He went on : “If any suggestion were made . . . that your interests though remaining at your risk should be handed over to the management of any body not appointed by you, I am sure that those amongst the proprietors who would favour such an arrangement would be few and far between.”

Those remarks need to be read in conjunction with Lord Royden’s further opinion that if the railways were transferred to “some quasi public body not appointed by the proprietors, the result . . . would be no better than nationalisation, and possibly worse.” It will be noticed that the emphasis all the time is on the question whether or not the shareholders are to run the risk without themselves having the power to protect their capital and income ; thus he left the door at least half-open to an arrangement which removed all risk by giving a fixed rate of interest guaranteed by the Government. If the railway shareholders had such a guarantee offered to them and had to face the alternative possibility of retaining control of a railway system doomed to continually declining traffic and profits, it is quite certain that they would easily swallow their alleged opposition on principle to Government control, and would accept the offer if the terms were good enough.

In 1937 Mr. William Whitelaw, Chairman of the London and North-Eastern Railway, in an interview with the News Chronicle (29 December, 1937) declared that he had no objection to nationalisation of the railways on “fair terms” and “as a large stockholder myself I should have no hesitation whatever in taking Government Stock instead of Company Stock.”

Let us now consider communications services, posts, telegraphs, telephones, cables and wireless, which, like roads and railways, are of vital concern to manufacturers and traders as a whole.

The Postal service began in 1482 with the organisation of relays to carry the King’s despatches.

During the next century the King’s Posts were carrying private letters as well, and Queen Elizabeth gave an order that no letters were to be sent to or from foreign countries except by these Posts.

Under Charles I, in 1635, a Postmaster General of England for foreign parts was appointed who ran the posts, thus relieving the King of the cost, and at the same time made large sums of money for himself. Later, under the Commonwealth, the Posts were put up to tender and “thus began in the form of an annual rent the Public Revenue of the Post Office.” (The Post Office. H.M. Stationery Office, 1911).

In 1860 a private 1d post system in London was taken over by the P.M.G. under monopoly and, with many detailed changes and developments, that system has continued to this day.

The English Postal service it will be noticed is an example of a service which began for the convenience of the Government, and only later became a service for the use of business men and private citizens. Later on this was to a large extent the line of development of telegraphs in the continental countries, though not in England.