CHAPTER VIII

AGRICULTURE

In speaking of the revival of English agriculture, as a result of the scientific organisation of railway working, the writer is not unaware of the great complexity of railway rates. When it is authoritatively stated that railway rates on a particular system may be anything from 20,000,000 to 40,000,000 in number, and that these rates are governed by a variety of circumstances, resulting in difficulties which it would take volumes to comment upon and to analyse, some idea of this question of rates may be gathered.

The point is, however, that the whole system has become needlessly involved, and its execution needlessly expensive.

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In the introductory chapter to Railways and their Rates," by Edwin A. Pratt, we are told why freights can be carried great distances overseas far cheaper than they can be carried within the limits of the United Kingdom.

The writer develops his explanation of this fact at length, and it is most interesting. If we accept this disadvantage of ours as an unalterable condition, we must be content to fall behind commercially for all time. We need not, however, accept an excuse as a remedy, and the serious nature of the case stated in Mr. Pratt's book is an additional reason for investigat

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1906.

Railways and their Rates." By E. A. Pratt. John Murray,

ing without delay any proposition which is likely to place our commercial future on a more satisfactory basis.

The time will come when we shall laugh at the ingenuity and perversity with which one difficulty was piled upon another difficulty, one blunder made to screen another blunder, until the object aimed at was almost lost sight of.

It will be quite possible under a proper system to do away with all this complexity of rates, and to institute a flat rate determined by bulk-tons alone, or by bulktons and distance.

The railway expert will no doubt say, "Pshaw, impossible!" He is the victim of habit of thought. He would, however, find it exceedingly difficult to furnish any rational argument in support of this prejudice. The railwayman regulates his rates by what he estimates the traffic will bear; that is to say, the highest sum he can charge short of extinguishing that traffic altogether.

The cabman does not regulate his charges by estimating how much his fare can afford to pay. If he did he would have as many different rates as the railways have.

This multiplicity of rates is an evil brought about because rates are computed not in relation to the work done, but, to use the railway expression, they are regulated by what the traffic will bear. Into this bog of absurdities the railway companies long ago floundered, and they have never got out of it.

It is not the business of railway officials to know what the profits of a trader may be. It is their business to do certain work for certain money, and to show no preference in doing it. If they act otherwise they create an artificial state of affairs which is pernicious in the extreme.

1 If the railways were to attempt to charge their legal maxima they know they would extinguish their traffic; the legal restriction is consequently a dead letter.

Railway rates should regulate themselves in accordance with the amount of work done. That they do not is only another instance of the endless system of protection which permeates our so-called free-trade system.

For instance, a railway company will charge a high rate for canned salmon packed in half-hundredweight cases. These cases are uniform in size, are easily handled, and occupy a small space for their weight. The high rate is charged, not for any extra work done by the railway, but for the makeshift reason that the traffic will bear it. This policy of overreaching the trader is unjust. The ultimate injustice falls upon the public, who always pay for everything in the end.

It is clear that the railways have no more right to charge a rate because the traffic will bear it than the tin-plate manufacturer has a right to vary his price as between the salmon-canner, the sardine-canner, or the fruit-canner. The comparative values of these three commodities have nothing to do with the tin-plate trade.

It would be as reasonable for the Post Office to charge a rich business man more for carrying his letter than a poor business man for carrying his, on the plea that the correspondence of the former would be more lucrative. Under this system some of Messrs. Rothschild's letters would need to carry a £10,000 stamp.

A trader in Leeds sends certain chemicals to London; the rates on these identical chemicals vary in accordance with their more or less profitable employment by various consignees. Could folly be carried further?

In examining these facts it grows clearer and clearer that the railway managers have deliberately endeavoured to prevent the public knowing what is

the actual amount of work done by them for the money they receive.

In the process of mystifying the public they have deluded themselves, and have brought railways to the brink of ruin.

But it may be urged that if rates are computed on the basis of what the traffic will bear, agriculture, with which it is particularly proposed to deal in this chapter, cannot be injured or destroyed on such a

basis.

As to what this traffic will bear is decided not by the farmer but by the railway manager, and the farmer has no better remedy than an appeal to the Board of Trade, which is a ruinous proceeding.

To recommend such a remedy is sheer sardonic cruelty.

It is not to be supposed, however, that railway managers, who have displayed such a lack of economic judgment in their own affairs, will arrange and impose these rates on a just basis.

To go no farther, where the rates run from 20,000,000 to 40,000,000 in number, the task of adjusting them equitably is beyond the power of any individual, board, or commission. Nobody but a fool would suggest that this could be otherwise.

To take more than the actual economic price for doing work is to divert capital from its remunerative channels of healthy enterprise, and to waste it.

If the several freight rates which go to make up the selling price of agricultural produce were to be calculated on the legal maxima of what rates may be, no one could argue that the results would be other than disastrous.

It has been stated at the beginning of this book that transport reform of a radical nature, together with increased efficiency of production, is the only hope of agriculture in this country.

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This is quite true. It is not possible to revive agriculture otherwise, and if produce cannot be conveyed easily and cheaply throughout the country, it would be about as useful to dump men on the land as it would be to open a high-class dressmaking establishment at the North Pole. Both enterprises would be doomed to failure.

Business men will turn their attention to agriculture when agriculture becomes a business proposition. There is one prevailing obstacle, and one only, to land becoming exceedingly remunerative. Insecurity of tenure and inadequate technical knowledge are other obstacles, but these are being got over, and the obdurate obstacle is the archaic manner of working our railways.

Matters cannot become better under the present system. They must become worse. What are we waiting for?

That matters cannot become better is shown by the abnormal growth of sidings compared to open miles of railway. Siding mileage, during the years 1910-12, increased by 475 miles. Open miles increased during the same period by barely 58 miles.

It is asserted by railway companies that transport is but a small item of farmers' business expenditure. We shall see if this is so.

To begin with, it must again be repeated that the actual price of sending crops to market is only one of the many transport charges involved in their production and marketing.

For example, a Sussex farmer may be, and often is, six miles from the nearest railway. In order to sell a load of turnips of three tons, the first expense is the lifting the crop from the field, after it has been uprooted. This is at present done by bringing a cart into the field, where the turnips are slowly loaded into it, and it is then hauled from the field to the hard high-road. A journey to the station is the next item,