193 REPOKT — 1873. 



accommodation, especially in the matter of improved train correspondence ; (7) 

 adoption and adaptation of all the latest inventions; (8) the necessity of the 

 operation lest the railway companies might become the dominant power in the 

 State. The objections to State management usually urged were : — (1) Cen- 

 tralization; (2) communistic tendency of the act; (3) patronage; (4) the pos- 

 sibility that the State might get a bad bargain, as other inventions might arise 

 more economical and convenient than the present means of locomotion ; (5) 

 the enormous cost of the undertaking ; (6) the necessity to buy up the canals, 

 coasting, steam, and sailing vessels competing with the railways, the docks and 

 harbours owned by the railways, locomotive factories, coach and waggon factories, 

 the coal- and other mines used by the railways. With reference to the economy 

 of working under State control, the author regarded it as extremely problema- 

 tical. The number of journeys made in 1871 in the United Kingdom was 

 375,000,000 exclusive of those made by season-ticket holders, of whom there 

 were 188,392 ; and he estimated that the total number of journeys made in the 

 vear was 409,000,000. During the same period one passenger only was killed for 

 each 13,630,000 jomneys made ; and assuming that each passenger made seventy- 

 live journeys per annum, and that he was endowed with the faculty to renew 

 his life at pleasure, he could only be killed once in 181,733 years of travelling. 

 And supposing that the wounded by railway collisions were to be killed in the 

 ratio of ten to one, a passenger could only be wounded once in 18,000 years. 

 Tliese and other figures proved that there was practically no danger for the 

 railway traveller either of being killed or wounded in a railway collision. It was 

 to the nearly superhuman eftbrts of railway officials, high and low, as well as to 

 the inventive genius of the engineer, that the passenger owed his comparative 

 safety ; and he might feel assured that State management would not diminish the 

 present death-rate. Having reviewed the objections usually raised against the 

 status quo, the author considered those generally made against adopting the op- 

 posite horn of the dilemma, viz. Government management. Centralization of 

 control had some advantages, but they were not such as to neutralize its short- 

 comings. It was because he was convinced that it was beyond the intellectual 

 capacity of this country as in this epoch limited, to manage a network of railways 

 13,000 miles in extent on the principle of unification under State control and 

 in accordance with the present wants, that he advocated a system of railway groups 

 as against a Government or centralized management. It was clear that the State 

 could not enter into a carrying competition with independent companies. The ob- 

 jections to expropriation on the ground of patronage required no further notice 

 than this, that the companies employed about 250,000 persons, the nomination of 

 whom to their several ofiices would bring with it doubtless the possession of their 

 sufli-ages. It was questionable if the railway property could De bought for less 

 than a thousand millions, if even it could be done at that figure. Truly the friends 

 of expropriation must be endowed with a romantic boldness of entei-prise, and a 

 faith that would remove mountains. The scheme he had to place before the Asso- 

 ciation started upon the principle that it was the duty of the Government to 

 govern, and not to trade ; and it adopted, as a foregone conclusion, that the State 

 ought not, and could not if it would, buy and manage the railways. The inten- 

 tion of the scheme was that the existing railways, owned at present by 106 

 ditlerent companies, should be amalgamated into four competitive groups, to be 

 owned and managed by four great companies, taking their shape and direction 

 from the people of the island, and having a due regard to the terrain as well as to 

 the importance of the chief centres of trade and manufacturing towns, cities, mines, 

 docks, ports, harbours, and so forth, as well as to the status of each principal 

 railway company. He suggested that the four amalgamated groups should pre- 

 serve the titles of four of the existing companies : — (1) the London and North- 

 Western group ; (2) the Great Western group ; (3) the Great Northern group ; 

 (4) the Midland gTOup. Neutral territories, except in a verj' few instances, had 

 no place in the scheme, as being contrary to its principles, those of competition 

 pure and simple. The London and North- Western group would absorb the London 

 and North-Western, Lancashire and Yorkshire, Cambrian, Mid Wales, Caledonian, 

 Great North of Scotland, South Staflbrd, London, Brighton, and South Coast, and 



