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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 76

Free Railway Travel

Free Railway Travel.

All the objections that apply to the Postal System apply with still greater force to free travel. Under it we should soon set up the worst form of absentee landlordism. If people could travel everywhere for nothing, how little inducement there would be for owners to reside on their farms! Soon nearly all these would fall into the hands of managers, while their owners and families would reside in the towns. When we remember the numerous advantages the town has over the country in matters of house-keeping, education, social intercourse, amusements, etc., how could we expect the women and children to reside on the farms when they could go to them, or send goods to them, whenever they liked, for nothing? The inevitable result must be great separation of husbands and wives, which is an immense social evil, and much greater concentration of population in the cities, out of which our greatest social evils arise.

Again, what would be the effect on industrial enterprise and the development of the country? At first sight this appears easy. People say, naturally enough: why, if you can go or send to any point for nothing, it must assist development. Quite so, if you could do this, but all it would mean is that you could send to any point within districts where railways were constructed, and every other district would be practically shut up, and those residing in them would have to pay their full share of the taxation which provided means of transit for their more fortunate neigh-bours. Those outside districts would of course demand railways, but if railways are not to produce any revenue, where is the money to construct and work them to come from? It is not likely that the districts already served, and which must contain nearly the whole of the population, would tax themselves for this purpose.

After the closest study, I fail to discover any good thing in either the Postal System or Free Transit as applied to Railways.