Outlines Of Railway Economics

OUTLINES OF RAILWAY ECONOMICS MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED LONDON BOMBAY CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK BOSTON CHICAGO DALLAb SAN FRANCISCO THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. TORONTO OUTLINES OF RAILWAY ECONOMICS BY DOUGLAS KNOQP. M. A. PROFESSOR OF ECONOMICS IN THK UNIVERSITY OF SHKFFIKLD MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED ST. MARTINS STREET, LONDON 1923 COPYRIGHT. First Edition 1913. Second Edition 1923. PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN PKEFACE THIS book owes its origin to a course of lectures on Economics with special reference to Railways, which I gave at the Midland Railway institute, Derby, and at the University of Sheffield, during the past winter. Each week a resum6 of the lecture was published in The Railivay News, and these resumes form the basis of the book. I owe my best thanks to Mr. Frederick MDermott, the Editor of The Railway News, for kindly allowing me to tnake what use I wanted of the resumes. I have revised the whole of them, eliminated the lecture form, divided the matter up into chapters, re-written certain portions, and made various additions and alterations. I have approached railway problems from the standpoint of an economist, and have sought to show how the economic principles which underlie business and industry in general apply to railways in particular. Either I had to assume that the reader had a knowledge of general economics, or I had to devote space to the discussion of certain vi PEEPACE portions of economic theory I selected the latter alternative. As a consequence, the book includes a good deal of matter which would ordinarily be excluded from a book on railways, but its inclusion has the advantage of emphasising the connection between generaleconomics and railway economics. The book is based primarily on a study of railway conditions in this country, but reference is fre quently made to conditions abroad, particularly in Prussia. My obligations are very numerous. In what concerns those parts of the book which deal with general economics, my primary obligation is to Professor S. J. Chapman of the University of Man chester, who first taught me the subject. I also owe much to various economists whose ideas I have assimi lated since I began to study economics, and especi ally since I began to prepare lectures. In most cases, I can no longer say to whom I owe a particu lar idea there are, however, two acknowledgments of this kind which I should like to make. Mr. Macrostys account of industrial combinations in this country, and Professor Pigous treatment of the subject of differential charging, have been especially helpful to me in writing certain chapters. For the information concerning railways, I am indebted to three sources in the first place, to numerous authors who have dealt with different aspects of railway economics in the second place, PREFACE vii to various parliamentary papers, a list of which, as also of the authors consulted, will be found at the end of the book. In the third place, I am indebted to mdlny of the railwaymen who attended my lec tures at Derby and at Sheffield, as in the essays which they wrote, and in the discussions which they raised at the end of lectures, they were kind enough to supplement and correct, in a way which it is only possible for railwaymen to do, information which I had obtained from other sources. In particular, I am under a great obligation to three of my students of the MidlandRailway staff, Mr. H. Curwen of the Goods Department, Sheffield Mr. E. Falconer of the Chief Goods Managers Office, Derby and Mr. T. Radford of the Chief Goods Managers Office, Derby. These gentlemen took the trouble of going through the resumes in The Railway News after the lectures were finished, and made many valuable suggestions and criticisms which have been of great assistance to me in preparing the manuscript for the press. I am further under obligation to my colleagues, Dr. J. D. Jones and Mr. T. S. Ashton and to Mr. E. Falconer and Mr. K. L...