Having now traced the important part that improvements in the conditions of inland transport and communication have played in the economic and social development of this country, and having seen, also, the action taken therein, on the one hand by so-called "private enterprise" (defined by Samuel Smiles as "the liberality, public spirit and commercial enterprise of merchants, traders and manufacturers"), and on the other hand by State and local authorities, we have now to consider, in this final chapter, what are the prospects of further changes and developments in those transport conditions to which, judging from past experience, it would not be wise to fix finality in the matter of progress.

Thus far the railway certainly represents the survival of the fittest; and, curiously enough, although great improvements have been made in locomotive construction, in rails, in signalling, in carriage-building and in the various departments of railway working, no absolutely new principle has been developed since the Liverpool and Manchester Railway definitely established the last of the three fundamental principles on which railway construction and operation are really based: (1) that a greater load can be moved, by an equivalent power, in a wheeled vehicle on a pair of rails than in a similar vehicle on an ordinary road; (2) that flanged wheels and flat rails are preferable for fast traffic to flat wheels and flanged rails; and (3) that a railway train should be operated by a locomotive rather than by either animal power or a stationary engine.

It is true that, in regard to the last-mentioned of these three main principles, material changes have been brought about by the resort to electricity as a motive power; but this, after all, is an improvement in the means of rail transport rather than a complete change in the principle of transport {495}itself; and, though electricity may supersede steam to a considerable extent, especially for suburban traffic, the resort to it is a reversal, in another form, to the earlier idea of motive power distributed from a fixed point, as originally represented by stationary engines, before the locomotive had established its superiority thereto.

In any case, the railway is still the railway, whatever the form of traction employed, and there is, after all, no such fundamental difference between an electric railway and a steam railway as there was between the railway and the canal, or between either railway waggon or canal barge and the carrier's cart travelling on ordinary roads. The question that really arises here is, not whether electricity is likely to supersede steam for long-distance as well as for short-distance rail traffic, but whether the railways themselves are likely to be superseded, sharing the same fate as that which they caused to fall on the stage-coach and, more or less, on the canal barge.

For the physical, economic and other considerations already presented, there is no reasonable ground for expecting much from the projected scheme of canal revival. When the country comes fully to realise (1) the natural unsuitability of England's undulatory surfaces for transport by artificial waterways; (2) the enormous cost which the carrying out of any general scheme of canal revival would involve; (3) the practical impossibility of canal-widening in the Birmingham and Black Country districts; and (4) the comparatively small proportion of traders in the United Kingdom who could hope to benefit from a scheme for which all alike might have to pay;—it is hardly probable that public opinion will sanction the carrying out of a project at once so costly and so unsatisfactory in its prospective results.

Still less than in the case of canals would any attempt to improve the conditions of transport on rivers—serving even more limited districts, and having so many natural drawbacks and disadvantages—be likely to meet any general advantage or to foster any material competition with the railways.

Developments in regard to road transport are much more promising—or, from the point of view of the railways, much more to be feared—than any really practical revival of inland navigation.
{496}

Dealing, in this connection, first with personal travel, we find that the main competition with the railways proceeds from (1) omnibuses, motor or otherwise; (2) electric tramways, and (3) private motor-cars.

An omnibus, whether of the horse or of the motor type, is the equivalent of the carrier's van or of the old stage-coach in so far as it has the complete freedom of the roads. The electric tramway, while having to keep to a certain route, and involved in greater capital expenditure by reason of its need for rails, overhead wires and power stations, may, if owned by a local authority, still be materially aided, directly or indirectly, out of the local rates. Thus the omnibus and the electric tramway may both be able to transport passengers at lower fares than the railways, which, as regards the municipal tramways, may even be called on to pay, through increased taxation, towards the maintenance of their rivals.

In London itself the motor-omnibuses have undoubtedly abstracted a considerable amount of short-distance traffic from the Central London Railway, which, however, still has the advantage in regard to longer distance journeys.

That electric tramways and motor-omnibuses have also diverted a great deal of suburban passenger traffic from the trunk railways is beyond dispute. But here the companies are seeking to meet the position (1) by operating their own suburban lines by electricity, giving their passengers a quicker transport than they would get with tramways or motor-cars stopping frequently, or held up by traffic repeatedly, on the roads or streets; or (2) by offering to town workers greater facilities for removing from homes in the inner to homes in the outer suburbs, if not in the country proper or even on the coast itself—in other words, to such a distance that they would naturally be dependent on the railway and the business trains that are now run thereon from the places in question to meet their special convenience.[71]
{497}

Of these two developments the former has not yet been generally adopted, whereas the latter is in full activity, and, in combination with the heavier local taxation which is steadily driving people away from London boroughs, is helping to produce results of much interest and importance.

The population, not only of London, but of great towns in general, is undergoing a considerable redistribution. Land at greater distances from urban centres, and hitherto devoted only to agriculture or market gardens, is being utilised more and more for building purposes; the increasing values of land within the radius of these outer suburbs improves the position on urban markets of producers in rural centres whose lower rents may more than compensate for their slightly heavier cost of transport as compared with the suburban growers; the health of town workers taking to what are not merely suburban but country homes should improve. Social and domestic conditions generally are, to a certain extent, in a state of transition; while the trunk railways are getting back from their long-distance suburban traffic some—though not yet, perhaps, actually the whole—of the revenue they have lost on their short-distance traffic.

On the other hand, results are being brought about in the inner suburbs which are viewed with much uneasiness by the local authorities. The removal from the inner suburbs of considerable numbers of those who can afford to live further away from their business means (1) that population in the inner suburban circle is decreasing, or, alternatively, that a better-class population is giving place to a poorer-class one; (2) that much of the house property there is either standing empty or is fetching considerably lower rents; and (3) that the taxable capacity of the areas in question is declining, although the need for raising more by local taxation is to-day greater than ever.

Where the local authorities who are experiencing all these consequences of an interesting social change have themselves helped to bring them about by setting up municipal tramways to compete with the railways, thus, among other consequences, driving the latter to resort to measures of self-defence, they may find that attempts to change, if not to control, the operation of economic forces have their risks and perils; while the position for the authorities concerned will be even worse {498}if their municipal tramway, in turn, should suffer materially from the competition of the motor-omnibus.

Private motor-cars may appear to have deprived the railways of a good deal of their passenger traffic, and they certainly constitute a most material and much-appreciated increase in the facilities now available for getting about the country. It must, however, be remembered that a very large proportion of the journeys taken in them would probably not be made at all if the motor-car did not exist, and if such journeys had to be made by train instead. The actual diversion of traffic from the railway only occurs when journeys which would otherwise be made by rail are made by motor, in preference. Here the railway certainly does lose.

Against the loss in the one direction in railway revenue, owing to the greater use of motor-cars, there can at least be set the constant growth in the taste for travel which the railway companies (partly, again, to make up for the competition in suburban traffic) have done their best to cultivate by means of abnormally low excursion or week-end fares based, as one leading railway officer put it to me, "not on any idea of distance, but on the amount that the class of people catered for might be assumed to be willing to pay."

The travel habit has thus undergone a greater expansion of late years than has ever before been known, so that a falling-off of railway traffic in some directions ought, sooner or later, to be compensated for by increases in others, if, indeed, that result has not already been attained.

The actual position in regard to passenger travel on the railways of the United Kingdom during the years 1901-10 is shown by the following figures, taken from the Board of Trade Railway Returns:—
YEAR.     PASSENGER
JOURNEYS.[72]     RECEIPTS FROM
PASSENGERS.
        ￡
1901     1,172,395,900     39,096,053
1902     1,188,219,269     39,622,725
1903     1,195,265,195     39,985,003
1904     1,198,773,720     40,065,746
1905     1,199,022,102     40,256,930
1906     1,240,347,132     41,204,982
1907     1,259,481,315     42,102,007
1908     1,278,115,488     42,615,812
1909     1,265,080,761     41,950,188
1910     1,306,728,583     43,247,345
{499}

These figures give evidence of, on the whole, a substantial advance in railway passenger journeys and receipts, notwithstanding all the competition of alternative facilities, and we may assume that although tramways, motor-cars, motor-omnibuses and even the latest new-comer, railless electric traction, may supplement and more or less compete with the railways, there is no suggestion that they are likely entirely to supplant them for passenger travel.

In the matter of goods transport in general, it is the fact that during the last ten or fifteen years, more especially, there has been an increasing tendency for the delivery of domestic supplies to suburban districts or towns within an ever-expanding radius of London and other leading cities to be effected by road, instead of by rail. The same has been the case in the distribution by wholesale houses of goods to suburban shopkeepers, and, also, in the reverse direction, in the sending of market-garden or other produce to central markets.

Where the railway companies have really created new suburban districts through the running of specially cheap workmen's trains, it may seem hard upon them that they should be deprived of the goods transport to which such districts give rise.

The fact must be recognised, however, that when the distances are within, say, a ten-, a fifteen- or even a twenty-mile radius, and when only small or comparatively small parcels or consignments are to be carried, the advantages in economical transport may well be in favour of the road vehicle rather than of the railway. The road vehicle can load up in the streets as it stands opposite the wholesale trader's warehouse; it pays nothing for the use of the road; it does not make any special contribution to the police funds in recognition of services rendered in the regulation of the traffic; nor is it taxed by the local authorities on the basis of the quantity of {500}goods carried and the extent of the presumptive profits made; whereas the railway company must have a costly goods dep?t, acquire land for their track, lay lines of rails, maintain an elaborate organisation to ensure safe working of the traffic, and submit to taxation by every local authority through whose district the goods carried may require to pass. There is, also, the further consideration, of which I have previously spoken, that in the case of short-distance journeys the cost of terminal services makes the rate per ton per mile appear much higher, in proportion, than when, while remaining at the same figure, it is spread over a substantially greater mileage.

While, with the increasing facilities for road transport, the railways must expect to lose more of their short-distance traffic, they should be able to retain their long-distance traffic, and more especially their long-distance traffic in bulk, commercial motors notwithstanding. Where commodities are carried either in considerable quantities or for considerable distances, and more particularly when both of these conditions prevail, transport by a locomotive, operating on rails, and conveying a heavy load with no very material increase in working expenses over the carrying of a light load, must needs be more economical than the distribution of a corresponding tonnage of goods among a collection of commercial motors, for conveyance by road under such conditions that each motor is operated as a separate and distinct unit.

The results, too, already brought about in the case of the suburban passenger traffic may, possibly, be so far repeated that railway companies deprived, also, of suburban goods traffic by the increasing competition of road conveyances, will show further enterprise in encouraging long-distance goods traffic to the same markets, or to the same towns. In this way they might seek to avoid, as far as practicable, any falling-off in their revenue at a time when taxation, wages, cost of materials and other working expenses all show a continuous upward tendency.

Should the policy here in question be adopted, market-gardeners, more especially, may find that, while they have effected a slight saving on their cost of transport by resorting to road conveyance, they will have to face increased competition from produce coming in larger quantities from long-distance growers who, with a lower cost of production, and, {501}also, with increased encouragement from the railways, might have advantages on urban markets fully equal to those of the short-distance grower located in the suburbs.

The whole question of the steadily increasing competition between road and rail has thus become one of special interest, at the present moment, alike for the trading, the motor and the railway interests.

That the use of motor-vehicles is destined to make even greater advance in the immediate future has already here been shown. Yet there are distinct limitations to its possibilities, although this fact is apt to be overlooked by motor enthusiasts, some of whom are, indeed, over-sanguine. One of them proclaims that "the new locomotion" is "designed to be the chief means of transit to be used by humanity at large," and "eventually will probably to a large extent supersede all others." He further writes: "Many of us will live to see railway companies in places pulling up their rails and making their tracks suitable for motor-car traffic, charging a toll for private vehicles and carrying the bulk of the traffic in their own motor-cars."

Granting that motor-vehicles are likely to supersede both tramways and horse-vehicles, what are really the prospects of their superseding railways, as well? Should railway shareholders at once sell out and put their money, preferably, in motor-omnibus and commercial motor companies?

In regard to goods we have the fact that the quantities thereof carried by the railways of the United Kingdom in 1910 were:—
Minerals     405,087,175 tons.
General merchandise     109,341,631 "
    —————
Total     514,428,806 tons.

Motor transport could obviously not be adapted to the transport of 400,000,000 tons of minerals, and for these, at least, the railways would still be wanted. But the number of motor-vehicles necessary to deal with 109,000,000 tons of general merchandise would still be prodigious, apart from considerations of distance, time taken in transport, wear and tear of roads, and, also, of the question whether a locomotive, doing the work of many motors, would not be the {502}cheaper unit in the conveyance of commodities carried in bulk on long or comparatively long hauls. The suburban delivery of parcels is one thing; the distribution, for example (as mentioned in a footnote on page 399), of 1000 railway waggons of broccoli from Penzance, all over Great Britain, in a single week, is another.

In the matter of passenger traffic, while people of means may prefer to make such journeys as that from London to Scotland in their own motor-car, the railway will continue to form both the cheaper and the quicker means of travel for the great bulk of the population as distinct from private car-owners, whose number must needs be comparatively small.

It is in respect to urban and suburban traffic that motor-vehicles have their best chance of competing with the railways on any extensive scale; yet even here, and notwithstanding all that they are already doing, their limitations are no less evident.

Taking only one of the many railway termini in London, the average number of suburban passengers who arrive at the Liverpool Street station of the Great Eastern Railway Company every week-day (exclusive of 12,000 from places beyond the suburban district) is 81,000, and of these about 66,000 come by trains arriving, in rapid succession, up to 10 a.m. To convey 81,000 suburban dwellers by motor-omnibus instead of by train would necessitate 2382 journeys, assuming that every seat was occupied. On the basis of the average number of persons actually travelling in a motor-bus at one time, it would probably require 4000 motor-bus journeys to bring even the Great Eastern suburban passengers to town each day if they discarded train for bus, and the same number to take them back in the evening. So long, too, as a single locomotive on the Great Eastern suffices for a suburban train accommodating between 800 and 1000 passengers, the company are not likely to pull up their rails and provide tracks in their place for a vast "fleet" of motor-cars or motor-omnibuses.

In some instances tramways and motor-omnibuses have, undoubtedly, deprived the railways of considerable traffic, and certain local stations around London have even been closed in consequence. In other instances tramways and buses have been of advantage to the railways by relieving {503}them of an amount of suburban traffic for which it might have been difficult for them fully to provide. But any general supplanting of railways by motor-vehicles is as improbable in the case of passenger travel as it is in that of goods transport. Motor-vehicles are certain to become still more serious rivals of the railways than they are already, but they are not likely to render them obsolete; and, taking the country as a whole, the "bulk of the traffic" may be expected still to go by rail, motor-vehicles notwithstanding.

Although, at the outset, some of the railway companies were disposed to regard the motor as a rather dangerous rival, the most enterprising have themselves adopted various forms of motor-vehicles, alike for establishing direct communication between country stations and outlying districts unprovided with branch lines, for enabling passengers arriving in London to pass readily from the terminus of one company to that of another, and for the collection and delivery of goods.

In regard, again, to the outlook for the future, important possibilities were foreshadowed by a letter addressed to "The Times" of August 23, 1911, by Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, concerning "Road Transport during Strikes." The hope of the leaders of the then recent railway strike had, of course, been to produce such a paralysis in the transport arrangements of the country that the railway companies would have been forced, owing to the resultant loss, dislocation of traffic, and, possibly, actual famine conditions, to surrender to all the demands made upon them. While the attempt failed on that occasion—thanks to the loyalty of the majority of the workers, the almost complete lack of public sympathy with the strikers, and, also, the employment of troops for the protection of the railways—there will always be the possibility of a renewal of the attempt. Pointing, therefor............