Mr. Asquith, in the debate which followed, said that it
was wrong to create a new department like the Ministry of Transport and fill it with men of business at salaries far higher than those of experienced civil servants at the head of other departments. The Railway Department of the Board of Trade, with a slightly larger staff, might have done all the work needed. Mr. Boner Law justified the Ministry as an attempt to cleat-with an " abso- lutely unique situation." The highly paid experts had tempor- ary appointments without a right to pensions, and, by their special knowledge, they would save the country large sums. We hope that Mr. Bonar Law's optimism will be borne out by the results, but we expect very little from the new Ministry. The railways under private management used to give an excellent service and might do so again. They might, on the other hand, be nationalized, as a natural monopoly of service and not of production, though we think that State management would be inexpedient and disastrous. But we fail to see the possible advantages of a compromise between private and public manage- ment in the form of a Ministry of railway experts, who will do either too little or too muck.
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