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

Percentage
 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

Percentage
 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 commodities,
 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