A " PROTECTED " INDUSTRY.
For the most part, hoirever, I do not think that inves- tors will return to the English Railway Market with any sense of security until the industry is on what may be termed a less artificial basis. At present it is a " pro- tected " industry. Trade Unionism, with its absurd regulations as to hours of labour and other stipulations, no matter what the class of work performed, continues to dominate the systems ; and to raise the necessary revenues to pay the wages and something to the share- holders the travelling community is penalized by high fares and restricted facilities to an extent which is clearly 'driving much of the passenger revenue to the road motors. Restricted week-end facilities, a dead level of winter service throughout the year, and a summer service curtailed to ten or eleven weeks, with a consequent over- prowding of trains, to say nothing of many years of interrupted services through strikes, have robbed the railways of the popularity they once possessed at the very moment when, with the advent of the motor, there should have been strenuous efforts to retain it.
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