506 History of Inland Transport 



and that the charge for transport would be ten shillings per 

 mile. The distance " as the crow or the aeroplane flies " 

 between Hendon and Liverpool being about 200 miles, the 

 charge would come to ^100. Mr. Barber adds : " There is 

 no doubt that within the very near future it will be possible 

 to make much smaller charges ; also charges could be very 

 much reduced if there were sufficient business to make it 

 worth while." This is what one would expect to hear. Yet, 

 assuming that the aeroplane rate were reduced even by fifty per 

 cent, it could not, even then, compete with the railway rate 

 under normal conditions ; while to convey through the air 

 the 150 tons of general merchandise which a single locomotive 

 attached to one of the many goods trains passing between 

 London and Liverpool will haul would, on the basis of 

 i cwt. i qr. per machine, require the use of 2400 aeroplanes. 

 This calculation leaves out of account, too, the much greater 

 weights of grain, timber and other heavy traffic in full truck- 

 loads which pass from Liverpool to various inland places, and 

 could not, of course, be dealt with by aeroplane at all. 



After surveying all these possible competitors or alternatives 

 we are left to conclude that, as far as foresight can suggest, 

 the railways are likely still to constitute at least the chief 

 means of carrying on internal transport and communication 

 in this country. 



If this be so, then the main proposition as to the outlook 

 for inland transport in general relates to the outlook for the 

 railways in particular. 



Here the first consideration which presents itself is that, 

 as regards main lines, our railway system to-day may be 

 regarded as approximately complete. 1 There may still be 

 good scope for the construction of extensions, new links or of 

 short cuts ; but these should count as improvements rather 

 than as fresh lines of communication. 



In London there are to be extensions of some of the existing 

 tubes with a view to affording to the public increased facilities 

 both for reaching the termini of the great trunk lines and for 



1 In an address delivered by him as president of the Railway Students' 

 Union at the London School of Economics on October 24, 1911, Mr Sam 

 Fay, general manager of the Great Central Railway, said: "There is 

 little prospect of any extensive opening out of new competitive routes in 

 this country, and, but for a few comparatively short lines here and there, 

 the railway system may be considered complete." 



