374 History of Inland Transport 



tinually going up, mainly owing to the demands for higher 

 wages and shorter hours of employment, and the more stringent 

 regulations of the Board of Trade as to block-telegraph 

 working, brake-power, etc. Further, the increased gross 

 or net revenues could not have been earned without a large 

 capital expenditure for additional and more costly plant. 

 It is well known that what would have satisfied the public 

 twenty years ago would be deemed wholly inadequate to-day. 

 Competition has compelled the companies to advance with 

 the times ; engines are now more powerful, carriages more 

 comfortable, in many cases even luxurious ; trains are better 

 heated and lighted ; continuous brakes and also the newest 

 type of telegraphic instruments for signalling and working 

 have been provided ; stations are better furnished and 

 equipped all of which would mean a greatly increased outlay 

 on the part of a tenant, which outlay he would undoubtedly 

 take into account before deciding what rent he could afford 

 to pay." 



The considerations here presented in regard to the general 

 question of railway taxation are strengthened by the fact 

 that, although a railway company is a commercial enterprise, 

 it has not the facilities possessed by commercial enterprises 

 in general in meeting any increase in cost of production or 

 working expenses by an increase in its charges to the con- 

 sumer, or the person equivalent thereto. In this respect an 

 ordinary industrial concern, producing goods for sale, is a free 

 agent to the extent that it is restrained in its charges only by 

 market and economic conditions ; whereas the railway com- 

 pany, producing for sale the service known as transport, 

 may not raise a single rate or charge in regard to the transport 

 of goods without incurring the liability of having to " justify " 

 such increase before either the Board of Trade or the Railway 

 and Canal Commission. It has even been recommended 

 recently by a Departmental Committee of the Board of Trade 

 that like restrictions should be made to apply in the case of 

 increases of passenger fares. 



The alternative for a railway company lies in the possibility 

 of reducing expenses ; but there are limitations in this 

 direction if perfect efficiency in all branches of the service is 

 to be maintained, and no one would be likely to suggest that 

 these exactions of local authorities should be made good by 



