The burdensome nature of these duties on internal communication led to the formation of a "Committee for the Abolition of the Present System of Taxation on Stage Carriages in Great Britain"; and in some "Observations on the Injustice, Inequalities and Anomalies of the Present System of Taxation on Stage Carriages," by J. E. Bradfield, issued by this Committee in 1854, a strong case was made out in favour of such abolition. Bradfield based his main arguments on the contention that by removing restrictions placed upon the freedom of communication the general welfare of nations was promoted. The taxation of the stage-coaches conferred, he said, no advantage on the coaching enterprise, since none of the money raised in this way was expended on road improvement, while the amount of the taxation often formed an abnormally large proportion of the receipts. He mentions the case of one coach-owner in the Lake District, thirty per cent of whose receipts in the winter had to go to the Government for the duties imposed, not on the amount of business he did, but on the seating capacity of his coaches. In another instance the duties paid were forty-five per cent of the takings. Bradfield thought a fair average for the country in general would be fifteen per cent. The existing system of mileage duties enforced, he declared, an average tax of £80 per annum upon every stud of eight horses employed in stage-coaches, as against £30 for the same number used for postchaises, and £11 8s. in the case of those for private carriages.
Bradfield further quotes a Windermere coach-owner as being of opinion that there was "still great scope for coaches as feeders to the railways if only they were given greater relief in the matter of duties." He expresses his own opinion that "coaches are legitimately the streams by which the traffic should be conducted to the railways," and asks, "Why tax the stream more than the river?"
The steady decrease in the yield from the stage-coach duties was in itself sufficiently significant of the changes in travel that were then proceeding. In 1837 the revenue from the duties was £523,856; but it began to decline steadily as the "palmy days" of coaching came to an end, and in 1841 it had fallen to £314,000. In 1853, when, after various modifications, the mileage duty was three-halfpence a mile, the yield was only £212,659. In 1866, after further modifications, the duty was reduced to a farthing; and in 1869 it was repealed altogether; though by that time the locomotive had supplanted the stage-coach except in a comparatively few localities where it still lingered, mainly, however, as a feeder to the railway.
The recent revival of coaching comes under the category of sport or recreation rather than under that of internal transport and communication.
CHAPTER XXV
RAILWAY RATES AND CHARGES
The combined result of (1) a vast increase in industrial production; (2) the decline in river, canal and road transport; and (3) the various conditions which checked competition on and between the railways was to increase greatly the need for transportation facilities, and to make traders and the public in general more and more dependent on the one means of consignment and locomotion thus so rapidly becoming paramount. Coupled with the many technical details which, as pioneers of the railway system, the English companies had to work out for themselves, and, also, with the questions arising as to the future relations between the railways and the State, there were the further problems as to (a) the means to be adopted to ensure that the rates and charges were reasonable, and not likely to become unjust or oppressive, and (b) the bases on which the rates and charges should themselves be fixed in order to secure due regard for the public interests, to guarantee the operation of the railways on commercial lines, and to ensure for the railway investors a reasonable return on their investments.
The earliest railway rates of all were simply a toll (as on a turnpike road) at the rate of so much per mile, or so much per ton per mile, for the use of the rails, with an extra charge if the railway owners supplied the waggons. This was the practice in vogue down to the Surrey Rail-way period, the tolls for such use of road being fixed by Parliament because of the railway lines being a monopoly.
The next development came when the Stockton and Darlington Railway Company obtained powers to supply haulage by steam power or steam-engine, and were authorised by Parliament to charge a "locomotive toll," in addition to the road toll, when the trader made use of the company's engines.
There was a further development when the railway companies undertook the functions of carriers, provided waggons, carriages and staff, and were authorised to make a charge for the "conveyance" of goods.