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F.—ECONOMIC SCIENCE AND STATISTICS 135 
companies by the Acts is very wide, and except in the matter of charges 
for regular services—which will, it is likely, be always a minority of the 
services required—puts the railways companies in a position to compete 
with the road haulier with absolute freedom. 
An ‘ ideal distribution’ of traffic would provide for an economically 
sound division of function between road, rail, and other forms of trans- 
port, and would take into account, not only the price to the consumer and 
the cost to the operator, but also the ultimate real cost to the community. 
Such an ‘ ideal’ division of function would provide that every passenger 
and every ton of goods would pass by that mode of transport or com- 
bination of modes which would provide the most efficient service at the 
least cost to the community. In this way overlapping, redundant, or un- 
necessary services would disappear, and each form of transport would 
convey just those passengers and goods for which it was best suited. 
Such a division of traffic between the different modes of transport would 
be determined by the demand of those who required it and the facilities 
offered by those who provided it, while the incidence of cost to the com- 
munity should be such as not to involve the subsidisation of any one form 
at the expense of the others. 
Sir Josiah Stamp, in his Presidential Address to the Institute of 
Transport, examined this particular problem from the point of view of 
expenditure of capital. He argued that if all forms of transport were 
subject to one authority, such a body would be failing in its duty if it 
extended one form of transport—other things being equal in the matter 
of service—instead of another which would have involved less expenditure 
or given better results for the same outlay. But, as he pointed out, 
under present conditions there is no guarantee that any one section of 
transport, in ignorance of the true costs or scientific position of the other, 
may not embark capital on projects which may be quickly rendered 
obsolescent by imminent advances elsewhere, or alternatively it may fail 
to embark capital for fear of obsolescence which in fact does not occur. 
We have, as he pointed out, not yet reached the stage where rival forms 
come together and agree that a particular piece of transport development 
should be undertaken by that form of transport which can do the work 
for least cost taking into account any public expenditure involved. He 
added that ‘ Even governmental application of capital to transport itself 
is quite empirical, especially if it has responsibility for one form and not 
for another. How much more is the application of capital by a hundred 
different agencies ? ’ 
The difficulties of distributing traffic on any ‘ ideal basis’ has been 
strongly emphasised in the Final Report of the Royal Commission on 
Transport. ‘But as things are to-day,’ they ask, ‘is such a state of affairs, 
or even any approach to it practicable ? Who is to decide, for example, 
what rail services are desirable in the public interest and what amount 
of coastwise shipping ? Or what goods should in the national interest 
be sent by rail, road, canal, or ship? To propound the question is 
sufficient to bring home the immense difficulty which it involves.’ 
They suggested, however, a rough approximation to this position in 
one particular, since they were of the opinion that it is not in the national 
