Of great advantage, also, to railway workers is the Railwaymen's Convalescent Home, opened at Herne Bay, Kent, in 1901, with its recent extension in the form of a similar home at Leasome Castle, Wallasey, Cheshire, to which, by permission of King George, has been given the title of "The King Edward VII Memorial Convalescent Home for Railwaymen."
The London and South-Western Railway Servants' Orphanage was originally opened at Clapham, in 1886, for children whose fathers, at the time of their death, were in the employ of the railway company. Since July, 1909, it has been located in a commodious range of buildings erected at Woking, Surrey, for the purpose. From the time the orphanage was first opened over 400 children have been admitted to its benefits.
Thanks to a generous benefaction left by the late Mr F. W. Webb, locomotive superintendent of the London and North-Western Railway Company, the railway colony at Crewe is acquiring an orphanage which will accommodate twenty girls and twenty boys, the construction cost being estimated at about £16,000, while a further sum of £35,000 will be available for the purposes of the endowment of what has, appropriately, been named "the Webb Orphanage." In appreciation of the value of the services rendered by Mr Webb to the company, and as an indication of their sympathy with the institution, the directors of the London and North-Western Railway Company have subscribed £1000 towards the funds of the orphanage.
In addition to such support as they may render, directly or indirectly, to the recognised railway beneficent organisations, the railway companies of the United Kingdom contribute to various other institutions and associations, of various character, not directly controlled by them, and not for the exclusive benefit of their servants. Such contributions are reported to the Board of Trade, which issues an annualreturn on the subject. Among those for 1910 were the following:—
These contributions are made by the railway companies not so much, presumably, from motives of ordinary philanthropy, but in return, more or less, for benefits derived, or that might be derived, from the institutions in question by members of their staffs.
Adding these further subsidiary advantages to the educational, social and recreative facilities offered by the institutes, societies and clubs already spoken of, it will be seen that there is more to be taken into account in regard to the railway service in general than the question of wages alone, and especially so when the statements concerning wages are based on "averages."
Having seen what are the advantages of the railway service, we may pass on to consider some of its possible disadvantages.
A return issued by the Board of Trade in August, 1911, gives the latest available information as to the once much-discussed question of railway servants' hours of labour. The special interest in this subject lies, of course, in the fact that if men engaged in the movement of trains work excessive hours the risk of accident is increased; and the Board of Trade are authorised, under the Act of 1889, to call for particulars of the hours of labour of railway servants.
At one time the returns published were presented in such a way as to make the position appear much worse than really was the case, even after allowing for unavoidable delays from fog, snowstorms, floods, fluctuations in traffic, and breakdowns or other unforeseen mishaps which have been, and must needs be, contributory causes of prolonged hours of duty. Thus, if an engine-driver, having taken a train to some distant station, returned home comfortably seated in a third-class carriage, he counted in the official returns as being on duty,as though he were still undergoing the strain of driving the engine instead of being occupied, perhaps, in smoking his pipe, or having a doze.
Following on protests by the railway companies, the returns are now published in a form less open to criticism, while the agitation raised has also led the companies to make further efforts to prevent the occurrence of excessive hours of labour as far as possible. The return for May, 1911, dealing with 109,041 servants in certain grades (guards, brakesmen, enginemen, signalmen, examiners), who worked during that month a total of 2,740,693 days, shows that the number of days on which the men were on duty for periods exceeding twelve hours by one hour and upwards amounted to 14,813, or only .54 per cent of the total days worked.
One of the greatest drawbacks in the railway service lies in the risks of accident. The extent of these risks is shown by the General Report of the Board of Trade on Accidents on Railways of the United Kingdom during 1910.
From this I find that the number of railway servants killed in "train accidents" in 1910 was nine, and the number injured was 113. Of these, eight were killed and 109 were injured in the work of running trains; and the proportions of these last-mentioned figures to the total number (76,327) of engine-drivers, firemen and guards employed on December 31, 1910, were: killed, one in 9541; injured, one in 700. Considering that the number of miles run by trains on the railways of the United Kingdom in 1910 was 423,221,000, the figures given as to injuries or fatalities to railway servants through actual train accidents do not constitute a bad record. They suggest, rather, both the extreme care with which the railway servants concerned discharge their duty and the effectiveness of the precautions taken in the interests of themselves as well as of the travelling public.
Excluding train accidents, the numbers of accidents to railway servants due to the "movement of trains and railway vehicles" in the same year were: killed, 368; injured 4587. The number of railway servants exposed to danger from the movement of railway vehicles being 331,296, the proportion of accidents to number employed was: killed, one in 900; injured, one in 72.
When these last-mentioned figures in regard to injured arecompared with the averages for earlier years, there appears to be a substantial increase; but a "Note" thereon is given in the official returns to the following effect: "An order of the Board of Trade on the 21st December, 1906, required non-fatal accidents to be reported whenever they caused absence from ordinary work for a whole day (instead of absence preventing five hours' work on any of the next three days). This alteration caused a large apparent increase in the number of non-fatal accidents in 1907 and later years." The details in regard to the killed afford, therefore, safer guidance if one wishes to see whether the various appliances, precautions and regulations adopted by the railway companies to ensure the greater safety of those of their servants who are exposed to danger from the movement of railway vehicles are having the desired effect. Turning to Table X in the official returns, I extract therefrom the following figures:—
Here, therefore, we have distinct evidence of improvement in the element of risk in railway operation.
A third group of accidents to which railway servants are liable relates to those that arise in the handling of goods, in attending to engines at rest, or in other ways not connected with the movement of trains or of railway vehicles. Here the figures for 1910 are: Killed, 36; injured, 20,305. "The number of injured is large," says the return, "but the proportion of serious injuries is smaller than it is in the case of railway accidents proper, and it will be seen that the proportion of killed to injured is relatively low." The proportion of killed, in this third group, to the average number of railway servants exposed to risk was one in 12,546, and the proportion of injured was one in 22. A considerable number of accidents in railway goods sheds and warehouses which at one time were included in the returns of accidents in factories are now included in the returns of railway accidents.
Liability to accident, whether grave or slight, lends additional importance to the encouragement given torailwaymen by their companies to acquire a knowledge of "first aid" and general ambulance work. Ambulance corps or classes are now not only general but highly popular throughout the railway system. Instruction is given by qualified teachers; certificates, vouchers, medallions or labels are presented to those who pass the examinations held, and not only do competitions for money or other prizes take place between teams representing the various districts of a single company's system, but an Inter-Railway Challenge Shield is annually competed for by the picked experts of the various companies, the winning of this shield being regarded as conferring a great honour on those who achieve the victory for their company.
I have here sought to give a comprehensive survey of the railway service, as a national industry, alike from its economic and from its human side, conveying some idea—even if wholly inadequate—of its extent and widespread ramifications, and showing the various influences, educational, social and otherwise, that are eminently calculated both to create a "railway type" and to give to the service characteristics that distinguish it in many respects from any other of our national industries.
While not being, perhaps, actually an ideal industry—and there are very few workers, of any rank, who would be prepared to admit that their occupation in life was absolutely free from drawbacks—the railway service offers, as we have seen, many advantages. It is, in fact, really a "service," and not simply a means of employment. One might regard it as the equivalent of a civil service operated on commercial lines. Workers in all of the many classes or grades "enter the service," as they are accustomed to say, when they are young, and they generally do so with the idea of spending their lives in it, and retiring on superannuation allowance or a pension in their old age.
Railway managers, too, want workers who come to stay. In the United States women typists are being gradually got rid of on the railway because they so often retire at the end of two or three years and get married, the experience of office work they have gained in that time being thus lost to the company. Consequently American railway managers are now showing a preference for male workers who will regardthe service in the light of a future career rather than in that of a temporary employment.
That the railway service is a popular one is shown by two facts: (1) the invariably large surplus of candidates over available vacancies; and (2) the long-service records of many of the railway workers.
In regard to the former of these points, it will suffice to say that the chairman of one of the leading English railway companies has stated that in 1906 the number of applicants for appointments on the staff of his company alone in excess of the number for whom places could be found was over 19,000.
As regards long service, instances of from forty to fifty years' work for one and the same railway company are so common that they hardly call even for passing mention. More exceptional was the case of the worker on the Great Western whose father had served the company for forty-one years, and who himself retired at the end of forty-two years, leaving a son who had then been with the company twenty-three years—a total of 106 years for one family, during three generations.
In another instance four generations employed successively on the Great Western showed a total of 147 years; but even this record is surpassed by that of a Cardiff family. The founder of the dynasty joined the Great Western in 1840. He remained with the company forty-two years, and left with them two sons, of whom one served forty-five years, and the other forty-two years. Each of these two sons had five boys, and all ten followed the example of fathers and grandfather in becoming servants of the same company, keeping their positions for periods ranging from six to thirty years. The fourth generation is represented by four members, one of whom has already been with the company for over ten years. The total service of those members of the family who were still working on the Great Western a year or two ago was 147 years, and the aggregate for the four generations was then over 800 years. Each of the workers concerned has been employed in the locomotive department.
Notwithstanding the general popularity of the railway service, agitations and strikes have occurred from time to time; though down to 1907 most of these arose in connectionwith questions of conditions of labour in regard to particular lines of railway.
In 1907 an agitation was promoted by the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants in favour of what was called a "National All-Grades Programme" of demands for higher wages, reduced hours, etc.; and there was a further demand that the negotiations in respect thereto should be carried on through the officers of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants. The companies declined to grant the concessions asked for in the "Programme," alleging that to do so would involve them in a wholly impracticable increase in their working expenses. It was subsequently stated that acceptance of the "Programme" would have increased the expenditure of the companies by between £6,000,000 and £7,000,000 per annum; that the cost to the London and North-Western Railway Company alone would have exceeded £500,000 per annum, equal to 1¼ per cent of the company's dividend; that on the London and South-Western it would have been equal to a two per cent dividend on the ordinary stock; and so on with other companies in like proportion.
In the result the demand for the concession of the "Programme" became subordinate to the demand of the A.S.R.S. for "recognition"; but this, again, was refused by the railway companies on the ground, not alone that the membership of the society included only a minority of the men qualified to join but, also, and more especially, because "recognition," involving the carrying on of negotiations through the union leaders, would, it was argued, lower the standard of discipline in a service where considerations of the public interests, and especially of the public safety, made it a matter of paramount importance that a high standard of discipline should be maintained.
Threats of a general railway strike caused much alarm, and led the Government to intervene. The negotiations carried on at the Board of Trade were based mainly on the possibility of arranging some system of conciliation by means of which further disputes would be avoided; and eventually a four-fold scheme was arranged, comprising, in the case of each company accepting it, (1) consideration of applications by officers of the department concerned; (2) sectionalconciliation boards; (3) a central conciliation board, and (4) the eventual calling in of an arbitrator if the matters in dispute should still be undecided.
Forty-six companies adopted the scheme. The conciliation boards were elected; agreements were in many instances arranged as the result of their proceedings; and, where no settlement could be arrived at by the boards, arbitration was resorted to. Dissatisfaction with the course of procedure and its results was, however, expressed from time to time more especially by members and officers of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants; and such dissatisfaction became acute during the prevalence of the "labour unrest" which spread throughout the country in the summer and early autumn of 1911, affecting, more especially, the various transport services. Joint action was now taken by the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants, the Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen, the General Railway Workers' Union and the United Pointsmen and Signalmen's Society.
At the outset attempts had been made to show that the railwaymen had some genuine grievances against the conciliation boards on account of their "slowness," etc.; but it soon became apparent that the trouble was mainly based on fresh demands for "recognition." On Tuesday, August 15, representatives of the four societies issued from Liverpool an ultimatum in which they offered the railway companies "twenty-four hours to decide whether they were prepared to meet immediately members of those societies to negotiate the basis of settlement of the matters in dispute"; and they added: "In the event of this offer being refused, there will be no alternative than to respond to the demands now being made for a national railway stoppage."
The railway companies expressed their firm resolve to adhere to the principle of conciliation, and on the following Thursday the "signal" was given for a general railway strike. Only about one-third of the railway workers responded, and, though great and very grave inconvenience and loss were caused in some parts of the country, there was (owing, in part, to the calling out by the Government of a large body of troops to protect the railway operations) no such "paralysis" of the railway traffic in general as had been threatened, whilepublic opinion was distinctly unsympathetic towards the strikers.
Meanwhile active steps had been taken by the Government to effect a settlement, and late on the Saturday night (August 19) an agreement was drawn up and signed by the parties to the negotiations.
Under this agreement the men were to return to work forthwith; pending questions were to be referred to the conciliation boards, while the Government undertook to appoint, at once, a Royal Commission to investigate the working of the conciliation and arbitration scheme, and report what changes, if any, were desirable with a view to the prompt and satisfactory settlement of differences. It was further announced that the Government had given an assurance to the railway companies that they would propose to Parliament in the Session of 1912 legislation providing that an increase in the cost of labour due to the improvement of conditions of the staff would be a valid justification for a reasonable general increase of charges within the legalmaxima, if challenged, under the Act of 1894.
Two statements, giving the result of the negotiations, were issued by the Board of Trade on the night of August 19. In one of these it was announced that Mr Claughton (chairman of the London and North-Western Railway Company) and Sir Guy Granet (general manager of the Midland Railway Company), who represented the railway interests at the Conference, had "stated that the recommendations of the Commission would be loyally accepted by the railway companies, even though they be averse to the contention of the companies on any question of representation, and, should a settlement be effected, any trace of ill-will which might have arisen during the strike would certainly be effaced." In the other of these official announcements it was said: "Assurances have been given by both parties that they will accept the findings of the Commission." The statements were repeated in "The Board of Trade Labour Gazette" for September, 1911.
The Royal Commission, which consisted of five members, viz. Sir David Harrel (chairman), Sir Thomas R. Ratcliffe Ellis, Mr Arthur Henderson,M.P., Mr C. G. Beale and Mr John Burnett, held twenty-five sittings, between August 28and October 3, for the purpose of taking evidence, the witnesses examined by them during this period including thirty-four on behalf of the various railway workers' unions, ten non-unionist workers and twenty-three representatives of the railway companies.
The case presented on behalf of the railwaymen's unions was, in effect: (1) that the working of the conciliation and arbitration scheme had in various respects been very unsatisfactory, and changes therein or alternatives thereto were recommended, though in regard to the details of these changes and alternatives the witnesses did not all agree among themselves; (2) that "recognition" of the unions, allowing of the labour unions officials—with, as was said, their "trained and experienced minds"—taking part in the negotiations with the railway companies, was essential to full justice being done to the men, who were either not competent to state their own claims or might have their position in the service prejudiced; (3) that such recognition would be in the interests of industrial peace because of the increased powers of the unions in enforcing the maintenance of any bargains that were made; (4) that discipline on the railways would be strengthened if the men were confident that there would be an impartial investigation of their complaints; and (5) that, as the principle of recognition was accepted in other great industries, the railway companies were not justified in refusing it to their own men.
On the other side it was contended (1) that much of the disappointment felt at the results of the awards—which had, nevertheless, led to substantial concessions being made—was due to the unreasonable hopes raised by the "National Programme," and that, although certain modifications might be made in the conciliation scheme, the principle thereof was sound, while the companies had made a "tremendous departure" by themselves proposing, in 1907, in the interests of peace, to concede the principle of arbitration, which involved the "revolutionary" step of taking from the directors the power of deciding what the rates of payment and the hours of labour of their workmen were to be; (2) that the four unions concerned still included only about one-fourth of the men, and that "recognition" of them would inevitably lead to interference with questions of management anddiscipline, without—as shown by the experiences of the North-Eastern Railway, where "recognition" had not prevented the occurrence of repeated disputes—offering any guarantee for peace, while a partial strike on certain of the Irish lines during the sittings of the Royal Commission was pointed to as showing that the union officials were unable to control their members; (3) that the allegations as to railwaymen being unable or afraid to present their case to their own companies were unfounded, and that the real object aimed at in demanding "recognition" of the union officials was to coerce non-unionists into joining the unions which, with their increased membership, would then be in a better position to force the railways to agree to all demands; (4) that if the companies were compelled to accept "recognition," with all the risks it would involve, they should, at the same time, be relieved of their present responsibilities in respect to the public safety and public interests; and (5) that no analogy, in regard to "recognition," could be drawn between the railways, the continuous operation of which was essential to the wellbeing of the community, and ordinary commercial undertakings, which could suspend their working with only a limited degree of inconvenience to the public, or none at all.
The Commissioners, in their report, issued October 20, 1911, declared that in their opinion it was of the utmost importance that the initial stage of conference between the men and the companies—apt to be regarded as simply a preliminary to the later stages under the settlement scheme—should not only be maintained but facilitated. They recommended the abolition, as "redundant," of the central boards and the reference to the sectional boards of "any matter dealing with hours, wages, or conditions of service, except questions of, or bearing upon, discipline and management." Each sectional board should have a chairman selected from a panel to be constituted by the Board of Trade, but such chairman should be called on to act (virtually as arbitrator) only in the event of the sectional board being unable to agree. The men should be free to combine in the same person the duties of men's secretary and advocate at all meetings of the Board, and be at liberty to appoint to such post "any suitable person, whether an employee of the company or a person from outside"; though this arrangement was "not intendedto prevent the men from obtaining the services of a special advocate before the chairman."
Much dissatisfaction with the report—and mainly so on account of what was regarded as a wholly inadequate extension of the principle of recognition—was expressed by the men's leaders and endorsed at meetings of the men's societies, where demands were made for a general strike on a greater scale than before, while the leaders repudiated any suggestion that they had given a pledge to accept the findings of the Royal Commission of Inquiry. A new National Programme of improved conditions was put forward, but simultaneously therewith various of the leading railway companies announced revisions of their rates of wages as applying to the lower grades among their workers.
In the case of the Great Western Railway Company it was reported that between 20,000 and 30,000 men would benefit from the concessions, the immediate cost of which to the company would be £56,000 per annum, with an eventual cost, at the end of three or four years, of £78,000 per annum. The London and North-Western Company announced increases amounting in the aggregate to £80,000 a year, these being an addition to increases already made, under the arbitrator's award, at a cost to the company of £70,000 a year. The Midland Railway Company gave notice that from November 3 the minimum rate of pay for all adult members of their staff would be 22s. per week if employed in London, 20s. per week in certain large towns, and 19s. per week at all other places, the actual advances thus made to individual workers ranging from 1s. to 4s. the week.
Material concessions were also announced by the Great Central and the Caledonian, and intimation was given by other companies that they had the matter under consideration. All these concessions were, however, apparently disregarded by leaders of the extremest section among the men, who declared, in effect, that they would be satisfied with nothing short of recognition.
In the week ending November 4 representatives of the men's unions held a four-days' conference in London to consider what action should be taken, and there would seem to have been some hope on their part that, influenced by the threat of a further general strike, the Government wouldexercise its influence with a view to inducing representatives of the railway companies to meet the other signatories of the August agreement and discuss with them the terms of the report. On November 3 the Prime Minister, Mr Buxton and Sir George Askwith did confer with selected representatives of the companies at 10 Downing Street. No official announcement was made as to the result, but this was evidently well indicated by the following statement in "The Times" of November 4:—
"We understand that the attitude of the directors of the railways of the country collectively is that, while they are prepared to carry out to the full the whole of the recommendations of the Inquiry Commission, they are not prepared to go any further."
Later in the same day the joint executive committee of the railway unions informed the Press that they had decided to take a ballot of their members—the papers to be returnable by December 5—on the question as to whether or not they were prepared to accept the findings of the Royal Commission and, also, "to withdraw their labour in favour of the recognition of trade unions and of a programme of all railwaymen," to be agreed upon by members of the joint executive committee.
Whatever may be the final outcome of all these controversies, the position in regard to the troubles both of 1907 and 1911 has obviously been most materially, if not, indeed, mainly, influenced by questions of trade union recognition which do not necessarily cast any reflection on the railway service itself, or detract from it as being one of the most important, most popular and most sought after of our national industries.
TRAMWAYS, MOTOR-BUSES AND RAILLESS ELECTRIC TRACTION
In previous chapters I have shown that the first great highway for the citizens of London passing from one part of the capital to another was the River Thames; that the livelihood of the watermen became imperilled by the competition successively of private carriages, hackney coaches, and cabriolets, or "cabs"; and that these, in turn, had afterwards to face the competition of omnibuses. A still further development, leading to competition with the omnibuses, was brought about by the re-introduction of the tramway, for the purposes of street transport.
It was in the United States that street tramways first came into vogue, and it was by an American, George Francis Train, that the pioneer tramway of this type in England was laid at Birkenhead at the end of the '50's. A few other short lines followed, and some were put down—without authority—in certain parts of London, only, however, to be condemned as a nuisance on account of the hindrance to other traffic. It was not until 1868 that lines laid in Liverpool secured public favour for the innovation. Fresh tramways were laid in London between 1869 and 1871, and others followed in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dublin and elsewhere.
All the early lines were operated by horses; but various expedients were resorted to with the idea both of obtaining greater speed and of carrying more persons at comparatively less cost. Among these expedients were steam locomotives and underground cables, the latter for cars furnished with a grip attachment conveying to them the movement of the cables, as operated by machinery at a central depôt. The greatest impetus to the street tramway system came, however, with the application of electricity as the motive power.
The first line opened on the "trolley" system of overheadwires, conveying electric current to the cars, was in Kansas City in 1884. Electric tramways were tried in Leeds in 1891, and the system was afterwards adopted in many other towns. Underground conduit and surface-contact systems were also employed, with a view to avoiding overhead wires, to which widespread objection was, especially at first, entertained; but the latter system has been the one generally adopted.
Development of the tramway system in England was slow on account, not of any lack of enterprise on the part of business men, but of the discouraging nature of tramway legislation.
Just about the time when the original horse tramways began to come into vogue certain local authorities were cherishing strong grievances against the gas and water companies in their districts. They complained that the charges of these companies were extortionate and that the terms they asked, when invited to dispose of their undertakings to the said local authorities, were excessive. The companies, nevertheless, controlled the situation because their Parliamentary powers represented a permanent concession, and because, also, they were able to fix their own price in any negotiations upon which they might be invited to enter.
When the introduction of another public service, in the form of street tramways, seemed likely to create still another "monopoly," it was thought desirable to prevent the tramway companies from attaining to the same position as that of the gas and water companies. Powers were accordingly granted to enable the local authorities, if they so desired, to acquire the undertakings, at the end of a certain period, on terms which would be satisfactory to themselves, at least.
It was motives such as these that inspired some of the main provisions of the Tramways Act of 1870, the full title of which is "An Act to Facilitate the Construction and to Regulate the Working of Tramways"; though in a statement presented to a Committee on Electrical Legislation of the Institution of Electrical Engineers, in 1902, the late Sir Clifton Robinson, manager of the London United Tramways Company, declared that "if it had been described as an Act to discourage the construction of tramways it would have better described the action of some of its clauses."
The Act did, undoubtedly, confer certain advantages ontramway promoters, as well as on local authorities, since it abolished the obligation previously devolving upon them to obtain—as in the case of a railway company—a Private Bill in respect to each fresh line they desired to construct. It authorised them to apply, instead, to the Board of Trade for a Provisional Order which, on its formal confirmation by Parliament, would have all the force of a Private Act. In this way the procedure was both simplified and rendered less costly.
On the other hand, the Act of 1870 laid down (1) that the assent of the local and road authorities to a new line of tramway should be obtained; though where the assent of authorities in respect to two-thirds of the mileage was secured the Board of Trade might dispense with that of any other objecting authority; (2) that the frontagers were also to have a power of veto; (3) that the original concession should be granted for a period of twenty-one years only; and (4) that at the end of such period, or at the end of any subsequent period of seven years, the local authorities should have the option of acquiring the tramway at the "then value" of the plant, without any allowance for compulsory purchase, goodwill, prospective profits or other similar consideration.
So long as these provisions applied to horse tramways only, the companies may not have found them specially oppressive, inasmuch as there was still a prospect of their being able to make a profit within the twenty-one-year period before they were compulsorily bought out at "scrap-iron" rates, while they could expect to realise the value of their stock of horses; though, in effect, the statutory obligations meant, even then, that towards the end of their tenure the tramway company did not spend a single shilling on the line more than was absolutely necessary to keep it in working order until the day of their eviction arrived, generally grudging even a coat of paint for the cars and refraining from any avoidable labour on the roadway. Individuals, and especially foreign visitors, unacquainted with the facts of the case, might well have considered some of the old tramway systems a discredit to the country.
When electric traction for tramway operation was introduced, there was a natural expectation on the part of the British public that the tramway companies would adopt itin place of horse traction. The companies were hampered, however, by the Act of 1870, which remained in force though a complete revolution in the conditions of street rail-transport was being brought about.
The substitution of electricity for horse-power meant (1) the provision of power stations, sub-stations and new car depôts; (2) the fixing of overhead wires, together with fresh track-work, in the streets; (3) the use of a heavier type of car; and (4) the running of a much more frequent service, since only under these conditions can an electric tramway possibly be made to pay. All these things involved a very substantial increase in the capital outlay, and companies may well have hesitated to incur so great an expense with the prospect of only a twenty-one years' tenure before them; while the position was even more hopeless in the case of companies whose tenure had already half expired.
The dissatisfaction of the public when they found that the tramway system of the country was not being brought up to date, and compared most unfavourably with tramway systems abroad, gave to the local authorities an apparent justification both for providing and for operating tramways as a special phase of municipal enterprise. At the time the Act of 1870 was passed it was assumed that, although local authorities might construct or acquire tramways, they would certainly lease them to private companies to operate.[61]In proportion, however, as the movement for municipal enterprise developed, local authorities were the more inclined to operate tramways in addition to owning them. There was no general Act giving them authority so to do, but the difficulty was overcome by the insertion in Local Bills of clauses giving to the local bodies promoting the Bills power to operate their own tramways, the reason advanced being that there were difficulties in the way of leasing the lines to companies on satisfactory conditions.
Matters were not left entirely in the hands of the municipalities, various tramway companies having sought, as their twenty-one years' tenure came to a close, to make such arrangements as would warrant an adaptation of their existingsystem to electric traction; while other companies applied for powers to construct new lines or extensions of lines on the same system. Parliament had certainly sanctioned a longer period of tenure than twenty-one years when the promoters could make an arrangement to this effect with the local authorities concerned; and it was hardly likely that a company would incur the great expense of constructing an entirely new tramway, with electrical installation and other requirements all complete, unless they had some guarantee of a longer tenure than the statutory period. But these very factors enabled the local authorities concerned to control the situation; and their power to exercise this control was made still more complete by the operation of Standing Order No. 22, which applied to Private Bills for tramway schemes requirements similar to those of the Tramways Act as regards the obligation on promoters to obtain the assents of local and road authorities.
These authorities had thus an absolute veto over any new tramway schemes, and such veto might finally rest in the hands of a single local authority, controlling a sparsely populated section of the proposed mileage, yet having, perhaps, the controlling voice in being the one authority whose approval was needed to make up the requisite two-thirds.
There had been some expectation on the part of tramway promoters that the general position would be improved by the Light Railways Act, 1896, many light railways being indistinguishable from tramways. Under this Act the assent of the local and road authorities is not required, and the frontagers' veto was done away with by it in the case of light railways; but authority to oppose was given to railway companies, and in practice the Light Railway Commissioners held that they ought not to authorise a tramway as a light railway unless it connected the area of one local authority with another. For these and other reasons the Act was not so beneficial in regard to tramways as had been anticipated.
In the case of tramway companies it became a matter either of paying to the local authorities the "price" they asked for their assent, or else seeing the schemes fail at the start, without any chance of having them even considered on their merits. How local authorities have used—or abused—the power of control thus possessed by them is suggested by some remarksmade by Mr Emile Garcke in an article published in "The Times Engineering Supplement" of July 25, 1906, where he says:—
"The right of veto is exercised not so much with the desire to destroy a projected enterprise, but rather to exact the utmost conditions which a promoter will accept sooner than abandon the project. When a scheme is proceeded with in spite of these exactions it is taken as evidence that the conditions imposed have not been exacting enough; and whenever the operating company has occasion subsequently to ask the local authority to approve anything, the company is expected to offer more than commensurate consideration, although the object for which the approval is desired may be primarily for the benefit of the public. All these obstacles imply increased capital outlay or increased working costs, and perhaps both. If, notwithstanding these conditions, the company earns a moderate profit, it is accused of striving only after dividends to the prejudice of the public. If non-success of the enterprise follows, then the company is accused of being over-capitalised and mismanaged, and it has come to be considered an impertinence for a company to offer ever so mild a protest."
On the same subject it is stated in "The Dangers of Municipal Trading," by Robert P. Porter (1907):—
"The use of the veto has had disastrous effects on private enterprise. In many districts it has led to utter stagnation of personal initiative. Good schemes have been barred by local authorities out of pure caprice or prejudice. Other schemes have been allowed to proceed under barely tolerable conditions; the undertaking has been crippled from the start by the high price municipalities have exacted for their consent. Others, again, have been withdrawn by the promoter because he found it impossible to agree to the extortionate demands of the governing bodies."
Mr Porter quotes various authorities who have expressed strong views on the subject of the veto.
The chairman of the Parliamentary Committee which considered a scheme of tramways promoted in Scotland said: "The Committee desire to put on record that in their opinion the original scheme was a good one, and calculated to be of much use to the district; but it has been so mutilated and loaded with conditions by conflicting interests and theexcessive demands of several local bodies that it now appears to the Committee to be wholly unworkable."
In 1902 Mr Chaplin, at one time President of the Local Government Board, stated that "what local authorities would describe as conditions are regarded by promoters—and very often, no doubt, with good reason—as neither more nor less than blackmail. This has been the subject of great complaint for years, and I do not think I should be going too far if I said that on several occasions it has led to considerable scandals."
Lest these expressions of opinion may be considered unduly severe by any reader unacquainted with the facts, I turn for some definite data to the "Exhibit to Proof of Evidence," handed in by Sir Clifton Robinson to the Royal Commission on London Traffic when he was examined before that body in 1904.[62]
In the early days of his company (the London United), the local authorities, Sir Clifton said, "had not, perhaps, fully recognised their opportunity," and the company got their assents comparatively cheaply under their first Act in 1898.
Two years later the price they had to pay for the assents of local authorities to a group of tramways in the Twickenham, Teddington and Hampton district was £202,000, or £16,000 a mile. The requirements imposed on the company took the form of "wayleaves" and of street improvements, the greater part of the latter being entirely apart from the actual needs of the tramway. The improvements in Heath Road, Twickenham, giving a 45-ft. roadway, cost for properties and works alone some £30,000. A like sum had to be spent in Hampton and Hampton Wick, where the work done included the setting back of the entire frontage of the Royal Deer Park of Bushey.
In 1901 the company sought for powers to construct twelve miles of tramway in Kingston-upon-Thames and neighbourhood. On this occasion the "concessions" wrung fromthem by the local authorities amounted to £66,000 for street improvements, £20,000 for bridges, and a further £68,000, capitalised value of annual payments for so-called "wayleaves." This made a total of £154,000, or £12,800 per mile, merely for assents to the construction of their lines. The details of the account included a sum of £1500 extorted by an urban district council as "a contribution towards some town improvement, not necessarily on the company's proposed line of route, but anywhere in their district the council might desire."
One item to which the company had to agree in 1902, before they could obtain an Act authorising them to build another thirteen miles of tramway, was the construction at Barnes of an embankment and terrace along the river side. It made a very pleasant promenade, and was certainly an addition to the amenities of the neighbourhood; but it cost the tramway company £40,000. The "price" of local authorities' assents for these thirteen miles of line worked out thus: Street improvements (properties and works), £72,000; Barnes Boulevard, £40,000; "wayleaves" (capitalised), £100,000; a total of £412,000, or £31,600 per mile.
Altogether, in the four years, 1898-1902, the total expenditure of the company on street and bridge improvements in respect to less than fifty miles of tramway amounted to £745,000; and although, to a certain extent, the widenings, etc., were necessary for electric tramway purposes, "the bulk of the expenditure under this head," Sir Clifton declared, "was undertaken with a view to conciliate the local authorities, or was forced upon us by them as the 'price of their assents.'" To this £745,000 was to be added £241,000, the capitalised value, at five per cent, of the "wayleaves" the company had also agreed to pay, making a total of £986,500, irrespective altogether of the cost of construction and equipment of the lines.
When, in 1904, the company proposed to construct still another twenty-one miles of tramway in the western suburbs of London, "they recognised their obligations to the local and county authorities," Sir Clifton said, by proposing to undertake street, road and bridge widenings which would have cost them £217,932. They thought this a sufficiently generous "price" to pay for permission to provide the district withimproved transport facilities. Instead of being satisfied, the local authorities made demands which would have involved the company in a further expenditure of £642,630, making a total of £860,562. One urban district council included in its demands the construction by the tramway company of public lavatories and a subway. In a district where the company were prepared to spend £30,000 on road improvements the county council demanded a carriageway of forty feet and wood paving throughout six and a half miles of country roads, involving the expenditure of a further £30,000.
Rather than submit to all these exactions the company abandoned their Bill. They had already abandoned sixty miles of proposed tramway extensions "owing," said Sir Clifton, "to the demands or the uncompromising attitude of the local authorities," although many of these lines would have been valuable connections with the existing tramway system, and would have served in no small degree the traffic needs of the districts concerned.
"It is not too much to say," added Sir Clifton Robinson, in concluding his statement, "that instead of giving such proposals sympathetic consideration, if not practical encouragement, the attitude assumed by the average local authority of to-day is one of hostility, inspired by a desire to extort the uttermost farthing from promoters."
In the face of experiences, or the prospect of experiences, such as these, many would-be promoters of tramway enterprise developed a natural reluctance to put their own money, or to try to induce other people to put theirs, into the business; and even some American financiers, who thought we were much too slow in tramway matters in this country, and came over here with the combined idea of showing us how to do things and of exploiting us to their own advantage, abandoned their plans and went home again when they got to understand the bearing of our legislative enactments on the situation.
So, as time went on, the local authorities had greater excuse than ever for constructing the tramways themselves; and most of the principal urban centres built lines of their own, sooner or later.
That there have been certain resemblances between State policy towards the railways and State policy towards thetramways may have been already noticed by the reader. Just as the one was primarily based on suspicion and distrust due to the earlier action of the canal companies, so was the other inspired by what were regarded as the shortcomings of gas and water companies. Just, also, as the local authorities, while not aiding the railways at all, were given authority to levy an abnormal taxation on them, so have they been given a free hand to exploit the tramway companies in making them pay a heavy price for assents to their enterprises. The story of tramways, again, like that not only of railways but of canals and of turnpike roads, shows the same early lack of centralised effort with a view to securing a national system; and this piecemeal growth of tramways, rather than of a tramway system, was, undoubtedly, fostered in proportion as (1) discouragement was given to private companies, which could have operated without respect to borough boundaries and county areas, and (2) tramway construction drifted more into the hands of local authorities, whose powers did not go beyond the borders of their own particular districts.
While recognising these resemblances, one must admit that the handicapping of the tramway companies has been far more severe than that of the railway companies, by reason of the power of absolute veto possessed by local authorities in regard to tramway schemes, and the use they have made of it. Parliament certainly never foresaw the extent of such use, or abuse, when it granted the said power of veto; and the practices in question, like the operation of tramways by the local authorities themselves, were due to a policy of drift and "leave alone" rather than to deliberate intention or expressed approval on the part of the Legislature. The misfortune is that when the new developments in tramways occurred, or that when the abuses arose and the innovations were introduced, Parliament did not revise its legislation to meet the new conditions. The Royal Commission on London Traffic reported in 1905 in favour of the abolition of the power of veto, saying: "We consider it unreasonable that any one portion of a district should be in a position to put a stop to the construction of a general system of tramways required for the public benefit, without even allowing the case to be presented for the consideration of Parliament.... It appears to us that instead of a 'veto' it would be sufficient that local androad authorities should have alocus standito appear before the proposed Traffic Board and Parliament, in opposition to any tramway scheme within their districts, by whomsoever such tramway scheme might be promoted." But nothing has yet been done in the way of carrying this recommendation into effect.
The proportions in which street and road tramways and light railways in the United Kingdom were owned by (a) local authorities and (b) companies and private individuals respectively in 1909-10 are shown by the following table, taken from official returns:—
To this table I might append the following statistics as to the operation of street and road tramways and light railways in the United Kingdom in 1909-10:—
It will have been seen from the table given above that the total length of tramways and light railways owned by local authorities is double the length of those owned by companies;but, in the circumstances already narrated, the cause for surprise is, rather, that private companies should have been sufficiently bold or enterprising to do as much in the way of tramway construction as they have.
To the tramway patron it may seem to be a matter of no great concern whether the tramways are owned and operated by local authorities or by companies, provided they are satisfactory; and there may even appear to be various advantages on the side of public ownership of what, since the public streets and roads are used, may be regarded as essentially a public service.
There have, however, been many suggestions that municipal tramways are too often managed on lines involving a disregard of commercial principles, and that much of the financial success claimed for them is due less to real "profits" than to the omission from the expenditure side of their accounts of inconvenient items which, if included therein, would show much less favourable results than those desired. Thus it has been represented from time to time by opponents of "municipal trading"—who have advanced many facts and figures in proof of their assertions—that large sums of money spent on street widenings for tramway purposes—that is to say, sums which a tramway company would pay from its capital account, and put down as costs of construction—are omitted from the municipal tramway accounts and classed under the head of "public improvements," to be covered out of the local rates. The general practice is to debit a third of such expenditure to the tramway, the other two-thirds coming out of the rates; but the critics allege that, in some instances, a far greater proportion even than the two-thirds has been left to be defrayed by the general ratepayer.[63]It is further alleged that inadequate amounts are set aside for depreciation, and that the sums allowed for the use of the central office and the services of the central staff may be considerably less than the figures which ought to be allocated thereto, if the municipal tramway business were really conducted on business lines.