SOCIALIST VIEWS ON BRITISH RAILWAYS AND SHIPPING

Many Socialists complain, and they complain with good cause, about the railways of Great Britain. All the British railways are in private hands, and they are very inefficient. They are in many respects very backward, badly equipped, and badly managed. They have wasted their capital, watered their stock, and have paid dividends out of capital; their freight charges are exorbitant; besides, they give habitually and by various means, with which it would lead too far to deal in this book, preferential treatment of a very substantial kind to the foreigner.

Many Socialists have extracted from British Government publications instances of such preferential treatment. One of the most widely read Socialist writers, for example, gives among others the following freight charges favouring the foreigner:

“Carriage of a ton of British meat, Liverpool to London, 2l.: Carriage of a ton of foreign meat, Liverpool to London, 1l 5s.: Carriage of a ton of eggs Galway to London, 4l 14s.: Carriage of a ton of eggs Denmark to London, 1l 4s.: Carriage of a ton of plums, apples, and pears, Queenborough (Kent) to London, 1l 5s.: Carriage of same from Flushing (Holland), 12s 6d.: Carriage per ton of English pianos Liverpool to London 3l 10s.: Carriage as above of foreign, 1l 5s.: British timber per ton Cardiff to Birmingham, 16s 8d.: foreign as above 8s 10d. In the carriage of iron ore and steel rails the American railways charge 6s 3d. where the British charge 29s 3d."

“The real enemy are the monopolists of land and locomotion the landlord and the raillord who are uprooting the British people from their native soil. It is in fact by no means easy to say which is the greater malefactor of the two." Such differential charges are bound to cripple the British industries, and in view of the harm which is thus being done to British farmers, manufacturers, and traders, it is only natural that British Socialists are unanimous in condemning the anti-British freight policy of the railways and in recommending that they should be taken over and managed by the State.

“There are nearly 24,000 miles of railway in the kingdom, the greater part of which is owned or controlled by a dozen great companies, who, moreover, have standing conferences through which they exercise a virtual monopoly against the public, although they have all the expenses of competing concerns. The public bears the costs and inconveniences of competition without many of its benefits. The total capital of the companies is 1,300,000,000l. of which 200,000,000l. is nominal or ‘watered’ stock. A very large part of the rest was for extravagant sums paid to great landowners for their land and another large part for legal expenses. On this huge capital a sum of 44,000,000l. has to be earned in dividends. If the State bought out the railways, it could borrow this necessary sum for at least 5,000,000l. to 8,000,000l. a year less than this, and at once effect enormous savings resulting from the present competitive and chaotic methods of the companies. Despite the virtual monopoly, there are over 3,000 railway directors drawing fees or salaries amounting to nearly 1,500,000l. Of the principal of these there are eighty in the Lords and twenty-five in the Commons. Mr. Gladstone predicted that if the State did not control the railway companies, they would control the State, and this has come to pass. Their servants are overworked and underpaid, extortionate freights are charged on the carriage of goods, unfair preferences are given, but Parliament is powerless to check this."

“The railway system to-day is the greatest protection ever heard of in favour of the foreigner, and neither Mr. Chamberlain nor Mr. Balfour, nor any other man makes a single proposal to touch the railway question. Why? Because the House of Commons is dominated by the railway interest." “Our railway experience proves that it is not enough to make preferential rates illegal. They reappear too easily in the form of rebates and even of allowances which belong to the more private chapters of capitalist history. The attempt of the Railway Commission to abolish preference in railway rates has left us with a system which could not be much worse from the national industrial point of view."

“Imperial trade suffers no more serious handicap than that imposed upon it by shipping rings and railway companies, which exploit the Imperial needs of transport for their own purposes, which hamper the ready flow of Imperial trade, and, for an insignificant percentage, turn the British seamen off the water in favour of the Lascar."

“The railways of India, which yield a great portion of our Indian revenue, are owned by the Indian Government. The well-managed and prosperous systems of Australasia, with the best conditions of labour and the lowest freights of any railways in the world, are State owned. Why, then, should not the British Government own and control in the public interest the systems which are so wastefully and inefficiently managed by the present companies?"

The last Annual Conference of the Independent Labour Party resolved: “That in the opinion of this Conference the time is ripe for the nationalisation of the railways of the country, and that our representatives be asked to urge forward a measure to that effect in Parliament." The Fabians think that “An equitable basis of purchase may be found in Mr. Gladstone’s Act of 1844, which enables the Treasury to buy out the shareholders of lines built since that date at twenty-five years’ purchase, calculated on the earnings of the previous three years. The price of the railways need not be an insuperable, or even a serious, difficulty in the way of national possession of the means of transit."

The demand of the Socialists that the Government should acquire the railways would perhaps be reasonable if that demand was not coupled with extravagant and fantastic ideas regarding their future management. The different Socialistic views as to the proper management of State railways are summed up as follows by Mr. Blatchford: “The railways belong to railway companies, who carry goods and passengers and charge fares and rates to make profit. Socialists all say that the railways should be bought by the people. Some say that fares should be charged, some that the railways should be free just as the roads, rivers, and bridges now are; but all agree that any profit made by the railways should belong to the whole nation, just as do the profits now made by the Post Office and the telegraphs."

One Socialist writer modestly proposes that the fare anywhere in Great Britain should be a shilling. “Look at our railroads might they not be the property of the community at large as well as the high roads, instead of being a monopoly in the hands of private persons whose sole object is to enrich themselves at the cost of their fellow citizens? If so, it has been proved that you could go to any part of these islands with a shilling ticket."

Other Socialists advocate that railway travelling should be made absolutely free to all, and that the costs of running the railways free of charge should be borne exclusively by the rich. “The blessings of free travel are too many by far for enumeration, but one stands out. It is the only effective means yet suggested for the extirpation of our vile city slums. At present the sweated must live near their work." “Overcrowding can only be cured outright by one sovereign remedy by giving the toiler a home in the country; and free travel alone makes this possible. There is no reason why a ‘docker’ should not grow his own vegetables and be his own dairyman at the same time. Free travel would in a few years change the whole face of society." “A nation that can afford to spend 140,000,000l. a year on strong liquors might not unreasonably be asked to strike even the forty odd millions off its drink-bill about half that amount would suffice for the purpose and take them out in free ozone." “Then would rise the question how to make up for the abolition of passenger fares. The answer, it seems to me, is not far to seek. The substitute tax must be levied on the ‘unearned increment’ of land, urban and rural. The people must therefore unfalteringly press for the reassessment of the ‘land-tax’ by gradual increase up to 20s. in the pound, and in the meantime procure any further funds necessary from our surplus capital by a graduated income-tax. Personally I abhor usury, whether in the shape of railway dividends or Government Consols, as alike contra naturam and contra Christum."

In order to further the policy of free travelling by railway, Socialists appear to have founded a “Free Railway Travel League,” domiciled at 359 Strand, London, W.C. I am not aware whether the Free Railway Travel League every tramp should join it exists still.

It is only logical that, if the railways should be made free for the carriage of people, they should likewise be made free for the transport of goods. “It is obvious that if railways can be worked free for passengers they may be made free for goods as well. Free goods traffic would everywhere equalise the price of commodities, be they the produce of sea or land, mine or manufacture, and equal wages in town and country would speedily follow equal prices with beneficial results to the people altogether incalculable. Granted free passes, free freights will doubtless in time follow almost as a matter of course."

When free travel by railway has been established, free travel by tramway, which has already been demanded by municipal reformers, will necessarily also be introduced. A publication issued by the most scientific body of British Socialists, the Fabian Society, urges: “There is only one safe principle to guide the reformer. The tramways, the light railways, and the railways must be regarded as the modern form of the king’s highway. Our fathers spent time and trouble ridding the roads of tolls; and railway rates and passenger fares are merely modern tolls. Their abolition must come sooner or later." “We have abolished the turnpike gate and the toll-collector, and our highways are free in the sense that they are maintained by general assessment. And if the turnpike gate was an odious obstruction to the traveller, how much more obnoxious to him, or her, is the railway ticket-box?"

Railways may be made free before the ideal Socialist State of the future has been created, but they will certainly be free as soon as the Socialist commonwealth has been established. “Railways will play a very great part indeed in the Socialist State, They will be absolutely ‘free’ for every purpose. The cost of actual working is comparatively inconsiderable, while the benefits of free transit are incalculable. To decentralise the population so as to efface the distinction between dwellers in town and country is to renovate humanity physically and morally."

After travel and transport has been made absolutely free on land throughout the length and breadth of Great Britain, the free travel and transport principle will of course be extended to travel and transport by sea, and free travel and transport by sea will better bind the Empire together than a Pan-Britannic Customs Union. The most scientific body of British Socialists, the Fabian Society, says: “A logical consequence of the national management of internal means of communication will be the completion of the State control of our oversea transit. It is impossible here to go into details. Let it suffice to remark that already the nation has a direct financial interest in the great steamship lines, through its mail subsidies and Admiralty loans with corresponding claims for service in war; that intellectually the nation, by its pride in its magnificent mercantile fleet, regards it as a national possession, and declines to consider our shipping as the mere private property of the shareholders of the steamship companies; and finally, that our navy is maintained at enormous public expense expressly to protect the mercantile fleet, which at present is mainly private property." “The notion that the forces making for disintegration can be neutralised by 10 per cent. preferential duties is not worth discussing; indeed, the raising of the fiscal question seems at least as likely to reveal our commercial antagonisms as our community of interests. And the huge distances will be mighty forces on the side of disintegration unless we abolish them. Well, why not abolish them? Distances are now counted in days, not in miles. The Atlantic Ocean is as wide as it was in 1870; but the United States are four days nearer than they were then. Commercially, however, distance is mainly a matter of freightage. Now it is as possible to abolish ocean freightage as it was to make Waterloo Bridge toll-free, or establish the Woolwich free ferry. It is already worth our while to give Canada the use of the British Navy for nothing. Why not give her the use of the mercantile marine for nothing instead of taxing bread to give her a preference? Or, if that is too much, why not offer her special rates? It is really only a question of ocean road making. A national mercantile fleet plying between the provinces of the Empire, and carrying Empire goods and passengers either free or at charges far enough below cost to bring Australasia and Canada commercially nearer to England than to the Continent, would form a link with the mother-country which once brought fully into use could never be snapped without causing a commercial crisis in every province."

The purchase of the whole British mercantile marine by the Government would incidentally have the effect of abolishing the British shipping rings, which, like the British railways, frequently penalise with discriminating rates the British producer and shipper. “Of the real conditions of ocean traffic, at present, the public has no suspicion. All our lines of communication are controlled by shipping rings which carry preferential rating (an illegal practice in our inland transit) to an extent that would shock Mr. Chamberlain back again to Free Trade if he realised it; for their preferences are by no means patriotic; they have helped Belgium into our Indian market, and Germany and America into South Africa and New Zealand. The cotton conference of Liverpool directly assisted the American exporters of cotton to China by the heavy charges they made against the Lancashire manufacturer charges which were modified only after repeated protests. These rings and rates constitute the most dangerous disintegrating force we have to face."

There is much justification in the complaints of the Socialists with regard to British railways and shipping, but their proposals are, as usual, quite Utopian. For all ills of the body politic and economic, the Socialists have only one remedy, and that an infallible one nationalisation, or rather Socialisation.

The policy of the British railway and shipping rings is no doubt a national scandal, but their defects and delinquencies may no doubt be counteracted by appropriate Government action and legislation. It is probably now too late for the State to acquire the railways. The State cannot afford to risk a large capital loss. Railway purchase would apparently be too speculative an undertaking.

If the State should acquire the railways, they would certainly be run at a profit. The sooner the Socialists abandon their fixed idea that profit on private and national undertakings is immoral, the better will it be for them. So long as they decry profit and propose to work State undertakings without a profit, so long can they not be taken seriously. Profit consists in part of the salary of direction, in part of the earnings set aside for effecting the necessary alterations, improvements, and extensions, and for forming a reserve fund for making losses good, &c. Therefore abandonment of profit would mean the decline and decay of the national capital.