2.
43
Road and Rail Transport.
In the next session of Farliament measures will be taken to
bring about coordination of British road and rail transport services.
For some time the railway companies have been agituting for greater
freedom in fixing their rates of charges for the conveyance of passen-
gers and goods, and in other directions where they are subject to
public control and restrictions of various kinas. They have held this
to be necessary in order that they may compete on equal terms with the
great road transport organisations which have been built up since the
aiscovery and development of the internal combustion engine.
The intention of the Ministry of Transport is to remove out-of-
date railway restrictions, and at the same time encourage and help
road and rail trasport and canal and coastwise shipping to coordinate
their systems and cooperate in the building up of a stable and well-
ordered transport system. The different sections of the system will
then perform their various functions in the national interest, cooper-
ating instead of competing with each other.
Under the new system an enormous organisation will be built up.
The railway companies alone now employ 600,000 workers, and distribute
annually £104,000,000 in salaries and wages. In addition they find.
employment for thousands of miners, who produce the 14,727,000 tons of
coal required for the companies' steamships, hotels, offices and works,
and for their 19,577 locomotives.
-uring the past eleven years
£260,000,000 have been spent on
new rolling stock, steamships, renewals and replacements and on
improvements of various kinds. Fourteen thousand miles of track
have been completely renewed, and the track and every other part of
the railway system concerned have been modernised.