Funding the Rail Industry out of the Fare Box

Dear Mr Smith,

Everyone seems to have lost sight of the fact that the Railways in Britain are an essential national utility. Instead, they are run at the expense of the taxpayer and the traveller for the benefit of the shareholder. This is folly, which indicates the total incompetence of economists used by the Government to give advice. Economists have never woken up to the fact that economic progress and growth necessitate an increase in the money supply to service that growth. One obvious bottleneck impeding economic progress and growth is inadequate means of transport. Attempts to handle that impasse by increasing fares in order to reduce the pressure of flow is counterproductive and bad business practice. New money minted, printed or somehow created by Government to provide an essential National Utility is a vital management procedure.

But we come up with a crash against a consensus in Parliament, which states that if the Government were allowed to create and issue new money, it would cause inflation. Current policy is to give private bankers a monopoly on the creation of new money as credit. This policy forces us to borrow new money into existence and then launder the credit to pay interest and turn the credit into money. Startlingly unbusinesslike, when you notice what we allow our politicians to do.

Therefore use your good offices to tell the Nation how to provide the money to maintain the railways and keep them fit for purpose. Restore to Government the sole right to create and issue new money, repeal the Tonnage Act of 1694 and give the citizen the right to see that it is done correctly.

Doctor Edward C Hamlyn MBChB

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