The proposal that the price should be fixed by taking the mean price of stocks for the three years preceding the year in which the Act should be passed, is in order to avoid the market changes which might be caused by anticipation of purchase by the State. It is suggested that whatever price is taken as the basis of the purchase money, such price should include everything, so that the whole undertaking would be taken over without the necessity for any valuation of stock and plant, a prolific cause of so much trouble and expense, as in the case of the purchase of the National Telephone Company. It may be said that the figures of the railway systems are so vast that it would be impracticable to cope with them in one transaction. Enormous as the figures must necessarily be, the principle is exactly the same as in other financial transactions. Just as the Government acquired the undertaking of the National Telephone Company by purchase, which took effect on one day, so can this much larger transaction, or series of transactions, be carried out. It is assumed that the existing shares and stocks of railway companies would be converted into Government Stock, all necessary apportionments being made up to a date to be named in the Act of Parliament authorising the acquisition of the railways. Upon such date the completion of the whole transaction will be deemed to be effected. FOOTNOTES [17] This was on the initiation of Mr. Chiozza Money, M.P. [18] In “The Case against Nationalisation,” page 186. CHAPTER VIII. CONCLUSION. All reforms meet with opposition, mainly from persons whose interests may be prejudiced by the proposed change--also in many cases by experts. As to the latter, one remembers the story of the expert who, when the first proposal was made to cross the Atlantic by steam, wrote a pamphlet conclusively proving, to his own satisfaction, that it was a scientific impossibility to construct a steamer capable of carrying sufficient coal to do the journey! One of the first steamers to cross the Atlantic carried a consignment of such pamphlets! As to the former, as has already been pointed out in considering objections to the scheme, there is but a very small section whose interests need be prejudiced. Even those few who might suffer loss by the reform will recognise that the increased facilities of transport, with accompanying decrease of expense, will inevitably result in a great increase in and expansion of trade, by reason of the opening up of markets which have hitherto been practically inaccessible.