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The appropriation of the railways by the state
The appropriation of the railways by the state Author:Arthur John Williams Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER IV. ADVANTAGES TO THE GENERAL PUBLIC— Continued. Cniform Fares For Passenqers—The Registration And Delivery Of Passengers' Litggage—Cheap Parcels D... more »elivery. In April of last year a paper, by Mr. Raphael Brandon, Mr. . . don's plan. on " Railways and the Public," was read and discussed at the Society of Arts. In it Mr. Brandon urged the necessity for the purchase of all the railways by the State, and their union under one general management. This done, he maintained that passengers might be carried for one journey of any distance at single fares of 1s., 6d., and 3d. In support of his proposition he assumes, (1) that the passenger traffic would be increased sixfold if the rates just mentioned were adopted; and (2) that the increased traffic would involve a very slight increase of working expenditure. He further assumes that one-half of this sixfold increase of passengers would take yearly tickets, available everywhere, to be issuedat 251. first and I51. second class. This would afford a return of 19,000,000?. The proportions in which the other half would take first, second, and third class single tickets would (he calculates) be such as would afford a return of about 16,000,000?. He proposes that the purchase-money should be paid in Government railway stock, bearing interest at 4f?. per cent., guaranteed by the State. The amount of this stock to be given in exchange for the shares to be fixed by a competent tribunal, who should base their calculations on the average price of the shares for the past seven years, so as to arrive at a correct market-value (p. 19 When I was working out the calculations which follow, I was not aware of the fact that Mr. Brandon had put forward his novel views. It is not referred to in any of the Parliamentary Blue-books nor ...« less