BRITISH RAILWAYS AND THE WAR
thousands of tons of steel rails, that we could not possibly get manufactured for at least a year, and not even then except at the expense of steel, which we required for building against submarines. Now this is what I want to put to you. The next time you find that the time-table is inconvenient to you, the next time you have got to pay an extra fare, do not forget you are helping the Army in France by that means more than if you had sent three fresh army corps there. Those are some of the things that we want the public to do."
Still further economies were necessary. The men organising the railway services of the country ever kept in mind the purpose of effecting these economies with the minimum of inconvenience to the public. In July, 1917, an important scheme, going far beyond anything yet attempted, was announced for the coal trade. The carriage of coal was one of the big problems of the railways, for it involved much labour. In the winter of 1916–7, owing partly to delays in railway transit and partly to difficulties in local delivery, considerable numbers of people—particularly the poor—had been unable to obtain supplies of coal with any regularity. It was feared that conditions might be still worse in the approaching winter. This the authorities planned to prevent.
The Controller of Coal Mines published a scheme, dated July 4, 1917, for the purpose of reorganising the transport of coal by railway for inland consumption. Under this scheme England,
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