Page:The Economic Journal Volume 1.djvu/434

 THE ECONOMIC JOURNAL letters carried. But the revenue received in respect of the carriage of those letters in 1890 was 63,902, and in 1891 it was 36,036, a decrease of 27,866, or 43'6 per cent.' THAT it may be dangerous to pare the returns to invested capital below a certain minimum is suggested by the action of the several leading railway companies who, at a meeting held March 3rd, in con- sideration of the recent provisional orders respecting maximum rates and charges, recommended that nine companies should withdraw from their bills of the present session all powers for the construction of new railways and works involving expenditure of capital. The action of the companies has been defended by Mr. W. M. Acworth in some lively letters to the Economist (March 28th, April 4th, April 25th, May 9th). 'Why,' he asks, ' should the goose which lays the golden eggs be such a goose as to go on laying while its neck is being wrung?' The companies, he contends, will be deterred by the reduction of rates, not only from making new lines, but also from improving and enlarging the existing ones. Meanwhile the benefit derived by the consumer from the reduction of rates is infinitesimal. Mr. Acworth is powerfully reinforced by ' R. G.' writing in the Economist April 4th and May 2nd. On the same side several letters are contributed by ' B.' and' A Share- holder.' On the other hand, according to the Editor of the Economist, the logical deduction from the action of the companies is that they should abdicate their rights of monopoly and that Parliament should be free to grant powers to competing lines. THr Scotch railway strike having excited public concern about the hours worked by railway servants, a Select Committee of the House of Commons was appointed in February to inquire into the subject, and it began sitting in March under the presidency of Sir Michael Hicks Beach, President of the Board of Trade. It has not had time to get through much work yet. It examined two witnesses from the Railway Department of the Board of Trade, Mr. Courtenay Boyle, C.B., the assistant secretary, whose evidence was mainly to the effect that there was of late years a marked decrease in the amount of over- time worked on railways, and that much of it consisted in mere dlays involving no ctive exertion; and Major-General Hutchinson, one of the inspectors, who said he had made some two hundred in- quiries into railway accidents during the last three years, and could only remember one case in which the accident could be attributed to over- time. He thought, however, that eight hours a day should be the limit in all four-line signal boxes, and that in railway servants' labour each day should stand for itself. The other witnesses as yet examined have included railway servants of various classes engine-drivers, firemen, porters giving specific evidence of the amount of overtime they