Synopses & Reviews
Text extracted from opening pages of book: BRITISH RAILWAYS IN BObM AND DEPRESSION AN ESSAY IN TRADE FLUCTUATIONS AND THEIR EFFECTS 18781930 C. DOUGLAS CAMPBELL M. A., Ph. D. Lecturer in Commerce in the University of Liverpool LONDON: P. S. KING 6? SON, LTD. ORCHARD HOUSE, WESTMINSTER 1932 Printed in Great Britain by UNWIN BROTHERS LIMITED, LONDON AND WOKING TO MY MOTHER PREFACE THE present essay summarises part of a much more substantial doctoral dissertation. In view of the topical nature of the problem which it discussed and the im possibility of reproducing the larger work in a readable form, I have been persuaded to select those parts which are likely to be of more immediate interest and cast them into print. On reading over the manuscript, however, I feel that much may have been lost by condensation, though it is too much to expect the busy reader to delve into dull refinements of detail which are of interest only to the author himself. Nevertheless, if the technician finds the treatment too sketchy, he is sure of my apologies. Apology to the reader must be followed by acknow ledgment to those who enabled the larger work to proceed. Some of the study dates back several years, whilst I was a member of the Economics staff at Manchester Univer sity, but that concerned with American conditions was only made possible by means of a year spent in the United States, as a Fellow of the Rockefeller Foundation, to which body and its administrative organ, the Social Science Research Council, special thanks are due. It is often impossible, of course, to trace one's turns of thought to specific persons, and extremely painful to be invidious by the mention of names. I have had occasion totrouble numerous academic and business authorities for opinions and information. More direct acknowledg ment is due, however, to the following: Mr. C. E. R. Sherrington, Secretary of the Railway Research Service, among other things for generous and detailed criticism of tentative papers already published on the subject, and assistance in meeting authorities in the railway field; Messrs. M. O. Lorenz ( Interstate Commerce Commission) and J. Parmalee ( Bureau of Railway 8 BRITISH RAILWAYS Economics) for information, statistical and otherwise, drawn from their official sources; Professor T. H. Brown, and Messrs. R. F. Bingham, D. B. Leavens, and V. A. Temnomeroff ( Harvard University) for help in connection with statistical manipulation; Professors W. J. Cunningham and C. O. Ruggles ( Harvard University), W. M. Daniels and K. T. Healy ( Yale University), and L. C. Sorrell ( Chicago University) for time devoted to discussion of the broad problem; Mr. W. T. Stephenson ( London School of Eco nomics) for a brief letter, which turned my thoughts to the effects of trade fluctuations on the rate level; Sir Josiah Stamp, who read the larger work, for offering many suggestions and criticisms which I have endeavoured to use; Professor G. W. Daniels ( Manchester University) for criticism and assistance throughout. There are others who may discover reproduction of their hints in the pages which follow, and if I include them in my general thanks it is not from ingratitude, but because their suggestions have become so much a part of my mental make-up that I cannot trace their origin. C. D. C. THE UNIVERSITY, LIVERPOOL CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE PREFACE 7 I. THE PROBLEM OF FLUCTUATIONS . . . 1 1 II. THE TRADECYCLE, 1878-1912 18 III. THE POST-WAR DEPRESSION, 1913-1930 . . 60 IV. THE Bio FOUR, 1884-1930 .... 82 V. THE RAILWAYS ACT, 1921 . . . .94 INDEX 123 BRITISH RAILWAYS IN BOOM AND DEPRESSION CHAPTER I THE PROBLEM OF FLUCTUATIONS EXPLANATIONS are among the most unfortunate of necessities with which any discussion may begin, but, though it may savour of the pedantic to insist on a preliminary statement of data, scope, and method, there is at least some value in knowing the exact purpose which lies behind any piece of work. Given a problem definite in character, the inve