With regard to railway wages, the following table based on 
information published by the Committee on Industry and Trade, 
shows the wage totals in 1913 and 1924 respectively and the 
percentage relation of wages and expenses to total receipts :— 
Wages  ... a 
Jther expenses ... 
Total working 
expenses ... 
Net receipts _— 
Total receipts ... 
1913. 
47,386,000 
34.575.000 
31,961,000 
14.619.000 
126.680.0000 
Percent- 
age of 
Total 
eceipts. 
37-0 
27-8 
64-8 
3592 
100 
1924. 
119,800,000 
58.362.000 
178,162,000 
36,552,000 
214.714.000 
Percent- 
age of 
Total 
Receipts. 
56 
a7 
83 
17 
100 
There is a clear case, it would seem, for examining the cost of 
transport and incidentally of transport wages, since, if transport 
costs could be brought down, the costs of production of other 
industries would be lessened and they in turn could deliver more 
cheaply to the transport industry the manufactures it requires in 
its own trade. 
This is the more important when it is realised that, in the 
ordinary course of production, transport charges occur and recur 
constantly. In the case of steel, for example, coal, lime, coke, 
ore, etc., have to be transported to the blast furnace for the 
manufacture of pig iron; pig iron, coal, coke, lime and ore have 
to be transported to the steel foundry for the manufacture of 
steel ; the steel has to be transported with coal and other com- 
modities, which already have in their price transport charges, to 
the engineering shop. And so the transport cost is perpetually 
occurring and recurring and is creating a load the cumulative 
effect of which increases almost geometrically as the stages of 
manufacture are. multiplied. The resultant accumulated load of 
transport charge is out of all proportion to the direct transport 
charge carried bv the engineering and other finishing industries. 
It is notorious for example that the loss of markets for British 
coal in Scandinavia and parts of Eastern Europe is due largely