W. Cunningham

Excerpt from Should Our Railways Be Nationalised? Business, he would not do any more with me. He said I had sent on the invoice a week before the goods, he had to go and pay retail price for them to keep his word. It asserted that the goods were given to the Railways the day the invoice was dated, but he said he could not believe the Railways would take eleven days to carry a parcel 400 miles. I protested my innocence, but to no purpose. This part of the drama annoyed and irritated me. Not only had I lost the customer, but in his estimation any virtue I might have for telling the truth. This incident having been so strongly impressed upon my memory, I retailed it over in the Commercial Rooms and to my customers here and there, till I found that I was not by any means the only one that had had goods lost, stolen, or strayed on our railways. SO I made up my mind that I would try to probe the cause of these delays a little further. Tvhen I got home I went to our Dunfermline goods agent and asked him if he would try to find out the reason or cause of the delay. He said he would try. Some two months after, he came to our warehouse and made a statement something like this -oh the first day the Cardiff truss got to Leith' Walk transferring station the second day it was put into a Carlisle wagon, and got into Carlisle on the third day the Midland on the fourth day could not load a wagon for' Gloucester, and kept it over till the fifth that day they put it in a wagon for Derby. A day again was lost here, and on the seventh day it was sent on to Gloucester, got there on the ninth, and was Offered to my customer on the eleventh, and rejected. This story excited my curiosity more than ever. Why was it the Midland did not send on the cwt. Truss at once to Gloucester Because they had not enough goods to load a wagon to the West of England. Next day they were in the same position, but they put it into a wagon that was loaded for Derby, and so on. On thinking the matter over, it seemed clear to me that the trouble lay in the fact that we had three trunk lines contending for the Scotch trade to the W'est O£ England, and, the trade from Scotland not being very big or heavy, all the three systems were not able to load a wagon each every twenty-four hours, the result being that small parcels of no. 2, 3, 4, and 5 class goods had to be laid aside, or sent from point to point and transferred from one wagon to the other, till six, eleven, and sometimes fifteen days are taken to deliver a truss or box not 200 miles from where it started. It struck me then, and I am of the same Opinion still, that if our railways were all in one pool or belonged to the State, the above classes of goods travelling say one to 400 miles would be all sent to. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Should Our Railways Be Nationalised? (Classic Reprint)

A large-scale economic study by the historian William Cunningham (1849-1919), published in its first edition in 1882.

During the Early and Middle Ages

The Growth of English Industry and Commerce

Excerpt from The Rise and Decline of the Free Trade Movement The story of the rise and decline of the Free Trade movement has a practical bearing which renders it a matter of general interest at the present time; but it has also a special attraction for students of political phenomena. The agitation may be said to have been unique, for it had its basis in a scientific doctrine. The history of all ages of the world has shewn the play of human aspirations and passions, of racial an tipathies and moral ideals; but it was left for the eighteenth century to make a great advance in formu lating the knowledge of human society and of the conditions of its prosperity. The Free Trade move ment as a political force owed its strength to the fact that it had a scientific character: this seems also to account for its limitations and defects. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

The Rise and Decline of the Free Trade Movement (Classic Reprint)

"Craft Gilds" by W. Cunningham. Published by Good Press. Good Press publishes a wide range of titles that encompasses every genre. From well-known classics & literary fiction and non-fiction to forgotten−or yet undiscovered gems−of world literature, we issue the books that need to be read. Each Good Press edition has been meticulously edited and formatted to boost readability for all e-readers and devices. Our goal is to produce eBooks that are user-friendly and accessible to everyone in a high-quality digital format.

W. Cunningham

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