The Board of Trade can practically compel the companies to adopt any mechanical contrivance deemed to add to the safety of the travelling public. It is impossible to exaggerate the power thus vested in this State Department. For any mechanical arrangement deemed safe to-day may be adjudged unsafe to-morrow. The reason is obvious: new mechanical developments involving greater pressure of work or excessive use of plant and machinery render the old safeguards useless. Safety, in the mechanical sense, is a relative term. The Board of Trade in this particular sphere is omnipotent. Apart from the mechanical working of the railways it is invested with great legal responsibilities. Practically every Act of Parliament dealing with transit constitutes the Board of Trade a court of appeal of some sort, either in regard to provisional orders or consent to a variety of changes in policy. Thus by the Act of 1844 it may revise rates if a 10 per cent. dividend be paid by any railway company. Again, it may authorize any company to work its line as a light railway. Schedules of rates must be submitted by every railway and canal company to the Board of Trade, which after discussion and approval may be embodied in a provisional order for presentation to parliament. We now come specifically to our present purpose; the Board of Trade may make an order (not a provisional order, be it observed) authorizing a railway company to use electricity as the motive power. The Light Railway Act of 1896 practically empowers it to do as seems best in the establishment and construction of light railways. Any borough, district or county council may apply for powers to work light railways, individually or conjointly. And the Treasury may grant loans for this purpose up to one million pounds. Whether it be railways, light railways or tramways, it is always the Board of Trade or its offshoot the Railway Commission to whom we must go for sanction for practically everything. The essential fact It is not necessary to labor the point further. is that all these powers are lodged with a responsible Government department. The fatal criticism is that social and mechanical changes have outstripped in pace the archaic methods of the Board of Trade. A National Mercantile Marine. A logical consequence of the national management of internal means of communication will be the completion of the State control of our oversea transit. Already the British producer is handicapped by the shipping rings which are able, at will, to annihilate the profits on any of our staple trades by exorbitant charges, and unfair rebates to foreign rivals.** It is impossible here to go into details. Let it suffice to remark that already the nation has a direct financial interest in the great steamship lines, through its mail subsidies, and Admiralty loans with corresponding claims for service in war; that intellectually the nation, by its pride in its magnificent mercantile fleet, regards it as a national possession, and declines to consider our shipping as the mere private property of the shareholders of the steamship companies; and finally that our navy is maintained at enormous public expense expressly to protect the mercantile fleet, which at present is mainly private property. *See Fabian Tract No. 116, " Fabianism and the Fiscal Question." Everything indicates that the time is not far distant when the chief shipping lines will be completely acquired and managed by the community for the benefit of the empire as a whole. A Co-ordinating Department. Finally, we propose a Central Transit and Power Department, organized to meet modern ideas and to safeguard the public convenience and protect the community from monopoly in the hands of private companies. It should maintain a small army of scientists and inventors whose only business should be to improve traction and simplify electrical production. The time is almost ripe either to purchase some present undertaking or to organize an engineering department to make standardized machinery to the order of all local authorities. With railways nationalized, the locomotive and carriage building works at Crewe, Derby, Swindon and elsewhere might be indefinitely enlarged. Neither the central nor the local authorities must flinch from the responsible task of guiding, controlling and ultimately possessing the national and international means of locomotion-both the organization, the machinery and the motive force. The Need for Action. Sooner or later a reconstruction of our electricity and transit system on some such lines as these is inevitable if our country is to maintain its position amongst its better organized competitors. It must never be forgotten that archaic incompetence in industrial organization at the top, means at the bottom unskilled ill-paid irregular labor; and from this follows unemployment, underfeeding, slums, pauperism, and all the socials evils which everybody deplores, and few really try to remedy. So long as the means of distribution are left in private hands to be managed for private profit with the short-sighted stupidity of the ordinary man of business, the trade of the country will suffer, and all those who live by that trade will suffer also. The reorganization of our transit system is no doubt a great and complex undertaking. But a parliament which consisted of a competent government and a public spirited opposition would not hesitate to undertake what is obviously required by the necessities of modern progress. But we must regretfully admit the prospects of a measure so extensive are not at present bright. So long as the government limits its ambition to one or two second-rate bills in each session, and the opposition wastes the nation's time in unending debates on obstructive amendments, and perpetual divisions demanded for the sake of the delay they occasion, the chances of any serious attempt to bring our obsolete systems into harmony with modern requirements are remote. But the time will presently arrive when the electors will awake to the disgraceful incompetence of their representatives, whether Liberal or Tory, and will put in their place men determined to redeem the mother of parliaments from the ignominy of inefficiency which at present is her disgrace. SOCIETY.-The Fabian Society consists of Socialists. its Rules and the following publications can be obtained from the Secretary, at the Fabian Office, 3 Clement's Inn, London, W.O. Is. net. THIS MISERY OF BOOTS. By H. G. WELLS. Paper cover, design Tracts, each 16 to 52 pp., price 1d., or 9d. per dos., unless otherwise stated. Leaflets, 4 pp. each, price 1d. for six copies, 1s. per 100, or 8/6 per 1000. The Set of 78, 3s.; post free 3/5. Bound in Buckram, 4/6; post free for 5s. I.-General Socialism in its various aspects. TRACTS.-138. Municipal Trading. 121. Public Service versus Private Expenditure. By Sir OLIVER LODGE. 113. Communism. By WM. MORRIS. 107. Socialism for Millionaires. By BERNARD SHAW. 133. Socialism and Christianity. By Rev. PERCY DEARMER. 78. Socialism and the Teaching of Christ. By Dr. JOHN CLIFFORD. 87. The same in Welsh. 42. Christian Socialism. By Rev. S. D. HEADLAM. 79. A Word of Remembrance and Caution to the Rich. By JOHN WOOLMAN. 75. Labor in the Longest Reign. By SIDNEY WEBB. 72. The Moral Aspects of Socialism. By SIDNEY BALL. 69. Difficulties of Individualism. By SIDNEY WEBB. 51. Socialism: True and False. By S. WEBB. 45. The Impossibilities of Anarchism. By BERNARD SHAW (price 2d.). 15. English Progress towards Social Democracy. By S. WEBB. 7. Capital and Land (7th edn. revised 1908). 5. Facts for Socialists (10th edn., revised 1906). LEAFLETS-13. What Socialism Is. 1. Why are the Many Poor? 38. The same in Welsh. II.-Applications of Socialism to Particular Problems. TRACTS.-136. The Village and the Landlord. By EDWARD CARPENTER. 135. Paupers and Old Age Pensions. By SIDNEY WEBB. 131. The Decline in the Birth-Rate. By SIDNEY WEBB. 130. Home Work and Sweating. By Miss B. L. HUTCHINS. 128. The Case for a Legal Minimum Wage. 126. The Abolition of Poor Law Guardians. 122. Municipal Milk and Public Health. By Dr. F. LAWSON DODD. 120. "After Bread, Education." 125. Municipalization by Provinces. 119. Public Control of Electrical Power and Transit. 123. The Revival of Agriculture. 118. The Secret of Rural Depopulation. 115. State Aid to Agriculture: an Example. 112. Life in the Laundry. 98. State Railways for Ireland. 124. State Control of Trusts. 86. Municipal Drink Traffic. 85. Liquor Licensing at Home and Abroad. 84. Economics of Direct Employment. 83. State Arbitration and the Living Wage. 48. Eight Hours by Law. 23. Case for an Eight Hours Bill. 47. The Unemployed. By JOHN BURNS, M.P. LEAFLET. 104. How Trade Unions benefit Workmen. III.-Local Government Powers: How to use them. TRACTS.-137. Parish Councils and Village Life. 117. The London Education Act, 1903: how to make the best of it. 109. Cottage Plans and Common Sense. By RAYMOND UNWIN. 76. Houses for the People. 99. Local Government in Ireland. 82. Workmen's Compensation Act. New edition for the Act of 1906. 62. Parish and District Councils. 54. The Humanizing of the Poor Law. By J. F. OAKESHOTT. LEAFLETS.68. The Tenant's Sanitary Catechism. 71. Same for London. 134. Small Holdings, Allotments and Common Pastures: and how to get them. FABIAN MUNICIPAL PROGRAM, FIRST SERIES (Nos. 32, 37). Municipalization of the Gas Supply. A Labor Policy for Public Authorities. SECOND SERIES (Nos. 90 to 97). Municipalization of Milk Supply. Municipal Pawnshops. Municipal Slaughterhouses. Women as Councillors. Municipal Bakeries. Municipal Hospitals. Municipal Steamboats.-Second Series in a red cover for 1d. (9d. per doz.); separate leaflets, 1/- per 100. JV.-Books. 132. A Guide to Books for Socialists. 29. What to Read on social and economic subjects. 6d. net. 129. More Books to Read. Supplement to October, 1906. V.-General Politics and Fabian Policy. 127. Socialism and Labor Policy. 116. Fabianism and the Fiscal Question: an alternative policy. 108. Twentieth Century Politics. By SIDNEY WEBB. 70. Report on Fabian Policy. 41. The Fabian Society: its Early History. By BERNARD SHAW. VI.-Question Leaflets. Questions for Candidates: 20, Poor Law Guardians. 28, County Councils, Rural. 102, Metropolitan Borough Councils. BOOK BOXES lent to Societies, Clubs, Trade Unions, for 10s. a year. Printed by G. Standring, 7 Finsbury St., London, E.C., and published by the Fabian Society, 3 Clement's Inn, Strand, London W O. Public Wealth and Corporate Expenditure. An Address to the Ancient Order of Foresters at their Annual Gathering in Birmingham Town Hall, on Sunday, October 9th, 1904.* "PUBLIC WEALTH" means wealth belonging to a Community or Corporate Body; and the possessor of such wealth can utilize and administer it as Corporate Expenditure. By "Corporate Expenditure" I mean not municipal expenditure alone, nor trades union expenditure alone, nor benefit society expenditure alone, but something of all of them; combined expenditure for corporate ends, as distinguished from private and individual expenditure. I wish to maintain that more good can be done and greater value attained by the thoughtful and ordered expenditure of corporate money, than can be derived from even a lavish amount distributed by private hands for the supply of personal comfort and the maintenance of special privileges. It sounds like a secular subject, but no subject is really secular, in the sense of being opposed to sacred, unless it is a subject intrinsically bad; and if the truth be as I imagine myself now to conceive it, the subject I am endeavoring to bring forward has possible developments of the most genuinely sacred character. I shall not have time to develop this fully, but I can make a beginning. Careless Spending. First I would direct your attention to a fact and ask you to observe how little thought is expended by mankind in general on the spending of money, and how much time and attention are devoted to the earning of it. That may seem natural; it is considered easy to spend and hard to earn. I am by no means sure that it is easy to spend wisely. Men who have much money to spend-and few of us are in that predicament-if they are conscientious The Society is indebted to Sir Oliver Lodge for permission to print and issue this Address as a pamphlet. |