There are other important considerations which confirm the view that, if
the control of Irish railways were taken away from the Imperial
Parliament, and placed under a Parliament sitting in Dublin, and if the
general code of railway legislation now binding on both countries could
be altered by a Home Rule legislature, results disastrous to the trade
between the two countries would probably follow, whether
"Nationalisation" were carried out or not.
The Majority Report recommends, as one of the chief objects of
"Nationalisation" under an Irish authority, the reduction of _export_
rates, both local and through rates, on the Irish railways, as
"essential to the development of Irish industry," and this seems the pet
project of a large number of witnesses, and of Irish local authorities.
Import and export railway rates are now the same for the same classes of
produce, and no Irish railway company could now differentiate between
them, without being pulled up by the Railway Commission at the suit of
British traders, or British railway companies. The policy suggested is
practically to use railway rates as a system of local protection,
similar to the existing practice and policy on the continental, and
notably the Prussian State Railways. It is easy to see that without any
Customs barrier between the two countries, such a policy would
inaugurate practically a tariff war between Ireland and Great Britain,
which would be disastrous to both. That such a policy should be
subscribed to by Free-traders, and that a Free-trade Government should
advocate a change in the relations between the two countries, under
which such a system could be possible, is indeed surprising. To use
Imperial credit for such a purpose would be midsummer madness. Even
without any scheme of nationalisation, the establishment of a separate
Executive and Legislature in Ireland might have sinister effects on
traffic arrangements between Great Britain and Ireland and on the
harmonious administration of the railways.