Goschen, Sir Charles Dilke (the chairman), and others,
declared that — " If the railways are to be utilized for the
benefit of the poorer wage-earning classes, two conditions must
be satisfied — First, the fares must not exceed the difference
between the rent of their homes in the over-crowded districts
which ought to be relieved, and the lower rents in the suburbs ;
secondly, the Companies must provide carriages at these
reduced fares which will bring the people to and from their
work at convenient hours J* ^ And in dealing with the contention
of several Companies that the requirements of the Act of 1883
were somewhat inconvenient, this same Majority Report declares
that — " The State has interfered in this matter (of workmen's
trains) in the public interest rather with reference to what the
working classes can aff^ord than to what will pay the Companies.
The State assumes and exercises the right to control the price
of conveyance, on account of the monopoly which the Com-
panies are presumed to exercise in the conveyance of traffic." *
It is important to bear in mind that the upgrowth of
suburbs is now primarily dependent upon railway facilities.
As Sir Blundell Maple says, builders and capitalists will
not put up houses for the working classes in the outer suburbs
until a maximum low fare supersedes the penny a mile, and it
is impossible for those employed in the metropolis to reside in
the outer suburbs until houses are built for them to inhabit.*

But the health and general well-being demand not merely that

^ Report, November 2i, 1893.
^ First Report, Housing of the Working Classes, 1885, c. 4402, p. 49.
Ibid. p. 50. * London, May 2, 1895.
