The railway companies are in trouble, it is estimated that their receipts this year will be £5,000,000 down; and the managers of all four went in a body to the Minister of Transport this week to state their case and ask for relief.
But the railways would face the road competition if their hands were free. Actually they must accept whatever is offered them and the rates to be charged for every article are laid down for them in a closely printed book of 371 pages. Many of the regulations in this book are too preposterous for words. For example periwinkles are to be charged at one rate, oysters at another, crab at another, sausage meat travels at one rate, sausage skins ai another, the assembled sausage at a third; bass or whisk prepared for moking brooms is charged quite differently from the same stuff not so prepared; cats meat cooked is charged at a different rate from cats meat uncooked; golf bags of canvas with leather fittings cost one carriage rate, all-leather golf has another. The book suggests that it was compiled in different parts of an overstaffed permanent department.
The railways are necessary in peace and vital in war. It is really a scandal that they should have to work under such unfair conditions.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.