The fact that Mr. Ashley Brown's pamphlet on The Future
of the Railways (Simpkin Marshall, Is. 6d.) has reached a third impression in a few months speaks well for the author and also attests the wide public interest in the railway problem. Mr. Brown discusses in some detail locomotive efficiency, staff and wages, time-tables and fares, but his real object is to show that railway companies must regard themselves as business concerns selling fast, safe and cheap travel rather than as institutions to whose traditional ways the public must accustom itself or stay at home. The railway expert may scoff at Mr. Brown's suggestions, but he will not, we think, ignore them altogether now that the public is taking to the road. The truth is that the railway service is the most conservative body in this most conservative country. It shows signs of awakening, but it will go to sleep again if its road motor competitors are crushed by heavy taxation, as seems not unlikely. * *
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