How to Decrease Railway Rates and Increase Dividends thereby. By M. R. JEFFERDS, C.E.

The bane of the industries of the United Kingdom to-day is the excessive charge made by the railways for transporting the products of industry between the producer and consumer. The traders and manufacturers of the whole country are aware of this fact, and have sought relief from Parliament, which body have caused a court of inquiry to be established, known as the "Board of Trade Railway Rates Committee." This Committee have held some eighty-six sittings at an enormous cost, and have now concluded their investigations without examining a single fibre of the root of the disease.

The railway companies have had their experts and solicitors watch every movement of the Committee, and criticise every witness that came before it. When a witness attempted to show the real facts in the case, the solicitors would drop down upon him like a hawk upon an unsuspecting sparrow, and annihilate him at once.

It was the aim of the railway officials to prevent the Committee from obtaining any facts that could be used as a comparison with their own acts and methods, as such facts might lift the veil from the eyes of an unsuspecting public, and show them the deliberate waste of money that is daily being made, jeopardizing the wealth-producing interests of the country to maintain ancient methods and fossilized ideas.

The author was a witness before that tribunal, and was shut out entirely from stating his experience in handling railway traffic, because his experience had been in a foreign country where a different railway system from that practised in the United Kingdom was in vogue. Without a comparison, how were they to judge which was the best for the public? Why are the traders and manufacturers grumbling about high freight rates? By what means do they know that rates are high? Why, by comparison, of course.

A farmer in Scotland desires to send from Stirling Station 30 tons of grain to London market, a distance of 420 miles.

Under the new classification of rates the freight charges will amount to £57, 15s., plus terminal charges.

A farmer in the State of Illinois, U.S.A., can send from Chicago Station 30 tons of grain to London market, a distance of 1000 miles by railway and 3400 miles by water, at a freight charge of only £47, 15s., which includes all terminal charges and transfers except at London.

This shows a difference of 17 per cent. in favour of the Illinois farmer, or, in other words, that Stirling, Scotland, in a trading point of view, is 21 per cent. further away from the city of London than is Chicago.

If the Scotch farmer had the advantage of railway rates even 50 per cent. higher than those paid by the American farmer, his freight charges would be only £19, 13s. 9d., giving him an advantage over the American in the London market of £28, 1s. 3d. on each 30 tons of grain.

This comparison can be multiplied by hundreds of others in all branches of industry, and many of them much more aggravating, whereby foreigners have marked advantages in the markets of the United Kingdom over Her Majesty's subjects, and are protected in them by the railways, whose officials have their backs turned to the future, ignoring innovations, forgetting that the world is going on, and clinging with deathlike tenacity to the methods and ways of their grandfathers. What does such a policy mean? It means death to the industries of the British Isles.

How do we come to this conclusion? By comparing the rates charged in this country with the rates that prevail in a foreign country, making it only a question of time before the industries of the cheapest country will wipe out those of the dearest. Why not also compare, then, the conditions in this country with those that prevail in a foreign country by which so much lower rates are made? Because the railways say "You mustn't." And here we are handicapped and hoodwinked by the very men who should enlighten us

most.

The author asserts, without fear of successful contradiction, that railway rates can be lowered one-third, employees paid double the wages they now get, and shareholders larger divi

dends than they now receive, by simply entering into an enlightened railway practice, which can be done without calling the shareholders for a penny.

upon

The railways of the United Kingdom are by far the best in the world; their freight and passenger rolling stock the most ancient known to railway history, and the cost of handling traffic remains as high as it was thirty years ago. They have held fast to their ancient ways and dozed away in their sleepy picturesqueness, allowing a bustling and giddy world on the other side of the Atlantic, all alive with commerce and ambition and desire for novelty, and the terrible disturbing thing which unresting people call Progress, to rush on its boundless path unheeded, until now the charge made by American railways for moving the products of industry is 37 per cent. less than the first cost of moving freight in the United Kingdom, and 75 per cent. less than the average rates paid by the producers to the railways in Scotland.

Railways in America have so cheapened the cost of transportation, that while a load of wheat loses all of its value by being hauled one hundred miles on a common road, meat and flour enough to support one man a year can be hauled 1500 miles from the West to the East for one day's wages of that man, if he be a skilled mechanic-and still the Yankee does not think he has yet reached the lowest cost of handling traffic by rail.

The subject of railway rates is one that interests every man in the United Kingdom. The price of whatever he eats, wears, or uses, the convenience with which he receives his mail and the current intelligence of the day, and even the intimacy and extent of his social relations, are all largely affected thereby; therefore every man in the United Kingdom should at once demand a searching inquiry to be made by a Joint Committee of both Houses of Parliament, who should be instructed to make comparisons between our railway system and those of other countries, especially the United States, where the lowest railway freight rates in the world prevail; and if it be found that our system is wrong, enact laws to change it so as to place our internal commerce on an equal footing with other nations, and thus bring into dominant requisition every

available acre of arable land and every industry in the United Kingdom.

All national wealth depends upon an enlightened and unobstructed agriculture. The agricultural interests of the British Isles are so completely obstructed by excessive railway rates to-day, that a farmer or horticulturist in the interior of the United States, and even at the Antipodes, can successfully compete in the markets of London with the North British and Scotch agriculturist.

Upon the ocean the United Kingdom is the first carrying nation in the world, and has seized every opportunity to extend her ocean empire. From tubs that would carry only a few tons of goods, she has built ships to carry 10,000 tons, and thus minimized expenses and reduced rates, which has in turn increased traffic. But what has she done with her railways that have been built especially for heavy traffic? Nothing.

The railways in America, unlike those in the United Kingdom, were not built for economy in working as freight roads. They were built in the first instance as local roads, with reference to local interests, and not at all as their managers would now locate and build them, to secure and supply adequate means for traffic. They were built on circuitous routes chosen to avoid expense in construction, climbing mountains at difficult and unprofitable grades, and traversing curves that would be impossible with Scotch rolling stock. Far different with Scotch railways. You have uniform grades, easy curves, better alignment, and far better road beds and superstructure than any railway in America, and on top of that you have cheaper fuel, and labour at less than one-half the rates paid in the United States, but at the same time it costs more than double the amount of money to move a ton of freight a mile on your roads than it costs in the United States; and why? Simply on account of the antiquated rolling stock used upon your railways. Stiff, rigid, cumbersome boxes on wheels, that you could not roll round a corner to save your life, and to get them round a curve of the longest radius would be at the expense of excessive motive power, great wear and tear of both the outer rail and wheels, and, if the waggon was not properly loaded, great and undue strain on a single journal, instead of

the load resting as it should do evenly on all. These waggons have been built from the models first made by Stephenson, with no change in principle and very little in construction. The same principle was taken to the United States in 1831. Their engineers saw that unless vital changes were made their money would not hold out and their roads would be very short. Necessity truly became the mother of invention. Of this Mr Thomas Curtis Clarke, in an exhaustive article upon "The Building of a Railway," recently published in a work by the Hon. Thomas M. Cooley, chairman of the "Interstate Commerce Commission" of the United States, says :

"The first and most far-reaching invention was that of the swivelling truck, which, placed under the front end of a locomotive, enables it to run round curves of almost any radius. This enables us to build much less expensive lines than those of England, for we could not curve around and avoid hills and other obstacles at will." This truck is what is now termed a" bogie truck," named from a vehicle formerly in use at Newcastle-on-Tyne, having a king bolt or swivel pin to permit of its turning short curves. "The next improvement was the invention of the equalising beams or levers, by which the weight of the locomotive is always borne by three out of four or more driving wheels. They act like a three-legged stool, which can always be set level on any irregular spot. The original imported English locomotives could not be kept on the rails of rough tracks. The same experience obtained in Canada when the Grank Trunk Railway was opened in 1854-55: the locomotives of English pattern constantly ran off the track; those of American pattern hardly ever did so. Finally all the locomotives were changed by having swivelling trucks put under the forward ends, and no more trouble occurred."

The flexibility of the American locomotive increases its adhesion, and enables it to draw greater loads than if rigid. The same flexibility equalises its pressure on the track, prevents shocks and blows, and enables it to keep out of the hospital and run more miles in a year than an English locomotive does.

It would be a simple and inexpensive matter to make a