COST OF MIXERAL TRAFFIC OX EXGLISII RAIL WA YS. 



329 



an attempt made to procure information of this 

 kiad failed ; that difficulties in the way of such 

 an effort have not diminished since ; and that, in 

 the absence of any complaint from shareholders, 

 they do not think that interference on the part of 

 the Government is called for. 



In return, it has been urged that it is reliance 

 on the vigilance of the Board of Trade which has 

 been one main cause of the false security of the 

 shareholders ; that it is of vital importance that 

 ignorance on so fundamental a condition of the 

 railway system should be removed ; and that it 

 is proper that the public should be made aware 

 that the Board of Trade distinctly repudiates the 

 responsibility which is generally held to belong to 

 that branch of the Government, as to supervision 

 either of the financial results, or of the fair and 

 equitable rate of charges, of the railways of the 

 United Kingdom. 



It is satisfactory to be nble to add that the 

 Board of Trade, on this rejoinder, have announced 

 their intention to make inquiries as to the statis- 

 tics of the mineral traffic. In the mean time, it 

 is doubly proved, first by Mr. Fleming, and, sec- 

 ondly, by the official correspondence of the Board 

 of Trade, (hat the question, " What is the finan- 

 cial result of the mineral traffic of railways ? " is 

 at the present moment entirely unanswered. 



In the absence of proper balance-sheets on 

 the part of the railway companies, and of proper 

 statistical returns on the part of the Board of 

 Trade, the first inquiry likely to suggest itself to 

 any person earnestly desirous to arrive at the 

 real economical outcome of the mineral traffic on 

 our railways will be, " What information is to be 

 derived from railway accounts in other parts of 

 the world '? " 



The reply is, that many of the railway com- 

 panies in America, most of them in France, and 

 all of them in India, supply the information which 

 the English companies refuse to give, and which 

 the Board of Trade fails to obtain. Further, 

 analyses of American, of French, and of Indian 

 accounts throw so much light on the question at 

 issue as to suggest that the reasons for suppress- 

 ing that information on the English lines, wheth- 

 er they be those alleged or not, are insufficient to 

 justify a mode of proceeding alike opposed to 

 public polity and dangerous to the true interests 

 of the shareholders themselves. 



It should be remarked, for the guidance of 

 those persons who may turn for their own satis- 

 faction to the sources of information here indi- 

 cated, that the results most readily to be ob- 

 tained require a certain correction, for which, 



however, most of the materials are supplied. It 

 has been, unfortunately, the practice in the Board 

 of Trade returns to make use of the indefinite 

 unit of a " train-mile " as a means of indicating 

 the results of railway-working. Foreign railway 

 accountants have followed suit in this respect. 

 But the goods and mineral trains weigh from two 

 to four times as much as the passenger-trains, 

 and, therefore, the assumption that they are the 

 same per mile to work is entirely unjustifiable. 

 In the English returns no means whatever are 

 provided for remedying this grave defect. But in 

 the fuller details of the other railway accounts 

 there are to be found, for the most part, by analy- 

 sis, the means of ascertaining the cost of convey- 

 ing a definite load for a definite distance. The 

 unit of railway expenditure is the cost of convey- 

 ing an ascertained weight of train and load for 

 an ascertained distance. The most convenient 

 expression will be that of the ton-mile-gross, or 

 the cost of the conveyance of a ton of train and 

 load (including return of empty wagons and all 

 expenses) for a mile. When this is once known, 

 we begin to ascertain something as to railway 

 cost and railway profit. And when this is accu- 

 rately known, we shall be on the track of the dis- 

 covery of that distribution of profitable and un- 

 profitable business which is at present so sedu- 

 lously concealed. 



The total working costs of the railways of the 

 United Kingdom in the year 18*75 are stated by 

 the Board of Trade at £33,220,728. The total 

 number of miles traveled by trains in that year 

 is given as 100,731,071 miles by passenger-trains, 

 and 104,635,056 miles by goods and mineral 

 trains. If to this information were added that 

 of the average weights of such trains, we should 

 be able to ascertain the price per ton-mile or per 

 hundred ton-miles-gross. It is the want of the 

 statement of weight that brings us to a standstill. 



The total receipt of the railways of the United 

 Kingdom for the same year was £61,237,000. 

 This sum was made up by £25,714,681 receipts 

 for passengers; £13,405,283 receipts for minerals; 

 £19,862,789 receipts for merchandise, including 

 carriage of live-stock ; and £2,254,247 from rents 

 tolls, navigation, and miscellaneous sources. 



The numbers of passengers, of tons of goods, 

 and of tons of minerals conveyed are also re- 

 turned. But we are left in the dark as to either 

 the average fare per passenger, or the average 

 payment per ton for goods or minerals. The cor- 

 responding detail of the average distance traveled 

 in a passenger-journey, or the average distance 

 for which a ton of goods or a ton of minerals has 



