“What we want is to have our fish carried at half present rates. We don’t care a --- whether it pays the railways or not. Railways ought to be made to carry for the good of the country, or they should be taken over by the Government. That is what all Traders want and mean to try to get.”
Perhaps they would not be happy if they got it! In his clear, and most interesting book Railways and Their Rates, my friend Edwin A. Pratt says this letter was quoted in the Report which the Board of Trade made to Parliament after their 85 days’ Inquiry. The railway companies announced that the new rates were in no sense final, that the time allowed them was insufficient for proper revision, that they would give an assurance that no increase would be made that would interfere with trade or agriculture or diminish traffic and that, unless under exceptional circumstances, no increase would in any case exceed 5 per cent. But all was in vain, and Parliament passed an Act which provided that any increase whatever (though within the limits of the new statutory maximum) if complained of, should be heard and decided upon by the Railway Commissioners, and that the onus of proving the reasonableness of the increase should rest on the railway company. Sir Alexander (then Mr.) Butterworth, in his book on The Law Relating to Maximum Rates and Charges on Railways, published in 1897, says this remarkable result is presented: that Parliament, “after probably the most protracted inquiry ever held in connection with proposed legislation, decided that certain amounts were to be the charges which railway companies should for the future be entitled to make, and in 1894 apparently accepted the suggestion that many of the charges, sanctioned after so much deliberation, were unreasonable, and enacted that to entitle a company to demand them, it should not be sufficient that the charge was within any limit fixed by an Act of Parliament.” Thus Parliament, yielding to popular clamour, stultified itself, and in feverish haste to placate an angry and noisy public tied the hands of the railway companies, doing, I believe, more harm than good. This legislation naturally made the companies very cautious in reducing a rate because of the difficulties to be encountered should circumstances require them to raise it again, and railway rates thus lost that element of elasticity and adaptability so essential to the development of trade. Many a keen and enterprising business man have I heard lament the restrictions that Parliament imposed and declare that such interference with the freedom of trade was short-sighted in the extreme and bad for the country.
Immediately after the passing of the Act of 1888 the railway companies vigorously attacked the work imposed upon them. A special meeting on
the subject was held at the Irish Railway Clearing House in Dublin for the purpose of preparing a revised Classification and Schedule of Rates. This was a rare opportunity for me and I eagerly availed myself of it. Before I left Glasgow it will be remembered I had been entrusted with an examination of the statutory charging powers of the Glasgow and South-Western company, and with the drawing up of a suggested scale of maximum rates. No similar work had yet been done in Ireland, and it was altogether new to the Irish companies. I produced copies of the statements which I had prepared in Glasgow, and they served as a basis for what had to be done, saved much time and trouble and gained for me no little kudos. But more than this resulted. As I have hinted before, and as will hereafter appear, this bit of Glasgow work led to my promotion to a greater charge than the busy little County Down, which though I loved it well, I had begun to feel I was now outgrowing. Many other meetings at the Clearing House followed in which I took part with increasing confidence, and in which Walter Bailey also prominently figured. He and I were hand and glove. Cotton, who soon discovered that Bailey was an authority on the subject, as indeed he was on most railway matters, was not slow to profit by his knowledge and ability. He brought him to all our meetings, and valuable was the help that Bailey gave.
In 1889 there came into operation the Regulation of Railways Act. It invested the Board of Trade with power to order any company to adopt block working, to interlock all points and signals, and to use on all trains carrying passengers automatic continuous brakes. Before issuing the order the Board consented to hear any representations which the railways desired to make. The smaller companies, upon which the expenditure involved would press very hardly, and the circumstances of whose traffic seemed scarcely to require the same elaborate precautions for safety in working as the bigger and more crowded systems, banded together and waited on the Board of Trade. Upon me devolved the duty of presenting the case for the smaller Irish companies, and upon Conacher, of the Cambrian, for the smaller English lines. How finely Conacher spoke I well remember. He had an excellent voice, possessed in a high degree the gift of concise and forcible expression, and his every word told. But our eloquence accomplished
little—some small modification regarding mixed trains, and that was all. Many of the lines in Ireland serving districts where population is scanty, traffic meagre, and trains consequently infrequent, could well have been spared the costly outlay which the Act involved. Three or four trains each way per day represent the train service on many of these small railways, and some of the sections of the larger lines warrant little more. Take, for instance, the case of the Midland Great-Western. On 330 out of its 538 miles not more than six trains each way in the 24 hours are required, and they could probably be reduced without hurting anyone. These figures relate not to the exceptional war time in which I pen these lines, when stern necessity has sweepingly reduced the train service, but to pre-war days when normal conditions prevailed. Half a dozen trains each way per day! In England there are as many, or more, in the hour!
The Act of 1889 also dealt with the working hours of railway men whose duty involved the safety of trains or passengers, and required each company to make periodical returns of those employed for longer hours than were to be named from time to time by the Board of Trade; and it contained further a useful clause to the effect that the fares were in future to be printed on passenger tickets. I should not be surprised if this simple little clause has not brought more real satisfaction to the minds and hearts of the people of the British Isles than all the laboured legislation on railway rates and charges.
In the year 1889 a great fillip was given to the extension of railways in Ireland by the passing of the Light Railways (Ireland) Act. It was familiarly known as “Balfour’s Act.” Mr. Balfour was then Chief Secretary of Ireland, and it was due to him that it was passed. The Act was designed “to facilitate the construction of Light Railways in Ireland,” and embodied various recommendations of the Allport Commission. It was the first introduction of the principle of State aid by free money grants. Such aid was conditional upon the light railway being constructed or worked by an existing railway company, except in cases where the Baronies guaranteed dividends upon a portion of the capital. The amount which the Treasury was authorised to grant was £600,000. In 1896 this was increased by a further sum of £500,000, and both were, in addition to a capital sum,
represented by £40,000 per annum which had been granted under previous legislation. Under this Act and Acts of 1890 and 1896, over 300 miles, comprising 15 separate lines, were constructed at a total cost, exclusive of what the railway companies contributed, of £1,849,967, of which the Government contribution was £1,553,967. Although the lines were promoted under Light Railway Acts, and the Government grants were based upon light railway estimates, Parliamentary power was obtained to construct, maintain, and work them as other than light railways. This was taken advantage of by some of the working companies who, in eight instances contributed themselves a considerable amount of capital, in order that the lines should be made sound and substantial, of the usual gauge, and such as could be worked by the ordinary rolling stock of the company. The Midland Great-Western, for instance, so expended no less than £352,000 of their capital on “Balfour Lines” in the west. It was a spirited thing to do.
Of the 309 miles of “light” railways, made under the 1889 and subsequent Acts, 194 were constructed on the ordinary gauge of the country, 5 feet 3 inches, and the remainder on a 3-foot gauge.