396 History of Inland Transport 



of consignment, style of packing, etc., has the benefit of an 

 earlier season and so on, he may well be able, under a system 

 of free imports, to compete with the home producer on his 

 own markets ; though the cost of transport to the foreigner 

 has naturally to be reckoned from the place of origin, and not 

 simply from the English port through which his consignments 

 pass. 



The general effect of rail transport on the trade and industry 

 of the country was thus described by Sir John Hawkshaw 

 in his presidential address at the Bristol meeting of the British 

 Association in 1875 : 



" Railways add enormously to the national wealth. More 

 than twenty-five years ago it was proved to the satisfaction 

 of the House of Commons, from facts and figures which I then 

 adduced, that the Lancashire and Yorkshire railway, of which 

 I was the engineer, and which then formed the principal 

 railway connection between the populous towns of Lancashire 

 and Yorkshire, effected a saving to the public using the railway 

 of more than the whole amount of the dividend which was 

 received by the proprietors. These calculations were based 

 solely on the amount of traffic carried by the railways and on 

 the difference between the railway rate of charge and the 

 charges by the modes of conveyance anterior to the railways. 

 No credit whatever was taken for the saving of time, though 

 in England pre-eminently time is money. Considering that 

 railway charges on many items have been considerably 

 reduced since that day, it may be safely assumed that the 

 railways in the British Isles now produce, or, rather, save to 

 the nation, a much larger sum annually than the gross amount 

 of all the dividends payable to the proprietors, without at all 

 taking into account the benefit arising from the saving of time. 

 The benefits under that head defy calculation, and cannot 

 with any accuracy be put into money ; but it would not be at 

 all over-estimating this question to say that in time and money 

 the nation gains at least what is equivalent to 10 per cent 

 on all the capital expended on railways." 



Sir John Hawkshaw, it will be seen, arrived at this result 

 on the basis of the saving in rates and charges and in speed ; 

 but one must further allow for those various supplementary 

 services on which the railways enable the traders to effect 

 savings in the carrying on of their business. 



