CHAPTER XVIII.

RAILWAY RATES AND CHARGES, THE BLOCK, THE BRAKE, AND LIGHT RAILWAYS

Until the autumn of 1888 nothing occurred to disturb the even tenor of my way, and I pursued in peace my daily work at the County Down. It was interesting work and pleasant to become personally acquainted with the customers of the company, many of whom lived in towns and villages some distance from the railway, and to gain their good will. It was interesting and also satisfactory to gradually establish an improved and efficient train service and to watch the traffic expand. It was exhilarating to engage in lively competition with carriers by road who, for short distance traffic, keenly competed with the railway. It was good to introduce economies and improvements in working, and gratifying to do what one could to help and satisfy the staff--a thing, I need scarcely say, much easier to accomplish then than now.

And so the time passed until August, 1888, when the railway world was deeply moved by the introduction of the Railway and Canal Traffic Act.

This Act was the outcome of the Report of the Select Committee of 1881, before which Mr. James Grierson gave such weighty evidence. One of the most important measures Parliament ever passed, it imposed on railway companies an amount of labour and anxiety, prolonged and severe, such as I hope they may not have to face again.

The Act, as I have stated before, altered the constitution of the Railway Commission, and also effected minor alterations in the law relating to railways and canals, but its main purpose was the revision of Maximum Rates and Charges. It ordered each company to prepare a revised classification of goods and a revised Schedule of Maximum Rates, and submit them to the Board of Trade, who, after considering objections lodged against them, were to agree (if they could) with the companies upon a classification and schedule for adoption; and if they failed, to determine a classification and schedule themselves. Public sittings at Westminster, Edinburgh and Dublin, occupying 85 days, took place, but no agreement was reached; and in their Report to Parliament the Board of Trade embodied a Revised Classification and a standard Schedule of Maximum Rates for general adoption. The Schedule included Terminals. In accordance with the Act, it then became necessary for this Revised Classification and Schedule to be confirmed by Parliament. Against them petitions were lodged by both railways and traders, and the whole matter was referred to a Joint Committee of both Houses. This Committee sat in 1891 from April till July; but it was not until January, 1893, that all was completed and the Revised Classification and the new rates brought into force. Little time was afforded to the companies for their part of the work. The whole system of rates was changed. New rates had to be calculated on the new scale; thousands of rate books had to be compiled, and millions of rates altered and revised. It was a colossal task; impossible of fulfilment in the time allowed. The application of the new Schedule forcibly reduced many rates, inflicting much loss upon the companies, and because the companies advanced other rates (within the limits of the new maximum powers of course) to meet this loss, or to meet it to some extent, a storm of abuse arose and swept across the land. A trader from Berwick-on-Tweed, more frank than most, wrote the following "characteristic" letter as it was called at the time:--

"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 pounds. In 1896 this was increased by a further sum of 500,000 pounds, and both were, in addition to a capital sum, represented by 40,000 pounds 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 pounds, of which the Government contribution was 1,553,967 pounds. 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 pounds 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.

Several Light Railway or Tramway Acts were passed in Ireland between 1860 and 1883, under which 295 miles of light railways at a cost of 1,389,784 pounds were constructed. With the exception of the small sum of 144,804 pounds, the interest on the whole of this capital was guaranteed by the Baronies, the Treasury repaying the Baronies one-half but not to exceed two per cent.

The lines constructed under "Balfour's Act" are situated mostly in Connemara, Kerry, Mayo and Donegal, serving districts remote and thinly populated, where as commercial ventures they could not have been projected. That they have proved to be of great benefit to the country is beyond question. They have developed fishing and agriculture, and have brought the tourist into districts little visited before. Live stock and farm produce are able to reach their market, and places before isolated are in touch with the outer world.

One of the first of the railways made under the 1889 Act was a short line of 8 miles from the County Down line at Downpatrick to the little fishing village of Ardglass. It stood first on the list of lines recommended for construction in the Report of the Allport Commission. Primarily it was intended for the development of the herring traffic which for years had abounded on the coast, but no sooner was the line opened, than that perverse migratory fish sought other seas, and did not return to Ardglass for I don't know how long.

The promotion of the Ardglass railway, and the steps necessary for obtaining an Order in Council for its construction and working, familiarised me with the Light Railway Legislation of Ireland, with which in subsequent years I was often concerned.

In the autumn of 1889, in company with Mr. Jackson (afterwards Lord Allerton), then Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. Andrews and other directors of the County Down, I visited Ardglass. Under the new Act the Treasury, in connection with the projected railway construction, held the purse strings, and the Treasury, so far as we were concerned, was Mr. Jackson. We of the County Down were keen on getting the line sanctioned, and were very anxious concerning Mr. Jackson's visit. He was a man who drove a hard bargain, so it was said. Certainly he was an able man, and I greatly admired him that day. Later in life, when he was Lord Allerton, and Chairman of the Great Northern Railway of England, I met him again and liked him well.

In 1889 there were no light railways in Great Britain, or practically none. Except in Ireland they are of modern growth. What really constitutes a light railway it is not easy to say. Commonly it is thought to be a matter of gauge, but that is not so. Mr. Acworth says: "such a definition is in the nature of things impossible," but that, "a light railway must be something simpler and cheaper than an ordinary railway." Mr. Cole says that "the natural demand for a definition must he frankly met with the disappointing reply that a hard and fast definition, at once concise, exact, and comprehensive is not forthcoming, and that a partial definition would be completely misleading." As such authorities are unable to furnish a definition I shall not attempt it, and will content myself with suggesting that the most recognisable feature of a light railway is its light traffic.