An example will make this clear. Suppose the reader owns a field in which he proposes to grow turnips, or other crops, and that he then discovers that the cost of raising and carrying his goods to market will amount to a greater sum than he can realise by the sale of his produce; the commerce dependent on that field is at once killed.

That this does happen over and over again in this country is beyond doubt, and the same set of arguments applies to stock-raising.

A great deal of nonsense is talked about land going into pasture. Very often this is true, but in many instances it is an official expression to cover the ugly fact that the land goes out of cultivation, and is given over to weeds and nettles.

The loss here involved is obviously not to be found in any railway figures, but it none the less exists. Again, the total gross cost of cartage in the United Kingdom has been estimated by the late Mr. L. R. S. Tomalin, Deputy Chairman of the London Chamber of Commerce, at £220,000,000. This huge amount is a direct result of archaic railway methods, but its reduction by 80 per cent. is quite possible, and entirely depends on the reform of railways. This will be clearly shown in the chapter on Cartage, and must be the logical result of a scheme of central-goods clearing houses.

If this be so, the total of £365,000,000 will be reduced by £175,000,000, which is 80 per cent. of £220,000,000. It will thus be seen that the sum of £139,000,000, which is the total gross receipts of railways, does not by a long way cover the case.

But over and above all the foregoing, there is a truly great sum of money annually lost by the detention, for long periods, of goods in ships at our ports. It is probable that the amount thus annually lost would stagger the business men of this country were the figures laid before them.

Business men have hitherto not troubled themselves about this matter, because they have conceived it to be inevitable; but when they have been shown that this is not the case, it will surely become a matter of the deepest interest.

It is true that certain radical defects in our port arrangements are partly to blame for this loss, but, as will be clearly demonstrated, railways are primarily responsible for it.

If all this waste is unnecessary, if this vast saving in the cost of cartage, in railway management, and demurrage of all kinds, railway and shipping, can be effected, the desirability of the reform of goods transport is placed beyond argument.

CHAPTER II

SUGGESTED REMEDIES

It would appear, from a correspondence shown to the author, that experienced economists are in a state of considerable mental confusion on this subject.

In this correspondence a well-known writer on economics1 asserts that the confiscation of railway shareholders' dividends would solve the problem of railway wages. This is worth noticing, as the bare fact of the suggestion having been made will perhaps induce the railway shareholder to wake from his long sleep and take a more intelligent and active interest in the conduct of his property.

The railway shareholder is at present a cypher in railway matters. This is to be regretted from all points of view. The consequences of this situation have been shown in the foregoing chapter. Put in plain English, the railway shareholder is being injured, and has been for forty years or more.

Usage has sanctified the injury done to him, until those engaged in administering the system seem to be unable to appreciate the evils of it.

In this correspondence our economist confesses that he does not see the relationship between the uneconomic use of the railway wagon and the railway workmen's inadequate wages. That is to say, the far-reaching effects of inefficient methods do not affect wages.

His criticism on the introduction of machinery at terminals is illuminating.

1 Mr. Sidney Webb's Correspondence.

He writes: "The wage-earners generally are likely to be partial gainers in the long run, to some extent, by the most efficient use of the brains and capital of the community-but not the wage-earners, by any increased efficiency in that industry. This merely increases the economic rent drawn by the owner.

That this assertion is not true is superabundantly proved in the case of the very industry in which this gentleman is engaged, namely, literature, or book production.

Were it not for the paper-making machine, and the printing machine, the business of book production would be altogether impossible. The large profits now made by authors are only possible with the aid of improved machinery, and there could be no authors at all in the absence of pens and ink, or, in other words, apparatus wherewith to write. Machinery is, or is not, the friend of mankind. If it is not, let it be abolished, and let naked humanity squat upon the ground and grub up roots with its fingers.

For be it remembered that the spade is a machine, even as the locomotive is a machine, and that, moreover, the progress involved in the evolution from finger to spade was infinitely greater than that between spade and locomotive. But, apart from this, there is another aspect of the matter. Wages are paid out of profits, because they cannot be paid out of losses.

The greater the profits, the greater the justification for raising wages.

The strike is a very potent machine for raising wages. Now a strike for higher wages where a 12 per cent. dividend is being earned would command sympathy from the public, and public opinion would enforce a rise in wages out of dividends, because no great hardship would be inflicted on anybody, whereas a strike for higher wages, in the bankrupt condition of our railways, to be successful, would necessitate a raising of railway rates, or a levy on the public funds, which

amounts to the same thing; for in both cases it would be the public who would foot the bill.

The following quotation, taken from a lecture by Mr. A. W. Gattie to the Great Central Railway Debating Society, completely covers the point at issue :

"The trouble with which we are confronted in railway administration is not only that we are employing labour on unremunerative work, but that we are employing men to do absolutely mischievous work. The situation may be likened to that of a ship at sea, with one section of the crew busily engaged in boring holes in the ship's bottom, another section equally busily engaged in stopping them up, and a third section working like mad at the pumps. What we have to keep in view is, that all unremunerative labour is done at the expense of remunerative labour. Ill-directed effort must always be an incubus on well-directed effort. A man engaged in unremunerative labour is not earning a shilling, even if he works hard for twelve hours a day. He is really living on the earnings of his mates, and thus impoverishing them. If that is so, what must we say of a man who is engaged in doing absolutely mischievous work? It must be a dead loss to everyone. Any loss to the community must first make itself felt in the home of the poor man, and it is therefore in the interests of the working-class more than in any other to prevent waste."

Therefore there is only one possible way out of the difficulty, and that is to increase the earning power of the railways.

This can only be done by drastic reform, but there are many interests opposed to railway reform. They are none of them true interests, inasmuch as they do not harmonise with public interest.

On examination it will be found that even those interests which consider themselves in danger by suggested railway reforms would in reality benefit.

The interests which are in antagonism may be summarised under the following headings:

First, there is the contractor, whom it seems almost