In going through the reports that chart the rise or fall in the tides of our various kinds of business, I have found it interesting and useful to discover the particular types of traffic in which a general upward tendency is disclosed, and to analyse through the component factors down to the basic principles upon which such favourable results are built.

The purpose of an examination of this kind is to find, if possible, a key that may unlock the door to success in dealing with those other classes of traffic where a diminishing business is revealed.

A recent analysis of this kind shows that the principal improvements in our returns have been either from ordinary goods traffic, or from certain types of business not, until comparatively recent years, dealt with by the Railways at all. Among the latter are night trains for passengers, the “Through Booking” of passengers, parcels, and goods between one island and the other, certain types of passenger traffic conveyed by special trains at reduced fare, and the hire of cushions for passengers on express trains.