Ittttro to tDE

RAILWAY AMALGAMATION.

Sus—The feud going on between the public and the owners of railways needs what the Scotch call "redding." The "belly and the members" are at variance, and in the heat of their dispute the groundwork seems lost sight of. Two of the opposite i parties, an M.P. and a Banker, lately held the fol- lowing dialogue. Will t help to clear up the dispute to your readers ? M.P.—I still insist that railway shareholders through their directors are a tyrannous and oppressive body.

.8.—I presume, because they imitate all buyers and sellers—buy as cheap and sell as dear as they can ? M.P.—With this difference, that being monopolists they dictate their own terms.

B.—The state has conferred on them certain privileges in consideration of services rendered by them to the community at their own risk. Their charges are limited by acts of Parliament.

M.P.—Yes, limited to double the price they ought fairly to charge.

B.—Fairly ! Surelyyou forget that the charges are less than half what they were in the coaching days, and that it is a great boon to the public. M.P,—Boon ! I think the boon is the other way : the railway people have the monopoly of a large and good business, discovered by engineers and others. What has the coaching time to do with it ? The river steamers might as well compare their charges with the wherries. Shareholders did not invent railways. B.—Yet they made them. But try it by another teat. Look at our divi- dends, and say whether they are too high ; whether our business is really so profitable, after all.

lr.p.—That may be from bad management.

B.—I doubt that. I think we have done all we can to economize. .M.P.—Yes, saving pence and wasting pounds ; every existing line wasting capital in opposing proposed lines. B.—We take measures for self-preservation, like other bodies of men and individuals.

_M.P.—Not so ; but quite unlike. Look at our town of Manchester : did you ever hear of cotton-mill-owners, singly or in combination, endeavouring to prevent other people from building more cotton-mills close to them ? .B.—A railway is a widely different affair. .MP.—How so ? It is a business of working transit by machinery, re- quiring large capital, skill, and industry ; a business increasing or decreasing- at times and seasons, like other businesses.

B.—And paying a smaller percentage than any other business. M.P.—It is a ready-money business; and if it were thrown open like other ready-money businesses, would be as well done, and give as good a profit as others.

B.—Would you have competition on a railway ; different owners running trains over the same rails ? Accidents would be on the inerems. But you began with charges of oppression : do you really think the public is op- pressed ; and if so, in what manner? M.P.—Generally speaking, I do not think the publie is oppressed' and for a very good reason—it is a monster of many tongues, But I think ,i,he op- pression of individuals by railway boards is monstrous. For example, charging the small coal-owner a larger rate of transit than tbe larger coal- owner.

.B.—It is not often we find you Free-trade gentlemen tripping ; but I main- tain that you make a great mistake here. You surely make in your busi- ness a wide difference between wholesale and retail. If a man buys of you a hundred bales, you will sell them cheaper than if he only required five. Thus, if a coal-owner can occupy a whole train of waggons and an engine, we can perform the operation of transit cheaper than if he only needs a few waggons ; and he has a right to the wholesale dealer's advantages.

M.P.--But this in the teeth of the act of Parliament saying that all shall be charged alike ?

.B.—I am not aware that the act says so ; but practically it is charging alike in proportion to the cost of time and trouble. The act for tolls usually fixes a maximum, but leaves the minimum to the option of a bargain. Nor am I aware_ that railway customers are prohibited from paying an advanced charge, if they think fit, for greater accommodation. It is a specialty. .111..P.—But the practical fact being that the general act of Parliament fares and.tolls are an exorbitant maximum, you seek the power to enforce those fares by destroying all wholesome competition in one general amalga- mation of the whole lines of the country.

13.—I maintain, that it is better for the general community to have the whole lines worked in an.orderly manner, than to be exposed to risks of acci- dents by competition.

M.P.—You are begging the question. Two rival lines may work in com- petition for speed, economy, and excellence, as well as for disaster. /1.—Experience has not proved that. But I think we are entitled at least to a safe five per cent on our outlay of capital; and I do not see any mode of obtaining that, unless by agreement amongst the different railway boards.

M.P.—That is to say, you think that all the railway capital expended, no matter how, ought to produce five per cent per annum for ever. This can. not be. It would be equivalent to saying there shall be no more program- You are perhaps right in urging that you should have full privilege to deal in different prices for wholesale and retail transit ; and there is no doubt that, supposing the whole of the hoards could have faith in each other, they would have the right without act of Parliament to make "traffic arrange.. ments" ; but the community would also have the right to make new rail- ways.

B.—That would be very like spoliation.

.M.P.—How so? Yours and every individual line applied to the Legislature to make a railway, and-take by force any man's property lying in their way ; setting forth as a reason the advantage to the community at large, and the probability of moderate gain to themselves. They got their acts, stipulating the maximum of fares and the maximum of tolls to the community. if after this it turns out that they have to expend more capital than they calculated on, it is their own fault, and not the fault of the community. B.—But how if the Legislature puts them to great expense ? M.P.—They should have reformed the Legislature before applying for their act. They have made the outlay, and can have no more reason to complain of a bad speculation than the mill-owner who may have wasted his capital by want of judgment in putting up bad machinery. B.—But the companies have been plundered by litigious landholders. M.P.—The landholders made their bargains according as good or bad laws permitted them, looking only to their own interest. Ibis they had a right to do ; and this was one of the contingencies the railway companies should have foreseen. That bad laws permitted this evil, should have occurred to the companies, knowing they could not break the laws. B.—And why should not we look to our own interest by an amalgama- tion of all the lines?

M.P.—I will tell you what would occur if you could obtain your "wicked will." The public at large have a notion that the Legislature granted you a practical monopoly in your particular district on condition that you should serve them well and reasonably, and with a fair profit on a careful expendi- ture of capital. And while you do this, the Legislature will not damage you with a direct rival line. But you entertain a notion that almost every new line, at whatever distance, is a rival line. Could you have your way, no existing line-owners would suffer any other line to be made. Even thus, the London and York was put to the expense of about three-quartersof a million by an unavailing opposition. What the existing lines have expended in the opposition we do not know, but doubtless that will be one cause of lower dividends. It is to make up the losses thus sustained that you, call out for amalgamation ; which once attained, every line would charge such prices as the general board might consider the moat, eligible for getting the largest possible sum from the public ; and that would be done with the least possible accommodation to the public, involving expenditure. You would then deem you had "hedged in the cuckoo" of monopoly. No one could travel or send merchandise without your permission, and you would levy "black mail" at your own discretion as arbitrarily as any robber baron of old stationed in his town, at a river-ferry, or bridge : and then there would be one universal outcry of dignation throughout the length and breadth and upper and under soil of the laud ; for Englishmen are not Frenchmen, and love not oppression of any in- terest, especially a material interest. There would be a howl of defiance; and if Englishmen were Welshmen, there would he; one universal &hews riot, that would sweep resistance into Hades. But inasmuch as Englishmen. hold fast by the law in their wildest moods, incontinently would arise a. host of projectors, with capital at their backs seekipg for employment, asking Parliamentary sanction for parallel rival lines, .ois the ground that modern improvements in laws, mechanism, and business, would enable them, to make the lines at half the cost of the existing ones, and.that.therefora pas- sengers and goods could be conveyed at half mice : and thereigessPaeliament would sanction them. .B.—Most iniquitously, in my opinion ; for our amalgmnetten we l4 nett operate as you imagine.

M.P.—It could not operate otherwise. Individuals reason, but boards do not. They would kill the goose for the sake of the golden eggs. And one other fatal result would ensue,—all progress would be at ap. end. Ifs an accident were to happen, they would lessen speed and this number of trains, as a remedy, instead of increasiug their care and Nauticl. They would pro- claim all their rules, systems, and mechanism perfect, and stereotype taigga..

We should become Chinese in our transit, . B.—But would not these duplicate lines be a great waste of capital ? ALP.—No; they would, on the contrary, be a great saving of capitaL B.—That seems a paradox, two lines doing the work of one.

is merely your shortsighted view. Each line has its own pur- poses, and would pay by its own traffic, even though there were many more parallels than exist at present. Railways are still looked at from the "coaching" " aspect. They smell of the road, the "respectable long drag" between distant towns, and all its low competitive and loose-moraled associa- tions. Not this only, :but other things also are the uses of railways.

B.—Will you explain more clearly ? M.P.—A road has one value and a street another. The road is a commu-

nication between distant places ; the street is a communication not merely between its two extremities, but from house to house. It is the difference in value between building land and agricultural land. Now, if the railways were converted, not into streets, but into a kind of extended suburb of de- tached dwellings, farms, and factories, they would acquire a value so great that all squabbles for distant traffic would cease ; and it would be a difficult thing for any competing line to rob such a line of its traffic, unless some very suicidal policy were adopted by the managers.

B.—And how can such a state of things be brought about? M.P.—Ask yourself the question, what are the motives for people to build houses or factories anywhere. In passing along a highway, it is a prima facie indication of water where a house is seen. Where houses are not seen, the chances are there is no water. Water is a necessary of life. Gas alai has now become almost a necessary of life. Manure is also a necessary of farming life. Now, if a company were to lay down water-pipes, gas-pipes. and sewage-pipes along their lines, the erobability is that all their frontages would become lines of farms, gardens, and villas. The builders would follow the road and the necessaries of human life, as surely as people squatted in past ages on the borders of navigable rivers. .B.—This is a slow-process. Do you not think that in the mean time we are entitled to kindly consideration by the Legislature for our unfortunate outlay in the public service. 31...P.—You mean, in a public speculation. I think you would have much

more sympathy if you were quiet and did your best to serve the public. You might then stave off competing lines for some time. But let us look at the other side of the question. Why should not other speculators willing to take the same risk as you, and offering to serve the public at half price, be per- mitted to do so ?

B.—The waste of the present capital; which, after all, though in our hands, is really national capital. ALP.—And what in ten years will be the waste of profits to the community

by the indirect action of high fares ? Do not lay too much stress on this point. The community may make the discovery that "the first loss is the least." I believe that competitive lines would really, be the best thing that could happen to you. It would force you to put your own shoulders to your own wheels, instead of praying to Hercules. With your local traffic profit- able, you would cease to play a perilous competing game for long traffic; -which, divided amongst many lines, might find a better development tha at present for the advantage of the public.

B.—I incline to think that our best policy will be, by our influence in the Legislature, to obtain a monopoly of the whole system of railways. .V.P.—Try it ! and if you obtain it, it will be a broad hint for all industrious people to think seriously of emigration, till by the gradual lessening of num- bers you might find out that the only value of property consists in popu- lation. It is a bold attempt, and I admire your audacity. The landholder's

monopoly was nothing to it. There is but one thing wanting to perfect it--a nation of slaves : but, unluckily for You, a nation of slaves "does not pay." It is just a possible thing that the English obedience to law might deliver the whole roads of the community into the hands of a body of monopolists by electioneering tricks ; but if such a thing were made permanent, it would be a signal that the nation had worked out the decrees of Providence on this spot of earth hallowed by long memories, and that their mission was thence- forth elsewhere. Farewell. We shall meet in the House.

One word more on your proposed amalgamation. Your pretexts are hypo- critical. Under the pretence of seeking public advantage, you seek only to coerce the public pocket. You have shown—you directors—that on your individual lines you have not had the ca Racity to perceive your right work, nor to choose the right men to do it. You have all quarrelled, like the veriest collection of rival omnibus proprietors. You have quarrelled for want of individual brains, and yet you profess by the clubbing of empty heads to make up a general capacity They They will be empty heads indeed, that will suffer themselves to be gulled by your shallow pretences. M. P.