 the lower rates enforced under the Cheap Trains Act 
 of 1883 in respect to the carriage of military, naval, and 
 
40 RAILWAY FINANCE 
 
 police forces, made a difference of 29,522 in the receipts 
 of the company (as compared with what they would have 
 charged under the old scale of fares), and represented a 
 corresponding gain to the public. Adding together 
 these two sums of 331,513 and 29,522, we get a total 
 of 361,035. From this, however, 150,239 must be 
 deducted as representing what the company would have 
 had to hand over to the Government as duty on urban 
 and other branches of traffic, so that the net adverse 
 balance against the railway company was 210,796. 
 In other words, if the conditions prior to the remission 
 of the 'Government duty had remained in force in 
 1902, and if the traffic had been the same in that 
 year as it was, the revenue of the Great Western 
 Railway Company would have been more by over 
 200,000. 
 
 The same argument applies to other railways, but it 
 still leaves out of account large expenditure to which 
 the companies have been put in making provision for 
 workmen's trains and for the increased suburban traffic 
 resulting, in part, therefrom.* Taking the whole of the 
 circumstances into account, one may fairly conclude 
 that the travelling public have been far larger gainers 
 from the remission of the travelling tax than the railway 
 companies ; that such remission affords no just ground 
 for compelling railway companies (to the benefit of 
 employers of labour and of property owners rather than 
 of workmen) to run trains which do not pay, and which 
 disorganize the traffic that does ; and that still less does 
 the precedent established by the Great Eastern Railway 
 Company in 1864 justify the enforcement of like obliga- 
 tions in respect to ' twopenny trains ' on other com- 
 
 * On the Great Eastern Railway over 150,000 has been 
 spent in altering suburban carriages so that they will seat six 
 a side. 
 
POSSIBLE EFFECT ON TRADERS 41 
 
 panics which may themselves have fully met all lega 
 requirements in regard to rehousing. 
 
 The point, however, which I desire especially to en- 
 force here, in regard to this particular matter, is that 
 if workmen are to be regarded as a privileged class, who 
 must be carried to and from their occupation at fares 
 or under conditions which do not pay a railway com- 
 pany, then it is obvious that the difference must be 
 made up, either by other classes of travellers or by the 
 general body of the traders. I do not suggest that the 
 running of workmen's trains will cause railway rates to 
 go up. But the result may very well be to prevent 
 some of them from coming down. When a railway 
 company gets an inadequate return from one depart- 
 ment, it is much less likely to make generous conces- 
 sions in another. A reasonable revenue must, if possible, 
 be secured somehow. If it cannot be got from passen- 
 gers, the company will look to secure all the more on 
 goods. In any case, it is as well the general trader 
 should see where it is that he stands in the matter. 
 
 Whatever view may be taken by the world at large 
 of all the various obligations and requirements imposed 
 on railway companies, it is undeniable that the combined 
 effect thereof must be to increase either the cost of 
 construction or the sum total of the working expenses, 
 each of which can be met only out of the fares, rates, 
 and charges that are imposed on one class of patrons 
 or another. As Sir E. Grey said in a debate in the 
 House of Commons on March 3, 1905, when a Bill for 
 increasing the liability of railway companies in respect 
 to fires to crops and plantations caused by engine sparks 
 came up for second reading : ' They could not have it 
 both ways. If they were to have lower rates, the House 
 must not insist on passing measures which would lay 
 more working expenses on the companies.' 
 
RAILWAY FINANCE 
 
 Looking now at the actual financial results of rail- 
 way operation, I would point out, in the first instance, 
 that the total amount of railway capital raised up to 
 the end of 1903 is given in the Board of Trade Railway 
 Returns for that year as 1,245,000,000. Deducting 
 from this amount 191,000,000 for nominal additions, 
 we get 1,054,000,000 as representing, approximately, 
 the sum that investors have put into the construction 
 and operation of the railways of the United Kingdom. 
 
 When we ask what return the said investors have 
 had for their money, we get the following results as 
 regards all the railways in the United Kingdom : 
 
 
 Ordinary. 
 
 Preferential 
 and 
 Guaranteed. 
 
 Loans 
 and 
 Debentures. 
 
 Amount of stock on which 
 
 
 
 
 
 > 
 
 no dividend was paid for 
 
 
 
 
 the year 1903 
 
 55,876,465 
 
 22,381,506 
 
 760,054 
 
 Dividend not exceeding 
 
 
 
 
 i per cent. 
 
 26,525,367 
 
 IOO,OOO 
 
 1,254,555 
 
 Dividend 
 
 
 
 
 Exceeding I %, but not 
 
 
 
 
 exceeding 3 % 
 
 152,300,017 
 
 126,646,955 ! 182,594,100 
 
 Exceeding 3 %, but not 
 
 
 
 
 exceeding 5 % ... 96,543,3*8 
 
 282,940,356 
 
 141,151,704 
 
 Exceeding 5 %, but not 
 
 
 
 
 exceeding 7 % 
 
 131,277,891 
 
 4,474,014 
 
 1,567,544 
 
 Exceeding 7 %, but not 
 
 
 
 
 exceeding 10 % 
 
 2,229,641 
 
 
 
 ---" 
 
 Average rate of dividend per cent, per annum paid on 
 ordinary stock for the year 1903, 3*29. 
 
 The position in regard to certain individual companies 
 is as shown in the accompanying table (p. 43). 
 
 These tables demonstrate very clearly that, consider- 
 ing the large sums of money involved, the general return 
 on British railway investment is by no means excessive. 
 
CAPITAL AND DIVIDENDS 
 
 43 
 
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44 RAILWAY FINANCE 
 
 A remark made to me recently by a Worcestershire 
 market-gardener, to the effect that 'he had always 
 understood English railways earned bigger profits than 
 any other enterprises in the country,' has led me to 
 think it would serve a useful purpose to contrast with 
 such a table as the last corresponding figures with 
 reference to some of the principal trading concerns, and 
 especially with concerns which have extensive dealings 
 with British railway companies, since one might assume 
 that their dividends would, in these circumstances, be 
 seriously prejudiced if it were really true, as some people 
 assume, that British industries are being crippled 
 (' crippled ' or ' strangled ' is the favourite word) by 
 excessive railway charges. 
 
 Here, therefore (p. 45), is the further table in 
 question. 
 
OTHER ENTERPRISES 
 
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 STATISTICS RELATING TO 1 
 PRINCIPAL INDUSTRIAI 
 
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CHAPTER IV 
 TAXATION OF RAILWAYS 
 
 THE amount of local taxation a railway has to pay 
 represents an important item among those working 
 expenses which, as I have shown, must necessarily be 
 covered out of the fares, rates, and charges levied on 
 passenger or trader. 
 
 In the case of State-owned railways on the Continent 
 of Europe, the contributions under this head from the 
 revenue of the undertakings are comparatively light. 
 The State itself does not want to take out of one pocket 
 merely to pay into another, and it is so much interested 
 in running its lines at a minimum of expenditure, con- 
 sistent with a reasonable efficiency, that it naturally 
 keeps a check over any local authorities who might 
 otherwise seek to replenish their exchequers unduly at 
 the cost of the railways. 
 
 In the United Kingdom conditions are altogether 
 different. Here local taxation falls with especial 
 severity on the railways, partly because of the magni- 
 tude of their interests and the rapid growth of local 
 rates all round of late years, and partly because they 
 are considered fair game for plunder by local authori- 
 ties, many of whom subject them to the most merciless 
 of exactions. 
 
 The increase in the item of ' Rates and Taxes ' (repre- 
 senting local taxation only, and not including income- 
 
 46 
 
GROWTH OF THE BURDEN 
 
 47 
 
 tax or Government duty) paid by the railways of the 
 United Kingdom has been stupendous, as the following 
 table shows : 
 
 RAILWAY EXPENDITURE IN LOCAL RATES. 
 
 Year. 
 
 England and 
 Wales. 
 
 Scotland. 
 
 Ireland. 
 
 Total. 
 
 Increase 
 compared with 
 Previous Year. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1891 
 
 1,960,764 
 
 211,593 
 
 73.723 
 
 2,246,080 
 
 
 
 1892 
 
 2,077,268 
 
 210,967 
 
 79,866 
 
 2,368,101 
 
 122,021 
 
 1893 
 
 2,289,530 
 
 213*875 
 
 83,842 
 
 2,587,247 
 
 219,146 
 
 1894 
 
 2,509,183 
 
 219,641 
 
 86,448 
 
 2,815,272 
 
 228,025 
 
 1895 
 
 2,689,423 
 
 232,945 
 
 88,362 
 
 3,010,730 
 
 195,458 
 
 1896 
 
 2,838,525 
 
 222,415 
 
 87,949 
 
 3,148,889 
 
 1 38, 1 59 
 
 1897 
 
 2,964,632 
 
 248,699 
 
 98,300 
 
 3,311,631 
 
 162,742 
 
 1898 
 
 3,045,766 
 
 272,992 
 
 105,581 
 
 3,424,339 
 
 112,708 
 
 1899 
 
 3,187,364 
 
 283,123 
 
 111,150 
 
 3,581,637 
 
 157,298 
 
 1900 
 
 3,341,512 
 
 292,019 
 
 123,003 
 
 3-756,534 
 
 174,897 
 
 1901 i 3,559,490 
 
 298,840 
 
 121,160 
 
 3,979,490 
 
 222,956 
 
 1902 
 
 3,820,289 
 
 285,306 
 
 121,249 
 
 4,226,844 
 
 247,354 
 
 1903 
 
 4,064,648 
 
 300,634 
 
 126,812 
 
 4,492,094 
 
 265,250 
 
 In the course, therefore, of thirteen years, the sum- 
 total of local rates paid by the railway companies of the 
 United Kingdom has doubled. It has now attained to 
 the proportions of 4,500,000 a year, and is still ad- 
 vancing at the rate of 250,000 each year. Taking in- 
 dividual companies, I find that the London and North- 
 Western Company paid on account of local rates 
 277,000 in 1891, 456,000 in 1901, 490,000 in 1902, 
 and 521,000 in 1903 ; the Great Western Company 
 paid 221,000 in 1891, 444,000 in 1901, 492,000 in 
 1902, and 524,000 in 1903 ; and so on with other 
 companies. 
 
 There is, of course, the consideration that during 
 the periods dealt with the companies concerned have 
 extended their lines and increased their earning 
 
4 8 
 
 TAXATION OF RAILWAYS 
 
 power. But the growth in local rates has been out of 
 all proportion to the expansion of gross receipts. The 
 following table shows very clearly what the experiences 
 of the London and North-Western Railway Company 
 have been in this respect for twelve years, local rates 
 having increased by 94 per cent., while the gross 
 revenue from traffic advanced by 22\ per cent. only. 
 
 GROSS TRAFFIC RECEIPTS AND LOCAL RATES. 
 
 
 Gross Receipts. 
 
 Rates and Taxes. 
 
 Year ending. 
 
 Increase or Decrease com- 
 
 Increase or Decrease com- 
 
 
 pared with Year 1891-92. 
 
 pared with Year 1891-92. 
 
 June, 1893 
 
 
 - I -06 
 
 + 4*58 
 
 
 1894 
 
 
 - 3*49 
 
 + I4*I5 
 
 
 1895 
 
 
 - 1-92 
 
 + 22'59 
 
 
 1896 
 
 
 + 3'i2 
 
 + 30'0 
 
 
 1897 
 
 
 + 6-27 
 
 + 32-48 
 
 
 1898 
 
 
 + 979 
 
 + 36-58 
 
 
 1899 
 
 
 + 13*97 
 
 + 40-5I 
 
 
 1900 
 
 
 + 17*19 
 
 + 47-09 
 
 
 1901 
 
 
 + 17*55 
 
 + 55*43 
 
 
 1902 
 
 
 + 19-38 
 
 + 70-49 
 
 J 9Q3 
 
 
 + 22-92 
 
 + 81-3 
 
 1904 
 
 
 + 22-54 
 
 + 94*16 
 
 Comparing 1903 with 1871, statistics respecting the 
 Midland Railway Company show an increase in gross 
 receipts during that period of 172*56 per cent., as 
 against an increase in rates and taxes of no less than 
 473*64 per cent. The average poundage of the rates 
 paid by the company was as. gd. in 1871 and 45. 2d. in 
 1903. The dividend was 7 per cent, in 1871 and 5^ per 
 cent, in 1903. 
 
 Nor do the figures given above tell the whole story, 
 for, beyond the payments made direct to the local 
 authorities, it has been estimated that the expenses in- 
 
THE RAILWAY PROPORTION 
 
 49 
 
 curred by railway companies in England and Wales in 
 respect to their rating departments, appeals, and litiga- 
 tion arising therefrom, average not less than 80,000 a 
 year. 
 
 How, again, there are many parishes in the country 
 where the bulk of the local rates may be paid by a rail- 
 way company, even though it has not got as much as a 
 station in the place, is well illustrated by a table show- 
 ing the position in this respect of the London and 
 North-Western Railway Company : 
 
 PROPORTION OF LOCAL RATES PAID BY RAILWAY 
 COMPANY. 
 
 
 No. of 
 Parishes. 
 
 Railway Company's 
 Assessment. 
 
 Total Rateable 
 Value of Parish. 
 
 Railway Company's 
 Proportion. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Per Cent. 
 
 A 
 
 6 
 
 24,029 
 
 28,625 
 
 83-9 
 
 B 
 
 12 
 
 62,439 
 
 83,642 
 
 747 
 
 C 
 
 19 
 
 69,112 
 
 108,046 
 
 64^0 
 
 D 
 
 45 
 
 220,872 
 
 404,514 
 
 54-6 
 
 
 82 
 
 376,452 
 
 624,827 
 
 60-25 
 
 A. In this group the railway company's proportion varies from Bi'g to 86*9 per cent. 
 No station in four of the parishes. 
 
 B. Railway company's proportion from 70*4 to 79^6 per cent. No station in eight of 
 the parishes. 
 
 C. Railway company's proportion from 60 to 68*3 per cent. No station in ten of the 
 parishes. 
 
 D. Railway company's proportion from 50 to 59*9 per cent. No station in thirty-one 
 of the parishes. 
 
 Still more striking is the following statement, show- 
 ing the rateable value of the London and North-Western 
 Railway Company's property in sixteen parishes, and the 
 percentage this bears to the total rateable value of each 
 of the parishes ; also the area of land occupied for rail- 
 way purposes in each of such parishes compared with 
 the percentage of the total acreage. I omit, however, 
 the actual names of the parishes, lest their im- 
 
 4 
 
TAXATION OF RAILWAYS 
 
 mediate neighbours might be encouraged to follow 
 their example : 
 
 Parishes. 
 
 L.andN.-W. 
 Railway 
 Company's 
 Assessment. 
 
 Percentage 
 which Railway 
 Company's 
 Assessment 
 bears to Whole 
 Parish. 
 
 Area of 
 Railway 
 Company's 
 Property. 
 
 Percentage of 
 Land in Parish 
 occupied by 
 Railway 
 Company. 
 
 Remarks. 
 
 
 
 
 Per Cent. 
 
 Acres. 
 
 Per Cent. 
 
 
 A 
 
 1,848 
 
 86-i 
 
 IO 
 
 2'2 
 
 No station 
 
 B 
 
 3,765 
 
 84-1 
 
 58 
 
 5'I 
 
 
 
 C 
 
 3,276 
 
 837 
 
 16 
 
 2'6 
 
 No station 
 
 D 
 
 8,594 
 
 82-0 
 
 31 
 
 2'0 
 
 , 
 
 E 
 
 1,188 
 
 8ro 
 
 4 
 
 2\3 
 
 ,, 
 
 F 
 
 4>78o 
 
 79-6 
 
 21 
 
 2'0 
 
 
 
 G 
 
 3>974 
 
 77'9 
 
 16 
 
 i -9 
 
 ,, 
 
 H 
 
 7,208 
 
 77-6 
 
 29 
 
 r8 
 
 
 
 I 
 
 7^752 
 
 76-5 
 
 4i 
 
 2-9 
 
 
 
 J 
 
 7)3 
 
 747 
 
 49 
 
 2-9 
 
 
 
 K 
 
 5,392 
 
 727 
 
 3i 
 
 2'2 
 
 No station 
 
 L 
 
 1,690 
 
 72-6 
 
 6 
 
 I '4 
 
 ,, 
 
 M 
 
 7,158 
 
 72'5 
 
 3i 
 
 2*2 
 
 
 
 N 
 
 3,073 
 
 72-3 
 
 21 
 
 1-6 
 
 No station 
 
 
 
 2,164 
 
 70-4 
 
 7 
 
 i'5 
 
 
 
 P 
 
 4,499 
 
 66-9 
 
 16 
 
 i*3 
 
 M 
 
 Similar tables could be given in regard to many other 
 lines of railway. The Great Western Railway can offer 
 such illustrations as that of a country parish where the 
 total acreage is a little over 3,000, of which the company 
 occupies 24! acres, the assessment of the whole parish 
 being 3 6s. per acre, while that of the railway company 
 is at the rate of 284 per acre. In 166 parishes through 
 which the Midland Railway runs the average assess- 
 ment, exclusive of railway property, ranges from 93. 6d. 
 to 8 8s. per acre. That of the Midland Railway 
 Company in the same parishes varies between 23 and 
 345 per acre. 
 
 Many of my readers will be at a loss to understand 
 how it is that a railway company may have to bear so 
 
PRINCIPLES OF RAILWAY TAXATION 51 
 
 large a proportion of the local taxation in country 
 parishes in which it has no direct interest, and the 
 reasons for this fact should be clearly understood, the 
 matter being one that concerns every trader who con- 
 signs his goods or his minerals by rail, if not, also, every 
 railway passenger as well. 
 
 Under the parochial system in vogue in England and 
 Wales in regard to the taxation of railways, a railway 
 company is separately assessed in each parish on the 
 
 * net annual value ' of the lines within the limits of 
 such parish. Taking the gross receipts derived by 
 the company from the traffic passing over the lines, 
 allowance is first made in respect to (i) the expenses of 
 earning those gross receipts ; (2) the occupier's share 
 that is, 'the amount of profit due on the capital em- 
 ployed '; and (3) the statutory deductions (in respect to 
 repair and renewal of way and works) allowed by the 
 Parochial Assessment Act. The remainder represents 
 the net annual value, on which the assessment of the 
 
 * running line ' is based station and buildings, if any, 
 being dealt with separately. In practice the assess- 
 ment is arrived at by allocating to the particular parish 
 (i) the whole of the tolls, rates, and fares for traffic 
 beginning and ending in the parish ; and (2), in the case 
 of through traffic, or traffic partly in the parish and 
 partly in another or others, by allowing a proportion of 
 the whole fare, according to the mileage within the 
 parish, of every separate toll, rate, or fare paid in respect 
 of such traffic. (See ' Rating of Railways, 1 by Walter 
 Clode, Barrister-at-Law.) 
 
 The amount of clerical work thus involved in com- 
 piling monthly returns or abstracts over the entire 
 system of a railway company in order to ascertain the 
 earnings in respect to each parish may in itself be 
 enormous. In one instance the preparation of a return 
 
 42 
 
52 TAXATION OF RAILWAYS 
 
 of parish earnings in a certain union cost the railway in 
 clerical work alone 640, while, in addition to this, 
 fourteen clerks worked for three weeks on the signal- 
 men's books extracting the train miles. 
 
 The practical effect of this parochial system in the 
 assessment of railways is that when a trader sends 
 a truck of cauliflowers from Penzance to London, 
 or a consignment of machinery from London to the 
 North, the traffic thus created will be included in 
 any fresh assessment made in respect to every parish 
 through which it is conveyed. Each local authority, 
 in fact, however obscure, has a right to levy a toll, in 
 the shape of local rates, on all traffic passing over the 
 railway lines within its area. In various instances, I 
 may add, the area has been deliberately stretched in a 
 certain direction for the purpose of enabling the local 
 authority to tap the through railway traffic for rating 
 purposes, and so provide itself with some more or less 
 costly ' improvement ' at the expense of those who have 
 absolutely no interest in the place beyond travelling 
 through it or sending goods through it on the way from 
 one part of the country to another. 
 
 One sees, therefore, that, although the heavy local 
 taxation already illustrated nominally falls upon the 
 railways, it must also seriously prejudice the position 
 of traders and travellers, since the various considera- 
 tions here presented are necessarily borne in mind by 
 the companies in fixing those rates, fares, and charges 
 by means of which the revenue to meet such taxation, 
 among other expenses, is raised. So, in the long-run, 
 the trader suffers equally with the railway shareholder, 
 and we see how the dead-weight of local taxation may 
 affect the commercial and industrial welfare of the entire 
 country. 
 
 The foregoing remarks apply to existing conditions, 
 
POSSIBILITIES OF THE SITUATION 53 
 
 but there is the possibility of a still more serious outlook 
 for the British trader. Ten years ago a number of the 
 leading railway companies thought to recoup themselves 
 for the increase in working expenses (due to the rise in 
 the price of coal, higher wages, and statutory require- 
 ments shortening the hours of labour) by increasing 
 their rates for the carriage of coal and certain other 
 commodities. They were called upon to * justify ' these 
 advances before the Railway and Canal Commission ; 
 but, although the fact of an increase in working expenses 
 was admitted, and although the principle involved in 
 the action of the companies was upheld, it was found 
 practically impossible to allocate the higher working 
 expenses (coming under the different heads, as specified 
 above) to particular commodities or classes of traffic, 
 and, in the result, the railway companies were only 
 partially successful, and had to be content with smaller 
 advances than those they had sought to enforce. 
 
 To-day the position is altogether different, for, going 
 no further back than 1894, the increase in the item of 
 rates and taxes alone between that year and 1903 was 
 no less than 59*6 per cent. The moral conveyed by 
 this fact is that, if the said item should continue to 
 increase in the same way as it has done since 1894, the 
 railway companies, in any further attempt to recoup 
 themselves for their greater working expenses, should 
 be in a position to ' justify ' by ' rates and taxes ' alone 
 an advance of their own rates all round, since local 
 rates and taxes have to be paid by them in respect to 
 all classes of traffic. I am, of course, only speaking 
 here of the possibilities of the situation, and, accepting 
 these, there would still remain some very grave questions 
 of policy for decision before those possibilities were acted 
 upon. It is as well, however especially in the light of 
 what occurred ten years ago that the traders of the 
 
54 TAXATION OF RAILWAYS 
 
 country should recognise the direction in which affairs 
 may be drifting. 
 
 Looking at the special reasons why local taxation has 
 fallen with exceptional severity on railway companies, 
 one finds that a leading cause in rural parishes is the 
 readiness shown by the new local authorities there to 
 carry out a variety of ' improvements ' (too often on a 
 scale much more suited to urban than to agricultural 
 districts) because, under the conditions already narrated, 
 some railway company or other can be called upon to 
 pay most of the cost. 
 
 Many illustrations of this tendency could be given, 
 but a few must suffice. 
 
 A purely agricultural parish in Northamptonshire, 
 with an acreage of 1,671 and a population of a little 
 over 400, recently carried out a drainage scheme which 
 had the effect of raising the local rates from gd. in the 
 pound, at which they previously stood, to 35. id. in 1903, 
 while for the first half of 1904 they were as. 8d., or at 
 the rate of 55. 4d. in the pound. But the burden falls 
 principally on the Midland Railway Company, for, 
 though they have no station in the place, they are 
 assessed to the tune of 7,478 in respect to the traffic 
 passing over their lines situated within the parish 
 boundaries, and they pay, in point of fact, 81*5 per cent, 
 of the sum total of the rates. 
 
 A drainage scheme, which would have cost some 
 thousands of pounds, was proposed for a Berkshire 
 village situated four miles from the lines of the Great 
 Western Railway Company and separated from them 
 by some poor agricultural land assessed at between 
 I2s. 6d. and 155. the acre. The assessment imposed 
 on the railway company in respect to the traffic carried 
 on their section of line included in the parish stands at 
 2,500, and represents 150 per acre on the actual 
 
RAILWAYS AND ' IMPROVEMENTS ' 55 
 
 amount of land occupied. Had the scheme been 
 carried out, the railway company would have had to 
 bear the greater part of the cost, for the benefit of a 
 parish miles away and absolutely of no benefit to them- 
 selves ; but in this instance the company's officials 
 raised so vigorous a protest that the proposal was 
 abandoned. 
 
 In another rural parish where, again, a railway 
 company constitute the principal ratepayers, a costly 
 drainage scheme was adopted, protests notwithstand- 
 ing, and the local rulers then realized what the railway 
 people had foretold that the new drainage system 
 would have to be supplemented by a water scheme, in 
 order to flush the sewers. It was proposed to bring 
 the water into the parish from a source some distance 
 away, at an expenditure which would have added con- 
 siderably to the already substantial demands made on 
 the company in the shape of local rates. As a com- 
 promise of the situation, the company arranged to sink 
 an artesian well, and, having obtained the necessary 
 powers, constituted themselves a water company for the 
 parish, thus not only avoiding the threatened further 
 increase in rates, but supplying the people with water 
 under much more economical conditions than they 
 could have got it for themselves. 
 
 There is a certain Nottinghamshire parish, with a 
 population of only 930 persons, where a drainage 
 scheme which will involve an expenditure of about 
 6,000 and increase the local rates by no less than 
 2S. iojd. in the pound is to be carried out, notwith- 
 standing the admission of the medical officer of health 
 that no illness had occurred which was directly trace- 
 able to the existing system of drainage. Inasmuch, 
 however, as the Midland Railway Company have some 
 lines in the parish, all the traffic that passes through 
 
56 TAXATION OF RAILWAYS 
 
 can be made to contribute towards the cost of the 
 work. 
 
 Lighting schemes in insignificant places may be illus- 
 trated by one that was projected in a parish that con- 
 sisted of 100 houses, and had a population which had 
 dwindled from 477 in 1891 to 394 in 1901. The parish 
 council proposed to light their roads by gas at a cost 
 which would have added 2jd. in the pound to the 
 local rates ; but 60 per cent, of those rates fall on the 
 London and North-Western Railway Company, some 
 of whose lines happen to pass through the parish. 
 Happily for the company, the persuasive arguments 
 of one of their officials induced the parish council to 
 drop the scheme. 
 
 Taking places of a different type from those men- 
 tioned above, reference might be made to a group of 
 local authorities within fifteen miles of London who are 
 engaged on drainage schemes which will involve a total 
 outlay of close on 100,000. The schemes themselves 
 may, in these particular instances, be desirable enough 
 in the interests of rising localities ; but the rates in- 
 volved will fall heavily on the Great Western Railway 
 Company, who are assessed in the parishes concerned 
 to the extent of 45,000. 
 
 These are fair samples of what is going on more 
 or less throughout the country. 
 
 It so happens, too, that there is grave cause for sus- 
 pecting something more than simply an excess of zeal 
 in regard to the cost of local government in rural 
 parishes. Due allowance must certainly be made for 
 the occasional presence on the new councils of men of 
 little better than the labourer type, occupying tenements 
 rated at from 7 or 8 to 15 a year, filled with big 
 ideas without any restraining sense of proportion, and 
 desirous only of getting substantial advantages for the 
 
A POLICY OF PLUNDER 57 
 
 parish in general at the cost of some important under- 
 taking which has not even a vote. There are, however, 
 others besides, including the people who build rows of 
 cottages without making proper arrangements for 
 drainage, etc., and then, being, perhaps, themselves on 
 the local body, seek to evade their responsibilities by 
 securing the adoption of drainage, water, and lighting 
 schemes at the cost of the whole parish, and especially 
 of some large company, but for whose rating liabilities 
 these schemes would either not be projected at all, or 
 would be framed on much more economical lines. In 
 the words of a rating agent of long and varied experience 
 in all these matters : 
 
 England is being put into good 'fettle. 3 and the conditions in 
 the rural districts are certainly improving. The chief responsibility 
 of finding the money, however, is falling, not upon the landowners 
 and the landlords whose property is enhanced in value, or upon the 
 local residents who enjoy the increased comforts and advantages, 
 but upon the railway companies on the one hand, and, through 
 them, upon the traders and travellers who patronize their lines. 
 
 More alarming still for the railway companies than 
 these drainage, lighting and other rural schemes is the 
 prospect that another formidable item in public expen- 
 diture has only just begun that in regard to secondary 
 education, the rates for which will be incorporated 
 with the poor rate, and charged upon full rateable value. 
 There is one railway company alone which calculates 
 that the last Education Act will send up its item of 
 ' Rates and Taxes ' by 60,000 a year, while the 
 increase in the probable grand total for the railways as 
 a whole due to the new Education Act is estimated by 
 one of the most experienced of railway rating agents at 
 from 175,000 to 200,000 a year. Is this amount to 
 be paid by the railway shareholders or by the traders 
 and passengers ? And should there not be, in either 
 case, an extension of the system of differential rating, 
 
58 TAXATION OF RAILWAYS 
 
 so that the local rates enforced on a railway company 
 would be more in accordance with the benefits likely to 
 be derived by the railway from the particular expendi- 
 ture in respect to which the rates are levied ? 
 
 Then, the assessments are in many cases made by 
 individuals who are paid by results that is to say, they 
 receive a commission on the amount by which they 
 can raise the previous assessments, while appeals 
 against assessments are decided by a Court of Quarter 
 Sessions, instead of, in the case of railway companies, 
 by the Railway and Canal Commission. When this 
 body was first appointed, it was assumed that the Com- 
 missioners would try all railway assessment appeals, 
 but this can be done only with the assent of both 
 parties. One or two such appeals were heard before 
 the Commission, which threshed them out in the most 
 impartial and thoroughgoing manner. Local authorities 
 were, in fact, led to the conclusion that they could get 
 better results from their own point of view from 
 Quarter Sessions, and since then there have been no 
 further appeals to the Railway Commission. The 
 question that now arises is whether a railway company 
 should not have the right of appeal to the experts of 
 the Railway Commission in preference to the amateurs 
 (necessarily so as regards railway technicalities) of the 
 Court of Quarter Sessions, and irrespective of any 
 preferences on the part of the local authority. 
 
 All the same, even the Courts of Quarter Sessions 
 are recognising the iniquitous way in which local 
 authorities seek to swell their receipts from rates by 
 raising assessments on the great traction companies to 
 abnormal proportions, and, as the following examples 
 show, are willing to do the companies justice when 
 especially flagrant cases come before them : 
 
 i. At the last quinquennial revaluation in Lambeth 
 
UNJUST ASSESSMENTS 59 
 
 the lines of the South-Eastern section of the South- 
 Eastern and Chatham Railway within that parish were 
 assessed at a rateable value of 9,150. The managing 
 committee appealed, first to the Assessment Committee 
 and then to Quarter Sessions. There the appeal was 
 allowed, with costs, the assessment being reduced by 
 6,300 to 2,850, which was precisely the figure the 
 managing committee had represented as the right one. 
 
 2. The Midland Railway Company appealed from 
 the assessment of the Midland Hotel, Manchester, with 
 the result that the justices reduced the overseers' 
 assessment of 22,000 gross and 19,000 net to 15,000 
 gross and 12,500 net. 
 
 3. The London United Tramways Company (Limited) 
 appealed against their property within the Brentford 
 Union being assessed at 18,552, and asked that the 
 amount should be reduced to 13,659. After prolonged 
 proceedings which involved a total expenditure esti- 
 mated at 10,000 the Court granted the appeal, with 
 costs, and reduced the assessment to 11,245, this 
 being 2,414 less even than the figure the company had 
 been willing to accept ! 
 
 With the help of the facts and figures here detailed, 
 the trader should understand more clearly the impor- 
 tant bearing that local taxation may have on the rates, 
 tolls, and charges out of which alone a railway com- 
 pany can hope to cover, among other things, working 
 expenses which include what I have shown to be the 
 very considerable item of * rates and taxes.' Certain it 
 is that if the railways had to pay under this head some 
 less extortionate sum than 4,500,000 a year, they would 
 be in a position to make substantial concessions to 
 their patrons, who at present suffer equally with railway 
 shareholders from a condition of things over which the 
 voteless railway companies have absolutely no control. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 CLASSIFICATION AND LEADING 
 PRINCIPLES 
 
 THE existing classification in regard to the general 
 goods traffic on British railways, and according to 
 which the rates and charges are imposed, is of a two- 
 fold character : (i) The * statutory ' classification, and 
 (2) the 'railway' or 'working' classification. The 
 former is the one laid down by those Railway Rates 
 and Charges Orders Confirmation Acts of 1891-1892, 
 which form the present charters of our railway 
 companies. The latter is an amplification of the 
 statutory classification, reducing certain commodities 
 to a lower class, and allowing of greater elasticity in 
 the granting of lower rates, to the advantage of the 
 
 ' Class rates ' comprise eight groups, namely, A, B, C, 
 *> 2, 3, 4, and 5, the rates in the first-mentioned groups 
 being the lowest, and those in the last-mentioned the 
 highest. Classes A, B, and C relate to articles gene- 
 rally carried in large quantities and in a more or less 
 raw condition, or, alternatively, in the first stages of 
 manufacture. They are usually ' station to station ' 
 rates, with a minimum of 4 tons for Classes A and B 
 and of 2 tons for Class C. Typical commodities in 
 
 60 
 
CLASS RATES 61 
 
 Class A would be coal and ironstone ; in Class B slates, 
 pig-iron, and bricks ; in Class C iron girders, artificial 
 manures, cement, and grain. 
 
 Classes i to 5 generally include collection and de- 
 livery, and the rates are applicable to weights 
 over 3 cwt., without any addition being made to 
 the proportionate charge per ton. Consignments 
 of 3 cwt. and less fall under a * smalls ' scale, which 
 works out at something more than the tonnage 
 charge. 
 
 Typical articles in Classes i to 5 are Class i : ale, 
 sugar, apples. Class 2 : bacon, oranges, wool. Class 3 : 
 packages of heavy drapery or hardware, boots and 
 shoes in cases or boxes. Class 4 : meat, drugs, boots 
 and shoes in hampers, packages of light drapery, manu- 
 factured tobacco (not cigars or cigarettes). Class 5: 
 furniture, musical instruments, amber, cigars or cigar- 
 ettes, straw hats, feathers, stained glass, cut flowers, 
 photographic apparatus. 
 
 The chief considerations which prevailed in arranging 
 the general classification were (a) value of the 
 commodity ; (6) liability to damage during transit ; 
 (c) weight in proportion to bulk ; (d) nature of packing 
 and cost of handling. Thus, coal is less valuable than 
 iron girders, and is therefore charged on a I^wer scale ; 
 amber is valuable, though it occupies little space, and 
 can ' stand ' a higher rate than bacon ; furniture, whilst 
 being very bulky, is much more liable to damage 
 during transit than heavy drapery ; a 3-cwt. con- 
 signment of straw-hats would take up much more space 
 in a railway-truck than 3 cwt. of hardware ; and so 
 on throughout the almost endless list of reasons 
 why particular commodities fall into one of the classes 
 specified, and not into another ; although it may well 
 happen that the trader himself may not always appre- 
 
62 CLASSIFICATION AND PRINCIPLES 
 
 ciate the distinctions on which the differences are based, 
 and entertain his grievances accordingly. 
 
 The * class rates ' themselves are seldom altered, 
 reductions in regard to particular commodities being 
 made, preferably, by placing the goods in question in a 
 lower class. On the other hand, no commodity can be 
 transferred from a lower to a higher class in the work- 
 ing classification, thus increasing the rate, without 
 fourteen days' notice being given ; and if such transfer 
 be objected to by the traders, the railway company 
 may be required to justify it before the Railway Com- 
 missioners. 
 
 The differences per ton in the various classes, and the 
 effect of removing any particular commodity into a 
 lower one than it has stood in before, are well brought 
 out in the following table, which gives, for various dis- 
 tances, the rates on one of the leading lines of railway 
 for commodities coming within the scope of all eight 
 classes : 
 
 ORDINARY CLASS RATES. 
 
 Distance 
 (Miles). 
 
 A. 
 
 B. 
 
 c. 
 
 i. 
 
 2. 
 
 i 
 
 3- 4- 
 
 5- 
 
 
 s. d. 
 
 s. d. 
 
 s. d. 
 
 s. d. 
 
 s. d. 
 
 s. d. < s. d. 
 
 s. d. 
 
 2O ... 
 
 2 I 
 
 3 o 
 
 5 6 
 
 10 3 
 
 12 3 
 
 14 o 16 7 
 
 2O I 
 
 47 .- 
 
 5 ii 
 
 5 4 
 
 8 9 
 
 14 6 
 
 17 6 
 
 20 4123 7 
 
 29 o 
 
 95 - 
 
 6 i 
 
 8 6 
 
 13 10 
 
 20 2 
 
 24 10 
 
 28 6 i 34 3 
 
 42 I 
 
 149 ... 
 
 7 ii 
 
 IO II 
 
 17 3 
 
 24 5 
 
 ,31 i 
 
 36 o 43 5 
 
 52 6 
 
 211 ... 
 
 9 ii 
 
 13 10 
 
 21 4 
 
 30 8 
 
 40 o 
 
 46 8 56 5 
 
 67 6 
 
 The rates in Classes A, B, and C are station to station rates ; those in Classes i, 2, 3, 
 4, and 5 include collection and delivery. Rates in Class A are applicable only to traffic 
 carried in traders' own waggons. 
 
 ' Exceptional rates,' lower than the ordinary class 
 rates, are given where certain minerals or goods are 
 carried in large quantities, the general principles on 
 which such rates are fixed being : (a) volume and regu- 
 
EXCEPTIONAL RATES 63 
 
 larity of traffic between the points concerned ; (6) weight 
 per truck or per train which can be maintained by such 
 regular traffic ; (c) general earning power of the traffic ; 
 (d) liability or non-liability to damage ; (e) competition, 
 direct or indirect, by water, by road, or by other means ; 
 (/) special requirements of shipping traffic to or from 
 ports ; (g) the creation of traffic by enabling new or 
 increased business to be done ; (h) a general considera- 
 tion of what the traffic will bear. 
 
 Taking the whole of the goods traffic in the United 
 Kingdom, about 75 per cent, is carried at these ex- 
 ceptional rates, conceded under a variety of circum- 
 stances for the encouragement of business, especially 
 in staple trades. As regards Classes A, B, and C, a 
 very large proportion of the traffic is conveyed at 
 exceptional rates, the practice among railway companies 
 having been, generally speaking, to concede less than 
 class rates (i) where the commodities comprised in 
 the classes in question are going long distances ; 
 (2) where they are carried in larger quantities per 
 waggon than the minimum to which the class rates 
 usually apply; or (3) in the case of special large 
 contracts. The bases of these rates were, in fact, 
 generally fixed before the present maximum scales of 
 charges were authorized. To have changed them 
 would have caused a serious dislocation of business. 
 In the higher classes of general merchandise, com- 
 prised in Classes I to 5, exceptional rates are frequently 
 given (i) where a regular trade can be created by 
 such rates, or (2) where the traffic can be sent in large 
 quantities. 
 
 The reductions obtained by the traders from the 
 operation of these exceptional or special rates, as com- 
 pared with the ordinary class rates, are well brought 
 out by the following examples : 
 
64 CLASSIFICATION AND PRINCIPLES 
 
 Distance 
 (Miles). 
 
 Description of 
 Traffic. 
 
 Exceptional Rate per 
 Ton. 
 
 Corresponding Class 
 Rate per Ton. 
 
 
 
 s. d. 
 
 s. d. 
 
 17 ... 
 
 Soap 
 
 7 ii C. & D. 
 
 8 9C. & D. 
 
 107 ... 
 
 ,, 
 
 17 6 
 
 21 9 
 
 154 ... 
 
 i 
 
 22 9 
 
 28 2 
 
 4 6 ... 
 
 Undressed 
 
 
 
 
 leather 
 
 15 o 
 
 17 6 
 
 110 ... 
 
 Undressed 
 
 
 
 leather 26 3 ,, 
 
 27 3 
 
 211 ... 
 
 Undressed 
 
 
 
 leather 30 o ,, 
 
 40 i ,, 
 
 162 ... 
 
 Cotton and 
 
 
 
 linen goods 35 10 ,, 
 
 38 5 n 
 
 179 ... 
 
 Cotton and 
 
 
 
 linen goods i 40 o ,, 
 
 45 7 
 
 23 .- 
 
 Common win- 
 
 
 
 dow glass in 9 ,, 
 
 14 o 
 
 54 ... Common win- i 
 
 
 
 dow glass | 15 10 ,, 
 
 21 9 >i 
 
 207 ... 
 
 Common win- : 
 
 
 
 dow glass ! 30 5 
 
 43 4 
 
 20 ... 
 
 Iron in Class C 
 
 3 8 S. to S.\ 
 
 5 3 S. to S. | 
 
 100 ... 
 
 n 
 
 10 10 
 
 14 o 
 
 20O ... 
 
 ,, 
 
 16 8 ,, 1 
 
 22 9 
 
 19 ... 
 
 Grain 
 
 49 f J 
 
 57,, 3 
 
 51 ... 
 
 i, 
 
 7 6 
 
 9 S 
 
 101 ... 
 
 II 3 i ? 
 
 14 o P 
 
 20 ... 
 
 Common \ 
 
 It 
 
 
 bricks 23 
 
 
 
 50 .'.. 
 
 Common lf 
 
 1 
 
 
 bricks 50 po 
 
 8 
 
 150 ... 
 
 Common 
 
 : 
 
 
 bricks 10 5 }\ 
 
 P 
 
 C. & D. = collection and delivery. S. to S. = station to station. 
 
 Concessions such as those here represented have 
 been one of the main causes of the complaints as to a 
 lack both of consistency and of simplicity in railway 
 rates. It is probable that if the railway companies 
 had adhered rigidly to their statutory classification and 
 to their ordinary class rates, instead of adopting a 
 working classification and conceding so many excep- 
 tional rates, the whole system might have appeared 
 
RATE BOOKS : TERMINALS 65 
 
 more consistent and much simpler. But I leave the 
 reader to decide for himself, with the help of the figures 
 given above, whether the effect might not have been 
 seriously prejudicial to the best interests of many a 
 British industry. 
 
 In addition to the more or less permanent of the 
 exceptional rates, specially low rates are often given by 
 the companies for large volumes of traffic passing 
 between certain points within a fixed period, being 
 cancelled as soon as the period in question has elapsed. 
 But any and every rate made by a British railway 
 company must be inscribed in the rate-book at the 
 station from which it applies, and any trader who 
 pleases has the right both to see the rate-book and to 
 claim that his produce or his merchandise shall be 
 forwarded at the rate in question, provided he fulfils 
 the required conditions. 
 
 The rates for transport are supplemented by charges 
 in respect to terminal services, such as loading and 
 unloading, or covering and uncovering, maximum sums 
 in respect thereto having been fixed by the Railway Rates 
 and Charges Orders Confirmation Acts, 1891-1 892. The 
 companies are further empowered to charge for ware- 
 housing and wharfage, and also demurrage for the 
 detention of trucks by traders beyond a reasonable 
 time, the free period usually allowed being forty-eight 
 hours. 
 
 Besides the scales of rates in respect to minerals and 
 merchandise referred to above, there are others which 
 relate to (a) animals ; (6) carriages ; (c) exceptional 
 articles ; (d) small parcels ; and (e) returned empties. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 EQUAL MILEAGE RATES 
 
 THE fallacy that in equal mileage rates will be found 
 the panacea for all anomalies in railway rates lingers in 
 spite of half a century's experience to the contrary, and 
 in spite of the condemnation of every Royal Commission 
 and Parliamentary Committee which has investigated 
 the subject. So recently as October, 1904, the directors 
 of the Nottingham and Midland District Grain Trade 
 Association, Ltd., addressed to the Minister of Agri- 
 culture and the President of the Board of Trade a 
 letter in which they urged ' the necessity and desir- 
 ability of " a code of legal maximum practical railway 
 rates " being organized, the same to be binding upon 
 all railway companies as if they were one railway, so 
 that the cost of the carriage of corn or of any other 
 kind of goods can be as easily ascertained as the fare 
 for personal conveyance ' ; the claim being also made 
 that ' every article should be classified, and should be 
 subject to a fixed maximum charge per ton per mile for 
 haulage between any pair of stations.' Here we get 
 the old theory of equal mileage rates served up afresh, 
 and the fact that it can, even now, be so served up, 
 and may even be favoured in other quarters besides, 
 must be my excuse for dealing with a branch of the 
 general subject which otherwise might have appeared 
 sufficiently antiquated to be left alone. 
 
 66 
 
THEORY AND PRACTICE 67 
 
 Admitting that classification, with its different rates 
 or different kinds of goods, is unavoidable, the advo- 
 cates of equal mileage rates have, nevertheless, argued 
 that a particular commodity should always be charged 
 the same rate per mile, irrespective of length of haul 
 or of the different points between which it is carried. 
 Given classification and distance, a trader would then, 
 it was argued, be able to reckon out for himself the 
 amount to be paid for transport, and everything would 
 be simplified. 
 
 Theoretically, the proposal seems to have much in 
 its favour. Practically, it would be unworkable, and 
 in its application would be far worse for the traders 
 than any anomalies resulting from the existing system 
 a system which, complicated though it be, has been 
 moulded on actual economic and geographical con- 
 ditions, rather than on any ideal of absolute consistency. 
 
 To begin with, there are the differences in the cost 
 of construction. Whereas the lines from A to B may 
 have been laid over a perfectly flat surface, presenting 
 no engineering difficulties of any kind whatever, and 
 representing a minimum of outlay on the part of the 
 railway company, the lines from C to D, though of 
 equal distance, may include a heavy gradient, a costly 
 bridge or viaduct, a deep cutting, or a long tunnel, 
 any one of which conditions would add considerably 
 to the cost of making the lines. So a rate that was 
 remunerative between A and B would fail to yield any 
 adequate return on capital outlay on the lines between 
 C and D, while the rate necessary to cover cost in 
 the latter case would be excessive in the former. To 
 equalize the rate would still leave Farmer Jones to pay 
 more than he ought to be charged between A and B, in 
 order that Farmer Smith could get transport at less 
 than cost price between C and D. 
 
 52 
 
68 EQUAL MILEAGE RATES 
 
 Then there are differences in the cost of operation. 
 On a stretch of line having a heavy gradient a single 
 locomotive will be able to haul only a lesser number of 
 waggons, and that, too, at a decreased speed. To move 
 a given number of tons between two points having a 
 gradient such as this will cost more in working ex- 
 penses than to move an equal weight for an equal 
 distance over a perfectly level line. In regard, there- 
 fore, to the rates charged, the same considerations arise 
 here as before. 
 
 Another factor is the amount and regularity of the 
 traffic. Granted that the physical conditions between 
 two groups of places, of equal distance, are the same, it 
 may happen that large and constant consignments are 
 carried from A to B, with the possibilities of good 
 return loads from B to A, whereas only small and 
 irregular lots of the same commodities will go from 
 C to D, with no prospect of any back-loading at all. 
 Here, again, the railway company can afford to charge 
 a lower rate in the one case than in the other, although 
 the mileage is equal. 
 
 Next, we may take the case of three railway com- 
 panies all having lines between London and some 
 provincial town, but so laid that the first company's 
 route is 30 miles, the second company's route 35 miles, 
 and the third company's route 40 miles. Under a 
 system of equal mileage rates the company having the 
 shortest mileage would have a monopoly of the traffic, 
 and, even if the traders did not suffer, the other com- 
 panies would. In circumstances such as these the 
 railway companies agree between themselves that the 
 rates charged by the different routes shall be the same, 
 the basis fixed being the mileage of the shortest route. 
 
 If, therefore, it suits the trader to consign by the 
 company whose line to London is 40 miles, in pre- 
 
DISADVANTAGES AND DRAWBACKS 69 
 
 ference to the company whose line is only 30 miles, 
 he can do so without paying any more. He thus gains 
 an advantage in having three routes open to him on 
 the same terms, and all the companies concerned get 
 an equal chance (subject to other conditions which 
 may apply) of a share in the available traffic. Com- 
 petition is checked as regards the rates charged, but 
 there may still be a very keen competition indeed 
 between the three companies in regard to efficiency of 
 service once more to the benefit of the trader. 
 
 Equal mileage rates would entirely overthrow this 
 very happy arrangement. Still more would they be a 
 death-blow to the long-distance trader. A mileage rate 
 that might be necessary, and in no way burdensome, 
 in the case of a short haul would run into prohibitive 
 proportions in the case of a long haul, just as a rate 
 per mile that might bring in a satisfactory return on a 
 haul of 100 miles would be entirely unremunerative on 
 one of 5 or 10 miles. Under a system of equal mileage 
 rates beef could no longer be profitably sent to London 
 by rail from Aberdeenshire, fish from Wick or Galway, 
 vegetables from Penzance or Jersey, coals from South 
 Wales, or milk from any place more than a score or 
 so of miles away. The producers nearest to London 
 would have all the advantage, and those at a distance 
 would be shut out. Like conditions would apply to 
 other large centres of population. The farmer or the 
 manufacturer who wanted to get a living would have 
 to locate himself as near as possible to a big town, 
 and the desertion of the country for the towns would 
 proceed at a greater rate than ever. Some traders, 
 having a monopoly, would make fortunes ; others would 
 be ruined. Some railways would get more goods than 
 they could carry ; others would be left with a large 
 collection of empty waggons. As for the consumers in 
 
70 EQUAL MILEAGE RATES 
 
 the towns, they might fairly expect to have to pay 
 more for almost everything, since the range of possible 
 supplies would be so greatly curtailed. 
 
 Various branches of manufacture, especially in the 
 iron, steel, and engineering industries, would have to 
 stop altogether. Collecting, as they do, their raw 
 materials from a variety of sources, they could not fix 
 upon any one locality which would bring them close to 
 those raw materials in every instance ; and if they had 
 to pay equal mileage rates for everything they wanted, 
 the cost of production would be so excessive that the 
 works could not possibly be continued. Even if this 
 were not the case, the railway companies, under an 
 equal mileage rates regime, would be no longer able 
 to give manufacturers special rates to the ports, so 
 that competition with foreign producers would become 
 impracticable, and not only the traders and the railway 
 companies, but the shipping interests, also, would suffer. 
 
 The power now possessed by the railway companies 
 to lower their rates so as to compete with sea or inland 
 navigation traffic would be checked. In islands so 
 circumscribed in their dimensions as our own, sea 
 competition is an especially active force. The Bradford 
 manufacturer who is sending goods to London for 
 shipment to the East can put them on a boat which 
 will take them along the Aire and Calder Canal to 
 Goole or Hull, whence they can be carried by steamer 
 direct to London. From Liverpool and Manchester 
 there are regular services by sea to London, and, 
 assuming that time permits, goods may just as well 
 be sent by this route as by rail. Similar conditions 
 apply to innumerable other instances, and certain it is 
 that if the railways were bound down by a rigid system 
 of equal mileage rates, which prevented them from 
 conceding reductions to meet the sea competition, they 
 
SELECT COMMITTEE'S CONDEMNATION 71 
 
 would lose a large proportion even of such part of the 
 export traffic as they have succeeded in retaining. 
 
 To sum up the general position in regard to the 
 theory of equal mileage rates, I cannot do better than 
 quote the following passages from the report of the 
 Select Committee of 1872, reproduced in the report 
 of the further Select Committee on Railways (Rates 
 and Fares) of 1882 : 
 
 In short, to impose equal mileage on the companies would be 
 to deprive the public of the benefit of much of the competition 
 which now exists, or has existed, to raise the charges on the public 
 in many cases where the companies now find it to their interest 
 to lower them, and to perpetuate monopolies in carriage, trade, 
 and manufacture in favour of those rates and places which are 
 nearest or least expensive, where the varying charges of the com- 
 panies now create competition ; and it will be found that the 
 supporters of equal mileage, when pressed, often really mean, not 
 that the rates they pay themselves are too high, but that the rates 
 that others pay are too low. 
 
 Pressed by these difficulties, the proposers of equal mileage 
 have admitted that there must be numerous exceptions e.g., where 
 there is sea competition (i.e., at about three-fifths of the railway 
 stations of the United Kingdom), where low rates for long dis- 
 tances will bring a profit, or where the article carried at low 
 rates is a necessary, such as coal. It is scarcely necessary to 
 observe that such exceptions as these, whilst inadequate to meet 
 all the various cases, destroy the value of 'equal mileage' as a 
 principle, or the possibility of applying it as a general rule. 
 
 The Select Committee, in fact, condemned the 
 proposal as ' impracticable,' and this view has been 
 fully confirmed by Parliament, which has declined to 
 endorse the equal mileage rates theory, and has not 
 only left the companies free to grant special rates, 
 where these are considered necessary or desirable 
 (provided that no ' undue preference ' is shown), but 
 has itself laid down the principle that the rates per 
 mile shall be reduced in proportion to the distance 
 travelled. Even on the Continent, where much more 
 persistent efforts have been made to maintain equal 
 mileage rates, this same principle of reduction in 
 
72 EQUAL MILEAGE RATES 
 
 proportion to length of haul has been widely followed 
 as the result of the example set by Belgium ; whilst 
 even there the paying distance may count either as 
 more than the geographical distance, when the gradients 
 are exceptionally heavy or long bridges are crossed ; 
 or as less than the geographical distance, because of 
 the estimate being based on the shortest actual, or 
 even possible, route. 
 
 Parliament has gone still further in the way of 
 disposing of the equal mileage rates theory by sanction- 
 ing the system of ' grouping ' various ports or places in 
 one locality, so that the same rates can apply to or 
 from all of them, irrespective of any difference in 
 distance. This was authorized by the Railways and 
 Canal Act, 1888, which, among other things, laid 
 down that : 
 
 Notwithstanding any provision in any general or special Act, it 
 shall be lawful for any railway company, for the purposes of fixing 
 the rates to be charged for the carriage of merchandise to and 
 from any place on their railway, to group together any number of 
 places in the same district, situated at various distances from any 
 point of destination or departure of merchandise, and to charge a 
 uniform rate or uniform rates of carriage for merchandise to and 
 from all places comprised in the group from and to any point of 
 destination or departure. 
 
 Provided that the distance shall not be unreasonable, and that 
 the group rates charged, and the places grouped together, shall not 
 be such as to create an undue preference. 
 
 Whatever, therefore, any individual association of 
 traders may be disposed to suggest, there is absolutely 
 no prospect of the principle of equal mileage rates 
 being enforced in this country in the interests of 
 theoretical consistency or facility of calculation. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 PREFERENTIAL AND DIFFERENTIAL 
 RATES 
 
 MANY of the complaints brought against railways in 
 regard to alleged preferential rates for foreign produce 
 are based on the erroneous theory that a through rate 
 is necessarily made up of two local rates, and that the 
 charge for the land journey can be ascertained by 
 simply deducting the sea freight from the sum total. 
 Assume, for instance, that an English railway company 
 is bringing large quantities of produce from the Conti- 
 nent to London at a through rate of 153. a ton. It 
 will be argued that, because the sea freight from the 
 Continental port (A) to the English port (B) is ios., 
 therefore the railway is carrying the foreign produce 
 from B to London for 53. per ton ; and if this should 
 be less than the ordinary local rate, it will be alleged 
 that an undue preference is being given to the 
 foreigner. 
 
 The reply is that the 155. represents a through rate, 
 and cannot be split up into sections in this way. It is 
 in the essence of a through rate that it represents a 
 single collection, a single delivery, and so on. Thus 
 
 B C 
 
 in the conveyance of foreign merchandise from C to A 
 terminal charges will be made in respect to services 
 
 73 
 
74 PREFERENTIAL AND DIFFERENTIAL 
 
 rendered at each of those two points. But the propor- 
 tion allowed for the land journey from B to A may not 
 correspond, in the case of through freight, with the 
 local rate from B to A, because the local rate would 
 include full terminal services at B, the point of 
 despatch, as well as at A, the point of delivery, whereas 
 in the case of the through freight the services rendered 
 at B would not include cartage, at least. To get an 
 exact equivalent the foreign produce would have to be 
 first sent from C to a consignee at B, and there recon- 
 signed from B to A. Then there would be two local 
 rates, with four sets of terminal charges, and, if the 
 quantities were equal, the transport of the foreign pro- 
 duce from B to A would exactly correspond with that of 
 the home produce. But, under the actual conditions of 
 the traffic, it is obvious that one through rate is not 
 necessarily the equivalent of two local rates. 
 
 Then, again, under the operation of the rule that the 
 rate per ton decreases according to the distance carried, 
 freight which travels 100 miles will be charged less in 
 proportion per mile than that which travels 50 or 25 
 miles. Assume that in the above diagram the distance 
 from C to A is 100 miles, made up as follows : from 
 C to B, 70 miles ; from B to A, 30 miles. On the basis 
 of an actual tariff, the rates in respect to these several 
 distances might work out as follows : for 100 miles, 
 315. ; 70 miles, 28s. ; 30 miles, i6s. But in attempting 
 to 'analyze' the charge of 315. for the full 100 miles, 
 one could not argue that, because the railway company 
 charged 28s. for a haul of 70 miles, therefore its charge 
 for the remaining 30 miles of the 100 miles haul was 
 only 33., and consequently no local trader consigning 
 between those two points should be asked to pay 
 more. 
 
 Another type of grievances may be illustrated by the 
 
A GRIEVANCE AND ITS REMEDY 75 
 
 following diagram, which indicates portions of the lines 
 of two competing railway companies in a certain South 
 American State, where the difficulties in question 
 arose. 
 
 In order to gain a share in the traffic between A and 
 C, the line represented by the letters ABC charged 
 the same rates between these points as were charged 
 by the line having the direct route, although the former 
 naturally had to carry the freight a further distance 
 than the latter. Between B and C, however, there 
 was no competition, and the ABC company charged 
 from B to C the same rates as it did from A to C, via B. 
 The traders at B thereupon represented that the traders 
 at A were getting preferential rates, and they argued 
 that, assuming the rates between A and C, via B, to be 
 represented by 10, those from B to C should not be 
 higher than six. To this the company replied that the 
 rate from B to C was reasonable in itself, and that the 
 one from A to C, via B, had had to be fixed at the same 
 figure as was charged by the company having the 
 shorter route. The Government was appealed to, and 
 upheld the traders, whereupon the railway company 
 replied, in effect : ' We cannot reduce the rates between 
 B and C, because that would be unprofitable business, 
 but we will abolish our through rate from A, the 
 amount of traffic given to us between A and B for con- 
 veyance over our own lines being comparatively small.' 
 This was done, and the alleged preferential rates were 
 
76 PREFERENTIAL AND DIFFERENTIAL 
 
 abolished. What followed was that, while the traders 
 at B did not gain the slightest advantage, the company 
 lost a certain amount of traffic, and the traders at A 
 found themselves at the mercy of the company repre- 
 sented by A C, being deprived of all the advantages 
 they had previously gained from the healthy competi- 
 tion of the alternative route in respect, not alone to 
 rates and charges, but also to terminal accommoda- 
 tion and facilities at C. So there was a fresh appeal 
 made to the Government, this time from the traders at 
 A, and the moral they sought to impress on their law- 
 makers was that it would have been better if, in the 
 matter of railway rates at least, they had left the rail- 
 ways and the traders alone to settle their business 
 affairs on business principles. 
 
 A further class of anomalies resulting from competi- 
 tion between different companies may be illustrated 
 thus: 
 
 D 
 
 B 
 
 Here the heavy lines, ABC, represent a railway 
 from A, an important shipping port, through B, a small 
 
RIVALRIES OF PORTS AND PLACES 77 
 
 shipping port, to C, a large inland town ; and the light 
 line, A C, represents a competing railway to the same 
 town. The rates charged by the ABC railway for 
 the carriage of freight from A to C may be put at 7, 
 this being the same amount as that charged by the A C 
 company, with which it competes. At D there is a way- 
 side station, and for taking merchandise thence to C the 
 company charges a sum which may be represented by 
 8. The traders at D complain that there is a prefer- 
 ential rate granted to A. The railway company may 
 reply, ' We cannot carry from D to C at lower rates, 
 but, to avoid any anomaly, we will raise our charges 
 from A to C to 10.' This might be consistent, but it 
 would not benefit D in the slightest, while it might, on 
 the other hand, drive all the trade of the ABC com- 
 pany from the port of A to the A C route. If the latter 
 line also raised its charges to 10, the traders at A might 
 say that it no longer paid them to send at all from that 
 port to C. They would then, probably, either abandon 
 this branch of their business, or remove it to the smaller 
 port, B, the rate from which to C may be put at 5. So 
 long as the difference between the two ports is repre- 
 sented only by 2, it may be to the interests of the traders 
 to receive consignments for C at A instead of at B, 
 because there may be more chance at A than at B of ob- 
 taining return cargoes, while A may offer better facilities 
 generally. But these considerations disappear when 
 the difference is no longer 2, but 5, and it is conceivable 
 that a rearrangement of the rates on a mileage basis 
 might lead to serious consequences in the way of loss of 
 trade at the port of A. 
 
 In the next place, we get examples where, although 
 only one railway company may be concerned, there is 
 rivalry between certain ports. Assume that in the 
 diagram given below A and B are ports competing with 
 
78 PREFERENTIAL AND DIFFERENTIAL 
 
 one another for traffic carried on the same line of rail- 
 way to the large inland town, C : 
 
 The traders at A will say to the railway company, 
 ' It is true that in carrying our merchandise to C you 
 convey it a longer distance than you do that from B, 
 but if we have to pay much more for carriage than the 
 traders at B, we shall be unable to compete with them 
 at C, and the business will go to the port of B, to the 
 detriment of A.' The railway company thereupon re- 
 duce the rates from A to C, so that, though, perhaps, 
 not identically the same, they approximate more nearly 
 to those from B to C, and are substantially less in pro- 
 portion than the difference in distance. This allows of 
 the competition between the two ports for the business 
 at the inland town to be maintained, and the railway 
 benefits as well as port A, though it may well happen 
 that port B will discover an anomaly, and complain on 
 the ground that it has been deprived of its geographical 
 advantage. 
 
 But, putting diagrams aside, let us consider some 
 concrete examples of how particular ports may gain 
 special concessions in respect to railway rates. 
 
 Manchester, as everyone knows, is one of the most 
 important of provincial centres for the sale of foreign 
 produce. Apart from direct supplies, consignments of 
 
THE LOGIC OF ALTERNATIVE ROUTES 79 
 
 produce from America are received there, not only via 
 Liverpool, but also via Hull, to which port there are 
 regular lines of steamers from the United States. On 
 the long sea voyage from America to England it does not 
 make so very much difference in the cost whether the 
 consignments are sent by way of Liverpool or Hull, 
 and there may be advantages in favour of the latter 
 port, on account of back loading or for other reasons. 
 But if the charge for transporting the American produce 
 from Hull to Manchester were too high, it would mili- 
 tate against the other advantages gained in consigning 
 by that route, and the traffic now coming to the East 
 Coast would be diverted to the West. 
 
 Then large quantities of produce will be received 
 alike at Hull and at Grimsby from the Continent of 
 Europe, and a substantial proportion of this will be 
 conveyed to Manchester, to compete there with the 
 consignments from the United States and Canada. 
 Here, again, if the railway rates for the Danish and 
 other produce from Hull and Grimsby were too high, 
 the traffic between those ports and Manchester would 
 be prejudiced, and the transatlantic producers consign- 
 ing via Liverpool would have a better chance of con- 
 trolling the Manchester market. So the rates for 
 Continental produce to Manchester are, in turn, 
 governed by the rates for American produce received 
 by either an East or a West Coast port. 
 
 But other consignments of Continental produce will 
 be sent to the Manchester market via Newcastle-on- 
 Tyne, which (by the shortest ' working ' route) is 138 
 miles from that city, whereas Hull is only 91. Both 
 ports are on the North-Eastern Railway, and, if a 
 strictly mileage rate were charged by that company, it 
 would obviously cost more to send the produce to Man- 
 chester from Newcastle than from Hull. In that case 
 
80 PREFERENTIAL AND DIFFERENTIAL 
 
 Newcastle would be placed at a disadvantage, and some 
 of its foreign trade would be diverted to the other port. 
 To avoid this result, the North- Eastern Railway Com- 
 pany, which is naturally interested in the welfare of 
 both places, charges nearly the same rate for carrying 
 produce from Newcastle to Manchester as it does from 
 Hull to Manchester, irrespective of the difference in 
 mileage.* 
 
 In the same way foreign eggs from Hamburg could 
 reach Sheffield via London, Hull, Grimsby, Hartlepool, 
 or Newcastle, and as the traffic will naturally follow 
 the cheapest route, the rail charges from all these 
 different ports are controlled by those of the port 
 that is nearest or that asks the lowest rate. Taking, 
 again, the case of a large industrial district, such as 
 Birmingham, in the very centre of England, one can 
 see that the steamers from America will have a fairly 
 equal chance of catering for the business there, whether 
 they arrive at Liverpool, Bristol, London, or Hull, and 
 for many years past the railway companies having lines 
 between those various ports and the city of Birmingham 
 have competed keenly for the traffic, each offering what 
 inducement it can with a view to securing the patronage 
 of its own particular route. 
 
 One direct outcome of the conditions here narrated 
 has been the ' grouping ' of ports in particular districts, 
 so that (i) the railway rates from each port within the 
 group to any given point shall be identical; and (2) 
 the rates shall also be either identical as regards the 
 different groups, or so far approximate as only to vary 
 
 * The competition of the Manchester Ship Canal, along which 
 steamers conveying Continental produce go direct to Manchester 
 from Continental ports, is another reason why the railway rates 
 from Newcastle to Manchester should be kept low, in the interests 
 both of that port and of the railways themselves. Other north- 
 east ports are similarly affected. 
 
GROUPING OF PORTS 
 
 81 
 
 according as some special condition or circumstance 
 may warrant. * If one bears this principle in mind, 
 much that otherwise appears to be simply chaos in 
 respect to railway rates when they are regarded from 
 the equal mileage standpoint will become more intel- 
 ligible. The same principle applies also in respect 
 to goods consigned from some inland town to a port 
 for despatch abroad. 
 
 It will suffice, perhaps, if I give two examples of the 
 application of this particular principle, one dealing with 
 imports and the other with exports. 
 
 Mining timber from Norway or Sweden can reach 
 the collieries at Bestwood, Notts, by any of the East 
 Coast ports. The nearest is Boston, which is 55 miles 
 distant, and if the railway charges for such timber were 
 on the mileage basis, Boston would get the traffic in 
 preference to Newcastle-on-Tyne, which is over 160 
 miles from Bestwood. In effect the freights charged 
 from the different ports, or groups of ports, work out 
 thus: 
 
 From 
 
 Mileage or 
 Shortest Mileage. 
 
 Rate, 
 
 
 Miles, 
 ec 
 
 s. d. 
 6 o 
 
 
 80 
 
 7 3 
 
 Humber ports (Hull, etc.) 
 
 87 
 
 7 3 
 
 Tees ports (Hartlepool, etc.) 
 
 139 
 
 8 3 
 
 Tyne and Wear (Newcastle, etc.) 
 
 164 
 
 9 o 
 
 There is still, as will be seen, a difference of 35. 
 between Boston (the port which fixes the rate) and 
 Newcastle-on-Tyne; but this amount of difference is 
 
 6 
 
82 PREFERENTIAL AND DIFFERENTIAL 
 
 not necessarily prejudicial to the latter place. If 
 Boston is nearer to Bestwood by rail, Newcastle is 
 nearer to Norway by sea, and there would thus be a 
 slight saving on the sea voyage by going to Newcastle ; 
 but still more to the purpose is the fact that the port of 
 Newcastle can be entered more easily, and therefore 
 more economically, than the port of Boston, the latter 
 having a channel which offers certain drawbacks in 
 regard to navigation. Newcastle, again, is a more con- 
 venient port from which to ship coal to the Continent 
 in the vessels that bring the timber. Altogether, the 
 advantages in favour of Newcastle are regarded as 
 worth the extra 35. ; but if the difference were much 
 greater the traffic might be diverted to Boston. As it 
 is, the ports have a fairly equal chance, and the railway 
 companies do justice to the different, if not directly 
 conflicting, interests concerned. 
 
 As an illustration of the same system when applied 
 to exports, we may take the case of woollen goods from 
 Bradford, in respect to which the rates charged to 
 various ports work out as under : 
 
 Mileage or 
 ; Shortest Mileage. 
 
 Rate. 
 
 Hull group of ports 
 
 Miles. 
 60 
 
 s. d. 
 
 IS o 
 
 Hartlepool group 
 
 79 
 
 IS o 
 
 Newcastle group 
 
 104 
 
 IS o 
 
 Here, it will be seen, the rate from Bradford to 
 Newcastle is the same as that to Hull, though there 
 is a difference of 44 miles in the distance. Again, 
 therefore, one finds that the interests of the various 
 ports are counterbalanced ; that the railway companies 
 
SPILLERS AND BAKERS v. TAFF VALE 83 
 
 have a better chance of dividing the traffic ; and also 
 that the Bradford manufacturer has a choice of routes, 
 unhampered by serious divergencies in the item of 
 railway rates. 
 
 Hitherto I have spoken of differential rates in respect 
 to imports or exports arising from the competition 
 between the ports themselves. Another type to be 
 considered are the special rates on shipping traffic, 
 under which a lower rate is granted on freight for 
 export than for the same commodity when intended for 
 local consumption. 
 
 A good example of the principle here involved is 
 offered by the case of Spillers and Bakers, Ltd., v. The 
 Taff Vale Railway Company, which was decided by the 
 Railway and Canal Commission in December, 1903. 
 
 Messrs. Spillers and Bakers are large millers, having 
 works at Cardiff Docks and elsewhere, and they com- 
 plained that they were paying a higher rate for coal 
 delivered to them at Cardiff Docks than was charged 
 in respect to coal brought to those docks for shipment 
 abroad, the average difference on the consignments 
 working out at nearly 6d. per ton. This, they alleged, 
 constituted ' undue preference.' 
 
 The Taff Vale Railway Company, in reply, denied, 
 first of all, that any * preference ' existed, because the 
 coal for shipment was all going abroad to be sold in 
 foreign markets, so that it did not compete with the 
 coal sold to Messrs. Spillers and Bakers, who were, 
 consequently, not prejudiced by the difference in the 
 rates. An attempt was made to show that some of the 
 coal that was shipped found its way to the Thames, and 
 was used by London millers in competition with Messrs. 
 Spillers ; but the evidence on this point failed to make 
 much impression on the Court. It was further con- 
 tended by the respondents that if ' preference ' were 
 
 6-2 
 
84 PREFERENTIAL AND DIFFERENTIAL 
 
 found to exist within the meaning of Section 27 of the 
 Railway and Canal Traffic Act of 1888, they were, 
 nevertheless, justified by the subsection, which provides 
 that, on deciding whether a lower charge or difference 
 does not amount to undue preference, the Court may 
 ' take into consideration whether such lower charge or 
 difference in treatment is necessary for the purpose of 
 securing, in the interests of the public, the traffic in 
 respect to which it is made, and whether the inequality 
 cannot be removed without unduly reducing the rates 
 charged to the complainant.' On this it was claimed 
 that the system of charging lower rates for coal for 
 shipment was distinctly necessary to enable the Taff 
 Vale Company to get the traffic, which otherwise would 
 go to Barry or Newport, the Barry Company having 
 entered into an agreement with the freighters, as a con- 
 dition of making their line, that they would not charge 
 more than |d. per ton per mile on coal traffic to their 
 dock. 
 
 The facts of the case showed that the Taff Vale Rail- 
 way Company take to Cardiff about 1,400,000 tons of 
 coal per annum for local consumption (40 per cent, of 
 this amount going to the town of Cardiff, and the 
 remainder to manufacturers and others) and 9,000,000 
 tons for shipment. This latter trade had been worked 
 up mainly as the result of the low shipment rates, and 
 without it Cardiff would never have grown as it has 
 done. To aid in the further development of the busi- 
 ness the railway company had recently spent 160,000 
 in providing increased facilities for shipment. That 
 higher railway rates could be charged on the coal for 
 export was represented as an absolute impossibility if 
 the business were to be retained, and this view the 
 Court adopted. 
 
 There remained the consideration whether the rate 
 
THE PRINCIPLE MAINTAINED 85 
 
 charged to Messrs. Spillers and Bakers should be 
 reduced. The firm did not allege that the rate itself 
 was excessive if it stood alone, and, as Mr. Justice 
 Wright pointed out, ' there was an entire absence of 
 evidence to show that the works' rate was not a 
 reasonable one, or anything but a very low rate.' The 
 grievance was that the local firm paid is. 6d. where the 
 shippers paid is. But to lower the domestic rate to the 
 same level as the export rate would, the railway com- 
 pany contended, be disastrous to them. It would mean 
 a difference of about 23,000 a year, while sooner or 
 later they would have to reduce other rates as well. 
 To Messrs. Spillers and Bakers (a correspondent in a 
 local paper subsequently wrote) the difference would 
 have represented one-eighth of a penny on each sack of 
 flour, valued at 255., or, in other words, ' a postage- 
 stamp on every 10 worth of goods.' 
 
 The Court decided that, on the one hand, the low 
 shipping rate was justified by necessity, and could not 
 be raised consistently with the public interest ; and, on 
 the other, that the local rate was as low as it could 
 reasonably be so low, in fact, that 'it would not be 
 fair to the railway company to charge the applicant 
 less.' 
 
 The action of the Taff Vale Railway Company was 
 thus upheld, though in point of fact the main principle 
 involved that a commodity intended for export can be 
 carried at a lower rate than when it is intended for 
 local consumption, and that in the latter case it cannot 
 claim the same terms irrespective of surrounding cir- 
 cumstances, and when the local rate itself is reasonable 
 has been recognised from the earliest days of British 
 railways. As ' A Business Man ' pointed out in the 
 Western Mail of February 20, 1904, ' The first railway 
 sanctioned in this kingdom the Stockton and Dar- 
 
86 PREFERENTIAL AND DIFFERENTIAL 
 
 lington, which got its Act of Incorporation as far back 
 as 1821 was compelled by Parliament to charge |d. 
 per ton per mile on coal intended for shipment, 
 while it was allowed to charge 4d. per ton per mile 
 on coal carried for home use.' So recently also as 
 1892 Parliament required the North-Eastern Rail- 
 way Company to fix the rates for coal for shipment 
 at a lower scale than those on coal intended for home 
 consumption. The whole principle, therefore, of con- 
 ceding rates which, though certainly ' differential,' are 
 not unduly ' preferential,' and confer advantages on one 
 set of traders while not prejudicing others who are 
 already receiving fair treatment, is one clearly estab- 
 lished by the law of the land. 
 
 I have still to speak, in this connection, of differential 
 rates in which questions of import or export are in no 
 way concerned, the point at issue being the concession 
 of special advantages in the interests of particular 
 inland districts whose industries or enterprises are 
 likely to benefit thereby. 
 
 A trader established in a certain locality will, for 
 example, go to a railway company and say, ' There is a 
 chance of my doing a good business with the town of 
 
 if only I could get my stuff taken there at a lower 
 
 rate ; but I find that the class rates I am now paying 
 would allow no margin for profit.' Thereupon the 
 railway company looks into the matter, and sees what 
 it can do. If it be found practicable to reduce the rate 
 between the two places, this may be done. Should the 
 rate then be lower than that between two other equi- 
 distant places the company creates an ' anomaly,' and 
 there may be other traders in those places who will 
 complain in turn. 
 
 In one case of this kind a paper-maker informed a 
 railway freight agent that he would be compelled to give 
 
HELPING THE TRADERS 87 
 
 up business, as he could not possibly compete with the 
 paper-makers of a certain other town for the custom of 
 London purchasers, these other makers having the 
 advantage of water-power, while he was obliged to 
 import coal and drive his machinery by steam. An 
 inquiry was made, the rates were reduced as regarded 
 the town of the handicapped paper-maker, and a sub- 
 stantial boon was conferred on a local industry; but 
 this was done by the creation of what was, at least, a 
 differential rate. 
 
 In another instance a bacon-curer in a hog-breeding 
 centre in the West of England found there would be a 
 chance of his opening up a good trade with London if 
 only he could get his bacon carried there at a lower 
 rate, and one that would approximate more nearly to 
 the rates paid by other bacon-curers from various points 
 nearer to the Metropolis. Here, again, the railway 
 made such a reduction in the rate as enabled the long- 
 distance trader to compete with the short-distance 
 trader ; for though the former would still have to pay 
 more than the latter, the difference was in no way equal 
 to the difference in mileage, while the one might have 
 some advantage over the other in buying his pigs 
 cheaper from the farmers, in paying less for labour, or 
 in other ways. 
 
 Nor in a case such as this would the railway company 
 stand to lose anything by making the desired con- 
 cession. In giving the distant trader a helping hand 
 it might enable him so to develop his business that 
 before long he would be sending consignments in bulk 
 instead of in small quantities. But that would not be 
 all; for, with the encouragement offered by the de- 
 creased rates, other bacon-curers might start operations 
 in the same place, an important local industry might 
 be established, and the supply of the varied wants of 
 
88 PREFERENTIAL AND DIFFERENTIAL 
 
 the people engaged therein would mean additional 
 freight for the railway, apart altogether from the amount 
 of bacon carried. 
 
 One sees, therefore, the real community of interest 
 that exists between the railways and the traders. In- 
 deed, if only a big bacon-curing industry, for example, 
 were set up in some provincial centre suitable thereto, 
 a railway company which received for transport English 
 bacon equal in bulk to the foreign could afford to quote 
 even lower rates for the former than for the latter, be- 
 cause it would have the opportunity of getting the 
 subsidiary traffic that would follow from the improved 
 industrial position of the locality in question. In 
 carrying foreign produce an English railway company 
 has no direct interest in the place the consign- 
 ments come from; but in carrying English produce 
 it has a double advantage the direct benefit from the 
 particular description of freight in question, and the 
 prospective benefit that will follow from the carrying of 
 other kinds of freight, in each direction, as the district 
 becomes wealthier and more populous. Other things 
 being equal, a railway company is really much more 
 interested in the development of home than it is in the 
 expansion of foreign produce. 
 
 Looked at from the various points of view here 
 presented, those divergencies in railway rates which, to 
 the trader previously unacquainted with the real factors 
 of the situation, seemed to be entirely devoid of rhyme or 
 reason, are found to be not entirely without method in 
 their apparent madness. In fixing the rates in which 
 anomalies are discovered, the railways are guided by 
 the conditions of the actual traffic rather than by the 
 principle of the multiplication table or the refinements 
 of a logical consistency. But every unprejudiced person 
 must see from the illustrations here given that if the 
 
ADVANTAGES OF THE POSITION 89 
 
 railway companies were to seek to get rid of the said 
 anomalies by charging strictly mileage rates in every 
 instance it would often mean bad business, not only 
 for them, but also for many a trader who now benefits 
 from advantages that would otherwise have to be with- 
 held. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 GENERAL BRITISH CONDITIONS 
 
 WHEN we come to look at the ordinary inland traffic 
 of the British railway companies, as compared with the 
 handling of imports in bulk, what we find is that the 
 traffic in question is becoming more and more a matter 
 of carrying small consignments, if not of small parcels. 
 I may be told that there are important exceptions in 
 the cauliflower trains from Cornwall, fruit trains from 
 Evesham and the Fens, fish trains from Grimsby, coal 
 trains from the Midlands, milk trains from the West, 
 and so on ; but even in these instances the sum total 
 of the traffic represented by a complete train will, 
 generally speaking, be made up of a multiplicity of 
 separate consignments from and to individual traders. 
 Even these apparent exceptions, therefore, do not 
 detract from what I have set out above as representing 
 the now normal conditions of railway operation in 
 Great Britain in regard to purely domestic traffic. 
 
 The tendency in question is due mainly to the trans- 
 formation which has been gradually coming over the 
 general conditions of English trade. The days when 
 the average shopkeeper kept big stocks on hand have 
 practically disappeared. Instead of sinking a more or 
 less substantial amount of capital in large supplies of 
 particular commodities, he obtains smaller quantities 
 of them to meet immediate requirements, and makes 
 
 90 
 
A TRANSFORMATION IN TRADE 91 
 
 use of the money in other directions it may be in 
 purchasing supplies of goods he has not previously 
 dealt in, and developing his ' shop ' into a ' stores.' 
 When arty particular stock is running low he can post 
 an order, send a telegram, or speak over the telephone 
 to the wholesale house, and he will generally expect 
 to receive the desired consignments, by train or other- 
 wise, on the same or the following day. It is, primarily, 
 to the facilities afforded by the parcel post and the 
 railway companies for the quick delivery of parcels, 
 supplemented by the abundant use made of telephone 
 and telegraph, that this revolution is due ; while there 
 has also been a growing disposition on the part of 
 manufacturers to deal direct with small shopkeepers, 
 and so save the profit of the middleman or wholesale 
 dealer, and even to deal direct with the consumer, thus 
 saving the profit even of the tradesman. 
 
 The manager of one exceptionally large wholesale 
 house with whom I discussed this subject said to me : 
 
 The main characteristic of our business to-day is the multiplicity 
 of small orders, instead of a reasonable number of large ones. We 
 have two and a half times as many individual items on our books, 
 for the same amount of business, as we had fifteen years ago. Our 
 day-books have swollen in size and number far in excess of the 
 total increase in the turnover. The big orders of former times are 
 a diminishing quantity. In their stead we have an immense 
 number of day-to-day orders, repeat orders, orders by post, by 
 telephone, or given through our travellers, but, in the majority of 
 cases, representing small quantities sent for at frequent intervals. 
 
 The 'bunch' trade is more especially a great feature of the 
 business. Bunches of patterns are supplied to tailors or dress- 
 makers, who keep little or no stock at all, but order from the 
 patterns selected by their customers the exact quantities they 
 require. It is a matter only of a few hours ; the tailor or dress- 
 maker is able to work on less capital, and many even of the largest 
 houses are quite willing to cut and send out a single dress length. 
 They go still further, for they advertise extensively, deal direct with 
 the public, take business out of the hand of the local shopkeepers, 
 and work up a big ' letter trade ' on their own account that is to 
 say, orders sent in through the post by people who have seen the 
 advertisements. 
 
92 GENERAL BRITISH CONDITIONS 
 
 All these developments are mainly due, on the one hand, to the 
 increased rapidity of communication, and, on the other, to the 
 increased facilities for despatch by parcel-post or train. Sixpenny 
 telegrams made a great difference in regard to communications, 
 but the telephone has done more. The number of orders we get 
 by telephone in the course of the year is really prodigious. In 
 this one building we have no fewer than seventy telephones, with 
 a * telephone exchange ' of our own. The consignment of the 
 parcels is by parcel-post, passenger train, or goods train, according 
 to size. On an ordinary busy day we send out about 600 bales 
 or boxes and 1,500 small parcels, of an average weight of from 
 1 6 to 20 pounds. 
 
 The net result to ourselves of this revolution in trading condi- 
 tions is a large increase in labour and expenses, without any 
 corresponding increase in receipts. The greater number of parcels 
 is out of all proportion to the greater value of the business done. 
 Not only is competition keener, but more work has to be done for 
 the money, and the work itself is costing more money to do, owing 
 to the increasing desire on the part of the worker to be better paid. 
 
 The experiences here narrated are, in the main, 
 identical and necessarily so with the experiences of 
 the average railway company in the matter of ordinary 
 goods traffic. On the railway, as in the warehouse, 
 there has been l a large increase in labour and expenses 
 without any corresponding increase in the receipts,' 
 the greater number of parcels being ' out of all pro- 
 portion to the greater value of the business done.' 
 The sum total of the traffic may have expanded, but so, 
 to an even greater degree, has the amount of clerical 
 work, handling, etc., in dealing with an infinitude of 
 retail packages in place of a smaller number of 
 wholesale consignments. 
 
 Another factor tending in the same direction, and 
 especially in London, has been the increasing patronage 
 by the public of large ' stores,' the local tradesman 
 being ignored altogether, and household requirements 
 provided for by means of orders sent to the said 
 'stores' for parcels or consignments as needed. Even 
 the well-to-do householder, who at one time would ' lay 
 in ' a stock of wine in his cellar, will now obtain a case 
 
PARCELS TRAFFIC 93 
 
 or two from the Army and Navy, Civil Service Supply, 
 or other stores, to meet immediate requirements. 
 
 On the Continent, no doubt, a large proportion of 
 this parcels traffic, as carried by the railways here, 
 would go by parcel post. In Germany, for example, 
 parcels are accepted of any weight up to 50 kilos (no 
 English pounds), the rates are undoubtedly low (though 
 one should remember that they do not necessarily 
 include delivery*), and the Post-Office in Germany 
 does probably 80 or go per cent, of such ' small 
 parcels ' business as that which falls to the lot of the 
 British railways. But there is a special reason for 
 the low rates it is able to charge. When the German 
 railway companies of old got their concessions, it was 
 stipulated that they should put one postal van on every 
 train as required, and make no charge to the Post- 
 Office either for van or for the Post-Office servants in 
 charge, though payment might be demanded for any 
 second van. Postal matter was thus carried, in the 
 interests of the public, at the cost of the railway 
 companies, and the same practice was continued when 
 the railways were taken over by the State. In other 
 Continental countries where the railways are State- 
 owned or State-supported special advantages in the 
 interests of the Post-Office have also been enforced. 
 
 In Great Britain the railways have had a fairer 
 chance of competing with the Post-Office, and they 
 have held their own in that competition. So big is the 
 sum total of the business done that a single company, 
 the London and North -Western, carries by goods 
 
 * An interesting sight at Cologne is the enormous room at the 
 central post-office from which parcels are given out to traders and 
 others who prefer to send or call for them, instead of paying the 
 cost of delivery. Many of the manufacturers or tradespeople have 
 shelves, or sections of shelves, on which all parcels received for 
 them are located pending the arrival of their regular messenger. 
 
94 GENERAL BRITISH CONDITIONS 
 
 trains 12,000,000 ' parcels ' in a year, without counting 
 the luggage, newspapers, meat, fish, fruit, milk, etc., 
 going by passenger trains. But, following on what I 
 have already said as to the size of consignments 
 diminishing as their total number increases, it is a 
 matter of special interest to know what the relative 
 weights of consignments may be as actually received 
 and dealt with by a British railway company. I am 
 glad, therefore, to be able to present the following most 
 instructive table, which gives an analysis of the weights 
 of consignments forwarded from the Camden and Broad 
 Street (London) goods depots of the London and North- 
 Western Railway Company in the course of a single 
 day (October 21, 1902) : 
 
 Weights not 
 Exceeding : 
 
 Camden 
 Goods 
 Depot : 
 No. of 
 Consign- 
 ments. 
 
 Broad 
 Street 
 Goods 
 Depot : 
 No^of 
 Consign- 
 ments. 
 
 Total 
 No. of 
 Consign- 
 ments. 
 
 Percentages. 
 
 Camden. 
 
 Broad 
 Street. 
 
 Total. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Cwt. qrs. Ibs. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 I O 
 
 419 
 
 827 
 
 1,246 
 
 I2 f I2 
 
 11*41 
 
 11-64 
 
 o i 14 
 
 252 
 
 473 
 
 725 
 
 7-28 
 
 6-53 
 
 677 
 
 O 2 O 
 
 5M 
 
 841 
 
 1,355 
 
 14-86 
 
 ir6i 
 
 12-66 
 
 2 14 
 
 173 
 
 407 
 
 580 
 
 5*00 
 
 5-63 
 
 5-42 
 
 030 
 
 244 
 
 404 
 
 648 
 
 7-05 
 
 5-58 
 
 6-05 
 
 o 3 14 
 
 III 
 
 242 
 
 353 
 
 3'2i 
 
 3'34 
 
 3*29 
 
 100 
 
 328 
 
 531 
 
 859 
 
 9-19 
 
 7'33 
 
 8-02 
 
 200 
 
 591 
 
 1,506 
 
 2,097 
 
 17-08 
 
 2079 
 
 19-59 
 
 300 
 
 288 
 
 676 
 
 964 
 
 8-32 
 
 9'33 
 
 9'oi 
 
 400 
 
 168 
 
 380 
 
 548 
 
 4-86 
 
 5-24 
 
 5-12 
 
 500 
 
 77 
 
 257 
 
 334 
 
 2-23 
 
 3'55 
 
 3-12 
 
 10 
 
 160 
 
 456 
 
 616 
 
 4-62 
 
 6-29 
 
 575 
 
 15 o o 
 
 53 
 
 126 
 
 179 
 
 i'53 
 
 174 
 
 1-67 
 
 20 O 
 
 27 
 
 38 
 
 65 
 
 078 
 
 0-52 
 
 o'6i 
 
 i to 2 tons 
 
 33 
 
 57 
 
 90 
 
 0-95 
 
 0-79 
 
 0*84 
 
 2 to 3 
 
 13 
 
 15 
 
 28 
 
 0-38 
 
 0-21 
 
 0-26 
 
 3 to 4 
 
 9 
 
 9 
 
 18 
 
 0-26 
 
 0'12 
 
 0-17 
 
 Totals ... 
 
 3,460 
 
 7,245 
 
 10,705 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
WEIGHT OF CONSIGNMENTS 
 
 95 
 
 This list abundantly justifies, I think, all that I have 
 said as to the essentially retail character of the general 
 merchandise business done by British railways; but, to 
 make the position still clearer, I should like to add a 
 brief table which includes the business done at three of 
 the large provincial goods depots belonging to the same 
 company : 
 
 From 
 
 Tons. 
 
 No. of 
 Consign- 
 ments. 
 
 Weight per 
 Consignment. 
 
 No. of 
 Packages. 
 
 Average 
 Weight per 
 Package. 
 
 
 
 
 Cwt. qrs. Ibs. 
 
 
 Qrs. Ibs. 
 
 Curzon Street, 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Birmingham ... 
 
 1,615 
 
 6,110 
 
 5 i 4 
 
 51,114 
 
 2 14 
 
 Liverpool Stations 
 
 3,895 
 
 5.049 
 
 15 I 20 
 
 79,513 
 
 3 26 
 
 London Road, 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Manchester ... 
 
 1,341 
 
 5522 
 
 4 3 12 
 
 28,277 
 
 3 22 
 
 Broad Street, 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 London 
 
 906 
 
 6,201 
 
 2 3 19 
 
 23,067 
 
 3 4 
 
 These consignments were sent to a total of 720 
 stations (including Holyhead for the whole of Ireland), 
 and they made up loads of which the average weight 
 per truck was 2 tons 7 cwt. 3 qrs. 
 
 I shall deal later on with the nature and bulk of the 
 Continental goods traffic, and the magnitude of the 
 imports of foreign produce ; but whilst on this subject 
 of the weight of home consignments, I should like to 
 quote the following from a speech by Lord Claud 
 Hamilton, Chairman of the Great Eastern Railway 
 Company, at the half-yearly meeting of that company 
 on January 26, 1903 : 
 
 Let me ask the producers of East Anglia to inquire into and 
 seriously consider the methods existing in Denmark. There you 
 have a comparatively poor country, mainly agricultural, with a 
 climate inferior in most respects to that of England, and yet the 
 producers of Denmark are able to supply our markets with steadily 
 increasing quantities of meat, butter, eggs, and bacon,, at prices 
 that insure a profit. We carry a large portion of that traffic from 
 
96 GENERAL BRITISH CONDITIONS 
 
 Harwich to London, and complaint is made against us that we are 
 encouraging the foreigner at the expense of the home producer by 
 the low rates that we charge for this Danish traffic. Low rates for 
 Danish produce pay us better than the higher ones on English 
 produce, and why ? Because the Dane has been taught, and has 
 been shrewd enough to profit by the advice given to him, that to 
 obtain these lower rates he must deliver his traffic to us in bulk, so 
 as to travel in truck-loads averaging over 5 tons per truck, whilst 
 the Englishman persists in his old-fashioned method of handing in 
 small consignments. You will hardly credit it, but I regret to say 
 that practically 70 per cent, of the consignments of our general 
 goods traffic are of 3 cwt. and less, and that consignments of 
 J ton and less account for 90 per cent, of the total, the compara- 
 tively few consignments of 10 tons and above consisting principally 
 of grain, malt, and such like traffic. No wonder, then, that we are 
 eager, whenever we have the chance, to receive consignments, 
 from wherever they come, of 5 tons and upwards. If the English 
 producer will hand us traffic in consignments equal to those of the 
 Danish producer, and packed in the same practical manner, we 
 are prepared to charge him the same rate, and it will be to our 
 interest to do so. 
 
 The comparative smallness of the British consign- 
 ments, coupled with the speed with which the trader 
 expects his parcels to be delivered to him, have further 
 led to exceptional demands on the rolling stock of the 
 railways, and constitute one of the reasons why British 
 railway companies would not be able, as a rule, to use 
 to advantage for the ordinary class of goods traffic (as 
 distinct from the carriage of commodities in bulk) the 
 same size of waggon that suits the conditions of American 
 freight. A goods train could not stop at each wayside 
 station of any importance while the consignments for 
 that place were being unloaded from a large waggon. 
 Time is gained by putting the lots for delivery at any 
 such station in a separate waggon, which will be un- 
 coupled on arrival, so that the train may continue its 
 journey with the least possible delay, the process 
 being reversed when consignments are collected. This 
 means a great saving of time, but it also involves a 
 good deal of light loading. In point of fact, a railway 
 company will often enough get a load of not more than 
 
AN UNREMUNERATIVE BUSINESS 97 
 
 25 cwt. for a truck which itself weighs, say, 4 tons 
 10 cwt. Consequently the company hauls 4 tons 10 cwt., 
 a non-paying load, in order to earn what it can on 
 25 cwt., which represents the paying load. This is 
 especially the case in regard to perishables, where 
 immediate despatch is indispensable. 
 
 In these circumstances it is not altogether surprising 
 to find that, while certain of the railways in the North 
 may do well with their heavy coal, mineral, or indus- 
 trial traffic, certain railway authorities in the South, 
 who deal mostly with passengers and small parcels, are 
 beginning to doubt whether the latter branch really 
 pays at all. As against the general absence of indus- 
 tries on their lines, the fewness of large centres of 
 population, the modest dimensions of the average con- 
 signment they get, and the shortness of the haul, they 
 are faced especially by the terminal costs and standing 
 expenses of stations and depots in London, the con- 
 struction and working of which represent a really 
 prodigious expenditure, even if not greater than in the 
 case of any other railway-stations and goods depots in 
 the world. So one finds that, while traders are ready 
 enough to complain of the railway rates and to bring 
 every possible pressure to bear on the companies to 
 make them still lower, there are railway managers 
 whose practical experience it is that the receipts from 
 the home parcels traffic barely cover the cost of 
 handling. In point of fact, the terminal expenses 
 (especially in the Metropolis) are so high, in proportion 
 to the receipts, that by the time the former have been 
 met out of the latter there may be only a very small 
 sum left where the haul is short and the weight of the 
 consignment comparatively small to meet the cost of 
 transit between the two points. On the other hand, 
 although a vast amount of this small parcels business is 
 
 7 
 
98 GENERAL BRITISH CONDITIONS 
 
 done by the English railway companies at a profit so 
 modest that it is sometimes open to question if any 
 profit from it is made at all, they recognise that what 
 they do contributes to the comfort, convenience, and 
 well-being of the people resident in the districts con- 
 cerned, and they hope that, by helping to develop 
 those districts, they will gain indirectly where they do 
 not gain directly. 
 
 Concurrently with the aforesaid tendency for the 
 freight traffic (always excepting certain branches 
 thereof) to become more and more a small consignment 
 business, there is the further tendency for such traffic 
 to drift from the hands of the railway companies where 
 only short, or comparatively short, distances are to be 
 covered. The managers of large stores of the type already 
 alluded to have taken to delivering their own consign- 
 ments within a greater area, instead of sending by rail, 
 as formerly ; and, at the same time, there has been of 
 late years a much keener competition with the railway 
 companies on the part of carriers by road. Between 
 London and Sutton, a distance of 14 miles, there are 
 now thirty-two of these carriers engaged in carrying 
 small parcels. With the advent, too, of motor goods- 
 cars, the possibilities in these directions seem likely to 
 increase rather than decrease, for the carrier's cart, or 
 the motor goods-car, on the road, bears the same rela- 
 tion to a fixed, costly, and heavily-taxed line of railway 
 that the tramp steamer does on the ocean. 
 
 It has often been brought up as a reproach against 
 railway companies that in certain districts producers or 
 traders find it more to their advantage to send goods into 
 large cities, such as London or Manchester, by road than 
 by rail. But there is not necessarily any real ground for 
 reproach in this fact. Where the haul is a short one, a 
 large proportion of the amount charged for transit by 
 
ROAD OR RAIL? gg 
 
 rail is required for terminal expenses, which, of course, 
 are the same in a short as in a long haul, while the 
 general expenses of a railway must necessarily be 
 greater than that of a carrier's cart, which pays nothing 
 for right of way, and is, besides, able to start or return 
 without any restrictions as to fitting in its journeys to 
 suit the exigencies of other traffic. 
 
 In this connection it is interesting to recall some 
 remarks made by Mr. J. F. S. Gooday, General Manager 
 of the Great Eastern Railway, in the course of his 
 evidence before the Select Committee on Workmen's 
 Trains, in July, igo4. Previous witnesses had suggested 
 that, as compensation for the granting of workmen's 
 tickets at reduced fares to places like Walthamstow 
 and Edmonton (mainly created as the outcome of such 
 concession), the railway did good business in carrying 
 goods to meet the requirements of the population. 
 Mr. Gooday disputed this theory, saying he had 
 had statistics prepared showing the amount of shop 
 goods carried to the suburban districts on the Great 
 Eastern system mainly occupied by a working-class 
 population, and he found that, owing to the proximity 
 of these places to London, practically the whole of such 
 traffic was taken by road by the public carriers. ' It is 
 evident,' he proceeded, ' that this must be the case if it 
 is borne in mind that goods trains run by night, and 
 therefore if goods traffic is to be sent down by a railway 
 company it would have to be collected in London from 
 the market or the local dealers, carted to the railway- 
 station, loaded into trucks and taken to Walthamstow 
 or Edmonton, and unloaded the next morning and 
 carted to the consignees' shops ; whereas a carrier can 
 take it from the senders at any hour of the day, and 
 deliver it to the consignees within, at the outside, two 
 hours ; and a carrier can afford to charge much less 
 
 72 
 
ioo GENERAL BRITISH CONDITIONS 
 
 than a railway company, with its double cartage and 
 extra handling.' In support of this view he gave the 
 following figures, in which Walthamstow and Edmonton, 
 on the one hand, are compared with Colchester and 
 Chelmsford on the other : 
 
 Town or District. 
 
 Population. 
 
 Shop Goods. 
 
 Gross Tonnage 
 per Annum. 
 
 Average per Head 
 of the Population. 
 
 Walthamstow 
 
 95.125 
 
 I,OOO 
 
 Tons. Lbs. 
 
 0*010 = 24 
 
 Edmonton 
 
 46,899 
 
 250 
 
 0-005= I2 
 
 Colchester 
 
 38,351 
 
 13,000 
 
 o-339= 759 
 
 Chelmsford 
 
 12,580 
 
 9,000 
 
 0715 = 1,603 
 
 The railways are thus finding that the diminution 
 in the size of consignments is being followed by a form 
 of competition that threatens to deprive them of the 
 privilege of carrying even the diminished parcels for 
 distances of a score of miles or so from the centre of 
 London or other large cities ; and one of the problems 
 of the day is whether railway companies themselves 
 should not become carriers by road as well as by rail, 
 by a resort to motor-cars or motor- waggons of their own 
 in districts which lend themselves to this form of enter- 
 prise. 
 
 From what has been already said, it must be obvious, 
 even to those least acquainted with the details of railway 
 work, that the big loads of foreign produce, well packed 
 and in regular quantities, afford to our railway com- 
 panies a maximum of traffic which they can carry with 
 a minimum of trouble. On the other hand, to collect, 
 carry, and deliver an ordinary train-load of miscellaneous 
 
LOCAL GOODS TRAINS 101 
 
 lots of English produce is a very different matter indeed. 
 Such a train will stop at a variety of wayside stations to 
 pick up odd trucks, only, it may be, a quarter full of a 
 variety of small consignments, each of which has its 
 separate way-bill, and has involved as much clerical work 
 as a load of many tons would do. The coupling-on of 
 these separate waggons will mean a good deal of running 
 about on the part of the engine, with the inevitable 
 delays ; and it may well happen that, whereas a train 
 loaded with foreign produce would run from the port to 
 London in two hours, an ordinary goods train, collect- 
 ing consignments of English commodities from point 
 to point, would take six or seven hours to accomplish 
 the same journey. In the latter case, therefore, there 
 must be taken into account the increased coal con- 
 sumption by the engine, the wages of the men on the 
 train, and the substantially larger number of persons, 
 all along the line, who have had work of some sort or 
 other to do with such a train as this, as compared with 
 those concerned with the other train, loaded up with 
 foreign produce at the port, and then coming right 
 through to London. One must also consider that, 
 though the train of foreign produce may have the same 
 number of trucks as the train of home produce, each 
 truck of the former will be full, whereas, owing to the 
 spasmodic character of the English traffic, the other 
 train will have, possibly, only i ton or less in each 
 truck. So the foreign train, apart from all question of 
 expense, will be much more profitable than the other. 
 
 Then, again, when the train of British produce, got 
 together in the tedious manner here described, arrives 
 in London, each of the various consignments must be 
 picked out, examined, and classified according to its 
 destination^ If the bulk of them should be for delivery 
 at Smithfield, Covent Garden, Spitalfields, or the 
 
102 GENERAL BRITISH CONDITIONS 
 
 Borough Market, the van-men for each market will go 
 from one truck to another until they have gathered in 
 a good load, and they will then set off to deliver the 
 consignments to a dozen or a score of consignees. 
 This would take time even in the most favourable of 
 circumstances ; but it may so happen (at Covent 
 Garden, for example) that, owing to lack of adequate 
 provision for receiving the produce, or to lack of atten- 
 tion on the part of the consignees, the railway carmen 
 will be delayed from two up to five or six hours before 
 they can get rid of their loads. To the railway com- 
 pany concerned this means that they are paying wages 
 to the men for the time lost ; that they are deprived of 
 the use of horses and carts for so many hours ; that 
 the depots get congested with freight, because it is not 
 cleared away so quickly as it should be ; and that, to 
 avoid further trouble, the company may even be obliged 
 to hire outside cartage in order to get the place clear. 
 
 The farmer in the country may not know, or may not 
 think, of all these things when he sends off his little lot 
 from a wayside station to the London market, though 
 he may consider himself aggrieved because the train- 
 loads of meat from America or Holland, or bacon from 
 Denmark, are carried past his farm at a lower rate than 
 he can get for his own few hundredweights. It may 
 be difficult to convince him that the whole position 
 must be judged from the point of view of wholesale and 
 retail; but every reasonable-minded person will see that, 
 where the conditions of the services rendered vary so 
 fundamentally, there must be some difference in the 
 charges made in respect to them. 
 
 If the actual cost to the railway company of the 
 particular services rendered may be fairly taken into 
 consideration in fixing the rates charged, then a dif- 
 ference per ton between truck or train loads and miscel- 
 
AMERICAN CHEESE 103 
 
 laneous consignments is fully warranted. The principle 
 here involved is, in fact, one that, with unending varia- 
 tions, is applicable to almost every phase of commercial 
 and industrial life. Not only, too, is the reduction for 
 a wholesale quantity justified by the conditions under 
 which the traffic is carried, but in many cases, if the 
 companies were to charge more than a certain rate for 
 the transport of foreign produce, they would run the 
 risk of losing the business altogether, without, it may 
 well happen, the slightest benefit being conferred on 
 the home trader, who will have felt it a grievance that 
 his own consignments have had to pay on a higher 
 scale. How traffic may be diverted, for example, from 
 one route to another, and be lost to a railway company 
 altogether, is well shown by the following illustration : 
 At one time considerable quantities of American 
 cheese were imported into Liverpool, and were thence 
 brought on by rail to London. It was packed in con- 
 venient boxes, which could be placed one on top of 
 another in the railway waggons until these would hold 
 no more. The rate charged was about 255. the ton, 
 and this was certainly a lower rate than was in force for 
 cheese made in Cheshire, the reason being that not 
 only was the latter offered in comparatively small quan- 
 tities, but the different lots could not be ' piled,' as in 
 the case of the American cheese, and had to rest on the 
 floor of the waggon, so that much more space was 
 occupied. But this 253. rate was practically a tax 
 imposed on the American dealers, inasmuch as they 
 could ship from New York to the Thames direct for 
 virtually the same amount as they paid for the voyage 
 from New York to Liverpool. The difference in time 
 between the two routes was the saving of, in certain 
 cases, a few days on the latter, and this saving, as I 
 have said, cost the traders 253. a ton, The quicker 
 
104 GENERAL BRITISH CONDITIONS 
 
 route was persevered in for some years, but eventually 
 the traffic in American cheese for the London market 
 deserted Liverpool, and it now comes mainly to the 
 Thames direct. The traffic was lost to the railways 
 because it could not ' bear ' even the 255. rate, but the 
 Cheshire farmer has in no way gained by the change. 
 
 Apples from the United States continue to arrive at 
 Liverpool in such quantities that the mere decrease in 
 the weight of those conveyed from Liverpool to London 
 in the autumn of 1904 represented a reduction in the 
 carryings of one railway company of from 10,000 to 
 12,000 tons. Apples are, of course, more perishable 
 than cheese, so that in their case the shorter route to 
 London, via Liverpool, is preferable, while from Liver- 
 pool the agent can if the market conditions suggest 
 the adoption of such a course forward the consign- 
 ments to the large industrial centres of the North in 
 preference to London. On the other hand, the addition 
 to the freight of the cost of the land journey from Liver- 
 pool to London is a consideration for the dealers, and 
 in course of time American apples for London will 
 probably follow the example of American cheese for 
 London, and come all the way by water. 
 
 The reader will see from these examples that there 
 are uncertainties in regard to import traffic which rail- 
 way managers must necessarily bear in mind, though 
 any rate they may make from a port to an inland town 
 is, in point of fact, equally applicable to home or foreign 
 produce, the Railway and Canal Traffic Act of 1888 
 having laid down that ( no railway company shall make, 
 nor shall the Court or Commissioners sanction, any 
 difference in the treatment of home and foreign mer- 
 chandise in respect to the same or similar services.' 
 Under equal conditions, therefore, the railway com- 
 panies are bound by law to give an absolute equality of 
 
IMPORTS AND EXPORTS 105 
 
 treatment, without any regard to the question whether 
 the commodities they are asked to carry are of foreign 
 or home origin. 
 
 Nothing would satisfy British railway companies 
 better than to be called upon to handle British produce 
 or British merchandise in quantities corresponding in 
 any degree to those received from abroad, and no fallacy 
 could be more untenable than the idea that British 
 railway companies would rather encourage traffic in 
 foreign than in home products, assuming that the con- 
 ditions could by any possibility be made equal. There 
 is one especially material fact in this connection which 
 should be borne in mind. 
 
 That our imports greatly exceed our exports is a fact 
 with which everyone is familiar ; but everyone may not 
 have thought that, as a natural consequence of this 
 state of things, the railw r ay trucks bringing full loads of 
 foreign goods from the ports may have very poor loads, 
 or no loads at all, to take to those ports. What happens 
 in the case of such a port as Liverpool, is that hundreds 
 of railway waggons will be sent for the timber, the grain, 
 the raw cotton, and the other commodities arriving there 
 in such large quantities, but they will go to Liverpool, 
 to a very great extent indeed, as empties. One of the 
 greatest troubles in a railway manager's life, in such 
 circumstances as these, is how to avoid the haulage of 
 so much dead weight, and the position will be rendered 
 still worse if it should happen that more trucks have 
 been sent to Liverpool than there is incoming cargo to 
 fill them. 
 
 This may readily happen in spite of the most careful 
 calculations, for the freight business at Liverpool will 
 vary as much as 500 loads a day, and it may be that a 
 substantial number of waggons, which could be usefully 
 employed on some other parts of a railway company's 
 
106 GENERAL BRITISH CONDITIONS 
 
 system, will be tied up at Liverpool for two days or 
 more, not earning a single penny. 
 
 If the railways really wished to show greater favour 
 to one set of traders than to another, in order to en- 
 courage traffic, they would, in some instances show it 
 to the home producer sending traffic to the ports rather 
 than to the import traffic going in the reverse direction. 
 In most cases, too, where alleged anomalies are detected 
 between the rates from a port to an inland town and the 
 rates from the same town to the same port, the differ- 
 ence is due to the fact that in the latter case the traffic 
 does not exist, so that there is no need to offer the par- 
 ticular rate available in the former case. 
 
 Another fact I should like to bring out as bearing on 
 our general home conditions is that on British, as on 
 American, railways it is a matter of almost daily occur- 
 rence for the officials to be in communication with 
 traders who desire reductions of rates between certain 
 towns or districts, and though the English com- 
 panies have less freedom of action in such matters 
 (owing to Parliamentary requirements, Board of Trade 
 regulations, and so on) than they could desire, the 
 granting of such concessions is not only, as a rule, a 
 simpler matter than on Continental State railways, but 
 is of much more frequent occurrence than the average 
 critic of British railway policy would lead the public to 
 suppose. The one requirement of the general manager 
 of a company-owned railway is to be convinced that 
 good business will follow from any practicable conces- 
 sion that is, made in other words, that wholesale lots 
 will be offered, or other compensating advantages 
 assured, in return for wholesale rates. Numerous in- 
 stances could be mentioned in proof of this assertion, 
 but a few must suffice. Thus; in the neighbourhood of 
 Clonakilty, County Cork, an important industry in the 
 
ENCOURAGING TRAFFIC 107 
 
 growing of new potatoes for the English markets has 
 sprung up within the last few years, to the great benefit 
 of the district, the starting of such industry having been 
 inspired by a local railway manager, and rendered a 
 success entirely owing to the specially low rates con- 
 ceded for its encouragement. The total weight of the 
 new potatoes thus despatched from the district in 
 question to markets in England and Scotland during 
 the season of 1904 was over 150 tons. A breeder of 
 ducks in a Lancashire coast town asked the London 
 and North-Western and Lancashire and Yorkshire 
 Railway Companies for a lower rate for ducks between 
 that town and Manchester, saying that if it were granted 
 he could work up a good business. After investigating 
 the matter the companies concurred, and reduced the 
 rate in question to the equivalent of id. per bird. 
 The results have been satisfactory to everyone con- 
 cerned, for in the year 1903 the companies carried for 
 this one trader alone no fewer than 35,000 ducks, repre- 
 senting a total weight of nearly 80 tons. In the autumn 
 of 1902 iron segments for tube railways were being sent 
 in large quantities from Stockton to London by sea, 
 conveyance by rail being regarded as impracticable on 
 account of the greater cost. But two railway companies, 
 acting in combination, offered an exceptionally low 
 rate, provided they got 4O-waggon lots, with 8 tons 
 to a waggon. The arrangement suited the contractors, 
 and the railways concerned secured a big business under 
 profitable conditions. 
 
 On the other hand, there are many instances where 
 there is no need for special concessions to be made to 
 traders, inasmuch as lower rates are already available, 
 if only they will take such steps, in the way of com- 
 bining their consignments, as will allow of advantage 
 being taken of them, An especially instructive illustra- 
 
io8 GENERAL BRITISH CONDITIONS 
 
 tion of this fact arose early in 1905, in connection with 
 an association of farmers on the Lillieshall Estate of 
 the Duke of Sutherland at Newport (Salop). 
 
 It was hoped that by means of combination the 
 local producers would be in a better position both to get 
 their supplies and to forward their consignments more 
 cheaply and to better advantage, than if they all acted 
 independently. The London and North-Western Rail- 
 way Company gave cordial approval to the scheme, 
 and undertook to erect a shed on the station premises 
 for the use of the association, charging only a nominal 
 sum for rental to cover interest on cost of construction. 
 Then a difficulty arose with regard to railway rates. 
 The association asked what reduction would be made 
 in the rates, in consideration of the consignment of 
 larger quantities. To this the chief goods manager of 
 the company, Mr. Frank Ree, answered that the con- 
 signment of large quantities at very low rates was 
 provided for by the charges already open to the farmers 
 for lo-ton or 4-ton lots, and he explained that the rates 
 in question had been fixed at the amount stated with 
 the expectation that large quantities that is to say, 
 quantities much larger than 10 tons or 4 tons would 
 be sent by them ; but the minimum was kept low on 
 purpose to allow of smaller traders having the benefit, 
 as well as those who could consign in really big 
 quantities. 
 
 This explanation was regarded as disappointing, and 
 thereupon Mr. Ree went to Newport and addressed 
 a meeting of the local agriculturists, held at Lillieshall, 
 under the presidency of the Duke of Sutherland. In 
 the course of his speech the chief goods manager re- 
 ferred to a table which had been drawn up by the 
 London and North-Western Railway Company, show- 
 ing the actual payments made to them per consign- 
 
LOWER RATES ALREADY AVAILABLE 109 
 
 ment by the farmers of the district ; and he went on 
 to say : 
 
 What we learn from this table is that, under existing conditions, 
 over 80 per cent, of the consignments are carried at the higher 
 rates, and only 20 per cent, at the lower rates for larger quantities. 
 Taking the difference between what was actually paid and what 
 might have been paid, we find that if the eighty-two members of your 
 society had combined their lots, so as to form large consignments, 
 and thus secure the lower rates, they would have paid the railway 
 company about 12 or 13 per cent, less in carriage than they did. 
 A saving of 12 or 13 per cent, is one that should surely not be 
 despised. The London and North- Western Railway Company 
 think themselves very lucky if they can pay 7 per cent. 
 
 On eliminating from the table in question consignments of 4 tons 
 and upwards for the big men (who are often able to buy in large 
 quantities), and taking only consignments for the smaller farmers 
 (to whom the value of such an organization as yours is propor- 
 tionately greater), I find that by combining their consignments the 
 members of your society might have effected a saving on their 
 actual payments in railway carriage alone of something like 19 
 per cent. 
 
 As regards, again, the big farmers themselves, the figures com- 
 piled afford interesting evidence of the fact that only in few cases 
 do even they receive individual consignments in sufficient bulk to 
 come within the lowest rates on the railway company's books. 
 
 Considering that there are 178 farmers and others in your 
 district who draw their feeding-stuffs from our stations, the figures 
 I have quoted show, I think, what a very substantial gain might 
 be secured by them on the basis of lower rates which are already 
 available, but of which, as our statistics prove, so little use is now 
 being made. 
 
 A review of the general traffic conditions on the 
 British railways thus shows in effect that, owing to the 
 exigencies of our trade, the tendency is for business to 
 be done more and more in the form of small consign- 
 ments sent at frequent intervals ; that for one reason 
 or another British traders cannot, or do not, make up 
 such big individual or collective lots as are represented 
 by the imports of foreign consignments ; that if they 
 could possibly supply lots of equal bulk, delivered under 
 the same or similar conditions, they would get the same 
 rates ; that, failing this, it is still open to them to obtain 
 
no GENERAL BRITISH CONDITIONS 
 
 special terms from the railway companies, if they can 
 show good cause why such terms should be granted ; 
 and, finally, that the lower rates they desire may be 
 already standing on the rate-books at the local stations, 
 ready for any group of traders who, by means of a 
 little friendly combination, are able to make up the 
 specified quantities. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 THE SOUTHAMPTON CASE 
 
 IN 1895 there was fought out before the Railway and 
 Canal Commission, on the subject of alleged prefer- 
 ential rates as between imported and home produce, 
 a legal battle, the details of which still afford abundant 
 food for reflection for those who may consider that the 
 railway companies show undue favour to the foreigner 
 in carrying his imports at lower rates than they charge 
 for the smaller consignments of the British farmer. 
 
 The case in question was one in which the Mansion 
 House Association (inspired thereto by the London 
 Docks Company, rendered uneasy by the competition 
 of the port of Southampton) alleged against the London 
 and South-Western Railway Company that they were 
 unduly preferring foreign traders and subjecting home 
 merchandise to an undue prejudice by means of the 
 rates charged on goods imported at Southampton, and 
 carried at a lower rate than home produce, in contra- 
 vention of the provisions of the Railway and Canal 
 Traffic Act, 1888. This Act, which explains and 
 amends the existing law as to undue preference, con- 
 tains the following proviso : ' Provided that no railway 
 company shall make, nor shall the Court or the Com- 
 missioners sanction, any difference in the tolls, rates, or 
 charges made for, or any difference in the treatment of, 
 
 in 
 
112 
 
 THE SOUTHAMPTON CASE 
 
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'SAME OR SIMILAR SERVICES' 113 
 
 home or foreign merchandise, in respect of the same 
 or similar services.' The applicants alleged that this 
 provision was being infringed by the railway com- 
 pany, inasmuch as imported bacon and hams, butter, 
 cheese, fresh meat, hops, lard, wool, and hay were being 
 carried by them to London at lower rates from South- 
 ampton Docks than they charged for the same com- 
 modities from Southampton Town and fourteen other 
 stations in the same district. 
 
 The railway company replied that the rates charged 
 were in each case reasonable, and that the differences 
 as between those for foreign and home consignments 
 respectively were fully justified by the differences in the 
 conditions under which they were carried, these respec- 
 tive conditions not representing ' the same or similar 
 services ' within the meaning of the Act. 
 
 In support of this view the railway company showed 
 that the home produce from the various local stations 
 in question represented only a comparatively small 
 total weight, handed to them in many consignments 
 of, as a rule, a few hundredweights only, whereas 
 the foreign produce was tendered to them in large 
 quantities, representing very substantial individual 
 consignments. The reader will be able to form his own 
 conclusion on this point from a study of the table on 
 p. 112, which gives, in each case, the traffic dealt with 
 for periods ranging from eleven to nineteen months, 
 though from certain of the local stations included in 
 the list no traffic at all in some of the commodities 
 specified was carried during this period. 
 
 As regards the differences in the circumstances under 
 which the imported and the home produce respectively 
 were carried by the railway company, I would venture 
 to set out these in the following form : 
 
 8 
 
THE SOUTHAMPTON CASE 
 
 IMPORTED PRODUCE. HOME PRODUCE. 
 
 Services. 
 
 No services rendered by the Services to home produce 
 
 weighing, 
 
 railway company to imported 
 traffic. Produce loaded into 
 trucks at the docks, and ten- 
 dered to company in full train- 
 loads. 
 
 With the Canadian and 
 American consignments one or 
 two invoice entries suffice, and 
 the total amount is debited 
 in one figure to the shipping 
 company. 
 
 Consignments of many tons 
 are delivered by crane from 
 railway truck to consignee's van. 
 
 comprise receiving, 
 loading, covering, shunting, pro- 
 vision of station accommo- 
 dation, superintendence, and 
 clerkage. 
 
 Small consignments have all 
 to be received, checked, weighed, 
 loaded, and invoiced separately. 
 Each involves the making out 
 and the collection of a separate 
 account. 
 
 Small consignments are con- 
 veyed to various vans, or ten- 
 dered to separate consignees. 
 
 Train- Loads. 
 
 Full loads of 4, 5, or even Average load for commodities 
 6 tons per truck. 
 
 in question from i ton to 25 cwt. 
 
 Conveyance. 
 
 Tram loaded up with foreign 
 produce runs direct from dock 
 gates to Nine Elms (London) 
 without shunting, making the 
 journey in three hours. 
 
 Trucks from Southampton to 
 London are sent back the same 
 evening fully loaded. 
 
 Forwarded in pick-up trains, 
 stopping at various stations, 
 and much delayed by shunting 
 operations, journey occupying 
 from five to six hours. 
 
 The provision of trucks at 
 small stations for irregular and 
 small consignments is costly. 
 Such trains often remain for 
 several days at stations awaiting 
 the light loads they ultimately 
 receive. 
 
 Average Earnings. 
 
 Trains conveying imported Average earnings in goods 
 produce earn 125. 4-Jd. per train and mineral traffic throughout 
 mile. the London and South-Western 
 
 system, 55. $|d. per train mile. 
 
 Station Accommodation. 
 
 Boxes piled one upon another 
 (if traffic is to be stored), the 
 smallest proportion of space 
 giving accommodation to many 
 tons. 
 
 Two or three small bales, 
 weighing a few hundredweights, 
 occupy same space as several 
 tons of import traffic. Provision 
 of station accommodation ten 
 times more costly. 
 
AN INSTRUCTIVE COMPARISON 115 
 
 IMPORTED PRODUCE. HOME PRODUCE. 
 
 Meat. 
 
 Frozen. Can be packed tier Fresh. The small consign - 
 upon tier, giving waggons their ments (see table) either packed 
 ordinary carrying load. in hampers or hung upon hooks, 
 
 occupying much space and 
 liable to injury. 
 
 Bacon and Hams. 
 
 Secured in strong wooden Generally in canvas ; fre- 
 boxes, which weigh about three quently brown paper. Impos- 
 to the ton. Boxes included in the sible to secure full loads for the 
 total weight on which carriage trucks. Liable to damage by 
 is charged. Afford full loads to rough handling, dirt, or damp, 
 trucks, which convey an average Must be unloaded by hand, 
 of more than 4 tons. Practically Low rate for bacon and hams 
 no liability to damage. Cases in i-ton lots from Southampton 
 can be unloaded by cranes. and Winchester to London, but 
 (See table: average weight of no consignment of home produce 
 consignment of imported bacon of that weight tendered at either 
 1 8 tons.) station during 1894. (See table : 
 
 average weight per consign- 
 ment 2 cwt. 3 qrs.) 
 
 Hops. 
 
 Packed in square bales which Packed in round bales which 
 fit the trucks. do not fit the trucks. 
 
 Hay. 
 
 Hydraulic or steam pressed. Can be loaded only 2 tons to 
 Can be loaded 4 tons to the the truck, 
 truck. 
 
 There was not the slightest doubt that if consign- 
 ments carried under the conditions more favourable 
 for the railway company had been British, no sugges- 
 tion would have been raised as to any undue preference 
 in carrying them at a lower rate than was charged on 
 the others. To deny, therefore, to foreign imports an 
 advantage which, in respect to ' the same or similar 
 services,' could have been secured by the British pro- 
 ducer would have been a clear contravention of the 
 spirit of the Act. As Mr. Justice Collins observed, the 
 mere fact that the goods are foreign goods does not 
 ' turn a difference into a preference.' 
 
 82 
 
n6 THE SOUTHAMPTON CASE 
 
 In the result the Commissioners found that, save in 
 the case of fresh meat, hay, and hops, the differences 
 were fully justified ; but though in regard to these three 
 commodities modifications of the rates were ordered, 
 the result of the Southampton case was to clearly 
 uphold the principle that the concession to consign- 
 ments (no matter what their source of origin) carried 
 in large quantities, and under conditions favourable to 
 economical and profitable operation, of lower rates 
 than to small and irregular lots, the handling and 
 transport of which involve much trouble and higher 
 working expenses, does not necessarily constitute an 
 ' undue preference.' 
 
CHAPTER X 
 SUNDRY SERVICES 
 
 IN addition to collecting, transporting, and delivering 
 the consignments entrusted to them by traders, British 
 railway companies perform a variety of services which, 
 in the aggregate, represent the offering of some very 
 great conveniences to the individuals concerned, while 
 affording also substantial facilities for carrying on the 
 trade of the country. 
 
 One of the most practical of these additional services 
 is in the provision of warehouses in which traders who 
 require such accommodation can store their goods 
 pending shipment, disposal to purchasers, or to suit the 
 exigencies of their own businesses. There are dealers, 
 for example, who buy up large quantities of raw material 
 or manufactured articles when prices are low, but have 
 no immediate purchaser, cannot accept delivery at once 
 owing to a lack of warehouse accommodation of their 
 own, and are glad enough to leave the commodities in 
 charge of some railway company or other until they can 
 dispose of them profitably. There are manufacturers 
 who, executing big orders for foreign customers, send 
 on the goods as they are made to the railway company 
 instead of keeping them on hand and let the railway 
 people store them until the whole have been completed 
 and are ready for despatch, when instructions will be 
 given for consignment in bulk to a certain vessel at a 
 
 117 
 
n8 SUNDRY SERVICES 
 
 certain port. There are still other traders who will 
 leave foreign goods on the hands of the railway com- 
 panies at the ports until they can arrange their sales. 
 To meet these various needs, the railway companies 
 erect in all large industrial and commercial centres huge 
 warehouses for the storage of consignments, and they 
 provide also staffs of men to do the necessary work, 
 together with large numbers of drays and horses, and 
 the various appliances hydraulic, electrical, or other- 
 wise needed for the efficient performance of the various 
 operations. 
 
 These warehouses represent much more of an ad- 
 vantage to the traders than any direct profit to the 
 railway companies. The arrangements vary somewhat 
 in each district, according to circumstances ; but the 
 general principle is that free storage shall be allowed 
 for a certain specified period, at the expiration of which 
 time a small charge that is to say, one of a few pence 
 per ton per week is made. In some instances the 
 charges are increased 50 per cent, if the goods are not 
 removed within fifty-two weeks. In effect, the bulk of 
 the consignments stored are removed within the free 
 period, so that for all the work which the warehousing 
 of these may entail the railway company receives 
 nothing. It is only when the free period has been 
 exceeded that the railway has a chance of getting back 
 something towards the payment of interest on capital. 
 Indirectly a company benefits, because, as a rule, it 
 makes sure of the commodities being carried over 
 its own lines. But, taking the railway warehouses as 
 separate establishments, apart from any question of 
 transport and the rates thereon, it is extremely doubtful 
 if, generally speaking, the receipts under the circum- 
 stances indicated suffice to cover expenses and capital 
 charges. 
 
RAILWAY WAREHOUSES 119 
 
 As an example of one of the largest and most modern 
 of railway warehouses in the country, reference might 
 be made to the new Deansgate Goods Station, in Man- 
 chester, constructed by the Great Northern Railway 
 Company at a cost of 1,000,000, and opened by them 
 in 1900. The three storage floors in this warehouse are 
 each no less than i^ acres in extent. They are reached 
 in succession by powerful hydraulic lifts from the 
 ground floor, where the goods are either received from 
 the drays or loaded direct into the railway waggons, as 
 required. The collection of commodities stored in the 
 warehouse is of the most varied type. In one place, for 
 instance, the visitor sees barrels of colour materials from 
 abroad ; in another, bundles of paper hangings ; and on 
 one floor allotted to that purpose, cases of Lancashire 
 textiles already marked (sometimes in both English and 
 Chinese) for the places to which the)' are to go Hong- 
 Kong, Bangkok, Batavia, Karachi, Colombo, Sydney, 
 and so on. At the time of the war between China and 
 Japan the railway warehouses in Manchester were full 
 to overflowing with goods awaiting the conclusion of 
 peace, some even of the largest manufacturers being 
 glad to make use of the railway buildings for the storage 
 of such portions of their consignments as they could not 
 find room for themselves. 
 
 The advantage to the trade of Lancashire of the 
 facilities thus offered is undeniable, for if every manu- 
 facturer or commission agent (the latter, in many 
 instances, now having only a small office) had to keep 
 goods on hand until a few days before their shipment, 
 the result would be a very substantial increase in work- 
 ing expenses, and a proportionately serious handicap on 
 the transaction of business. It may be, on the other 
 hand, that the railway companies are not altogether 
 free agents in the matter, and that the warehouses have 
 
120 SUNDRY SERVICES 
 
 now become an essential part of their operations, because 
 if they were to reduce the said facilities the effect would 
 certainly be in the case of Manchester, at least the 
 consignment of goods to Southampton or London by 
 sea in still greater volume than is, in fact, already the 
 case, free warehousing notwithstanding. 
 
 At Bradford the warehouses of the Great Northern, 
 Lancashire and Yorkshire, and Midland Railways are 
 largely devoted to the storage of wool, the free periods 
 allowed before any charge is made varying according 
 as the commodities represent 'inwards,' 'outwards,' 
 or ' shipment ' traffic. The last mentioned goes from 
 Bradford in such quantities that a single railway com- 
 pany has carried 50 tons of wool to a single ship for two 
 local firms. As in Manchester, one finds the same 
 practice in vogue of traders having unpretending offices, 
 and leaving the railway companies to do the whole 
 of their warehousing. They attend the wool sales in 
 London, Liverpool, Antwerp, or elsewhere, and they 
 also import direct from Australia, New Zealand, and 
 Argentina; but, in any case, they leave the railway 
 company to take charge of the wool for them until it is 
 wanted. So it is that the Great Northern Company 
 have one warehouse in Adolphus Street, Bradford, 
 devoted exclusively to the storage of wool, of which it 
 can hold from 50,000 to 60,000 bales with this further 
 advantage to the trader, that in this instance the in- 
 surance companies will accept a 35. per cent, lower 
 premium than on wool stored in a warehouse for mis- 
 cellaneous goods. Another of the same company's 
 warehouses in the City Road, Bradford, has a storage 
 capacity of about 150,000 bales. 
 
 The amount of trouble to which a railway company 
 is put by the warehousing system is especially great in 
 the case of wool. If the bales were for direct delivery 
 
MUCH TROUBLE: SMALL RETURNS 121 
 
 on arrival, they could be transferred from truck to dray 
 at any part of the railway yards ; but the removal of 
 the bales to the warehouse renders it necessary that 
 the trucks shall be placed in a certain position on the 
 ground floor of the warehouse, so that a good deal of 
 shunting has to be done, while much time also is lost. 
 On the floors of the warehouses the bales of each par- 
 ticular trader are piled up in heaps to a height of four 
 or five bales, and these heaps are sometimes of such 
 magnitude that at the Great Northern warehouse in 
 the City Road, Bradford, I saw one which contained 
 594 bales, while another occupied 200 square yards, 
 and was estimated to represent 1,040 bales. Each bale 
 is marked (though the marks are apt to become scarcely 
 decipherable, owing to dirt, age, or grease from the 
 wool), and it is a matter of almost daily occurrence 
 that a railway company should be instructed to deliver 
 particular bales to certain individuals or firms, with the 
 result that the entire heap belonging to the trader in 
 question may have to be turned over before the bales 
 that are wanted can be discovered. At least three 
 hours may often be occupied in searching and replacing 
 on each occasion, though much more time would be 
 wanted to discover, say, 20 or 30 specified bales among 
 the aforesaid group of 1,040. 
 
 How these general conditions work out in actual 
 practice may be judged from the following concrete 
 examples : (i) A consignment of 87 bales of wool 
 from Antwerp, received at Bradford via Goole. All 
 were transferred, in the first instance, by the railway 
 company's servants from the trucks to the railway 
 warehouse. The number or mark on each of the 
 87 bales had to be entered in the checker's book, and 
 thence transferred to the wool ledger, so that every 
 bale could be traced in case of need. The consignment 
 
122 SUNDRY SERVICES 
 
 changed hands three times while in charge of the rail- 
 way company, who had to advise each new holder as 
 to the number of bales on hand. The bales were 
 finally distributed by the railway company in twenty 
 different deliveries to various firms during a period 
 extending over thirteen weeks. That is to say, the 
 railway men had to turn over the bales on twenty 
 separate occasions to pick out those bearing particular 
 marks, and deliver these to the individuals or firms who 
 had purchased them, the date of despatch of each of 
 such deliveries, and the particular bales included therein, 
 being also duly indicated in the wool ledger. The sum 
 total received by the railway company (beyond, that is, 
 the ordinary charges for ' terminal services ') for pro- 
 viding the warehouse accommodation and going through 
 all these operations was igs. 6d. (2) A consignment of 
 85 bales, warehoused, and redistributed by the railway 
 company in twelve separate deliveries. Warehouse 
 rent, 2s. (3) A consignment of 54 bales, warehoused, 
 and redistributed in eight separate deliveries. Ware- 
 house rent, is. 8d. In all three instances the railway 
 company would have received no extra payment at all 
 in respect to this work if the traders had been able 
 to arrange for delivery from the warehouses to their 
 customers within the free period. 
 
 At Dewsbury I found sheds belonging to the Great 
 Northern and Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway 
 Companies for the storage of bales of rags, used for 
 the making of shoddy in the local mills. The rags 
 come to Dewsbury from all parts, not only of the 
 country, but also of the Continent of Europe, and are 
 disposed of at periodical auctions. The bales remain 
 in charge of the railway companies, under the operation 
 of their warehousing arrangements, samples being taken 
 from them for the purposes of the sales, and delivery is 
 
LIVERPOOL CONDITIONS 123 
 
 effected by the railways according to the instructions 
 they eventually receive. The wholesale dealer, there- 
 fore, requires no warehouse of his own, the whole of 
 the labour involved in the handling and storage being 
 done by the railway. With the rags, too, as with the 
 wool, a whole heap of bales may have to be turned 
 over before a particular mark or number can be dis- 
 covered. When, again, a certain quality of rags is 
 either a drug on the market or so especially mal- 
 odorous that no one wants to buy it, the railway 
 company may have it left in their keeping for any 
 period up to two years. 
 
 At Liverpool the railway warehouses are especially 
 large and numerous in fact, it is not too much to say 
 that the business of the port could not very well be con- 
 ducted without them, though it is no less true at Liver- 
 pool, as elsewhere, that, considering the large amount 
 of capital sunk in their construction, and the consider- 
 able proportion of goods for which no * rent ' is charged, 
 the warehousing itself apart from the increased traffic 
 it brings to the lines of the companies concerned does 
 not pay. The commodities one finds in these Liver- 
 pool warehouses are of the most miscellaneous kind 
 reels of paper, American organs, bales of hides, casks of 
 copper sulphate, boxes of bacon, sacks of grain, etc. ; 
 while in some instances the convenience of individual 
 traders has been so far studied that one sees consider- 
 able stretches of floor-space occupied by onions, taken 
 from the cases and spread out to insure their keeping in 
 better condition. 
 
 Traffic taken into the railway warehouses at Liverpool 
 to await shipment, after having been conveyed to that 
 port by rail, is given free storage for periods as follows : 
 Traffic in classes A and B, 48 hours free ; traffic in 
 classes C to 5, 14 days free. Imports taken into the 
 
I2 4 
 
 SUNDRY SERVICES 
 
 warehouses to await conveyance by rail are required 
 to pay rent from the hour of receipt. The ordinary 
 charges for storage range from ad. to 8d. per ton per 
 week, or part of a week. On traffic to and from 
 Birmingham, South Staffordshire, and East Worcester- 
 shire stations free storage for one month is allowed. The 
 extent of the accommodation provided by the different 
 railway companies interested in the port may be judged 
 from the following statement as to the warehouses of the 
 London and North- Western Railway Company : 
 
 Warehouse. 
 
 No. of Floors. 
 
 Area of Floors. 
 
 Alexandra Dock 
 Canada Dock 
 Waterloo ... 
 Park Lane 
 Brunswick 
 
 5 
 5 
 3 
 3 
 
 2 
 
 About 6,000 square yards. 
 5,500 
 6,000 
 
 10,000 
 
 3,000 
 
 Totals 
 
 18 
 
 About 30,500 square yards. 
 
 In London a very considerable amount of warehouse 
 space is afforded by the different railway companies 
 in the interests of traders, many of whom would be 
 put to great expense and inconvenience if it were 
 not available. Here one finds collections of window- 
 glass, wool, reels of paper for the newspaper offices, 
 crates of pottery, drapery, carpets, malt, baskets, and 
 other things, which are stored until they are wanted 
 by the traders. The rent charged in London is some- 
 what higher than in the country, but most of the 
 commodities going into the warehouses are taken out 
 again within the free period of fourteen days, so that 
 nothing is then received by the company in return for the 
 accommodation afforded and the trouble given. Many 
 
RAILWAY WAREHOUSES IN LONDON 125 
 
 of the traders organize their business in such a way 
 as to clear out within the fortnight the whole of a 
 particular consignment sent to them from the manu- 
 facturer in the country. They then have in a fresh 
 stock, for which, in turn, there will be another two 
 weeks' free storage, orders being sent by them to the 
 railway company from day to day, or at other con- 
 venient intervals, for such quantities as may be 
 needed for immediate requirements. Newspaper 
 managers find the arrangement especially convenient 
 and economical in regard to the storage of the paper 
 they use, though newspaper editors are none the less 
 ready to encourage and to support complaints as to 
 the ' extortionate ' character of railway charges in 
 general ! 
 
 It is difficult to convey an adequate idea of the total 
 expenditure incurred even in London alone by the 
 different railway companies in the provision of these 
 warehouses, from which they have so little reason to 
 anticipate any direct return. I have not made the 
 round of them, for I thought that unnecessary; but, 
 by way of seeing what is done in the very heart of the 
 City of London, where the value of land attains to 
 almost fabulous proportions, I visited the Broad Street 
 depot of the London and North- Western Railway 
 Company. Here I found two huge warehouses, one, 
 in Eldon Street, having a floor-space of 15,700 square 
 yards, and the other, in Wilson Street, having a floor- 
 space of 13,800 square yards, a total of 29,500 square 
 yards for the entire depot. The Wilson Street branch 
 is the newer of the two. Furnished with every possible 
 convenience, it is a perfect model of a commodious and 
 thoroughly efficient warehouse of the best type. But 
 this one building without reckoning the Eldon Street 
 branch of the Broad Street depot, and also without 
 
126 SUNDRY SERVICES 
 
 reckoning the other warehouses of the same company 
 in other parts of London represents a capital expendi- 
 ture of no less than 95,000. 
 
 What I have said on this matter should suffice, I 
 think, to show (i) that a British railway rate may 
 include a great deal more than mere haulage, and 
 (2) that the important item of warehousing offers still 
 another proof of the absolute fallacy of comparing 
 English rates per ton per mile with the rates per ton 
 per mile charged by American railway companies, who, 
 apart from all other considerations bearing on this 
 point, provide no warehouse accommodation at all for 
 their patrons. 
 
 The affording to British traders of facilities in the 
 matter of warehousing such as those I have described 
 has led to certain abuses in regard to the use of railway 
 trucks. In November, 1904, a Nottingham trader 
 wrote to The Times to lay before the public * a specific 
 case,' as he called it, ' of the way some of the railway 
 companies injure agriculture by charges of an extor- 
 tionate character.' On July 19 his firm had on the 
 Midland and Great Northern Joint Railway Companies' 
 system at Thorney Station eight trucks of straw 
 (24 tons), of which two were sent away on July 23, two 
 on July 30, two on August 7, and two on August 18. 
 In other words, the firm had the use of eight trucks for 
 various periods, ranging from four days to a month. 
 For this accommodation the railway companies had 
 demanded 18 ios., whereas they should, he argued, 
 have charged only 35. 8d., being at the rate of 4d. per 
 ton per week, after one week free. 
 
 What had happened, of course, was that the trader, 
 buying up a lot of straw, had had it loaded on to the 
 railway waggons, and kept them standing idle on the 
 lines while he found a customer. From his point of 
 
RAILWAY TRUCKS AS WAREHOUSES 127 
 
 view he should have been charged only ordinary ware- 
 house rent for the use of the trucks, whereas he had 
 been charged demurrage. Hence the alleged extortion. 
 But railway trucks are not a * warehouse,' and when 
 they are used as such the result is, first, that lines which 
 have cost a good deal to construct, and may be required 
 for other traffic, are blocked ; and, secondly, that the 
 railway is deprived of the use of the trucks, and may 
 either suffer, or subject other traders to, inconvenience 
 through a shortage of trucks at a time when they are 
 especially wanted say, for the coal traffic in the 
 autumn. In the case in question the trader was 
 allowed free use of the trucks for forty-eight hours in 
 which to complete his arrangements ; but to say that 
 he should not be asked to pay more than ordinary 
 warehouse rent for railway trucks, when he thought fit 
 to convert them into a warehouse on wheels, was clearly 
 an absurdity, and in no way ' extortion.' 
 
 Then a Nottingham firm of hay and straw dealers 
 sent, about the same time, a similar complaint to the 
 Nottingham Daily Guardian. In this case the firm in 
 question had had 21 trucks on the same line of railway 
 for a total of 85 days, as follows : One truck, 17 days ; 
 one, 14 days ; one, 13 days ; one, 10 days ; two, g days ; 
 two, 7 days ; three, 6 days ; one, 4 days ; four, 3 days ; 
 five, 2 days ; and the railway companies had charged 
 21 los. for this accommodation, instead of warehouse 
 rent, working out at a little over half a sovereign. 
 ' Such matters as these,' the firm wrote, ' are very im- 
 portant to British agriculture, and the public should 
 know how the railway companies take advantage in 
 this way.' For my part, I think it equally desirable the 
 public should know how hay and straw dealers, at least 
 (and they, surely, are British middlemen rather than 
 British farmers), may seek to take advantage of the 
 
128 SUNDRY SERVICES 
 
 railway companies. In any case there is no basis for 
 grievance unless it be on the part of railway share- 
 holders. 
 
 ' Returned empties,' again, represent a branch of 
 railway operation which may be very convenient to the 
 traders, but, in itself, is wholly unprofitable to the 
 railway companies. If the latter were the actual 
 owners of the empties, they would often prefer to leave 
 them to be chopped up for firewood rather than incur 
 the expense and trouble of returning them ; but the 
 trader gets his empties back on terms which are so low 
 that he insists on having them, and he thinks it is no 
 concern of his that railway companies take complete 
 train-loads of empties into London at rates which are 
 unremunerative in themselves, while the trucks used for 
 their conveyance may themselves have to return to the 
 country empty when, as often happens, no fresh con- 
 signments are available. Near Islington there is one 
 station (Maiden Lane) which is now entirely set aside 
 for the business of handling empties, the cost of working 
 the station being about 800 a year. Not only, there- 
 fore, may a British railway rate include a fortnight's 
 free warehousing before despatch, and another fortnight's 
 free warehousing before delivery, but it may also 
 represent an obligation imposed on the railway com- 
 pany to return to the trader his empties at a charge 
 which is generally less than the actual cost of the 
 service rendered. 
 
 Another fact not generally realized by the general 
 public is that many of the railway companies keep 
 stocks of grain sacks and meat hampers and cloths, 
 which they let out to farmers, dealers, and others. It 
 will suffice if I state what is done by the Great Eastern 
 Railway Company. On this line the stock of grain 
 sacks kept on hand represents a total of between 
 
EMPTIES SACKS MARKETS 129 
 
 700,000 and 750,000. The charge made by the company 
 for the hire of the sacks is at the rate of one halfpenny 
 per sack, this halfpenny covering a period of four days 
 for filling, a delay of consignments at the railway- 
 station for two days awaiting instructions, and a 
 further three weeks for conveyance of consignment and 
 return of the sacks to the company. Should that 
 period be exceeded, a charge of one farthing per sack 
 per week is made for demurrage. Of hampers for meat 
 the company have a stock of about 800, but 25 per cent, 
 of these disappear each year ; and the meat cloths which 
 the company purchase for use with the hampers also 
 have to be annually renewed to the extent of from 4,000 
 or 5,000. The charge for the use of the hampers, 
 including a liberal supply of cloths, is 53. per ton, or 
 3d. per cwt., on the weight of the consignment. 
 
 It is further deserving of mention that some of the 
 railway companies have also organized markets in con- 
 nection with their London lines, thus not only afford- 
 ing an additional great convenience to the traders, 
 but enabling them to save a good deal in the way of 
 cartage. The potato market at King's Cross has, for 
 example, been established there for a period of no less 
 than forty years. It is located on the original terminus 
 of the Great Northern Railway Company's system in 
 London, at the rear of the existing station, and extends 
 over an area of 4 acres. On the street side of the 
 market there is a row of thirty-nine potato warehouses, 
 each of which opens out, at the back, on a platform 
 alongside a ' run ' capable of accommodating three or 
 four railway trucks at a time. These ' runs ' are at 
 right angles to the various ' roads ' entering the 
 market from the main lines, a series of no fewer than 
 fifty turntables allowing of a truck being turned from 
 any one of the roads into any one of the runs. 
 
 9 
 
130 SUNDRY SERVICES 
 
 Altogether the market will accommodate about 200 
 trucks. 
 
 The warehouses are occupied by different firms, who 
 give notice to the railway officials which particular 
 truck or trucks consigned to them, and awaiting their 
 convenience, they wish to have brought into the runs. 
 There the work of unloading, riddling, putting into 
 sacks, weighing, etc., will be done, the potatoes not 
 already disposed of being stored on the warehouse 
 level, where the contents of fifteen or twenty trucks 
 say, from go to 120 tons can be easily accommodated, 
 or in the vaults underneath, where provision is made 
 for another 100 to 150 tons. Some of the merchants 
 have their own businesses in Covent Garden, Spital- 
 fields, the Borough, or other markets, and consign 
 there as needed ; but independent buyers, including 
 greengrocers and costermongers, come to the market 
 from all parts of the Metropolis, and the scene on 
 Thursdays, especially during the potato season, which 
 lasts from October to February, is one of great activity. 
 Outside the market proper there is an extensive group 
 of sidings, where trucks for which room cannot be 
 found under cover will be ranged; and it may so 
 happen, at the height of the season, that other trucks 
 of potatoes will have to be kept at Holloway because 
 there is not room enough for them on the sidings at 
 King's Cross. The average number of full trucks 
 generally on hand (including a certain proportion of 
 trucks laden with celery, cabbages, or carrots) is 500, 
 and the average number unloaded per day is 100. In 
 the very height of the season as many as 1,000 trucks 
 of potatoes have been standing on the lines in and 
 around the market, or awaiting at Holloway an oppor- 
 tunity to come forward. Potatoes, therefore, form an 
 exception to what has already been said as to the 
 
ADVANTAGES TO THE TRADER 131 
 
 generally ' retail ' character of home-grown agricultural 
 consignments on British railways. 
 
 The practical advantages rendered by this market to 
 the traders are all the greater considering that some 
 of the salesmen will purchase a grower's entire crop of 
 potatoes, extending over many acres, it may be, send- 
 ing their own people to ' lift ' the potatoes and forward 
 them by rail. It is, therefore, of exceptional advantage 
 to such individuals that there should be at the King's 
 Cross terminus a market where they can arrange for 
 the sale of the potatoes direct from the railway wag- 
 gons, without any necessity for carting them first to 
 a market or warehouse some distance away. The prob- 
 ability is that, if the railway company had not pro- 
 vided the market in question, the dealers would have 
 had to organize one on their own account, being then 
 put, as just indicated, to the further expense of carting 
 thereto. As it is, the Great Northern provide them 
 with every reasonable facility and excellent accom- 
 modation on the railway itself, saving them much 
 trouble and expense, and charging them a rental so 
 moderate that no premises of the same dimensions 
 even if they could by any possibility offer the same 
 conveniences would be obtained in the neighbourhood 
 at anything like the same amount. On the other hand, 
 the railway company have naturally gained by the 
 increased business secured for their lines, so that, 
 although the dealers must have benefited very sub- 
 stantially from the market during the four decades it 
 has been in operation, I do not suggest that the 
 advantage of the arrangement has been entirely on 
 their side. 
 
 To this list of sundry services rendered by railways 
 to the traders may be added the use, if not the abuse, 
 of railway-station cloak-rooms a condition which has 
 
 92 
 
132 SUNDRY SERVICES 
 
 especially obtained at Glasgow. Shopkeepers, tailors, 
 dressmakers, or others, carrying on business in a wide 
 area around Glasgow, are accustomed to visit that city 
 for the purpose of replenishing their stocks or making 
 their purchases at the large wholesale houses. The 
 goods they buy are very often too heavy for them to 
 carry conveniently themselves, and the parcels are 
 forwarded for them to the cloak-room of the railway- 
 station from which they will return, to await their 
 arrival. The railways so far recognise the practice that 
 they issue to the wholesale houses books of ' shop 
 parcel labels,' each label being in three sections, of 
 which one is attached to the parcel, one is a receipt 
 given to the carter or messenger leaving the parcel at 
 the station, and the third is the ticket which the person 
 claiming the parcel must produce all three sections, 
 of course, bearing the same number. The charge 
 made is one penny per parcel, with a further charge 
 of one penny per day should the parcel be left beyond 
 the day of deposit. 
 
 At one time there was nominally a limit of 28 pounds 
 to the weight of the parcel that could thus be sent to 
 the cloak-room for the penny fee. The weight, how- 
 ever, was not then insisted on, and the general practice 
 was greatly abused, parcels being sent to the cloak- 
 room of such size and weight that the trader who took 
 them by train, as alleged ' passenger's luggage,' might 
 have to be met by a trap or van at the local station, so 
 that he could get them to his shop. In this way the 
 companies lost a good deal of legitimate parcels traffic. 
 Proceedings taken before the Sheriff led to a decision 
 that goods purchased for resale could not be regarded 
 as passenger's luggage. The railways did not take full 
 advantage of this ruling. They contented themselves 
 with limiting the weight per penny ticket to 14 pounds ; 
 
CLOAK-ROOMS AND SHOP PARCELS 133 
 
 but I need hardly say that some of the Scotch traders 
 regard this as a grievance, and speak of it as still 
 another example of railway companies' ' extortion.' 
 
 [NOTE. In regard to the question of returned empties, dealt 
 with on page 128, my attention has been called, as this book is 
 passing through the press, to what are known as 'vegetable 
 empties ' for the Bedfordshire district. These are represented 
 mainly by cabbage- crates, made of wicker-work, and so light in 
 proportion to their size that only about 3^ cwt. can be loaded into 
 a waggon. It is impossible to 'nest' them, on account of their 
 awkward shape. The railway charge for conveying these empties 
 from London to the district in question is qd. per cwt. To suit the 
 convenience of the local growers, who want their empties back, a 
 waggon is thus sent a distance of 69 miles with a load of cabbage- 
 crates, and all it earns for the railway company is 2s. 6d. or 35. 
 There is, of course, the question of the charge in the opposite 
 direction, but this represents a low rate for what is still a compara- 
 tively light load, even when the waggon is full of cabbages. If it 
 were not for the empties having to be returned, the waggons would 
 not require to go at all to some of the stations in the Bedfordshire 
 district, where the traffic is small, as arrangements could be made 
 to collect the consignments by road-van.] 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 THE CARRIAGE OF DEAD MEAT 
 
 MUCH has been made by the critics of English railway 
 rates of the fact that foreign meat is carried from Liver- 
 pool or Birkenhead to London at the rate of 253. per 
 ton, while Cheshire farmers pay, it is said, at the rate of 
 405. per ton for their own consignments to London of 
 English meat. Here, on the face of it, is an exception- 
 ally striking instance of the so-called preferential treat- 
 ment of the foreigner. 
 
 Inquiry into this apparent anomaly soon shows, how- 
 ever, that there are the greatest possible differences 
 between the two branches of trade. The business in 
 foreign meat at Liverpool is one that has attained to 
 enormous proportions. Cattle from across the Atlantic 
 are landed in such numbers on the banks of the Mersey, 
 to be there slaughtered and despatched to English mar- 
 kets, that the amount of money involved in the Liver- 
 pool live-cattle trade alone is estimated at from 90,000 
 to 100,000 a week. 
 
 The importations of frozen or chilled meat attain to 
 still larger proportions, and, altogether, the foreign 
 meat handled at Liverpool now recognised as the great 
 distributing centre for this trade represents a turnover 
 of about 15,000,000 a year. 
 
 One effect of so great a business is to supply very 
 large consignments indeed of dead meat to the railways 
 
TRAIN-LOAD LOTS 135 
 
 having termini in Liverpool or Birkenhead. The Great 
 Western Railway Company get the larger proportion of 
 the traffic to London in regard to the meat from animals 
 killed in the slaughter-houses at Birkenhead, their 
 Smithfield Market depot, combined with their direct 
 route to Birkenhead, giving them an advantage over 
 competing companies, and, in effect, the company run 
 a special meat train from Birkenhead to London prac- 
 tically every day. 
 
 The train will consist of about twenty-six waggons, 
 and the average weight of the contents of each waggon 
 (in which the meat, being fresh, is suspended from the 
 roof on hooks, the carrying capacity of the truck being 
 thus limited) is 2 tons 10 cwt. Each train, therefore, 
 represents about 65 tons of dead meat. Not only, too, 
 is the traffic large in itself, but it is regular and certain. 
 The daily meat train from Birkenhead to London has, 
 in fact, been running on the Great Western Railway 
 for a quarter of a century. All the work connected 
 with it has thus long been a matter of routine for those 
 concerned, and the terminal and other arrangements of 
 the company can be planned accordingly. 
 
 From Liverpool itself the traffic carried is entirely in 
 regard to imported frozen or chilled meat from North 
 or South America. This frozen or chilled variety can 
 be loaded into the trucks to even better advantage than 
 the fresh-killed foreign meat from Birkenhead. Of the 
 frozen, 4 tons 10 cwt. can be got into a truck, fore and 
 hind quarters being piled on top of one another until 
 the truck will hold no more. Of the chilled, which is 
 more susceptible to damage than the frozen, but less so 
 than the fresh, from 3 tons 5 cwt. to 3 tons 6 cwt. can 
 be loaded into a truck. In this way full train-loads 
 of meat are made up for London, and truck-loads go 
 from Liverpool to almost every part of the country. 
 
136 THE CARRIAGE OF DEAD MEAT 
 
 Supplies are sent even as far south as Eastbourne, 
 where Liverpool competes keenly with Southampton. 
 ' Ventilated ' or ' insulated ' waggons (the latter having 
 ice chambers to keep down the temperature) are used, 
 according to distance and season. The bulk of the 
 Liverpool consignments are carried by the London and 
 North - Western Railway, but the Midland and other 
 companies also handle considerable quantities. 
 
 The London and North-Western Railway Company 
 run special meat trains from Liverpool to London 
 every day (with rare exceptions), and on Mondays and 
 Thursdays the heaviest days for this traffic the com- 
 pany generally run three, and never less than two, of 
 such special trains. As many even as four meat specials 
 have sometimes been sent in a single day. The average 
 number of trucks in one of these London specials is 
 fifteen. Taking the average actual load of frozen or 
 chilled meat at 3 tons 10 cwt. per truck, we get a total 
 \ train-load of meat for London of 52 J tons. Such a load, 
 at the rate of 255. per ton, yields charges amounting to 
 65 I2s. 6d. The actual consignments of American 
 meat from Liverpool to London by the London and 
 North-Western Railway during 1904 were close on 
 45,000 tons. 
 
 The rates charged for consignment, not alone to 
 London, but to the various provincial centres which now 
 draw more or less of their imported meat-supplies from 
 Liverpool, and the conditions imposed in each instance, 
 are shown by the table on p. 137. 
 
 For the frozen or chilled meat sent to provincial 
 markets from Liverpool the railway rates and charges are 
 thus somewhat higher than those in respect to the con- 
 signments to London. One reason for this fact is that 
 the meat for the provinces gives more trouble than that 
 for London. It is, it seems, the provincial rather than 
 
RATES AND CONDITIONS 
 
 137 
 
 RATES IN OPERATION FOR THE CARRIAGE OF FRESH 
 MEAT FROM LIVERPOOL AND BIRKENHEAD. 
 
 To 
 
 Rate 
 per Ton. 
 
 Conditions. 
 
 
 s. d. 
 
 
 T 
 
 ( 2 5 
 
 Three-ton loads."! Collected and 
 
 London 
 
 \4o o 
 
 Less quantities. / delivered. 
 
 Birmingham 
 
 (25 
 130 2 
 
 Three-ton loads. \Carted in Bir- 
 Less quantities. / mingham. 
 
 Cardiff 
 
 (30 o 
 
 u? I 
 
 Three-ton lots. } rart -j : n CUT 
 One-ton lots. [d'ff 
 Less quantities. J 
 
 Manchester 
 
 (n 8 
 
 \I4 2 
 
 Two-ton loads. \Station to 
 Less quantities. / station. 
 
 Sheffield 
 
 (22 6 
 
 125 o 
 
 Two-ton loads. \Carted in 
 Less quantities. / Sheffield. 
 
 T A 
 
 (22 6 
 
 Two tons. \Carted in 
 
 eeClS 
 
 124 5 
 
 Less quantities. / Leeds. 
 
 Newcastle-on-Tyne. . . 
 
 / 3 2 6 
 
 \35 o 
 
 Five tons. \ Carted in 
 Less quantities. / Newcastle. 
 
 Edinburgh 
 
 (35 o 
 
 145 o 
 
 One-ton lots. \Carted in 
 Less quantities. / Edinburgh. 
 
 Glasgow 
 Southampton, direct : 
 
 /33 4 
 145 o 
 
 One-ton lots, O.K. \Carted in 
 Less quantities. / Glasgow. 
 
 For export 
 
 25 o 
 
 Any weight. "| 
 
 For use on board 
 
 
 
 ship 
 
 32 6 
 
 Any weight. Carted in 
 
 For town consump- 
 
 
 Southampton. 
 
 tion 
 
 58 9 
 
 Any weight. 
 
 Double bookings... 
 
 47 6 
 
 Three-ton loads. J 
 
 Bournemouth, direct 
 
 67 o 
 
 Any weight. \Carted in 
 
 Double bookings... 
 Brighton, direct 
 
 50 10 
 65 4 
 
 Any weight. / Bournemouth. 
 
 Double bookings... 
 
 (59 3 
 1*44 3 
 
 Thre^loads. /Brighton. 
 
 Eastbourne, direct ... 
 
 67 ii 
 
 ./\riv wci2 r lit 1 s~* ' 
 
 Double bookings... 
 
 (62 6 
 147 6 
 
 ?hrel-t n o!, foads.} ^stbourne. 
 
 NOTE. In the case of Southampton, Bournemouth, Brighton, and 
 Eastbourne, senders are allowed a total rebate of 35. 2d. per ton in 
 lieu of Liverpool and London cartage. 
 
138 THE CARRIAGE OF DEAD MEAT 
 
 the London markets which get the best qualities, and 
 whereas the consignments for London go direct from 
 steamer to railway waggons, those for the provinces are 
 subjected to a process of very close inspection and 
 selection. One sees, for instance, in the London and 
 North-Western Company's forwarding shed at their 
 Canada Dock station the various consignments for the 
 provinces being carefully sorted out, for particular towns, 
 by the importers or their representatives, the work all 
 being done on the railway company's premises, with a 
 consequent increase of requirements in respect both to 
 accommodation and to labour. Another reason for the 
 higher proportionate rates for the provincial meat is 
 that the railways cannot make up through train-loads, 
 as in the case of London, the average truck-load of 
 frozen or chilled meat from Liverpool to any other 
 destination than London being i ton 18 cwt., as 
 against the average (see p. 136) of 3 tons 10 cwt. per 
 truck for London. From London, again, there is a 
 better chance of back-loading (in the way of general 
 merchandise) to Liverpool for the special meat vans 
 used for the traffic. 
 
 Under the various circumstances here narrated, it 
 may well pay a railway company to charge only a low 
 rate for such exceptionally large quantities of a particu- 
 lar kind of freight. The profit per ton on the rate so 
 charged may be small, but it is the multiplicity of tons 
 that tells, while the cost of handling and hauling in the 
 case, especially, of a full train-load taken from one point to 
 another, without breaking bulk, is reduced to a minimum. 
 
 When, on the other hand, we come to look at the 
 position of our own farmers, we find that they, on their 
 part, can furnish to the railways no such quantities of 
 English meat for transport to London. What they 
 may do is to offer comparatively small and irregular 
 
ENGLISH MEAT 
 
 139 
 
 consignments of meat at various wayside stations. It 
 is, for instance, no unusual thing for a farmer to bring 
 to his local station a few hundredweights of fresh meat 
 for despatch to London, for that meat to have to be 
 put into a waggon by itself (should there be no other 
 consignments on hand suitable for loading with it), and 
 for the waggon to be then specially coupled on to 
 the earliest available train and sent off with all due 
 speed, the produce being perishable, to the Metropolis. 
 Any Cheshire farmer, however, sending off his few 
 hundredweights of meat from a wayside station would 
 not get the benefit even of the aforesaid 405. rate, that 
 being a rate for 3-ton lots. 
 
 But, in point of fact, while the railway companies 
 carry these huge consignments of American meat from 
 Birkenhead and Liverpool to London, one of the most 
 experienced officials on the Great Western Railway 
 assures me that he does not know of any wayside 
 station on his company's system in Cheshire from 
 which fresh meat is consigned to London at all, so that 
 hitherto no rates for meat have been noted on the com- 
 pany's books at those stations. What rates would be 
 charged if the consignments were forthcoming can be 
 judged from the rates per ton in force at two other 
 typical stations on the same company's line for the 
 carriage of fresh meat to London, including delivery : 
 
 
 Llangollen 
 (202 miles). 
 
 Ruabon 
 (197 miles). 
 
 
 s. d. 
 
 s. d. 
 
 Under one ton 
 
 46 8 
 
 45 10 
 
 One-ton lots 
 
 41 8 
 
 40 10 
 
 Two-ton lots 
 
 37 6 
 
 36 8 
 
 Three-ton lots 
 
 33 4 
 
 32 6 
 
140 THE CARRIAGE OF DEAD MEAT 
 
 These figures are based on a scale adopted by the 
 Great Western Company a few years ago with a view 
 to helping the British farmer. They are regarded as 
 the lowest that could be fixed on a remunerative basis 
 for the quantities stated ; but they bring out into strong 
 relief the steady reduction that is made per ton accord- 
 ing to the increasing magnitude of the consignments. 
 The charge of 253. per ton for train-load lots from 
 Birkenhead or Liverpool is, in effect, the ultimate out- 
 come of the same principle, coupled with the fact that 
 the traffic in question is not only large, but regular. It 
 is open to the Cheshire farmers to combine and make 
 up, at least, i, 2, or 3 ton lots, so as to obtain ad- 
 vantage of the rate applicable to those quantities. If 
 by any possible chance they could go still further, 
 and offer to the railway companies consignments of 
 English meat under exactly the same conditions as the 
 American supplies, the companies would be fully pre- 
 pared to give them the same rates, and be only too glad 
 to get the business. 
 
 The application of the principle here involved that 
 the exceptional rate for the transport of large quantities 
 of meat is open to anyone who is able to avail himself 
 of it, and is not a preferential rate to foreigners or im- 
 porters of foreign supplies is well shown by an incident 
 that occurred in Scotland when the English railways 
 originally conceded their 253. rate for meat from Liver- 
 pool to London. Glasgow sought to obtain a share in 
 a business already assuming considerable proportions, 
 and the Scotch railway companies, which at that time 
 were charging 703. per ton for carrying dead meat from 
 Glasgow to London, granted a special rate of 453. per 
 ton for 20-ton lots. The steamship companies trading 
 between American ports and Glasgow also reduced 
 their freights, so as to facilitate this competition of 
 
GLASGOW v. LIVERPOOL 141 
 
 Glasgow with Liverpool ; and for some years train-loads 
 of American meat came to London from Glasgow as 
 well as from Liverpool. When the Scotch dealers com- 
 plained (as they speedily did) that they were paying 
 higher rates for Scotch meat than the other dealers 
 were paying for American, the railway companies re- 
 plied, * If you will give us 2O-ton lots you can have the 
 2O-ton rate.' One of the local dealers did do this. He 
 got together consignments of Scotch meat in 20-ton 
 lots, and he sent them to London at the 455. rate. 
 But in London he was handicapped by the fact that, 
 unlike the persons who dealt with big quantities of 
 American meat, he had no refrigerating stores where 
 he could keep his supplies when the market was over- 
 stocked, and he had to abandon the enterprise. In 
 course of time Glasgow's share in the forwarding of 
 American meat for the London market was diverted to 
 Liverpool ; but the special rate of 453. per ton for 2O-ton 
 lots of fresh meat between Glasgow and London is still 
 on the rate-books of the Caledonian Railway Company. 
 To-day, however, the traffic goes in the contrary direc- 
 tion, for, under the operation of the same 2o-ton rate, 
 Glasgow now receives from London large consignments 
 of New Zealand mutton. 
 
 One sees, therefore, that dealers in English or Scotch 
 meat can obtain the same advantages as the dealers in 
 American meat in regard to railway rates, provided 
 they fulfil the same conditions. This, for one reason 
 or another, they are unable to do ; and so we come 
 back to the position stated at the outset that the rail- 
 way companies carry big and regular consignments of 
 American meat from Liverpool to London at 253. the 
 ton, while they charge the English farmers for their 
 small and occasional consignments a substantially higher 
 rate per ton. Is it still possible, in the interest of the 
 
142 THE CARRIAGE OF DEAD MEAT 
 
 home grower, for these rates to be put on a level of 
 greater equality, either by increasing the one or by 
 lowering the others ? 
 
 With regard to the 253. rate for the large consign- 
 ments of American meat from Liverpool, there is no 
 room for doubt that the railway companies do charge 
 what they consider the traffic will stand. They can 
 afford to grant the 255. rate because the business is so 
 big; but if, on the other hand, they were to charge 
 more, the probable effect would be that American cattle, 
 or American meat, for the London market would no 
 longer be landed at Liverpool at all, but would be con- 
 signed direct to London by sea. At present there are 
 certain advantages derived from consigning to Liver- 
 pool in preference to London, among them being the 
 fact that there is a better chance of getting return 
 cargoes from the former port. But these advantages 
 might disappear as the result of increasing the cost of 
 rail transit between Liverpool and London, and the 
 trade would then follow the cheaper route. So the 
 American meat would reach London as before, and the 
 position on the Metropolitan market of the Cheshire 
 dealers would remain identically the same. 
 
 Thus the 255. rate for large consignments from Liver- 
 pool to London cannot be increased if the business is 
 to be retained. There remains the other alternative 
 Should the rate imposed for small consignments be 
 reduced ? 
 
 Naturally the farming interest would say that it 
 should ; but the railway interest replies that, considering 
 the amount of trouble involved and the expense incurred 
 in dealing with small occasional consignments, as com- 
 pared with large and regular quantities, a lower rate for 
 the former would be wholly unremunerative. It is, in 
 fact, argued that instead of the railway companies being 
 
ENCOURAGING THE HOME TRADER 143 
 
 expected to reduce their charges for consignments of a 
 few hundredweights of meat to such a point that any 
 profit thereon would be impossible, the traders should, 
 rather, seek to avail themselves more fully of the oppor- 
 tunities already offered to them in the way of lower 
 rates for larger or grouped consignments. 
 
 In spite, however, of all the encouragements that a 
 railway company may offer, the essential differences in 
 bulk between consignments of home and foreign meat 
 stand out in bold relief. The London and South- 
 western Railway Company have made some very prac- 
 tical efforts to encourage the development of the fresh 
 meat trade in the Western Counties. Adjoining their 
 Barnstaple station, for instance, they erected a slaughter- 
 house to which the local farmers could bring their sheep 
 and lambs, so that the carcasses, when ready, could be 
 lifted straight into the special meat vans awaiting them 
 on adjoining sidings. In these vans the carcasses could 
 be suspended from hooks in such a way that they would 
 not touch one another, and the vans were so ventilated 
 as to insure a perfect current of fresh air throughout 
 the journey. The meat was sent off the same evening 
 to London, where it arrived in time for the next day's 
 market, the charge made by the railway company for 
 carrying the meat 211 miles, under these specially 
 favourable conditions, and delivering it at the market, 
 working out at something less than one farthing per 
 pound. Similar slaughter-houses have been constructed 
 by the same railway company, and similar arrange- 
 ments are in force, at Bideford, Eggesford, Lapford, 
 Morchard Road, Copplestone, Yeoford, Crediton, 
 Sampford Courtenay, Halwill Junction, and Hols- 
 worthy. All these places were regarded as promising 
 meat-producing localities ; and it was hoped that, with 
 the opportunities offered to them, the farmers there 
 
144 THE CARRIAGE OF DEAD MEAT 
 
 would be able to work up a fairly good business with 
 the London markets. But although Barnstaple may 
 produce three waggons of fresh meat a night, the results 
 in regard to the other centres have been distinctly dis- 
 couraging. 
 
 The experiences of the same company in regard to 
 foreign meat are of a very different nature. A single 
 vessel arriving at Southampton will bring enough 
 chilled or frozen beef from America to make up a train 
 of thirty waggons, each waggon holding, on an average, 
 3 tons ; and the train thus put together at Southampton 
 will be taken straight through to London with prac- 
 tically no more trouble to the railway company than 
 that which is involved in supplying the necessary motive 
 power. In the circumstances, the charge per ton for 
 such a train-load may well be less than the charge per 
 ton for the comparatively small lots collected from a 
 variety of points in the Western Counties ; but even 
 then the addition to the latter of one farthing per pound 
 on account of railway freight ought not seriously to 
 affect the selling price on the London market of good 
 English meat, especially in competition with chilled 
 American. 
 
 The Great Eastern Railway Company, again, have 
 been striving ever since 1876 to develop the traffic in 
 English meat over their lines from the Eastern Counties, 
 but though the amount carried rose to 15,000 tons in 
 1884, it has now fallen to about 5,000 tons per annum. 
 Their rates for dead meat were reduced in 1876 with a 
 view to developing the business, and two years later 
 they were reduced again, this time by amounts varying 
 from is. 8d. to 55. per ton. Still another reduction 
 was made in December, 1896, and what the rates now 
 stand at is shown by the following examples, the sums 
 stated including collection and delivery : 
 
AN EASTERN COUNTIES EFFORT 145 
 
 Miles. 
 
 Under 
 One Ton. 
 
 One Ton and 
 under Two Tons. 
 
 Two Tons and 
 Above. 
 
 
 Per Ton. 
 
 Per Ton. 
 
 Per Ton. 
 
 
 s. d. 
 
 s. d. 
 
 s. d. 
 
 50 . 
 
 23 4 
 
 20 10 
 
 18 4 
 
 60 . 
 
 25 10 
 
 23 4 
 
 20 
 
 70 . 
 
 27 6 
 
 25 o 
 
 21 8 
 
 80 . 
 
 29 2 
 
 26 8 
 
 22 6 
 
 90 . 
 
 3i 8 
 
 28 4 
 
 24 2 
 
 100 . 
 
 32 6 
 
 30 o 
 
 25 10 
 
 120 . 
 
 35 10 
 
 32 6 
 
 28 4 
 
 135 
 
 37 6 
 
 34 2 
 
 29 2 
 
 When the services of collection and delivery are per- 
 formed by consignors and consignees, the company 
 make an allowance of 33. 4d. per ton in London and 
 is. 8d. per ton in the country on the above rates. 
 
 The disappointing outcome of these efforts is shown 
 by the following figures, which give the record of dead- 
 meat consignments sent from the Eastern Counties to 
 London by the Great Eastern Railway during the week 
 ending May 21, 1904 : 
 
 Total weight of meat carried ... 77 tons. 
 Number of different stations from 
 
 which sent ......... 133 
 
 Number of trucks into which loaded 282 
 
 Number of separate consignments 561 
 
 Weight of separate consignments j 23 ^ t< 3 
 
 Consignments of 5 cwt. or under 483 
 
 Consignments of 20 cwt. or over 3 
 
 
 Recently a trade in dead pigs to London has sprung 
 up at a station on the Great Eastern Railway about 
 60 miles from the Metropolis. The carcasses are con- 
 veyed in trucks which (to the number of twenty) the 
 
 10 
 
146 THE CARRIAGE OF DEAD MEAT 
 
 railway company have had specially constructed for 
 this class of traffic, each truck being capable of carrying 
 about 4 tons; and the rates charged (exclusive of cartage) 
 are 155. per ton for 2-ton lots and 173. 6d. per ton for 
 smaller quantities. During the month of April, 1904, 
 the number of consignments forwarded from the station 
 in question was eighteen, weighing altogether 25 tons 
 5 cwt. The daily weight varied from 17 cwt. to 3 tons, 
 but the average weight loaded by the senders into any 
 one of those specially-built trucks capable, as I have 
 said, of holding 4 tons was only I ton 4 cwt., while 
 on no occasion did the weight exceed i ton II cwt. 
 
 It is a very different story from this that we get when 
 we look at the traffic in foreign meat travelling over the 
 same company's lines. Three times a week Sundays, 
 Tuesdays, and Thursdays large consignments of meat 
 (principally mutton) are sent from Holland, via Rotter- 
 dam and Parkeston, for the London markets. The 
 quantities thus forwarded may be judged from the fact 
 that on a single Sunday night in October, 1904, the 
 amount handled was 168 tons. At Parkeston it filled 
 up two complete trains, one of twenty-four trucks and 
 the other of thirty-four trucks, the average weight per 
 truck being close on 2 tons 18 cwt. 
 
 What one finds, in fact, is that whereas the traffic in 
 meat from the Eastern Counties has fallen off consider- 
 ably, that in foreign supplies has undergone substantial 
 expansion, and it is, therefore, a matter of special 
 interest to inquire into the circumstances under which 
 the Dutch trade in dead meat is carried on. 
 
 The figures already given do not convey a complete 
 idea of the magnitude of the said trade. They refer to 
 the transit over the Great Eastern Company's route ; 
 but there are large consignments from Flushing and 
 other Dutch ports besides, the total figures for 1902 
 
DUTCH MEAT TRADE 147 
 
 and 1903 being as follows : Export of dead meat from 
 Holland, 1902 : Rotterdam, 26,485 tons (of 1,000 kilos 
 = 19 cwt. 2 qrs. 21 Ib.) ; Flushing, 17,640 tons ; other 
 Dutch ports, 8,143 tons; total, 52,268 tons. 1903: 
 Rotterdam, 19,077 tons ; Flushing, 20,950 tons ; other 
 Dutch ports, 13,203 tons. Of the ' other Dutch ports,' 
 the principal one is Harlingen, from which a good 
 deal of meat is shipped by direct steamer to the 
 Thames. 
 
 Generally speaking, the sheep, pigs, and calves are 
 purchased at the principal cattle markets throughout 
 Holland, consigned alive to the ports, and there 
 slaughtered. Some of the traders send their own 
 representatives to these markets, the commission 
 allowed being about lod. on each animal purchased. 
 In the Alkmaar, Purmerend, Hoorn and Schagen 
 districts of North Holland the consigning is in the 
 hands of forwarding agents, who charge about lod. per 
 sheep, is. per pig, and 2s. id. per calf for delivery at the 
 port. From other market centres the ordinary railway 
 rates apply, those for sheep and pigs ranging from 
 8d. to is. 4d. per head (with higher rates for calves), 
 according to distance and number. 
 
 In addition to the traffic in live animals sent to the 
 ports, there is a considerable business done in dead 
 meat consigned direct from the points of despatch for 
 the London market. Meat trains are started from 
 Groningen and Leeuwarden each afternoon at about 
 two o'clock; they are combined into one at Meppel 
 Junction, and this train picking up further truck-loads 
 of meat at stations between Meppel and Roosendaal 
 is due to arrive at Flushing by 6 a.m., the meat being 
 there shipped by the day-boat for Queenborough and 
 London. The total quantities carried by this train are 
 estimated at 6,000 tons a year. 
 
 10 2 
 
148 THE CARRIAGE OF DEAD MEAT 
 
 Reverting to the traffic via Rotterdam with which, 
 in view of the earlier references to the Eastern Counties, 
 we are here especially concerned I find that the 
 shipping charges at Rotterdam, to be added to the 
 other expenses in Holland already mentioned, come to 
 45. 2d. per ton. At Rotterdam the meat is shipped in 
 cases or crates, in which it comes right through to 
 London, the transfer from boat to train at Parkeston 
 thus giving a minimum of trouble. The through freight 
 from Rotterdam to London is 403. to 455. per ton. 
 Not only is this a station to station or, rather, a port 
 to station rate, so that it includes neither collection 
 nor delivery, but it is charged on the gross weight of 
 the consignment, and therefore includes the crate, 
 which represents between 17 and 23 per cent, of the 
 total. When the meat trains from Parkeston arrive in 
 London they are met by the salesmen or their repre- 
 sentatives, and the work of unloading from the crates 
 (which are returned to Holland for use over again) and 
 of delivery at the markets is done chiefly by meat car- 
 men, who charge the consignees 73. gd. per ton for their 
 services, exclusive of market tolls. 
 
 The sum total of these various charges that must be 
 covered in respect to the Dutch meat before there 
 can be any question of profit therefrom on the London 
 market is substantially in excess of the sum total of 
 the charges for the conveyance of English meat from 
 our Eastern Counties, as shown by the table of rates 
 (including, I would remind the reader, collection and 
 delivery) which I have already given. The conclu- 
 sion is forced upon one that if, as we have seen, the 
 Eastern Counties meat trade has fallen off, while the 
 Dutch traffic has grown to proportions so substantial, 
 the reason is not to be sought in the ordinary repre- 
 sentation that ' the railway rates favour the foreigner.' 
 
TURKEY TRAINS 149 
 
 Judging from the facts I have stated, it would appear 
 that the reason is to be sought rather in the effective 
 lines on which the Dutch traders have organized their 
 business. 
 
 Corresponding to the meat trains from the Mersey, 
 Southampton, or Harwich, are the turkey trains from 
 Newhaven. The London, Brighton, and South Coast 
 Railway Company will, in the Christmas season, bring 
 two boat-loads of foreign turkeys from Dieppe in a 
 single day, the consignments representing a total weight 
 of 500 tons, or somewhere about 112,000 turkeys. 
 The birds are well packed, according to a uniform 
 system, and they can be conveniently transferred at 
 Newhaven from boat to waggon, and made up into com- 
 plete train-loads. Nothing then remains but to attach 
 a locomotive to the waggons and take them right 
 through to London, which will be reached in a two 
 hours' run. 
 
 The rate per ton charged for turkeys carried in this 
 wholesale fashion might well work out at substantially 
 less than the rate per ton for a few score or even a few 
 hundred birds sent as an occasional lot by a country 
 breeder. But here, again, there is evidence that a 
 railway company is willing enough to give practical 
 encouragement to a country breeder who offers a reason- 
 able prospect of good and continuous business. At 
 Heathfield and Uckfield, also on the London, Brighton, 
 and South Coast line, an important enterprise is carried 
 on in the way of fattening poultry for the London 
 market. To aid in the development of this business 
 the Brighton Company made exceptional rates for the 
 transport of dead poultry from the places in question 
 to London, charging 2s. for i cwt., but only 155. for 
 15 cwt. This rate is, in point of fact, quite as low as 
 that for the train-loads of French turkeys brought from 
 
150 THE CARRIAGE OF DEAD MEAT 
 
 Newhaven to London, although the quantities carried, 
 while considerable, are substantially smaller. 
 
 Again, a single steamer will bring to Harwich bacon 
 from Denmark in quantities that frequently amount to 
 between 300 and 400 tons, sufficient, of course, to make 
 up complete train-loads. The average load per truck 
 varies from 6 tons 13 cwt. to 7 tons 5 cwt.* These 
 trains of Danish bacon will, on their way to London, 
 pass through a district where English bacon for the 
 London market is an almost unknown quantity among 
 local railway consignments. Some years ago an attempt 
 was made to start one bacon factory in Norfolk and 
 another in Suffolk on the Danish model, and the rail- 
 ways gave cordial support to the project, promising 
 special rates for the carriage to London of the consign- 
 ments in bulk which the factories were expected to 
 supply. But in the result each of the two experiments 
 ended in failure. The bacon-curing companies alleged 
 that they could not get from the farmers a sufficiency 
 of regular quantities of pigs to keep the factories going, 
 while the farmers declared that the companies would 
 not pay them enough for the pigs. Which side was 
 right and which was wrong I will not attempt to decide. 
 The material fact is that for some reason or other both 
 companies collapsed. 
 
 Before leaving this subject of the carriage of dead 
 meat, I should like to revert to the points given in the 
 first part of the present chapter, in order to deal with 
 some criticisms which, when originally published in The 
 Times, they drew from a correspondent, who signed 
 himself ' Trader.' Alluding, in the first place, to what 
 
 * Danish butter does not come forward in such large quantities 
 but there are frequent arrivals of over 150 tons per ship, providing 
 consignments for the Great Eastern Railway at the rate of about 
 6 tons of butter per truck. 
 
AN ABERDEEN GRIEVANCE 151 
 
 I had said as to the meat trains from Birkenhead to 
 London, and the freight of 255. per ton charged in 
 respect to them, he complained that the Aberdeen 
 dealers were less favourably treated, saying : 
 
 The Scotch beef traffic from Aberdeen to London is as regular 
 as that of the foreign meat from Liverpool. A special meat train 
 leaves Aberdeen for London every evening except Friday ; but 
 I have yet to learn that the ordinary rate of 705. per ton (owner's 
 risk) will be reduced when a single consignment exceeds 3 tons. 
 ... I made application for a quotation for 3-ton lots of beef, and 
 was told that the ordinary rate of 705. per ton was the only one 
 obtainable. 
 
 The Aberdeen train here referred to is in no way on 
 a par with the meat specials from Birkenhead or Liver- 
 pool. The latter are loaded up with meat at the start, 
 and can run right through to their destination ; whereas 
 on the so-called ' special meat train ' from Aberdeen 
 dead meat constitutes less than half the usual load, the 
 remainder being made up of fish, live stock, and general 
 merchandise for stations situated between Aberdeen 
 and London. Then, although the Scotch traffic may 
 be ' regular,' the actual consignments of Scotch meat 
 from Aberdeen represent only ' small lots ' as compared 
 with the big quantities of foreign meat from the Mersey. 
 An analysis of the meat traffic from Aberdeen to London 
 for a fortnight in November and a like period in June 
 shows that, out of 561 consignments during this period 
 of four weeks, there were only six between 2 tons and 
 3 tons, and there was not one that was over 3 tons. 
 Indeed, out of the total of 561 consignments there were 
 no fewer than 419 that did not exceed a ton. 
 
 * Trader's ' grievance that the railway companies 
 have refrained from giving Aberdeen the same ad- 
 vantage as Liverpool, by their not quoting a rate for 
 consignments of over 3 tons, is thus seen to have very 
 little substance. What the companies have done is to 
 
152 THE CARRIAGE OF DEAD MEAT 
 
 quote from Aberdeen a rate which is applicable to all 
 consignments of a minimum weight of 3 cwt., so that 
 ' small ' farmers can take advantage of it as well as 
 ' large.' The rate is not, however, 705. per ton, owner's 
 risk, as ' Trader ' alleged, but 675. 6d. ; and this is a 
 reduced exceptional rate, the ordinary class rate from 
 Aberdeen to London for fresh meat being loos, per ton. 
 Considering the greater trouble involved in collecting, 
 consigning, and delivering so many small consignments 
 from Aberdeen, compared with the train-load lots from 
 Birkenhead or Liverpool, a substantial difference be- 
 tween Aberdeen and Mersey rates would seem to be 
 fully justified. But if we take into consideration the 
 difference in mileage, we get the striking fact that the 
 rate per ton per mile from Aberdeen to London is, after 
 all, identically the same as that from Birkenhead to 
 London at the 255. rate, as the following table shows : 
 
 MEAT, FRESH, TO LONDON. 
 
 From 
 
 Miles. 
 
 Rate per Ton. 
 
 Rate per Ton 
 per Mile. 
 
 
 
 
 d. 
 
 Aberdeen 
 
 523 
 
 675. 6d. (owner's risk, any 
 
 I'H 
 
 
 
 quantity above * smalls ') 
 
 
 
 
 
 Birkenhead ... 1 194 
 
 255. ('large consignments') 
 
 i'55 
 
 Then * Trader ' complained of the service, saying that 
 the companies carry the meat from Aberdeen to London 
 ' in forty-two hours, or at the rate of nearly 13 miles an 
 hour.' The forty-two hours is a time limit, within which 
 the railway companies do not hold themselves liable 
 for claims for loss of market or otherwise. In point of 
 fact the train runs from Aberdeen to London, doing its 
 
RAIL TRANSIT AND SEA TRANSIT 153 
 
 work by the way, in about twenty-eight hours, or at the 
 average rate of almost 20 miles an hour. 
 
 Finally, ' Trader ' gave the railway companies the 
 solemn warning that, by refusing to reduce their rate 
 for beef between Aberdeen and London, * they are 
 driving senders into the hands of the steamship com- 
 panies.' But statistics show that during the twelve 
 months ending September 30, 1904, the Caledonian 
 and North British Railway Companies between them 
 forwarded about 6,750 tons of fresh meat from Aberdeen 
 to London by rail direct ; while the steamship com- 
 panies, in spite of the lower rates which, with the 
 lesser cost of sea transit, they are naturally able to 
 charge, carried a total of only 1,690 tons. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 THE FISH TRAFFIC 
 
 A FEW years ago, when the cry of the ' unemployed ' 
 was heard in the land, it was represented as a ' monstrous 
 shame that the starving poor of London could not buy 
 fish at lower prices than they were asked to pay. The 
 fault was attributed to the railway companies in making 
 so-called ' extortionate ' charges for the carriage of fish, 
 and in the opinion of various Hyde Park and Trafalgar 
 Square orators the time was ripe for the nationalization 
 of railways. 
 
 This question of the railway companies and the fish 
 traffic may be considered from two points of view 
 (i) whether the companies offer reasonable facilities 
 for the carrying on of the traffic, and (2) whether the 
 charges they make for the services they render are such 
 as materially to affect the selling price of so important 
 an item in our food-supplies. To study the question to 
 the best advantage, one cannot do better than begin 
 with the case of Grimsby, where a greater amount of 
 fish is dealt with every day than at any other fishing 
 port in the world. But what one finds at the very 
 outset, in the case of Grimsby, is that the fish trade 
 there was originally created by the railway interest, it 
 has since been fostered by that interest, and it is to-day 
 mainly indebted to exceptional railway facilities for its 
 prosperity, just as the town and port of Grimsby, as a 
 
GRIMSBY PAST AND PRESENT 155 
 
 whole, are indebted to railway enterprise for develop- 
 ment into their present substantial proportions. 
 
 The railway that achieved this noteworthy feat was 
 the Manchester, Sheffield, and Lincolnshire, now known 
 as the Great Central; and how, under the leadership of 
 the late Sir Edward Watkin, it brought the fish trade 
 to Grimsby was thus narrated in an article on ' The 
 Port of Grimsby,' published in Transport, on October 12, 
 1894: 
 
 About fifty years ago a trawler was fishing a few miles off the 
 Yorkshire coast, when his trawler fell into what became famous 
 afterwards as the silver pit. He drew it up full of soles, with which 
 he proceeded to Hull, and went to look for more. The master of 
 this vessel, and the discoverer of the famous fishing-grounds of the 
 North Sea, and the founder of the East Coast fishing trade, died 
 quite recently in the workhouse at Hull. However, the fame of 
 this catch spread far and wide, and there being no trawlers then 
 working out of the H umber, sundry fishermen from the South 
 Coast settled in Hull and prospered. Their prosperity soon 
 attracted the attention of Sir Edward Watkin, and he tried hard to 
 induce some of them to make their headquarters at Grimsby. 
 
 The fishing vessels, never thought much of by the Hull Dock 
 Company, then in the full tide of prosperity, were only allowed a 
 corner of a small dock, and the trade was carried on under circum- 
 stances of much difficulty. It did not need much persuasion on 
 the part of the Manchester, Sheffield, and Lincolnshire Company 
 to induce some half-dozen Hull smack-owners to settle in Grimsby. 
 These fishermen were told that no wharfage would be charged on 
 their catches, and that the sole charge for dock dues would be 
 half a crown a vessel. Under these conditions the trade grew and 
 prospered. 
 
 So much, in fact, did the trade grow and prosper, 
 thanks mainly to the ever-increasing advantages offered 
 for the carrying of it on, that whereas in 1854 the total 
 amount of fish sent away from Grimsby was only 
 453 tons, the traffic in 1904 amounted to 164,000 tons. 
 On busy days the fish distributed to all parts of the 
 country by rail from Grimsby will represent a weight of 
 700 or 800 tons, a record for one day being 1,200 tons. 
 Of separate packages, or individual consignments, of 
 
156 THE FISH TRAFFIC 
 
 fish despatched from Grimsby by the Great Central in 
 the course of a year the number is 2j millions. 
 
 Figures such as these do not suggest either that 
 there has been any lack of facilities offered to the 
 traders or that the railway charges have crippled the 
 trade itself in any way. In point of fact, it is difficult 
 to see what more the railway interest could do in 
 reason for the welfare of the industry than is done 
 already. The Great Central Railway Company have 
 provided two special fish docks, with an extensive 
 ' market ' running parallel with the quayside, and only 
 8 feet distant from it. In this market * berths ' are 
 allotted each day by the railway company's officials 
 for the display, in the early hours of the morning, of 
 the fish brought in by the boats ; and here, too, the 
 packing and preparation of the consignments will go on 
 after the sale of the fish by auction. Then the railway 
 waggons are on the other side of the broad platform 
 which constitutes the market, so that the work of 
 loading them involves the least possible difficulty. 
 Most of the fish is despatched from Grimsby in the 
 afternoon or evening by special fish trains, though con- 
 siderable quantities are also sent during the earlier part 
 of the day in waggons which are joined on to ordinary 
 passenger trains. The ' specials ' leave daily as under : 
 
 5.0 p.m. 
 5.20 p.m. 
 5.30 P-m. 
 5.40 p.m. 
 
 7.0 p.m. 
 7.40 p.m. 
 7.50 p.m. 
 8.5 p.m. 
 9.0 p.m. 
 
 The Western Counties and the Midlands. 
 North-East England and Scotland. 
 London and south of London. 
 Lancashire, Cheshire, the North-West of Eng- 
 land, and Scotland. 
 The Midlands. 
 
 London and south of London. 
 Manchester, Liverpool, etc. 
 The Western Counties and Birmingham. 
 West Riding (Yorks). 
 
 The fish specials running to London consist of 
 about twelve vans constructed expressly for this traffic, 
 
FISH TRAIN SPECIALS 157 
 
 and each capable of holding 15 tons. An average 
 train-load of fish will represent about 150 tons. The 
 waggons are of exceptional size, and are suggestive of 
 the American rather than the ordinary English type. 
 Their length is 44^ feet, their width 7 feet, and their 
 height 7 feet. They are well ventilated, and have floors 
 of cement, sloping inward to a central drain. Drawn 
 by exceptionally powerful engines, these fish specials 
 are run at much more than express goods rate ; and it 
 is said that they would not be shunted on the journey 
 even for a dining-car express, while it may happen that 
 a main line slow passenger train will be shunted on to 
 a siding to allow a fish train to pass. 
 
 The fish special for London leaving Grimsby at 
 5.30 p.m. reaches Marylebone at 12.20 a.m. Here it 
 will be drawn up at a fish wharf, where a night staff 
 of men will be waiting to unload the waggons and 
 despatch the consignments, by means of drays, either 
 to Billingsgate or to the termini of other railway 
 companies. Begun within twenty minutes of the arrival 
 of the train, this work will have been finished by 3 a.m. 
 Meanwhile, the special leaving Grimsby at 7.40 p.m. 
 will have reached Marylebone at 2.15 a.m., and this 
 will be dealt with in the same way, the consignments 
 for Billingsgate being all delivered there by 5 a.m. 
 
 And what is the charge made by the railway company 
 for the express services and the other special advantages 
 thus offered ? For the carriage, at owner's risk, from 
 Grimsby to London of common fish (cod, ling, 
 haddock, plaice, halibut, skate, etc.) there is in force 
 an exceptional rate of is. 6d. per cwt., or 303. per ton. 
 This low rate was originally granted to meet the sea 
 competition between Grimsby and London, and to 
 offer special encouragement for the transport of fish 
 by rail instead of water. Considerations of geography 
 
158 THE FISH TRAFFIC 
 
 thus enable London fish dealers to gain a slight 
 advantage over those in inland towns; for though the 
 distances from Grimsby to Leeds, Sheffield, and Brad- 
 ford are less than that to London, the corresponding 
 rate is the same to Leeds as to London, id. per cwt. 
 more to Sheffield, and 2d. per cwt. more to Bradford. 
 There is no injustice done to these inland towns, but 
 London benefits ; and it is difficult, in any case, to 
 understand how is. 6d. per cwt., or 305. per ton, can 
 be regarded as an excessive charge for the transport 
 of fish a distance of 155 miles, under the special 
 conditions described above. Nor can one see how the 
 railway charges for transport from Grimsby to London 
 should have any practical effect on the retail price of 
 the fish, considering that they work out at only about 
 one-sixth of a penny per pound. The rate for smoked 
 fish or herrings from Grimsby to London is is. 8d. per 
 cwt., and that for prime fish (char, grayling, lobsters, 
 mullet, prawns, salmon, soles, turbot, trout, and white- 
 bait) is 2s. 4d. per cwt. There is also an arrangement 
 under which, on payment of 3 ros. (with los. more 
 for delivery), one or more fish merchants can hire a 
 tank, which, loaded with fish, is lifted off the truck 
 on arrival in London and sent on a lorry direct to 
 Billingsgate. 
 
 Then, a prominent feature of the Grimsby fish trade 
 during the last six years or so has been the sending of 
 small parcels of fish direct from the docks to the con- 
 sumer. This important business has been fostered by 
 the Great Central Railway Company, which carries 
 such consignments at half parcels rates, and provides 
 special shelves (arranged in a sloping position so as to 
 allow of drainage) in the fish waggons. Of these small 
 parcels of fish despatched by the Great Central from 
 Grimsby to all parts of the country, the average per 
 
THE TRADE IN SMALL PARCELS 159 
 
 day is about 1,200. On busy days the number will run 
 up to 1,700 or i, 800, while in Lent as many as 4,000 
 have been handled in a single day. The average weight 
 per parcel is 12 pounds, and the average rail charge 
 (including delivery, as a rule) is 8d. The fish merchants 
 engaged in the business (which is still steadily growing) 
 are thus able to supply to householders, schools, or 
 shopkeepers, in all parts of the country, 6 pounds of 
 the cheaper sorts of fish for 2s. (carriage paid), 
 9 pounds for 2s. 6d., n pounds for 33., 14 pounds for 
 35. 6d., and 21 pounds for 53., with higher terms for 
 superior kinds. As showing the reasonableness of the 
 railway charges for such consignments, it is significant 
 that one firm of fish merchants add to the announce- 
 ment on their circular that carriage is paid by rail the 
 intimation, ' By parcel post id. per pound extra.' 
 
 Altogether, therefore, it is clear that, from Grimsby 
 at least, no evidence can be found either of the fish 
 industry having been handicapped by any lack of 
 reasonable facilities and encouragement on the part of 
 the railway interests, or of the price of fish to the con- 
 sumer having been unduly raised on account of the 
 railway charges. In point of fact, the facilities afforded 
 by the Great Central at Grimsby represent much more 
 than has been already told. There is the question of 
 * returned empties ' as well. These arrive in Grimsby 
 Docks at the rate of from 25,000 to 30,000 a week, or 
 a turnover of about 1,500,000 in the year. Properly 
 speaking, the railway company, which receives only a 
 very small payment for handling returned empties, 
 should be relieved of them at once. But, in practice, 
 the local fish merchants have no accommodation for 
 them, and the railway company is obliged to take 
 charge of the boxes until it suits the convenience of the 
 fish merchants to send for them. This means that an 
 
160 THE FISH TRAFFIC 
 
 average of from 50,000 to 60,000 boxes will be on the 
 compare's hands at any one time (the number is 
 largely in excess of this average in the herring season), 
 and a considerable space in the area of the docks has to 
 be set apart as depots for empty boxes. A remedy is 
 being sought by encouraging the use of a form of box 
 which, while sufficiently strong for the conveyance of 
 the fish, would cost so much less that there would be 
 no reason for returning it, a new box being used for each 
 fresh consignment. 
 
 At Yarmouth the fish traffic is of a seasonal and 
 twofold character. Large quantities of herrings are 
 received there from other fishing ports to be cured in 
 the establishments for which Yarmouth is famous, and 
 still larger quantities, including the local supplies, are 
 distributed from Yarmouth throughout the British Isles. 
 In either case the traders have the option of getting 
 lower rates for large single or combined consignments, 
 different rates being imposed in respect to many 
 different towns, according as the quantities forwarded 
 represent ' small consignments,' ' i-ton lots,' or '3-ton 
 lots.' In the case of South Shields, for instance, the 
 freight from Yarmouth is 33. per cwt. under the first 
 denomination, as. 6d. per cwt. under the second, and 2s. 
 per cwt. under the third. From this it would seem that 
 if the Yarmouth traders wish for lower railway rates 
 they can obtain them simply by grouping their con- 
 signments, the railway companies delivering at the 
 other end to different consignees, according to instruc- 
 tions. The railways are perfectly willing to fall in with 
 this arrangement, provided that the combined consign- 
 ments are handed to them in the name of one con- 
 signor. The plan in question is worked with good 
 effect in the case of fish sent to the curing establish- 
 ments of Yarmouth from Scottish and north-eastern 
 
THE POSITION AT YARMOUTH 161 
 
 ports, the consignors making up 3-ton lots between 
 them, and so getting the benefit of the lowest rate. 
 There are also a few traders in Yarmouth whose 
 mutual confidence allows of their arranging joint 
 operations in regard to one particular town in the North 
 of England, with the result that they save i per ton 
 by forwarding a combined consignment in a 3-ton lot. 
 But, speaking generally, the Yarmouth traders do 
 not consider it practical or expedient to make any such 
 arrangement among themselves as might lead to the 
 names of the customers of any one of them becoming 
 known to their rivals in the business. Such an attitude 
 as this may be warranted by the particular conditions 
 of the trade, and its reasonableness or unreasonableness 
 is a point I need not stay to discuss. But, clearly 
 enough, it prevents the traders from availing themselves 
 of the opportunity which the railway companies are 
 quite willing to give them in the way of securing 
 lower rates so willing, in fact, that they even allow a 
 sender, or a group of senders acting in combination, 
 to forward part of a 3-ton lot by one train and the 
 remainder later in the day, provided that the second 
 part goes in the same name and by the same route as 
 the first. 
 
 The position at Yarmouth is, therefore, that most of 
 the fish despatched thence to all parts of the country 
 goes as small consignments, and though a number of 
 the fish merchants may be forwarding on the same day 
 to the same town, each will prefer to keep his own 
 particular lot distinct, rather than aim at economy 
 through combination. What may further happen, in 
 such a case, is that each trader will stipulate for 
 eventual delivery in the said town by a different rail- 
 way company, necessitating separate loading by the 
 ' forwarding ' company. Thus a consignment of fish 
 
 II 
 
162 THE FISH TRAFFIC 
 
 handed to the Great Eastern Railway at Yarmouth for 
 delivery, say, in Manchester (though there are various 
 other places where like conditions prevail) could be 
 marked by the sender to go by any one of four different 
 routes (i) the London and North-Western ; (2) the 
 Great Northern ; (3) the Midland ; or (4) the Great 
 Central. If the route be left open by the sender, the 
 forwarding company would exercise its own discretion 
 according to the conditions of the day's traffic ; but 
 otherwise the goods must go as directed. If, again, 
 10 cwt. of fresh fish should be received by the for- 
 warding company, it must load the consignment into 
 a waggon by itself (assuming there is nothing else 
 for the same town that could be loaded with it) and 
 despatch it with all due speed, though the waggon would 
 just as well carry 3^ tons. 
 
 In the conditions here stated it is conceivable that 
 four traders at Yarmouth might each hand over to the 
 Great Eastern Railway Company a small consign- 
 ment of between 10 cwt. and I ton of fresh fish for 
 delivery in Manchester, and that not only might 
 they refrain from bulking their goods so as to secure 
 the 3-ton rate, but that each might give instructions 
 for eventual delivery by a different company. The 
 forwarding company would then have to place each of 
 these four consignments in a different waggon, which 
 would be transferred in due course to the company 
 stipulated, so that not only would the working expenses 
 be substantially increased, but several days might 
 elapse before the trucks reached Yarmouth again, as 
 returned empties, since the chances would be against 
 any back-loading. In a busy season the risk is thus 
 run at Yarmouth of a shortage of waggons, a larger 
 number of which must be kept on hand than would be 
 necessary if the trade were better organized, while in 
 
ABSENCE OF COMBINATION 
 
 163 
 
 any case it is evident the companies must often do a 
 good deal of light running, and stand to get a very 
 poor return on the amount of work actually done for 
 the rates they charge. On the other hand, if some 
 degree of combination were possible on the part of the 
 traders, they might not only gain a direct advantage 
 for themselves, but secure also an indirect advantage 
 by allowing of some fresh arrangement under which the 
 railways concerned would be able to reduce their 
 working expenses on the traffic in question. 
 
 Bearing in mind the facts and considerations here 
 set forth, the reader may be left to draw his own con- 
 clusions as to whether the rates charged in respect to 
 the Yarmouth traffic are reasonable or not, judging 
 from the following examples : 
 
 Between Yarmouth and f^UCon. 
 
 One-ton 
 Lots. 
 
 Three-ton 
 Lots. 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 Per cwt. 
 
 Per cwt. 
 
 Per cwt. 
 
 " 
 
 s. d. 
 
 s. d. 
 
 s. d. 
 
 Thurso 
 
 
 
 3 9 
 
 3 o 
 
 Glasgow 
 
 
 3 9 
 
 
 3 o 
 
 Stornoway 
 
 
 
 3 10 
 
 
 
 3 i 
 
 Dundee 
 
 
 
 3 9 
 
 
 
 3 o 
 
 Newcastle 
 
 
 1 3 
 
 2 6 
 
 2 O 
 
 North Shields 
 
 
 3 o 
 
 2 6 
 
 2 O 
 
 South Shields 
 
 
 3 o 
 
 2 6 
 
 2 
 
 Grimsby or Hull 
 
 
 1 i 8 
 
 
 
 I 5 
 
 Burnley 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 2 6 
 
 Liverpool 
 
 
 2 9 
 
 
 
 2 6 
 
 Plymouth 
 
 
 4 6 
 
 4 o 
 
 3 6 
 
 As regards the Scotch fishing trade, there was a time 
 when certain ports were at a disadvantage as compared 
 with others in reaching the London market, on account 
 of the higher rates charged to them because of their 
 greater distance from the Metropolis. Thus, while 
 from Edinburgh to London (a distance of 394 miles 
 
 II 2 
 
164 THE FISH TRAFFIC 
 
 fish was conveyed by special or passenger train in 3-ton 
 lots at the rate of 6os. the ton, the corresponding rate 
 from Wick to London (a distance of 749 miles) was 
 655. the ton. The additional charge of 53. in respect 
 to the extra distance of 355 miles was reasonable 
 enough from the railway standpoint, but it had the 
 effect of seriously handicapping the fish-dealers of Wick 
 in competing with those of the Edinburgh district on 
 the London market. In fact, no stronger argument 
 could well be found against that theory of equal mileage 
 rates which many people regard as the panacea for rail- 
 way anomalies than is offered by the past experience of 
 the Scotch fishermen. 
 
 To get rid of the serious grievance which thus arose, 
 the railway companies ' grouped ' the Scotch fishing 
 ports in such a manner that virtually the same rates to 
 London for the carriage of fish were charged from all 
 of them, irrespective of distance. How this works out 
 is shown by the table on opposite page. 
 
 It will be seen from this table that the railway 
 charges for bringing the cheaper kinds of fish even so 
 far as from Wick to London ought not to increase the 
 selling price to the consumer by more than a fraction 
 over Jd. the pound. 
 
 At Aberdeen the members of the fish trade are still 
 dissatisfied with what they regard as the ' high rates ' 
 for the consignment of their fish to southern markets. 
 Yet at the Aberdeen Fish Trade Dinner, held in 
 February, 1905, it was admitted by one of the speakers 
 that, in order to encourage the trade, the railway com- 
 panies had ' given them a special train, which they ran 
 for many years without receiving compensation for the 
 work they were doing,' and that ' they gave the fish 
 buyers advantages which were second to none in the 
 United Kingdom.' 
 
FISH RATES FROM SCOTLAND 
 
 165 
 
 
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166 THE FISH TRAFFIC 
 
 Then, in regard to the Irish fisheries, a vigorous 
 attack was made on the railway companies of Ireland 
 a few years ago on the ground that the fisheries there 
 were neglected, and that thousands of people ' living 
 within a day's journey of the Metropolis of the world ' 
 were starving, because the rates charged by the railway 
 companies for the transport of fish were excessive even 
 when they were not actually prohibitory. To these 
 accusations the Irish railway companies published a 
 detailed reply, in which they showed that from the 
 fisheries of Donegal, Clare, Mayo, and Galway the rates 
 to London, by passenger train and fast steamer, for 
 high-priced fish (lobster, oysters, prawns, salmon, soles, 
 trout, turbot, etc.) averaged a trifle over d. per pound, 
 and the rates for all other descriptions of fish averaged 
 a little over Jd. per pound. They further showed 
 that the turbot then being sold on the Dublin Corpora- 
 tion fish market at is. per pound had been conveyed 
 from Achill to Dublin, by passenger train, at the rate 
 of ^d. per pound ; while for carrying from Ballina to 
 Dublin, a distance of 166 miles, the finest lobsters 
 which North Mayo could produce the railways were 
 charging a rate which worked out at only id. per 
 lobster, whereas the price that such lobsters readily 
 fetched on the market ranged from 2s. 6d. to 35. 6d. 
 each. In addition to charging these low rates, the 
 Irish railways were also running special fish trains, in 
 some instances as late as midnight, for the express pur- 
 pose of helping in the development of the fisheries, 
 their action meeting with the cordial recognition of the 
 Congested Districts Board. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 FRUIT AND VEGETABLES 
 
 A GOOD illustration of what sea competition may mean 
 to an English railway is afforded by the experiences of 
 the South-Eastern and Chatham Company in the case 
 of the port of Boulogne. Three times a week a steamer 
 belonging to an English-owned line will leave Boulogne 
 in the evening, bringing fruit and vegetables direct to 
 London, and will arrive in the early hours of the morn- 
 ing in time for the disposal of the produce at Covent 
 Garden Market. The cargo is unloaded on the river 
 almost alongside the London Bridge Station of the 
 South-Eastern and Chatham Company, with whose 
 freight service from Boulogne, via Folkestone, the 
 direct steamers compete. But while the latter have 
 only the ordinary dock or harbour dues to pay at each 
 end the sea being free to all the railway company 
 must, in addition to meeting expenses at Boulogne and 
 Folkestone, provide a line of railway which has not 
 only cost a large sum of money to construct, and has 
 heavy working expenses throughout the entire route to 
 meet, but is taxed up to the hilt, as it were, to satisfy the 
 demands of a host of local authorities. These various 
 expenses are avoided by the direct steamers, and it is 
 not surprising, in the circumstances, that the all-sea 
 service from Boulogne should cost from IDS. to las. per 
 ton less than the part-sea, part-land service, the time 
 
 167 
 
168 FRUIT AND VEGETABLES 
 
 occupied being about the same. The only possible 
 reason, in fact, why French produce should be sent at 
 the higher cost by the latter service in preference to 
 the former is that, when forwarded via Folkestone, it 
 is more certain to get to Covent Garden in good time 
 for the next day's market than when it goes all the way 
 by sea, and this, of course, is an important considera- 
 tion in the case of perishable goods. 
 
 Apart from the one advantage in respect to service 
 possessed by the English railway company, the only 
 way in which the competition in question could be met 
 would be by reducing the through freight from Boulogne 
 via Folkestone, or from Calais via Dover ; for the 
 success of the direct steamers from Boulogne to London 
 has inspired a French company to start a similar service 
 for the conveyance of French fruit and vegetables from 
 Calais to London. But here there are other considera- 
 tions which must be added to what has already been 
 said as to the cost of construction and operation, and 
 also the taxation, of English railways. At the present 
 time the charges made for the carriage of French 
 produce from Boulogne or Calais to London are very 
 little more than they would be for transport from Folke- 
 stone in the one case or from Dover in the other ; and 
 if any reduction were made in them in order to meet 
 the competition of the all-sea route, they would fall 
 below the corresponding local charges from the ports 
 in question to London. 
 
 This is a possibility which would not be permitted. 
 It would be regarded as showing * preference ' to the 
 foreigner. Such a contention seems to assume that 
 fruit and vegetables are grown on the shore at Folke- 
 stone and Dover, and that the rates from Boulogne 
 must be governed by the charge for the non-existent 
 
RATES FOR FOREIGN PRODUCE 169 
 
 local consignments from the ports in question, for fear 
 of possible injustice to the equally non-existent local 
 growers. There is, of course, the alternative that the 
 railway company should reduce the local rates as well 
 as the through rates, so that there would be no un- 
 favourable comparison between the two. At first sight 
 it might appear that this could be done without injury 
 to the railway if there is really no local fruit or vegetable 
 traffic from the points in question to London. But 
 reductions from Folkestone and Dover would lead to 
 demands for like reductions from Margate, Ramsgate, 
 Deal, and other places, and these, in turn, would be 
 followed by applications in respect to intermediate 
 stations. In this case the company might have to con- 
 sider whether or not it could really face a reduction of 
 rates all round. The matter would be simplified if the 
 home growers could hand over to the railway companies 
 consignments approximating in bulk to those received 
 from the Continent ; but in the circumstances this is 
 obviously out of the question. 
 
 The position, therefore, comes to this : that to safe- 
 guard the interests of any possible or prospective growers 
 of fruit and vegetables at Folkestone or Dover the railway 
 concerned must not reduce its rates from Boulogne to 
 London to such a point as would enable it to compete 
 successfully with the all-sea route unless, that is, reduc- 
 tions threatening serious complications are effected in 
 regard to home-grown produce handled under totally 
 different conditions. This position becomes the more 
 striking when we remember that most of the French 
 produce in question reaches us before the home-grown 
 supplies are ready, so that if the former were carried for 
 nothing at all, they would, as a rule, not prejudice the 
 local growers; while the demand for the 'early' supplies 
 
170 FRUIT AND VEGETABLES 
 
 from the Continent falls off as soon as the home-grown 
 commodities are ready for the market.* 
 
 Even where there is not this difference between early 
 and late produce, the position of the home grower will 
 not necessarily be improved by any course of action 
 forced upon a railway company in the attempt to check 
 foreign imports. This is well shown by the almost 
 classic instance of the Boulogne hops. So far back as 
 1881 complaints were made that hops were brought 
 from Boulogne to London for 175. 6d. per ton, and 
 were carried practically past the door of Ashford 
 growers, who were being charged 383. per ton from 
 that town to London. Here was an apparently gross 
 anomaly, which suggested that a great injustice was 
 being done to the Kent growers. The conditions were 
 not the same in each case, for the rate from Boulogne 
 to London was a station-to-station rate, and did not 
 include collection and delivery and terminal charges, as 
 in the case of the Ashford hops, while, owing to the 
 difference in the packing, the railway company could 
 load into a truck 73 per cent, more of the foreign than 
 of the home-grown hops. But the main reason for the 
 lower charge made to the foreigner was the fact that if 
 the railways here demanded much more for the trans- 
 port of the French hops than they were actually asking, 
 they would not get the business at all. 
 
 Explanations such as these were, however, urged in 
 vain, and ' public opinion ' became so strong that the 
 
 * A party of Evesham market-gardeners who went over to Paris 
 in January, 1905, to inquire into the system of growing early 
 lettuces under glass, but without artificial heat, as followed in the 
 environs of that city (whence large supplies are sent to London in 
 the winter and early spring), found that there was absolutely no 
 reason why, with the adoption of similar methods of production, 
 the lettuces could not be grown just as well in the moist and 
 sheltered vale of Evesham as around the fortifications of the 
 French capital. 
 
BOULOGNE HOPS 171 
 
 railway company gave way, and increased its rate on 
 French hops to a point that rendered the transport of 
 them over its lines prohibitive. Did the Kent growers 
 benefit ? Not in the slightest. As soon as the railway 
 company raised its rates a steamship company plying 
 between Boulogne and London made a successful bid 
 for the traffic, and did such good business with it that 
 other steamship companies began to compete. Then 
 the freights went lower and still lower, so that French 
 or other Continental hops came to the London market 
 in greater quantities than ever, the only difference being 
 that they reached that market by way of the Thames 
 instead of by rail from Folkestone, while the extremely 
 low rates at which they were carried allowed of their 
 competing much more strongly with the home-grown 
 product than was the case under previous conditions. 
 So the change brought about in deference to public 
 opinion has conferred a benefit on the foreign hop- 
 grower and on certain steamship companies ; it has 
 deprived an English railway company of traffic which, 
 though not particularly remunerative, might as well 
 have been kept ; and it has made the position of the 
 Kentish hop-growers worse, rather than better, than it 
 was before. 
 
 The moral is that if the Kentish growers, whether 
 of hops, of fruit, or of vegetables, are to be ' protected ' 
 on the London market against the competition of Con- 
 tinental producers, it cannot be done by simply com- 
 pelling the English railway companies to maintain their 
 rates for the carriage of foreign produce at a certain 
 standard. Such a policy must be ineffectual so long 
 as it is open to steamship companies, working at very 
 much lower cost, to bring the foreign produce to this 
 country and land it at London Bridge for any rates 
 they care to ask. Obviously, the ' protection ' of the 
 
172 FRUIT AND VEGETABLES 
 
 Kentish growers could only be made complete either 
 by the Board of Trade controlling steamship rates on 
 the same basis as the control exercised over railway 
 rates, or by the adoption of a recognised national 
 policy in favour of hostile tariffs on foreign produce. 
 
 The special significance of this Boulogne traffic is 
 emphasized by the fact that the French railways have 
 of late years organized an elaborate system of excep- 
 tional rates to facilitate the putting on to the English 
 market of produce from the remotest corners of France, 
 and that the principal port to which the ramifications 
 of this system lead is the port of Boulogne. Following 
 on some reductions given by the French railways in 
 1902 in regard to two classes of plums, there came 
 into force on June 5, 1903, a new tariff applying to 
 fruits of all kinds, and also to fresh vegetables, 'for 
 exportation,' carried from stations on the Orleans and 
 Nord systems to Boulogne. From three stations in the 
 most important fruit and vegetable centres in the South 
 of France the old and new rates per ton of 1,000 kilos 
 work out as the table on opposite page shows. 
 
 Rates such as these have had great influence in 
 swelling the volume of imports of French fruit and 
 vegetables into this country, though the policy so 
 followed on the part of the French railways has only 
 been successful because in France the business of con- 
 signing in bulk has been so well organized that the fruit 
 and vegetables are despatched in those large and regular 
 loads which can naturally be handled with the greatest 
 economy as regards cost of transport. 
 
 From Algeria important consignments of early vege- 
 tables, grapes, oranges, lemons, etc., are brought to 
 London, via Marseilles and Paris, at a through rate of 
 241 f. 75 c. per 1,000 kilos say, g 135. 4d. per ton. 
 From the same source also the London market receives 
 
FRENCH EXPORT RATES 
 
 
 
 Green Fruits other 
 
 Fresh 
 
 
 
 than Plums. 
 
 Vegetables. 
 
 
 Fresh 
 
 
 
 
 Plums per 
 
 
 
 
 
 To Boulogne from 
 
 Waggon 
 
 
 Per 
 
 
 Per 
 
 
 of 4,000 
 kilos. 
 
 Per 50 
 kilos. 
 
 Waggon 
 of 4,000 
 
 Per 50 
 kilos. 
 
 Waggon 
 of 2,000 
 
 
 
 
 kilos. 
 
 
 kilos. 
 
 Brive (726 kilo- 
 
 f. c. 
 
 f. c. 
 
 f. c. 
 
 f. c. 
 
 f. c. 
 
 metres). 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Old rates 
 
 12340 
 
 160.25 
 
 IOO.25 
 
 160.25 
 
 160.25 
 
 New rates 
 
 99.05 
 
 12340 
 
 99.05 
 
 99-05 
 
 79.55 
 
 Reductions per 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1,000 kilos ... 
 
 24-35 
 
 36.85 
 
 61.20 
 
 61.20 
 
 80.70 
 
 Agen (914 kilo- 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 metres). 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Old rates 
 
 143.20 
 
 175.00 
 
 175.00 
 
 175.00 
 
 175.00 
 
 New rates 
 
 114.85 
 
 143.20 
 
 114.85 
 
 114.85 
 
 92.20 
 
 Reductions per 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1,000 kilos ... 
 
 28.35 
 
 31.80 
 
 60.15 
 
 60.15 
 
 82.80 
 
 Montauban (925 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 kilometres). 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Old rates 
 
 144.50 
 
 184.90 
 
 184.90 
 
 184.90 
 
 184.90 
 
 New rates 
 
 115.90 
 
 144.50 
 
 115.90 
 
 116.90 
 
 93-00 
 
 Reductions per 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 i ,000 kilos ... 
 
 28.60 
 
 40.40 
 
 69.00 
 
 69.00 
 
 91.90 
 
 in the course of the season some 2,000 tons of early 
 potatoes, the through rate for which works out at 
 2 12s. per ton. With regard to these potatoes 
 especially, it is obvious that, carried so long a distance 
 at so comparatively low a rate, they must necessarily 
 come across the Channel by the cheapest route ; and 
 the same is the case in respect to the large supplies of 
 potatoes reaching Boulogne from other Continental 
 sources as well. But the South-Eastern and Chatham 
 Railway Company simply cannot compete for this par- 
 ticular business at all. Even if it could afford to reduce 
 
174 FRUIT AND VEGETABLES 
 
 the rate from Boulogne to London, via Folkestone, to 
 the small amount which the traffic alone would ' stand,' 
 it would immediately be accused of granting a ' pre- 
 ferential rate ' to the foreigner, although it would be 
 absolutely impossible for a market-gardener to grow 
 new potatoes at Folkestone at that time of the year. 
 Still, the bogey of preferential rates (as it is in this case) 
 must be respected ; and, in the result, the direct 
 steamers from Boulogne to London will bring across 
 somewhere about 1,500 tons of potatoes three times a 
 week during the French potato season, while the 
 English railway company will bring none. 
 
 Cauliflowers also come through to London from 
 Naples in prodigious quantities in the early part of the 
 year. Beginning in January, from five to ten trucks of 
 these cauliflowers are despatched to London, via one of 
 the French ports, every day for a period of two months. 
 The through rate paid is 40 for a lo-ton truck, which 
 takes 600 baskets of 18 cauliflowers each. A consider- 
 able proportion of this traffic comes via Boulogne, so 
 that here, again, is the same position as before : If, in 
 the interests of that theoretical market-gardener who is 
 assumed to be growing cauliflowers on the Lees at 
 Folkestone between January and March, the railway 
 must not charge a sufficiently low rate to obtain a share 
 in the traffic in question, then the Italian cauliflowers 
 will simply be brought on to London by the direct 
 steamers. Once more, therefore, the foreign produce 
 reaches the London market all the same, and the 
 English agriculturist is not benefited in the slightest 
 degree, though the railway company suffers still further 
 as regards its traffic receipts, and is handicapped, it 
 may be, in the making of possible concessions to traders 
 in other directions. 
 
 What, in all these circumstances, actually happens in 
 
HANDICAPPING THE RAILWAYS 175 
 
 regard to the importation of Continental produce via 
 Boulogne and Calais is that the direct steamers get 
 90 per cent, of the traffic and the railway company gets 
 the remaining 10. But, while the existence of the 
 steamers is practically ignored by the British public, 
 any suspicion that the railway company was attempting 
 to obtain a better share in the business by giving such 
 rates as those by which alone a better share could be 
 secured would immediately be met by a storm of indig- 
 nant protest. 
 
 One further consideration that arises directly out of 
 the facts here stated is this : the average railway critic 
 who is keen on the subject of preferential rates as pre- 
 judicing the home grower is apt to look at the question 
 entirely from the point of view of what is paid for the 
 carriage of foreign produce from the coast to London 
 or elsewhere. But as regards actual competition on 
 the market, it is important to consider the sum total 
 of the amount which has been paid for the transport 
 of the foreign produce before it reaches that market. 
 Assuming, for the sake of argument, that the early 
 vegetables from Algeria and the cauliflowers from 
 Naples did compete with similar produce grown in the 
 south-eastern district, we have still to remember that 
 the total freight paid for the Algerian vegetables comes 
 to close on 10 per ton, and that 40 must be cleared on 
 a 10-ton lot of Neapolitan cabbages to cover the cost 
 of transport alone, before there can be any question of 
 profit. 
 
 There still remains the question whether the rates 
 that are charged for the transport of fruit and vege- 
 tables from inland stations in the south-eastern district 
 to London are in themselves reasonable, apart from the 
 special conditions arising elsewhere as the result, partly 
 of sea competition, and partly of the much greater bulk 
 
176 FRUIT AND VEGETABLES 
 
 of the foreign consignments. Here we come to the fact 
 that one of the commonest complaints made by fruit or 
 vegetable growers in Kent is that, after they have paid 
 commission and railway rates, there is too often little 
 or no margin left for profit; and the inference they wish 
 the public to draw is that this absence of profit is due 
 to excessive railway charges. But the results com- 
 plained of, however unfortunate in themselves, are not 
 necessarily due to the cause alleged, because it may 
 well happen that the unprofitableness of the business is 
 primarily due to the fact that the market is glutted 
 with, say, fruit at a particular period, and that the 
 prices obtained are so low that under such conditions 
 there really is no possible margin of profit. Railway 
 charges, however, can hardly be fixed on a sliding scale 
 according to the state of the market, and it is obvious 
 that when the amount realized sinks below a certain 
 figure there may well be no benefit for the grower after 
 he has paid expenses. 
 
 The point to consider, therefore, is whether (inde- 
 pendently of fluctuations of the market and the losses 
 they may involve) the rates charged by the railways are 
 really excessive in regard to the services rendered ; and 
 it may be worth while to look at a few examples of 
 existing rates for the carriage of fruit and vegetables. 
 A subsidiary question, from the point of view of the 
 consumer, is whether or not the rates are such as 
 seriously to affect the selling price of the commodity. 
 
 From Maidstone to London (Bricklayers' Arms or 
 Blackfriars Station) a consignment of gooseberries, 
 cherries, raspberries, or strawberries weighing over 3 
 cwt. would be carried at the rate of 145. gd. per ton, 
 including delivery to the Covent Garden, Borough, 
 Farringdon, or Spitalfields Markets, but exclusive of 
 collection in the country. The fruit would go by a 
 
RATES FOR HOME TRAFFIC 177 
 
 special fruit train, and would be taken direct to the 
 market at whatever hour of the night it arrived, a 
 special staff of men being kept on at the goods stations 
 in question for that purpose. This charge of 143. gd. 
 per ton works out at about gd. per cwt, with 3 cwt. 
 as a minimum. A sieve of gooseberries will weigh 
 J cwt., so that (always subject to the aforesaid minimum 
 as to quantity) the railway company will carry a basket 
 containing 56 pounds of gooseberries a distance of 40 
 miles by express goods train and deliver it at a London 
 market with all possible despatch for 4|d. This sum 
 cannot, surely, be regarded as extortionate, nor should 
 4jd., spread over 56 pounds, as representing the railway 
 charges, materially affect the selling price of the fruit. 
 
 To consign a ton of apples, pears, or gooseberries 
 from Wateringbury to London (a distance of 38 miles) 
 costs i2s. 2d. This represents 7^d. per 112 pounds. 
 Spread 7^d. over 112 pounds of fruit, and the result per 
 pound is so infinitesimal that it is idle to allege that 
 apples, pears, or gooseberries cannot be sold at a profit 
 in London because the railways charge too much for 
 carrying them. From Adisham cherries can be sent in 
 3-cwt. lots to London (65 miles) at the rate of 235. per 
 ton, representing is. ifd. per 112 pound, and plums at 
 the rate of igs. 7d. per ton, or about is. per 112 pounds. 
 From Sittingbourne to London (42 miles) cherries come 
 in 3-cwt. lots at the rate of i8s. nd. per ton, or njd. per 
 112 pounds, and so on with many other places. For large 
 consignments of fruit or vegetables, or consisting partly 
 of fruit and partly of vegetables, sent from the same 
 station or siding to the same consignee in London, a 
 reduction of 10 per cent, is made when the aggregate 
 weight exceeds 2 tons, and of 15 per cent, when the 
 aggregate weight exceeds 4 tons. Such large consign- 
 ments are accepted at these reduced rates either from 
 
 12 
 
178 FRUIT AND VEGETABLES 
 
 a single person or from a group of senders acting in 
 combination, provided that in the latter case the pro- 
 duce is all despatched in the name of one firm or 
 individual. 
 
 It must further be remembered that the actual traffic in 
 respect to which charges on the scale here set forth are 
 made is a very different business from that of handling 
 such big consignments of foreign produce as those 
 already indicated. Whereas the foreign produce is 
 generally collected by agents operating over a wide 
 area, and sent in waggon-load lots to a small number of 
 agents here, each Kentish grower will consign direct to 
 his own particular customers or agents, despatching 
 his fruit or his vegetables in small frequent lots so as to 
 insure freshness. The arrangement is one that may 
 suit the home producer, but it means that the railway 
 company has to do a great deal of work for its money. 
 
 To show the actual working out of these conditions 
 I have obtained the following statement as to ' business 
 done ' in the London depots of the South-Eastern and 
 Chatham Railway Company on an average busy day 
 during an average fruit season : 
 
 Number of packages handled 37>957 
 
 Total numbers of consignors 727 
 
 Total number of consignees ... ... 206 
 
 Total number of trucks used 226 
 
 Van-loads sent out from London depots 
 
 for delivery to the markets ... ... 261 
 
 Average weight per consignment 6 cwt. 2 qrs. 14 Ib. 
 
 An analysis of the consignments despatched by the 
 Great Eastern Railway from Wisbech an important 
 centre in the fruit and vegetable districts of Fenland 
 shows the following results for a single heavy day 
 (July 4, 1904) in the height of the season : 
 
AVERAGE WEIGHT PER CONSIGNMENT 179 
 
 Number of packages handled ... ... 20,737 
 
 Total weight ... ... 104 tons 16 cwt. 2 qrs. 
 
 Consignors ... ... ... ... ... 282 
 
 Consignees... ... ... ... ... no 
 
 Average weight per packet ... ... nj Ib. 
 
 Number of consignments ... ... ... 341 
 
 Average weight per consignment 6 cwt. o qr. 16 Ib. 
 So from two entirely different districts we get the 
 interesting fact that, although the sum total of the fruit 
 traffic handled by the railways may be considerable, 
 the average weight per consignment is only a little over 
 6 cwt. No better evidence, in fact, could be afforded 
 of the striking difference between the wholesale lots 
 from abroad and the retail lots of the home producer ; 
 and if the charge for these average consignments of 
 6 cwt., carried under the conditions stated, and in- 
 volving, in the aggregate, a vast amount of clerical as 
 well as other labour, should work out at a higher rate 
 per ton than that made for waggon-load, if not actual 
 train-load, lots from abroad, there need be no cause for 
 surprise. But, with the illustrations already given of 
 the rates actually imposed, the reader can judge for 
 himself whether or not the railways are unreasonable 
 in the return they expect for the work they do, and 
 whether any inability on the part of the home producer 
 to get an adequate profit on the market, or on the part 
 of the consumer to purchase fruit or vegetables at a 
 sufficiently low price, is really due to any excessive 
 demands of the railway companies. Assuming there 
 may be good reason for the complaint so often made 
 that the business does not pay the growers, the question 
 arises whether the causes for this state of things are not 
 " to be sought, rather, in other directions. 
 
 One especially interesting point to consider is the 
 proportion that the cost of carrying produce by rail 
 
 12 2 
 
i8o 
 
 FRUIT AND VEGETABLES 
 
 and delivering it at the market bears to the charges of 
 the salesman who disposes of it there. 
 
 Potatoes from Black Bank, a typical station in the 
 Fen District, will be brought by rail to London, a 
 distance of 77 miles, and delivered at Covent Garden, 
 the Borough Market, or Spitalfields Market, at an in- 
 clusive cost of 73. i id. per ton for truck-loads of 5 tons 
 and upwards. For selling the potatoes the salesmen 
 will charge, at Covent Garden, 6s. or 75. per ton ; 
 Borough Market, 6s., 6s. 6d., or 75. 6d. per ton ; 
 Spitalfields, 6s. per ton. The same railway rate applies 
 to carrots and turnips, when bunched in bulk or 
 packed, and the commission charged by the salesmen 
 is, for carrots, 6s. per ton at each market, and for 
 turnips (in bags) 6s. to 73. per ton at Covent Garden, 
 and 6s. per ton at the Borough Market and Spitalfields. 
 
 Of green peas large consignments come in the season 
 from Essex, and Braintree 44^ miles from London- 
 is a station at a fair average distance. The rate for 
 green peas from that place in 2-ton lots, including 
 delivery at the markets, is 6s. 8d. per ton. This 
 represents about 3fd. per bag, as against 6d. per bag 
 charged by the salesmen. 
 
 Taking Maidstone as a good fruit centre, I find that 
 the rates for the carriage of apples, pears, and plums, 
 a distance of 40 miles, and delivery at the London 
 markets, work out thus : 
 
 Fruit. 
 
 Per Ton. 
 
 Per Sieve 
 
 = 56 lb. 
 
 Per Sieve 
 = 28 lb. 
 
 Per i Sieve 
 = 14 lb. 
 
 Apples 
 
 s. d. 
 12 6 
 
 d. 
 3'2I 
 
 d. 
 I '60 
 
 d. 
 0-80 
 
 Pears 
 
 12 6 
 
 375 
 
 I-8 7 
 
 o'93 
 
 Plums 
 
 14 9 
 
 4-42 
 
 2'2I 
 
 i to 
 
SALESMEN'S COMMISSION 181 
 
 The commission charged by the salesmen in respect 
 to the same fruit is : Covent Garden, 6d. per bushel 
 ( = 80 pounds), 3d. per J-sieve ( = 28 pounds), 2d. or 3d. 
 per peck basket ( = 20 pounds) ; Borough Market, 6d. per 
 bushel, 3d. per ^-bushel ; Spitalfields, 4d. per bushel. 
 
 Broccoli are grown in Cornwall in quantities which 
 suggest that the business has been in no way checked 
 by excessive railway charges. In 1894-1895 the broccoli 
 traffic from West Cornwall stations to London, Bir- 
 mingham, Manchester, and other populous centres re- 
 presented a total of 8,700 tons. In 1895-1896 it rose to 
 close on 13,000 tons. In 1899-1900 it stood at 14,770 
 tons, and the figures advanced still further in 1902-1903 
 to 17,000 tons, though the bad season of 1903-1904 led 
 to a decline to 14,373 tons. Leaving Penzance early in 
 the afternoon, the broccoli for London are conveyed by 
 express goods trains a distance of 326 miles, and delivered 
 by the railway company to the Metropolitan markets 
 the next morning, at an inclusive rate of 355. per ton. 
 Reckoning twenty-three crates (of an average weight of 
 3 quarters 14 pounds) to the ton, the 353. per ton works 
 out at is. 6Jd. per crate (equal to from \d, to Jd. per 
 * head ') as the amount which the railway company 
 charges for bringing the broccoli from Penzance and 
 practically putting them in the hands of the salesman, 
 whose commission for disposing of them is 6d. per 
 crate. 
 
 Whether or not the commission charged by the 
 salesman is reasonable as he himself would doubtless 
 have us believe is a point I will not stay to discuss ; 
 but everyone must see that there is a great difference 
 in the nature, and especially in the cost, of the services 
 rendered by railway company and commission agent 
 respectively, although the charges made by the two 
 so nearly approximate, and in some instances are even 
 
182 FRUIT AND VEGETABLES 
 
 less in the case of the transit by rail than in that of 
 sale by commission. There is the further element of 
 uncertainty whether the commission agent does not 
 arrange that the sender shall pay the 'coffee money' 
 and other little items which fall under the head of tips 
 and expenses not formally specified, and also whether 
 the sender and especially a new or occasional sender 
 can always depend on receiving from the commission 
 agent, at whose mercy he is placed, the full amount to 
 which he is entitled. These latter are side - issues, 
 covering delicate ground. But, taking the question of 
 services rendered, we find that in order to carry the 
 produce the railway company must, at great expense, 
 provide lines of rails, with stations, depots, and working 
 staff ; have locomotives and trucks ; pay rates and taxes, 
 not alone on buildings, but also on the amount of traffic 
 passing through each rating area ; organize special staffs 
 of servants to receive the produce on arrival ; and pro- 
 vide horses and lorries to take the consignments, at 
 any hour of the day or night, from the London depot 
 to a London market, where those horses and lorries 
 may be kept waiting for hours until it suits the con- 
 venience of the salesman to accept delivery. The 
 salesman's expenses, on the other hand, consist mainly 
 of office rent (heavy enough, perhaps, especially in 
 London, but not to be compared with the cost of a 
 railway line), market charges, a clerk and helpers, a desk, 
 an auctioneer's hammer, and a black-lead pencil. 
 
 What is now happening in the Eastern Counties and 
 Midland districts especially (in both of which vast 
 quantities of fruit and vegetables are grown) is that 
 there is an increasing disposition to avoid London 
 altogether, and to reduce the middleman element to 
 the lowest possible proportions. In each case the bulk 
 of the consignments are sent direct to the large centres 
 
COMBINATION FOR DIRECT SALES 183 
 
 of population in either the Midlands or the North, 
 London being left to draw its home supplies mainly 
 from the South and the West. Under this arrange- 
 ment better terms are obtained in general, and in the 
 case of an abundant crop especially, any glut on the 
 London market, with a consequent fall in prices all 
 round, is avoided. 
 
 In the Evesham district of Worcestershire, where 
 about 9,000 acres are devoted to fruit and vegetable 
 culture, the fact that ' fruit-growing did not pay ' was 
 found to be due mainly to defective marketing 
 There were so many middlemen between grower and 
 consumer that to allow of sufficiently low rates being 
 charged to the latter, the former had often to be content 
 with no profits at all. The grower sold to the local 
 dealer ; the local dealer sold to the wholesale dealer 
 in a big town ; the wholesale dealer sold to the shop- 
 keeper; and the shopkeeper sold to the householder. 
 This pernicious system is now being combated by an 
 organization of certain of the fruit-growers at Evesham, 
 who formed themselves into an association in the 
 spring of 1904, appointing a manager to take charge 
 of their marketing arrangements for them, whilst they 
 themselves attended to the crops in the fields or 
 orchards. This manager gets, in the first instance, 
 into direct touch, by telephone or telegraph, with the 
 wholesale dealers in large cities wanting large consign- 
 ments. That saves one middleman the local agent. 
 Then he sends out weekly circulars to shopkeepers 
 offering direct supplies. That saves two middlemen 
 the local agent and the wholesale dealer. Finally, he 
 offers to send boxes of fruit or bags of potatoes to 
 householders. That saves three middlemen the local 
 agent, the wholesale dealer, and the shopkeeper. So 
 the Evesham growers are at last putting their business 
 
184 FRUIT AND VEGETABLES 
 
 on a business footing, by means of an effective organiza- 
 tion ; and this, in the circumstances, suggests a much 
 more practical method of procedure than if, adhering to 
 traditional lines, they had contented themselves with 
 simply grumbling at the railways for not reducing to 
 a still lower level such rates and charges as those that 
 have here been indicated. As it is they have made 
 certain of better profits. If, on the other hand, the 
 railways had reduced their rates to a point absolutely 
 unremunerative, it is, in all probability, not the growers 
 themselves who would have benefited thereby. In 
 one way or another the reduction would only have 
 still further swollen the gains of the middleman. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 GENERAL CONTINENTAL CONDITIONS 
 
 IN the making of comparisons between British and 
 Continental railway rates the tendency of most critics 
 of the former is to ignore circumstances and conditions 
 that may either account for any difference between the 
 two, or else show that such difference exists to a less 
 extent than is supposed to be the case. It is not 
 enough to say that because a commodity is carried a 
 certain number of miles on the Continent at a certain 
 rate, therefore the British railway companies are to 
 blame because their rates for the transport of the same 
 commodity a similar distance work out (or appear to 
 work out) at so much more. 
 
 In the first place, there is the question whether 
 railways in this country, constructed and operated on 
 commercial lines, and receiving no State support, but 
 having, rather, their working expenses substantially 
 swollen by abnormal taxation and costly State require- 
 ments, can be expected to concede rates that are no 
 higher than those of Continental countries where the 
 railways are State-owned or State-supported, where 
 manufacturers and growers gain their special con- 
 cessions at the cost, if necessary, of the general tax- 
 payer, and where the exceptionally low export tariffs, 
 with which our own inland rates are often compared, 
 are, in effect, indirect bounties conceded, or secured, 
 
 185 
 
i86 GENERAL CONTINENTAL CONDITIONS 
 
 by the State, as part of the national policy of strictly 
 protective countries, for the purpose of fostering in- 
 dustries and production, irrespective altogether of the 
 profitable operation of the railways. 
 
 But, independently of this wide divergence in funda- 
 mental principles, the general conditions in regard to 
 actual transport may be altogether unequal. The 
 Continental rate, though apparently lower than the 
 British, may not include various services and advantages 
 covered by the latter, and the addition of which to the 
 former might make the two almost equal that is to 
 say, if we adopt the logical course of comparing either 
 domestic or export rates on the Continent with the 
 corresponding class of rates in Great Britain. The 
 usual comparisons of exceptional export rates on the 
 Continent with ordinary inland rates here are based on 
 wholly dissimilar conditions.* 
 
 In subsequent chapters I propose to offer an outline 
 of such facts in connection with various Continental 
 railway systems as appear to me essential to a right 
 understanding of certain material differences between 
 British and Continental conditions which may well 
 have their reflex action in regard to rates and charges 
 
 * I remember having, on one occasion, a conversation with an 
 expert on foreign railway rates, who said to me : ' Tell me what you 
 want to prove, and I will get you figures to prove it. If I am asked 
 to show that Continental rates are lower than British, I take a 
 Continental special export rate which may also be for a waggon- 
 load lot, and include no services in respect to loading or unloading 
 I compare it with an ordinary inland rate in Great Britain 
 which will be for a smaller lot, and include loading, unloading, etc. 
 and I show that the Continental rate is substantially lower than 
 the British. If I wanted to prove that British railway rates are 
 lower than Continental, I should take an export rate in your 
 country, and compare it with an ordinary domestic rate on the 
 Continent. The difference would then be in favour of the British. 
 To make an absolutely fair comparison, you must compare like 
 with like, and allow for the services that may or may not be 
 included in the rate that is charged.' 
 
RAILWAYS AND STATE POLICY 187 
 
 in general. In those chapters I shall deal with the 
 subject of State action in the development of Conti- 
 nental railway systems, and with the general basis of 
 operation ; but, by way of a general introduction 
 thereto, it may here be pointed out that, in countries 
 like France and Germany, railways have been regarded 
 as part of the political machinery by means of which 
 home industries, and especially exports, were to be 
 encouraged, and discouragement offered to the intro- 
 duction of commodities that would interfere with local 
 manufacturers or traders. On the one hand, excep- 
 tionally low railway rates to a port have assumed the 
 role of auxiliary bounties on export ; on the other, 
 higher scales of rates on traffic from the same port have 
 aided hostile tariffs in checking the inflow of commo- 
 dities which the country in question preferred to 
 produce or manufacture herself. 
 
 One result of this general policy is seen in the fact 
 that the rates to a particular port, or group of ports, 
 for commodities that are going abroad may be sub- 
 stantially lower than the rates to the same place for 
 the same articles when remaining in the country. The 
 concession of lower rates on goods for export is, of 
 course, a matter that comes within the range of 
 ordinary railway practice, the idea being that merchan- 
 dise going a long distance will not bear ordinary rates 
 for transport for the land journey, so that if more than 
 a certain charge is made the traffic may be lost. But 
 on the Continent State policy is a much greater factor 
 in this matter than railway practice dictated by purely 
 commercial motives, with the result that the system of 
 exceptional export rates has there undergone extensive 
 development. A few illustrations of the effect of the 
 policy in question may be of interest. 
 
 From all the champagne districts in France there are 
 
i88 GENERAL CONTINENTAL CONDITIONS 
 
 special tariffs to the various ports for the purpose of 
 encouraging the shipment of French wines to foreig n 
 countries. Thus, from Epernay to Boulogne, a distance 
 of 347 kilometres, the rate per 1,000 kilos for wine in 
 cases, in 5<>kilo lots, intended for export, is 2 if. 6oc. ; 
 if the wine is going no further than Boulogne the 
 rate is 47f. 8oc., a difference of 26f. 2oc. But while 
 ready enough to send her productions to other countries, 
 France does not want to give traders in those other 
 countries an opportunity of competing unduly with her 
 own. Consequently, imports may pay on a higher scale 
 than the exports. Spirits, not specified, in casks, can 
 be sent from Paris to Boulogne, for export, at a special 
 port de mer rate per 1,000 kilos of I4f. 550. for lots of 
 50 kilos ; I3f. 8oc. for i-ton lots ; and lof. 55c. per ton 
 for 4-ton lots. For similar consignments imported into 
 Boulogne and going on to Paris the ordinary and com- 
 paratively high class-rate for quantities of 50 kilos or 
 under is alone available for less than 4-ton lots, while 
 the special 4 - ton rate from Boulogne to Paris is 
 i if. 55c. above the 4-ton rate in the opposite direc- 
 tion. For linoleum for export the rate per 1,000 kilos 
 from Paris to Boulogne is I4f. 550. for 50-kilo lots, and 
 I3f. 8oc. for 1,000 kilos ; whereas the rate from Bou- 
 logne to Paris is 23f. for 50 kilos, with no reduction for 
 1,000 kilos. 
 
 The fact that the through rate may be the same in 
 each direction is not a sufficient guide. Wine in cases 
 between London and Paris, via Boulogne, will be 
 charged the same amount either way namely, 54f. for 
 small lots and 47f. 5oc. for i-ton lots ; but the propor- 
 tions received by the English and French companies 
 respectively will vary according to direction, as the 
 following table shows : 
 
EXPORTS v. IMPORTS 
 
 189 
 
 - 
 
 From Paris to London. 
 
 From London to Paris. 
 
 Small Lots. 
 
 One-ton 
 Lots. 
 
 Small Lots, j j" 
 
 English propor- 
 tion 
 French propor- 
 tion 
 
 Total 
 
 f. c. 
 
 39 45 
 14 55 
 
 f. c. 
 
 34 20 
 
 13 30 
 
 f. c. j f. c. 
 
 24 o 17 50 
 30 o 30 o 
 
 54 o 
 
 47 50 
 
 54 o 47 50 
 
 That is to say, the import rate in France is so high, 
 as compared with the export rate, that whilst the 
 through charge is the same in each direction, the 
 South-Eastern and Chatham Railway Company must 
 be satisfied with less money for taking wines and spirits 
 to Boulogne than for bringing them from that port to 
 London. If we take other routes, where the French 
 land journey is shorter and the sea journey longer, the 
 proportions work out more favourably to the English 
 railway companies ; but in any case it is really these 
 companies who suffer from the anomaly in question, 
 not the traders. 
 
 In some instances the import rate is so high that 
 the traffic becomes prohibitory. Some years ago an 
 effort was made in the interests of the Luton district, 
 then in a depressed condition, to open up a market for 
 English straw plait in Paris. The railway companies 
 here were willing to make concessions, and they tried 
 to arrange a lower through rate between Luton and 
 Paris. But the scheme apparently was not approved 
 by our neighbours, for they would not reduce their pro- 
 portion of the through rate below a figure that would 
 have yielded to the English railways only between 35. 
 and 45. per ton for carrying the straw plait from Luton 
 to Boulogne. The negotiations had, consequently, to 
 be abandoned. 
 
igo GENERAL CONTINENTAL CONDITIONS 
 
 The difference between export and domestic rates 
 may be further illustrated by the following table in 
 regard to the port of Antwerp : 
 
 RATES IN FRANCS PER I,OOO KILOS. 
 
 From 
 
 To 
 
 Goods. 
 
 I j 
 For Export. i Not for Export. 
 
 Five-ton 
 Lots. 
 
 Sixteen- 
 ton Lots. 
 
 Five-ton Ten-ton 
 Lots. Lots. 
 
 Bochurn ... 
 
 Antwerp| 
 
 Iron rails, 
 Iron sheets 
 
 } 14-41 
 
 7*57 
 
 I7-4I 
 
 10-94 
 
 Essen 
 
 M 
 
 
 )> 
 
 I3*i5 
 
 7-17 
 
 16-55 I0 '32 
 
 Oberhausen 
 
 5J 
 
 
 
 
 12-93 
 
 6-92 
 
 15*93 
 
 9'95 
 
 
 
 
 
 Laminated 
 
 ' 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 iron (not 
 
 
 
 
 
 Couillet ... 
 
 J) 
 
 
 polished), 
 
 - 6-47 
 
 37i 
 
 6-47 
 
 6-47 
 
 
 
 
 rails, 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 joists, etc. 
 
 
 
 
 
 Ougre'e ... 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 678 3-88 
 
 6-78 
 
 6-78 
 
 Liege ... 
 
 5> 
 
 
 
 
 6-65 
 
 3'8o 
 
 6'65 
 
 6-65 
 
 Seraing ... 
 
 ) 
 
 
 
 
 6-80 3-90 
 
 6-80 
 
 6'8o 
 
 Couillet ... 
 
 H 
 
 
 Iron sheets 
 
 8-44 371 
 
 8-44 
 
 8-44 
 
 Ougree ... 
 
 )) 
 
 
 n 
 
 9-06 
 
 3'88 
 
 9-06 
 
 9*06 
 
 Lidge 
 
 )) 
 
 
 h 
 
 8-80 
 
 3'8o 
 
 8-80 
 
 3'8o 
 
 Seraing ... 
 
 ) 
 
 
 
 
 9*10 
 
 3 '90 
 
 9'io 
 
 9'io 
 
 Exceptionally low export rates may have the desired 
 effect in stimulating local industries ; but, looking at the 
 matter from a railway standpoint, export rates on the 
 Continent often enough do little more than cover 
 bare working expenses, while in certain instances there 
 may be an actual loss. The latter fact is borne out by 
 the following paragraph, published in The Times, in 
 reference to Russian railway freights : 
 
 At a recent meeting of a commission appointed to consider the 
 question of raising the freights on kerosine on the Vladikavkaz and 
 trans- Caucasian railways, the president, M. Ziegler von Schauf- 
 hausen, director of the railway department, made statements 
 illustrating the necessity in certain cases of an increase in the 
 freights. The Government railways, he declared, are working at 
 
RIVALRY OF THE PORTS igi 
 
 a loss. In the special cases of the trans-Caucasian Government 
 Railway, the carriage of a load of i pood for the distance of a 
 verst costs on the average 1^50 kopeks, while the freight paid 
 amounts to only 1*55 kopeks. If the interest on the money spent 
 on construction be taken into account, it will be evident that the 
 line under the present tariff is working at a loss. With a traffic in 
 kerosine amounting annually to 70,000,000 poods, every extra 
 kopek in the tariff means for the Treasury a difference of 700,000 
 roubles. The owners of naphtha wells in the Caucasus are vigor- 
 ously combating the proposal to raise the freights, and urge as one 
 reason for maintaining the present order of things the fact that the 
 appearance in England of kerosine from Texas is increasing the 
 strain of competition. 
 
 Where a railway is owned by the State it may be a 
 comparatively easy matter to conduct it on the lines 
 here suggested. If the rates charged are unremunera- 
 tive, the taxpayer can be called upon to make up the 
 deficiency. The position of a railway company which 
 is bound to secure reasonable success for a commercial 
 enterprise, and has no claim to assistance from the 
 public purse, is altogether different. 
 
 Another potent reason for exceptionally low freights 
 on the Continent of Europe is to be found in the 
 rivalry of the ports. In Great Britain there is a certain 
 amount of such rivalry, notwithstanding the system of 
 ' grouping,' but nothing to compare with that which 
 exists on the Continent, where it is a matter not only 
 of the different ports in the same country competing 
 with one another, but of each country competing with 
 other countries. So the special export rates, which, in 
 accordance with State policy, have already been made 
 exceptionally low for the development of home indus- 
 tries, become lower still in order to secure traffic for a 
 home port. 
 
 The factors in the situation here alluded to may be 
 illustrated by the following table, which gives the 
 distances in miles of various centres of production in 
 Germany from the seaboard : 
 
IQ2 GENERAL CONTINENTAL CONDITIONS 
 
 
 German Ports. 
 
 Belgium. Dutch Ports. 
 
 i Bremen. 
 
 Ham- 
 burg. 
 
 Bremer- 
 hafen. 
 
 Stettin. 
 
 Ant- Amster- 
 werp. i dam. 
 
 Rotter- 
 dam. 
 
 1. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 /Dortmund ' 147 
 
 217 
 
 1 86 
 
 381 
 
 164 
 
 143 
 
 153 
 
 Essen 
 
 1*8 
 
 227 
 
 196 
 
 403 
 
 147 
 
 124 
 
 133 
 
 A-j Solingen 
 Dillingen 
 
 190 
 359 
 
 259 
 428 
 
 229 
 397 
 
 424 
 
 S66 
 
 144 
 
 262 
 
 I 5 6 
 307 
 
 I6 5 
 304 
 
 VOberhausen 
 
 159 
 
 229 
 
 197 
 
 412 
 
 141 
 
 116 
 
 125 
 
 ( Diisseldorf 
 
 179 
 
 248 
 
 217 
 
 425 
 
 124 
 
 136 
 
 145 
 
 B j Strasburg 
 
 449 
 
 490 
 
 487 
 
 563 
 
 304 384 
 
 381 
 
 (Darmstadt 311 
 
 351 
 
 349 
 
 440 
 
 278 ; 305 
 
 302 
 
 fElberfeld 176 
 C\ Barmen ... 173 
 
 245 
 
 242 
 
 214 
 
 211 
 
 409 
 406 
 
 142 j 152 
 144 154 
 
 161 
 163 
 
 (Crefeld ... 184 
 
 253 
 
 222 
 
 435 
 
 117 I 132 
 
 130 
 
 A = Hard ware, iron and steel goods, cutlery, etc. 
 B = Agricultural and other machinery. 
 C = Cotton and woollen goods, etc. 
 
 From this table we see that in the case of every one 
 of the German manufacturing centres specified the 
 nearest port is either a Belgian or a Dutch one, so that 
 if the railway rates were fixed on a strictly mileage 
 basis the greater proportion of the goods exported 
 from these different localities to Great Britain or other 
 countries beyond the seas should reach the ocean via 
 Belgium or Holland, instead of via a German port. 
 
 The Belgian and Dutch railways do their best to 
 secure the traffic in question, but their complete success 
 would involve a serious prejudice to Bremen and Ham- 
 burg, and it is to the direct interest of Germany to 
 divert the said traffic from its natural channel-- 
 geographically speaking and retain it for German, in 
 preference to foreign, ports, with the further advantage 
 of getting a longer haul for the German railways. To 
 this end the special export rates from the manufacturing 
 centres in question to Bremen, Hamburg, and other 
 grouped ports, are practically based on the correspond- 
 
CONTINENTAL ANOMALIES 193 
 
 ing rates from the same places to Antwerp, Amsterdam, 
 or Rotterdam, with but little regard to the question of 
 distance. In these further circumstances, therefore, 
 one can still better understand how the exceptional 
 export rates to German North Sea ports may work out 
 remarkably low so low, in fact, that in some instances 
 the difference between these and the local rates is as 
 much as 200 per cent. 
 
 To the particular conditions here narrated we have 
 no analogy in the British Isles, while, as just shown, 
 even German traders themselves who are not engaged 
 in the export business do not get the benefit of the 
 abnormally low rates that result from the said con- 
 ditions. Yet in Great Britain it is made a matter of 
 reproach for the railway companies that their own 
 domestic rates ' compare unfavourably ' with Conti- 
 nental export rates akin to those conceded under such 
 very special circumstances as those here described. 
 
 The mutual competition of Continental ports has, 
 however, much wider ramifications than those already 
 indicated. Austrian produce for shipment is carried 
 across Germany to Hamburg at an even lower rate 
 than is charged by the Prussian railways for German 
 produce, this being done to prevent the traffic going 
 via Antwerp or Rotterdam. Between Hamburg and 
 Austria, Italy and Switzerland, the rates are governed 
 by those from French ports, just as the rates between 
 French ports and Bale are governed by those between 
 Antwerp and Bale. From Italy, for example, large 
 consignments of eggs, poultry, vegetables, and other 
 perishables are imported into England, and there is 
 competition for this traffic not only between the 
 different French routes, but also between France, 
 Holland, Belgium, and Germany. On the mileage rate 
 system the port of Hamburg would have a poor chance 
 
 13 
 
I 
 
 194 GENERAL CONTINENTAL CONDITIONS 
 
 of sharing in the business ; but the Prussian State 
 railways give a special rate for provisions, in full 
 waggon-load lots, from Italy to German ports, or even 
 going across Germany to Holland and Belgium, and so 
 hope to secure a portion, at least, of the traffic, instead 
 of letting it all go by the shorter routes via France. 
 
 In facts such as these we see a further reason for the 
 reduction of the Continental transit rates to an irre- 
 ducible minimum. The whole position is full of 
 anomalies anomalies, indeed, far more striking than 
 any that are to be found in the British Isles, and 
 absolutely inconsistent with the dubious logic of a 
 cast-iron equal mileage rate system, yet based on actual 
 commercial and competitive conditions evolved from 
 a variety of complex circumstances. It is an anomaly 
 that the Prussian railways should carry Manchester 
 twist from Hamburg to Prague at a rate which is 8s. 
 per ton lower than the rate for the substantially shorter 
 distance from Hamburg to Dresden. But they charge 
 this rate in competition with the water transit alike 
 from Hamburg, Rotterdam, and Antwerp to Prague, 
 the probability being that if they asked for more they 
 would lose the traffic altogether. From Hanover to 
 Moscow the rates are the same as from Bramberg to 
 Moscow, although the journey from Hanover is 300 
 miles longer. But from Hanover merchandise could 
 be sent to Bremen or Hamburg and shipped thence 
 to a Russian port, in which case the Prussian railways 
 would get only a very short haul. More striking still, 
 perhaps, is the fact that a person forwarding goods 
 via Ostend to Liege will save money by consigning 
 them first to Cologne and then having them sent back 
 from Cologne to Liege. This is because the route 
 from Ostend to Cologne must compete with that from 
 Rotterdam to Cologne. 
 
EXTRA SERVICES 195 
 
 In criticising Continental conditions, therefore, it 
 would be unfair to attribute the exceptionally low 
 export rates in force there entirely to ' dumping ' 
 proclivities, to the exclusion of the further important 
 factor in the situation represented by this competition 
 of the ports, to which must be added, as I shall show 
 in subsequent chapters, the very serious competition 
 of rivers and canals. It is the combination of all 
 these various circumstances that chiefly accounts for 
 the undeniable lowness of many Continental railway 
 rates, by means of which the foreigner is able to send 
 us his big consignments. But every fair-minded man 
 must see that there is no real basis for comparison 
 between Continental exceptional rates of the type here 
 referred to and the ordinary inland rates of British 
 railways. The least that could be done would be to 
 take the special export rates granted by various lines 
 in England, and contrast these with the corresponding 
 rates in vogue on the Continent. 
 
 Whether, however, the rates compared be export 
 or domestic rates, it is essential to remember that on 
 the Continent they will not, as a rule, include collection, 
 delivery, etc., whereas in England, except in certain 
 specified instances, they do. On the Continent, if the 
 goods are to be collected or delivered, these services 
 must generally be paid for as extras, and in practice 
 it will be found that, when the cost thereof has been 
 added to the Continental rate, the total will probably 
 approximate very nearly, in most cases, to the corre- 
 sponding British rate, which includes collection and 
 delivery, loading and unloading, etc. 
 
 In this connection I should like to refer to an article 
 which was contributed to The Monthly Review in 
 October, 1904, by Mr. F. S. Tatham, member of the 
 Natal Parliament, under the heading, ' How English - 
 
 132 
 
196 GENERAL CONTINENTAL CONDITIONS 
 
 men are Destroying England.' Mr. Tatham asserted, 
 among other things, that the British manufacturer is 
 * compelled, within the United Kingdom itself, to pay 
 railway charges which are rapidly destroying his chance 
 of successfully competing with foreign rivals,' and he 
 gave a table of comparative British and foreign railway 
 rates in support of his contention. To this article I 
 replied in The Monthly Review for January, 1905. One 
 of Mr. Tatham's illustrations was the following : 
 ' Cotton goods : Manchester to London, 365. ; for same 
 distance, German rate, 20s. to 233. ; Belgian, i8s. id. ; 
 Dutch, 145. 4d.' But I showed that, although Mr. 
 Tatham had said 
 
 These illustrations have been selected as having reference to 
 the main export trade routes which the British manufacturer is 
 obliged to adopt in regard to his foreign and colonial trade, 
 
 he had ignored the fact that for cotton goods from Man- 
 chester to London the rate for which he gave as 365. 
 there has been in operation for many years an export 
 rate of 255. per ton, to enable the port of London 
 to compete with the port of Liverpool, thousands of 
 tons of cotton goods having thus been conveyed from 
 Manchester to London for consignment to other 
 countries. I went on to say : 
 
 Another most important point one must bear in mind is that the 
 British rates given by Mr. Tatham include both collection and 
 delivery, whereas the Continental rates would not include either. 
 In the case of cotton goods, Manchester to London, the railway 
 company would send horse, van, and men to fetch the consign- 
 ments from the warehouses in Manchester, and* they would load 
 the goods into a truck at the Manchester depot. In London they 
 would unload the railway truck, and, in case of all consignments 
 weighing over 300 pounds, deliver the goods alongside the ship in 
 
 * I might have added here, on the lines of what I have already 
 stated in the chapter on ( Sundry Services,' ' after giving them free 
 warehouse accommodation on the railway premises, pending ship- 
 ment, or while the manufacturer was completing the order.' 
 
ILLUSIVE COMPARISONS 197 
 
 which they were to be taken abroad. On the Continent, if the 
 usual practice were followed, the railway would simply provide a 
 truck, and haul it from one point to another. The consignor 
 (whether manufacturer, merchant, or forwarding agent) would 
 convey the goods to the station, and load them into the truck at 
 the point of departure, and arrangements would have to be made 
 for unloading and taking them alongside the ship on arrival at the 
 port. If the railway performed these services it would charge 
 extra. Even as it is, and accepting Mr. Tatham's figures, the 
 charge imposed in Germany for hire of truck and haulage comes 
 to 2os. to 235., as compared with the English charge of 253. for 
 performing every service necessary in connection with the trans- 
 port of the cotton goods from warehouse to ship. 
 
 There were other of Mr, Tatham's figures which I 
 dealt with in the same manner ; but the above example 
 serves my present purpose, as offering a typical illus- 
 tration of the way in which critics of British and foreign 
 railway rates are apt to fall into the double error, first, 
 of taking a British domestic rate and comparing it 
 with a foreign export rate, and then of ignoring the 
 value of the extra services which are included in the 
 one, but omitted from the other. Everyone must see 
 that when a railway is freed from the necessity of 
 collecting, loading, unloading, delivering, etc., there is a 
 substantial reduction in the net cost of the services 
 rendered, as compared with the extra expenditure 
 entailed when the railway does all these things itself. 
 Belgium, I believe, was the country that set the ex- 
 ample of leaving the traders to do their own loading 
 and unloading ; but that example has been widely 
 followed, and in many instances loading and unloading 
 by the traders is an indispensable condition to the 
 securing of reduced rates for full truck-loads. France 
 has adopted the practice less than other Continental 
 countries ; yet even there more than half the tonnage 
 carried by the railways is loaded into the waggons by 
 the senders, and unloaded from them by the recipients. 
 On some of the French railways, and especially on the 
 
GENERAL CONTINENTAL CONDITIONS 
 
 Nord, a still further condition of the low rates granted 
 is that the traders should themselves perform certain 
 clerical work connected with the consignments which 
 would otherwise have to be done by the railway staff. 
 
 Reverting to the question of delivery to consignee, I 
 would add that in Continental countries it is a usual 
 practice for merchandise to be addressed to a trader 
 at the railway depot of the town where he carries on 
 business. Theoretically, he knows that the goods have 
 been despatched by the consignor, and is aware of the 
 number of days (according to distance) within which 
 they will reach his town, so that he should send to the 
 depot for them without further trouble. In practice 
 the railway officials forward a post-card (charging him 
 ijd. for it) intimating that the goods have arrived, 
 and asking if the railway people shall deliver (at his 
 cost), or if he will send for them. It may happen that 
 the trader is not in immediate want of the goods, and 
 has not much accommodation on his own premises. 
 In that case it may be more convenient for him to 
 leave the goods on the hands of the railway officials 
 until he does want them. This practice has been 
 followed to such an extent in Paris that the railways 
 have suffered much inconvenience thereby. The de- 
 mands on the floor-space of their depots is sometimes 
 abnormal, since the goods cannot always be placed on 
 top of one another, and the depots themselves have to 
 be much larger than would otherwise be necessary a 
 matter of serious concern, considering the value of land 
 in the heart of Paris. The consignee ought to remove 
 his goods the day following his receipt of the post-card. 
 Alternatively, he is charged warehouse rent at the rate, 
 per 100 kilogrammes (i cwt. 3 qrs. 24 lb.), of 5c. for 
 each of the first three days, loc. for the fourth day, 
 I5c. for the fifth day, and 20C. for each succeeding 
 
< EXPRESS' OR 'ORDINARY' 199 
 
 day ; but the trader often finds it much cheaper to 
 pay these charges than to extend his premises, or to 
 arrange for warehouse accommodation elsewhere. 
 
 Alike on the Continent and in the United States, the 
 British system of prompt delivery (in most cases) of 
 general goods by the railway company to the consignee 
 (except where actual warehousing is done), depots 
 being cleared out one day ready for the business of 
 the morrow, is regarded with distinct favour. Well 
 satisfied, too, the British trader should be with the 
 advantages conferred on him by the British system of 
 collecting goods for consignment. One of the sights of 
 New York is the mile or more of traders' carts, waggons, 
 and conveyances which every evening will be seen in 
 the streets leading to the goods depot of the New York 
 Central and Hudson River Railroad, waiting their turn 
 to deliver goods for transport, some of them being kept 
 so long that they cannot reach the gates before the 
 comparatively early hour for closing, and have to try 
 again next day. 
 
 In making comparisons between British and foreign 
 railway rates it is, therefore, necessary to see whether 
 or not the rates in question each include collection and 
 delivery, and to make an allowance accordingly, in case 
 of need. Another essential point as regards Continental 
 rates is the consideration whether they refer to the 
 ' express ' goods service (' Grande Vitesse ' or ' Eilgut ') 
 or to what may be called the ' ordinary ' goods service 
 ('Petite Vitesse' or 'Sttickgut'). These distinctions 
 do not obtain in the United Kingdom. Goods, for 
 example, entrusted to the London and North-Western 
 Railway in London in the afternoon of one day for 
 transit to Dublin would, as a matter of course, be 
 handed over to the consignee the following day, in 
 not so many more hours, in fact, than the Post-Office 
 
200 GENERAL CONTINENTAL CONDITIONS 
 
 would take to deliver a letter. All through the United 
 Kingdom thousands of retail traders depend on quick 
 railway service such as this as a means of replenishing 
 their stocks or of meeting the demands of customers. 
 
 On the Continent a trader who desired a rail service 
 equally prompt would have to consign by ' Grande 
 Vitesse ' or ' Eilgut ' (according to the country he was 
 in), and for this he would pay from twice to three times 
 the rate of the ordinary goods service. In regard to 
 the latter the railways are allowed a longer time in 
 which to effect delivery. For the express service the 
 German railways, for instance, have one day for des- 
 patch, and one day for each 300 kilometres (186 miles) 
 or portion thereof. For the cheaper service they have 
 two days allowed for despatch, one day for journeys up 
 to 100 kilometres (62 miles), and, in case of longer 
 journeys, one day in addition for each successive 200 
 kilometres (142 miles) or portion thereof. In effect, 
 therefore, a bale of goods sent from London one day, 
 and delivered at Penzance, Dublin, or Edinburgh the 
 next, might very well be several days on a journey 
 of equal length on the Continent, unless consigned at 
 express goods service rates. 
 
 The great advantage secured by the Continental 
 railways from the longer time allowed them for de- 
 livery by the * Petite Vitesse ' system (even although, 
 in practice, that time may not be fully taken) is that 
 they can keep consignments back, and have a better 
 chance of making up a truck-load for some particular 
 destination. In this way they effect a saving in work- 
 ing expenses, as compared with the English practice 
 of prompt despatch although the load obtainable per 
 waggon may be of insignificant proportions. From the 
 railway standpoint the Continental system is thus more 
 economical than the British ; but there is no room for 
 
THE 5-TON OR zo-TON LOT 201 
 
 doubt as to which offers the greater advantage from the 
 point of view of the trader. 
 
 So, in contrasting British and Continental railway 
 rates, one must further consider this important element 
 of time taken for delivery. To compare like with like, 
 the British rate for ordinary merchandise should, in 
 most cases, be set against the corresponding rates, not 
 for 'Petite,' but for 'Grande Vitesse' on the Con- 
 tinent. 
 
 The general position is rendered still more com- 
 plicated by the fact that on the Continent the 5-ton 
 or 10-ton lot plays a much more prominent role 
 especially with the co-operation of the ' forwarding 
 agent ' than is the case here. 
 
 The advent of this phase of Continental railway 
 operation goes back to the Franco-German War, and the 
 scene of its development was Alsace-Lorraine. When 
 the Germans took over the working of the railways 
 there, belonging to the Eastern of France Company 
 (from whom they subsequently purchased them), French 
 railway men were no longer available to operate the lines, 
 and the Germans who succeeded them did not speak 
 French, and failed to understand the details of the 
 French goods tariff, which was based mainly on the 
 value of the commodities according to classification. It 
 was necessary to adopt some alternative capable of 
 immediate application, and this was found in the 
 expedient of charging so much per waggon of 5 or 
 10 tons, irrespective of classification. Those who 
 could not fill a waggon themselves entrusted their 
 goods to a 'forwarding agent,' who made up a 5-ton or 
 10-ton lot with the consignments he collected from 
 a number of senders, and so filled a waggon or, at 
 least, paid for a waggon and loaded it up as well as he 
 could. 
 
202 GENERAL CONTINENTAL CONDITIONS 
 
 From Alsace-Lorraine the practice spread to other 
 States in Germany, especially in regard to through 
 traffic. Important modifications were introduced in 
 course of time, but the principle of cheaper rates for 
 5-ton or lo-ton lots remained, and gave great impetus 
 to the business of the Continental forwarding agents 
 (' spediteurs ' or ' groupeurs '), whose activity became 
 particularly keen in Germany. 
 
 The collection and grouping of consignments had, 
 of course, long been followed by certain firms in this 
 country, and it was especially in vogue before the 
 railways themselves undertook the duties of common 
 carriers. But on the Continent (where the middleman 
 has remained almost supreme, except in the case of 
 large traders who are able to be independent of him) 
 the essence of the arrangement is not merely the 
 collection and the grouping, but the paying by the 
 forwarding agent for a 5-ton or a lo-ton truck, whether 
 he can fill it or not. Theoretically, by making up a 
 5-ton or lo-ton lot of parcels and consignments, a 
 forwarding agent can get them through, say from 
 Berlin to Cologne, at a proportionately lower rate than 
 would be paid by each consignor sending separately, 
 and he is, therefore, able to quote to his customers a 
 lower rate than they would pay individually to the 
 railways for single consignments, and still make a 
 profit for himself. Should some of the parcels in the 
 said consignment from Berlin be destined for small 
 towns beyond Cologne, to which no 5-ton lot could 
 be made up, they would go to Cologne at the 5-ton or 
 lo-ton rate, and thence be forwarded at ordinary rates. 
 
 In point of fact, however, the forwarding agent is in 
 a position to charge his customers just what he thinks 
 he safely can, short of causing them to go to his very 
 active competitors ; so that while those who are shrewd 
 
FORWARDING AGENTS 203 
 
 business people may, possibly, cut the agent's profits 
 to a minimum, the financial benefits derived from the 
 system by the general public (independently of the 
 question of convenience) are less certain. The forward- 
 ing agent must keep up an expensive organization apart 
 from that of the railway itself; he must have an agency 
 in all large centres to do the work of loading and 
 unloading, if not also of collecting and delivering ; and 
 he must, as already said, pay the railway for a 5-ton 
 or zo-ton truck, whether he can fill it or not. True it 
 is that he may keep back one day's parcels to add to 
 those of the next, or even of succeeding days, in the 
 hope of making up the stipulated quantity subject 
 only to the danger that if he takes too long over his 
 business the traders may rebel, and patronize someone 
 else. But by the time the forwarding agent has covered 
 his heavy expenses and his possible losses, and secured 
 a reasonable return on his capital, there is probably 
 not much saving in money effected by the average 
 Continental trader, who consigns through a forwarding 
 agent, over the British trader, who consigns direct 
 through a railway company, and is often able to get 
 minimum rates for 2-ton or 4-ton lots, when in Ger- 
 many the corresponding rates could only be obtained 
 for 5-ton or lo-ton lots. Even if there should be a 
 slight difference in favour of the Continental trader, it 
 ought to be abundantly compensated by the prompter 
 delivery on our side. 
 
 In France, where the railways are operated mainly 
 by commercial companies, actuated by commercial 
 instincts, the ' groupeur ' is regarded with less favour 
 than is the ' spediteur ' in Germany, where the railways 
 are mainly owned and operated by the State. The 
 view taken by the French railways is that in countries 
 governed by le regime allemand the public are really 
 
204 GENERAL CONTINENTAL CONDITIONS 
 
 obliged to give their consignments to forwarding agents 
 if they wish to secure any advantages at all from low 
 rates, which are conceded only to waggon-load lots ; 
 but the greater part of the profit, it is declared, is 
 absorbed by the separate and distinct machinery set up 
 by the middleman for collection and delivery, while 
 the railway company, which, it is held, could do the 
 work more economically itself, loses a proportion of 
 the benefits it ought to secure. The tendency in 
 France, therefore, as opposed to that in Germany, has 
 been to offer all practicable inducements to the public 
 to deal direct with the railway companies themselves ; 
 but even in France certain conditions as to quantity 
 must still be fulfilled, and people are not to expect that 
 a single small consignment will be carried at waggon- 
 load rates. As a rule, a collection of consignments in 
 France, grouped to take advantage of a low rate for a 
 specified quantity, will pay according to the classification 
 of the article which belongs to the highest group ; but 
 the Nord and the Est have a tariff giving reduced rates 
 for waggon-load lots irrespective of classification. 
 
 It will be found also, from the sketches of various 
 Continental railway systems which follow, that not 
 only these conditions as to quantity, but others besides, 
 are especially applicable in the case of the exceptionally 
 low rates granted for commodities in bulk for export or 
 otherwise, with the result that, while the traders benefit 
 on the one hand, the railways get better paying loads, 
 with reduced liabilities to themselves. A consideration 
 of all these things, together with the political influences 
 at work, and more especially the circumstances under 
 which the State-owned or the State-aided railway 
 systems of the Continent have been created and 
 operated, is, I submit, essential to any intelligent and 
 impartial comparison of those systems with our own. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 THE RAILWAYS OF FRANCE 
 
 ON the other side of the Channel, as on this, the 
 earliest of all among the railway pioneers seem to have 
 regarded the new mode of traction simply as a means 
 of establishing improved communication on rails (with 
 horse-power) between centres of production and the 
 waterways. In France these ideas covered the period 
 from 1823 to 1832, when the locomotive was introduced. 
 At first the concessions given for the lines to be made 
 were without limit in regard to duration, and the general 
 arrangements were so primitive that merchandise and 
 minerals were all included in one class, there being only 
 a single tariff. 
 
 With 1833 the fact began to be recognised that 
 railways might be employed for the conveyance of 
 passengers as well as goods ; but the rate of progress- 
 was so slow that whereas by 1836 there were 2,000 
 miles of railway in operation in Great Britain, in 
 France there were only a few short lines. Financiers, 
 great and small, in the latter country were reluctant to 
 invest their money in a new form of locomotion, the 
 results of which seemed rather doubtful ; while in the 
 Parliamentary sessions of 1835 and 1836 there were 
 vigorous debates as to whether the work of railway 
 construction should be carried on by the Government 
 or left to private enterprise. Each course had its own 
 
 205 
 
206 THE RAILWAYS OF FRANCE 
 
 particular supporters, and the Chambers showed their 
 impartiality by first rejecting schemes proposed by 
 companies, and then throwing out others brought 
 forward by the Government. Even some of the lead- 
 ing men in the State had no great faith in railways. 
 M. Thiers said concerning one of the earliest pro- 
 jects : ' II faut donner a a Paris, comme un joujou, 
 mais a ne transportera jamais un voyageur, ni un 
 colis.' 
 
 In 1838 the Government sought approval for a Bill 
 under which they proposed to construct seven great 
 trunk lines to be operated by the State; but the 
 Chambers refused their assent. Thereupon an English- 
 man, Mr. (afterwards Sir) Edward Blount, who had 
 established himself in Paris as a banker, made an offer 
 to M. Dufaure, then Minister of Public Works, to raise 
 the necessary funds in England for the construction of 
 a line from Paris to Rouen, if the Government would 
 grant him a concession. 
 
 The Minister replied that if Mr. Blount would raise 
 15,000,000 francs (600,000) in England, and a like 
 amount in France, the Government would advance him 
 another 15,000,000 francs, at 3 per cent, per annum. 
 Mr. Blount formed a company, raised the amounts 
 stated, and was granted a concession of the proposed 
 line in July, 1840. Not only was one-third of the 
 capital thus provided from England, but the contract 
 for constructing the line was secured by the late 
 Thomas Brassey, who took over with him to France 
 a large body of British navvies to help in the work. 
 An Englishman, Mr. Buddicom, was chosen as loco- 
 motive superintendent, and fifty English engine-drivers, 
 employed by the London and North- Western Railway 
 Company at Liverpool, were induced to go to France 
 to inaugurate the new line, which, opened in 1843, 
 
ENGLISHMEN AS PIONEERS 207 
 
 was to become the nucleus of the now extensive Quest 
 system.* 
 
 In this way the first great incentive to the construc- 
 tion of French railways was really given by Englishmen. 
 The example thus set led to the formation of various 
 other companies in France ; but in 1839 the first of 
 a series of financial crises seriously affecting railway 
 development in that country reduced most of the com- 
 panies to such a position that they could not raise the 
 further capital necessary for their schemes. The 
 political situation was not favourable to commercial 
 speculation, and this fact increased the timidity, 
 especially of those representatives of la petite epargne 
 who constitute the ' backbone ' of French finance. 
 
 Among the companies thus affected was one which 
 had obtained a concession for a line between Paris and 
 Orleans. The Government were anxious that this line 
 should be constructed, and, in the circumstances, they 
 resorted to that principle of a ' guarantee of interest ' 
 which, in later years, was to become the recognised 
 basis of railway operation in France. The company in 
 question was, in effect, guaranteed by the Government 
 for a stated period the payment of interest on its 
 capital, the sums so provided being advances at 4 per 
 cent., which were to be refunded when the revenue of 
 the company allowed. 
 
 * Sir Edward Blount (whose death at the age of ninety-six 
 occurred on March 15, 1905) was chairman of the Western of 
 France Company for thirty years. He retired from the position 
 in 1894, owing to an active campaign being then waged in Paris 
 against the idea of so important a post on a State-aided railway, 
 which might be concerned in the question of national defence, 
 being held by a foreigner at a time of political tension. In the 
 meanwhile Sir Edward Blount had taken an active part in the 
 financing and management of other lines of railway in France and 
 elsewhere on the Continent. Though a banker by profession, he 
 qualified as a practical railway man by having four months' ex- 
 perience in England as an engine-driver on the London and 
 North-Western Railway. 
 
208 THE RAILWAYS OF FRANCE 
 
 In the case of several other companies substantial 
 loans were granted by the Government ; but certain 
 unpleasant experiences served to increase still further 
 the timidity of the small investor, and the Government 
 concluded that they would have to co-operate on a 
 much more active scale in order to secure for the rail- 
 way enterprise in general a greater degree of public 
 confidence. Hence the law of 1842, under which the 
 State undertook to carry out itself the larger part of 
 the work. 
 
 Provision was made for the construction of a network 
 of nine lines of railway those lines, in fact, which 
 constitute to - day the main arteries of the railway 
 system in France. The State, in the first place, was 
 to acquire the necessary lands. It was assumed that 
 the localities interested would be willing to contribute 
 towards the cost of these lands to the extent of two- 
 thirds; but so many difficulties arose, owing to the 
 exactions made by the localities in return, that in 1845 
 the requirement thus imposed on them was repealed. 
 Then the State was to execute all the earthworks, and 
 build the bridges, stations, etc., while the companies to 
 whom the concessions were granted were to lay rails 
 and ballast, provide rolling stock, and operate the lines 
 for a term of years. The railways would then revert to 
 the State, the rolling stock being paid for at a valuation. 
 It was calculated that the amount the State would 
 require to spend would be 6,000 per kilometre, as 
 against 5,000 per kilometre to be provided by private 
 enterprise. A vote equal to 5,000,000 was made to 
 enable the Government to start on the carrying out 
 of this programme, and the law of 1842 became recog- 
 nised as the fundamental basis of the French railway 
 system in general. 
 
 The effect of the policy thus adopted was to bring 
 
PROGRESS AND REACTION 209 
 
 about, for the time being, a complete restoration of 
 public confidence in railway expansion. Thirty or 
 more companies were started, and not only was abun- 
 dant capital now at length forthcoming, but the com- 
 petition became so keen that some of the companies 
 took over concessions for as short a term as twenty- 
 seven years. Altogether, about 2,500 miles of new 
 lines were authorized. 
 
 Excessive speculation, coupled with the projection of 
 various schemes of a more or less impracticable type, 
 brought about the inevitable reaction. Panic followed 
 inflation, the value of shares depreciated rapidly, works 
 undertaken were stopped because the companies con- 
 cerned in them could raise no more money, and in 1847 
 the efforts alike of the Government and of the Chambers 
 to secure the provision of an adequate railway system 
 in France seemed to be completely paralyzed. 
 
 To meet the situation thus created the Government 
 prolonged to fifty years the concessions of certain com- 
 panies which had accepted short periods ranging up to 
 thirty-four years only; they allowed longer time for 
 construction ; they granted increased facilities gener- 
 ally ; they gave financial help, where such a course was 
 warranted, and they annulled various obligations which 
 were regarded as beyond the hope of fulfilment. A 
 certain slow progress followed, but it was checked by 
 the Revolution of 1848, which aggravated the previous 
 crisis, and prevented the companies from recovering. 
 
 The Republican Government at first entertained the 
 idea of taking over the whole of the railways, and 
 operating them as a State system. The case certainly 
 seemed to be one for a drastic remedy of some kind. 
 The needs of the country were growing rapidly; but 
 whereas Great Britain had by that time close on 7,000 
 miles of railway, and Germany nearly 4,000, France had 
 
 14 
 
210 THE RAILWAYS OF FRANCE 
 
 fewer than 2,500 miles. The idea of State purchase was 
 abandoned, but further help was given to some of the 
 companies in the way either of actual financial assist- 
 ance or by relieving them of certain obligations, while 
 in several instances the lines were sequestered by the 
 State. The total expenditure on the railways up to the 
 end of 1851 had been 60, 000,000, of which amount the 
 State had provided two-fifths. 
 
 With the advent of Napoleon III. there came for the 
 railway system in France a period of rapid development. 
 At that time only nine of the companies had concessions 
 for as long a period as ninety-nine years. This term 
 was now made to apply to nearly all of them. The 
 prolongation bettered their credit, improved their 
 finances by relieving their sinking funds, and gave 
 them a longer period for recoupment after their traffic 
 had attained to good proportions. 
 
 Most of the existing lines, constructed or operated by 
 about thirty different companies, had been built in a 
 fragmentary fashion, and were carried on more or less 
 independently one of another. They lacked uniformity 
 in regard both to service and to tariffs, so that the 
 former had become a source of much inconvenience, 
 and the latter, increased by the heavy costs of adminis- 
 tration, were almost prohibitive. To obviate these evils 
 a policy of amalgamation was inaugurated. The multi- 
 plicity of small companies disappeared between 1852 
 and 1857, an d in their place arose six great companies, 
 known as the Nord, the Est, the Quest, the Paris-Lyon- 
 Mediterranee, the Orleans, and the Midi. Each of 
 these had its recognised sphere of operation, and the 
 prospect was afforded of greater unity and decreased 
 cost of operation. The concessions granted to all six 
 companies were for terms of ninety-nine years from the 
 date of formation. They will thus lapse in different 
 
THE 'GREAT' COMPANIES 211 
 
 years between 1950 and 1960 namely, the Nord in 
 1950, the Est in 1954, the Quest in 1956, the P.-L.-M. 
 in 1958, the Orleans in 1956, and the Midi in 1960. 
 
 In return for the advantages they had secured as the 
 result of this amalgamation policy, the companies which 
 thus controlled the main arteries of railway traffic in 
 France were required by the Government to undertake, 
 without any subvention or guarantee of interest, the 
 construction of some 1,500 miles of ' secondary ' lines, 
 for which there was then a great demand. 
 
 This obligation involved the companies in a very 
 serious financial responsibility. In the six years ending 
 1857 they had spent two milliards of francs say 
 80,000,000. They now found themselves called upon 
 to raise another two milliards in order to complete 
 works already undertaken, and to acquit themselves of 
 the further responsibilities they had accepted at the 
 hands of the Government. But when the French in- 
 vestors were once more invited to produce their savings 
 they displayed a distinct unwillingness so to do. In the 
 first place, they were scared at the idea of 160,000,000 
 being spent in the course of a few years on railways, 
 the return from which was still by no means assured ; 
 and, in the next place, they thought that the losses on 
 the new secondary lines would swallow up the profits 
 on the old main lines. So another crisis set in, railway 
 shares depreciated rapidly, and the companies once 
 more found it impossible to secure the new capital they 
 wanted. 
 
 The Government were asked to revise or, in effect, 
 rescind the requirements imposed on the companies as 
 to the construction of new lines. Reluctant to adopt a 
 course which would sacrifice the interests of a number 
 of districts assumed to be greatly in need of railways, 
 the Government, as an alternative, resorted in 1859 to 
 
 14 2 
 
212 THE RAILWAYS OF FRANCE 
 
 the ' guarantee of interest ' principle, which thence- 
 forward was to represent the financial basis of French 
 railway enterprise in general, the Nord being the only 
 one of the large companies that has not taken advantage 
 of it. A most valuable moral support was thus obtained, 
 through the operation of the guarantee, without involving 
 the State in any immediate great outlay. 
 
 On the theory that the crisis which had arisen was 
 due primarily to the further obligations imposed on the 
 companies, the ' new ' lines were separated from the 
 * old,' and at first the guarantee of interest was accorded 
 to the former as distinct from the latter, though this 
 arrangement was subsequently modified. The funda- 
 mental aims were (i) to restore public confidence in 
 the stability of the companies, and (2) to insure the due 
 carrying out of the projected extensions. In regard, 
 therefore, to the new lines, the State guaranteed the 
 payment of interest on the capital expended when the 
 receipts were insufficient for the purpose. 
 
 As concerned the old lines, a net revenue was reserved 
 to the companies until they had set aside sufficient to 
 pay interest on bonds, and also a dividend on ordinary 
 shares somewhat less than the amount previously paid, 
 the surplus being allotted to the new lines in order to 
 diminish the amounts required to make up the revenue 
 guaranteed. 
 
 The sums provided by the State were to be, not sub- 
 ventions, but advances, on which the companies would 
 pay interest at the rate of 4 per cent. When the net 
 product of the old and new systems exceeded alike the 
 amount of revenue reserved for the old lines and the 
 amount of interest guaranteed for the new ones, the 
 difference was to be paid annually to the State until 
 the sum total of the advances to each company , including 
 interest, had been cleared off. On the expiration of the 
 
GUARANTEE OF INTEREST 213 
 
 ninety-nine years' concessions, the State will take over 
 the lines without compensating the companies, but it 
 is bound to purchase from them their rolling stock, 
 machinery, etc., paying such sum as may be fixed 
 by, if necessary, expert valuers. If the companies, or 
 any of them, should then still be indebted to the Govern- 
 ment in respect to the advances which have been made, 
 the amount of such debt is to be regarded as a set-off 
 to the sum the State will pay to the company for the 
 rolling stock, which thus represents the security of the 
 State for the advances made. If, on the other hand, a 
 company should extinguish its debt towards the State 
 before the expiration of its concession, any profits after 
 the payment of a certain reserved dividend are to be 
 divided between the companies and the State. It was 
 expected in 1859 that none of the companies would 
 require advances later than the year 1884, by which 
 time their position would as was expected be so far 
 improved that they would begin their repayments, in 
 the hope of eventually recovering the ' freedom of their 
 dividend.' 
 
 Under the operation of these arrangements the con- 
 fidence of investors was so far restored that the com- 
 panies no longer found any difficulty in raising the 
 capital they required to complete the obligations they 
 had undertaken. But from all quarters of France there 
 came a demand for more, and still more, railways. 
 Treaties of commerce were giving a great impetus to 
 trade and manufacturers, and new railways were repre- 
 sented as the crying want of the day. Main arteries of 
 traffic had been provided for, but there were large tracts 
 of country without any rail communication, and much 
 pressure was brought to bear on the Government by 
 these particular regions. The companies, however, 
 which had already incurred heavy financial responsi- 
 
214 THE RAILWAYS OF FRANCE 
 
 bilities towards the State, and were trusting that some 
 day or other they would be able to pay off their debts, 
 were reluctant to run the risk of postponing the realiza- 
 tion of that hope by undertaking railway construction 
 and operation in difficult or costly places, or in districts 
 not likely to produce remunerative traffic. 
 
 From this point of view, therefore, the guarantee of 
 interest was not in itself sufficient, and the Government 
 had to take the further step of granting direct subven- 
 tions as a means of securing the provision of further 
 secondary lines and lines of only local interest. In 
 the first place, the Government entered into fresh con- 
 ventions with the existing companies for the building of 
 these new lines, towards the cost of which subventions 
 representing a portion of the expense (independently, 
 altogether, of any guarantee of interest) were made to 
 the extent of 9,196,000. Then, in 1863-1864, the 
 Government made further grants to a number of new 
 and smaller companies for the construction and opera- 
 tion of other secondary lines. Power was also given 
 to the departments and communes to encourage the 
 construction of local lines by contributing from a quarter 
 to half of the necessary capital. Finally, for districts 
 where railways were needed, but where no private 
 company was willing to run the risk of providing 
 them, the Government resolved to undertake the entire 
 construction of the lines. 
 
 The departments and communes responded very 
 readily to the policy enunciated by the Government, 
 while new companies of the ' small ' type became so 
 active that in 1875 the concessions which had been 
 made in respect to secondary and local lines repre- 
 sented a total of 2,700 miles. By the end of that year, 
 however, it was found that the movement had been 
 pushed forward with much more zeal than discretion. 
 
ANOTHER CRISIS 215 
 
 The activity of the Conseils Generaux especially had 
 favoured the creation of a number of new companies 
 which possessed neither the means nor the credit neces- 
 sary to enable them to carry out the enterprises they 
 had started. Excessive hopes of future prospects had 
 also again led to much foolish speculation, so that the 
 easily-scared small capitalist was once more reluctant 
 to produce his savings. Most of the ' secondary ' and 
 local lines were already in difficulties, and had little 
 or no hope, even in the best possible circumstances, of 
 getting sufficient revenue to cover expenses. Some 
 there were which could not complete their lines, and 
 others, though they had finished their lines, could not 
 operate them. 
 
 Instead, therefore, of the State having solved the 
 railway problem, it had to start afresh with the task, 
 meeting a fresh series of worries and responsibilities, as 
 troublesome and as heavy as any that had gone before. 
 In 1878, after prolonged debates in the Chambers, the 
 Government were authorized to purchase 1,600 miles 
 of the secondary or local railways, at a cost of over 
 11,000,000, and to expend on their completion a further 
 sum of 9,000,000. A number of lines which, properly 
 speaking, should have acted as feeders to the trunk 
 lines, had been worked in competition with them, and 
 had become hopeless failures. By arrangement between 
 the Government and the great companies, the latter 
 incorporated these particular lines in their own system. 
 The remainder (mostly in the West or South- West) were 
 to constitute a separate system of State railways, to be 
 operated by a Conseil d' Administration appointed by 
 the Government, and subject to the supreme control of 
 the Minister of Public Works.* 
 
 * Extended at various times since the date here referred to, the 
 Chemins de Fer de 1'Etat to-day comprise a total of 1,800 miles, 
 
2i6 THE RAILWAYS OF FRANCE 
 
 Meanwhile the old grievance continued that the 
 railway system as a whole was not being developed to 
 the extent and in the manner that the welfare of the 
 country and the interests of the people required. 
 Certain it was that at this date France had only 13,000 
 miles of railway, as against 18,000 in Germany. The 
 Government now resolved to complete, at one bold 
 stroke, the network of ' lines of public interest,' and 
 M. de Freycinet drew up a most ambitious programme, 
 
 and serve the district between Paris, Chartres, Saumur, Nantes, 
 La Rochelle, and Bordeaux. The system fulfils what is, in certain 
 respects, a somewhat peculiar role among the railways of France. 
 The Government cannot compel the ordinary companies to intro- 
 duce on their lines a variety of changes or improvements which, 
 however desirable, might increase their expenditure and reduce 
 the value of their concessions. What the Government do in these 
 circumstances is to make the said changes on the Chemins de Fer 
 de PEtat, and so set before the companies an object-lesson which 
 they may be expected to follow, especially when the action taken 
 is endorsed by public opinion. Thus the State system claims to 
 have been the first to adopt corridor carriages in France. On the 
 other hand, the concession by the Etat of higher wages, with the 
 same or fewer hours, than those on the companies' systems, was 
 regarded in some quarters as inspired by political considerations, 
 while the comfortable dormitories, with hot and cold water, set up 
 at junctions and large stations on the Etat system have been 
 satirized as ' engine-drivers' boudoirs.' At one time the excep- 
 tionally low rates granted on the Etat system were a source of 
 grievance to the companies, who, again, have never wearied of 
 declaring that the high proportion of working expenses to actual 
 earnings on the Etat system attributed by the officials thereof to 
 the comparatively unprofitable character of the traffic in the district 
 served is really a proof of the greater cost of State as compared 
 with company management. An especially interesting fact in 
 connection with the Chemins de Fer de PEtat is that the large 
 station at Courtalain Junction (between Chartres and Saumur), 
 and also the lines in each direction for a distance of about 40 miles, 
 constitute a railway training-school for soldiers. Within the radius 
 mentioned every operation connected with the running of the 
 trains and the control of the lines and stations is performed by 
 troops, a regular succession of whom undergo there a three months' 
 training, so that in the event of war or other contingencies the 
 French army should in the course of time have a considerable 
 body of men possessing more or less experience in the art of 
 working a railway. 
 
M. DE FREYCINET'S PROGRAMME 217 
 
 which was eventually adopted in 1879. Independently 
 of improvements in the waterways, it included the con- 
 struction of 12,000 kilometres (7,452 miles) of new lines 
 within the zones of the six great companies, together 
 with the completion of 6,000 kilometres (3,726 miles) 
 already conceded a total of 11,178 miles of new railway. 
 The cost was estimated at three and a half milliards of 
 francs (140,000,000), and the work was to be done 
 in from ten to twelve years, a sum of about 13,000,000 
 being raised and expended by the State each year. 
 
 In accordance with this programme a start was 
 made with the construction of some 180 new lines, 
 11,000,000 being spent in 1880, 13,000,000 in 1881, 
 and 15,000,000 in 1882. In each of these years about 
 600 miles of line were opened. At the same time, also, 
 the State continued its policy of buying up local lines 
 that had become bankrupt. 
 
 A period of exceptional prosperity developed, in 1882, 
 into still another financial crisis, but this time the 
 relations between the Government and the railway 
 companies were reversed. It was now the former who 
 had to ask the latter to help them out of a difficulty. 
 Encouraged by some favourable surpluses in the 
 national Budget, the Government had entered upon 
 their big railway scheme with full confidence in their 
 ability to carry it through. While also incurring a 
 greatly increased expenditure in this direction, they 
 even lowered their revenue by conceding some sub- 
 stantial reductions in taxation. With the advent of 
 depressed financial conditions they now found themselves 
 in a dilemma. 
 
 The railway programme was not popular among 
 investors, either great or small. Land and labour were 
 both costing so much more than had been calculated 
 on that the total expenditure on the lines was likely to 
 
218 THE RAILWAYS OF FRANCE 
 
 be nearer four or five milliards of francs (160,000,000 
 or 200,000,000) than the three and a half milliards of 
 the original estimate. Then the lines undertaken were 
 mostly short branch lines, independent of one another, 
 and designed for scattered localities in practically every 
 quarter and corner of France ; while still another factor 
 in the situation was that the Government, with a 
 desire, perhaps, to gratify as many constituencies as 
 possible, had begun a considerable number of the lines 
 at one and the same time, the localities taken first 
 being those which could exercise the greatest degree of 
 political pressure, rather than those most in need of 
 railways or likely to furnish the largest amount of fresh 
 traffic. As they were finished, the lines were either 
 operated by the State itself or transferred under pro- 
 visional agreements to the great companies. It was 
 a foregone conclusion that most of them could not 
 possibly be made to pay, and that the national Budget 
 would have to support the deficits. The Government 
 argued, however, that all would be well, because the 
 savings which travellers and traders would effect 
 through the advent of the new lines would more than 
 compensate for any loss that might fall on the State. 
 
 Such was the position of affairs when the financial 
 troubles of 1882 occurred. Whatever merit there may 
 have been in their railway programme, the Government 
 found a difficulty in raising more funds with which to 
 complete the works undertaken, and, as already indi- 
 cated, it now became their turn to appeal to the 
 companies. These had, in fact, experienced a con- 
 siderable improvement in their position. Down to 
 1879 f ur f them had had recourse to the guarantee of 
 interest, to the extent of, altogether, from 1,200,000 to 
 2,000,000 a year. But the substantial augmentation 
 in railway receipts between 1879 and 1882 had enabled 
 
CONVENTIONS OF 1883 219 
 
 three of the four to begin repaying the advances, and it 
 was then only the Quest which continued to draw upon 
 the State. The Government were thus encouraged to 
 make, in 1883, fresh conventions with the companies, 
 under which the latter would relieve them of the burden 
 of carrying out the remainder of the 1879 programme. 
 
 As the 1883 conventions represent the present-day 
 charters of the French railway companies, their leading 
 points may here be mentioned : 
 
 (a) The companies accepted the concession of a large 
 number of new lines, either already in operation or in 
 course of construction, representing a total of about 
 7,400 miles of railway, together with 1,200 miles of 
 lines of either ' general ' or ' local ' interest already 
 conceded to secondary companies, or, provisionally, to 
 the six great companies themselves. 
 
 (6) The companies undertook to furnish rolling stock 
 and mechanical appliances at the railway-stations, and 
 to contribute to the cost of construction a proportion 
 fixed (generally speaking) at 25,000 francs per kilometre, 
 in the case of lines of normal gauge. The remainder of 
 the cost of construction was to be defrayed by the State ; 
 but, in order to avoid any considerable interference 
 with the national finances, the companies themselves 
 were to raise the money, the State refunding such sums 
 to the companies (independently of the ' guarantee ' 
 accounts), with interest thereon, by means of annuities 
 spread over a specified period. (Hitherto it had been 
 the State whose contribution had been fixed, the com- 
 panies providing the balance.) 
 
 (c) An exchange of lines between the Chemins de Fer 
 de 1'Etat and the Orleans improved the position of the 
 former, made its situation more compact, and brought 
 to an end the friction and the rivalry that had pre- 
 viously existed, leading to what was little short of a 
 
220 THE RAILWAYS OF FRANCE 
 
 ' war of tariffs.' The Etat also obtained the right to 
 run (at specially advantageous terms) over the lines of 
 the Quest Company between Chartres and Paris. 
 
 (d) In regard to the guarantee of interest, the dis- 
 tinction between old and new lines was abolished, 
 receipts and expenditure from each being brought into 
 one account. From this the charges for interest on 
 loans, the redemption of mortgages, and the payment of 
 a certain dividend (' dividende guaranti ') would be met, 
 the State, under its guarantee, advancing the difference 
 when the revenue was inadequate for the purpose. 
 Should the revenue more than suffice to meet these 
 charges, the excess was to be applied, in the first 
 instance, to repaying the advances made by the State, 
 with the simple interest thereon at 4 per cent. On the 
 extinction of the debt the excess might be devoted to the 
 increase of the dividend until a certain figure (' dividende 
 reserve ') had been reached, after which the balance was 
 to be divided between the State and the company, the 
 former taking two-thirds and the latter one-third. 
 
 (e) Companies indebted to the State in respect to 
 advances for guarantee of interest could reduce the sum 
 due from them by undertaking works of construction 
 for which, under the terms of the conventions, the 
 State would otherwise have to provide. (In this way 
 the Quest reduced its debt of 9,600,000 to 6,400,000, 
 whilst the Est wiped off a debt of 6,000,000, and the 
 Orleans one of 8,200,000.) 
 
 The companies further undertook to simplify their 
 tariffs, and to make concessions to the public in the 
 matter of rates, charges, and general facilities.* 
 
 * The Quest especially agreed to run workmen's trains under 
 conditions which have since become extremely onerous, and have 
 helped materially to maintain the company's record as the poorest 
 of the six, and the one that has been compelled to make the 
 greatest and most persistent calls on the State funds. 
 
MORE STATE AID 221 
 
 By means of these conventions the Government con- 
 siderably improved the awkward position into which 
 they had been led by their railway policy, and there 
 was, at the same time, a general expectation that the 
 companies would not have to resort further to the 
 guarantee of their interest. But the depression which 
 set in with the year 1883, greatly aggravated as it was 
 by the phylloxera visitation, brought about a serious 
 decline in the railway returns, so that in 1884, in spite 
 of economies effected in their working expenses, all the 
 companies except the Nord had to have recourse to the 
 guarantee of interest, the amount advanced in that year 
 being 1,720,000. In succeeding years the demands 
 made on the State ranged between 2,000,000 and 
 3,000,000. At the same time the State was feeling 
 the burden of having to pay off large sums each year in 
 the form of annuities on account of the new works, the 
 execution of which was, accordingly, proceeded with 
 less rapidly than had been contemplated. In 1893 the 
 requirements of the companies in respect to guarantee 
 of interest amounted to 4,000,000, owing to the con- 
 siderable increase in the cost of railway operation (due 
 in part to the rise in the price of coal and in part to the 
 exactions of the authorities). An energetic effort was 
 made to reduce so formidable a charge as this upon the 
 national Exchequer, and such further economies were 
 brought about by the companies that in 1896 the sums 
 they asked for as guarantee of interest amounted to 
 only 1,400,000, while the Paris-Lyon-Mediterrane"e, 
 which had made its first appeal to the guarantee in 
 1883, and had incurred a debt of 6,000,000, repaid 
 240,000. In 1897 the Quest, the Est, and the Midi 
 asked between them for 880,000. In 1898 the 
 P.-L.-M. liquidated its liabilities by undertaking certain 
 new works and freeing the Government from annuities 
 
222 
 
 THE RAILWAYS OF FRANCE 
 
 contracted by them towards the company. In 1899 
 the Quest and the Midi alone appealed for aid, their 
 joint total falling to 360,000 ; but in 1901 the require- 
 ments of the companies were increased (owing to higher 
 working expenses) to 2,000,000. The following year 
 there was a decline to 1,040,000, the Quest asking for 
 800,000 and the Est and the Midi for 240,000. There 
 was a still further decline in 1903, when the total 
 amounted to 640,000, of which the Quest needed 
 560,000 to meet its deficiency. 
 
 These more recent figures show a decided improve- 
 ment, and there is now an expectation that in the 
 course of another two or three years the companies 
 will no longer require State aid. One must bear in 
 mind, however, that there are still enormous balances 
 against certain of the companies on account of past 
 advances not yet repaid, with also accumulations of 
 (simple) interest thereon, the official statement of the 
 Minister of Public Works for the year ending Decem- 
 ber 31, 1903, showing that the totals then owing were 
 as follows : 
 
 Company. 
 
 Due in respect to 
 Advances made. 
 
 Due in respect to 
 Interest unpaid. 
 
 Total. 
 
 Est 
 Quest 
 Orleans 
 Midi 
 
 Totals 
 
 
 6,639,000 
 11,040,000 
 5,761,000 
 7,346,000 
 
 
 2,282,000 
 3,766,000 
 2,635,000 
 2,828,000 
 
 
 8,921,000 
 14,806,000 
 8,396,000 
 10,174,000 
 
 30,786,000 
 
 11,511,000 
 
 42,297,000 
 
 Still more formidable are the detailed figures as to 
 the amount of public money which has been spent in 
 France on the construction of railways, whether now 
 
SOME STRIKING FIGURES 
 
 223 
 
 added to the systems of the great companies or operated 
 separately in the name of the State. Some idea of the 
 magnitude of this expenditure has already been given, 
 but the following table, compiled from the latest avail- 
 able report of the Minister of Public Works, shows what 
 had been laid out by the State and local authorities on 
 the ' defenses d'e"tablissement ' of railways in France 
 down to December 31, 1901, ' defenses d'e"tablissement' 
 representing the amounts expended by those authorities 
 on the construction, completion, or purchase of railway 
 lines since mostly added to the systems which are now 
 operated by the great companies : 
 
 Name of Company. 
 
 Total for System. 
 
 Total per 
 Kilometre. 
 
 Nord 
 
 & 
 
 ? QQC OOO 
 
 
 I 076 
 
 Est 
 
 2 T T en OOO 
 
 6 J.I ^ 
 
 Quest 
 
 oA -3 T 7 OOO 
 
 6 214 
 
 
 41 42Q OOO 
 
 ; 680 
 
 Paris-Lyon-Me'diterrane'e 
 Midi 
 
 45,291,000 
 22 323.OOO 
 
 4,876 
 
 6 O07 
 
 
 
 
 Ceinture de Paris 
 Grande Ceinture 
 
 180,505,000 
 827,000 
 216,000 
 
 48,686 
 
 1,968 
 
 Chemins de Fer de 1'Etat* 
 
 181,548,000 
 6,887,000 
 
 2,477 
 
 Secondary Systems 
 
 188,435,000 
 4,171,000 
 
 2,678 
 
 Grand total 
 
 192,606,000 
 
 
 
 * Including costs of purchase, construction or completion, 
 rolling stock, etc., the total amount of capital invested by the 
 State in the Chemins de Fer de 1'Etat stood on January i, 1903, 
 at ^26,000,000. The receipts and expenditure and net result 
 constitute a supplementary ' Budget,' which is voted by the 
 Chambers each year. ' Costs of establishment,' however, are not 
 
224 THE RAILWAYS OF FRANCE 
 
 Everyone must see that railway companies which 
 have received direct or indirect aid from the State to 
 the extent shown by the two tables here given are in a 
 very different position from systems such as those in 
 Great Britain, which depend entirely on private capital, 
 have had no help from State or local authorities in the 
 construction of their lines, and have no State at their 
 back to advance them funds to make up a satisfactory 
 dividend should their earnings not suffice for the pur- 
 pose. Not only in the one case have the lines cost the 
 companies much less than in the other, but a company 
 whose interest and dividend are guaranteed by the 
 Government has far less reason to hesitate about the 
 concession of low rates to traders than one which, 
 depending on its own resources, must necessarily operate 
 its lines from a strictly commercial standpoint. 
 
 Whether or not the State has acted wisely in adopting 
 the policy that has led to these various results is a 
 question on which differences of opinion are entertained 
 in France. In some quarters there is considerable 
 uneasiness at the magnitude of the financial burdens 
 which have been assumed. The annual charges upon 
 the State in respect to railway construction and opera- 
 tion (including interest on capital borrowed, annuities, 
 guarantee of interest, etc.) represent a sum total of 
 11,000,000. But against these figures there are various 
 considerations to be set. The State, one is reminded, 
 has borrowed at 3 per cent, the money for which the 
 railway companies pay 4 per cent, (except in the case 
 of the Midi, which, under special conditions, pays 3 per 
 cent.). Then, as regards the annual charges, it is 
 pointed out that the State draws over 6,000,000 a year 
 
 included therein. They form part of the ordinary Budget of the 
 Minister of Public Works. Interest on loans for the State railways 
 is added to the public debt of the country. 
 
POSITION OF THE STATE 225 
 
 from the railways in the shape of taxes (imposed in the 
 form of stamps or otherwise) on much of the passenger 
 and goods traffic, on share certificates and other docu- 
 ments, on income, and on other things besides. Most 
 of these taxes do not figure in the companies' statements 
 of receipts and expenditure, being regarded as sums 
 that are simply collected for the State, and duly paid 
 over to it, by the railways. It is quite possible, too, 
 that the greater part of them would be levied, for 
 revenue-producing purposes, whatever the conditions of 
 ownership of the lines. It is, again, claimed that the 
 State makes a saving of 3,600,000 a year in economies 
 effected (thanks to the terms of its agreements with the 
 railways) in regard to mail services, telegraphs (that is, 
 the fixing of telegraph poles and wires along the railway 
 lines), and cheaper transport of troops, marines, excise 
 officers, and other public servants. Still further items, 
 it is claimed, help to make the sum total of the * be*ne"- 
 fices' derived by the State from the railways almost 
 counterbalance the annual charges upon the national 
 Budget. Finally, one is reminded that, on the falling 
 in, between 1950 and 1960, of the various concessions, 
 the State will be the actual owner of 25,000 miles of 
 railway, valued at 640,000,000. Altogether, therefore, 
 it is declared by defenders of the general railway policy 
 of France that ' the State has made a very good bargain.' 
 Be this as it may, no one can deny that the responsi- 
 bilities devolving upon successive Governments in con- 
 nection with the supreme control of the railway system 
 of the country has from time to time provoked great 
 confusion, and led to endless disputes and worries in the 
 Chamber of Deputies, where the members, instead of 
 devoting their attention to questions of legislation and 
 State policy, have had to take part in deciding on a host of 
 matters of detail concerning railway management which 
 
 15 
 
226 THE RAILWAYS OF FRANCE 
 
 in England would be settled by practical railway men at 
 a Clearing-House conference. 
 
 There is, also, reason to believe that this supreme 
 control of the French railway system by the Government 
 of the day has led to much abuse from a political stand- 
 point. Candidates for the favour of constituencies have 
 readily promised to ' use their influence ' to secure the 
 construction by, or through, the Government of small 
 local lines of railway which might be a source of con- 
 venience in themselves, but could not possibly be made 
 to pay. Conditions such as these have led not only to 
 much political jobbery, but also to serious complications 
 in the railway situation in general. Whether constructed 
 under such circumstances as those here suggested, or 
 (as may have happened in many cases) to answer 
 legitimate requirements, the mass of purely local lines 
 which a glance at a railway map of France will reveal 
 has been a heavy drag on the resources of the great 
 companies who agreed to absorb them into their 
 systems. The number of main lines of national or 
 international traffic in France is small in comparison 
 with the multitude of lines that either yield a very slight 
 return or else are carried on at a loss. 
 
 In this one fact we have the crux of the railway 
 position in France. Assuming that it was in the 
 interests of the State that all these local lines should be 
 made, then the State, it is argued, can rightly be ex- 
 pected to contribute to their support. In England, of 
 course, the railway companies operate many branch 
 lines that are not directly remunerative, but are, never- 
 theless, regarded as ' feeders/ and are therefore com- 
 mercially practicable. In France private effort is less 
 enterprising than in England, though it is only fair 
 to add that if a certain proportion of the local lines in 
 the former country have indeed been constructed by 
 
LOCAL LINES NATIONALIZATION 227 
 
 one Government or another as * sops to the electorate,' 
 the companies may well have hesitated to absorb them, 
 except under conditions favourable to themselves. 
 
 Then there is a party in France which advocates that 
 the State should buy up the railways at once, without 
 waiting for the lapse of the concessions. This proposal 
 is much favoured by the Socialists; but the political 
 possibilities in France of a situation under which the 
 Government of the day controlled many thousands of 
 appointments in the railway service have caused much 
 apprehension, and have led to an expectation that, when 
 the present concessions expire, the Government will 
 renew them to the same or other companies, in 
 preference to taking the entire exploitation into their 
 own hands. 
 
 All the same, State purchase of the companies' 
 systems, without awaiting the expiration of the con- 
 cessions, would seem to be held over them in terrorem. 
 In fact, only a year or so before the conventions of 1883 
 were arranged, the then Under- Secretary of State for 
 Public Works declared, at a meeting held in Bordeaux, 
 that 'unless the companies reduced their rates they 
 would be dissolved.' 
 
 When one looks at the direct relations of the French 
 Government with the railway companies, the position is 
 found to be a distinctly anomalous one. The Govern- 
 ment have a patriotic interest in seeing that the railways 
 are operated in such a way as to promote the interests 
 of passengers and traders ; they also have a proprietary 
 interest in seeing that the management of the railways 
 will not decrease their value as a going concern when, 
 on the expiration of the terms of concession, they 
 become the property of the State, which has already 
 made such great financial sacrifices for them. From 
 the latter point of view, therefore, the Government 
 
 * 2 
 
228 THE RAILWAYS OF FRANCE 
 
 watch over them en bon pere de famille. On the one 
 hand, they do not want the companies to impose rates 
 and charges which would be unduly high, because this 
 would injure the industrial and commercial interests of 
 the country ; on the other hand, they have their own 
 reasons for not wishing that the companies encouraged 
 thereto by the State guarantee of interest should 
 reduce the rates and charges to a non-remunerative 
 point, because this would not only increase the demands 
 on the Treasury, but would prejudice the commercial 
 value of the railways to the State later on. In the same 
 way the State claims the right to be consulted as to any 
 additions to the rolling stock of the companies, in view 
 of its obligation to take over such rolling stock at a 
 valuation when the concessions expire. Not only this, 
 but a railway company in France may not add a single 
 train to its time-table without the consent of the 
 Minister of Public Works, nor can the change even 
 from the summer to the winter service, or vice versa, be 
 effected until there have been repeated meetings between 
 the representatives of that Minister's department and 
 the officials of the line concerned. ' Almost everywhere,' 
 says M. C. Colson, in his ' Abrege de la Legislation des 
 Chemins de Fer et des Tramways,' ' railway companies 
 have been subjected to a control less strict than in 
 France, and have had much greater latitude in regard 
 to management and the fixing of their tariffs.' 
 
 The fundamental principle on which railway rates 
 and charges in France are based was laid down by 
 Article 44 of the Ordinance of November 15, 1846, 
 which set forth that no charge, no matter of what kind, 
 should be imposed by a railway company, or altered 
 when once authorized, without the * homologation ' of 
 the Minister of Public Works. For a long time the 
 companies argued that the powers conferred on the said 
 
' HOMOLOGATION ' 229 
 
 Minister did not go beyond verifying the proposed rates 
 and charges, with a view to seeing that they did not 
 exceed those specified in the ' cahier des charges,' in 
 which the terms and conditions of the original con- 
 cession are set forth. Subsequently, however, it was 
 admitted by the companies that the word ' homolo- 
 gation ' has all the force of ' approval '; that every 
 change in a railway rate, whether decrease or increase, 
 must be expressly sanctioned by the Minister of Public 
 Works ; and that he has the right to reject, if he should 
 think fit, any proposed rate or charge that is not simply 
 a reproduction of the aforesaid original terms and con- 
 ditions. 
 
 The power of initiative in regard to rates and charges 
 remains with the companies. It is open to them to 
 suggest such changes as they think fit, and the Minister 
 himself cannot directly compel them to alter their rates. 
 The power that he possesses is simply a power of veto, 
 and it is one that must be exercised en bloc. He may 
 not sanction a proposed change of rate as it affects one 
 town, and refuse it in the case of another to which the 
 company propose it shall apply. Nor may he concede 
 the decrease of a certain rate and strike out any modi- 
 fying condition by which the railway company propose, 
 in return, to reduce their own liability. But while he 
 cannot force his own ideas on the companies against 
 their wish (since his doing so might prejudice the value 
 of their concession), he may and he does indicate the 
 alterations in the programme presented to him which 
 will insure his approval of the whole, and it is for the 
 company to consider whether it will suit them better to 
 abandon their proposals altogether or to fall in, prefer- 
 ably, with the views of the Minister. 
 
 The effect of these various conditions is seen in a 
 striking manner when one looks into the details as to 
 
230 THE RAILWAYS OF FRANCE 
 
 what must be done before the change of an ordinary 
 inland or domestic railway rate can be secured in 
 France. In Great Britain, whereas there are restric- 
 tions on the increase of a railway rate even within the 
 legal maxima a general manager or a chief goods 
 agent is, generally speaking, free to grant a reduction 
 of rates at any time, at once, and on his own responsi- 
 bility, if a trader or a body of traders should convince 
 him of the desirability and practicability of such re- 
 duction ; though he must be careful what he does, and 
 make no risky experiments, because, if it should subse- 
 quently be found necessary to restore the reduced rate 
 to its former level, such restoration will count as an 
 ' increase ' which the company must advertise, running 
 the risk also of having to appear before the Board of 
 Trade to defend the advance. But across the Channel 
 even the reduction of a rate (except in certain instances) 
 cannot be brought about until a very complex procedure 
 indeed has been gone through. What this procedure 
 represents may be thought worth narrating in the 
 special interest of those who are disposed to think that 
 railway conditions abroad are better than they are at 
 home. 
 
 Assume that a certain body of traders in France 
 desire to have a lower rate conceded between two given 
 points. They will, in the first instance, send a state- 
 ment of their case to the railway company, whose 
 responsible officials will investigate the matter. If they 
 approve of it, they must not at once accede to the 
 application, as would be done here. All they can do is 
 to start it on its travels by sending it to the Minister of 
 Public Works, accompanied by a statement of the com- 
 pany's own views, giving the reasons for their endorse- 
 ment of the request. Copies are sent to the Commercial 
 Control Department, to be reported on by its officials, 
 
FRENCH RED TAPE 231 
 
 and to the Prefect of each and every district through 
 which the lines affected by the proposed changes run, 
 and notice must also be given in the Journal Officiel, 
 in case there may be other districts likely to be preju- 
 diced. Then each Prefect is required to communicate 
 the proposition to the Chambers of Commerce in his 
 department, and give them the opportunity of making 
 their own observations thereon. This having been 
 done, the application, together with the comments of 
 the Chambers of Commerce and of other persons, 
 whoever they may be, interested in the matter, is ex- 
 amined, first by the Inspecteur de 1'Exploitation Com- 
 merciale de la Conscription, then by the Controleur- 
 G6ne"ral, and so on to the officials of any maritime 
 ports, navigable waterways, or mining districts affected, 
 until it gets into the hands of the Inspecteur-Gene"ral 
 du Roseau. 
 
 By this time the documents in the case will probably 
 have assumed the proportions of a substantial ' dossier.' 
 All the same, the real consideration of the matter is 
 now only about to begin. What has been done already 
 is preliminary to the proceedings of the Comite Con- 
 sultatif des Chemins de Fer, one of the four advisory 
 committees which aid the Minister of Public Works in 
 keeping watch and guard over the general railway 
 system of the country. It consists of (i) representa- 
 tives of the Administration, and (2) representatives of 
 the agricultural, commercial, and industrial interests. 
 The list of members for the years 1905 and 1906, as 
 published in the Journal Officiel for January 12, 1905, is 
 as follows : 
 
 Secateurs (10). Deputes (19). , Charles Blanc, Colson, Cotille, 
 Herbette, Sainsere, conseillers d'Etat, membres de la section des 
 Travaux Public, de 1' Agriculture, du Commerce, de 1' Industrie, 
 et des Postes et Te'le'graphes. Renaud, premier president de la 
 Cour des Comptes. Courtin, president de chambre a la Cour des 
 
232 THE RAILWAYS OF FRANCE 
 
 Comptes. Laurent, directeur general de la Comptabilite publique. 
 Brunet, directeur general des Douanes. Blonde), inspecteur 
 general des Finances. Pallain, gouverneur de la Banque de 
 France. Le directeur du Commerce, le directeur du Travail, le 
 directeur de PExploitation postale, le directeur de PAssurance et 
 de la PreVoyance sociales au Ministere du Commerce, de 1' Indus- 
 trie, des Postes et des Te'le'graphes. Mascuraud, membre de la 
 Commission supdrieure des Expositions et du Conseil supe'rieur 
 de PEnseignment technique au Ministere du Commerce, de 
 1'Industrie, des Postes et des Telegraphies. Le president du 
 Tribunal de Commerce de la Seine. Sciama, membre de la 
 Chambre de Commerce de Paris. Tisserand, directeur honoraire 
 au Ministere de 1' Agriculture. Daubre'e, directeur des Eaux et 
 Forets au Ministere de 1'Agriculture. Vassiliere, directeur de 
 1'Agriculture. B^nard, membre du Conseil supe'rieur de 1'Agri- 
 culture. Bley, directeur du Cabinet au Ministere de 1'Agriculture. 
 Vigier, president de la Soci^te" Nationale d'Horticulture de France. 
 Caze, president de la Socie'te' Nationale de 1'Encouragement a 
 PAgriculture. De Lagorsse, secretaire general de la Societe 
 Nationale d'Encouragement a 1'Agriculture. Lebon, membre de 
 la Societe Nationale d'Encouragement a PAgriculture, et du 
 Conseil supe'rieur du Commerce. Gazelles, secretaire ge'ne'ral de 
 la Societe des Viticulteurs de France et d'Ampeiographie. Henry, 
 directeur des Consulates et des Affaires commerciales au Ministere 
 des Affaires e"trangeres. Edgar Combes, secretaire general du 
 Ministere de Plnterieur. Le general Zimmer, sous-chef d'etat- 
 major general de 1'Armee. Dislere, president de section au Con- 
 seil d'Etat. Holtz, Lethier, Quinette de Rochemont, inspecteurs 
 generaux des Ponts et Chaussees. Worms de Romilly, inspecteur 
 general des Mines. Firmin Raimbeaux, administrates general 
 des Mines de Maries. Papelier, fondateur des Docks Nanceiens. 
 J. Fleury, ingenieur civil, membre du Comite consultatif de la 
 Navigation et des Ports. Armez, Lahaye, Gruner, ingenienrs civils. 
 Ricard (Louis), membre d'honneur de 1'Institut des Actuaires. 
 Griolet, membre de la Commission permanente du Congres inter- 
 national des Chemins de Fer. Perocheau, ouvrier ajusteur dans 
 les Ataliers de la Compagnie des Chemins de Fer de POuest. 
 
 If the proposed alteration in rates should be an im- 
 portant one, the Consultative Committee, constituted 
 as detailed above, will appoint a subcommittee to in- 
 vestigate the matter. Otherwise a single member will 
 be delegated to study the various documents and report 
 thereon. The Committee will then consider the report 
 thus made, and, should it think fit, it will make an 
 inquiry on its own account, calling on representatives 
 
CIRCUMLOCUTION IN EXCELSIS 233 
 
 of the railways, or of the other interests affected, to 
 attend and give such further information as may be 
 desired. Presumably, also, each member of the Com- 
 mittee has the right to express his views on the subject. 
 Finally, a decision is arrived at by the Committee ; but 
 this decision can take the form only of a recommenda- 
 tion to the Minister of Public Works ; while, after all 
 the circumlocution thus gone through, it is still open to 
 the Minister in question to disregard everything that 
 has been done, and give the ultimate decision, ' Oui ' 
 or ' Non,' according to his own individual opinion. In 
 practice, however, he is generally guided by the advice 
 of the Consultative Committee. Of late years, it 
 should be added, the Minister has only given provisional 
 assent to changes in rates, so that he can withdraw his 
 ' homologation ' whenever he thinks fit, though he may 
 not do this until he has made an inquiry as exhaustive 
 as that held in the first instance. 
 
 One month is the least period in which an alteration 
 in an ordinary railway rate in France can be made to 
 pass through the various necessary stages, and it may 
 very well happen that the procedure will occupy for 
 from six to twelve months. There is a case on record 
 in which a company applied early in the spring for per- 
 mission to grant a lower passenger rate to a certain 
 seaside resort. The matter was considered, and the 
 Minister eventually granted the request ; but the notifi- 
 cation of his assent did not reach the company until 
 the month of October when the holiday season was 
 over! 
 
 I leave the British trader to say for himself whether 
 a reduction of railway rates should or should not be 
 included among the things which ' they manage better 
 in France.' 
 
 Theoretically the system of railway rates in France 
 
234 THE RAILWAYS OF FRANCE 
 
 is extremely simple. In effect it presents many com- 
 plications. The base kilometrique (corresponding to 
 ' equal mileage '), on which it is assumed to be mainly 
 founded, goes back to those early days when the rates 
 were fixed at a specified sum per ton per kilometre for 
 each of the three classes into which all commodities 
 were then grouped. In 1863 a fourth class was 
 arranged for coal, minerals, etc., the rates for which 
 were to decrease per kilometre in proportion to the dis- 
 tance carried. Subsequently, while the Orleans company 
 kept to four classes, the Est and the Midi had five, the 
 Quest six, and the Nord and P.-L.-M. seven. In 1879 
 a more uniform classification for all the companies was 
 established, and the fixed rate per kilometre was thence- 
 forward retained for short hauls only, the system of a 
 diminution of rate with increase of distance applying 
 in all other cases. But the tariffs under this system 
 (tarifs a base decroissante) are of various types, according 
 as the reductions in respect to distance are continuous, 
 apply to separate distances of 100 kilometres, or, alter- 
 natively, do not go beyond a specified limit. Nor can 
 the trader decide the distance for himself. Where 
 several lines of varying length run between two given 
 points, some direct, others in circuitous fashion, the 
 rate for all must be according to the shortest route. 
 In this case the trader may be charged less than the 
 actual distance traversed, If, on the other hand, the 
 railway passes through hilly or mountainous country, 
 where the cost of construction has been heavy, the 
 railway company is allowed to count i kilometre as 
 2, 3, or more. In that case the trader pays for a 
 greater than the actual distance. 
 
 Then the base kilometrique had to yield to prix fennes 
 in the case of staple commodities passing in greater 
 bulk between two stated points than over the remainder 
 
BASIS OF RATES AND CHARGES 235 
 
 of the system, and therefore justifying the exceptional 
 treatment they often required in the interests of trade. 
 These prix fermes gave a rate which was lower than 
 the recognised rate per kilometre would have been. 
 One difficulty was thus surmounted, but only to give 
 rise to others. Traders in places situated between the 
 two places for which a fixed rate had been conceded 
 claimed the same advantages for themselves when the 
 rate for the shorter distance was more than for the 
 longer one. This was allowed; and then followed 
 also the ' soudure ' system, under which, assuming that 
 a fixed rate was granted between A and B, the rate 
 between A to C was made up of the fixed rate from 
 A to B plus the local rate from B to C. The con- 
 cession, therefore, of a fixed rate, desirable enough in 
 itself, might very well involve much complication. In 
 fact, as M. C. Colson writes in his ' Abre"g6 de la Le"gis- 
 lation des Chemins de Fer et des Tramways ' : 
 
 When there are numerous lines connecting two distant points 
 some direct, others indirect one is obliged, in order to find the 
 most advantageous rate, to make comparisons between all the 
 combinations of rate that one can arrange between the different 
 routes, keeping count of all the prix fermes, or of all the excep- 
 tional rates which may be in force on such and such sections of 
 the total journey. Even if it should be easy to ascertain the 
 particular charges for a specified route, it is often difficult to 
 discover all those to which a non-specified route may be entitled, 
 whether by way of intermediate distance or by reason of the 
 1 soudure.' 
 
 In one district, again, rates will be kept lower by 
 reason of water competition than for equal distances 
 in another district. On this point M. Colson observes : 
 
 It cannot be said that the reductions made in these circum- 
 stances are unjustifiable, assuming that they leave a balance, 
 however small, in favour of capital after covering cost of transport, 
 when, on a competing route, the State is not demanding from 
 users either interest on cost of construction or charges in respect 
 to maintenance. On the other hand, one cannot expect the 
 
236 THE RAILWAYS OF FRANCE 
 
 railway companies to make general the rate reductions thus con- 
 ceded to meet competition on waterways, where no tolls are 
 demanded. The companies are, in principle, bound to secure a 
 return on their capital, and maintain their lines with the product 
 of the traffic. One would impose on the companies losses ruinous 
 for themselves when they are not guaranteed, and ruinous for the 
 State when they are guaranteed if by the interdiction of prix 
 fermes or of localized tariffs they were put in the alternative 
 either of completely renouncing all competitive traffic, or of 
 extending to their entire system reductions which the special 
 favours conceded to navigable waterways render obligatory between 
 certain points. 
 
 It is, of course, in the matter of exceptional rates that 
 the greatest divergencies from the original base kilo- 
 metrique have been brought about. So far back as 
 1857 the French companies were prohibited from 
 granting reductions in rate to individuals or particular 
 groups of traders giving them undue preference, in 
 fact. They were still free, however, to make special 
 rates for certain commodities between particular 
 stations or districts, and such special rates became 
 a great power with the companies, who looked to them 
 for the main part of their revenue. At one time the 
 number of such rates was so large that the base kilo- 
 metrique was almost lost sight of. Exceptions had 
 become the rule, and the rule the exception. There 
 were no fewer than 1,854 special tariffs in operation in 
 France in 1880, and under them the companies carried 
 four-fifths of their total traffic in goods and minerals. 
 Various reductions or simplifications of rates since 
 brought about have swept away the greater propor- 
 tion of this large number (especially as regards those 
 applying to ' Grande Vitesse ' traffic), but exceptional 
 rates still play an important role in France in the 
 carnage of produce and merchandise by rail. It is 
 under these rates that the bulk, not only of the ' Petite 
 Vitesse ' traffic, but also of French exports for British 
 markets, are despatched ; and it is with them also, I 
 
FRENCH EXCEPTIONAL RATES 237 
 
 may add, that, when French rates are in question, 
 comparisons with English railway rates are generally 
 made. 
 
 Exceptional rates in France can only be applied (in 
 lieu of the ordinary tariff) on the demand of the sender, 
 because it is imperative that he should agree to those 
 more favourable conditions for the railway company 
 on which alone the lower rates are granted to himself. 
 The most important of these conditions is a prolonga- 
 tion of the period within which (except in the case of 
 perishables) the goods are to be taken to their destina- 
 tion, so that, if necessary, they may be kept back a 
 longer time until the company can load up waggons, 
 or make up trains, to better advantage. The liability 
 in respect to delay or damage is decreased ; specified 
 quantities must be handed in, or, at least, paid 
 for; the traders must do their own loading and un- 
 loading ; the commodities carried must (in certain 
 instances) be intended to serve a specified purpose 
 (such as lime for farmers), or have a particular destina- 
 tion (such as oil for ironworks or steel mills) ; and so 
 on with other stipulations besides. 
 
 The most important of the exceptional rates in France 
 fall under three main categories (i) special export 
 rates ; (2) special import rates ; and (3) special transit 
 rates. On each of these I propose to say a few words. 
 
 i. Exceptional export rates have been much favoured 
 by French Governments in the interests both of com- 
 merce and of agriculture. In a decree made in 1862 
 the principle was established that any railway company 
 which gave notice to the Minister of Public Works of 
 its desire to concede such rates for any particular com- 
 modity was at liberty to do so after a delay of only five 
 days, provided that in the meantime the Minister had 
 raised no objection. For the purposes of these rates, 
 
238 THE RAILWAYS OF FRANCE 
 
 however, the ports in France are divided into groups, 
 and a rate arranged in the special interest of any one 
 port applies to all the ports comprised in the group to 
 which it belongs. When, also, the fresh conventions of 
 1883 were entered into, the railway companies gave a 
 written undertaking, in the form of letters addressed 
 to the Chambers, that they would place themselves at 
 the disposal of the Government in the concession of 
 further special export rates, to facilitate the despatch 
 of French manufactures or French produce to foreign 
 countries. The rates so conceded are certainly very 
 low; but where (as is generally the case) the railway 
 companies carry truck-load, if not, indeed, train-load, 
 lots, and have such exceptionally favourable conditions 
 as those already stated, they do not necessarily lose on 
 the business. Even if they should, there is always the 
 State guarantee of interest for them to fall back ^ upon 
 in order to keep up the dividends. 
 
 2. The exceptional import rates have aroused strong 
 opposition from time to time on the part of French 
 traders, who represent that the effect of them is to 
 encourage foreigners to send their produce or their 
 goods into France, to the detriment of French indus- 
 tries. In other words, a line of policy which is praise- 
 worthy as sauce for the British goose is regarded as 
 intolerable and unpatriotic when applied to the French 
 gander. The companies were assumed to be acting 
 quite right when they carried, at exceptionally low rates, 
 train-loads of French produce for consignment to Eng- 
 land ; but they provoked bitter complaints when they 
 gave special import rates for fish from England, coal 
 and steel from either England or Belgium, wines from 
 Spain, sheep from Germany, or wheat from the United 
 States. So strong, in fact, was the feeling aroused that, 
 when the conventions of 1883 were entered into, the 
 
EXPORTS I M PORTS TRAN SIT 239 
 
 companies further promised, in the aforesaid letters to 
 the Chambers, to submit to the views of the Govern- 
 ment in regard to the modification of any rates the 
 effect of which might be to interfere with the fiscal 
 policy of the country, provided that the articles in ques- 
 tion were not allowed to be imported by other means 
 of transportation river steamers or canal boats, for 
 example at lower rates than those the railways would 
 be prepared to charge. 
 
 3. The special transit rates aim at securing the 
 passage through French territory of consignments 
 despatched from one foreign country for delivering in 
 another. They have been attacked by French traders 
 on the ground, for instance, that English goods carried 
 by way of France to Germany, at specially low rates, 
 are thereby enabled to compete more successfully with 
 French goods on the same market. Belgian, Dutch, 
 and German ports, however, were found to be com- 
 peting severely for traffic to or from Italy, Austria, and 
 other countries, of which, it was thought, the French 
 ports should have a larger share. To secure this result, 
 therefore, it was further arranged, as the outcome of 
 the 1883 negotiations, that the principle of tarifs a prix 
 reduits should undergo still wider application in regard 
 to transit traffic. 
 
 Under a decree of 1862 it had already been conceded 
 that special transit rates could be put into operation 
 after giving only twenty-four hours' notice to the 
 Minister of Public Works. While, therefore, any home 
 traders in France who want a reduction in domestic 
 rates must (as shown in connection with the Ministerial 
 * homologation ') possess their souls in patience, any- 
 thing that concerns foreign trade is regarded as a matter 
 of urgency, and one that will brook no delay. 
 
 To sum up the general position in regard to the 
 
240 THE RAILWAYS OF FRANCE 
 
 French railway system, the conclusions at which one 
 must arrive may be stated thus : 
 
 1. To insure the construction of the railways at all, 
 the State has assumed enormous financial obligations, 
 which (notwithstanding the fact that the State will 
 eventually take possession) have weighed heavily on 
 the national Budget. While, however, this policy has 
 involved French taxpayers in grave responsibilities, it 
 has greatly diminished the capital expenditure of the 
 railway companies of France, as compared with that of 
 the railway companies of Great Britain. This fact 
 alone would suffice to give an advantage to the former 
 companies over the latter in regard to their scales of 
 rates and charges. 
 
 2. The guarantee of interest by the State, under 
 which large sums have been advanced from time to 
 time, should further enable the railway companies in 
 France to grant rates substantially lower than would 
 otherwise be practicable. 
 
 3. The State, as a partner in the railway business in 
 France, has made use of the railways in order to foster 
 home industries by means of exceptionally low export 
 rates ; while these, further, are made to apply under 
 conditions which are exceptionally favourable to the 
 French railway companies and are not necessarily 
 applied, or existing, in the case of traffic on British 
 railways. 
 
 4. The fundamental conditions in regard to the 
 history and operation of railways in the two countries 
 being so essentially different, there is no fair basis of 
 comparison in regard to their respective rates and 
 charges, unless these differences are borne in mind and 
 allowance made accordingly. 
 
( I 
 
 V 
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 THE RAILWAYS OF GERMANY 
 
 THE beginnings of railway enterprise in Germany were 
 characterized mainly by mistrust and lukewarmness, if 
 not actual opposition, on the part both of Governments 
 and of financiers. 
 
 The Governments were, in the first place, afraid of 
 the ' liberal ' tendencies of the new means of locomotion. 
 They were convinced also that transport by locomotive 
 could never be made to pay. When lines from Berlin 
 to Leipzig and Berlin to Magdeburg were projected, the 
 Prussian authorities of those days reported that they 
 had had very careful observations made as to the 
 amount of traffic between the cities in question, and 
 they found it would be insufficient to support even a 
 single line of railway. Inspired by such assertions as 
 these, Prussian financiers kept their money back for 
 safer investments. In Bavaria, again, one of the chief 
 medical authorities in the State, who had been evolving 
 railway dangers from the depths of his inner conscious- 
 ness, went to Ludwig I. and assured him that, not only 
 passengers, but spectators also, would have their brains 
 seriously affected by the new steam conveyances ; and, 
 in the interests of the general public, at least, he advised 
 that lofty hoardings should be erected alongside the 
 lines, so as to shut out the view of the trains. 
 
 Under this combination of circumstances it was left 
 
 241 16 
 
242 THE RAILWAYS OF GERMANY 
 
 to private enterprise to take the initiative in railway 
 construction in Germany, the State remaining in the 
 background until individual pioneers had shown the way. 
 
 The apostle of the railway movement there was a 
 certain Professor Friedrich List, who returned to 
 Germany in 1832 after a seven years' residence in 
 America, and projected the construction of a consider- 
 able network of railways, with Leipzig as a centre. 
 The difficulties he encountered at the outset were 
 enormous; but news of what was being done in England 
 stimulated interest in the subject, and the opening, in 
 1835, of the first German railway between Niirnberg and 
 Fiirth (a distance of about 4 miles) was followed, two 
 years later, by that of the first section (covering a 
 length of 5! miles) of the Leipzig-Dresden line. Even 
 in 1838 the Berlin-Potsdam line was regarded as little 
 more than an experiment, and it was not until 1840 
 that the official prejudices against railways began to 
 disappear. 
 
 When the awakening came in Prussia, the idea of the 
 new and important * force ' represented by the loco- 
 motive remaining in the hands of private companies was 
 regarded with much aversion by the official classes, who 
 then began to think that, if railways there were to 
 be, it was they who should have the control of them. 
 But even a State cannot build railways without having 
 a substantial amount of capital available for the purpose, 
 and the political situation in Prussia between 1840 and 
 1847 was distinctly unfavourable to the raising by the 
 State of large funds for railway construction. All that 
 the Government could then do was to grant concessions to 
 private companies (not for any fixed term of years, as in 
 France, but with an understanding that the State would 
 be at liberty to undertake itself the operation of the lines 
 at such time as it thought fit), and to guarantee to the 
 
STATE ACTION 243 
 
 companies the payment of 3^ per cent, interest on their 
 capital. When the net profits exceeded 5 per cent, the 
 surplus was to be devoted (a) to paying back the ad- 
 vances made by the State in respect to guarantee of 
 interest ; (6) to the formation of a fund from which 
 further advances could be made when necessary ; or (c) 
 to the buying up by the State of shares in the under- 
 takings. In some instances the State further sought to 
 stimulate enterprise in railway construction by at once 
 purchasing shares in a company, in addition to giving 
 the guarantee of interest. 
 
 In this way the scruples of financiers began to be 
 overcome no less successfully than the previous scruples 
 of the leading officials, and between 1843 and 1847 there 
 were started in Prussia some seventeen new railway 
 companies, which opened up communication between 
 inland towns and such ports as Hamburg and Bremen. 
 Following on the political troubles of 1848, Prussia's 
 rulers were able to get control of larger funds for 
 railway purposes, and the State came to the relief of a 
 number of lines which had suffered as the result of the 
 crisis, completing the construction of some, and taking 
 over the operation of a number that were practically 
 bankrupt. 
 
 Meanwhile, other German States had also been show- 
 ing more or less activity. Brunswick was the first 
 to build State railways. In Baden a line from Mann- 
 heim to Heidelberg had been constructed at the public 
 cost, since no company was willing to run the risk. In 
 Wurtemberg some main lines were started by private 
 enterprise, but the company failed, and the State had 
 to take over the work. Bavaria had a like experience. 
 In Hanover the State system was adopted from the 
 first. In Saxony the State sought to encourage private 
 enterprise by subscribing for shares in the companies to 
 
 1 6 2 
 
244 THE RAILWAYS OF GERMANY 
 
 which concessions were granted, and guaranteeing the 
 payment of interest ; but when, in 1845, it became a 
 matter of building a line from Dresden to the Austrian 
 frontier, the State had to carry out the undertaking 
 itself. In Hesse also the system was ' mixed,' some of 
 the lines being built by the Grand Duchy, and some by 
 private companies. 
 
 Between 1851 and 1860 there was in Prussia an 
 especially active development of railways, including a 
 number constructed by the Government to serve stra- 
 tegical as well as commercial purposes. In 1862-1866 
 Prince Bismarck, then in chronic conflict with the 
 majority in the Prussian Diet, had difficulty in getting 
 his Budgets passed, and he made his first resort to the 
 raising of money from the railways as a means of 
 replenishing the treasury (especially for army purposes) 
 independently of the Prussian Parliament. This he 
 did by granting concessions for new railways on es- 
 pecially favourable terms, the companies being willing 
 to pay generously when, for instance, they were absolved 
 from the obligation to sell out to the State, on demand, 
 on the merely nominal value of their shares. After 
 1866 Bismarck's relations with the Parliamentary 
 majority improved, while the incorporation of Hanover, 
 Hesse-Cassel, Nassau, and Frankfort, as well as Schles- 
 wig-Holstein and Lauenburg, led to a substantial 
 expansion of the Prussian State system of railways. 
 The further result of the wars with Denmark and 
 Austria was to give great impetus in Prussia to railway 
 expansion in general. The Prussian State especially 
 became still more enterprising, building lines which, in 
 some instances, competed with those of the companies 
 to whom it had granted concessions, so that the com- 
 panies, in their turn, sought to defend their own interests 
 by a resort to amalgamation. 
 
BISMARCKIAN TACTICS 245 
 
 The other States of Germany also continued more or 
 less active; but the fact that each particular State 
 maintained its own particular railway policy had led to 
 much confusion, especially in regard to through traffic. 
 In some States the railways were all controlled by the 
 Government ; in others they all belonged to companies ; 
 while in others, again, some belonged to the State and 
 some to private companies. Whatever the general 
 conditions, the rivalries of numerous small systems, the 
 jealousies of one State towards another, and the endless 
 and almost bewildering complications of the tariffs and 
 general arrangements were the despair of traders, and 
 a decided obstacle to the expansion of Germany's com- 
 mercial interests. 
 
 These conditions were rendered still worse by the 
 feverish haste with which the work of railway con- 
 struction throughout Germany, and especially in 
 Prussia, was taken up at the end of the Franco-German 
 War of 1870-1871. But the active brain of Prince 
 Bismarck had already projected a scheme which would 
 have meant not only complete uniformity for German 
 railways as a whole, but much more besides. He pro- 
 posed that all the railways of all the different States 
 should be bought up and operated "by the Empire as a 
 * Reichseisenbahn ' system, instead of each State having 
 its own independent network, whether ' Staatseisen- 
 bahn,' or private, or both. 
 
 The beginnings of such an Imperial railway system 
 then already existed in Alsace-Lorraine, where the lines 
 operated by the Eastern of France Company had been 
 taken over by Germany, compensation to the amount 
 of 13,000,000 being paid to the company out of the 
 war indemnity imposed on France. The railways of 
 Alsace-Lorraine thus became (and they have since re- 
 mained) the property of the * German Empire/ as dis- 
 
246 THE RAILWAYS OF GERMANY 
 
 tinct from the lines belonging to individual States ; and 
 Prince Bismarck's idea was that around the nucleus 
 thus brought into existence all the railways of Germany 
 should be grouped. 
 
 To this project, however, strong opposition was 
 raised by Bavaria, Wlirtemberg, Saxony, and other 
 States. They wished to maintain the independence of 
 their own railway systems, and they were especially 
 unwilling that the representatives of the ' Reich ' 
 should take out of their hands the making of thousands 
 of appointments to the railway service, and the allotting 
 of valuable contracts for railway construction. Afraid 
 lest Prince Bismarck might, after all, buy up the 
 private railways behind their backs, several of the States 
 which had not already got a complete system of ' State ' 
 railways hastened to acquire one by themselves 
 purchasing the private systems within the limits of 
 their own boundaries. 
 
 Bismarck's dream of a great Imperial system of rail- 
 ways, belonging to and operated by the * Reich,' in the 
 interests thereof, remained unfulfilled. But those who 
 thought they had checked so bold a schemer reckoned 
 without their host. 
 
 What Prince Bismarck could not get for the Empire 
 he proceeded to get (as far as he could) for Prussia ! 
 Instead of disposing of the Prussian State system to 
 the ' Reich ' as he had been quite ready to do he not 
 only strengthened it by fresh purchases of private lines 
 within the limits of Prussia, but he acquired possession 
 for Prussia of practically all the main routes of railway 
 communication in North Germany, whether they were 
 in the Prussian boundaries or not. No compulsion was 
 offered to the companies, but they were offered such 
 generous, and even in some instances such extravagant, 
 terms that they found it to their interest to sell. 
 
THE PRUSSIAN SYSTEM 247 
 
 In was in 1878-1879 that the Prussian Diet resolved 
 upon its policy of State purchase, and it was on April i, 
 1880, that the policy was formally inaugurated. At 
 that time the Prussian State system comprised about 
 3,760 miles of railway, of which the State had itself 
 constructed all but about 470 miles. In 1883-1884 the 
 Government was especially active in buying up such 
 privately-owned lines either in Prussia or in neighbour- 
 ing States as were thought worth taking over and could 
 be secured. By April i, 1900 that is to say, within ten 
 years of the new programme being begun the length 
 of the State lines in Prussia had been increased to 
 16,725 miles ; while the Minister of Public Works also 
 exercised supervision over 2,127 miles of railway in other 
 German States, making a total of 18,852 miles, ex- 
 clusive of lines authorized or under construction. 
 
 The influence of Prussia on the railway policy and 
 practice in Germany thus became supreme north of the 
 Main ; for though Mecklenburg and Oldenburg re- 
 tained their State systems, any attitude they might 
 adopt that was opposed to the administration of the 
 Prussian system would be little more than a negligible 
 quantity. While, again, in the South, Saxony, Bavaria, 
 Wiirtemberg, and Baden also remain independent, it is 
 scarcely possible for them to carry out a line of railway 
 policy of which Prussia may disapprove ; and the ex- 
 pectation is, rather, that in course of time still other 
 States will follow the example set by Hesse-Darmstadt, 
 which combined her railway system with that of Prussia 
 in April, 1897. 
 
 When the Bismarckian scheme for the State purchase 
 and the State operation of private railways in Prussia 
 was still under consideration, there was an expectation 
 on the part of its chief supporters in the political 
 world of Berlin that it would serve the purposes of 
 
248 THE RAILWAYS OF GERMANY 
 
 (i) State policy and (2) national, and especially traders', 
 interests. 
 
 Under the first head railway tariffs were to play 
 an important role in supporting and strengthening 
 Prussia's protective policy. In certain cases the in- 
 creased import duties, which aimed at fostering native 
 industries, were nullified by the action of the railway 
 companies in lowering their rates on imports. In other 
 cases, as a matter of ordinary railway policy, the 
 companies granted special rates for goods imported and 
 carried in large quantities. By controlling the Prussian 
 railways, Bismarck would be able to check both of these 
 practices, and render hostile tariffs on foreign imports 
 still more effective. 
 
 Under the second head it was assumed, among other 
 things, that when the Prussian railways were no longer 
 exploited by companies having an eye to dividends, the 
 traders (except in regard to imports) would gain very 
 substantial reductions in rates and charges. 
 
 The former of these two assumptions has certainly 
 been realized to the full, but the same cannot be said of 
 the latter. 
 
 German writers who deal with the events of this 
 particular period show that, in respect to the future of 
 railway rates in Prussia, under the new regime of State 
 control a threefold development was anticipated : 
 
 1. Until the railway system of the country as a whole 
 had been developed, the scales of rates which had been 
 charged by the companies must, they held, be con- 
 tinued by the Government, to provide funds for exten- 
 sions, etc., and also in order that the surplus from the 
 remunerative lines should cover the losses incurred in 
 the operation of unremunerative lines. 
 
 2. In proportion as the entire railway system ad- 
 vanced towards completion, the fares, rates, and charges 
 
HOPES AND ANTICIPATIONS 249 
 
 would be reduced, so as to fall as closely as might be 
 within the principle that such fares, rates, and charges 
 should do no more than meet working expenses ; though 
 the fact was realized that in this middle period the income 
 would require to be such as would allow also of payment 
 of interest on capital and the redemption of bonds. 
 
 3. When eventually the bonds had all been paid off, 
 and the lines were free of debt, the fares, rates, and 
 charges would be still further reduced to such a point, 
 in fact, as to do little more than just cover the cost of 
 operation. 
 
 Such were the anticipations cherished by those who 
 favoured Prince Bismarck's purchase scheme, but they 
 were speedily doomed to disappointment. 
 
 The operation of the Prussian railways by the State 
 has undoubtedly been most successful from a purely 
 financial standpoint. Built mainly on the level plains 
 of which Northern Germany chiefly consists, the lines 
 (even including bridges over important rivers) had cost 
 less than half the amount per mile to construct that 
 railways here have cost, and much less even than 
 the lines in the South of Germany. Then, on the 
 other hand, they served the interests, not only of 
 densely-populated localities, but also of a great variety 
 of important industrial districts, which afforded big 
 loads and long hauls far in excess, generally speaking, 
 of what can be secured under normal conditions in 
 England. Nothing but gross mismanagement could 
 have failed to make the Prussian State railway system 
 a source of profit, especially with the industrial impetus 
 that followed the Franco -German War; though the 
 returns from railway operation in the other German 
 States are not anything like so high as in Prussia."' 1 ' 
 
 * ' C'est en Prusse seulement que les voies fernfes Deficient de 
 conditions exceptionellement avantageuses [in Germany], et c'est 
 
250 THE RAILWAYS OF GERMANY 
 
 In effect, Prince Bismarck soon realized that, after 
 paying working expenses and meeting annual charges 
 in respect to interest and sinking fund, Prussia's State 
 railways were yielding a handsome return. According 
 to the theorists, the profits thus made should, as we 
 have seen, have been applied, partly to improvements, 
 and partly to reductions of fares, rates, and charges 
 until these attained to an absolute minimum. 
 
 But Prince Bismarck had his own ideas on the sub- 
 ject. Whether or not he had had them all along one 
 cannot say ; but certain it is that when those handsome 
 surpluses began to appear, he appropriated them for the 
 general and special purposes of his Government. What 
 he particularly desired was to have control of substantial 
 funds independently of such votes as he might induce 
 the Prussian Diet to pass. To win the support of certain 
 political groups he had consented to an abatement of 
 taxes in some directions and to increases of expenditure 
 in others, and the railway surpluses both enabled him 
 to make up the deficiency thus caused without asking 
 for more money from the Diet, and also put him in 
 possession of funds for purposes in respect to which the 
 Diet would probably have refused him a vote even if 
 he had asked for one. In other words, the State rail- 
 ways became for Prince Bismarck and for the Chan- 
 cellors who have succeeded him what has appropriately 
 
 la Prusse seule qui tire de ses chemins de fer d'Etat de reel 
 be'ne'fices. Dans les autres Etats de 1'Empire, Baviere, Saxe, 
 Wiirtemberg, Bade, Alsace-Lorraine, le revenu net des chemins de 
 fer varie de 2*50 a 4-50 per cent, du capital. Le re"seau prussien 
 (fusionm* avec celui de la Hesse) donne un produit net de 
 688 millions [,27,520,000] pour un capital de 10,506 millions 
 [,420,240,000], soit 6-56 per cent. Le revenue kilometrique 
 atteint 5 5,000 ""francs sans que le cout moyen des lignes de"passe 
 330,000 francs, la facilit^ du pays compensant 1'extension plus 
 grand e des installations.' Revue Generate des Chemins de Fer, 
 August, 1904. 
 
PROFITS AND STATE FINANCES 251 
 
 been described as ' a revenue-producing machine,' con- 
 stituting, in fact, ' one of the chief sources of revenue 
 to the State.' The extent to which this has been the 
 case may be judged from the following table, which 
 gives, in round figures, the net proceeds from the Prus- 
 sian State railways for the years stated, and the propor- 
 tion they bear to the invested capital. The latter stood 
 on March 31, 1904, at 430,000,000 : 
 
 Year. 
 
 
 
 Net Proceeds. 
 
 Percentage on 
 Capital. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1894-1895 
 
 
 
 19,000,000 
 
 5-66 
 
 1895-1896 
 
 
 
 23,000,000 
 
 675 
 
 1896-1897 
 
 
 
 25,000,000 
 
 7*15 
 
 1897-1898 
 
 
 
 27,OOO,OOO 
 
 7-07 
 
 1898-1899 
 
 
 
 28,000,000 
 
 7-28 
 
 1899-1900 
 
 
 
 28,000,000 
 
 7-28 
 
 I900-I90I 
 
 
 
 28,000,000 
 
 7-14 
 
 I90I-I902 
 
 
 
 26,OOO,OOO 
 
 6-41 
 
 1902-1903 
 
 
 
 27,000,000 
 
 6*54 
 
 1903-1904 
 
 
 
 31,000,000 
 
 7-12 
 
 The amounts actually entered on the Prussian 
 Budgets for the last four years as revenue from the 
 railways, available for ordinary and extraordinary ex- 
 penses, have been 1900-1901, 27,400,000 ; 1901-1902, 
 28,950,000 ; 1902 - 1903, 27,250,000 ; 1903 - 1904, 
 24,850,000. The estimate for the year ending March 31, 
 1905, was 29,400,000. 
 
 On these facts it is to be remarked, in the first place, 
 that persistent accusations have been brought in Ger- 
 many against the Prussian Government that they have 
 worked the State railways more with a view to the pro- 
 duction of revenue to meet their own purposes than 
 with a strict regard either to the efficient maintenance 
 of the lines or to the needs of the public. 
 
252 THE RAILWAYS OF GERMANY 
 
 These accusations have been energetically denied by 
 those concerned in the administration of the railways ; 
 but they are, nevertheless, confirmed by some striking 
 statements made by Mr. H. B. Meyer in a series of 
 articles on ' The State Ownership of Railways,' con- 
 tributed by him to the Railway Age of Chicago in 
 1903. Discussing the physical condition of the Prussian 
 State railways, he declares that the practice of a rigid 
 economy has resulted in the provision of insufficient 
 tracks to meet the volume of traffic, in neglect to bring 
 the road-bed up to the mark, and in the retention of 
 antiquated types both of rolling stock and of hauling, 
 so that blocks occur in the traffic and accidents to 
 trains are more frequent than they should be. ' It 
 would cost,' he says, ' hundreds of millions of dollars to 
 bring the Prussian railways up to the American standard 
 of efficiency ;' but the Prussian Government is unwilling, 
 he adds, to incur that expenditure, partly because it 
 fears that the railway surplus may be temporarily im- 
 paired to such an extent as to disorganize the national 
 finances, and partly because it appreciates the fact that 
 a railway of the American standard cannot be made to 
 justify itself unless the management shall carry to the 
 utmost limit the policy of charging what the traffic 
 will bear. 
 
 The statements made by Mr. Meyer are so serious 
 that one may hesitate to accept them without having 
 confirmation from an independent source. But such 
 confirmation will be found in a report on the ' Coal 
 Industry of the Rhenish Westphalian Provinces ' made 
 to the Foreign Office in 1898 by Mr. T. R. Mulvany, 
 H.B.M.'s Consul at Dusseldorf. After speaking of the 
 requirements of the Prussian State railways in rolling 
 stock, ' which,' he remarks, ' have been so much neg- 
 lected,' he goes on to say : 
 
CONDITION OF THE PRUSSIAN LINES 253 
 
 It would appear that the State railway authorities are awakening 
 to the fact of the necessity of improvement in the construction of 
 the permanent way, which is the inevitable result of the heavier 
 class of locomotives and the higher speeds of traffic. Their atten- 
 tion has been repeatedly drawn to this matter by associations of 
 engineers, men who long since saw that the rails in use were much 
 too light to stand this additional strain ; but the danger of the 
 present system has been especially brought home to them by the 
 alarming number of fatal accidents which have taken place through 
 trains leaving the rails, not only at points, but on main lines. 
 The traffic, goods and passenger, has so enormously increased 
 and the requirements are so great that speed has to be accelerated 
 so much that trains approach, enter, or pass through stations, 
 under the use of the automatic brake, at speeds formerly unknown 
 in this country, but still far behind those of England ; so that, were 
 it not for the discipline and good management of traffic officials, 
 the number of accidents would be far more alarming than they are. 
 In former times travelling in Germany by rail was notoriously safer 
 than in perhaps any other part of the world. 
 
 If the permanent way is in fault, which it appears in a great 
 measure admittedly to be, probably the reason is not to be found 
 merely in the section and weight of rails, but in the mode of 
 spiking them down direct on the sleepers without chairs and side 
 wedges, as used in England, where the rails are said to be heavier ; 
 possibly also, a sufficient amount of suitable ballast not being used, 
 the roads are not elastic enough for high speed. 
 
 Mr. Mulvany gives some figures showing the especially 
 heavy goods traffic in the Westphalian coal and iron 
 districts, where, in addition, an increasing amount of 
 local and through (' international ') passenger traffic 
 has to be dealt with, and he continues : 
 
 Many years ago a man who was an authority on industrial and 
 railway matters, foreseeing the development of which the country 
 was capable, advocated the laying down, at least on through-going 
 routes, of four lines of rails two for goods and two for passengers 
 so that the fast and slow traffic might be kept separate and 
 distinct. Of course, the adoption of this system, under the greatly 
 increased value of land, buildings, and building sites, would now 
 involve the expenditure of a much larger amount of capital than 
 would have been at that time necessary; but unless canals are 
 constructed to relieve the railways of the heavier portion of the 
 goods traffic, it must doubtless sooner or later be done. 
 
 Placed in similar conditions in regard to growth of 
 traffic, the railway companies of the United Kingdom 
 
254 THE RAILWAYS OF GERMANY 
 
 and the United States have not hesitated to expend very 
 large sums indeed on the widening and general im- 
 provement of their lines in order to fulfil their obliga- 
 tions towards the public ; but State control in Germany 
 studies economy, cannot run the risk of interference 
 with State finances, and, instead of bringing the railways 
 up to date, leaves the traders to find relief in a greater 
 resort to rivers and canals ! 
 
 The outcome of State purchase in Prussia was thus 
 very different as regards the financial results of oper- 
 ating the railways from what the German traders had 
 been led to expect. Nor were the results in respect to 
 a uniformity of rates and charges such as those for 
 which Prince Bismarck himself had hoped. 
 
 Theoretically, the basis of railway rates in Germany 
 was that of equal mileage, so that, given the weight, 
 the distance, and the classification, it became still 
 theoretically a simple sum in arithmetic to say how 
 much the transport of a commodity from one point to 
 another would cost. In the early days this principle 
 was adhered to with tolerable consistency. But German 
 experience, like that of England, of France, and of other 
 countries, found that equal mileage, as a general prac- 
 tice, was impracticable. Commodities of substantial 
 bulk, but low value, consigned in large quantities, for 
 long distances, could not bear a rate which was as high, 
 in proportion, for, say, the second or third score or 
 hundred of miles as for the first ; so that an ideal 
 uniformity of charge was, in such cases as these, 
 abandoned many years ago in favour of what is known 
 in Germany as a ' Staffel ' tariff a tariff, that is to say, 
 which is identical with the English practice of reducing 
 the charge per ton proportionately with increased length 
 of haul. The system introduced from Alsace-Lorraine, 
 of paying so much for a 5-ton or zo-ton truck, irrespec- 
 
RATES AND CHARGES 255 
 
 tive of the value and classification of the consignments 
 loaded into it, represented another deviation from the 
 principle of uniformity. Still more fatal to the main- 
 tenance of this same principle was the concession of 
 those * special ' or ' exceptional ' rates for export, transit, 
 or other classes of merchandise, under which about 
 50 per cent, of the total goods traffic in Germany is 
 carried.* 
 
 One sees, therefore, how the aspirations even of so 
 determined a statesman as Prince Bismarck had, in the 
 matter of an ideal uniformity in railway charges, to 
 surrender to actual commercial conditions. The theory 
 of an absolute simplicity in German railway rates and 
 charges as a whole cannot, in fact, be maintained ; 
 while such ' uniformity ' as does exist to-day has been 
 preserved mainly at the cost of free competition. 
 
 There lies before me as I write a printed catalogue 
 
 * Much detailed information as to the nature of the special or 
 exceptional tariffs in force on the Prussian State railways is 
 contained in the reports on 'Bounties to Ships and Preferential 
 Railway Rates ' (C. 8,720) issued by the Foreign Office in 1898. 
 The largest proportion of such rates will be found to have been 
 granted in order ' to encourage exports,' or to insure the transit of 
 merchandise via Prussian railways and ports, in preference to the 
 railways and ports of other States or countries. Competition with 
 traffic on the Rhine or other waterways also enters into con- 
 sideration. The minimum quantity to which preferential rates are 
 applied is a lo-ton waggon-load. Certain rates in respect to coal, 
 coke, and briquettes are granted only when the trader guarantees 
 a fixed quantity per year. Lignite must go in 20- ton lots to get 
 the lowest rates, and the * contract train ' system for coal from 
 Westphalia to Dutch and Belgian ports applies only to consignments 
 of from 200 to 300 tons. Generally speaking, the differential rates 
 are from 50 to 100 per cent, lower than the ordinary rates ; but 
 Mr. Mulvany, British Consul at Diisseldorf, writes that while the 
 State railways do encourage export trade and the importation of 
 such raw materials as are indispensable, for instance, for the 
 manufacture of certain classes of pig-iron (thus supporting the 
 protective policy of the Government), this is done ' always with 
 due regard to profits on railway management as a source of revenue 
 to the State.' 
 
256 THE RAILWAYS OF GERMANY 
 
 of the various tariffs in force either between different 
 railways in Germany or between these and the railway 
 systems of other countries. This catalogue alone repre- 
 sents a foolscap-sized book of 220 pages. With the 
 tariffs in respect to passengers and live stock I have 
 here no concern ; but, taking those that refer to general 
 merchandise, I find that the sum total of separate 
 tariffs specified is no fewer than 539. Of these, 243 
 are domestic tariffs, applying to the different State or 
 private railway systems within the German Empire ; 
 226 are tariffs arranged between German and foreign 
 railways for traffic arising in, or destined for, Germany ; 
 and 70 are tariffs which apply to traffic passing through 
 Germany in transit from one foreign country to another. 
 The figure I have given above (539) would seem to 
 represent the number of tariffs still in operation ; but 
 in the official catalogue the last of the general mer- 
 chandise tariffs on the list (from which, presumably, 
 excisions have been made from time to time as new 
 tariffs have taken the place of old ones) is ' No. 1099.' 
 For tariffs relating to coal there is a separate catalogue, 
 which, in the various departments of * home ' and 
 ' foreign,' gives a total of 115. 
 
 These figures help also to throw light on the raison 
 d'etre for the operations of the German forwarding 
 agent. Calling one day on a member of a firm of such 
 agents in one of the leading cities in Germany, I asked 
 him if he would be good enough to justify to me his 
 continued commercial existence. He explained, in the 
 first place, the principles on which a forwarding agent 
 operates in collecting from the public consignments 
 which can be grouped into 5-ton or lo-ton lots for par- 
 ticular destinations; and then he took me to a cupboard 
 occupying one side of his room, threw open the doors, 
 and showed me a long row of bulky volumes, saying : 
 
TARIFF COMPLICATIONS 257 
 
 These represent a mere section of the tariffs for general mer- 
 chandise in operation in Germany. Look at a map of Europe, 
 and you will see that not only is Germany in herself a big country, 
 comprising various States, but she is surrounded by a number of 
 other countries with which she is in direct trading and railway 
 communication, while a vast amount of traffic passes through 
 Germany from or to England, Russia, Italy, or elsewhere. A 
 forwarding agent in Germany requires to have at his fingers' ends 
 information as to traffic relations with all these different States or 
 lands. I must, for instance, be prepared to advise, if necessary, 
 as to the cheapest route for the sending of a consignment of goods 
 from Stockholm to Naples, or solve some other such problem with 
 which only an expert could deal. The whole business is so com- 
 plicated far more so than anything coming within the experience 
 of your average consigner in England that the ordinary merchant 
 may well prefer to resort to the help of specialists in such matters, 
 apart altogether from the question of any possible saving in cost of 
 transport. 
 
 German traders, accustomed to dealing with these 
 said specialists, were, perhaps, less concerned about 
 the realization of Bismarckian dreams of railway tariff 
 uniformity than they were desirous of seeing substantial 
 rate reductions and other advantages to themselves as 
 the result of State purchase. 
 
 To give in a nutshell the outcome of the general 
 position in Germany, I would say : The traders engaged 
 in export business have gained very material advan- 
 tages, by the concession to them of exceptionally low 
 export rates, while the traders who do an exclusively 
 home business are worse off under a State than they 
 would have been under a company regime. 
 
 The former, in accordance with the German national 
 policy of commercial expansion abroad, get every pos- 
 sible help and encouragement in the consignment of 
 their produce or their manufactures to foreign markets, 
 the exceptional export rates charged to them being such 
 as will, in most cases, only just cover working expenses. 
 The big returns on railway operation with which suc- 
 cessive Chancellors have helped to swell their treasuries 
 come mostly from the home traders. 
 
 17 
 
THE RAILWAYS OF GERMANY 
 
 Experience in Germany has shown that the position 
 of a State railway system in regard to home traders is 
 very different from that in regard to exporters. In the 
 latter case the lines of operation are clearly defined 
 and fairly uniform, the one point aimed at being the 
 improvement of the country's position on certain 
 foreign markets. But in the case of home markets, 
 ;i State operating its own railways has to deal with 
 a swarm of producing or consuming areas permeated 
 with local jealousies, regarding with bitterness and 
 ill-feeling any advantage secured by one town and with- 
 held from another, and ever clamouring that a State 
 railway should not benefit one district at the expense 
 of another. 
 
 In Great Britain or in the United States a railway 
 company will do what it can to foster business on 
 its own network of lines without regard to what 
 another company may or may not do elsewhere. But 
 in Germany a State railway must ' hold the balance,' 
 if it can or as well as it can between rival towns 
 throughout the whole of the territory in which it 
 operates. Concessions in one direction will encourage 
 fresh demands or provoke bitter complaints in another, 
 so that, in addition to the disadvantages from which 
 traders must naturally suffer where any alteration in 
 rates is a matter of much State circumlocution, the 
 tendency of responsible railway officials in Germany is 
 not to make any changes in domestic rates at all if they 
 can possibly avoid them. Should they, nevertheless, 
 favour the reduction of a particular rate, it may very 
 well take from six to twelve months (if not still Ion 
 to pass the matter through the various forms of official 
 routine. Even then, when the matter seems to have 
 been satisfactorily settled, word may be received from 
 still higher quarters that, owing to the condition of the 
 
POSITION OF THE TRADER 259 
 
 national finances, no further concessions in railway 
 rates can be permitted** 
 
 In the articles by Mr. Meyer already referred to, 
 their is much interesting information respecting the 
 (hawUicks German liaders have experienced as I lie. 
 ilt of the State purchase of their railways. Among 
 other testimony, Mr. Meyer <j notes a statement made 
 by Mr. Jencke, who was at one time connected with 
 the State railways of Saxony, and afterwards became 
 chairman of the executive committee of Krupp and Co. 
 In Mr. i opinion, if the ehief lines of railway in 
 
 North Germany had not passed under the control of 
 the Prussian Government, the rates on iron ores from 
 Alsace-Lorraine to the Ruhr district would have been 
 materially reduced. He proceeds: 
 
 % 
 
 'There were a number of competing coal-mining, iron mmm;;, 
 and iron and steel producing localities all <\< upon one 
 
 .Stair system ol railways. A reduction in la n lo one 
 
 dislri'l or totality must In- followed by t onnlei bala HMD;.; redm - 
 lions in others, in order that no one should be ;;iven an undue 
 advantage. The vanoir, dr.lntt railway < OIIIK il ,, as well as 
 spei ially appointed t oimms ,ion ,, weie tonslanlly r:n;;aged Upon 
 ihe most ininiite investigation', i nto the relative cost of mining coal 
 
 and non, and prod IK in;; pi;; uon, at difleienl < ' nti -. in < , i n, 
 \vitli a vi' nninendin^ jir.l and relatively reasonable lailway 
 
 differentials, and these lions inevilably consumed nun h 
 
 lime ;ind delayed at lion. Tims the. iron inN-i < ,i . < ,\ i|,e I .aim and 
 in i Ms. hatl as!:ed foi lowei iales, antl not until i !;>'/> had the 
 
 mm' nt bet ome it-ady to at t. I'.nt the general public itself 
 must share with tin: State ihe i esponsibilil y t>l 
 
 jealousy of t ompctm;; protlu- n . led ea< h re;;ion It) tlispnle 
 
 tlie li;;m ' , a , to t o ,i ol production |*ut fort li l>y t he ol hei regions, 
 
 * 'Dan, la dr, Mission du budget des chemins de fer [in the 
 
 ii I )iet] on a rdproche*, comme tous les ans, au gouven 
 prussien d'absprber pom rantes nne partie du 
 
 botii des tliemin n lien d'opi'-M-.r des reductions de ' 
 
 toniine tpus les air. il a irpo'du que la situ.ilion finan- icre ne 
 
 permettait pa--, tit f.me d'autrei degrevementi que ceux qui ieraient 
 reconnua twcefsaifM pour ddvelopper le traffic.' Revue 
 
 </<<, C/iciiuns tic J''er, August, i'/>|. 
 
 17-2 
 
260 THE RAILWAYS OF GERMANY 
 
 and the Government found it extremely difficult to make an adjust- 
 ment of rates satisfactory to each party to the controversy. . . . 
 The existing rates had been in force since 1881. In the meantime 
 reductions of all kinds had been effected in the cost of producing 
 pig-iron, so that the transportation charges had come to constitute 
 25 per cent, of the cost of making pig-iron. That proportion must 
 be contrasted with the 10 per cent, borne by the transportation 
 charges to the total cost of producing iron in Great Britain, 
 Germany's principal competitor in the international markets.' 
 
 For no less a period than sixteen years, it seems, the 
 manufacturers in the Ruhr district asked for lower rates 
 for iron ores from Alsace-Lorraine. They failed to get 
 them, because, as the Minister of Public Works stated 
 in the Prussian Diet, the Government would not give 
 any preference to the Ruhr over other iron-producing 
 centres. 'It would not do,' he said, 'to give rates 
 which would allow one district to grow more rapidly 
 than another district. Equal treatment must be 
 accorded to all. The Government could not make 
 reductions which would render it liable even to the 
 suspicion of preferring one district.' So it was that, 
 instead of increasing their supplies of iron ore from 
 Alsace-Lorraine, brought by rail, the Ruhr manu- 
 facturers found it better to import raw material from 
 Sweden or Spain, from which countries it could come 
 all the way by sea and river. 
 
 That local jealousies or conflicting interests may, 
 again, sometimes be effectually backed up by political 
 influences in the operation of a State railway is shown 
 by another story which Mr. Meyer relates. 
 
 In 1888 the representatives of the agricultural interests 
 of Eastern Prussia petitioned the Government to reduce 
 by 66 per cent, the railway rates on grain, which had 
 not been altered since 1877. So high were these rates 
 that the agriculturists of Eastern Prussia could not send 
 grain by rail direct to the great industrial centres on the 
 Rhine. They had to despatch it in river vessels by the 
 
TROUBLES OF A STATE RAILWAY 261 
 
 Oder or the Vistula to the Baltic, where it was trans- 
 ferred to ocean-going steamers, which took it to Rotter- 
 dam. There it was re-transferred to river vessels, and 
 taken along the Rhine until some point on the river was 
 reached that would be comparatively near the town to 
 which the grain was destined. Then, at last, it would 
 be loaded into railway waggons, and so conveyed the 
 remainder of the distance. But this roundabout route 
 was found to be cheaper than if the grain had gone all 
 the way by rail. 
 
 At first the Government declined to make any reduc- 
 tion in rates, on the ground that their doing so would 
 constitute an inequitable departure from the railway 
 department's scheme of uniform rates, since it would 
 benefit the landholders of Eastern Prussia at the expense 
 of those of Central, Western, and Southern Germany, 
 whose markets would thus be opened to Eastern grain. 
 But in 1891 extended crop failures induced the Prussian 
 Government to lower the rates on grain and flour in the 
 interests of the mining and factory population of the 
 Rhine provinces, and there was an immediate and sub- 
 stantial increase in the quantities of both grain and 
 flour sent by rail. Thereupon the Government of 
 Saxony protested that the farmers and millers of that 
 State ought not to be exposed to the competition of 
 Prussian farmers and millers, and finally, in 1894, the 
 Governments of Saxony, Baden, Wurtemberg, and 
 Bavaria notified the Prussian Government that, unless 
 the reduced rates on grain were discontinued, their 
 representatives in the Reichstag and in the Bundesrath 
 would not vote for the Imperial Bill authorizing a com- 
 mercial treaty with Russia. The rates were then 
 restored to the point at which they had been fixed in 
 
 The combined result of (i) the inadequate develop- 
 
262 THE RAILWAYS OF GERMANY 
 
 ment of the Prussian State railways ; (2) the iron- 
 bound system of domestic rates and charges thereon, 
 owing to local jealousies and political pressure ; and (3) 
 the desire of the Prussian Government to secure as 
 substantial a revenue from the railways as practicable, 
 has been to drive the German traders more and more to 
 the use of the waterways wherever this alternative was 
 open to them. For a variety of reasons it was to the 
 direct advantage of the Government to encourage them 
 in so doing. A greater resort to the waterways meant 
 that the traders of the country would be rendered less 
 exacting in regard to those demands for reductions of 
 railway rates which the various conditions already 
 narrated made it sometimes so difficult, if not impossible, 
 to grant. With, again, the carrying on the waterways 
 of a considerable proportion of the heavy traffic that 
 would otherwise go by rail, or not at all, the risks of 
 congestion on the railways were decreased, and there 
 would be a less urgent need for the expenditure of such 
 large sums of money as those suggested by Mr. Meyer 
 for bringing the lines up to date and providing for the 
 natural growth of traffic an expenditure which must 
 have interfered seriously with the balances that were 
 rendering the Government so far independent of Parlia- 
 mentary votes. An active waterway development policy, 
 for which generous supplies could be secured, suited the 
 ideas of the Government much better than an active 
 railway improvement policy, which might have absorbed 
 the very convenient sources of revenue the Government 
 found in the railway profits. 
 
 So, as I have said, the German trader was left to find 
 relief in a greater resort to the waterways, the expansion 
 of which during recent years has been far in excess of 
 the growth of the railways. Since 1875 the traffic per 
 ton per mile on the railways has increased only from 
 
THE RESORT TO WATERWAYS 263 
 
 410,000 tons to 740,000, while the corresponding in- 
 crease on the waterways has been from 290,000 tons per 
 mile to 1,150,000. 
 
 It may well be that the waterways, as the result of 
 the very substantial expenditure on their increase and 
 betterment, have created a good deal of fresh busines 
 for themselves. It is no less certain, however, that they 
 have diverted a good deal of business from the State 
 railways, besides absorbing the increased business the 
 railways would otherwise have done. This fact is 
 brought out very clearly by Herr Franz Ulrich in his 
 book on ' Staffeltarife und Wasserstrassen ' (Berlin : 
 Julius Springer). The author shows in great detail 
 how enormously water carriage has grown within the 
 limits of the German Empire, such growth relating not 
 only to raw materials and heavy goods, but to general 
 merchandise as well. He further explains, however, 
 that the business done is not so much new traffic as 
 traffic that was formerly carried by the railways, which 
 are now being reduced to the original position of rail- 
 ways, as mere feeders of water transport. They take the 
 minerals, the produce, and the merchandise to a con- 
 venient river or canal, and then, after the long haul has 
 been done by water, they meet them again, and convey 
 them a few miles inland to their final destination. A 
 six weeks' frost may, however, as Herr Ulrich further 
 points out, entirely upset this arrangement in a district 
 where half the traffic is generally carried by water and 
 half by rail. The entire quantity will then be thrown 
 on the railway, which may have rolling stock sufficient 
 only to meet normal conditions, the result being that 
 blocks occur, manufactories are stopped, and other 
 inconveniences arise which would not have happened 
 had the railways been previously entrusted with the 
 entire business, and made provision accordingly. 
 
264 THE RAILWAYS OF GERMANY 
 
 In contrasting the attitude of the State towards rail- 
 ways and waterways respectively, Herr Ulrich gives 
 some very definite reasons for the differences in the 
 rates. As regards railway rates, these are made not 
 only to cover working expenses, maintenance of road, 
 and interest on cost of construction and sinking fund, 
 but also, in Germany, to meet the very large expense 
 incurred in carrying gratis, or almost gratis, for the 
 State, mails, parcels, military stores, etc., and, finally, 
 to pay over to the Exchequer a large surplus, which is 
 assumed to be in relief of taxation, but which also serves 
 the special purposes of Government already indicated. 
 The canal charges, on the other hand, are intended to 
 cover nothing but actual cost of carriage. Not only is 
 the waterway proper constructed or improved at the 
 cost of the State, but the annual expenditure on dredg- 
 ing, lighting, buoying, superintendence, etc., is also 
 covered by the State, while the cost of the inland har- 
 bours which correspond to railway-stations is paid 
 out of either the State funds or the local rates. 
 
 The final outcome of the position is that, while the 
 State makes, and retains for State purposes, large profits 
 on railways operated on economical and non-progressive 
 lines, it is out of pocket as regards the working of the 
 canals and canalized rivers. Under these circumstances, 
 Herr Ulrich considers it is absurd to compare railway 
 rates and canal rates, and to assert, because the latter, 
 at first sight, appear to be lower, that canal carriage is 
 therefore economically cheaper than railway carriage. 
 
 In any case, one sees that the wonderful development 
 of water transport in Germany, of which so much is 
 heard, has clearly been at the expense, on the one hand, 
 of the general taxpayer, and, on the other, of the State 
 railways, which have suffered an arrested development, 
 and seem likely to become, ere long, carriers only of 
 
CANAL v. RAIL TRANSPORT 265 
 
 passengers and ' express ' or ' Eilgut ' merchandise, the 
 ordinary goods traffic of a ' not urgent ' character being 
 left to go by water. 
 
 This outcome of the State management of railways 
 in Germany is the more striking, because in America 
 the Illinois Central and the other railways operated by 
 private companies in the districts concerned have, in 
 fair and open competition, absorbed almost the whole 
 of the enormous volume of traffic that was once done 
 by steamer or barge on the Mississippi. By lowering 
 their rates to practically the same level as the river 
 rates, by offering what was naturally a much quicker 
 service, and by building branch lines so as to collect 
 the traffic in the centres where it originated, they got 
 into their own hands nearly all the business except that 
 of a specially heavy or exclusively local type, and in 
 this way they insured the prosperity of what are now 
 among the most successful lines of railway in the 
 United States. 
 
 Of Hungary, where the extension of the national 
 railway system has proceeded side by side with the 
 increased facilities in river navigation, the Commercial 
 Attache to the British Embassy in Vienna writes : 
 
 Cheap rates, granted by the railways, have attracted a good deal 
 of tonnage, which probably would otherwise have been carried by 
 river, so that it may be said that the shipping traffic on Hungarian 
 rivers has not yet developed in proportion with the increased 
 facilities in navigation caused by modern river regulation works. 
 
 But in regard to Germany Mr. Meyer declares : 
 
 So far as the development of industrial Germany depends upon 
 long-distance traffic in comparatively low value, bulky articles, or 
 upon traffic in articles of any kind that must be sold on a narrow 
 margin of profit in the international market, her salvation was, 
 and still is, the waterways. . . . Were it not for the waterways, 
 modern Germany could not have come into existence, unless, 
 indeed, the railway department had long since abandoned entirely 
 its efforts to adhere to an inflexible scheme of rates. 
 
266 THE RAILWAYS OF GERMANY 
 
 Whatever, therefore, the gain to the State from its 
 purchase of the railways and their conversion into a 
 revenue-earning machine, and whatever the advantage 
 from the point of view of national defence, the benefits 
 which the German traders have derived except in the 
 matter of increased facilities for sending their surplus 
 stocks to foreign countries are by no means obvious, 
 and British traders can be left to decide for themselves 
 whether, from their point of view at least, and apart 
 from academical arguments about State ownership and 
 State control, the British system of railway manage- 
 ment, with its competition and its greater elasticity, is 
 not the better of the two, or, in any case, the one that 
 is better adapted to British conditions. 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 THE RAILWAYS OF HOLLAND 
 
 NOT only does the story of the Dutch railways present 
 considerations that are absolutely unique in respect to 
 the severity of the water competition they have had to 
 encounter from the earliest moment of their existence, 
 but the peculiar conditions under which the railways 
 themselves have been called into being constitute a 
 veritable romance, and one that is of the greater 
 interest to ourselves in view of the important r6le our 
 own countrymen have played therein. 
 
 Holland, as everyone knows, is a land of waterways. 
 On the one hand, there are the great rivers which form 
 channels of communication with Germany, Belgium, 
 and the countries beyond rivers on whose broad ex- 
 panses great volumes of traffic pass between North- West 
 Europe and the uttermost parts of the earth, without 
 touching the railway at all. On the other hand, the 
 physical conditions of Holland have led to the whole 
 country being permeated by a network of canals, a 
 large proportion of which, though intended primarily 
 for purposes of drainage, are equally available as a most 
 effective means of transport. Long before railways 
 were created, the rivers passing through Holland 
 carried transit merchandise at rates with which it 
 seemed impossible that any other mode of conveyance 
 could compete; and though to-day the country is well 
 
 267 
 
268 THE RAILWAYS OF HOLLAND 
 
 supplied with railways, over go per cent, of the sum 
 total of the goods traffic still goes by water. From 
 Amsterdam alone there are no fewer than 150 separate 
 lines of small steamers going regularly to every part or 
 corner of Holland which is available for vessels of only 
 6 or 7 feet draft and there is, indeed, scarcely a 
 town or a village in the entire country that cannot be 
 so reached. Between Amsterdam and Rotterdam 
 there are boats which leave either place at eight in the 
 evening, pass along the canals at night, and deliver 
 their consignments the next morning. The railways 
 themselves could not hope to do any better, and, with 
 their much heavier expenses, they cannot compete with 
 the waterways for local traffic such as this. The co- 
 operative fruit-growers' association at Beverwijk has 
 two steamers of its own, and these, in the season, make 
 two, three, or even four journeys a day along the canals 
 to take the fruit to the Amsterdam markets, 15 miles 
 away. In Friesland, after the dairymaids have milked 
 the cows, they put the churns in a boat, and row off 
 with them to the central butter-making factory of their 
 district. A man removing his household effects from 
 one house, or from one part of Holland, to another 
 would not dream either of hiring a furniture van or of 
 patronizing the railway. Wherever he lived he would 
 be within easy reach of a canal, and he would find it 
 an easy matter to get his furniture carried to a boat 
 in which it could be conveyed to within what would 
 again be convenient carrying distance of his new 
 home. 
 
 Such conditions as these affect almost every phase of 
 business and social life in Holland in regard to matters 
 of transport, and in the circumstances it is not at all 
 surprising that the railways should get scarcely 10 per 
 cent, of the goods traffic. They would probably have 
 
CANALS AS HIGHWAYS 269 
 
 still less but for the fact that they keep their rates down 
 and necessarily so to the lowest point on which a 
 bare profit can be made. There are, however, certain 
 considerations which tell in their favour, and help them 
 to secure a modest dividend (i) they can offer what 
 is, in most cases, a quicker service a matter of special 
 importance in the case of urgent goods or perish- 
 ables ; (2) they handle a good deal of * international ' 
 traffic, the rivers notwithstanding ; and (3) the freezing 
 over of the waterways in severe winters drives on to 
 the railways a large amount of business which they 
 would not otherwise get if not, indeed, a great deal 
 more than they can well manage. 
 
 It will readily be admitted that, under the conditions 
 here indicated, he must have been a bold man who 
 originally proposed to build railways in Holland at all. 
 The actual pioneer was none other than the ruler of the 
 country in these days William I. Farseeing and 
 patriotic, he realized as early as the year 1832 that 
 Holland would never be able to hold her own, especially 
 in regard to international traffic, if she were to remain 
 content with her waterways, and neglected to adopt 
 that newer system of land locomotion which, though 
 still in its infancy, was giving promise of great results 
 in England. What he especially desired to see was a 
 line of railway from Amsterdam to the frontier, con- 
 necting with a German line thence to Cologne ; and in 
 1833 he had the plans for such a railway prepared. 
 When, however, he tried to raise the capital necessary 
 for the carrying o - at of his scheme, he failed, and the 
 earliest line constructed in Holland was one from 
 Amsterdam to Haarlem. Begun in 1836 by a private 
 company, it formed the first section of a line of railway 
 subsequently extended by the Holland Iron Railway 
 Company ( Hollandsche Yzeren Spoorwegmaatschappij, 
 
270 THE RAILWAYS OF HOLLAND 
 
 founded 1837) from Haarlem to the Hague and 
 Rotterdam. 
 
 William I. was in no way disposed to abandon his 
 ideas. In 1836 he instituted a commission which was 
 to consider (i) the desirability, or otherwise, of con- 
 structing railways in Holland at all ; (2) in the former 
 case, which routes should be taken in hand first ; and 
 (3) whether, and, if so, how far, the State should 
 support the building of railways. The commission 
 reported in the affirmative on the first proposition ; 
 they recommended the construction of a line from 
 Amsterdam to Arnheim, to be continued, subsequently, 
 to the German frontier ; and though they held that, as 
 a general principle, railways should be left to private 
 enterprise, they advised that the cost of the line in 
 question should be defrayed by the State. A proposition 
 to this effect was brought before the States-General, 
 but was rejected by forty -three votes to two, the 
 minority consisting of the Minister in charge and the 
 burgomaster of Arnheim, who was a member of the 
 House. 
 
 One cannot blame the States-General for the action 
 it took, inasmuch as even railway men in Holland to- 
 day confess that in 1836 the outlook there for railway 
 enterprise must have been absolutely hopeless, and the 
 scheme of William I. in the lack of any prospect of 
 adequate traffic altogether impracticable from a com- 
 mercial standpoint. All the same, the King had the 
 strength of his convictions, and he resolved to see what 
 could be done with the help of his private purse. The 
 cost of constructing the suggested Amsterdam-Arnheim 
 railway had been estimated at 9,000,000 guilders 
 (750,000), and a loan to this amount was raised on 
 William I. personally guaranteeing the payment of 
 interest thereon at the rate of 4^ per cent. 
 
A KING AS RAILWAYMAN 271 
 
 So the line in question was begun, and, though the 
 States-General had refused to vote the supplies, they 
 raised no objection to the Government officials helping 
 the King in the work of construction, and, later on, in 
 the responsibilities also of general control of operation. 
 By the time, however, that the line had reached Zeist- 
 Driebergen a few miles east of Utrecht over 10,000,000 
 guilders had been spent, and a further sum of 2,000,000 
 guilders was required, representing (in pounds sterling) a 
 total of 1,000,000, as against the estimate of 750,000. 
 Before he died William I. had paid out of his private 
 purse no less a sum than 100,000 for interest on the 
 money raised, and this had represented an absolute loss 
 for him, inasmuch as he had retained no lien of any 
 sort whatever on the railway. 
 
 The King had been, in effect, his own general 
 manager, with the Minister of the Interior and other 
 Government officials as heads of departments in the 
 operation of the line, the management of which speedily 
 drifted into a condition of hopeless inefficiency. The 
 working of the various railway - stations had, for 
 instance, been entrusted to local carrying firms, who 
 assumed full responsibility for the traffic in their dis- 
 trict, while still carrying on their own businesses. At 
 the instigation also of Government officials a great 
 waste of money resulted from the running of trains 
 in excess of actual requirements. 
 
 In 1844 the new King, William II., appointed a 
 further commission to decide as to the future of the 
 then still uncompleted line, and this commission, in the 
 report it presented the following year, advised that the 
 undertaking should be transferred to a private company. 
 A concession of the line was then granted to a syndi- 
 cate consisting of seven firms or individuals, namely : 
 L. J. Enthoven and Co., Gower, Nephews, and Co., 
 
272 THE RAILWAYS OF HOLLAND 
 
 Thomas Wilson and Son, Frederick Ricketts, W. J. 
 Chaplin, M. Uzielli, and C. Devaux. Of these seven, 
 the five last mentioned represented British capitalists. 
 The same syndicate also obtained the concession of 
 an extension of the Amsterdam - Arnheim line to 
 Emmerich (thus completing the connection with 
 Germany), and also of a branch line between Utrecht 
 and Rotterdam. These various concessions the syndi- 
 cate transferred to the Dutch- Rhenish Railway Com- 
 pany, which was formed with a share capital of 
 24,000,000 guilders (2,000,000). Nine-tenths of this 
 amount was raised in Great Britain, mainly through 
 the instrumentality of Sir Thomas Moss, a Liverpool 
 banker, then in close touch with the financiers of 
 Amsterdam. 
 
 It was under no specially hopeful conditions that the 
 Dutch-Rhenish Company (so called because the lines 
 ran parallel with the river Rhine for some distance) 
 started work in 1845. Not only had the previous 
 management been deplorably defective, but the lines 
 had been badly laid, and they were also broad gauge 
 lines, so that the rolling stock could not run on to the 
 German lines, and through traffic without tranship- 
 ment was impossible. All the rails required to be re- 
 laid, and fresh rolling stock would have to be provided, 
 while in the meantime the company must pay 34,000 
 a year as interest on the original loan of 9,000,000 
 guilders and supplementary loans of 2,500,000 guilders. 
 The net earnings of the railway, as far as it had then 
 been constructed, barely sufficed to cover interest on 
 the heavy debt, to say nothing of the cost of improving 
 the old lines and building new ones. 
 
 Much friction arose between the company and the 
 Government concerning the serious blunder in the 
 gauge of lines of railway which had been specially 
 
A DEPRESSING OUTLOOK 273 
 
 designed to facilitate international traffic. At first the 
 Government refused to accept any responsibility, but 
 afterwards they agreed to pay 1,000,000 guilders 
 (83,000) towards the cost of relaying. The recon- 
 struction was then done, the branch lines (including 
 one from Woerden to Leyden) were made, and by 1856 
 the entire network between Amsterdam, Leyden, the 
 Hague, Rotterdam, and Emmerich (with Utrecht as 
 the headquarters) was completed. 
 
 Some degree of progress had thus been secured, but 
 the operation of the line by Government officials still 
 prevailed, while, though the system had been finished, 
 the amount of traffic was deplorably inadequate. A 
 report on the general position and prospects of the 
 system, drawn up by two English experts Mr. A. C. 
 Sherriff and Mr. Braithwaite Poole led the company, 
 in 1857, t invite Mr. James Staats Forbes who had 
 already made his mark on the Great Western Railway 
 in England as a railway man of much skill and 
 capacity to go to Holland and reorganize the working 
 of the lines. A free hand was given to him, and it was 
 not long before he had gathered around him a group of 
 chief officers of exceptional ability. In 1858 the group 
 was joined by Mr. D. G. Bingham, another Great 
 Western man, whom Mr. Forbes appointed as chief 
 goods manager, and who to-day still lives at Utrecht, 
 the sole survivor (though an extremely active one, in 
 spite of his seventy-five years) of the little band of chief 
 officers, solicitors, and financiers who were directly 
 associated with the company at the period in question. 
 
 Inefficient had thus at last been succeeded by efficient 
 management, but the lack of business still presented 
 itself as one of the most formidable of difficulties, The 
 railway had been allowed to get into thorough dis- 
 repute. It had neither capital nor credit ; it provided 
 
 18 
 
274 THE RAILWAYS OF HOLLAND 
 
 practically no accommodation, and was regarded with 
 general antipathy ; the traffic, local or international, 
 was all going by water (transit traffic by railway was, 
 in fact, a development still to be created), and 700 
 trucks, for which no use could be found, stood rotting 
 and rusting on the sidings at Utrecht. The only bit 
 of luck the line got was when low water in the rivers or 
 ice on the canals drove the traffic on to the railways in 
 such volume that the company could refuse to take 
 anything that did not pay ' Eilgut ' rates. These times 
 of golden harvests, however, came but seldom, and 
 altogether the situation was one that might well reduce 
 the little band of English and Dutch officials and their 
 financial supporters almost to despair. The 20 shares, 
 on which only 9 had been paid, were regarded as ' worth 
 less than nothing,' for they carried an 11 liability, of 
 which many of the holders were only too anxious to be 
 free. There may be exaggeration in the statement that 
 ' a wheelbarrowful could have been had for the asking, 
 on payment of the transfer fee ' ; but it is a literal fact 
 that at one meeting of the company held at this period 
 handfuls of shares were flung about the room as so 
 much waste-paper. 
 
 Meanwhile there were ripening in other directions 
 events that were to convert these apparently worthless 
 shares into a valuable property, and insure for the 
 Dutch-Rhenish Railway not only a prosperous future, 
 but developments which constitute a noteworthy factor 
 in the history of railway operation in general. 
 
 In 1857 ( tne Y ear when Mr. J. S. Forbes went to 
 Holland) the Westphalian coalfields were still in their 
 infancy, for they were producing only 5,000,000 tons a 
 year, as compared with 70,000,000 tons at the present 
 date. One of the most active of the pioneers there was 
 Mr. William T. Mulvany, who had formerly held the 
 
WESTPHALIAN COAL 275 
 
 position of Commissioner of Public Works in Ireland, 
 but had resigned his post owing to some disagreement 
 with his superiors, and gone to Germany, where he 
 was much impressed by the evidence then already 
 forthcoming as to the magnitude of the Westphalian 
 coal-supplies. He formed the Hibernia and Shamrock 
 Coal Companies for the purpose of working two of the 
 mines the Hibernia at Gelsenkirchen and the Sham- 
 rock at Herne and it was not long before he and 
 Mr. James Staats Forbes were considering the possi- 
 bility both of fighting the water competition and of 
 securing a good market for Westphalian coal in Hol- 
 land, by the transport thither, by rail, of large consign- 
 ments at exceptionally low rates. 
 
 As goods manager of the line, Mr. Bingham went 
 most carefully into the problem, and found that a rate 
 of i cent (equal to one-fifth of a penny) per ton per 
 kilometre would suffice to cover all charges of trans- 
 port (including haulage, wages of men at level crossings, 
 and every other expense), provided that the railway 
 company were supplied with 200 tons of coal per train, 
 in twenty waggons each loaded with lo-tons. This re- 
 presented the freight in the one direction from West- 
 phalia to Holland. In the opposite direction the coal 
 waggons could be filled up, say at Rotterdam, with 
 iron ore from Spain for the ironworks in Westphalia, 
 and it was found that, in the circumstances, the com- 
 pany could afford to carry the back-loading of ore at 
 a charge which worked out at is. 3d. per ton for the 
 entire journey of 150 miles. It was understood, how- 
 ever, that in regard both to the coal and the iron, 
 the railway company would not undertake either loading 
 or unloading. All they would do would be to provide 
 rolling stock and haulage. 
 
 Such was the basis of the arrangement entered into 
 
 1 8 2 
 
276 THE RAILWAYS OF HOLLAND 
 
 between Mr. Forbes, on behalf of the Dutch-Rhenish 
 Railway Company, and Mr. Mulvany, as Chairman of 
 the Hibernia and Shamrock Coal Companies. Mr. 
 Mulvany further undertook to consign a minimum of 
 200 tons of coal per day six days a week, being at the 
 rate of over 62,000 tons a year ; and inasmuch as the 
 ironworks in Westphalia immediately adjoin the col- 
 lieries, the ironmasters, in view of the favourable terms 
 for iron ore, were quite willing to accept delivery there, 
 and themselves arrange both for unloading and for 
 cartage. 
 
 The principle on which the agreement was based was, 
 of course, the one that when a railway company simply 
 hauls a fully-loaded train from one point to another, 
 the proportionate net cost is reduced to a minimum ; 
 and when a good distance is covered the rate per ton 
 can well be reduced to a figure which would be ab- 
 solutely unremunerative in the case of a train composed 
 of waggons picked up at different stations, and repre- 
 senting a considerable amount of extra labour. These 
 ideas, well recognised later on, were quite new as 
 adopted in the fifties by the Dutch - Rhenish Rail- 
 way Company, which, under the stress of adverse 
 circumstances, thus became a pioneer in a phase of 
 railway operation that has played a very important 
 part in recent transport developments. 
 
 The making of the said agreement was, however, 
 insufficient in itself to afford an immediate solution of 
 the problem which the general position of affairs pre- 
 sented. The collieries were prepared to supply, and 
 the railways were willing to give special rates for carry- 
 ing, a complete train of 200 tons of coal per day. But 
 what about the disposal of the coal when it reached 
 Holland ? 
 
 At that time most of the coal consumed in towns on 
 
A NEW DIFFICULTY 277 
 
 the coast, and especially the coal required at the ports 
 for the shipping, came from England. The inland 
 towns were supplied mainly with inferior qualities of 
 German coal, which reached them by water. It was 
 hoped to gain acceptance, in each instance, for good 
 qualities of Westphalian coal brought into Holland by 
 train, and delivered wherever wanted. But the agents 
 and coal merchants, who were themselves satisfied 
 with the good profits they were making under existing 
 arrangements, did not regard the new proposals with 
 favour, and for a time it looked as if the agreement 
 between the collieries and the railway would remain a 
 dead letter. A good order was obtained from the 
 Imperial Continental Gas Company, an English com- 
 pany established at Rotterdam and Antwerp, the supply 
 of whose requirements formed, at first, the mainstay 
 of the new scheme. But it was found imperatively 
 necessary that a larger business should be worked up 
 if the Dutch-Rhenish line was to be helped out of its 
 difficulties. 
 
 In the circumstances the railway company adopted 
 an expedient which still remains, probably, unexampled 
 in railway history. It not only permitted but directly 
 encouraged its officers and officials to combine with 
 their ordinary duties the business of coal dealers, retain- 
 ing for themselves whatever commission or profits they 
 could make therefrom, while at the same time increasing 
 the coal traffic on the railway. Station-masters especially 
 all over the line were told to get from the local residents 
 discreetly, of course all the orders for coal they 
 could secure, and some entertaining stories are related 
 as to the sort of thing that went on. A station-master, 
 seeing a well-to-do citizen on the platform with his wife, 
 would go up to him, and, after a very respectful greeting, 
 would say : * Ah, I see that you have Mrs. with you. 
 
278 THE RAILWAYS OF HOLLAND 
 
 Allow me to give you a compartment to yourselves. 
 Then he would show them into one, fasten the door, 
 and instruct the guard of the train to put no one else 
 in, renewing his polite greetings as the train moved off. 
 What followed, presumably, was that husband would 
 say to wife, or vice versa : ' A very civil fellow, that 
 station-master. See, he deals in coal. Suppose we 
 send him an order for 5 tons ?' And so the thing would 
 be done. The station-master would pocket a commis- 
 sion, and there would be still another 5 tons for the 
 railw r ay company to carry if, indeed, the company had 
 not already got a large supply on hand dumped down 
 on the station premises. 
 
 On one occasion Mr. Bingham, in looking over the 
 returns, noticed that there was a certain station to 
 which the company were not sending any coal. He 
 asked the reason, and was told that the station-master 
 lacked enterprise, and did not care to take up the 
 business. Mr. Bingham set off for that station at once, 
 interviewed the station-master, and talked to him like a 
 father. * You don't receive much in the way of salary,' 
 he said, ' and you have a wife and children to keep. 
 Why don't you get orders for coal, and secure the nice 
 little addition to your earnings that you could very well 
 make ? I'll have 10 tons sent on to you, and you will 
 see what you can do with them.' The coal was sent, 
 the station-master sold it, wanted more, and before long 
 had followed the example of many another official on 
 the line in working up a remunerative little business of 
 his own. 
 
 The acquiring of traffic for the railway under these 
 conditions was slow work, and required indomitable 
 energy and perseverance on the part of those con- 
 cerned. But the desired result was gained all the same. 
 The efforts of the railway officers were seconded by 
 
SALVATION IN COAL 279 
 
 those of Mr. W. C. Robinson (now His Majesty's Consul 
 at Amsterdam), who was sent to Holland in 1859 by the 
 Hibernia and Shamrock Coal Companies to represent 
 their interests on the spot ; and, as time went on, the 
 domestic business increased, more gasworks were cap- 
 tured, industrial establishments followed, and eventually 
 a good share was secured in the trade in bunker coal 
 at the ports. Under the special conditions already 
 described that is to say, train-load consignments from 
 point to point, with loading and unloading by the 
 traders themselves it was found possible to carry 
 2oo-ton lots at rates that enabled the railway to hold 
 its own even against the waterways. There was this 
 further advantage, also, that whereas the trader who got 
 his coal by the waterways had to take a barge-load at a 
 time, and keep a large supply on hand, occupying a good 
 deal of space, the trader who received his supplies by 
 rail could have a lo-ton truck day by day or week by 
 week, according to his requirements. This advantage 
 compensated for any difference there might still be 
 between the rates by rail and those by water. 
 
 In the result the traffic in Westphalian coal was the 
 salvation of the Dutch- Rhenish Railway Company. A 
 line which had been almost derelict was made thereby 
 so prosperous that there came a time when the dividends 
 were within a fraction of 10 per cent. The shares, 
 which had been flung about as worth ' less than nothing,' 
 increased so much in value that they once touched 
 159 per cent. As for the coal business, pioneered amid 
 so many difficulties by Mr. James Staats Forbes, Mr. 
 Mulvany, Mr. Bingham, and Mr. Robinson, the magni- 
 tude of its growth is sufficiently indicated by the fact 
 that in 1904 there were brought into Holland by rail 
 no fewer than 2,000,000 tons of coal, as against the 
 62,000 tons a year provided for in the original contract. 
 
280 THE RAILWAYS OF HOLLAND 
 
 To the further history of the Dutch-Rhenish Com- 
 pany I shall briefly revert later on. It is necessary now 
 to look at what was being done in other directions for 
 the development of railways in the Netherlands. 
 
 About 1859 or 1860 the fear began to be generally 
 entertained in the country that unless Holland secured 
 for herself an adequate network of railways she would 
 assuredly be left behind in the commercial struggles of 
 the nations, and run the risk of becoming little more 
 than an enlarged group of such ' dead cities ' as those 
 which then already existed on the shores of the Zuider 
 Zee. At that time there were only three railways in 
 Holland of any importance : the Dutch-Rhenish ; the 
 Holland Iron Railway, connecting the towns of Amster- 
 dam, Haarlem, Leyden, the Hague, Delft, and Schie- 
 dam ; and the Grand Central Beige, which ran from 
 Rotterdam to Antwerp and Belgium, but was not 
 directly connected with the system of either of the other 
 companies. All three lines, in fact, were isolated, and 
 all three had a great struggle for existence, especially 
 from the point of view of the active water competition , 
 From various parts of the country, however, came a 
 bitter cry for increased railway facilities. The north- 
 eastern provinces had no railways at all. Their wants 
 were supposed to be provided for by a service of dili- 
 gences between Amersfoort (the furthest point in this 
 direction then reached by the railway) and Zwolle. 
 Lines were wanted also north of Amsterdam, to give to 
 the aforesaid ' dead cities ' the new life they have since 
 received. 
 
 It was, however, too much to expect that commercial 
 companies would face the disadvantageous conditions to 
 be encountered in supplying the whole of Holland's 
 requirements in the matter of railways. The country 
 may be one of no gradients and no tunnels, but the 
 
NECESSITY FOR STATE ACTION 281 
 
 railways were costly to construct on account of both 
 the numerous bridges and the difficulties in the way of 
 obtaining sure foundations. Between Amsterdam and 
 Rotterdam alone there are about eighty railway bridges, 
 of which eight are swing bridges. In various instances 
 railway bridges crossing the rivers in Holland are, in 
 effect, railway viaducts, a mile or so in length. Works 
 of this costly type were not likely to be undertaken by 
 private companies which, when the lines were com- 
 pleted, would still have to compete keenly with the 
 waterways for the very small proportion of the traffic 
 they were likely to get. 
 
 In the circumstances it became evident that if 
 Holland wanted more railways the State itself would 
 have to provide them, and this, in 1860, it decided to 
 do. A number of lines were built by the Government, 
 who also bought up various small lines constructed by 
 minor companies which had got into difficulties. But 
 the Government were opposed to the idea of operating 
 the State lines themselves, and in 1863 there was 
 created a ' Company for the Exploitation of the State 
 Railways,' which (the State having provided permanent 
 way and buildings) was to find rolling stock and 
 personnel, and undertake the general working of the 
 lines. In 1890 the Government bought up the Dutch- 
 Rhenish Company, paying at the rate of 24 each for 
 the 20 shares, giving generous compensation to those 
 of the officers who did not wish to remain in the 
 service, and assuring to those willing so to do a con- 
 tinuance of all the ' trading ' facilities they had 
 previously enjoyed under the regime of the company. 
 
 In this same year (1890) a new arrangement was 
 made, under which the operation of the State lines was 
 divided between the Company for the Exploitation of 
 the State Railways and the Holland Iron Railway 
 
282 THE RAILWAYS OF HOLLAND 
 
 Company, which latter company had already made 
 considerable additions to its own system. The total 
 length of State lines now controlled by the Exploitation 
 Company is 890 miles. The Holland Railway Com- 
 pany operates 205 miles of State lines, 165 miles of its 
 own lines, and 290 miles of lines owned by other 
 companies a total of 660 miles. The Government 
 also gave to each of the two companies running powers 
 over the lines of the other, when necessary to enable it 
 to reach any town to which it would otherwise not 
 have access. In this way there is always an * alternative 
 route ' available either to any point within the country 
 or to any destination beyond, and such is the competi- 
 tion, in respect to service, between the two companies 
 that even second or third rate places in Holland are 
 provided with a number of quick trains much in excess 
 of what they would be likely to get if the whole of the 
 lines were worked as a State monopoly, and the amount 
 of traffic were alone considered. A further result of 
 this competition in service between the two companies, 
 coupled with their joint competition with the carriers 
 by water, is that ordinary goods are carried on the 
 Dutch railways with a speed and promptness for which 
 traders would be charged ' Eilgut ' rates in Germany, or 
 ' Grande Vitesse ' in France. 
 
 Each company pays a fixed rental for the State lines 
 it operates, recouping itself by the fares, rates, and 
 charges which it imposes according to scales authorized 
 by the Minister of Railways. The rental paid by the 
 Exploitation Company comes to 306,045 a year, and 
 that paid by the Holland Company is 40,083 a total 
 of 346,218. In addition to this, each company is re- 
 quired to give the State a share in its profits, fixed on 
 the following basis : When the company pays a dividend 
 exceeding 4 per cent, per annum, the State is to have 
 
FINANCIAL RESULTS 
 
 283 
 
 half the sum available over and above such 4 per cent. ; 
 while of any balance after the payment of a dividend 
 of 6J per cent, per annum, the State is to receive four- 
 fifths and the shareholders one-fifth. Should the 
 dividend fall below 3j per cent, for two years in succes- 
 sion, the company can withdraw from its contract. 
 The State, on the other hand, can take over the opera- 
 tion of its own lines at any time, subject to not less 
 than one year's notice. 
 
 The dividends actually paid by the two companies in 
 recent years have been as follows : 
 
 Company. 
 
 1899. 
 
 1900. 
 
 1901. 
 
 1902. 
 
 1903. 
 
 
 Per 
 
 Per 
 
 Per 
 
 Per 
 
 Per 
 
 
 Cent. 
 
 Cent. 
 
 Cent. 
 
 Cent. 
 
 Cent. 
 
 State Lines Exploitation 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Company 
 
 5 
 
 5 
 
 475 
 
 475 
 
 4'6 
 
 Holland Railway Company 
 
 4i 
 
 4 
 
 3-i85 
 
 4 
 
 4 
 
 From the Holland Railway Company, therefore, the 
 State has received nothing since 1899 m the way of 
 profits (in addition to rental), while the payments made 
 on this score by the other company have been far from 
 substantial, the total for 1903 being only 9,470. In 
 effect, the actual return which the State Treasury gets 
 on the 28,000,000 it has invested in the railways of 
 Holland is a fraction under ij per cent. All the same, 
 the fact that the State has sunk so big a sum in the 
 lines and is content with a return thereon which 
 would make ordinary shareholders feel depressed puts 
 the companies themselves in a better position with 
 regard to those rates and charges which, as we have 
 seen, must necessarily be kept at an absolute minimum 
 if the railways are to secure even a 10 per cent, share 
 of the ordinary goods traffic. 
 
284 THE RAILWAYS OF HOLLAND 
 
 I have now, I think, clearly shown that the excep- 
 tionally low rates charged on the Dutch railways are 
 due to a variety of conditions and circumstances which 
 render them alike possible and inevitable, but which are 
 not comparable with the conditions and circumstances 
 of other countries. There is still one further point in 
 this connection to which I would allude. In the 
 chapter on * General Continental Conditions,' I have 
 shown that Dortmund and other manufacturing centres 
 in Germany are nearer to the ports of Holland than 
 they are to Bremen or Hamburg, and that the rates on 
 the Prussian railways are fixed on a basis by which it 
 is sought to secure the export traffic from the places in 
 question for the German ports. The Dutch railways 
 must not charge more, if they wish to retain a good 
 share in the business (assuming that the shipping con- 
 ditions are equal) ; but when the Prussian railways want 
 to retain the traffic for themselves they naturally decline 
 to help their competitors by giving specially low rates 
 from Dortmund and the other districts concerned to 
 the Dutch frontier, so that the whole of the reduction 
 on the transit and export rates, via Holland, may have 
 to be made by the Dutch lines in respect to the section 
 of the journey from the frontier to Rotterdam or 
 Amsterdam. In these circumstances rates that have 
 already had to be kept exceedingly low by reason of 
 the water competition become even lower, and reach 
 a point that leaves scarcely any margin at all for 
 profit.* 
 
 * The water competition in Holland has been still keener of 
 late years through the opening of the Mervvede Canal, along which 
 strings of barges, with a carrying capacity of anything from 500 to 
 2,500 tons, are constantly passing between the port of Amsterdam 
 and the river Rhine. For coal transported by water from 
 Ruhrort to Rotterdam the present rate works out at ;d. per ton 
 for the entire distance. 
 
WHAT THE STORY SHOWS 285 
 
 The moral of the story I have here sought to tell I 
 prefer to give, not in my own words, but in the follow- 
 ing extracts from a memorandum,* written in 1901, by 
 Mr. W. C. Robinson, our very able Consul at Amster- 
 dam, and, as I have already shown, one of the pioneers 
 in that Westphalian coal enterprise which set the 
 Dutch-Rhenish Railway Company on their feet : 
 
 Within certain limits the railway companies [in Holland] are in 
 many cases in a position to establish tariffs which railways con- 
 structed by private capital could only charge at a loss, seeing that 
 the companies working the State lines have not to provide anything 
 for interest or sinking fund on the capital expended on lands, 
 permanent way, or buildings. The reduction of rates is practically 
 limited by the actual cost of transport only. . . . Any comparison 
 between the conditions of rail and water traffic in Great Britain 
 and those which exist in Holland must be illusory, owing to the 
 great differences in the circumstances affecting those modes of 
 transport in both countries. 
 
 As regards the light railways which, passing along 
 the public highway, are extensively used in Holland for 
 the conveyance of agricultural produce to the towns or 
 to the ports, I might state that financial assistance 
 towards their construction is rendered by the State, the 
 provinces, and the municipalities, each proposed line 
 being considered on its merits. The said assistance is 
 generally given in the way of a loan, with or without 
 interest, or a subscription for shares. Free grants of 
 land are also sometimes made to the concessionnaires 
 operating the lines, especially in the case of communes 
 desirous of having a station or a stopping-place within 
 their boundaries. 
 
 * See ' Reports from His Majesty's Representatives on Navigable 
 Inland Waterways in Austria-Hungary, Belgium, France, Germany, 
 and the Netherlands ' (Cd. 1,636). 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 THE RAILWAYS OF BELGIUM 
 
 THE first project for the building of a railway in 
 Belgium was brought before the Government in 1830, 
 and two engineers were despatched to England to study 
 the subject of railway construction. In February, 1832, 
 these two engineers, as the result of their investigations, 
 recommended that a railway should be laid between 
 Antwerp and Cologne. Sanction was given, instead, 
 to a scheme for a railway between Antwerp and Liege ; 
 but even this modified proposal could not then secure 
 adequate support. 
 
 Meanwhile Leopold I. had been elected King of the 
 Belgians, and in him the railway movement had an 
 earnest supporter. At that time most of the traffic 
 between England and Germany was still passing 
 through Holland by way of the rivers and canals ; but 
 King Leopold foresaw that if Belgium provided herself 
 with an adequate supply of railways she might tap a 
 good deal of this traffic, if only because of the greater 
 speed at which it could then be carried. His views 
 were endorsed by the Chambers, which, in 1834, agreed 
 to the construction by the State of a line from Malines 
 in the direction of Verviers (close to the Prussian 
 frontier), with branches from Malines to Antwerp, 
 Brussels, and Ostend respectively. The section between 
 Malines and Brussels was opened in 1835. 
 
 286 
 
THE STATE AND THE COMPANIES 287 
 
 Other lines followed, and by May, 1840, the railways 
 in operation represented a total of 200 miles. The 
 whole of these were State lines. When, however, the 
 Government proposed to build still more, the Chambers 
 refused their consent. Owing to the competition, not 
 alone of the Dutch waterways, but also of those that 
 permeated Belgium in every direction, the rates on the 
 railways had had to be kept very low from the start, 
 and the financial results were so disappointing that 
 the Chambers would not then sanction the spending of 
 public money otherwise than on such main routes of 
 traffic as those for which provision had already been 
 made. If private enterprise were willing to run the 
 risk of constructing secondary and local lines, con- 
 cessions should be made to the companies that might 
 be formed ; but the State itself (as the Chambers 
 declared) was to build no more. 
 
 Private enterprise was not backward in availing itself 
 of the opportunities thus offered, and from about 1842 
 concessions were given to a number of individuals or 
 companies, considerable additions being made to the 
 railway mileage during the next few years. By 1859 
 the concessions so made had reached a total of twenty- 
 three. But some of the companies had already drifted 
 into financial difficulties, and the State had had to go 
 to their assistance by guaranteeing them the payment 
 of their interest on capital, or by undertaking the 
 operation of the lines in return for a fixed rent or a share 
 in the receipts. Help of this kind had especially been 
 rendered necessary by the political crisis of 1848. 
 
 The companies, however, made good progress in 
 spite of their difficulties and disadvantages, and in 
 course of time they became formidable competitors of 
 the State system. Notwithstanding the decision arrived 
 at in 1840, the State had certainly, by 1870, increased 
 
288 THE RAILWAYS OF BELGIUM 
 
 its railway mileage to 535 (though most of these 
 extensions were made prior to 1850) ; but the extent 
 of the companies' lines in 1870 represented a total of 
 1,510 miles. While, again, it had been assumed that 
 the private lines would be only secondary or local rail- 
 ways, the effect of their combined operation was to give 
 them a good share in the through traffic as well. 
 
 Following on this unexpected outcome of the position, 
 the administrators of the State system found themselves 
 practically powerless. They had lost their former con- 
 trol of the railway situation, and so far back as 1856 
 ' rate wars ' had been waged between themselves and 
 the companies. Crude as the schedule rates were, 
 these were abandoned even by the State system, 
 which, in fact, went to even greater lengths than the 
 companies in conceding special terms to individual 
 traders, or making preferential contracts in every shape 
 and form ; so that, low as the rates had originally been, 
 they went lower still as the outcome of the direct 
 competition between State-owned lines and State- 
 conceded lines. The reductions were ' astonishingly 
 rapid ' at this particular period, especially as regards 
 heavy classes of freight brought into and carried across 
 Belgium from Germany or elsewhere. 
 
 In effect, the general position came to this: the State 
 had the better routes, but the companies had the better 
 management; and the only way in which it seemed 
 possible to equalize matters was by the Government 
 buying out the companies, and adding their lines to 
 the State system. There were other reasons, too, for 
 the adoption of such a course. Fears had arisen that 
 the political situation in Belgium might be com- 
 promised through the purchase of her privately-owned 
 railway systems by foreign, and especially by German, 
 financiers. So in 1870 the Belgian Government in- 
 
STATE PURCHASE 289 
 
 augurated their scheme for the acquirement by the 
 State of all the chief lines of railway in the kingdom. 
 They were particularly active in 1873 in the carrying 
 out of this policy, with the result that by 1874 half the 
 railway mileage in the country was State property. 
 By 1880 the proportion had increased to two-thirds. 
 To-day the State operates over 2,500 miles of railway 
 in Belgium, and private companies only 280 miles. 
 
 When the State obtained supreme control over the 
 railways of the country it maintained the rates and 
 charges at the same low level, for a twofold reason : 
 (i) National policy suggested that, even though the 
 taxpayer might have to make up the difference, every 
 possible encouragement should be offered for the ex- 
 pansion of local industries in the interests of an 
 essentially industrial community. (2) Railway policy 
 had demonstrated that in regard to the bulk alike of 
 domestic and of transit traffic higher rates could not 
 be charged without the risk of driving the business 
 on to the rivers and canals. The competition between 
 State lines and private lines had been brought to an end, 
 but that between railways and waterways continued. 
 
 One of the leading factors in the situation, from 
 both of these points of view, was the port of Antwerp. 
 The struggle for the transit traffic of Europe, which 
 Leopold I. had foreseen, was in full course of develop- 
 ment, and the Belgian Government were straining every 
 nerve to secure for the port of Antwerp as much of 
 that traffic as they possibly could. But the competition 
 might well be keen. A large proportion of the said 
 traffic could just as well go via Rotterdam, Dunkirk, 
 Havre, or Hamburg, as via Antwerp. Belgium's only 
 hope of getting a good share of the business lay in the 
 reduction of her transit rates to the lowest possible 
 figure. 
 
 19 
 
2go THE RAILWAYS OF BELGIUM 
 
 But Belgium aimed in reality at more than merely 
 securing so much additional traffic for her railways. 
 The greater the volume of commodities in transit to 
 or from other countries that could be attracted 
 to the port of Antwerp, the greater would be 
 the resort thereto of ocean steamers trading with all 
 parts of the world. Then, as the number of vessels 
 visiting Antwerp increased, Belgian works and factories 
 would get their raw materials more cheaply, while 
 the outgoing vessels wanting heavy goods by way of 
 ballast would, it was argued, be glad to take Belgian 
 iron, steel, and glass at low rates, looking to general 
 merchandise for a really paying cargo. With her 
 splendid geographical situation, Antwerp might become 
 (as, indeed, she has) one of the greatest of collecting 
 and distributing centres on the highways of the world's 
 commerce,* good service being, at the same time, 
 rendered to Belgian industries. 
 
 The essential preliminary to the realization of these 
 important aims was the capture by Belgium, in the 
 special interests of Antwerp, of as large a proportion as 
 possible of the transit traffic. But just as, from the 
 port of Antwerp, there is a network of State railways 
 radiating to various points on the Belgian frontiers, and 
 connecting with the countries beyond, so also is there 
 a network of waterways which, in their turn, radiate 
 from Antwerp, and, in the form either of canals or 
 rivers (the latter constituting the basis of the whole 
 system), are in direct touch, not only with every industrial 
 district in Belgium, but also with Holland, Northern 
 France, and Western Germany, representing, further, 
 the| first (or last) links in the whole chain of water 
 
 *JIn 1903 Antwerp attained to the position of third on the list 
 of the world's great ports, taking the place previously held by 
 Hamburg. 
 
THE PORT OF ANTWERP 291 
 
 transport in North-West Europe. Rhine barges, of an 
 average capacity of 1,500 tons, can load up alongside 
 the ocean liners at Antwerp, and, without transhipment, 
 proceed via the East Scheldt, the Hollandsche Diep, 
 Dordrecht, and the Waal to the Rhine, reaching 
 Cologne (256 miles) in about five days, Mannheim 
 (418 miles) in seven or eight days, and Strasburg (500 
 miles) in from twelve to fifteen days journeys alto- 
 gether beyond the geographical possibilities of the 
 British Isles. 
 
 In fixing, therefore, the rates to be charged for transit 
 traffic to Antwerp, the Belgian State railways had to 
 consider (i) the rate for which the commodity in 
 question could reach some other equally convenient 
 port in Holland, France, or Germany ; and (2) the rate 
 that would be charged for inland water transit from the 
 place of origin to Antwerp. To charge the traffic more 
 than, in these dual circumstances, it would bear would 
 simply have meant that the Belgian State railways 
 would have got none of it, or very little. In these 
 circumstances there were even greater reasons in the case 
 of transit than in that of domestic rates for reduction 
 to a * lowest possible.' 
 
 Inspired by the example of the carriers by water, the 
 Belgian State railways early adopted the principle of 
 * net cost ' as the chief basis of rate-making, in prefer- 
 ence to that of ' value ' of the commodity carried ; and 
 they were also pioneers in the matter of differential 
 rates (in place of equal mileage), ' net cost ' having 
 shown that the rate per mile could very well be reduced 
 in proportion to the increased length of the haul. The 
 original system, however, of taking net cost of operation 
 as the basis of rates has since been modified by dividing 
 into four groups, or classes, goods that are carried under 
 the general tariff, and also by making fifty-six special 
 
 19 2 
 
2Q2 
 
 THE RAILWAYS OF BELGIUM 
 
 tariffs. It is in regard to these special tariffs that, in the 
 case of Belgian railway rates, comparisons with ordinary 
 English railway rates are generally, though most un- 
 fairly, made, and they are deserving, therefore, of some 
 consideration. 
 
 Three-fourths of the tariffs in question are based on 
 eighteen different scales, classified under different letters 
 of the alphabet. From A to Q there is a gradually 
 decreasing rate, while R gives the rates for waggon- 
 load lots. In each instance the rates per kilometre 
 published in the official list are for distances of i kilo- 
 metre to 350 kilometres. The remaining fourth of the 
 special tariffs are mainly station to station rates. 
 
 The nature of the scales in question may be judged 
 rom the following table, which gives the rates per 
 metric ton per kilometre, and also per English ton per 
 mile, for four representative distances : 
 
 Scale. 
 
 10 Kilometres 
 (6*2 miles). 
 
 ioo Kilometres 
 (62 miles). 
 
 200 Kilometres 
 (124 miles). 
 
 300 Kilometres 
 (186 miles). 
 
 
 Franc. (Pence.) 
 
 Franc. (Pence.) 
 
 Franc. (Pence.) 
 
 Franc. (Pence.) 
 
 A 
 
 O'lQ (2-982) 
 
 0-093 (I'46o) 
 
 0-07 (1-099) 
 
 0-054 (0*848) 
 
 B 
 
 0-17 (2-669) 
 
 0-07I (I-II5) 
 
 0-045 (0706) 
 
 0*035 (0'549) 
 
 C 
 
 o-ii (1727) 
 
 0-04 (0-628) 
 
 0*025 ('39 2 ) 
 
 O*O2 (0*314) 
 
 D 
 E 
 
 on (1727) 
 o-ii (1727) 
 
 0-026 (0-408) 
 
 0-037 (0-581) 
 
 0-025 (0-392) 
 0-023 (0-361) 
 
 0-02 (0-314) 
 0-019 (0-298) 
 
 F 
 
 0-09 (I-4I3) 
 
 0-032 (0-502) 
 
 0-022 (0-345) 
 
 O'OlS (0-283) 
 
 G 
 
 o-ii (1727) 
 
 0-032 (0-502) 
 
 0-022 (0-345) 
 
 o'oiS (0-283) 
 
 H 
 
 o-ii (1727) 
 
 0-032 (0*502) 
 
 0-022 (0-345) 
 
 0-018 (0*283) 
 
 I 
 
 o-ii (1-727) 
 
 0-03 (0-47I) 
 
 0-02 (0-314) 
 
 0-017 (0*267) 
 
 J 
 
 o-ii (1727) 
 
 0-02 (0-314) 
 
 0-02 (0-314) 
 
 0*021 (0*330) 
 
 K 
 
 0-08 (1-256) 
 
 0-027 (0-424) 
 
 O"O2 (0-314) 
 
 0*016 (0*251) 
 
 L 
 
 o-ii (1727) 
 
 0'025 (0-392) 
 
 O'OlS (0-283) 
 
 0*015 (0-235) 
 
 M 
 
 0-068 (I-067) 
 
 0-022 (0-345) 
 
 0-017 (0'267) 
 
 0-014 (0-220) 
 
 N 
 
 o-ii (1-727) 
 
 0-02 (0-314) 
 
 0-016 (0-251) 
 
 0-0135 (0-212) 
 
 O 
 
 o-ii (1-727) 
 
 0-02 (0-314) 
 
 0-015 (0*235) 
 
 0*0135 (O'2I2) 
 
 P 
 
 0-105 (!' 6 4^) 
 
 0-053 (0-832) 
 
 0-044 (0*691) 
 
 0*035 (0*549) 
 
 Q 
 
 o-ii (1727) 
 
 0-03 (0-47I) 
 
 0-025 (0-392) 
 
 0-02 (0-314) 
 
 R 
 
 0-84 (8-064) 
 
 0-28 (2-688) 
 
 0-19 (1-824) 
 
 0-14 (1-344) 
 
 With the causes that have tended in Belgium to the 
 keeping down of railway rates in general to a low level 
 
CHARACTER OF SPECIAL TARIFFS 293 
 
 I have already dealt. But in regard to these special rates 
 there are some further considerations which must not 
 be overlooked. 
 
 In the first place, probably the most important of the 
 special rates apply to commodities which are not only 
 handled by the railway in large, if not exceptionally 
 large, quantities, but also represent either exports or 
 imports.* 
 
 Thus, of the first thirteen special tariffs on the list, 
 no fewer than twelve relate to commodities consigned 
 to a port, for immediate shipment, in such quantities as 
 the following (1,000 kilos being reckoned as equal 
 to i ton) : Coal, stone, earth, lo-ton lots ; coal, lime, 
 minerals, gravel, sand, etc., 50-ton lots ; coal, 200-ton 
 lots ; slag from rolling mills, puddling furnaces, and 
 annealing furnaces, lo-ton and loo-ton lots; miscel- 
 laneous goods, 5-ton or 10-ton lots ; metallurgical pro- 
 ducts, etc., lo-ton lots ; glassware, 7-ton lots. Of 
 special tariffs for imports there are nine, including 
 kaolin, china, clay, etc., lo-ton lots ; arms, copper, 
 calcium borate, truck-loads; rock-salt and sea-salt, 
 50-ton lots; miscellaneous goods, 5-ton and lo-ton 
 lots'; oats, in lo-ton lots, imported via Belgium ports, 
 and sent on to France and countries beyond; tar, lo-ton 
 lots. 
 
 For minerals, pyrites, blende, slag, etc., there are 
 three special tariffs, namely : (i) lo-ton and 5o-ton 
 lots, imported by sea ; (2) lo-ton and 5o-ton lots, not 
 imported by sea, but of other than Belgian origin ; and 
 (3) 5O-ton lots, of any origin, going to Belgian works, 
 the charges on the last mentioned being based on the 
 
 * Belgium does not cherish the same hostility to special railway 
 rates on imports as is found in France and Germany. Under her 
 system of moderate protection the duties imposed on manufactured 
 goods are in no case prohibitive, and all raw materials (with the 
 single exception of timber) are admitted free. 
 
294 THE RAILWAYS OF BELGIUM 
 
 M scale, whereas the others, for 5o-ton lots, fall 
 under G or K in the first instance, and (with one 
 exception only) under K in the class described as (2). 
 
 We come next to a group of station to station rates 
 for : (i) coal, in loo-ton lots, to be shipped at certain 
 places for the purposes of inland navigation ; (2) steel 
 ingots, pig-iron, etc., in lo-ton lots, subject to a written 
 guarantee from the consignor that he will give the rail- 
 way during, at least, one year all the business he has 
 of this kind between the stations named in the tariff; 
 (3) cereals and flour between Antwerp and sundry 
 stations, under like conditions to (2) ;* and (4) coal and 
 slag, in loo-ton lots, for zinc and lead smelting fur- 
 naces or lime and brick kilns. Another of the special 
 tariffs gives agricultural produce and fertilizers in pack- 
 ages the benefit of the first class of the general 
 tariff, with a minimum of 200 kilos (440 pounds) in- 
 stead of 400 kilos (880 pounds) ; another is a 
 seasonal tariff for lime intended to improve the land, 
 and applying to transports effected between January 
 and May or between August and September ; and still 
 another is for raw cotton in bales, carried from Antwerp 
 to Ghent in full truck-loads of 10 tons at the station to 
 station rate of 4.35 francs per ton (33. 6*43od. per 
 English ton). 
 
 There are also some twenty ' provisional ' special 
 tariffs which have been entered into by the State rail- 
 
 * The declaration which the trader must make in order to 
 obtain the advantage of this special rate is as follows : 
 
 ' Le soussigne* . . . declare adherer sans reserve, pour le terme 
 d'une annde, qui prendra cours le . . . aux prix et conditions 
 du tarif special No. 46 du Service inte"rieur du chemin de fer de 
 1'Etat-Belge. 
 
 ' II s'engage par consequent a remettre a la voie ferret, a 
 1'exclusion de toute autre voie, tous les transports de cdrdales et de 
 faiines qu'il aura a effectuer, durant ce terme entre Anvers (Bassins 
 et Entrepot) (local et transit), Anvers (Sud-Quais) (transit) et Diest, 
 Sichem, etc., et reciproquement' 
 
SPECIAL CONDITIONS 295 
 
 way for the conveyance of commodities, mostly with a 
 minimum of 150 or 300 tons per consignment, between 
 two or more points ; but these particular tariffs are 
 stated to be ' issued only to the parties interested.' 
 
 So, in addition to the general traffic conditions in 
 Belgium which have tended to keep down railway 
 rates, we find that the rates which are especially low 
 refer to consignments that are especially large. We 
 have seen also that in two instances the trader gets 
 such rates only on guaranteeing to send by the State 
 railways the whole of his consignments for one year. 
 Still other considerations in connection with these 
 special tariffs are the obligations thrown on the 
 traders to do their own loading and unloading, and 
 the very low limit to the liability of the railway for 
 either delay or damage, a special premium having to be 
 paid if, in the event of damage, the trader desires a 
 higher compensation (for slow - freight goods) than 
 75 centimes per kilo (3'266d. per pound). The obvious 
 effect of all these and of other stipulations and arrange- 
 ments is to decrease the ' net cost ' of handling the 
 traffic, and to put a railway in a better position to con- 
 cede lower rates than would be practicable under 
 entirely different circumstances. For the purposes of 
 a fair comparison of Belgian with British rates, all the 
 services, etc., omitted from the former but included in 
 the latter must be allowed for, and when this has been 
 done it will be found that the difference between the 
 two is much less than is generally supposed. 
 
 The same considerations apply to the passenger 
 service. One hears of the remarkably low fares charged 
 on the Belgian State railways, especially in the case 
 of third-class passengers. But in Belgium the third- 
 class carriages are of such a type that a vast proportion 
 of the people who readily travel third class in England 
 
296 THE RAILWAYS OF BELGIUM 
 
 would be compelled to travel second class in Belgium 
 if they wished for the same degree of comfort. To 
 begin with, therefore, the real comparison for a large 
 proportion of the passengers is between second-class 
 fares in Belgium and third-class fares in England. 
 Then, again, railway travellers do not get the same 
 facilities in respect to luggage in Belgium as they do 
 in England, the charges in the former country being 
 so high that those enforced on a moderate amount of 
 l u gg a g e taken by, say, a family of four from Antwerp 
 to Spa, would represent the equivalent of another ticket.* 
 Substituting second class for third, and adding the 
 charges for luggage, travelling in Belgium will, gene- 
 rally speaking, be found to be little, if any, cheaper 
 than in Britain. 
 
 Other matters of detail not to be ignored in a com- 
 parison of Belgian and British railways are that, except 
 in the south-west, Belgium consists mainly of flat lands, 
 on which, even allowing for some important bridges, 
 the cost of railway construction could be kept within 
 moderate limits ; that on these said flat lands single 
 locomotives can draw heavier, and therefore better- 
 paying, loads than in England, thus reducing propor- 
 tionately the cost of operation ; and that wages and 
 working expenses in general are lower in Belgium than 
 they are here. 
 
 * In Belgium a railway passenger may not take more than 55 Ib. 
 of luggage free into the compartmeitt with him, and all luggage 
 put in the van must be paid for at the rate of 6 centimes per 100 
 kilos per kilometre that is to say, six-tenths of a penny per I cwt. 
 3 qrs. 24 Ib. for each five-eighths of a mile travelled. In England 
 the free allowanceof luggage is : First class, I5olb. ; second class, 
 120 Ib. ; third class, 100 Ib. At Brussels (Nord) Station the num- 
 ber of porters paid by the administration to assist passengers with 
 their luggage is four, and at Brussels (Midi) three, though extra 
 porters will be in attendance, who depend entirely upon fees from 
 passengers. At Euston Station the number of porters in receipt 
 of wages from the London and North- Western Railway Company 
 is over eighty. 
 
FINANCE 297 
 
 By the traders of Belgium, and by those of other 
 countries who consign their merchandise to or through 
 Belgium, the concession of exceptionally low railway 
 rates of the type and under the conditions here de- 
 scribed may well be a source of complete satisfaction. 
 But when one comes to look at the financial results, as 
 regards the actual operation of the State railways 
 themselves, it is open to doubt if the Belgian taxpayers 
 have equal reason for perfect contentment. 
 
 So far back as 1882 Sir H. Barren, in a report on the 
 subject of the Belgian Budget to the then Minister for 
 Foreign Affairs (Earl Granville) said : 
 
 The five years from 1876 each closed with a deficit, lising in 
 1 88 1 to 6,250,000 francs (,250,000), the main explanation being 
 the ever-increasing burden thrown on the Treasury by the extension 
 of the railway, which undertaking has ceased to cover its charges, 
 and completely disturbed the financial equilibrium of the State. 
 The first lines constructed and worked by the State, being great 
 trunk lines, gave every year an increasing return, which enriched 
 the Treasury. To these were first added conceded lines, which 
 had to be purchased from companies at high prices ; then 
 secondary lines, whose traffic was unremunerative. After many 
 previous experiments the accounts of the railway have been, since 
 1878, drawn up on a new and presumably more accurate principle. 
 The Treasury is now considered as the banker of the railway ; 
 it is assumed that all funds advanced by the former are chargeable 
 with an interest of 4 per cent., and repayable within ninety years. 
 According to this new method of book-keeping, it appears that the 
 railway contributed largely to the revenue until 1872 inclusively, 
 but that since that year it has, on the contrary, entailed an annual 
 loss. . . . Fortunately, Belgium has a resource at hand. 
 
 The Minister of Finance, in the debate on the Budget of Public 
 Works, points to that resource in the following pregnant words : 
 ' It is proved that the railway fails to cover its charges by about 
 five millions (,200,000). . . . Either the railway must be worked 
 on a principle which shall allow it to cover the charges, or the 
 taxpayers must make up the difference.' 
 
 Sir H. Barren went on to say that the inferior pro- 
 ductiveness of the Belgian railways was due to the 
 inadequate tariff, which for passengers and merchan- 
 dise was much lower than the tariffs prevailing in the 
 rest of Europe. 
 
298 THE RAILWAYS OF BELGIUM 
 
 Since 1883 the supreme control of the State railways 
 of Belgium has been under the direction of a special 
 Ministry of ' Railways, Posts, Telegraphs, and Marine,' 
 the Minister at the head thereof being aided by a com- 
 mittee of administrators and high officials. He is not, 
 apparently, required, in return for his official stipend of 
 840 a year, to have any direct acquaintance with the 
 technicalities of railway administration, to say nothing 
 of such subsidiary matters as managing the Post-Office, 
 looking after telegraphs and telephones, and keeping an 
 eye on the Ostend-Dover Royal Mail steamship line in 
 addition. In point of fact, two successive holders of 
 this particular post were solicitors. 
 
 The practice in regard to the State railway finances 
 seems to be that all the receipts from passengers, goods, 
 etc., shall be paid into the National Bank, the expendi- 
 ture being met each year by a railway Budget brought 
 before the Chambers by the Minister of Railways. All 
 salaries and wages are provided for in the Budget, in 
 addition to cost of new works, renewals, payment of 
 interest, sinking-fund charges, etc. The difference be- 
 tween the receipts and the expenditure counts as profit 
 on the year's working. 
 
 Much controversy has arisen as to whether or not 
 even such balances as are thus shown have been fully 
 warranted. There are those who plainly assert that the 
 authorities have at times indulged in manipulations 
 of the accounts with a view to presenting the railway 
 finances in a light unduly favourable to the Govern- 
 ment, following, in fact, the practice so widely attri- 
 buted to those responsible for municipal enterprises in 
 our own country. On one occasion the Minister of 
 Railways then in office was so impressed by the favour- 
 able appearance of his balance-sheet that he openly 
 boasted 'it was he who kept the other departments 
 
DEFICITS AND SURPLUSES 299 
 
 of the State going.' The position certainly did look 
 roseate, until it was found that an altogether inade- 
 quate allowance had been made in respect to renewals 
 and depreciation, and that the expenditure of a con- 
 siderable amount on new locomotives, new coaches, 
 new waggons, and other things besides, altogether in- 
 dispensable if the railways were to be put into a 
 condition of up-to-date efficiency, would make a sub- 
 stantial difference in the sum total of the alleged profit. 
 
 The deficits spoken of by Sir H. Barron amounted to 
 320,000 in 1873, 200,000 in 1875, the same in 1877, 
 280,000 in 1882, 120,000 in 1884, and 40,000 in 1886. 
 This reduction in the deficits continued, until at last 
 favourable balances were shown. Thus the net surplus 
 in 1897 (less interest and sinking fund charges) was 
 4 6 9253 ; in 1898, 473*796, and in 1899, 544,984. 
 In 1900 there was a deficit of 66,405 (due to ' the high 
 price of coal '). The net surplus in 1901 was 1,203 ; 
 in 1902, 398,668 ; and in 1903 (when the working 
 expenses decreased by 49,768 and the net receipts 
 increased by 437,603), 957> 8 - 
 
 Taking the figures as they stand, the profits claimed 
 during recent years do not seem to have done much 
 more than counterbalance the losses on previous years, 
 while in any case the net return on a capital expendi- 
 ture of 83,000,000 (which is the amount spent by 
 the Belgian Government for construction or purchase 
 of railways since 1834) * s one with which no enterprise 
 conducted on a commercial basis could be content. 
 
 In Belgium itself the official argument is, of course, 
 that the railways are operated in the interests of the 
 country, and that there is no idea of making a profit 
 out of them. True it is that low railway rates may 
 have done much to develop industries and to increase 
 the transit business, but why the general taxpayer 
 
300 THE RAILWAYS OF BELGIUM 
 
 should have to make up the difference when the home 
 or the foreign trader wants to have his goods carried at 
 unremunerative rates is by no means clear. In the 
 case of the Dover-Ostend mail service, run by the 
 Belgian Government, the excess of expenditure over 
 receipts is about 100,000 a year. 
 
 Here, again, it is argued that the steamship service 
 fulfils a useful purpose, inasmuch as ' it brings people 
 into the country.' Whether or not it really does take 
 to Belgium many people who, but for the scale of fares 
 charged by this route, would not otherwise go there is 
 doubtful. The amount of gain to Belgium by charging less 
 than the net cost of their journey to through travellers, 
 who may spend little more in Belgium than the price 
 of a cup of coffee at a railway-station, is no less doubt- 
 ful. But one thing quite certain is that if the Belgian 
 taxpayer is content to contribute from his own pocket 
 in order that (among others) Englishmen may travel, 
 or send their merchandise, through Belgium at fares or 
 rates which do not pay, there is no reason why we 
 should complain provided only that railway com- 
 panies at home, operating as commercial enterprises, 
 are not expected to charge on the same scale. 
 
 Finally, the railway situation in Belgium has its 
 political as well as its economic aspects. For a sum of 
 i if. 5c. (gs. 2^d.) one can buy there a third-class ticket 
 which gives to anyone willing to tolerate third-class 
 travel in Belgium the run of the State railway system 
 for a period of five days. There is probably nothing to 
 surpass this in any other country in the world, and it is 
 not surprising to learn that within a fortnight of the 
 date when the ticket first came into operation August i, 
 1903 the number sold to the public was no fewer than 
 14,340. When, however, I discussed the subject with 
 a railway man at Brussels, he said : 
 
POLITICS 301 
 
 The whole thing is just a sop by the Clerical Government to 
 the Socialists, though you would never get the Minister of Railways 
 to admit as much. The Socialists are a power to be reckoned with 
 in Belgium. Their strongholds are within half a day's walk of 
 Brussels, and so frequent and so serious have street disturbances 
 been that the locality where the royal palaces and the Government 
 offices are situated constitutes a neutral zone, where something 
 like martial law is enforced whenever trouble arises. The very 
 buildings in which the chief officials of the State railways transact 
 their business have strong iron gratings in front of all the lower 
 windows, so as to protect the place from possible attack. In such 
 conditions as these a State railway can be made use of to serve a 
 political purpose. There had already been granted a fifteen-day 
 ticket, allowing a person to travel over the entire system, third 
 class, for 23 francs, a second-class ticket for the same period 
 costing 40 francs. But the cry was raised that the poorer classes, 
 who had only a short holiday, should have a corresponding con- 
 cession made to them, and the Government made a bid for the 
 favour of the proletariat, just as previously they had made one for 
 that of the bourgeoisie. 
 
 I give these remarks for what they may be worth, 
 but there are other things besides which point to the 
 possibilities of railway operation being mixed up with 
 politics when the railways belong to the State. Not 
 only, for instance, have the Deputies secured the right 
 to travel free on the Belgian State railways between 
 their homes and the capital, but fast trains which pass 
 through large stations will stop regularly at some small 
 one especially in the Socialistic districts to suit the 
 personal convenience of some particular member. I 
 find also, from the official Compte Rendu of the opera- 
 tions of the Belgian State Railways, that not only are 
 88 per cent, of the tickets sold during the year billets 
 a priz reduits, but 2,000,000 have been issued in a 
 single year to ' militaires, enfants, electeurs.' In Great 
 Britain an elector who has to make a journey by rail 
 before he can go to the poll must pay the ordinary fare ; 
 but in Belgium the Government, which controls the 
 railways, and would naturally be glad to have the 
 support of as many votes as possible, is able to tempt 
 
302 THE RAILWAYS OF BELGIUM 
 
 them with an offer of tickets at reduced prices if only 
 they will take the trouble to make a journey by rail 
 (where necessary) to record their vote. 
 
 The enterprise of the Belgian State in building main 
 lines of railway has, apparently, come to an end. But 
 much is being done in the construction of light rail- 
 ways, which are playing a role of steadily-increasing 
 importance in the further development of locomotion 
 in Belgium. These light railways are practically a 
 monopoly of the Socie"te Nationale des Chemins de Fer 
 Vicinaux, which was created under laws passed in 1884 
 and 1885, and represents a centralized public trust. 
 No private company may construct a light railway in 
 Belgium until the Societe* Nationale has declined to 
 carry out the project. The capital required is con- 
 tributed almost exclusively by the public authorities. 
 Of late years the State has generally subscribed one- 
 half of the capital in respect to each particular line 
 (the accounts of which will be separate from those of 
 other lines), and the remaining half is divided between 
 the province and the communes concerned, except as 
 regards about 2 per cent., which represents investments 
 by private individuals. At the end of 1903 the Societe" 
 Nationale held concessions for 1,9 n miles of railway, 
 of which 1,443 miles were in full working order. 
 Schemes representing a further 1,243 miles of route 
 were under consideration. Some of the lines carry 
 passengers and parcels only. Those carrying goods com- 
 prise 1,300 miles of the total. Nearly all are laid along 
 the public roads. The capital expenditure amounts to 
 4,480,000, or about 3,400 per mile, and the dividends 
 paid in 1903 averaged 3*27 per cent, on the capital. 
 ' The excellent financial results,' says M. C. Colson, in 
 a paper on * Direct Financial Co-operation by the 
 State and by Localities interested in the Development 
 
LIGHT RAILWAYS 303 
 
 of Light Railways,' contributed by him to the Inter- 
 national Railway Congress, held at Washington in 
 May, 1905, ' are due in a large measure to the excep- 
 tional richness of Belgium, and also to a legislation 
 which, instead of burdening the secondary railways 
 with special taxation and charges for the benefit of the 
 postal and telegraph services, exempts them from any 
 license duties, from local taxation on their real pro- 
 perty or on their stock, from all stamp and registra- 
 tion duties, and finally grants the National Company 
 exemption from postage.' 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 THE RAILWAYS OF DENMARK 
 
 IN the securing by Danish traders of those especially 
 favourable railway rates in their own country which 
 have helped them materially to develop their great trade 
 in dairy and other produce with the United Kingdom 
 there have been two chief factors (i) the action of the 
 State, and (2) the joint action of the producers them- 
 selves. 
 
 When the railway movement was started in Denmark 
 the disposition of the State was to leave matters in the 
 hands of private companies, and these were so far enter- 
 prising that they provided a series of lines connecting 
 Copenhagen with various towns on the island of Zea- 
 land, others, though of less importance, following in the 
 small isles of Falster and Laaland, to the south. The 
 companies, in fact, constructed railways in the best- 
 populated and most prosperous districts ; but when it 
 became a matter of building other lines on Fiinen and 
 in Jutland, the companies held aloof, not caring to 
 embark on enterprises which promised no adequate 
 return on the outlay. So the State had to provide at 
 its own cost the lines that were not thought likely to 
 pay, but were wanted all the same. 
 
 The next stage was reached when some of the com- 
 panies began to get into financial difficulties, notwith- 
 standing the fact that they had secured the pick of the 
 
 304 
 
ORIGIN OF STATE OWNERSHIP 305 
 
 routes. But, truth to say, the traffic, especially in those 
 days, could not have been very great or very remunera- 
 tive. Lying off the beaten track of international com- 
 merce and travel, Denmark was in an altogether different 
 position from Holland, Belgium, Germany, or France, 
 each of which could make its bid for the Continental 
 through traffic, while in those days Denmark had not 
 yet created a big export trade on her own account. In 
 the circumstances, railway enterprise in Denmark might 
 well seem to offer no great prospects from a commercial 
 standpoint. 
 
 Then there happened in Denmark what, as we have 
 already seen, was happening elsewhere : the State first 
 of all went to the relief of the distressed railway com- 
 panies, and it afterwards decided to buy up all the lines 
 that were of any importance at all and add them to its 
 own system. This it had done by the end of 1889, and 
 since then the State has built a number of new lines. 
 Even within the last seven years the extensions it has 
 provided have represented a total of about 400 English 
 miles. 
 
 In operating the network of lines of which they thus 
 got possession, the Danish Government met with a very 
 strong expression of opinion on the part of the Danish 
 people that the railways ought to be conducted in the 
 interests of the country, without any regard to the ques- 
 tion as to whether they yielded a profit or not. In 
 fact, it was considered that if any profit really were 
 made, this would be a certain proof that the rates and 
 charges were higher than they should be. Views such 
 as these were especially enforced by the representatives 
 of the agricultural interest, in proportion as their influ- 
 ence in the State increased. 
 
 The rates and charges had at no time been heavy. 
 The cost of construction had not been great ; the people 
 
 20 
 
306 THE RAILWAYS OF DENMARK 
 
 were none too wealthy; water competition was keen, 
 and the roundabout way of getting, say, from Copen- 
 hagen to the North of Jutland, by rail and ferry-boats, 
 represented so long a distance that a strictly mileage 
 rate would have been impracticable. All the same, 
 when the operation of the State lines showed a favour- 
 able balance of about 2 per cent., the agriculturists 
 raised an outcry, and represented (in effect) that they 
 were being robbed. 
 
 So a substantial reduction was made in the already 
 low rates to satisfy public opinion. Concurrently with 
 these concessions, the State had to spend considerable 
 sums of money on new rolling stock and new lines to 
 meet the increasing requirements. The result of this 
 combination of circumstances was that the item of net. 
 profit dwindled and dwindled, until at last it disappeared 
 altogether. In the financial year 1897-1898 it stood at 
 (in pounds sterling) 241,000 ; in 1898-1899 it fell to 
 163,000 ; in 1899-1900 it was 140,492 ; in 1900-1901 
 there was a big drop to 14,000 ; and in 1901-1902 
 there was a deficit of 12,000. 
 
 A reaction followed. Railway management by public 
 opinion was evidently not having the success that could 
 be desired, and, although there was a recovery in 1902- 
 1903, the fact was recognised that the rates which were 
 being charged were lower than they ought to be, con- 
 sistently with the financial success of the railway system. 
 Considering that a commission formed in 1900 had 
 valued the railways, as a State asset, at 14,170,000 
 subsequently reduced by the Minister of Finance to 
 10,350,000 even such favourable balances as those 
 mentioned did not suggest any excessive return on this 
 amount of capital. 
 
 So the general reduction in rates of a few years 
 previously was followed, in July, 1903, by a general 
 
DANISH RATES AND CHARGES 
 
 307 
 
 increase, the nature of which is shown by the following 
 examples : 
 
 DANISH TARIFFS, NEW AND OLD, FOR TRUCK-LOADS 
 OF TEN TONS. 
 
 i krone = ioo 6re=is. id. 
 
 From 
 Copenhagen 
 to 
 
 Distance 
 Miles. 
 
 Butter. Grain. 
 
 i 
 
 Coal. 
 
 New 
 Rates. 
 
 Old i New Old 
 Rates. Rates. ; Rates. 
 
 New 
 Rates. 
 
 Old 
 Rate. 
 
 Roskilde ... 
 Korsor ... 
 Esbjerg ... 
 Aalborg ... 
 
 19 
 67 
 205 
 
 305 
 
 k. 6. 
 I9-60 
 47-40 
 83-80 
 1 08 '00 
 
 k. o. | k. b. | k. o. 
 
 1770 15-10: 13*20 
 
 437i 33-90 31*10 
 
 8o - 10 | 62 '20 1 60-30 
 104*30 i 8 1 "90 80*90 
 
 k. o. 
 
 10*80 
 
 23-40 
 45-00 
 S9-40 
 
 k. 0. 
 
 9-90 
 22-50 
 44*10 
 58-50 
 
 The above, it is important to remember, represent 
 rates for use of truck and haulage only ; everything else 
 counts as an extra, and must be paid for accordingly. 
 The railway will send to a trader for his consignments, 
 if he should so desire, and will load them into the 
 trucks ; but it will charge him at the rate of 20 ore per 
 TOO kilos for so doing. It will also unload and deliver 
 at the other end, but only on the same terms. The 
 railway thus reduces the net cost of operation to a 
 minimum, and charges accordingly. 
 
 One outcome of this situation in Denmark has been 
 the formation of a society of labourers which contracts 
 with merchants and traders for the loading and unload- 
 ing of their consignments into or out of the railway 
 trucks. Established with the sanction of the State 
 railway, the society is subject to the control of the 
 railway officers, and its charges must not exceed a scale 
 approved by the Ministry for Public Works. So, to 
 arrive at the real cost of railway transport in Denmark, 
 
 20 2 
 
308 THE RAILWAYS OF DENMARK 
 
 one must add to such rates as those I have quoted the 
 further charges or expenses in respect to various services 
 which the railway leaves the trader to perform or 
 arrange for himself. 
 
 Since 1901-1902 (when, as I have shown, there was 
 a deficit of 12,000) the State railways of Denmark 
 have yielded a much better return, the balance for 1902- 
 1903 being 169,000 (representing 1*69 per cent), and 
 that for 1903-1904 307,000 (2*97 per cent.), while the 
 estimate for 1904-1905 was still more favourable. It 
 remains to be seen whether or not the Danish agri- 
 culturists will now want another general reduction of 
 rates. In any case, a railway administration which 
 can employ public funds for the construction or the 
 purchase and general maintenance of its lines, and is 
 under no obligation to secure a reasonable return on 
 capital expenditure (but is even liable to rebuke from 
 the traders if it does !), should indeed be in a position 
 to keep its scale of rates low, especially under the 
 traffic conditions already indicated. 
 
 Nor in Denmark is the action of the State limited to 
 transport by land. State aid has been given to the 
 agriculturist at the cost of the taxpayer in respect 
 also to transport by sea ; for the State grants subsidies 
 to the Danish lines of steamships which carry produce 
 from Esbjerg to Harwich and Grimsby respectively, 
 thus allowing much lower .through rates to be charged 
 than would otherwise be practicable. 
 
 Then I have said that another factor in the situation 
 is the joint action of the producers themselves. 
 
 There is no need for me to repeat here the now 
 familiar story of how the farmers of Denmark combine 
 and co-operate with one another in every possible phase 
 of their business life. On the general aspects of the 
 question I content myself with giving the following 
 
COMBINATION AND BIG LOADS 309 
 
 extract from the report for the year 1903 of Captain 
 Boyle, His Majesty's Consul at Copenhagen : 
 
 The year might certainly have been more favourable as regards 
 agriculture, and crops might have been heavier and of better quality 
 if the weather had been finer ; but the systematic way in which 
 farmers meet all difficulties on the basis of co-operation seems to 
 enable them, however much circumstances are against them, to 
 overcome most difficulties. 
 
 What I would especially point out, however, is the 
 effect that all this combination has had on the bulk of 
 the consignments forwarded by rail to Esbjerg or other 
 ports for despatch (mainly) to England. In the table 
 on page 307 I have quoted figures for 10-ton lots. The 
 fact is that in conversing with railway men in Denmark 
 one falls naturally into the way of talking of waggon- 
 load lots rather than hundredweights. In England a 
 10-ton consignment of home - fed bacon would be re- 
 garded as prodigious ; but in Denmark there is one 
 bacon factory which will send five lo-ton loads of bacon 
 to Esbjerg twice every week, and trains will arrive at 
 that port each bringing as many as thirty-five waggons 
 of bacon collected at various points on the island of 
 Jutland alone. In a single year the Danish State 
 railways have conveyed, among other merchandise, 
 90,800 tons of meat and bacon, 85,300 tons of butter, 
 and 28,800 tons of eggs. Of these quantities, they 
 carried to Esbjerg, for transport thence by sea to 
 England, 50,600 tons of meat and bacon, 27,700 tons of 
 butter, and 10,000 tons of eggs.* 
 
 Wholesale consignments such as these naturally get 
 the most favourable of terms on the Danish railways, 
 independently altogether of any special desire on the 
 part of the State to foster the agricultural interests of 
 the country. In the same way they provide for the 
 
 * Our total importations of butter, bacon, and eggs from Den- 
 mark in 1904 amounted in value to ; 14,997,000. 
 
3io THE RAILWAYS OF DENMARK 
 
 English railway companies on their arrival here big 
 loads with which there is nothing to compare in the 
 way of corresponding quantities of native produce.* 
 
 In addition, therefore, to the fundamental differences 
 between the conditions of railway ownership and 
 operation in Denmark and in England respectively, 
 already tending to keep down the scale of railway rates 
 in the former country to an almost irreducible minimum, 
 we get this further fact : that economy in railway 
 transport in Denmark (affecting also the corresponding 
 transport of the same produce on British railways) is 
 greatly facilitated by the magnitude of the grouped 
 consignments, as the direct result of a general adoption 
 of co-operative principles. 
 
 As for the point of view from which British railways, 
 in their turn, are regarded by railway men in Denmark, 
 I cannot do better than record the following remarks 
 made to me in Copenhagen by one of the leading 
 officials on the Danish State system : 
 
 I do not think the rates and charges of your English companies 
 are too high, considering that railways cost so much to build in 
 England, and especially considering the magnitude of the organiza- 
 tion necessary to the rendering of services not included in our rates 
 at all. When I go to London, and see there the great depots 
 which have been erected on land that must be immensely valuable, 
 and when I see also the arrangements made for the collection and 
 delivery of goods, and so on, it seems to me that the charges made 
 by your companies cannot, in the circumstances, be regarded as at 
 all excessive. 
 
 On the subject of light railways in Denmark, Mr. 
 E. A. Ziffer said at the International Railway Con- 
 gress at Washington : 
 
 The State assists the construction of light railways by giving 
 them the right of compulsory purchase of land and the right of 
 exemption from paying taxes and rates and stamp duties, and by 
 
 * See p. 150. 
 
STATE AID FOR LIGHT RAILWAYS 311 
 
 allowing them to import materials used in construction free from 
 duty, or else repaying any import duty already paid. The State 
 further helps the construction of light railways, as a rule, in various 
 ways, but the principle on which this assistance is given has varied 
 very much at different periods. 
 
 There are very few light railways in existence which have not 
 received further special assistance, in addition to the expropriation 
 rights and exemption from taxation. 
 
 In the majority of cases, the light railways have been assisted 
 as follows : 
 
 In some cases the State has paid either the whole or one-half of 
 the cost of the land. In others it has guaranteed 4 per cent, 
 interest on the whole or part of the capital invested. In other 
 cases, again, it has granted a subvention in proportion to the length 
 of the railway. 
 
 In the case of the more recently constructed lines, their con- 
 struction has been governed by the law of May 8, 1894, which 
 specifies that the State shall contribute one-half or three-quarters 
 of the expenditure on works, etc. 
 
 That part of the capital outlay for these railways which is not 
 contributed by the State is obtained by the issue of debentures, 
 preference shares, and ordinary shares. 
 
 As a rule, the local authorities assist in raising the capital for the 
 enterprise by taking over a more or less substantial part of the 
 debentures and shares. 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 CONCLUSION 
 
 THE subject with which I have here attempted to deal 
 is of so wide, so varied, and so complicated a character 
 that I could not hope to treat it exhaustively, in regard 
 alike to home and to foreign conditions, within the 
 limits of a single volume. But while the student of 
 railway economics may consider that there is much 
 I have still left unsaid, other readers, I trust, will find 
 the general survey I have given sufficiently compre- 
 hensive to enable them to pass a sounder judgment on 
 the situation as a whole than would be possible without 
 a knowledge of facts such as those I have advanced. 
 
 I will not attempt to anticipate what that judgment 
 may be, but the view I have myself formed, as the result 
 of such investigation as I have been able to make, is 
 that British railways have been subjected in the past 
 to a great amount of criticism that is harsh, unjust, 
 and ungenerous. As a human institution, with many 
 disadvantages and drawbacks, they are naturally not 
 without their faults and shortcomings ; but, considering 
 all the circumstances under which they came into being, 
 and the particular conditions under which they are 
 operated, as compared with the corresponding circum- 
 stances and conditions in the case of foreign railways, 
 the wonder is that they can show such results, and 
 
 312 
 
BRITISH RAILWAYS AND THEIR CRITICS 313 
 
 stand the test of comparison so favourably, as they do. 
 Plundered by landowners, restrained by Acts of Parlia- 
 ment, handicapped by Board of Trade regulations, 
 converted into 'the milch-cows of local exchequers,' 
 compelled to see both cost of construction and working 
 expenses swell into abnormal proportions, the British 
 railways have had to bear unjust comparison either with 
 the railways of the United States, built and operated as 
 I have narrated elsewhere,* or with Continental railways, 
 constructed at lesser cost, owned or supported by the 
 State, made to play a political as well as an economic 
 role, and operating under what are often wholly different 
 traffic conditions. Not only have these fundamental 
 differences been generally ignored by British critics of 
 our greatest example of British enterprise (in other 
 parts of the world our railways are regarded from a 
 much more favourable point of view) ; not only are 
 railways here expected to do everything that can be 
 done by railways elsewhere, but, as I have shown, the 
 said critics, in the comparisons they make between 
 railway rates here and those abroad, do not, generally 
 speaking, compare rates that are really comparable, 
 and they omit from consideration the fact that the 
 British rates may include services which are not 
 included in the foreign rates, and the cost of which 
 services, if added thereto (that is, contrasting export 
 rates with export rates, and domestic with domestic), 
 would show that there is often but little, if any, difference 
 between the two. 
 
 Even, however, when due allowance has been made 
 for all these things, it is doubtful if there is any real 
 basis for comparison between British and foreign railway 
 conditions at all. If I were asked to state in a single 
 
 * 'American Railways' (Macmillan), 1903. 
 
3 i4 CONCLUSION 
 
 phrase the distinguishing feature of British railway 
 operation, I should say it was one of * short hauls and 
 small consignments.' We have in the British Isles 
 neither the geographical distances nor the wholesale 
 quantities (apart from imports) either of the United 
 States or of the Continent, If the reader could have 
 stood with me on the main lines of the Santa Fe 
 Railway in New Mexico, and seen complete train-loads 
 of fruit as many waggons as an American loco- 
 motive monstrosity could possibly haul going through 
 from the Pacific to Chicago, if not to the Atlantic ; if 
 he could have watched, with me, the making up at 
 Galveston (from the steamers arriving there from New 
 York) of train-loads of general merchandise to be taken 
 en bloc 2,000 miles across the plains of Texas and 
 the deserts beyond, to San Francisco ; if he had found 
 on the Illinois Central, as I found, daily train-loads of 
 imported bananas going on the goo-mile journey from 
 New Orleans to Chicago ; and if, finally, he had heard, 
 as I heard in Minnesota, of the monstrous loads of 
 wheat and maize that might, when navigation is closed 
 on the lakes, go all the way to New York by rail, then 
 he would no longer wonder how it is, in all these circum- 
 stances, that the rate per ton per mile on the American 
 railways already built at so small an average cost per 
 mile works out so low. Nor would he wonder how it 
 was that, when I asked an American expert to give me 
 a rate for the transport of, say, 10 cwt. of a particular 
 commodity for a distance of 30 miles (so that I could 
 really compare like with like), he replied, ' Oh, we don't 
 bother about such business as that.' 
 
 Looking at the Continent of Europe, we find there, 
 also, both lengths of haul and magnitude of consign- 
 ments much in excess of our own. Taking the through 
 traffic, which represents so important a part of the 
 
'PER TON PER MILE' 315 
 
 whole, there are such hauls as those from Italy to 
 Boulogne, from Roumania to Hamburg, or from Galicia 
 to Bremen, the commodities in question being, in each 
 case, destined for Great Britain. In these and similar 
 instances the combination of length of haul and great 
 bulk of consignments would lead to the concession of 
 a rate which naturally represents something very low 
 per ton per mile, independently of the special efforts the 
 State lines concerned may make to develop the traffic. 
 Inasmuch as the British railways could not have such 
 long hauls, even if they could secure such large quantities 
 to carry, it would be idle to inquire whether or not their 
 rates per ton per mile would work out higher or lower 
 under similar conditions. 
 
 Leaving aside absolutely delusive comparisons as to 
 rates per ton per mile, the fact remains that the sum 
 total of the freight paid by the foreigners for the trans- 
 port of, say, their cauliflowers from Italy, or their eggs 
 from Galicia, to London is greater than what a British 
 trader would pay for the transport of like commodities 
 in corresponding quantities from any part of the British 
 Isles. The same argument applies, though in a lesser 
 degree, to a good deal of the traffic originating in, and 
 exported from, Germany, where the manufacturing dis- 
 tricts are generally at least 150 miles from a port, 
 though here, of course, in addition to the fact of the 
 long haul reducing the rate per ton per mile, we get the 
 consideration as to the virtual bounties given by the 
 State in the form of still lower transport rates for 
 exports than even big lots carried good distances would 
 justify. 
 
 To get anything like equality between British and 
 Continental railway conditions, it would be necessary 
 for our Government either to buy up railways on which, 
 as I have shown, at least 1,054,000,000 has been spent, 
 
3i6 CONCLUSION 
 
 or else to guarantee to each company the payment of a 
 stipulated dividend to its shareholders. In the former 
 case a gigantic sum of money would be required ; in the 
 latter it might still be necessary for the taxpayer to 
 provide the funds that would allow of the trader sending 
 his goods by rail at lower rates than at present. If the 
 country were prepared to adopt either of these courses, 
 the whole position would be simplified ; but, as it is, 
 the fact that the average dividends paid on the 
 1,054,000,000 invested in British railways represent 
 only 3^ per cent, does not suggest that, under present 
 conditions, railway shareholders are getting unduly large 
 profits, at the cost of traders and travellers. If it suits 
 the national policy of the United Kingdom that no 
 public money should be put into the railways, that no 
 State aid of any sort whatever should be given to them, 
 and that everything shall be left to the enterprise of 
 private individuals, who put their money into railways 
 in the hope of getting a fair return therefrom, then our 
 railway system must be looked at from an entirely 
 different point of view from Continental systems in 
 which, as we have seen, such very substantial sums of 
 public money have been involved. 
 
 For these and for the various other reasons already 
 adduced, a comparison of British with Continental, or 
 even with American, railways is altogether delusive, 
 and in the one case, as in the others, judgment must be 
 based on individual merits and national circumstances. 
 If this be done, most of the grievances which have been 
 advanced here because of differences, real or imaginary, 
 between British and foreign railway rates become un- 
 tenable, and we are left with the consideration (i) whether 
 British railway rates, judged from the standpoint of our 
 own position, are unduly high in themselves; (2) whether 
 there are legitimate grounds for complaint, apart from 
 
THE BRITISH STANDPOINT 317 
 
 the aforesaid comparisons ; and (3) whether there are any 
 practical steps which could be taken to bring about a 
 reduction in rates and charges. 
 
 On the first of these points I would recall to the mind 
 of the reader the fact that the schedule rates represent 
 simply maxima beyond which Parliament will not allow 
 the railway companies to go, and that 75 per cent, of 
 the total merchandise and mineral traffic is, on an 
 average, carried under special rates, which represent 
 more or less favourable reductions on the schedule rates. 
 Any judgment, therefore, formed on the legal maxima 
 alone will be misleading. 
 
 Then, the question which arises may be not simply 
 the amount which the trader thinks he ought to pay, 
 but the particular rate at which the railway can afford 
 to carry. Cost of construction, working expenses in 
 every shape or form, and a fair return on invested 
 capital, can only be met out of the revenue received 
 from traders and passengers, and if the two first-men- 
 tioned items have, under a variety of circumstances, 
 grown to abnormal proportions, then, unless the railway 
 shareholders are to dispense with any dividend at all, 
 the trader must pay more for the transport of his goods 
 than would otherwise be necessary. What the British 
 railways have cost to make, or to widen after they have 
 been made, has already been shown ; but in the matter 
 of working expenses the burdens imposed on railway 
 companies in respect to the heavy exactions of local 
 rating authorities ; the demands of the London County 
 Council and other public bodies for the running of un- 
 remunerative workmen's trains ; the increased financial 
 obligations thrown upon the railways by Parliament; 
 the various requirements enforced from time to time by 
 the Board of Trade ; and the loss of traffic through the 
 competition of municipal tramways, which the railway 
 
318 CONCLUSION 
 
 companies suffering therefrom may have to support 
 through the local rates to which they are the largest 
 contributors, must all materially curtail the ability 
 of the railways to reduce their rates below a certain 
 figure. The shareholders suffer in the matter of divi- 
 dends, but the public bear their part as well by having 
 to pay higher fares, rates, and charges than would be 
 needed if British railways could have been built at less 
 cost, or could even now be operated with a greater 
 degree of moderation in the way of burdens imposed on 
 the companies themselves. 
 
 As regards actual complaints, taking those in which 
 foreign rates do not come into consideration, a large 
 proportion will turn on the various anomalies resulting 
 from variations due to sea competition, special rates, 
 and bulk of consignments, or on widespread mis- 
 apprehensions based on a non-recognition of the fact 
 that the actual distance any one consignment is carried, 
 as compared with another, may be only a secondary 
 consideration in the matter of goods traffic, and become 
 altogether subordinate to other circumstances into which 
 the element of distance scarcely enters. 
 
 Then, I fail to see legitimate grounds for the com- 
 plaint that railway companies carry wholesale quantities 
 at a lower rate per ton than they do retail quantities, 
 especially considering that they are willing as the 
 law requires of them to give to all traders alike the 
 same rates under the same or similar circumstances. 
 If the small trader cannot operate on the same scale 
 as the large one, it is only in accordance with com- 
 mercial principles that he should pay a different 
 rate. 
 
 As for the allegations in respect to preferential rates, I 
 may recall the fact that in a debate on ' Rural Depopula- 
 tion ' in the House of Commons on February 24, 1905, 
 
ALLEGATION OF PREFERENTIAL RATES 319 
 
 Mr. Ailwyn Fellowes, now President of the Board of 
 Agriculture, said : 
 
 With regard to the question of preferential rates, the work of the 
 Committee on that subject had been disappointing up to now, but 
 owing to no fault of the Committee. Every Chamber of Agriculture, 
 every farmers' club, and every agricultural society, had been asked 
 to send up witnesses to give evidence before the Committee on the 
 question of preferential rates, but at present the response had been 
 very small. 
 
 Three days later the Manchester Courier published 
 the following : 
 
 On Saturday, at the annual meeting of the Lancaster Farmers' 
 Association, Mr. Ball, the secretary of the Lancashire Farmers' 
 Federation, urgently asked for any instances where foreign produce, 
 on arrival at Lancashire ports, had been carried to English markets 
 at cheaper rates than were charged for conveyance of home produce 
 to the same markets. The Departmental Committee, which was 
 at present inquiring into this question, complained that, though 
 general allegations were made, there was an absence of concrete 
 evidence supporting them. He had personally failed to discover 
 a specific case to lay before the Committee. 
 
 In view of these statements, it does not look as if the 
 allegations so freely advanced against railway com- 
 panies in regard to preferential rates to foreigners had 
 the slightest foundation in fact. It is, at least, signifi- 
 cant that urgent appeals of this kind should have to be 
 made for ' concrete evidence ' in order to support so 
 very weak an indictment. 
 
 Coming to the question of any possible reduction in 
 rates and charges, two facts to be specially remembered 
 are (i) that the effect of legislative action, as detailed in 
 Chapter II., has been to bring about a lack of elasticity 
 in the relations of railway companies towards the 
 traders, the former being no longer entirely free agents 
 in their ability to act on strictly commercial considera- 
 tions; and (2) that, however great the willingness of 
 
320 CONCLUSION 
 
 a railway company to grant a reduction of rates for a 
 certain commodity between two specified points, such 
 reduction might be very difficult to arrange, because 
 that same rate would govern rates between a variety of 
 other places, either on the same company's line, or on 
 those of other companies with which there was a 
 friendly agreement. 
 
 Subject to these two disadvantages, the concession 
 of special rates, in the interests either of particular 
 districts or of certain industries, is a matter much 
 easier of arrangement in the United Kingdom than it 
 is in Continental countries where the operation of rail- 
 ways is a matter of direct or indirect State control. As 
 regards, however, any general or even widespread reduc- 
 tion of railway rates, the reader must see how imprac- 
 ticable such a procedure as this would be so long as 
 the railway companies have to meet all those onerous 
 and burdensome obligations I have detailed above ; and 
 one of the most practical steps which traders could 
 take if only in their own interest would be to exer- 
 cise such influence as they could on local and Imperial 
 authorities with a view to the reduction of these obliga- 
 tions to proportions at once more equitable and more 
 in accordance with the best interests of British trade 
 and commerce. 
 
 Reform in this direction may be difficult of attain- 
 ment, but the trader might also take into consideration 
 whether he could not do something more towards 
 helping the railway companies to reduce that cost of 
 operation which must necessarily count as an important 
 item in the fixing of rates on particular commodities. 
 It is hopeless to expect any such transformation of 
 British trading conditions as would effect a complete 
 reversal of the system under which the retail trader, 
 especially, receives small consignments at frequent 
 
HELPING THE RAILWAYS 321 
 
 intervals ; but a little friendly co-operation with the 
 railway company might often lead to the rolling stock 
 being used to greater advantage. A trader will get his 
 supplies day by day or week by week, to suit his own 
 convenience, without any regard for the amount of dead 
 weight the railway company may thereby be forced to 
 carry in order to earn the rates it charges him ; whereas, 
 if he could order two days' or two weeks' supplies in 
 one, or even if he did not insist on such prompt delivery, 
 the railway company would often be able to save a 
 waggon and make up a better-paying load. 
 
 It is the practice, for instance, of small publicans to 
 have five casks of beer at a time from Burton. In the 
 majority of cases each order of five barrels will have 
 to be put in a separate truck, so that every night 100 
 or more railway trucks, which could easily carry thirty- 
 five barrels each, are loaded up by the Burton brewers 
 with only one-seventh of that number. If ordinary 
 bricks are placed in regular rows in a railway truck, 
 instead of being thrown in without any order, the truck 
 will hold 25 per cent. more. On a large consignment 
 a saving of one or several trucks might thus be effected. 
 In the case of slates from North Wales, a railway truck 
 would hold a larger quantity if the slates were packed 
 into it on end instead of lengthwise ; but there are 
 prejudices on the part of the quarry people in favour 
 of the latter system, and it is a matter of indifference 
 to them if a larger number of trucks should be needed 
 than would otherwise be necessary, and if the cost of 
 haulage should become proportionately greater. 
 
 The position is still worse in regard to ordinary 
 merchandise and agricultural produce, the result being 
 that the average load obtained by British railway 
 companies in general for trucks which, as a rule, ^ 
 will carry at least 7 tons is only from 2 to 3 tons. 
 
 21 
 
322 CONCLUSION 
 
 Even from Liverpool, where the conditions are especially 
 favourable, owing to the heavy loads of imported meat, 
 timber, cotton, etc., the average loading per truck on 
 the London and North-Western Railway is only 3 tons 
 10 cwt. a figure that works out somewhat higher in 
 the case of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Company, 
 because of the greater quantity of cotton taken by that 
 company to Lancashire. 
 
 Alike in the United States and on the Continent of 
 Europe, the conditions of trade and of operation enable 
 the railways to secure a larger proportion of paying 
 load to dead weight than is the case in the United 
 Kingdom. In America the freight cars are much 
 oftener loaded to their full capacity. On the Continent 
 of Europe the trader or the forwarding agent pays for 
 a 5-ton or a lo-ton truck, whether he can fill it or not, 
 while both the railways (when they act independently) 
 and the forwarding agents (when they act as middle- 
 men) are able to keep consignments back for a certain 
 period if by doing so there is a better chance of their 
 making up a full load. This practice would not be 
 tolerated by the traders of Great Britain, who, in effect, 
 have been spoilt, rather than impoverished, by the 
 railway companies. ' If,' a district goods manager once 
 said to me, ' we ^had only a brown-paper parcel, we 
 should have to send it on ' ; and then he told me this 
 story concerning himself: 
 
 When I came to , I was full of youthful enthusiasms, and 
 
 I thought I would try to reform certain things that seemed to be 
 capable of improvement. I was especially worried at seeing the 
 way in which trucks were leaving only a quarter loaded, and one 
 day I told the men to put into one and the same truck a con- 
 signment for the town of A and another for B, twenty-five miles 
 further down the line. This was done, and I congratulated myself 
 on having saved a truck. But the result was that the trader at B, 
 instead of getting his consignment the next day, did not receive it 
 until the day after. I knew there was no real urgency, and if the 
 
THE MINIMUM LOAD 323 
 
 goods had been sent by canal the trader would have been quite 
 willing to wait for them three days instead of two. But he had 
 been so accustomed to prompt delivery that he was not inclined to 
 tolerate any delay merely because it allowed the railway company 
 to work the traffic more economically. He made complaints which 
 were so loud and vigorous that I ventured on no further experiments, 
 and the reform movement I had hoped to start came to a speedy 
 and untimely end. 
 
 The individual in question was, after all, only a type 
 of a very large class of traders. They expect prompt 
 delivery of consignments of whatever weight, without 
 any regard to the actual cost of handling; and they 
 expect to pay no more than the lowest rates paid by 
 the Continental trader for a service which might take 
 at least three or four times longer, and would certainly 
 be much more economical to the railways. 
 
 Another respect in which, it is to be feared, British 
 traders have been spoilt by their railway companies 
 is in regard to the minimum load. I have shown that 
 in Continental countries the special or exceptional rates 
 apply to loads with minima ranging from 5-ton or lo-ton 
 up to 200-ton lots, so that only big traders, or forward- 
 ing agents collecting from the general public, can take 
 advantage of them. Recognising the more retail nature 
 of the British traffic ; anxious to put smaller traders on 
 a level of equality with the larger ones ; and not wishing 
 to drive those smaller traders into the hands of middle- 
 men forwarding agents, as in Germany, the British 
 railway companies have, in a large number of instances, 
 reduced the minima of their special rates to only 2-ton 
 or 4-ton lots. They still expect to get large quantities 
 to carry at these rates, as Mr. Ree, of the London and 
 North-Western Railway Company, explained to the 
 Newport farmers ;* but the effect of their concession is 
 that the smaller trader in Great Britain secures an 
 
 * See p. 108. 
 
 21 2 
 
324 CONCLUSION 
 
 advantage which is denied to the smaller trader in 
 Germany. 
 
 The benefit to the railway companies themselves is 
 a somewhat doubtful one, for the result has been to 
 reduce the average load, under the operation of special 
 rates, to a much smaller proportion than is the case 
 on the Continent. There the minima have been fixed 
 on the basis of a really remunerative load, and the 
 trader has been accustomed to work up to them. Here 
 the minima too often represent an unremunerative 
 load, but the trader, nevertheless, works down to them. 
 The Continental trader is bound to send at least 
 5 tons or 10 tons to benefit from the most favourable 
 rates. The British trader, being offered the advantage 
 of a special rate for (in many cases) 2 tons, seems 
 to think that if the railway companies are willing to 
 give him such a rate, and carry his 2 tons, or his 4 tons, 
 in a truck that would just as well hold 7 tons or 
 10 tons, there is no reason why he should hold his con- 
 signments back a day or allow the railway to do so 
 or why he should send single consignments in larger 
 bulk, merely because a better-paying load for the 
 railway might then be offered. 
 
 So, in affording greater facilities to the traders, the 
 railway companies have adopted a course which has 
 tended to increase still further the proportion of non- 
 paying to the paying load, to their own disadvantage ; 
 while the traders, as a rule, not only refrain from 
 making, in return, any effort to facilitate economical 
 operations, but, as soon as they get, or may be in a 
 position to get, an 8-ton, 10-ton, or 15-ton consignment 
 together, they want to know 'what the company is 
 going to allow them,' and very often can only indulge 
 in ill-natured criticism on finding that still further reduc- 
 tions are not made ! 
 
ATTITUDE OF THE TRADER 325 
 
 ' Midland Manufacturer,' for instance, in a letter to 
 the Statist, of June 25, 1904, writes that to secure best 
 rates on ingots of lead, antimony, and heavy metals 
 generally, 2-ton lots are the limit, and he knows, ' as 
 a repeated fact,' that the Midland Railway Company 
 conveys his 2 -ton lots in a separate waggon, and without 
 other merchandise to make up a waggon-load. ' I have 
 repeatedly tried,' he goes on to say, ' to get the railway 
 company to give me a concession for an 8-ton, lo-ton, or 
 12-ton load in one waggon, but they absolutely decline ;' 
 and because they so decline he says he is ' sick of 
 their stubbof nness,' and he condemns railways in general 
 as ' tyrannical ' and ' very unbusiness-like.' 
 
 There is not the slightest appreciation here of the 
 fact that ' best rates ' can be obtained for as small a 
 quantity as 2 tons not the slightest suggestion of any 
 willingness to make transport at such rates remunera- 
 tive to the railway company. It is the old story of the 
 Berwick trader over again. ' What we want is to 
 have our fish or our ingots or anything else carried 
 
 at half present rates. We don't care a whether 
 
 it pays the railway or not.' 
 
 To sum up, my conclusions on the whole subject 
 are : That British traders must regard British railways 
 from a British standpoint, and not expect everything 
 to be done here in strict accord with foreign conditions 
 which are absolutely different in almost every possible 
 detail; that the grievances advanced, apart from un- 
 fair and illogical comparisons, are generally either 
 imaginary or the result of geographical or economic 
 anomalies practically unavoidable ; that no general 
 reduction of railway rates in Great Britain can be 
 looked for so long as the companies are burdened to 
 so great an extent by the Legislature, by Government 
 departments, and bv local authorities with a host of 
 
326 CONCLUSION 
 
 obligations which tend either to swell their working 
 expenses or to diminish their revenue ; that good 
 results, leading to mutual benefits, might well be 
 attained if there were more willingness on the part of 
 the traders to co-operate with the railways with a view 
 to securing greater economy in operation ; and that 
 in many individual instances where lower rates are 
 desired the remedy is already in the hands of the 
 traders themselves. 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 THE BRITISH CANAL PROBLEM 
 
 VARIOUS proposals have been brought forward of late years 
 with a view to the revival of our neglected canals as an 
 alternative means of transport for merchandise and raw 
 materials by widening, deepening, and otherwise increasing 
 their possibilities of usefulness ; and different advocates of 
 the main idea have suggested schemes based, some on the 
 principle of nationalization, some on that of municipaliza- 
 tion, and others, again, on that of public trusts with State 
 guarantee any one of which projects foreshadows at least 
 the possibility of very substantial sums of public money 
 being more or less involved in the schemes in question. 
 
 The subject is one which thus appeals both to the trader 
 and to the taxpayer, and it may be of public service if, 
 following up what I have already said about railways, and 
 as an appropriate sequel thereto, I lay before the reader 
 some concrete facts which should at least place him in a 
 better position to pass judgment on the points at issue. 
 
 At the outset I would point to the fallacy of comparisons 
 between British and Continental waterways in respect to 
 (a) commercial and (b) physical conditions. 
 
 There is no need for me to repeat here what I have 
 already said in my sketches of leading Continental railway 
 systems as to the great volume of transit traffic that pours 
 through Holland, Belgium, Germany, and France to or 
 from all parts of the Continent of Europe, swelling to very 
 
 327 
 
328 THE BRITISH CANAL PROBLEM 
 
 substantial proportions indeed the sum total of the traffic 
 each of those countries handles. Holland and Belgium, 
 more particularly, are toll-gates and forwarding stations on 
 the highways of the world's commerce. In Great Britain, 
 on the other hand, we have comparatively little transit 
 traffic passing through the country under like conditions. 
 A certain quantity of commodities may reach Liverpool 
 from the United States, and be carried through from there 
 to Hull or London for further shipment to Continental 
 ports ; but if there were large consignments available, they 
 could just as well be consigned direct to Hull or London, 
 or to a Continental port, instead of to Liverpool, so that 
 transit across England would be saved. In this way there 
 is obviously a complete dissimilarity between traffic con- 
 ditions here and those of the Continental countries in 
 question. The element of transit traffic must, in fact, be 
 omitted from our own point of view, and what we are left 
 to concern ourselves with in connection with the possi- 
 bilities of our canals is mainly the traffic originating in, or 
 destined for, the United Kingdom. 
 
 Looking next at the difference in physical conditions, we 
 find on the Continent of Europe great natural navigable 
 waterways, such as the Rhine, the Elbe, and the Danube, 
 with which there is no possible comparison in the natural 
 waterways of Great Britain ; and one must remember that 
 a large proportion of the Continental canals have been 
 made in connection with these and other rivers, so that 
 merchandise, carried in great quantities, can be sent by 
 water from the sea into the very heart of Central Europe. 
 In the British Isles there are neither such quantities to 
 carry nor any such rivers to carry them on. We have the 
 Thames, the Humber, the Severn, and others besides that 
 are navigable ; but in Hungary steamers and rafts alike can 
 make a journey of 600 miles on the Danube between 
 Deveny and the Roumanian frontier, and rafts can continue 
 from the Danube along the Theiss as far as Tisza Ujlak 
 that is to say, for another 600 miles. In the German Empire 
 
PHYSICAL CONDITIONS 329 
 
 a few years ago the waterways available for traffic repre- 
 sented a total of 8,737 miles; but of this total, 5,776 miles 
 were rivers and 1,451 miles were canalized rivers. The 
 waterways alike of Belgium, Holland, Germany, Austria, 
 Hungary, and Roumania constitute, in fact, natural and 
 more or less continuous links and universal highways 
 between East and West, and, in comparison with them, 
 any possible developments brought about in our own 
 country would necessarily be insignificant. 
 
 Nor does it follow that even on our smaller geographical 
 scale the improvement of the canals of Great Britain would 
 be as easy a matter as the provision or the betterment of 
 waterways on the Continent. In the * Financial and Com- 
 mercial Supplement' of The Times of March 6, 1905, there 
 was published an article on ' German Waterways ' from a 
 correspondent at Berlin, who, after remarking that 
 
 To an Englishman living in this country the contrast between the 
 activity of German waterways and the stagnation of those in England 
 is a perpetual source of wonder, 
 
 went on to give some interesting facts concerning the traffic 
 on the three rivers connecting Berlin and Hamburg which 
 cities are 230 English miles apart and also the substantial 
 fruit traffic carried to Berlin by water from Bohemia a 
 further distance of 450 English miles. These figures are note- 
 worthy, in view of what I have already said on the greater 
 length of haul which is possible in Continental waterways 
 as compared with our own ; but the remark of the corre- 
 spondent to which I would especially direct attention is the 
 following : 
 
 There are only three locks between Berlin and Hamburg on the 
 Spree and Havel. The Elbe has no locks. 
 
 Here we get a striking illustration of the important fact 
 that (independently of the other considerations already 
 dealt with) the waterways of the Continent, of which so 
 much is heard, are mostly found either in flat countries or 
 on level plains, which present comparatively few engineering 
 
330 THE BRITISH CANAL PROBLEM 
 
 difficulties, and allow of construction or betterment being 
 carried out at much lower cost than would otherwise be 
 possible.* When, on the other hand, we look at the 
 physical conditions which have had to be surmounted in 
 the making of canals in a country such as England, we find 
 an entirely different set of circumstances. 
 
 Begging the reader to bear in mind that, as the corre- 
 spondent referred to above informs us, barges between 
 Berlin and Hamburg, a distance of 230 miles, pass through 
 only three locks, I would venture to inform him that on the 
 canals and navigable waterways of England and Wales 
 there are no fewer than 2,377 locks, an average of one lock 
 for every ij miles of navigation. The Rochdale Canal, 
 which is only 34^ miles long, has ninety - two locks in 
 the 32 miles between Manchester and Sowerby Bridge. 
 From the river Severn at Worcester to the summit level 
 at Birmingham (which lies on the so-called * backbone ' of 
 England) there is a rise of 425 feet to be overcome by the 
 boats proceeding to the latter city by the Worcester and 
 Birmingham Canal. This they do with the help of fifty- 
 eight locks in a distance of 16 miles, included in these 
 fifty - eight being the famous ' flight ' of thirty (within 
 2 or 3 miles) at Tardebigge. Should the boats from the 
 Severn be taken on from Birmingham to London, they will 
 have to pass through the Farmer's Bridge locks on the 
 south side of the city to get to a level lower by 80 feet 
 on the Birmingham and Warwick Canal. From the river 
 Severn at Stourport there is a rise of 132 feet, with twenty- 
 one locks, by the Stafford and Worcester Canal to the 
 Wolverhampton level of the Birmingham Canal. On the 
 Huddersfield Narrow Canal there are seventy-four locks in 
 20 miles between Huddersfield and Ashton ; and at Bingley, 
 on the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, five ' staircase ' locks 
 
 * This fact is specially pointed to by Herr Franz Ulrich in 
 1 Staffeltarife und Wasserstrassen ' in regard to the different conditions 
 to be found within the limits of the German Empire. He shows that 
 the construction of canals is only possible in districts already favoured 
 by Nature in regard to their flatness, and that the effect is to handicap 
 still further towns that are situated in hilly or backward country. 
 
LOCKS IN ENGLISH CANALS 
 
 331 
 
 (that is, locks arranged in flights, without any intermediate 
 pools) give a total lift of 59 feet 2 inches . 
 
 Taking the principal through routes of inland navigation 
 in England, we get the following figures : 
 
 
 Route. 
 
 Miles. 
 
 Locks. 
 
 London to Liverpool 
 
 
 I 
 
 244 
 
 252 
 
 
 ,, 
 
 i 2 
 
 256 
 
 190 
 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 267 
 
 282 
 
 
 Hull ... 
 
 
 i 
 
 282 
 
 164 
 
 
 it 
 
 
 2 
 
 305 
 
 148 
 
 
 the Severn 
 
 
 I* 
 
 177 
 
 130 
 
 
 M II 
 
 
 It 
 
 191 
 
 102 
 
 
 II II 
 
 
 2t 
 
 219 
 
 230 
 
 Live 
 
 rpool to the Severn 
 
 
 It 
 
 1 60 
 
 84 
 
 
 *i M it 
 
 
 2t 
 
 189 
 
 162 
 
 
 ,, Hull ... 
 
 i 
 
 I8 7 
 
 104 
 
 
 tt ii 
 
 1 2 
 
 159 
 
 I 4 9 
 
 
 t 
 
 149 
 
 152 
 
 Birmingham to London ... 
 
 |P 
 
 *T3P 
 H7 
 
 155 
 
 Liverpool 
 
 I 
 
 
 101 
 
 1 1 
 
 2 
 
 91 
 
 71 
 
 Hull 
 
 
 
 I6 4 
 
 66 
 
 the Severn 
 
 It 
 
 75 
 
 61 
 
 X 
 
 2t 
 
 89 
 
 49 
 
 
 3t 
 
 98 
 
 61 
 
 The total capitalized cost of each lock may be put at, on 
 an average, ^"1,360, and the time occupied by a boat in getting 
 through will generally be about four minutes. 
 
 Then there are in England and Wales no fewer than 
 forty-five canal tunnels which are upwards of 100 yards 
 in length. Included in the forty-five are seven tunnels 
 between 3,027 and 3,808 yards long, four between 2,042 
 and 2,926 yards, and five between 1,000 and 2,000 yards. 
 In most of these tunnels a boat was passed through by the 
 * legging ' process that is to say, on each side of the 
 boat a boatman lay on his back and pushed against the 
 tunnel sides with his feet. At one time this work was done, 
 not only by men, but by women. 
 
 * Avonmouth Docks 
 
 t Sharpness Docks. 
 
332 THE BRITISH CANAL PROBLEM 
 
 In still other instances the inequalities of the land were 
 overcome by aqueducts, which carried the canals across 
 rivers or intervening valleys. The earliest of these was 
 opened at Barton in 1761, having been built by James 
 Brindley for the Duke of Bridgewater, to carry the Bridge- 
 water Canal from Worsley to Manchester across the river 
 Irwell, a stretch of 600 feet. It remained in use and in 
 good preservation until 1893, when it was superseded by 
 the present swing aqueduct at Barton, rendered necessary 
 by the Manchester Ship Canal. Among other important 
 canal aqueducts that might be mentioned are : the Lan- 
 caster aqueduct, completed by Rennie in 1796, 600 feet 
 long, carrying the Lancaster Canal over the river Lune 
 (cost ^48,000); the Chirk, completed by Telford in 1801, 
 710 feet long, crossing the river Ceriog (cost ^"20,900) ; 
 and the Pontcysyllte, completed by Telford in 1803, 
 1,007 fe et l n g> carrying the Shropshire Union Canal over 
 the Dee (cost ^"47,000). 
 
 As compared with such triumphs of engineering skill as 
 these, the construction of canals on the plains of Northern 
 Europe, or the building up of walls along the sides of the 
 rivers, has been only day-labourer's work. But the most 
 earnest advocate of the nationalization of British canals 
 should now begin to realize that, not merely to buy them 
 up, but to deepen and broaden them to meet modern 
 requirements, might be a formidable undertaking, and one 
 involving an expenditure per mile far in excess of that 
 incurred by ordinary canal work on the Continent. 
 
 I have thus, I trust, established my point that in regard 
 neither to commercial nor to physical conditions is there 
 any fair basis of comparison between England and Wales 
 and the lands of Northern Europe. Continental countries, 
 as we see, handle big volumes of traffic over long distances 
 on broad, natural waterways (and I would remind the 
 reader of what I have already said in the chapter on ' The 
 Railways of Germany ' as to the special reasons why so 
 much of the traffic there goes by water instead of by rail). 
 
RAILWAY OWNERSHIP OF CANALS 333 
 
 We, on the other hand, have got a traffic that is essentially 
 railway traffic, and, as Sir Michael Hicks-Beach has pointed 
 out, although we may not have natural waterways on the 
 same scale, * we are better supplied with railway accommo- 
 dation than any Continental country.' 
 
 If the position here assumed be accepted, we are left to 
 consider the case of British canals on their own merits, and 
 on the basis of our national conditions, apart from any 
 illogical arguments that, merely because such and such 
 things are done in other countries, therefore they should be 
 done here. 
 
 Passing on, then, to consider British canals from a 
 British standpoint, we are at once met by the stock allega- 
 tions that the railway companies first of all deliberately 
 destroyed the traffic on the canals by unfair competition, 
 then bought up cheaply either the most important of the 
 canals, or essential links therein, and, finally, got such 
 control over the system they had ' captured ' that they were 
 able to strangle ' the whole of the inland water traffic. 
 
 No specific facts are ever advanced in support of these 
 allegations, but editors of daily newspapers, authors of 
 pamphlets, writers in monthly reviews, members of 
 Chambers of Commerce, and readers of papers at Society 
 of Arts conferences, have been repeating them with un- 
 questioning simplicity for years past without offering a 
 word of proof, or without appearing to think even that proof 
 was needed. In one quarter only so far as my reading 
 goes have I been able to find any fair recognition of the 
 real facts of the case on the part of a public speaker on the 
 canal problem ; but the exception is a gentleman of such 
 prolonged and extremely practical experience that his views 
 outweigh those of a score of arm - chair theorists. The 
 authority in question is Mr. F. Morton, member of the firm 
 of Fellowes, Morton, and Clayton, Ltd., and a canal carriei 
 as he told me in the course of a most interesting con- 
 versation at Manchester of no less than forty-five years' 
 experience. Mr. Morton's views are not likely to be biassed 
 
334 THE BRITISH CANAL PROBLEM 
 
 in favour of the railway companies, because every consign- 
 ment, large or small, which, as the leading canal carrier of 
 the day, he can possibly secure is in competition with the 
 railways. Yet in a paper on * British Canals : their Im- 
 provement and Better Utilization,' which he read to the 
 members of the Chemical and Engineering Sections of the 
 Manchester Chamber of Commerce on January 14, 1904, 
 he said, on the question of railway ownership of canals : 
 
 It has been a common practice, especially on public platforms, to 
 denounce railway companies, as if they were the great obstacles to 
 canal improvement, and as if they were exercising their just rights as 
 owners in an oppressive manner. Now, I venture to submit, with all 
 deference to gentlemen holding a contrary opinion, that this is scarcely 
 fair to the railway companies. In most of the cases they were originally 
 compelled to acquire the canals ; at the present time they are not 
 receiving an adequate return (in some cases no return at all) for the 
 capital expended, and I have little doubt that they would be glad to 
 transfer the property on reasonable terms. With regard to the 
 maintenance of these waterways, they are, speaking generally, in 
 as good order as those belonging to canal companies pure and simple. 
 Indeed, I could give examples based on my own experience where they 
 are better kept. For example, if the Grand Junction Company had 
 made the same provision for water as the North Staffordshire Railway 
 Company (the owners of the Trent and Mersey Canal) have done, or if 
 they had spent anything like the money in pumping, as the Birmingham 
 Canal Company (which is as much a railway-owned canal as the 
 Shropshire Union) are now doing, we should not have been obliged to 
 forward nearly the whole of our London traffic from July, 1902, to 
 February, 1903, vicl Oxford and the Thames, because there was no 
 water in the canal passing over Tring summit for the boats to float in. 
 
 This is an absolutely fair and impartial statement of the 
 facts of the case. When the railway system began to be 
 developed in the forties, the view was entertained here that 
 the canals would never survive the competition of the new 
 means of locomotion. The same opinion was held in other 
 countries, for Mr. Gastrell, Commercial Attache to the 
 British Embassy in Berlin, says in a report he has written 
 on the waterways of Germany : 
 
 During the earlier period of the development of the railways, up to 
 1875, there existed in Germany, as in most other countries, a feeling 
 that inland transport by water was doomed to languish, it being thought 
 impossible that it should ever be able to compete with the extensive 
 railway systems. Even the best-informed persons, in the early days of 
 the German Empire after 1871, only believed in a survival of canal 
 transport as competing, in certain districts, with the high roads. 
 
A POLICY OF COERCION 335 
 
 If this were really the state of public opinion at the time, 
 why should the British railway companies, as commercial 
 undertakings, have voluntarily sunk substantial amounts of 
 their capital for which they had abundant use in creating 
 their lines in buying up canals in order to ' strangle ' a 
 form of competition which everybody believed was about to 
 die a natural death ? They were content to leave the stage- 
 coaches to their fate ; why did they not adopt the same 
 policy with regard to the canals ? 
 
 The answer is that they were not voluntary agents in the 
 matter. Some of the large companies had already become 
 possessed of canals as part of the property of smaller rail- 
 way companies whose lines they had absorbed. In other 
 instances the large railway companies, to meet the policy of 
 canal companies who were threatening to start competing 
 lines of railway, acquired proprietary rights in the canals, or 
 bought off the threatened opposition by guaranteeing pay- 
 ment of interest. But, generally speaking, pressure was put 
 on the railway companies by the canal companies themselves 
 to take over the canals, and Parliament not only concurred 
 in this arrangement as fair and equitable, but even in some 
 instances enforced its adoption. 
 
 This was about the year 1848, and at that time Parlia- 
 ment did not even require of the railway companies that the 
 canals should be efficiently maintained ; but subsequently it 
 directed that this should be done, and the actual position 
 to-day is that the railway-owned canals are, on the whole, 
 in a more efficient condition than many, if not most, of 
 those that are owned by companies having no railway 
 interests whatever to serve. The railway companies control 
 ampler funds than the canal companies ; they have their 
 canal engineer, whose sole duty it is to look after the 
 canals ; their district goods agents are required to accept 
 traffic as readily for the canals owned by the railway 
 company as for the railway itself ; while in their manage- 
 ment of canals they are as much subject to the control of 
 the Board of Trade as they are in regard to the manage- 
 ment of the railways. The nature of the check thus held 
 
336 THE BRITISH CANAL PROBLEM 
 
 over them is shown by the following extract from the 
 Railway and Canal Traffic Act, 1888 : 
 
 When the canal of a canal company, or any part thereof, is intended 
 to be stopped for more than two days, the company shall report to the 
 Board of Trade, stating the time during which such stoppage is intended 
 to last ; and when the same is re-opened, the company shall so report 
 to the Board of Trade. 
 
 A company failing to comply with this section shall be liable, 
 on summary conviction, to a fine not exceeding 5 for every day 
 during which their default continues ; and any director, manager, and 
 officer of the company who knowingly and wilfully authorizes or permits 
 the default shall be liable, on summary conviction, to the like fine. 
 
 Apart from statutory obligations, one may further assume 
 that railway companies which have put a considerable 
 amount of capital into canals have at least desired to get 
 interest thereon if they could. 
 
 To deal exhaustively with this phase of the subject would 
 be beyond the limits of my space ; but by way of illus- 
 trating the general position, I would mention one or two 
 facts as to the canals owned by the Great Western Rail- 
 way Company. From the report for the half-year ending 
 December 31, 1904, I find that the company's expenditure 
 on canals in capital account down to that date had been as 
 follows : 
 
 Brecon . 
 
 s. d. 
 
 6l 247 IQ O 
 
 Bridgwater and Taunton 
 Grand Western ... 
 Kennet and Avon 
 Stourbridge Extension ... 
 Stratford-on-Avon 
 Swansea 
 
 ... 73,9^9 12 4 
 30,629 8 7 
 ... 209,434 12 7 
 49,436 15 o 
 
 172,538 9 7 
 ... 148,861 17 6 
 
 
 
 Total 747,204 i 3 
 
 The revenue account for the half-year worked out thus 
 
 To Canal Expenses 
 Bridgwater and Taunton 
 Grand Western 
 Kennet and Avon 
 Monmouthshire ... 
 Stourbridge Extension ... 
 Stratford-on-Avon 
 Swansea ... 
 
 s. d. 
 
 ... 1,663 3 
 164 7 9 
 ... 4,653 15 7 
 
 ... 1,519 12 10 
 
 ... 462 8 7 
 ... 1,164 4 3 
 ... 2,103 ii o 
 
 
 
 Total 11,731 3 
 
SOME FINANCIAL RESULTS 337 
 
 By Canal Traffic s. d. 
 
 Bridgwater and Taunton ... 728 14 o 
 
 Grand Western 118 5 2 
 
 Rennet and Avon 2,145 19 3 
 
 Monmouthshire... ... ... 897 6 10 
 
 Stourbridge Extension 757*9 6 
 
 Stratford-on-Avon ... ... 756 13 6 
 
 Swansea 2,883 I0 T * 
 
 Total 8,288 9 2 
 
 From these figures it will be seen that the only canals 
 out of the seven that paid working expenses were the Stour- 
 bridge Extension and the Swansea, and that the net result 
 of the year's operations was an adverse balance of over 
 ^3,000. 
 
 It may safely be assumed that the directors and officers of 
 so exceptionally well-managed a commercial undertaking as 
 the Great Western Railway would at least have avoided 
 that loss of ^"3,000 on the half-year if there had been 
 sufficient canal traffic forthcoming ; and in this connection 
 their experiences with one of the canals in the above list, 
 the Kennet and Avon, may be regarded as illustrative of 
 the circumstances and conditions generally applicable to 
 canals owned by railway companies. 
 
 As I prefer to bring forward independent testimony when 
 I can, I would venture to quote the following from an 
 article on ' Derelict Canals : Some Curious Particulars,' 
 published in the Globe, following on the failure of the 
 attempt to sell the Basingstoke Canal by auction in 
 October, 1904 : 
 
 It is pitiable to see a splendid inland navigation, such as the Kennet 
 and Avon, which passed to the Great Western Railway in 1852, 
 practically disused, though to do the company justice it is kept in 
 an excellent state of repair. This canal, 75! miles in length, ought to 
 be one of the most important of the country, for it completes the circuit 
 of canals which link up the rivers Trent, Mersey, Severn, and Thames. 
 In bygone days it supplied Bath and the whole extent of country up to 
 Reading with West Country coal . It is a fine monument of engineering 
 skill. Near Devizes there are no fewer than twenty-nine locks, with a 
 total rise or fall of 235 feet, and fifteen of these locks are situated 
 consecutively. The locks, together with the beautiful aqueducts at 
 Dundas and Avoncliff, were designed by the elder Rennie. The 
 dimensions of the canal are as follows : Width on surface, 44 feet; 
 width at bottom, 24 feet ; and depth, 6 feet. 
 
 22 
 
338 THE BRITISH CANAL PROBLEM 
 
 I can supplement the correspondent's ' curious par- 
 ticulars ' by some others concerning this canal which are 
 no less interesting. 
 
 Constructed under an Act of Parliament passed in 1794, 
 the Rennet and Avon Canal represents in effect a total 
 navigable distance of 86J miles, made up as follows : River 
 Kennet, Reading to Newbury, i8J miles; canal proper, 
 Newbury to Bath, 57 miles ; river Avon, Bath to Hanham 
 Mills, 1 1 miles. It has also junctions with the Wilts and 
 Berks Canal and the Somersetshire Coal Canal. The 
 original capital, ^420,000, was increased by subsequent 
 Acts to i, 01 1, 589. From 1814 to 1840 the traffic of the 
 canal gradually increased, the dividend in 1840 being 303. 
 per share, equal to about 5 per cent, on cost. In 1840-1841 
 the Great Western Railway Company's line between 
 Reading and Bath was opened, and during the five years 
 following the canal company's receipts fell off about 
 ^"62,000. In 1846 the canal company made an applica- 
 tion to Parliament for powers to construct a line of railway 
 parallel with the canal, under the title of the London, New- 
 bury, and Bath Direct Railway. In this they were un- 
 successful. They next availed themselves of the powers 
 of the General Act of 1846, enabling canal companies to 
 become carriers of goods on their canals, and they entered 
 upon the carrying business in 1848. But the opening of 
 the railway between Chippenham and Trowbridge in 
 1848-1850 led to a further falling off in the canal com- 
 pany's receipts during the three years ending May, 1851, 
 to the extent of ^"17,845. 
 
 The canal proprietors then entered into negotiations with 
 the Great Western Railway Company, with the result that 
 in August, 1851, the former transferred the canal to the 
 railway company on the latter agreeing to pay them 
 annually 6s. per share on 24,577 shares, amounting in the 
 aggregate to ,"7,373 per annum. The agreement was con- 
 firmed by the Great Western Act of 1852, which provided 
 that the railway company should keep the canal at all 
 
A CANAL AND ITS STORY 339 
 
 times open and in proper repair, and that if the canal tolls 
 should be complained of (in comparison with the railway 
 rates) as prejudicially affecting the traders, the Board of 
 Trade should have power to fix such other tolls as it might 
 think fit. Complaints were so made about 1867-1868, and 
 the Board of Trade reduced the tolls by about Jd. per mile. 
 Further complaints were made in 1877, and the matter 
 then went before the Railway Commissioners, to whom 
 the traders represented that the traffic would largely increase 
 if the tolls were further reduced. On the strength of these 
 representations the Railway Commissioners removed certain 
 articles principally flour, grain, iron, malt, meat, salt, and 
 timber from Class 3 to Class i, so that instead of paying 
 id. per ton per mile on these articles, with a maximum of 
 6s., the traders would pay only Jd., with a maximum of 2s. 
 The toll also on coal and certain other articles was reduced 
 from id. per ton per mile, with a maximum of 55. 3d., to 
 Jd, per ton per mile, with a maximum of is. 4.6.. But the 
 expectation of the traders that the traffic would largely 
 increase on the concession of these very low terms was 
 never realized, and the receipts from the canal have at no 
 time since that date covered the working expenses. For 
 the last three years the financial results have been as 
 follows : 
 
 Receipts. Expenses. 
 
 IQ02 5,092 8,436 
 
 1903 4,924 8,500 
 
 1904 4.538 9,205 
 
 There is no evidence in all this of the railway company 
 having deliberately sought first to ' capture ' the canal and 
 then to ' strangle ' the traffic. By the unprejudiced testi- 
 mony of the Globe correspondent, the railway company 
 have kept the canal in ' an excellent state of repair,' and 
 the tolls charged, judging from the examples offered above, 
 could not very well be lower ; yet the traffic handled is al- 
 together inadequate in volume to meet the cost of operation. 
 
 When we come to look into the question as to why in 
 
 22 2 
 
340 THE BRITISH CANAL PROBLEM 
 
 England the traffic should have left the canals to so great 
 an extent in favour of the railways, even under conditions 
 where the canals have had a perfectly fair chance, as in 
 that of the Rennet and Avon, we are met in the first place 
 by the complete transformation which has come over the 
 trading conditions of the country. I have dealt fully with 
 these changes in Chapter VIII. in regard to railways; but 
 all that I have said there as to the diminution in the size of 
 consignments because the majority of the traders now 
 want smaller lots at frequent intervals, delivered to them 
 with the despatch of letter or parcel post, instead of large 
 quantities at longer intervals has affected canals still more 
 than it has affected the railways. The spreading of the 
 total volume of trade over a larger area ; the introduction 
 of men of smaller capital, who can do with a few hundred- 
 weights or a few tons of raw materials to serve immediate 
 wants, but could not afford, or even find room for, a boat- 
 load ; the absolute necessity that the small stocks thus kept 
 on hand should be replenished promptly, so that they may 
 not get too low ; and the increased facilities in the way both 
 of quick conveyance and of direct delivery alike to manu- 
 facturers (with their private sidings) and to general traders, 
 have all had a most powerful effect in diverting the stream 
 of traffic from the waterways to the railways. 
 
 To compare past and present conditions, let us look for a 
 moment at what actually happened in former days when a 
 London coal merchant wanted to replenish his stock from 
 a colliery situated 190 miles from London. He sent a 
 telegram on, say, a Saturday, asking that so many boat- 
 loads of coal should be forwarded at once. The vessels 
 would be immediately loaded up with their 25 to 30 tons 
 of coal each, and made ready to start for London at four 
 o'clock on Sunday morning. Each narrow boat employed 
 in this service would be hauled by one horse and manned 
 by two boatpeople, with occasional assistance at flights of 
 locks. Taking the average of a canal boat's work for each 
 hour's travel throughout the year, the distance covered 
 
 
COAL BY CANAL BOAT 
 
 would be under rather than over 2 miles an hour ; for such 
 deductions as the following would have to be made on the 
 year's record : 
 
 An average delay of three days for each of the twenty-four 
 trips per year, owing to the boat having to await its 
 
 turn for loading or for other causes 72 days. 
 
 Delayed by weather ... ... ... ... ... ... 10 
 
 Delayed by canal or boat repairs ... ... ... ... 8 
 
 Delayed by low water due to drought ... ... ... ... 6 
 
 Whitweek holidays ... ... ... ... ... ... 6 
 
 Unforeseen circumstances 3 
 
 105 
 
 Although, therefore, the boatpeople are essentially in- 
 dustrious, have no trade union to prevent them from over- 
 working themselves, and generally keep going from 4 a.m. 
 till 8 p.m., their day's progress at the rate of 2 miles an 
 hour is not great, and the journey of the boats in question 
 would work out thus for the round journey : 
 
 Boat Hauled \ Distance Covered 
 
 vjuiwara j ourney. 
 
 (Hours). 
 
 (Miles). 
 
 ist day, Sunday 
 
 14 
 
 28 
 
 2nd Monday 
 
 4 
 
 28 
 
 3rd Tuesday 
 
 14 
 
 28 
 
 4th Wednesday 
 
 J 4 
 
 28 
 
 5th Thursday . 
 
 14 
 
 28 
 
 6th Friday 
 
 14 
 
 28 
 
 7th Saturday 
 
 14 
 
 22 
 
 8th Sunday 
 
 
 
 
 Total 
 
 98 
 
 I9O 
 
 Return Journey (after Unloading). 
 
 
 
 gth day, Monday . 
 
 H 
 
 22 
 
 zoth ,, Tuesday . 
 
 14 
 
 28 
 
 nth ,, Wednesday 
 
 14 
 
 28 
 
 1 2th ,, Thursday . 
 
 !4 
 
 28 
 
 1 3th ,, Friday 
 
 J 4 
 
 28 
 
 i4th ,, Saturday . 
 
 *4 
 
 28 
 
 i5th ,, Sunday 
 
 14 
 
 28 
 
 Totals for 15 days' round journey 
 
 196 
 
 380 
 
342 THE BRITISH CANAL PROBLEM 
 
 There is no need for me to go into details as to how long 
 a locomotive would take to bring a train -load of coal 
 190 miles to London ; but there are some other considera- 
 tions of especial importance that should be borne in mind. 
 The dealer receiving his coal by canal must order it by the 
 boat-load, accept delivery of it at the canal side, transfer it 
 at once from the canal boat to his own vehicles, and cart it 
 in bulk to his depot (in the south of London, perhaps, 
 whereas the canal may be in the north) ; while at his depot 
 he must provide space for large quantities of each particular 
 sort of coal which he keeps on stock. In this way the cost 
 of cartage is heavy, he has a good deal of capital lying idle, 
 and he requires extensive accommodation in districts where 
 land may be especially valuable. 
 
 Under the present-day system of operation a railway 
 company will bring a train of coal, loaded direct into the 
 trucks at the collieries in the Midlands or the North, to 
 sidings outside London, where the coal may remain six 
 days without charge for demurrage, awaiting the orders of 
 the coal merchants, who will direct from day to day that 
 one or more waggons containing particular kinds of coal 
 be sent to specified London or suburban stations, according 
 to the requirements of their local branches. Should there 
 be sufficient orders on hand, the coal on its arrival at the 
 local station can be shovelled direct into the sacks from the 
 waggons,* and thence taken at once to the customers. If 
 the entire truck-load has not been already disposed of, the 
 remainder may, under arrangement with the railway com- 
 pany, be dumped down on the open space near to the 
 sidings, and removed thence as required. In effect, the 
 railway companies themselves provide a general coal depot 
 at practically every London, suburban, and country 
 station ; and though in the country a small charge is 
 made, it is one of the anomalies of railway working that 
 
 * An important matter of detail, as affecting cost of operation, is 
 that it is easier to transfer coal from truck to sack on the same level 
 than from canal boat to sack on different levels. 
 
CONVENIENCES OF RAIL TRANSPORT 343 
 
 the London coal dealers should get this accommodation for 
 nothing. 
 
 Under these conditions there is obviously no comparison 
 between the relative advantages of the two methods of 
 transport, from the point of view at least of the average 
 coal merchant, who, thanks to the railways, can carry on 
 an extensive concern without having more than his local 
 offices near to the railway-stations, and a certain amount of 
 1 wharfage ' accommodation on the railway premises. A 
 larger business can be done with less trouble and moderate 
 expenses, while the householder should benefit as well as 
 the dealer. Whatever good a revival of English canals 
 might do, it certainly is not wanted in the interests of the 
 domestic coal-supply ; and if any of my readers should still 
 doubt my assertion on this point, I would advise them to 
 ask their local coal merchant, when they give him their next 
 order, if he would be disposed to abandon the railways in 
 favour of the canals ! 
 
 The remarks I have made respecting the coal trade apply 
 with no less force, though with varying circumstances, to the 
 changed conditions of many another branch of retail trade. 
 Bricks, stone, timber, tiles, drain-pipes, and road-making 
 materials can all be handled more conveniently by rail than 
 by canal, for they can be taken in just such quantities as 
 may be required for immediate or early use to some con- 
 venient station, where they will be within easy reach of the 
 particular spot or locality where they are wanted. It might 
 be cheaper to send building materials, say, from Yorkshire 
 to London by canal than by rail ; but the builder engaged 
 on work in the City, or in the neighbourhood of the Crystal 
 Palace, would fail to appreciate the arrangement if he had 
 to send for them to the terminus, say, of the Grand 
 Junction Canal at Limehouse. To him the question of 
 convenience is much more important than the question of 
 freight, especially as he draws from all parts of the country 
 the raw materials which can be delivered to him by the rail- 
 ways at almost any rail way- station that will suit him best. 
 
344 THE BRITISH CANAL PROBLEM 
 
 It may be replied that, although there is force in these 
 arguments, improved canal facilities would be an advantage 
 to manufacturers, in enabling them to get their raw products 
 at lesser cost for transport. Here I certainly agree, pro- 
 vided that the canal boat can load up with the raw products 
 alongside an ocean-going vessel in the dock, and deliver 
 them direct to works that are situated on the side of the 
 canal banks. 
 
 The fact is that, as regards commodities in bulk, the 
 difference between water transport and rail transport is 
 very often a difference in terminal or cartage expenses, 
 rather than a difference in the respective costs of the two 
 methods of haulage. This fact comes out in strong relief 
 in connection with the Shropshire Union Canal (in which 
 the London and North - Western Railway Company are 
 largely interested) and the port of Liverpool. Barges can 
 load up in the Liverpool docks with wheat alongside the 
 steamers from Canada, and proceed vi& the Mersey to 
 Ellesmere Port. There the wheat is transferred to canal 
 boats, in which it goes inland to the millers whose mills are 
 situated on the canal banks. In these circumstances the 
 London and North - Western Company, as an owner of 
 railways, simply cannot compete with itself as an owner 
 of canals for this particular traffic. If the wheat were 
 carried by rail, it would have to be carted from the steamer 
 to the railway truck, since the latter could not get along- 
 side ; and this difficulty at Liverpool would still remain 
 even if the railway lines ran on to a private siding at the 
 other end. But assume that the conditions were equalized. 
 Assume that the mills were situated so far from the 
 canal that the wheat had to be carted to them from 
 the canal. This would be an equivalent to the cartage 
 from steamer to railway truck at Liverpool. Or assume, 
 alternatively, that the railway truck could be loaded along- 
 side the steamer in the Liverpool docks and unloaded on 
 the miller's private siding. The conditions as regards rail- 
 way and waterway would then be equal, and in that case 
 
CARTAGE AND HAULAGE 345 
 
 the canal would have a very poor chance of competing with 
 the railway.* 
 
 I would especially impress these facts on the mind of the 
 reader, because they are of very wide significance in regard 
 to that transport of heavy or bulky materials for manu- 
 facturing purposes which is the raison d'etre for much of the 
 agitation in favour of a revival of canals. There is a general 
 idea that transport by water must necessarily be cheaper 
 than transport by rail ; but if we consider the question of 
 transport alone, apart from subsidiary expenses, the result 
 may be very different from what most people would assume. 
 
 There lies before me an elaborate analysis of canal opera- 
 tion drawn up by Mr. W. B. Cook, C.E., in support of a 
 scheme propounded by him for utilizing long-distance canals 
 as ' canal-boat railways,' and supplementing them by collect- 
 ing and distributing short - distance canals. There is no 
 need for me to discuss the merits of this scheme here ; but 
 in his statement as to present conditions he shows with 
 much detail that the cost per boat mile of operating a 
 25-ton to 3O-ton narrow boat is 50 per cent, more than the 
 corresponding railway charges. This would seem, however, 
 to be quite a modest estimate, for in the course of the paper 
 read by him at Manchester, to which I have already re- 
 ferred, Mr. Morton said, in reference to the limitations of 
 narrow-gauge canals, where only boats 7 feet wide can pass 
 (and this is the case as regards all the business between the 
 Trent and London) : 
 
 I have been at some trouble to get at the comparative cost of haulage 
 on a canal such as I am referring to and the cost of rail, and to you, 
 gentlemen, who have read the various articles and pamphlets which 
 have been written on this subject, the result which I am about to put 
 before you will be somewhat startling viz., that the cost by canal is 
 quite six times as much as it is on the railway. I have been enabled 
 to verify this within the last few days by taking the actual cost of boats 
 
 * The moral of this particular illustration is that, if the civic and 
 port authorities of Liverpool were to combine with the various railway 
 companies in providing facilities by means of which railway trucks 
 could run alongside ocean-going steamers in the Canada docks, so that 
 merchandise could be transferred direct from the one to the other 
 
346 THE BRITISH CANAL PROBLEM 
 
 conveying coal from the Nottinghamshire coalfield, passing through 
 the locks at Foxton and Watford, and find that, although two boats 
 were hauled by only one horse, the cost came out o-2gd. per ton per 
 mile, while the cost by rail would not exceed ox>5d. The cost of steam 
 haulage on the Bridgwater Canal, with four fiats behind a tug, works 
 out at o-i5d. per ton per mile. 
 
 This important question of the comparative cost of 
 transport by water and by rail is further dealt with by Mr. 
 Hugh O'Beirne in a report on French navigable water- 
 ways issued by the Foreign Office in 1903. Mr. O'Beirne 
 says: 
 
 Mr. C. Colson, a former director of the Railway Department of the 
 Ministry of Public Works, and probably one of the best authorities on 
 this subject, estimates that in most cases in France the net cost of 
 transport (the cost, that is, exclusive of any profit for the railway 
 company or the proprietor or lessee of the canal) is appreciably higher 
 by water than by rail. Since this question lies at the root of the whole 
 controversy as to the economical value of waterways, it may be worth 
 while to follow Mr. Colson 's calculations somewhat into detail. 
 
 The net cost of transport by water is represented approximately by 
 the freight paid to the barge-owners, since competition prevents the 
 latter from making any profit over and above a return on their small 
 capital, their own remuneration and keep, and their current expenses. 
 On the best channels the freight is about i centime per ton per 
 kilometre, oftener above than below this figure. 
 
 On the railways, the running expenses (depenses d' exploitation) of a 
 goods train, according to the returns published in 1896, are 2-27 francs 
 (is. gd.) per kilometre; and taking the average tonnage carried at 
 94 tons, we should have a cost of transport of 2*42 centimes (nearly ^d.) 
 per ton. But this estimate of expenses includes certain items which are 
 not comprised in the i centime cost of water transport, and which 
 should be omitted for the purpose of this comparison. Such are : 
 
 The up-keep of the line and cost of administration (which items are 
 borne by the State in the case of waterways) ; 
 
 The cost of loading and unloading (which is generally borne by the 
 proprietor or consignee in the case of waterways). 
 
 Omitting these items, Mr. Colson estimates that the running expenses 
 of a goods train, including interest on the value of the rolling stock, 
 are about 1-50 francs (is. 2fd.) to 2 francs (is. yjd.) per kilometre. 
 
 On the other hand, the average tonnage carried in the case of the 
 railways competing with the chief waterways greatly exceeds 94 tons. 
 
 (instead of having to be carried, as at present, from the docks on one 
 side of a street to the railway depots on the other side), a much more 
 practical boon would be conferred on the traders of the country as a 
 whole, by reducing, if not by wiping out, the cartage charges at 
 Liverpool, than would result from the investment of any amount of 
 municipal money in the widening and deepening, say, of either the 
 Shropshire Union or the Leeds and Liverpool CanaK 
 
COST OF CANAL TRANSPORT 347 
 
 That figure is arrived at by taking the average of all trains, including 
 those running on mountain lines and subsidiary lines, which can never 
 come into competition with canals. On the chief lines, which actually 
 compete with the waterways, the average tonnage carried by a goods 
 train (including trucks returning empty) Mr. Colson puts at 300 tons, 
 and thus arrives at a net cost of transport of from T % to ^ centime per 
 kilometre per ton by train, as against i centime per kilometre per ton 
 by water. 
 
 It would follow that in a war of rates between a railway and a canal 
 owned by a company, which depended upon tolls for its profits, the 
 railway could always lower its charges to a point ruinous to the water- 
 way. And this is what actually occurred in a struggle some years ago 
 between the Canal du Midi and the Midi Railway Company, which 
 ended in the lease of the canal to the railway, after which the railway 
 found it profitable to attract most of its traffic to the railway as being 
 the more economical mode of transport. 
 
 These facts may not have been realized by the writers of 
 articles and pamphlets, but they are fully recognised by 
 experts in the world both of railways and of canals. ' It is 
 the cost of haulage,' one canal manager in the North of 
 England remarked to me in the course of conversation on 
 this subject, ' that kills us. To move 300 tons, which a single 
 locomotive would take to its destination in eight hours, 
 we want twelve boats, twenty-four men, and twelve horses, 
 with an allowance of four days in which to do the journey. 
 When, to compete with the railways in the matter of speed, 
 we put on "fly " boats, we want relays of men and horses at 
 various points, so that we can keep the boats going day and 
 night, a journey that would otherwise last about three days 
 being thus done in thirty - eight hours. But we cannot 
 charge any higher rate for this express service. If we did, 
 the trader would probably give the traffic altogether to the 
 railways. He would consider that the still quicker service 
 was well worth the difference in rate. The margin for profit 
 thus becomes very small ' ; while the margin of difference 
 between canal tolls and railway rates may, as I have 
 already shown, disappear altogether under the operation of 
 extra cartage in the case of the canal as against the railway. 
 
 Another fact with which those who argue that canals 
 should be used for ' heavy ' traffic, and the railways left 
 to handle general goods, may not be acquainted is that 
 
348 THE BRITISH CANAL PROBLEM 
 
 precisely the opposite tendencies have been in operation. 
 The railways secured a large proportion of the coal and 
 mineral traffic, partly because they represented the * more 
 economical mode of transport,' and partly because the 
 railway facilities suited the manufacturers better than the 
 canal facilities, while the traffic itself, though carried at 
 low rates, was generally available in larger quantities and 
 involved less trouble than ordinary merchandise. When 
 the canal companies found they were thus losing their 
 heavy traffic, some of them took advantage of the powers 
 conferred on them by the Act of 1846 to become common 
 carriers. They set up their own depots, organized a 
 delivery service, and captured a good deal of the general 
 goods business in localities which could be conveniently 
 reached from the canals. So much was this the case that 
 one canal carrier remarked in those days to the then general 
 manager of the Great Western Railway Company, ' What 
 you have done has been to kick us upstairs.' Even to-day 
 there are canal companies who carry considerable quantities 
 of groceries and general goods for shopkeepers to whom 
 delivery can be effected from the canal depots. Most of 
 the traffic of this type between Liverpool and Chester, for 
 example, still goes by the regular services of boats on the 
 Shropshire Union Canal. 
 
 The reader must see from the various considerations 
 already advanced that traffic may have left the canals for 
 reasons in no way met by the ever repeated, but never 
 proved, accusations that they were first captured and then 
 strangled by the railway companies. There have been 
 other causes at work, and some of these are thus referred 
 to by Mr. Henry Rudolph de Salis in ' Bradshaw's Canals 
 and Navigable Rivers of England and Wales ' (1904): 
 
 Canals in their day reached a far greater pitch of prosperity than the 
 railways have ever attained to, but they suffered fatally, and do so 
 now, from the want of any serious movement towards their becoming 
 a united system of communication. Each navigation was constructed 
 purely as a local concern ; and the gauge of locks and depth of water 
 was generally decided by local circumstances or the fancy of the 
 
SOME OTHER CONSIDERATIONS 349 
 
 constructors, without any regard for uniformity. The same ideas of 
 exclusiveness appear to have become perpetuated in the system of 
 canal management. There is no canal clearing-house, and, with few 
 exceptions, every boat-owner has to deal separately with the manage- 
 ment of every navigation over which he trades. It is only since 1897 
 that the four canal companies forming the route between London and 
 Birmingham have made arrangements by which through tolls can be 
 quoted by the Grand Junction Canal Company, who own the largest 
 portion of this route. 
 
 Among still other factors in the general situation must be 
 reckoned the possibilities of drought, frost, and subsidences. 
 As regards the first of these, Mr. de Salis points out in his 
 book that 
 
 The provision of an adequate supply of water to canals is often an 
 expensive matter. Each time a vessel passes through a summit level 
 or highest pound of a canal it consumes two locks of water that is to 
 say, a lock full at each end which has to be replaced, but which 
 amount of water will theoretically, at any rate suffice for working 
 all the locks for the passage of that vessel below the highest lock on 
 each side of the summit level. To maintain the supply of water to the 
 summit level of a canal, impounding reservoirs are generally provided 
 to store the rainfall from as large an area as possible for use as 
 required, the supply from the reservoirs being often supplemented by 
 pumping from wells and from streams where available. 
 
 In times of drought, however, the water-supply for the 
 canals may be altogether inadequate, and traffic may then 
 have to go by another route, or else be handed over by the 
 canal company to the railways. On the river Trent low- 
 ness of water has led to goods taking fourteen days on the 
 journey from Hull to Nottingham. 
 
 As concerns the possibilities of frost, the winter of 
 1904-1905 was not a severe one, but the frost was suffi- 
 ciently keen to freeze up the canals over an extensive area of 
 country, and stop the traffic on them for two separate periods 
 of a week each. Subsidences, again, constitute a serious 
 danger in certain districts. The Leeds and Liverpool Canal 
 Company, for instance, had to spend on subsidences 2,445 
 during the first half of 1904, and "2,077 during the second. 
 
 Finally, on this branch of the subject, it should be re- 
 membered that the various causes here specified as operating 
 to prejudice the welfare of English canals have affected not 
 
350 THE BRITISH CANAL PROBLEM 
 
 only those controlled by railway companies, but also, if not 
 still more (except in the case of certain specially-favoured 
 waterways, such as the Aire and Calder), canals that are in 
 no way controlled by railway companies. I notice, as I 
 write these lines, that at the half - yearly meeting of the 
 Leeds and Liverpool Canal Company, referred to above, 
 held on March 17, 1905, the chairman, Mr. H. F. Killick, 
 remarked : 
 
 The Leeds and Liverpool Canal was not a moribund and decaying 
 carrying concern like other canals. On the contrary, their ton mileage 
 tended to increase ; and if their gross receipts did not do the same, it 
 was because their earnings per ton per mile for rates and tolls were not 
 as much as they were formerly, and because their outgoings for interest 
 and expenses were high. They were now fully equipped as regarded 
 carrying and transhipping plant. 
 
 Yet the ordinary shareholders get only i per cent, for the 
 year, though possibly they are glad to have a dividend 
 even so small as that, considering that they had none at 
 all in the four years preceding. The credit balance of the 
 Rochdale Canal Company, which stood at ^"23,228 in 1888, 
 was only ^3,087 in 1904 ; and that of the Stafford and 
 Worcester decreased in the same period from ^"9,259 to 
 ;f 4,838. 
 
 To much that I have hitherto said the reply of my critics 
 will be that if the canals were widened and deepened, and 
 made of uniform gauge, their usefulness would return to 
 them. Here we come to the different sets of advocates of 
 this policy as represented by those who favour the national- 
 ization of the canals, and by those who recommend that the 
 matter shall be taken in hand by the local authorities. 
 
 If by nationalization is meant that the State should take 
 over the whole of the existing canals, and subject them all 
 to the aforesaid processes of widening, deepening, and 
 uniformity of gauge, then I can only say that a more im- 
 practicable scheme has rarely, if ever, been put before the 
 British public. Many of the existing canals, constructed 
 to serve purely local purposes, could serve no other purpose 
 now, however large a sum of money might be spent on 
 
NATIONALIZATION MUNICIPALIZATION 351 
 
 them. As one example among others, we may take the 
 case of the Basingstoke Canal, which was built in 1794, 
 and goes a distance of nearly 70 miles from the Thames, 
 near Weybridge, to the town of Basingstoke, but no further. 
 It is a picturesque survival of old-world traditions ; but 
 when, in October, 1904, it was put up for sale by auction, 
 in London, by order of the High Court of Chancery, a 
 canal which had cost ^"165,000 to construct failed to get 
 even a 20,000 bid. Under the nationalization scheme 
 that some enthusiasts are propounding, canals of this type, 
 which practical men consider valueless as canals, are 
 apparently to be taken in hand by the State, and have a 
 large sum of money spent upon them, without any real 
 consideration for the amount of traffic they could reason- 
 ably hope to secure. Alternatively, certain selected routes 
 only might be dealt with ; but this hardly accords with 
 the idea of * nationalization.' 
 
 As regards action by local authorities, one must be pre- 
 pared to accept the position that, commercially speaking, 
 canals which would answer local purposes only are now 
 mostly as dead as the dodo ; but while there might be a 
 chance for canals which would carry through traffic, say 
 from Birmingham to London, Liverpool, or Hull for ship- 
 ment, it is inconceivable that the local authorities in the 
 districts between those places would concern themselves 
 about, or even help to provide water for, a canal in the 
 interests of traders in Birmingham. Even if they were so 
 willing, the ownership of the canals between Birmingham 
 and the ports mentioned would be split up between a group 
 of local authorities, each owning a certain number of miles 
 of route a state of things worse than that already existing, 
 under which the through consignment may pass along the 
 separate systems of four or five different canal companies. 
 The intervention, again, of the local authorities would 
 involve a municipal trading scheme of the most complex 
 and the most formidable type ; while the ability of the 
 average county councillor to master and to control the 
 
352 THE BRITISH CANAL PROBLEM 
 
 complicated traffic conditions of the country, in such leisure 
 time as he could spare from his own business, is open to 
 question, even if one might depend on his freedom from all 
 local or personal prejudices for or against particular branches 
 of industry or commerce. 
 
 The probable cost of nationalizing even such part of the 
 canal system of the country as may be thought worth 
 preserving has been the subject of various estimates. In 
 different quarters it has been put at ^16,975,000, ^"23,000,000, 
 and ' about ^50,000,000.' There is a good deal of margin 
 between these figures, and I must leave the experts to 
 decide which calculation is the most trustworthy. But 
 I would remind the reader of the details I gave at the 
 outset as to the physical difficulties which the original 
 creators of our canal system had to overcome, and I would 
 suggest that, if all this work has to be done over again 
 that is to say, not merely the widening and deepening of the 
 canals, but the reconstruction of locks, the expansion of 
 tunnels, the rebuilding of viaducts, etc. a really generous 
 estimate of the possible cost will have to be made. 
 
 One must further remember that some of the canals to 
 which the plea for betterment might specially apply pass 
 through cities, towns, or districts where, as both railway 
 and tramway companies know to their cost, ' widenings' are 
 apt to represent a pretty expensive business. The Bir- 
 mingham Canal goes through the heart of Birmingham ; 
 the broadening of the Shropshire Union Canal would 
 necessitate the destruction of a good deal of property in 
 Chester ; densely-populated localities have grown up along- 
 side the Leeds and Liverpool ; and so on with other canal 
 systems which would have to be included in any really 
 comprehensive scheme. 
 
 Then it has been urged in various quarters that the 
 present drawbacks in regard to slowness of speed could be 
 overcome by the employment of motors instead of horses. 
 But the stronger wash from the motors would be disastrous 
 to the sides of the canals, where these consist of earth only, 
 
ESTIMATES OF COST 353 
 
 so that, apart from any question as to the use of larger 
 boats, increased speed would in itself render indispensable a 
 general reconstruction. 
 
 In the circumstances, I am inclined to think that * about 
 ^"50,000,000 ' is likely to be much nearer the mark, as 
 representing the probable cost of nationalization, than the 
 lower figures mentioned. There is the greater reason to 
 adopt this view because experts who are not at all disposed 
 to exaggerate have estimated that the carrying out of a 
 modified scheme, favoured by them, for the widening and 
 deepening of the canals between the Thames and the 
 Mersey, would alone involve an expenditure of ^"17,000,000. 
 
 It is admitted on all hands that there is no possible hope 
 of raising money from private sources to pay the cost of 
 British canal restoration, whatever the precise number of 
 millions that may be required. After the experiences which 
 investors, small and great, have had with the Manchester 
 Ship Canal, he would be a bold man who ventured to ask 
 them to put money into fresh canal ventures during the 
 next ten or twenty years at least. The needful millions 
 must, therefore, be either provided by State or local 
 authorities, or, alternatively, be * guaranteed ' by the State ; 
 though it is not quite clear what the State is to guarantee, 
 and to what extent the taxpayer may or may not be 
 committed, whether in the way of providing funds or 
 covering losses. 
 
 The adoption of any one of these three courses would re- 
 present an absolutely new phase of our national policy, which, 
 though it may have approved the principle of municipal 
 tramways, has hitherto left the general transport traffic of 
 the country to private enterprise, and has allowed investors 
 to sink considerably over one thousand millions sterling 
 in British railways, without giving them the faintest reason 
 to suppose the day might one day come when the State 
 would buy up, or allow local authorities to buy up, moribund 
 or wholly derelict canals, an.;* exploit them in direct oppo- 
 sition to railway companies, who already had to bear unfair 
 
 23 
 
354 THE BRITISH CANAL PROBLEM 
 
 comparison with State-owned or State-aided railway systems 
 on the Continent of Europe, and were at the same time 
 the largest of all contributors to the local taxation of the 
 country. 
 
 A new departure such as this could be resolved upon only 
 after the most careful consideration, and, one would think, 
 as the result only of urgent public necessity. But I would 
 venture to suggest in all humility that, although the State 
 might spend, or encourage the spending of, any number of 
 millions sterling on the improvement of the canals, it could 
 not set back the hands of the commercial clock, and 
 guarantee that the traders of the country, or even any 
 considerable proportion of them, would discard the railways 
 in favour of what, in spite of all improvements, would still 
 be the slower locomotion of the waterways. 
 
 Some traders might benefit, and especially those within 
 easy reach of canals who receive consignments of a * not 
 urgent ' class ; but, taking the traders of the country as 
 a whole, speed in the transport of goods is a far more 
 important consideration here than a slight saving in cost. 
 The constant cry of the Liverpool meat importer if I may 
 take that individual as a type is, not for lower railway 
 rates, but for the quickest and most efficient service the 
 railway companies can provide. In point of fact, frozen or 
 chilled meat will pass to and fro between Liverpool and 
 London, according to market conditions, as though the 
 mere item of railway rates did not count at all. There are 
 many other traders who, though not dealing in perishables, 
 want a service equally efficient, and to meet their require- 
 ments railway companies are now providing, for their quick 
 goods trains, trucks built on frames fitted with automatic 
 brakes, oil instead of grease boxes, and the other arrange- 
 ments of ordinary passenger-car frames, so that they may 
 be capable of running a speed of at least 45 miles an hour. 
 
 Are the traders of the country in general willing to forego 
 these advantages, and abandon their practice of receiving 
 small consignments at frequent intervals and at practically 
 
PERTINENT QUESTIONS 355 
 
 express speed, in favour of large and less frequent consign- 
 ments by boat, and taking any number of days up to 
 a week or so to deliver ? If their factories, their ware- 
 houses, or their shops, are not now located within easy 
 reach of a canal, would they be prepared to remove them 
 there in order to se cure any saving there might be as between 
 railway rates and canal tolls ? In that case, would they, in 
 discarding the railways, rearrange their business methods 
 still further, so that they would no longer need the railway 
 warehouse accommodation which at present they find so 
 extremely convenient and so very inexpensive ? 
 
 Alternatively, do the traders whose factories, warehouses, 
 shops, and coal-yards are already located alongside or 
 within easy reach of the canals, and who would directly 
 benefit from improved water transport, form a sufficiently 
 large and important minority to warrant the Imperial or 
 local authorities in incurring serious financial obligations in 
 respect to the canals obligations which could hardly be 
 without their effect on the national finance and in com- 
 pletely changing the policy of the country in matters of 
 transport ? Considering the general character of our trade, 
 and the absence here alike of the transit traffic carried on 
 the Continent, and of the huge domestic consignments also 
 transported there for such long distances, is there a reason- 
 able probability that the revived waterways would, not 
 simply draw traffic from the railways to the detriment of 
 the latter, but create new traffic in such volume as both to 
 yield a direct return on the outlay, and to afford adequate 
 compensation from a national standpoint for the obligations 
 undertaken and the changes brought about ? 
 
 These are questions deserving of consideration ; and, 
 whatever answer may be given to them, it cannot be denied 
 that many traders are supporting the agitation in favour of 
 canal revival, not because they have the slightest idea of 
 reorganizing their businesses on a canal-transport basis, 
 but because they think the said revival whether at the 
 cost of the taxpayer or otherwise would be a means of 
 
 232 
 
356 THE BRITISH CANAL PROBLEM 
 
 coercing the railway companies into conceding reductions 
 in rates which they do not now feel able to grant. 
 
 In the circumstances, it may be hoped that the nation 
 will not commit itself to any costly expenditure without the 
 fullest deliberation on the subject in all its bearings ; and 
 from this point of view I would make the following sug- 
 gestion, which seems to me sufficiently practical in its way : 
 If the country is really disposed to expend, if not to sacrifice, 
 anything up to ^"50,000,000 sterling in order to cheapen the 
 means of transport in the interests of certain classes of 
 traders, would it not be better as an alternative to doubtful 
 schemes of canal revival to reduce somewhat the financial 
 burdens and the statutory obligations now imposed both on 
 canal companies and on railway companies, placing them, by 
 means of such relief, in a better position alike to keep their 
 working expenses at a lower level and to give increased 
 facilities and decreased rates to the general body of traders 
 who patronize them ? 
 
 Whether or not local authorities should spend money on 
 the canals in order to increase their usefulness is, at least, a 
 debatable point ; but there is no doubt as to the present 
 desire of local authorities to get out of the canals, as well as 
 out of the railways, as much money as they possibly can in 
 the form of local taxation, to the serious detriment of the 
 said usefulness. At the meeting of the Leeds and Liverpool 
 Canal Company in March, 1905, the chairman told how 
 'the entire earnings for the whole of 1904 amounted to 
 ^45,384, out of which they had paid in local rates ^8,794, 
 or 20 per cent, of the earnings.' On this same subject 
 Mr. Killick said at the previous half-yearly meeting in 
 September, 1904 : 
 
 Out of the ninety townships that we traverse, the rates in the pound 
 are increased in no less than fifty-two. What I blame and complain of 
 is the system, and not the Assessment Committees or their advisers. 
 Our letting value can only be ascertained by a series of disputable and 
 hypothetical calculations, and the test of our letting value cannot be 
 justly applied to each fragment of our canal in a separate township, 
 when such fragments never are and never will be separately let. 
 Nothing has been done by the Government to relieve us, although a 
 
POSSIBLE ALTERNATIVES 357 
 
 Bill was promised ; and when any improvement of the canal can be 
 immediately seized upon as a basis for higher assessment, our rating 
 liability is a distinct impediment to any effort in that direction. 
 
 As regards legislative obligations, I content myself with 
 the following pregnant sentence from a report of the meeting 
 in March, 1905, of the same canal company : 
 
 Mr. F. W. Slingsby said that if the gentlemen who talked about the 
 nationalization of canals would meet and get the Railway and Canal 
 Traffic Act repealed, they would be doing some good in the way of 
 utilizing the canals of the country. 
 
 Additional food for reflection will be found in a later part 
 of the report on French waterways by Mr. O'Beirne, who 
 adds to the remarks I have already quoted : 
 
 The further question arises whether the same increase in facilities 
 and cheapness of transport could not have been obtained in a more 
 economical manner than by the works of construction and improvement 
 which have been carried out on the waterways. Might not the result 
 which the State has attained by building and maintaining canals to 
 compete with the railways have been secured at less expense by other 
 means ? 
 
 It has been estimated that the capital expended up to 1896 in the 
 construction and equipment of the great French railway lines, 
 including stations, warehouses, etc., and the cost of rolling stock, 
 represents roughly 27,520 per mile, which will be found to be some- 
 what below the cost of constructing a not particularly expensive canal. 
 We have seen that the net cost of transport by rail on the principal 
 lines is, according to Mr. Colson's estimate, appreciably less than by 
 water ; and though we may count as a partial set-off the superior cost 
 of keeping up a railway line, the balance of cheapness remains on the 
 side of the railway in respect of working expenses as well as of initial 
 outlay. 
 
 In regard to the facilities offered, again, the railways have the 
 advantage, for, though the waterways present certain special advan- 
 tages as to space available for loading and discharging, cheapness of 
 floating storage, economy in transhipment from sea-going vessels, etc., 
 the railway has the overwhelming merits of greater speed, ability to 
 handle a larger body of traffic in a given time, and security from 
 interruption. 
 
 We see, then, that where the State has created canals to compete 
 with the railroads, it would actually have been cheaper, and also more 
 advantageous, to build entirely new competing railway lines. Even in 
 the case of a natural waterway specially adapted for navigation, such as 
 the Seine, the money which, as we found, has been expended to obtain 
 first-class navigable conditions, represents the cost of establishing a 
 new railway line on a cheap scale and under favourable circumstances. 
 On the other hand, the expense of enlarging the capacity of an existing 
 railway line is small as compared with that of building a new line even 
 
358 THE BRITISH CANAL PROBLEM 
 
 under the cheapest conditions ; and therefore, if the State, instead of 
 using its funds to create, improve, and maintain waterways to compete 
 with the railroads, had applied them to increasing the capacity of 
 existing railways, and had used its controlling powers to bring railway 
 rates to the level which they have actually reached under competition, 
 it would seem that the same results would have been attained at a 
 large saving of public money. 
 
 In this country it is a matter not so much of increasing 
 the capacity of existing railways as of securing such a 
 decrease in the amount, especially, of working expenses, as 
 will allow of more economical operation, and, consequently, 
 the placing of the companies in a bet ter position to concede 
 rate reductions. What the traders themselves can do in 
 this direction, by supplying the railways with paying loads, 
 I have already shown in the concluding chapter of the 
 present volume. What the Legislature and the local 
 authorities can do in the way of giving both railway and 
 canal companies some relief to their present financial and 
 other burdens has also been made clear. I would, therefore, 
 now bring these observations to a close by paraphrasing the 
 question put by Mr. O'Beirne in the extract given above, 
 and asking : Might not the cheapening of the means of 
 transport which it is proposed to obtain by spending 
 millions of pounds sterling on the revival of obsolete canals 
 no longer adapted to the special conditions of British trade 
 be secured at less expense by other means ?' 
 
 THE SOUTHAMPTON CASE. 
 
 The photographs here reproduced will enable the reader 
 to realize more readily the facts I have given in 
 Chapter IX. in connection with the Southampton case. 
 Those referring to the English cheese traffic have also a 
 bearing on the statements made on this subject on 
 page 103. 
 
d *j 
 2 
 
 II 
 
 ^ - a 
 ? g 
 
 a^ 
 S-d 
 
 8 
 ^ 
 
 Xr/) 
 
 nj flj 
 
 ^P 
 
 88 
 
 S o 
 
 g* 
 S | 
 
 "o o 
 
 ol 
 


UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF 
 
ENGLISH CHEESE. 
 
 Representative load from English cheese-sending stations. Comprises 169 
 loose cheeses. Carrying capacity of waggon, 10 tons. Actual weight of consign- 
 ments, i ton 7 cwt. 2 qrs. 8 Ibs. Nature of cheese would not permit of a much 
 heavier load. Foreign cheese is packed in strong wooden boxes, which can be 
 loaded up like the boxes of foreign butter. 
 
 ENGLISH CHEESE. 
 
 Box waggon containing seventy-three loose cheeses. Carrying capacity, 10 tons. 
 Actual load, i ton 14 cwt. i4lbs. 
 
INDEX 
 
 ACTS OF PARLIAMENT : Railway 
 Regulation Acts, 1840-1842, 14 ; 
 Railway and Canal Traffic Act, 
 1854, 14 ; Railway Clauses Consoli- 
 dation Act, 1845, 15 ; Traffic Act, 
 1854, 15 ; Act of 1873, 16, 17 ; 
 Act of 1888, 20-21, 25, 26, 104 ; 
 Railway Rates and Charges Orders 
 Confirmation Acts, 1891-1892, 23 ; 
 Railway and Canal Act, 1894, 27 ; 
 Cheap Trains Act, 1883, 37 
 
 ALSACE-LORRAINE, RAILWAYS IN, 
 201, 245 
 
 APPLES, AMERICAN, 104 
 
 P.ALFOUR OF BURLEIGH, LORD, 21, 
 22 
 
 BARRON, SIR H., 297 
 BELGIUM: Early days of railway 
 movement, 286-9 > transit traffic, 
 289 ; port of Antwerp, 290 ; rates 
 and charges, 291-5 ; passenger 
 fares, 295-6 ; finances of State 
 Railways, 297-9 1 Ostend-Dover 
 Mail Steamships, 298 ; light rail- 
 ways, 302-3 
 
 BERWICK TRADER, 21, 325 
 BINGHAM, MR. D. G., 273, 275, 278, 
 
 279 
 
 BISMARCK, PRINCE, 245-6, 250, 255 
 BLOUNT, SIR EDWARD, 206, 207 
 BOARD OF TRADE, 14, 20, 21, 22, 
 
 34. 37, 39. 3i3 
 
 BOYLE, SIR COURTENAY, 21, 22 
 BRASSEY, MR. THOMAS, 206 
 BUDDICOM, MR., 206 
 
 CALEDONIAN RAILWAY : Parcel rates 
 compared with American, 8-n 
 
 CANALS : See Waterways 
 
 CARRIERS BY ROAD, 98-100 
 
 CHEESE, AMERICAN, 103 
 
 CLASSIFICATION, 1-2, 16, 17, 19, 21, 
 22, 60-65 
 
 ! CLOAK-ROOMS AND SHOP PARCELS, 
 
 132 
 CLONAKILTY, POTATO INDUSTRY AT, 
 
 106 
 
 COLSON, M. C, 228, 235, 302 
 COMMISSION, SALESMEN'S, 180-2 
 COMMITTEES, PARLIAMENTARY, 
 
 1852, 14 ; 1872, 15-16, 71 ; 1881, 
 
 17-19, 24 ; 1891, 22-23 ; 1893, 26 
 CONSIGNMENTS, SIZE OF, 94-5, m- 
 
 115, 145, 178-9, 308-10 
 CONSTRUCTION, COST OF, 2, 29-36, 317 
 
 DENMARK : Danish produce, 95-6 ; 
 bacon from, 150 ; butter from, 150 ; 
 origin of State Railways, 304-5 ; 
 rates and charges, 305-7 ; finances, 
 306, 308 ; combination and big 
 loads, 308-310 ; Danish view of 
 English railways, 310 ; light railways, 
 310-311 
 
 DIVIDENDS, INDUSTRIAL COM- 
 PANIES', 45 
 
 DIVIDENDS, RAILWAY COMPANIES', 
 42-43 
 
 j DUFAURE, M., 206 
 
 EMPTIES, RETURNED, 128 
 
 EQUAL MILEAGE RATES, 66-72, 
 164, 192, 291 
 
 EVESHAM GROWERS' ORGANIZA- 
 TION, 183 
 
 I EVESHAM MARKET-GARDENERS IN 
 PARIS, 170 
 
 FINANCE, RAILWAY: British rail- 
 ways, 29-43 ; French, 222-3 ' 9 er " 
 man, 256 ; Dutch, 282-3 Belgian, 
 297-9 ; Danish, 306, 308 
 
 FISH TRAFFIC: Grimsby, 154-160; 
 Yarmouth, 160-3; Scotch, 163-5; 
 Irish, 166 
 
 FORBES, MR. JAMES STAATS, 273-6, 
 279 
 
 359 
 
360 
 
 RAILWAYS AND THEIR RATES 
 
 FORWARDING AGENTS, 201-4, 256-7 
 
 FRANCE : Fruit and vegetables from, 
 167-173 ; export rates, 187-9 ; load- 
 ing and unloading, 197 ; ' group- 
 eurs,' 203 ; railways of, 205-240 ; 
 Chemins de Fer de 1'fitat, 215-6; 
 M. de Freycinet's programme, 216 ; 
 guarantee of interest, 207, 211, 214, 
 222 ; State policy, 224-7 ' homo- 
 logation,' 228-233 > bases of rates 
 and charges, 234-9 ; the general J 
 position, 240 
 
 FREYCINET, M. DE, 216 
 
 FRUIT AND VEGETABLES, 167-184 
 
 GERMANY : Parcel post, 93 ; indus- 
 trial centres and ports, 191-2 ; 
 ' spediteurs,' 201-3, 2 5^-7 ; history 
 of railways in, 241-251 ; basis of 
 railway rates, 254 ; special rates, 
 255 ; railway tariffs, 256 ; rival 
 towns, 258 ; waterways, 262-4 
 
 GOODAY, MR. J. F. S., 99 
 
 GREAT CENTRAL RAILWAY: East 
 of Marylebone extension, 31 ; fish 
 traffic, 155-9 
 
 GREAT EASTERN RAILWAY : Cost of 
 Liverpool Street Station, 32 ; work- 
 men's trains, 37 ; suburban car- 
 riages, 40 ; suburban goods traffic, 
 99-100; grain sacks and meat 
 hampers, 128 ; meat traffic, 144-6 
 
 GREAT NORTHERN RAILWAY : Num- 
 ber of rates in operation, 23 ; ware- 
 houses, 119-123 ; potato market, 
 129-30 
 
 GREAT WESTERN RAILWAY : Par- 
 cels rates, 9-10 ; cost of Paddington 
 Station, 31 ; workmen's trains, 39 ; 
 taxation, 47, 50, 54, 56 ; meat 
 traffic, 134, 139 
 
 GREENOCK, COMPETITION OF, WITH 
 LONDON, 18, 19 
 
 GREY, SIR E., 41 
 
 GROUPING, 72, 80-2, 164 
 
 GUARANTEE OF INTEREST : France, 
 207, 212, 214, 222 ; Germany, 242-4 ; 
 Belgium, 287 
 
 HAMILTON, LORD CLAUD, 33-4,95-6 
 
 HAMPERS, MEAT, 128-9 
 
 HOLLAND : Waterways, 267-9 ? earl Y 
 days of railways, 269 ; Holland 
 Iron Railway, 269, 280-3 ; Wil- 
 liam I., 269-271 ; William II., 271 ; 
 Dutch - Rhenish Company, 272-9, j 
 281 ; State action, 281 ; Company j 
 for the Exploitation of the State I 
 Railways, 281-3 
 
 HOLYOAKE, MR. G. J., 38 
 HOPS FROM BOULOGNE, 170 
 HUNGARY, RAILWAYS OF, 265 
 
 ILLINOIS CENTRAL RAILROAD, 265, 
 
 JENCKE, MR., 259 
 
 KING'S CROSS POTATO MARKET, 129 
 
 LANCASHIRE AND YORKSHIRE RAIL- 
 
 WAY COMPANY, 107 
 LIGHT RAILWAYS, 285, 302-3, 310-11 
 LIST, PROFESSOR FRIEDRICH, 242 
 LONDON, BRIGHTON, AND SOUTH 
 COAST RAILWAY : Cost of Victoria 
 enlargements, 32 ; turkey trains, 
 149 
 
 LONDON AND NORTH - WESTERN 
 RAILWAY : Taxation, 47-50 ; goods 
 traffic, 94-5 ; Newport (Salop) 
 growers, 108-9 ; warehouses, 123-6 ; 
 meat traffic, 136-8 
 
 LONDON AND SOUTH - WESTERN 
 RAILWAY COMPANY : The South- 
 ampton Case, 111-116 ; meat traffic, 
 
 143-4 
 
 LONDON UNITED TRAMWAYS COM- 
 PANY, 59 
 
 MANCHESTER SHIP CANAL, 80 
 MARKETS, RAILWAY COMPANIES', 
 
 129 
 MEAT: American. 134-8; British, 
 
 138-146 ; Dutch, 146-9 ; Scotch, 
 
 140, 150-3 
 
 MEERS, MR. J. B., 39 
 MEYER, MR. H. B., 252, 259, 260, 
 
 265 
 MIDLAND RAILWAY COMPANY : 
 
 Taxation, 48, 50, 54, 59; traders' 
 
 grievance against, 325 
 Moss. SIR THOMAS, 272 
 MULVANY, MR. T. R., 252-3, 255 
 MULVANY, MR. W. T., 274-6, 279 
 
 NEW YORK CENTRAL AND HUDSON 
 RIVER RAILWAY, 199 
 
 OAKLEY, SIR HENRY, 22-23 
 
 PARCEL POST, 92-3 
 
 PARCEL RATES : Comparison between 
 
 Scotch and American, 8-n ; small 
 
 parcels, 90 
 POOLE, MR. BRAITHWAITE, 273 
 
INDEX 
 
 361 
 
 PORTS, RIVALRY OF, 78-82, 191-5, 
 239, 284, 289 
 
 PRUSSIAN STATE RAILWAYS : His- 
 tory of, 241-7 ; rates and charges, 
 248 ; financial results, 249-251 ; 
 physical condition of lines, 252-4 ; 
 1 Staffel ' tariff, 254 ; special rates, 
 255 ; local jealousies, 259; political 
 influences, 260 
 
 RAILWAY AND CANAL COMMISSION, 
 15, 21, 26, 27 
 
 RAILWAY CLEARING-HOUSE, 14, 16, 
 19, 22 
 
 RAILWAYS, BRITISH: General posi- 
 tion, 2 ; legislation affecting, 12-28 ; 
 finances, 29-45 taxation, 46-59 ; 
 classification, rates, and charges, 
 60-65 ; examples of differential 
 rates, 78-89 ; effects of changes in 
 trade, 90-3 ; weight of consign- 
 ments, 94-6 ; small parcels unre- 
 munerative, 97 ; suburban traffic, 
 98-9 ; nature of general goods 
 traffic, 100-102 ; reductions of rates, 
 106-109 ; Southampton Case, m- 
 116 ; warehouses, 117-128 ; returned 
 empties, 128 ; grain sacks, meat 
 hampers, and cloths, 128-9 ' mar- 
 kets, 129-131 ; abuse of railway 
 cloak-rooms, 132 ; meat trade, 134- 
 153; fish traffic, 154-166; fruit and 
 vegetables, 167-184; delusive com- 
 parisons, 195-7, 3 I2 -3!7 5 working 
 expenses, 317, 326 ; allegations re- 
 specting preferential rates, 318-9 ; 
 attitude of traders, 320-326 ; question 
 of minimum load, 323 
 
 RATES, RAILWAY : Early, 1-2 ; 
 general position, 2-3; comparison 
 with sea freights, 3-6 ; British and 
 American, 8-10 ; origin of rates and 
 charges, 13-15 ; Parliamentary 
 action, 12-28 ; effect of local taxa- 
 tion on, 52-4, 325 ; class rates, 
 60-2 ; exceptional rates, 62-5 ; equal 
 mileage, 66-72 ; preferential and 
 differential, 73, 89; foreign produce, 
 103 ; reductions conceded, 107 ; 
 lower rates already available, 108 ; 
 home and foreign produce, in-n6 ; 
 British rates include more than 
 haulage, 126, 128 ; rates for meat, 
 134-153 ; fish, 157-166 ; fruit and 
 
 vegetables, 167-184 ; Continental 
 rates, 186-204 ; railway rates in 
 France, 228-239 ; Germany, 254- 
 264 ; Holland, 275 ; Belgium, 288, 
 291-5 ; Denmark, 305-7 ; prospects 
 of general reduction, 325-6 
 REE, MR. FRANK, 108, 323 
 ROBINSON, MR. W. C., 279, 285 
 RUSSIAN RAILWAY FREIGHTS, 190 
 
 j SACKS, GRAIN, 128-9 
 
 ! SCOTLAND : Meat traffic, 140, 150-3 ; 
 fish, J63-5 
 
 | SEA TRANSIT: Cheaper than land 
 transit, 3-6, 103-4 ; competition 
 with railways, 167-171 
 SHERRIFF, MR. A. C. , 273 
 
 i SOUTHAMPTON CASE, m-n6 
 
 ! SOUTH-EASTERN AND CHATHAM 
 RAILWAY: Cost ofwidenings, etc., 
 32-3; taxation, 59; fruit and vege- 
 table traffic, 167-178 
 
 j SPILLERS AND BAKERS v. TAFF 
 
 VALE RAILWAY COMPANY, 83-6 
 SUTHERLAND, THE DUKE OF, 108 
 
 TAFF VALE RAILWAY COMPANY, 
 
 83-6 
 
 TATHAM, MR. F. S., 195-7 
 TAXATION OF RAILWAYS, 30, 46-59, 
 
 317, 325 
 
 TERMINAL CHARGES, 16-20, 195-7 
 
 THIERS, M., 206 
 
 TRADING CONDITIONS, CHANGES IN, 
 90 
 
 TRAVELLING TAX ABOLITION COM- 
 MITTEE, 37 
 
 TURKEY TRAINS, 149 
 
 ULRICH, HERR FRANZ, 263, 264 
 UNITED STATES, RAILWAYS OF/THE : 
 Cost of construction, 6, 313 ; rates 
 and charges, 6-n ; length of haul, 
 8, 314 
 
 WAREHOUSES, RAILWAY, 117-126 
 WATERWAYS : Germany, 262-5 '> 
 Holland, 267-9, 28 4-5 ' Belgium, 
 286, 290, 291. See also APPEN- 
 DIX 
 
 WOODFORD AND ILFORD LlNE, 34 
 
 WORKMEN'S TRAINS, 37-8, 99, 220 
 ZIFFER, MR. E. A., 310 
 
 BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD 
 
14 DAY USE 
 
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 LOAN DEPT. 
 
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 on the date to which renewed. 
 Renewed books are subject to immediate recall. 
 
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 a )S39 
 
 
 LD 21A-50m-9,'58 
 (6889slO)476B 
 
 General Library 
 
 University of California 
 
 Berkeley