56 C. O. BURGE. 
many of the branch lines now regarded as non-paying from the 
Railway Commissioners’ necessarily partial outlook, might be 
looked upon as at all events meeting their expenses and interest. 
Again, even taking railway receipts alone on the credit side, 
though there is a considerable list of non-paying lines in the 
Commissioners’ reports, it is to be presumed that the figures given 
are the results of setting the passengers and goods receipts for the 
particular mileage of the branch, and those alone, against the 
corresponding working expenses of that mileage only. It may be 
impossible, and undoubtedly it would entail great trouble, to do 
otherwise, but clearly a more equitable plan would be to credit 
the branch also with the extra profits which its contributions 
bring to the main line. These contributions can easily be con- 
ceived to be carried over the small mileage of the branch at’a loss, 
but over the longer mileage of the main line at a gain. A main 
line more or less fully occupied is a machine working up to its 
full capacity, and therefore working economically; a branch line 
is often the reverse. A dozen waggon-loads of traffic can be 
shunted on to the main line from a branch, and run over the main 
line with very slight extra cost, while they are paid for at their 
mileage rate. In fact it might cost two pence or three pence per 
ton per mile to carry these waggons over the short mileage of the 
branch, while the same waggons might be drawn over the long 
mileage of the main line for a fraction of a farthing of actual nett 
additional expenditure. 
As regards the national creditor, while the construction of 
absolutely hopelessly non-paying lines is against his, as it 1s against 
all, interests, 1t does not follow that it is necessary for a line to 
pay more than its working expenses and interest to satisfy him. 
The indirect gains to the Government already alluded to ina 
larger population and production, are distinct advantages to his 
security, even supposing that, what is after all only a subdivision 
of the cost of production, namely :—its short carriage to the main 
line, is proportionately heavy. 
With regard to the other three sets of interests with which 
the constructing engineer has to deal, if a lighter class of railway 
