TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION P. 647 



B. As regards the rusb from country to town, if the cheap trains have not 

 stopped it, they have undoubtedly moderated it. Lower rents and other advan- 

 tages (gardens with vegetables) have retained in the country people who would 

 have had to leave had the railway facilities not been available. 



ft is one of the reasons why, on the whole, rents for workmen's houses in 

 towns are relatively low in Belgium. 



Cheaper building ground and materials determine M'orkmen to build their 

 homes in the country. Many amongst those who regularly travel to and fro own 

 their homes. Some combine even some little rural enterprise with industrial 

 labour. 



At the same time rents in the country must have been maintained at a level 

 higher than that which would have prevailed had it not been for the cheap trains. 

 But it should be remarked that in the villages the law of supply and demand acts 

 less than in greater markets. 



0. The moral and political aspects of the phenomenon remain to be con- 

 sidered. (1) The bulk of those who travel to and fro every day avoid the 

 promiscuous mmgling of the sexes so often found in the overcrowded town houses, 

 but a great part of those who travel once weekly have to use town lodging-houses, 

 where evils of promiscuity are numerous. (2) Daily or weekly travel enlarges 

 their mental capacity and education. (3) The workmen's trains are well-used 

 opportunities for Socialists' propaganda, so far that in Parliament Mr. Vanderyelde 

 once greeted the Minister of Railways as the greatest Socialist propagandist of 

 Belgium. 



On the whole it may be said that the cheap workmen's trains are powerful 

 agents, which tend to the mobility of labour, to equalise competition, and to increase 

 the social density in the commonwealth. 



MONDAY. AUGUST G. 

 The following Papers were read: — 

 1. Some Notes on Mailway Cost Statistics. By R. L. Wedgwood. 



The problem of devising an organised system of statistics for indicating 

 fluctuations not only in general costs of railway working but also in the more 

 detailed costs of special processes, and for co-ordinating the two, is probably one 

 of the most important which English railways have to face at the present time. 



In a large organisation such as a modern railway it is impossible to keep an 

 adequate control over all the ramifications of the business without some system 

 of summarising and reporting the work done and costs incurred by the various 

 departments into which the operations of the railway ai-e split up. This is 

 admitted on all hands, but there is some dispute as to the point to which this 

 process should be carried. 



Experiments in the direction of establishing a complete system of statistics 

 have been made within recent years on the North Eastern Railway. These arose 

 from recognition of the necessity of increasing the train loftd and of effecting other 

 economies; a continuous record of the progress made, compiled on scientific 

 principles, was held to be essential. The record of train mileage run and tonnage 

 hauled gave no such information, and no record of train load in tons or in any 

 other trustworthy form could be obtained without the ascertainment of the 

 distance over which the tonnage required to be hauled. It was accordingly 

 decided to ascertain these particulars, the composite figure arrived at being known 

 as ton mileage. This figure, taken in conjunction with train mileage, gives the 

 train load in terms of tons. 



Further experiments along the same lines have led to the ascertainment of 

 wagon miles, both loaded and empty, and, as a compendious test of the efficiency 

 of work done in conducting transportation, have evolved the figures ton-miles per 

 engine hour, apd wagon-miles per engine hour. 



