366 History of Inland Transport 



Prussian State railways is only 750,000 a year. Naturally, 

 when a Government owns the railways, it is much more inter- 

 ested in checking excessive taxation of the lines by the local 

 authorities than when the railways are owned by commercial 

 companies ; and one of the questions to which proposals in 

 regard to the nationalisation of the British railways gives rise 

 is whether, when the Government owned the railways, they 

 would be willing to continue the payment from the railway 

 revenues of all the taxation which local authorities are now 

 able to exact from the railway companies. Presumably not ; 

 and in that case the trader, whether or not he got lower 

 railway rates from the State, would probably have to pay 

 higher local rates in order to make up for the tolls no longer 

 levied, or levied only to a much less extent, on the railway 

 tramc. 



The growth in the payments made by individual companies 

 for rates and taxes between 1902 and 1910 may be illustrated 

 by giving the figures for the London and North- Western, the 

 Great Western and the Midland Companies respectively : 



LONDON AND 

 YEAR. NORTH-WESTERN. GREAT WESTERN. MIDLAND. 







1903 .. 520,000 .. 524,000 .. 418,000 



1904 .. 572,000 .. 558,000 .. 435,000 



1905 . . 599,ooo . . 592,000 453,00 



1906 . . 603,000 . . 621,000 . . 475,000 



1907 . . 603,000 . . 608,000 . . 458,000 



1908 . . 610,000 . . 638,000 . . 436,000 



1909 . . 631,000 . . 663,000 . . 438,000 



1910 . . 638,000 . . 669,000 . . 456,000 



In addition to the items coming under the head of " rates 

 and taxes " the railway companies still have to pay to the 

 Government the passenger duty of which I have spoken on 

 page 263, their function here, presumably, being that of 

 honorary tax-gatherers who are required to get the money 

 from the British public in the interests of the national ex- 

 chequer, and save the Government the cost and the trouble 

 of collection. The passenger duty thus collected by them 

 in 1910 came to 319,404, the total contributions of the 

 railways to the public finances for that year being thus in- 

 creased to 5,421,715. 



