The Death-Knell of British Railways. 



WHY THE MOTOR MUST SUPPLANT THEM. 



THERE ran now l)e no dis;^'ui>inj,' Ihc fan 

 that the railways of this country are no 

 lon^'ir good business. It is not only that 

 they do not earn high dividends, or that every 

 year sees more railway ordinary aipital receiving 

 no dividend at all, but they do not any longer seem 

 able to fulfil their national work. There are many 

 very obvious reasons,, some of which it will be 

 instructive to glance at. To begin with, the railway 

 network of this country 

 has not been created re- 

 cently; it has grown with- 

 out any system or with- 

 out any ordered business 

 idea back of it. This 

 was perhaps inevitable in 

 the first place, but there 

 was no need why matters 

 should have been left 

 thus without any real at- 

 tempt at bringing thing.s 

 into line with the most 

 irdinary business ideas. 

 lo begin with, the rail- 

 .v.iys are burdened with 

 I tremendous load of 

 [lital and dead money 

 ich makes it practi- 

 Iv impossible for them 

 hope to pay their way 

 . e at the expense of the 

 ■^il.lic. 

 While the ( liicf railway 

 'ipanics are great and 

 iiplex businesses, we 



■ not hesitate to say that they are not really 



II on business lines. There is too little joint 



ion, too much hide-bound tradition for real 



■grcss to be possible. And, therefore, the nation 



iiicrs. Railways have been so vital a part of national 



ii- for deiades now that anything unlicalth) in them 



i-t affect the whole national structure. What is 



ded is a very drastic- stocktaking and a ruthless 



• I ling down of capiUil if ever the publii- are to obtain 



I ^onably chca|) rales on the railwavs. And then 



me business organisation and a real business idea, 



Diagram showing the life work of a goods wagon. 

 It is in use only two minutes per hour, and in all for 

 six months during seventeen years. 



including all the parts of the system, must be 

 inaugurated. It is appalling to think that to-dav in 

 the United Kingdom there are some 250 distinct 

 railway companies and that the i .300 directors receive 

 in fees something like £650,000 a year ! And these 

 directors, or the great majority of them, are no more 

 competent to decide questions affecting modern rail- 

 ways than is any man in the street. Their special 

 qualifications seem to be extreme respectability and 



extreme age. On the 

 board of one railway 

 company there are six 

 gentlemen whose average 

 age is over seventy-seven. 

 Since the capital value 

 created by these hundreds 

 of directors is not in ex- 

 cess of their fees they 

 must be considered as an 

 uneconomic factor. Then, 

 again, there are the 250 

 general managers of the 

 250 railway companies, all 

 in receipt of handsome 

 salaries, .and yet many 

 (,f them indisputably un- 

 economic factors and of 

 little commercial value in 

 the railway business. It 

 is astounding to find .so 

 immense an organisation 

 being run by those pos- 

 sessing so little real 

 training and scientific pre- 

 paration for their work 

 — a work upon which much ol the welfare of the nation 

 depends. Surely all these boards and all these general 

 managers are not needed to manage the 23.41.-j miles 

 of railway in the United Kingdom. It would work 

 out at a little over ninety miles of road for each 

 separate organisation ! If the present apparently 

 unbusiness-like and w;i.steful method of running our 

 railways made for ciriciency. the expense might be 

 cxcu.scd. But it does not make for efficiency in time 

 of peace or in time of w.ir. The freight rates on liritish 

 railways are far higher than those in Continental 



