[From "The Daily Telegraph," August 6, 1868.]
THE OWNERSHIP OF RAILWAYS.[73]
To the Editor of "The Daily Telegraph."
Sir: The ingenious British public seems to be discovering, to its cost, that the beautiful law of supply and demand does not apply in a pleasant manner to railroad transit. But if they are prepared to submit patiently to the "natural" laws of political economy, what right have they to complain? The railroad belongs to the shareholders; and has not everybody a right to ask the highest price he can get for his wares? The public have a perfect right to walk, or to make other opposition railroads for themselves, if they please, but not to abuse the shareholders for asking as much as they think they can get.
Will you allow me to put the real rights of the matter before them in a few words?
Neither the roads nor the railroads of any nation should belong to any private persons. All means of public transit should be provided at public expense, by public determination where such means are needed, and the public should be its own "shareholder."
Neither road, nor railroad, nor canal should ever pay dividends to anybody. They should pay their working expenses, and no more. All dividends are simply a tax on the traveller and the goods, levied by the person to whom the road or canal belongs, for the right of passing over his property. And this right should at once be purchased by the nation, and the original cost of the roadway—be it of gravel, iron, or adamant—at once defrayed by the nation, and then the whole work of the carriage of persons or goods done for ascertained prices, by salaried officers, as the carriage of letters is done now.
I believe, if the votes of the proprietors of all the railroads in the kingdom were taken en masse, it would be found that the majority would gladly receive back their original capital, and cede their right of "revising" prices of railway tickets. And if railway property is a good and wise investment of capital, the public need not shrink from taking the whole off their hands. Let the public take it. (I, for one, who never held a rag of railroad scrip in my life, nor ever willingly travelled behind an engine where a horse could pull me, will most gladly subscribe my proper share for such purchase according to my income.) Then let them examine what lines pay their working expenses and what lines do not, and boldly leave the un-paying embankments to be white over with sheep, like Roman camps, take up the working lines on sound principles, pay their drivers and pointsmen well, keep their carriages clean and in good repair, and make it as wonderful a thing for a train, as for an old mail-coach, to be behind its time; and the sagacious British public will very soon find its pocket heavier, its heart lighter, and its "passages" pleasanter, than any of the three have been, for many a day.
I am, Sir, always faithfully yours,
J. Ruskin.
Denmark Hill, Aug. 5.
FOOTNOTES:
[73] In the Daily Telegraph of August 3 appeared eight letters, all of which, under the heading of "Increased Railway Fares," complained of the price of tickets on various lines having been suddenly raised. In the issue of August 4 eighteen letters appeared on the subject, whilst in that of the 5th there were again eight letters. Mr. Ruskin's letter was one of four in the issue of the 6th. It has, it will be seen, no direct connection with that one entitled, "Is England Big Enough?" which precedes it in these volumes owing to the allusions to it in one of these railway letters (p. [86]).