INLAND TRANSPORT, 1900-1940 23!
52,400 passenger coaches, as well as 735,000 wagons, not to
mention the 600,000 odd privately-owned wagons. In 1913,
450 new locomotives had been placed in service, and nearly
1,002 million passengers had been carried (excluding the
London Tube and District Lines). On the freight side, 19^ million
head of livestock had been handled and 364J million" tons of
freight.
It is of interest here to note that in 1938, a disastrous year«for
the railways, less than 8J million head of livestock were carried,
and only 264 million tons of freight, though the passenger total of
1,235 million was well ahead of the 1913 figure and almost reached
the peak for all time of 1920 with its 1,255 million. The average
fare in 1913 was under iod., in 1938 it was just double that figure,
but unfortunately the average fare per mile is not available in
either case.
The year 1914 opened auspiciously, but summer holidays
coincided with the outbreak of war, and transport services, as
to-day, were diverted into channels commonly characterised as
war effort. Bus services then widely extending into country
districts were cut off in their prime by requisitioning of the
vehicles and petrol rationing, a similar situation to that which
we have recently witnessed, but the new competitor for transport
services had been born, and had struck the imagination of the
public. A further seventeen years were destined to pass before
the co-ordination of public services by rail and road was brought
to fruition; though on the freight side, as is clear from the
recent "Square Deal" campaign, actual co-ordination has not
gone far as yet.
Motor barges and tugs had commenced to ply on British canals
by 1913, but the taking over of the railways by the Government,
without the adoption of a similar policy in regard to the inland
waterways, dealt a serious blow to canal prosperity. Later in
the Great War the Government changed its policy, but the fact
remains that geographically Great Britain is unsuited to
economical canal operation, and it is significant of the lack of
interest in canal welfare that the Ministry of Transport places
against the table of tonnage handled by canals for 1913 and 1919
the words, "Not available."
1923 and 1959.
During the war period, the railways were guaranteed their
1913 net revenue, but charges were not raised sufficiently to
offset the increased costs of labour and materials, and Government
traffic was not charged for, with the consequence that the
financial situation of the railways was thrown out of gear and
there were heavy arrears of maintenance to be made good when
the railways were handed back to company management and
operation, under the provisions of the Railways Act, 1921, as