of charging a million different prices for carrying parcels of the same size and weight, these prices being regulated by the nature and value of the contents. This, however, is the farcical method employed by the railways. The public is accustomed to the absurdity, and therefore permits it.

Politicians, to be successful, must be opportunists. With them it is not a question of right or wrong. It is a question of party expediency; and there can be little doubt that reform in railway transport would long ago have been achieved had it not been for this sin of Parliamentarians against the Holy Ghost. The suggested remedies would have put railways in such a substantial financial position that the advocates of nationalisation and the party wire-pullers plainly saw that a plausible election cry, "The Railways for the People" was in danger of becoming of no effect.

During the war the Government have to a certain extent taken over the railways, so, in a measure, bureaucratic control has already been experienced.

It would perhaps be unfair to expect a sweeping change at such a time, but it is important to state that things have been so bad that, at the suggestion that winter racing should be allowed, Mr. Runciman, with a dismal shriek of woe, protested that not another ounce of traffic could be contemplated.

Let it be freely granted that the Government took over a bad system, and were not responsible for the hopeless congestion and chaos prevailing. This being so, they were all the more bound to listen to suggestions emanating from responsible quarters for improvement. It will be shown, however, that the Board of Trade, the Board of Inventions, the Government generally, refused to make even the most cursory examination of schemes which had the highest engineering and economic support, and which have earned the commendation of the most expert German authorities.

The same Anglo-Saxon procrastination, folly, and

conceit which, if it be not remedied, will one day accomplish our ruin, is here again at work.

It is consequently difficult to believe that nationalisation in itself would mend matters; and if, as is probable, it led to making up financial losses out of the tax-payer's pocket, the real issue to British commerce would be disastrously obscured.

From time to time the railways have, so to speak, "spurted" in the matter of reform, and these socalled reforms have invariably taken the shape of extending an already unworkable system. Nationalisation is the politicians' remedy for an economic evil which is the result of a false mathematical thesis. The pooling of wagons was, of course, inevitable, but this reform had already been practically decided upon, owing to the recent revelations of wagon inefficiency. It is, however, being carried out in a very indifferent manner, and does not strike at the root of the evil.

With regard to the congestion of goods traffic, the policy of the railways, so far, has been to enlarge the goods station accommodation. This is no remedy at all. It is an aggravation of the evil.

Impelled by the growing tonnage, and consequent increase in the length of goods trains, they have been obliged to increase the length of the goods platform on to which the goods are unloaded and wheeled about by the man with the hand truck, in his endeavours to carry the load from the railway truck to the road vehicle, or vice versa.

Here are 102 railway vans and carriers' vans unloading into 56 railway wagons. The road vans are on the side of the platform, and the railway wagons are on the other side. The platforms are about 40 feet broad and about 600 feet long. The delirium tremens lines indicate the conflicting lines of route followed by the men in wheeling hand-trucks loaded with bales, etc., from the road vans to the railway wagons. It is

contended that this waste must go on, because certain people are making a profit out of it. That is to say, that the community must continue to waste sovereigns so that a few people may make halfpence. This is the one and only rational apology for a continuance of existing conditions.

The process by which goods are transferred from a road van to a railway wagon, or vice versa, is primitive in the extreme. A cart having collected a load of miscellaneous goods, carries it to the railway goods station, where it is unloaded article by article. Each article is confided to an individual called a trucker, who puts it on to the vehicle from which he takes his name, and starts on a voyage of discovery with it. Having, after much peregrination, at length found the particular railway wagon destined to proceed to the station corresponding to the address on the parcel, he sets it down, and starts on his return journey to the cart, and the process is repeated until the job is complete. The average length of the trucker's journey is about 1,200 feet, but in those cases where he is delayed by obstruction a single journey may take him half an hour. . . . However excellent the arrangement may have been when it was first made by the common carrier some centuries ago, it is quite clear that it is now out of date, and must become more unsuitable with every enlargement of the goods station.

But in lengthening the platform in response to the needs of a double tonnage, mark what has happened. The workmen have been called upon to wheel double the tons, double the average distance, that is to say, labour has been quadrupled in order to double the output. Would any sane person defend a system which necessitates a policy of quadrupling expenses in order to double earnings? How long could any ordinary business survive such a proceeding?

But worse remains; not only has labour been quadrupled to double output, but four times as many

hand-trucks and four times as many men have been put on a platform, the superficial area of which has been only doubled. Thus it will be seen that this fundamental blunder has greatly intensified the congestion of the platform, and so hindered the workmen to an alarming degree. This fundamental blunder has diseased the whole economic railway system.

If the reader will turn to the diagram and make four times as many of the "delirium tremens" lines, he will arrive at some idea of the chaos to which railway mismanagement has reduced the orthodox railway goods station.

No wonder the railway managers have gone whining to the Government for assistance to be given them out of the tax-payers' pockets; but it is a gross scandal that this should have been done without a complete investigation of the facts which have led to the impasse.

It is further outrageous that this assistance should have been given without arrangement being made that the supposed supervision of the Board of Trade over railway affairs should become a reality, and not the sham it is.

In the face of this deplorable situation the Board of Trade reiterates its meaningless formula: "Railway arrangements are excellent.'

At length it began to dawn on railway direction that it was not possible to go on with the process of enlarging good stations indefinitely, and it further became dimly aware that the larger the goods station, the lower the efficiency-in other words that the present goods station did not admit of economic expansion. There is now no doubt about this even in the minds of railway managers.

If anything is to be done, the present goods station must disappear.

"A typical goods station is a wilderness of sidings, perhaps a mile or more long, and a quarter to half a