Rambles on Railways

by Sir Cusack P. Roney

“What I recommend is, that either a department of Government should be created, or the superintendence of railways committed to one of the existing departments, and that the controlling power, thus established, should act as a lessor, not only in granting leases, but in fixing suitable terms and enforcing due observance of contract.”

As Sir Rowland Hill was the only person of the fifteen Commissioners who subscribed to the doctrines advanced in the foregoing paragraph, it will be an unnecessary occupation of time to comment upon them.

The two chief witnesses upon whom Sir Rowland Hill relies are, his brother, Mr. Frederick Hill, an Assistant Secretary of the Post Office, and Mr. Edward J. Page, the Inspector-General of Mails. A considerable portion of Sir Rowland’s plan is quoted as forming part of the evidence of Mr. Hill, and we shall only say of that gentleman just at present, although we shall have much to say to him presently, that if he had even a tyro’s knowledge of the working of railways he would not have put forward the string of the assumed “benefits” which he asserts will be realised by his views being adopted.

To us, however, it appears very clearly, that if we lay aside all arguments, reasoning, plans, and suggestions but one, we will come to the real reason for Sir Rowland Hill recommending the purchase of railways by the State. It is that the Post Office may thereby acquire that complete control, and that complete mastery in respect of railways which the rights of property can alone give it over them. Mr. Page aids him by his evidence and assertions, in a manner that has compelled us to state in the opening paragraph of this chapter, that the friendly relations existing between the Post Office and the Railway, are, as regards the department, on the surface only. In its heart (if the Post Office have a heart) its feelings of rancour are just as uncompromising as ever they were.

But let us state, in the first instance, what are the opinions of the Royal Commissioners on the relations between the Post Office and the Railways. They are contained in the following extract from their report:—

“134. In connection with the passenger traffic we have to consider the question of postal communication.

“On the continental railways, as we have observed, the Government has conceded the lines to the companies on the condition that the mails are to be carried free. On the railways of this country, Parliament has reserved to the Post Office the right of requiring the railway companies to carry the mails as the Postmaster-General may direct, but has reserved to the railway companies the right to be paid for such service at a rate to be fixed by arbitration. The Postmaster-General is also at liberty to send a Post Office guard with a weight of mails equal to the luggage of an ordinary passenger, at the fares charged for such ordinary passenger, any extra weight being paid for according to the ordinary rates of the company.

“The Post Office authorities complain that the price they have to pay, under many of the arbitrations, for services rendered, is in excess of what individuals pay for such services, and that if guards are sent in charge of the mails as baggage, the railway companies insist that the guard can only carry the baggage from one end of his journey to the other, without intermediate receipt and delivery, and that, therefore, when they desire to use the trains by sending a guard with mail bags, without putting the trains under the statutory notice, the demands of the railway companies are exorbitant. They also state that they cannot require a company to run a train exclusively for their use, and that the law is defective as to the speed they are entitled to require, and as to the provision of apparatus for exchanging mail bags without stopping.