Road-Rail Transport
be enabled to maximise traffic by quoting low rates. 1?raMc
has first to be got and nursed, before it could be made
permanent. In the rural areas, passenger traffic is sparse,
and to build either a railway or a tramway would be out
df the question. A road motor vehicle would answer the
purpose best. These rural services could act as feeders to
the railways, giving the inhabitants of the villages the
benefits of railway travel, and the railway the advantage
of increased receipts. Eightly viewed and properly
organised, the motor vehicle cannot be anything but
complementary to the railways. They serve a much
needed want to the country, and should, instead of
reducing railway earnings, actually go to increase them.
The main function of the motor vehicle should be to serve
the outlying areas of the country. In our study of branch
railway policy we saw that a railway by its very nature
cannot be made to serve a poor agricultural area, because
the traffic being light, the rates would have to be fixed
high enough. The Mitchell-Kirkness Committee appre-
ciated the truth of this wteen it made a searching
examination of the various proposals for branch line
construction. It held the view that such schemes should
be dropped where there was the possibility of a road service
adequately meeting the requirements or where the existing
road services adequately served the purpose.^10
In urban t^
pft.rfc_T Tnt^^med^^ fe-ffieen the suburban. raUway^ndJbe
Thejjamways, like the railways, Tiave ji^Jjie
of jftfeKiaad,. Tite"capital" costs in this case are
also very heavy, and fixed charges form a great percentage
p£ total working expenses. The tramways are under legal
436$MMties, as they are required by Statute not only to
jmuamtaia their running track, but also the road on which
it is laid. Section 28 of the English Act of 1870 ordains
10   Vide Mitcfcdl*mrJmess Committee Report, p. in.