500 History of Inland Transport 



goods carried and the extent of the presumptive profits made ; 

 whereas the railway company must have a costly goods depot, 

 acquire land for their track, lay lines of rails, maintain an 

 elaborate organisation to ensure safe working of the traffic, 

 and submit to taxation by every local authority through 

 whose district the goods carried may require to pass. There 

 is, also, the further consideration, of which I have previously 

 spoken, that in the case of short-distance journeys the cost 

 of terminal services makes the rate per ton per mile appear 

 much higher, in proportion, than when, while remaining at the 

 same figure, it is spread over a substantially greater mileage. 



While, with the increasing facilities for road transport, 

 the railways must expect to lose more of their short-distance 

 traffic, they should be able to retain their long-distance 

 traffic, and more especially their long-distance traffic in bulk, 

 commercial motors notwithstanding. Where commodities 

 are carried either in considerable quantities or for considerable 

 distances, and more particularly when both of these conditions 

 prevail, transport by a locomotive, operating on rails, and 

 conveying a heavy load with no very material increase in 

 working expenses over the carrying of a light load, must 

 needs be more economical than the distribution of a corres- 

 ponding tonnage of goods among a collection of commercial 

 motors, for conveyance by road under such conditions that 

 each motor is operated as a separate and distinct unit. 



The results, too, already brought about in the case of the 

 suburban passenger traffic may, possibly, be so far repeated 

 that railway companies deprived, also, of suburban goods 

 traffic by the increasing competition of road conveyances, 

 will show further enterprise in encouraging long-distance 

 goods traffic to the same markets, or to the same towns. 

 In this way they might seek to avoid, as far as practicable, any 

 falling-off in their revenue at a time when taxation, wages, 

 cost of materials and other working expenses all show a 

 continuous upward tendency. 



Should the policy here in question be adopted, market- 

 gardeners, more especially, may find that, while they have 

 effected a slight saving on their cost of transport by resorting 

 to road conveyance, they will have to face increased com- 

 petition from produce coming in larger quantities from long- 

 distance growers who, with a lower cost of production, and, 



