The Paris correspondent of the Economist comments severely in the
issue of the 11th inst. on the working of the State rail- ways in France :—
" Trains are consistently and enormously late, the Administra- tion, being unable to exact anything more from its employees, amongst whom discipline has disappeared, has, during the last two years, been lengthening the scheduled runnings, and has just increased the run from Paris to Havre, for example, by an hour, or at the minimum 45 minutes. The alteration of the time-tables does not prevent un- punctuality, trains being sometimes as much as 60 minutes late. This line, newly taken over by the State, will yield a deficit on working expenses of about 66 million francs at the end of 1911. I must add that since the taking-over of the system the State Administration has devoted 43 million francs to improving the position of the personnel, which fulfils its office so badly ; and that the losses and repairs increase every year by several millions. It is therefore well in point to consider as taxes imposts which do not correspond with services rendered to the taxpayers."
If this is the result of railway nationalization in France—a country with a genius for bureaucratic administration—one cannot reasonably hope for anything better from the adoption of the system in Great Britain. The State is the worst of traders. We tolerate its conduct of the Post Office, the tele- grams, and the telephones only because we have no standard of comparison in the case of these mismanaged monopolies.
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