RAILWAYS 



561 



Great Western, for instance, has thirty-six railways 

 of which it is the lessee, and has joint-ownership 

 of nine other lines. The movement of the traffic 

 over the separate systems of railways is provided 

 for under the Clearing-house Association (see 

 CLEARING-HOUSE); and in 1888 an act was passed 

 giving to the Board of Trade authority to call for 

 returns, and deal with the schedule of rates and 

 classifications of the companies. 



The earliest railways were authorised on the 

 supposition that they would, like canals, be high- 

 ways for the use of carriers. A scale of maximum 

 tolls was prescribed in each act, and the canal 

 classification of goods adopted. Later on the rail- 

 way companies prepared a new classification. Each 

 railway act also contained a clause authorising the 

 railway company to charge a reasonable sum in 

 addition to the maximum tolls, in order to cover 

 carriers' services, risks, and profit ; and from about 

 the year 1845 each railway act prescribed a scale 

 of maximum charges for conveyance. To these 

 maximum rates most of the companies were allowed 

 to add a terminal charge for the services of load- 

 ing, unloading, covering, collection, and delivery, 

 &c. Although the companies had thus power to 

 cliarjje certain rates, the majcima were seldom 

 enforced; but even with the lower level of -actual 

 charges the traders were dissatisfied, and demanded 

 frequent inquiries into the working of railways. 

 Three such inquiries were held between 1866 and 

 1884, but the companies were on the whole acquitted 

 of the charges brought against them. As the result 

 of the inquiry of 1872 the Railway Commission 

 was appointed to specially deal with disputes 

 between traders ami the railways. In 1885 the 

 government made an attempt to deal with the 

 whole subject of railway rates, but it was not 

 until 1888 that an act was passed. The later 

 part of 1889 and the whole of 1890 were occupied 

 with inquiries before the Board of Trade and a 

 joint committee of both Houses of Parliament, as 

 to the rates and classifications of the railways, 

 and the result has been acts which came into force 

 on 1st August 1892, amending the powers and 

 classifications of nine of the leading lines. 



Zone Xi/.tt<-iii. -In 1889 a new departure was in- 

 augurated on the Hungarian state railways by the 

 introduction of the Zone system for passengers, 

 under which each station, taken as a point of 

 departure, is considered as the centre of certain 

 zones, which increase in a regular ratio, and in 

 which the fares are arranged on a simple plan. 

 This was followed by the introduction on the 

 Austrian railway system of the Kreuzer taritl', 

 whirl i is ;i combination of the Zone and Kilometer 

 systems ; and in 1891 the Zone system was also 

 applied in Hungary to the goods traffic. 



Result* o/Railtcai/ Working. At the time when 

 the Liverpool and Manchester Railway was com- 

 pleted, ten miles an hour travelled by the fast 

 stage and mail coaches w;ts about the limit of 

 MKM'il attainable. At that time the population of 

 the United Kingdom was about 2.> millions; in 

 1891 it was nearly 38 millions. At the opening of 

 the London and Birmingham Railway there were 

 3021! stage-coaches, 54 four-horse and 49 |>air-horse 

 mail-coaches in use. The full seating capacity of 

 these vehicles, each being licensed to carry fifteen 

 passengers, would represent 16,500,000 individual 

 journey* in the course of the year, and it may be 

 safely assumed that not more than 10 millions of 

 such journeys were made. The extent of corre- 

 spondence among the population was officially 

 stated at 82 millions of letters. In IH'M) the 

 niiMiIxT of passengers carried (in the railways was 

 817 millions. < In the Iiasis of work done by stage- 

 coaches in 1837, we should require over a quarter 

 of a million of these vehicles to move the passengers 

 400 



now conveyed over the 20,000 miles of railway. 

 On 30th November 1830 the first of Her Majesty's 

 mails was transferred from the mail-coach to the 

 railway. The increased facilities thus afforded con- 

 verted a uniform penny post from a theory into a 

 reality when that system came into operation on 

 5th December 1839. In 1890 the Post-office cele- 

 brated the jubilee of the penny postage, and in that 

 year carried 1650 millions of letters, 207 millions of 

 ^Dst-cards, 442 millions of book-packets, and 159 

 millions of newspapers. To have conveyed this 

 would have required more than thirty times the 

 number of coaches which carried the mails half a 

 century since. The news in those days was carried 

 at an average speed of 8j miles per hour. The 

 railways carry the mails at an average speed of 

 over 40 miles per hour. 



The total traffic in coal on the railways of the 

 United Kingdom amounted to over 126 millions 

 of tons in 1890. Of the total meat supply of Lon- 

 don the railway companies convey about 64 per 

 cent. ; whilst of milk four companies alone import 

 about 22 millions of gallons each year. The supply 

 of vegetables, fruits, and flowers for Ixmdon and 

 other large towns is also mainly dependent on the 

 railways. The fish trade of the country also owes 

 its development mainly to the railway facilities of 

 recent years in 1890, 383,000 tons of this valuable 

 item of our food supplies were conveyed by rail 

 from the ports to inland markete. 



State Ownership of Railways. It may be assumed 

 in general that railway construction and develop- 

 ment has been less hampered by state inter- 

 ference in the British Islands and in the United 

 States and Canada than in any other parts of the 

 world, and it is precisely in these countries that 

 railways have attained tneir highest development. 

 In other British colonies the government has either 

 built or subsequently purchased the lines. Rail- 

 way construction in France was undertaken in a 

 much more methodical manner than in Great 

 Britain. The country is partitioned out among six 

 great companies, and competition has thus been 

 entirely avoided. The government owns about 

 one-third of the capital invested, and will ulti- 

 mately about the middle of the 20th century become 

 the absolute proprietor of the various systems. The 

 state has the right to fix fares and charges, and to 

 determine the amount of new mileage to be con- 

 structed from time to time. So far as technical 

 skill is concerned, the railways of the country are 

 well managed, but the accommodation provided is 

 far inferior to that in Great Britain or the United 

 States ; passenger-trains are comparatively few 

 ami crowded, and the freight service is very slow. 

 The main lines are very remunerative in their 

 operations, but the local roads are mostly worked 

 at a loss. In Germany the roads are owned and 

 managed by the government, and political and 

 military considerations are paramount in the work- 

 ing of the system. The lines have been cheaply 

 constructed, the cost being less than half per mile 

 that in Great Britain. The tendency in most 

 other European countries is towards state ownership 

 or control of railways. The Russian government 

 since 1880 has been actively engaged in buying up 

 private railways and building new lines, and at 

 the present time some 40 per cent, of the system 

 is owned by the state. In Belgium the whole of 

 the lines have been so purchased by the govern- 

 ment. In Austria only one line is a state railway. 



Railways in the United States. By far the 

 greatest and most rapid development of railway 

 construction in proportion to population has taken 

 place in the United States, and the working of 

 railways in all parts of the world owes much to the 

 characteristic inventive genius of Americans. The 

 building of railways has not been hampered on the 



