Most critics will contend that the increased traffic will lead to an enormous increase of working expenses.

In the first place allowance must be made for the several economies in management occasioned by the amalgamation of the whole railway systems in one and with the Post Office as already mentioned, and of which the following is a brief list, viz.:—

Abolition of,

Economies by avoiding,

The latter has already been referred to in Chapter II. A further proof of a practical nature was given by Mr. Oliver Bury, the retiring General Manager of the Great Northern Railway in 1912, who then said that after the working arrangement with the Great Central Railway had been entered into, although there had been an increase of 4,000,000 tons of merchandise carried, this additional traffic had actually been worked with a decrease in the goods train mileage of 1,000,000.

Apart from all these economies, the working expenses cannot increase proportionately with the increase of traffic. Most of the long distance passenger trains now running, except on special occasions or holiday time, could easily hold twice the number of passengers with but little, if any, appreciable increase in the cost of haulage. It must be remembered that a sufficiently powerful locomotive and sufficient coal must be provided for every passenger train, on the assumption that it will be full, whether it leaves with a full complement of passengers or not. Therefore, even though the number of passengers now carried were to be doubled in the case of all Main line trains very little increase in the working expenses would result, certainly not so much as the saving effected by the various economies mentioned. So far as goods traffic is concerned, an increase of 10 per cent. only, as estimated in the tonnage would certainly not cause any great increase in the expenditure. If, on the other hand, the increase of traffic should be very much more than the percentages mentioned (as may very likely be the case), then the revenue derived will be more than sufficient to provide whatever additional working expenses there may be. The expenses of the important items (which constitute probably 50 per cent. of working expenses) of permanent ways, stations, signal boxes, and general establishment charges would not be seriously affected by increase of traffic, only the rolling stock, coal, and part of the staff.

In addition to these economies, and others set out more fully in Chapter II., there will also be great economy in the working expenses of the Post Office itself, including the telegraph and telephone services. The actual effect of the amalgamation of the two services of railways and Post Office on the total working expenses of the combined services cannot be estimated with any degree of accuracy, but there can be no doubt that it will result in large economies. The working expenses of both, must, of course, be lumped together. No advantage can possibly be gained by attempting to separate the expenses of various branches of one State Department. This has actually been attempted in the case of the telegraph service, one of the numerous branches of the Post Office. It has been continually asserted that this service has been, and is being, carried on at a loss, especially since the introduction of the sixpenny rate. This assertion has always been an enigma to me, for how any proper apportionment of the working expenses of over 20,000 Post Offices throughout the United Kingdom can be made, in order to ascertain what proportion is to be attributed to the telegraph service alone, passes comprehension!

That this impossible task has been attempted, and apparently carried out to the satisfaction of some persons in authority, does not prove that the alleged loss has actually been made, but only that a large amount of time and expense has been lost in elaborate and costly calculations, which can be of no possible advantage to the service or the Country! It is to be hoped that this attempt will not be continued with the telephone service.

If, and when, the scheme proposed in this pamphlet for combining railways with the General Post Office is carried into effect, I trust that no such expensive and useless task will be attempted as to endeavour to ascertain what proportions respectively of the expenses of running the Royal Railways are to be attributed to carrying His Majesty’s Mails on the one hand, or His Majesty’s subjects and their goods on the other!

It is quite evident that on the two services being combined a portion of the present working expenses of the Post Office, namely, those which now consist of amounts paid to the Railway Companies for carriage of mails, for rents of telegraph and telephone wires, and other services rendered, will be swallowed up in the general working expenses, just as the gross receipts of the Post Office will swell the total revenue of the combined services.

For the purposes, however, of ascertaining what increase of traffic will be required to produce (a) the same net revenue as under the present system of railways, and (b) a sufficient revenue to purchase the present system, I have taken no account of the decrease of Postal expenses nor of the normal increase of the Postal Revenue. I also am assuming that notwithstanding all the economies referred to, the working expenses of railways will remain the same, or even increase, owing to higher prices of goods and materials and higher wages, to the round sum of £85,000,000.

It will thus be apparent that ample margin has been allowed for any increase in working expenses that is likely to take place, and that allowance has been made for the whole of the existing staffs to be retained, whether now employed in services which may then be discarded or not.

P.S.—While revising the final proofs of this pamphlet during the Christmas Holidays, I have noticed in the “Daily Telegraph,” of 24th December, 1913, a long letter signed “G.P.O.,” referring to an article in the same well-known newspaper of the previous day. The letter is printed in prominent type under the following heading:—

“Prehistoric Methods of Post Office Finance—Telegraph Service ‘Loss.’”

The correspondent, who evidently has expert knowledge of the subject, refers to the “alleged great loss” of the telegraph service as “a polite fiction.”

His letter completely confirms the views expressed above as to the folly of attempting to apportion expenses of one branch of the service, and he places the cost of the accounts at “hundreds of thousands of pounds a year!”