Facsimile PDF - Online Library of Liberty

382 AIETJfOD.7 OF SOCfAL REF0R.W.
rates of p y and allowances to officers and men, and the greater
cost of proviaions and clot,hing in tho English navy. Yet the
eame Government, which is always wasting money on its army
and navy, i.9 to work miracles of economical management in
the vastly more extensive, complicated, and delicate system of
railway convayance !
I must say, in conclusion, that I am perfectly aware of
many evils and abuses exist,ing in our present railway system.
The charges for tho conveyance of goods appear to be excessive
in mnny cases, and it is remarkable that the goods traffic has
not increased in nnything like the same ratio as tho passenger
tho mineral traffic. There can be no doubt, too, that the
nrbitrary ttmnner in which companies impose high rates where
they hnvo got the traffic enfe, and lower them where traffic is
to be attracted, gives rise to great grievance. It certainly
Boerns to bo quito intolerable that an almost irresponsible
board of directors should be able to tax a town or a district
after n fashion upon which tho Chancellor of the Exchequer
could never venture. The rates for the carriage of parcels,
too, are very cxcossive and arbitrary; the whole of the arrangements,
indeed, for the transmission of small goods in England
are in a chaot,ic and utterly absurd state. It is in this direction,
I boliovo, that tho next important measure of Government
management ought t.0 turn.
I do not for a moment wish to assert that any railway
company has acquired such right to a mouopoly that it may
go on indefinitely chnrging the public at unreasonable rates,
nor do I think it right that a company should be allowed to
make excessive profits from some portions of its lines to
counterbalance the loss upon other portions. My argument
is to the effect that t,he present companies do on the whole
render better services to the public than those of any other
railway system which Can be brought into comparison with
ours, and at charges which are, when all circumstances are
taken into =Count, as low or lower than thoBe elsewhere
existing, as proved by the great numbers who do travel by
railway. But in whatever points exceptions to this favourable
Bbte of things can be shown to exist,, Parliament ought to