MR. CHURCHILL AND THE RAILWAYS
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—Is road transport really the deadly rival of our rail- ways ? In a memorandum submitted to the Urban District Councils Association, the railway companies solemnly allege that as the largest individual ratepayers," they are just
" subsidizing their competitors," by contributing to the Road Fund.
Far from the railways performing an act so unusually
quixotic, all the evidence indicates that it is the roads which are subsidizing railway shareholders. Not only has there been no falling-off in the amount of general merchandise handled by the railways during the last few years, when the competition of heavy motor transport is alleged to have been becoming most critical, but railway profits have been actively assisted during the same period by the expansion of the roads.
There has been a progressive increase from 52 million tons,
to close on 61 million tons in the quantity of general merchan- dise carried ; and the railway traffic in minerals (other than coal, coke and patent fuel) has grown. from 48 million to 65 million tons. This latter traffic includes vast quantities of sand, asphalt, roadstone and so on for the making of new roads. Indeed, the quantity of roadstone alone carried by the railways has increased from over 7 million tons borne in 1920, to more than 12 million tons a year, and at the beginning of the month it was stated in the general meeting room of the Great Western Railway that by this year the railway profita on roadstone alone may equal the total contributions of the railway companies in highway rates and direct motor taxation.
—I am, Sir, &c., K. M. Asna. Glenbeigh, Chalkhill Road, Wembley Park.
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