extraordinary interest as the argument of this book develops. The need of transport is urgent, because this war has shown us that the world is a very different place from what we believed it to be a few years ago, and that in the future we may be faced by a combination, which makes it imperative that we should be able to feed ourselves. Agriculture is, and must remain, the most important industry of any country. The revival of agriculture is impossible without radical reform in our transport methods. This is a fact which should be fixed on the public mind, or sooner or later it will write itself there in letters of blood. However much we may bury our heads in the sand, a habit which springs from our national vice of hypocrisy, our make-belief tactics will not serve to save us from commercial ruin. It is of no use to contend that things are what they are not. The nation has had a bitter lesson in taking unnecessary risks, and it must put its house in order, or it will collapse. To say that this country cannot feed itself is untrue. We have it on the word of a most eminent authority, the late Professor John Hunter, F.I.C., F.C.S., F.R.P.S., etc., that we can, and we now know it is necessary that we should. We cannot do this so long as British inland freight rates are the highest in the world. The following is a very startling list comparing the rates per ton per mile in various countries: Mr. Siason Thompson, Secretary of the Railway Managers' Association of Chicago, and is consequently an entirely impartial statement. Mr. Slason Thompson's figure is 1.192 for the United Kingdom, but recently the Board of Trade has been compelled by Act of Parliament to discontinue its forty-year-old habit of misstating the "tons conveyed" on the railways of the United Kingdom, and Mr. Slason Thompson's figures were based on the old and erroneous figures published by the Board of Trade. This misstatement of 42 per cent.,' to be quite accurate, has now been confessed to, and of course the case for the British railways becomes very much worse. The enormous advantage which the comparative freight rates quoted above confer on foreign countries is obvious. The first step in any such investigation must be an examination of the revenue and expenditure accounts. The foundation of the case against the present railway system, therefore, centres itself in the diagram on p. 16, taken from Mr. A. W. Gattie's printed lecture to the South Eastern and Chatham Railway Research Association, at the Cannon Street Hotel, on March 2, 1914. It will be seen from this that during the last forty years expenditure has increased by 290 per cent., and receipts have increased by 200 per cent. The diagram (Fig. 1), shows at what a ruinous pace expenditure has advanced in ratio receipts. to According to calculations which have been made, railway expenditure should not be more than £42,000,000 per annum, instead of £87,320,000. 1 This misstatement amounted to 178,000,000 tons for the year 1911, see Board of Trade Returns, 1913." That is to say, expenditure should be £45,000,000 less than it actually is.1 COMPARATIVE PER CENTAGE OF INCREASE IN WORKING EXPENSES AND GROSS RECEIPTS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM 290 250 150 EXPENDITURE RECEIPTS 200 £45,000,000, therefore, is the sum which is missing annually from railway accounts. 1 See " Board of Trade Returns," p. viii., 1913. 100 50 0 Explain it how one may, such a state of things is not business. It may be many other things for which extreme language might be used, but it is not, and never can be, business. It must not be supposed that the mischief ends with this profligate expenditure on the part of railway authorities; the involved loss to the community is enormous, as will be demonstrated. Let us, however, follow the explanation which Sir Charles Owens (a Director, and late General Manager, of the London and South Western Railway Company) gives as to the causes of this extraordinary state of things. He has said in his evidence before the Royal Commission, before which he appeared as the representative of the Railway Association, and therefore as the representative of all railway companies, that the causes are and have been : Increased demands of labour. It will be necessary to deal drastically, and at length, with these three statements. They are produced by railway authorities on every conceivable occasion, and are accepted by laymen on the ipse dixit of men who are presumed to be experts. They have not a shadow of foundation. Their falsity has been exposed over and over again in the public Press and at railway meetings. An examination of these three claims will not only reveal their falsity, but will, it is hoped, teach the public that the testimony of these railway witnesses cannot be relied upon. Sir Charles Owens will one day wish, if he does not do so now, that he had cut his tongue out before he made these ill-considered statements. First, the increased demands of labour с Mr. Richard Bell, M.P.,1 formerly Secretary of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants, has had elaborate statistics prepared and published on this subject, and he has officially stated that for twenty years wages have remained practically stationary. This is beyond dispute, and can easily be verified. The increase of wages, therefore, as an explanation will not do. Sir Charles Owens was not asked to produce documents in support of this statement. Discovery of documents would have been fatal to his argument. Sir Charles Owens stated that there had been an increase of £70,000 per annum in wages during the previous five years on the London & South Western Railway. During this period, however, there was an increase in gross receipts of over £300,000. As a matter of fact, the ratio of wages to gross income is the most important point. It may be taken roughly at about one-fourth. This is in reality below the mark. Multiply £70,000 by four, and we find that an increase of £280,000 in gross receipts would have justified this. But the increase in gross receipts was at least £300,000, or £20,000 in excess. It is true that quite recently an increase in railwaymen's wages has been forced on the railway companies by the strikes of 1911, and the threat of further strikes, and that Parliament, to avoid a disaster, has agreed to help the railways to pay their servants. This is symptomatic in a high degree of the state at which railway affairs have arrived. This recent increase has no bearing on the case, which is forty years old. Second, the increased cost of material. As regards the cost of material, the reader should turn to the diagram (Fig. 2) opposite. It will be seen therefrom that the price of steel, the chief material 1 See Appendix, Bell's letter; also evidence of G. J. Wardle, M.P., Blue Book [Cd. 5927] 1911. |