TROUBLED DAYS

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 19, 22 July 1933, Page 13

TROUBLED DAYS

THE FRENCH RAILWAYS

Taxed nearly out of existence, verg-j ing on bankruptcy, the railway companies of France are anxiously awaiting the outcome of the battle waging in Senate and Chamber, says tho Melbourne "Age." The railways' fate hangs in tho balance. Will they obtain the relief they claim from tho load ot taxation that they have to carry? Speaking at the recent committee nicotine of the North of France line, the chairman, Baron Edward do Rothschild, declared: There is no time to lose; our situation is critical. In the monthly deficit on the working of the railways, which now attains astronomical figures, the Stato tax, imposed in 1926, amounts' to 32 per cent. 3u the Budget, as first presented to Parliament, this was reduced to 12 per cent., but the Finance Minister has. now announced that he cannot maintain that figure, and unless relief can be obtained tho future looks dark for the companies. Yet the Government has every reason to promote- the prosperity of this industry. Railway stock is held l>y some two million investors, and there are hundreds of thousands whose holdings aro under ten bonds apiece. The railways have, therefore, the keeping of an important section of the national savingsl—a sacred charge from everybody's point of view, and one involving public confidence. Eailway travel, though hard hit byroad traffic, is by no means dead. The companies carried 795 million travellers in 1030, as well as 315 million tons of

I goods, while providing employment for i about half a million workers. Their rolling Btock has been vastly improved since tho war, adding greatly to the comfort of passengers'. They have just brought out a new type of coach for us© on suburban lines, where traffic is very -heavy four times a day. Built for use on -electric lines, this third-class coach is a double- decker, (lie upper story, with tho same seating accommodation as tho lower, being entirely enclosed, like the cabin of an aeroplane. Double-decker coaches are not a novelty in Prance; many wero in use down to 1 1014, when the troops were carried to the front in them, but thoso shabby relics disappeared after the war. They were roofed but were open at tho sides, exposing travellers to showers of cinders and a gale of wind. With this new coach tho West of Franco line is bringing out a, new "Micheline." Tho original introduced two years ago ran along the rails on its pneumatic tiros at a maximum speed of sixty-iivo miles an hour; of tho now models, a Bugatti did 106 miles on its trial trip, and it attracts crowds of visitors to St. Lazaro Station where these now coaches are on viow. Side by side with them is a respectable "antique," cleaned up for tho occasion, and showing us how citizens travelled to and fro in Franco on this samn line in 1885.

Notwithstanding their .financial handicap and defective) organisation, French railways make travel a pleasure and keep their prices relatively low. You can still do 100 miles in a, third-class coach in an express train for some 7s, and tliis whilo mutton cutlets cost 5s ■the pound! Curiously enough, in England, where food is so cheap, you must pay lo.f 9d for similar accommodation and for a similar distance.