Net earnings and dividends.—We now turn to the question of the actual net earnings of the companies in 1908. The total gross receipts (including receipts from miscellaneous sources other than traffic receipts) in 1908 amounted to £119,894,000, and the total working expenditure to £76,408,000, leaving the total net receipts at the sum of £43,486,000. The total net receipts for 1900 were £40,100,000. But as, since that year, the total capital had considerably increased, the actual decrease in the proportion of net earnings to capital was greater than appears on the face of the figures. The average rates of dividend paid on loans and debenture stock and on guaranteed and preference stock being substantially the same as in the previous year (see first table above), it is evident that the ordinary capital bears the brunt of the reduction. The following statement compares the proportion of net earnings to capital realised in 1906-8 with quinquennial averages for the preceding thirty-five years :— Liability for Passengers' Luggage.—A railway company is invariably under a statutory obligation, through its special Act, to carry luggage for its passengers, the Act specifying certain quantities, differing according to the class of passenger, which must be carried free of all charge. Passengers by excursion trains are generally excluded from the benefit of this obligation, but the practice now of the railway companies in such cases is to agree to carry certain specially quoted quantities, making it a condition, however, that they incur no liability to the passenger in respect of loss or delay in the transit. Each company having a separate and independent special Act, it is not surprising to find that the statutory minimum of quantity is not common to all the companies. Nevertheless, there is a certain approximation to equality, for every company allows somewhere about 120 lbs. of luggage for a first-class passenger, 100 lbs. for a second class, and 60 lbs. for a third class.
What it is.—Passengers' luggage, to come within the meaning of the term, must be personal luggage. And personal luggage is whatever the passenger takes with him for his personal use or convenience according to the habits or wants of the particular class to which he belongs, either with reference to the immediate necessities or to the ultimate purpose of the journey. Such is the explanation of Chief-Justice Cockburn, in Macron) v. By. Co., who continues as follows : " This would include not only all articles of apparel, whether for use or orna ment, but also the gun-case or fishing apparatus of the sportsman, the easel of an artist on a sketching tour, or the books of the student, or other articles of an analogous character, the use of which is personal to the traveller, and the taking of which has arisen from the fact of his journeying. On the other hand, the term personal luggage ' being confined to that which is personal to the traveller, and carried for his use or convenience, it follows that what is carried for the purposes of business, such as merchandise or the like, or for larger or ulterior purposes, such as articles of furniture or household goods, would not come within the description of personal luggage unless accepted as such by the carrier. The articles as to which the question in the present case arises consisted of beading. Now, though we are far from saying that a pair of sheets or the like taken by the passenger for his own use on a journey might not fairly be considered as personal luggage, it appears to us that a quantity of articles of this description intended not for the use of the travellers on the journey, but for the use of his household when permanently settled, cannot be held to be so." A
toy rocking-horse has been held not to be personal luggage. So also an artist's sketches ; title-deeds belonging to a client being taken by a solicitor for production in court ; and bedding which a man is taking home for household use. It need hardly be specially noticed that a company cannot be required by a passenger to carry as passengers' luggage any article which is not in fact his personal luggage within the above meaning. Carriers Act.—If a passenger has amongst his lugmage any valuable articles which come within the provision of the Land Carriers A'ct and the Railway and Canal Traffic Act [see CARRIERS], it is necessary that he should declare them to the company, otherwise the latter will be entitled to the protection of those Acts, and in case of loss or injury the passenger will be unable to recover from the company (Morrill v. N.-E. Ry. Co. ; Millen v. Brasch).
To 'shout liable.—The obligation to carry passengers' luggage is limited to luggage carried with the passenger or by the same train as he travels. It is immaterial who has paid the fare of the passenger ; it is sufficient that the latter is in fact a passenger. Accordingly, a servant can claim in respect of his own luggage even though his master has paid his fare. The master cannot do so. If the servant's luggage had been his master's property it would seem that the company incurs no liability in respect of it to either servant or master if they had not travelled in the same train, unless they had received notice as to who was the real owner, when the master could carry in a claim (Marshall v. York ; Becher v. G.-E. 1?y. Co. ; Austin v. G.-W. Ry. Co.).
When taken in carriage.—It is a very usual practice for a passenger to take his smaller luggage with him into the carriage in which he travels, a practice to a certain extent encouraged by the companies. By doing this he does not absolve the company from all liability in respect of that luggage, even though his object in taking the property with him is to retain his personal control over it, and to take it out of the exclusive control of the company. The real effect of this course of procedure is to modify the company's general liability to the extent of imposing upon the passenger a primary obligation that he shall, during the journey, take such reasonable care of his own property as might be expected from an ordinarily prudent man, and shall not by his own negligence expose it to more than the ordinary risk of luggage carried in a passenger train. This appears from the decision in Tally v. G.-W. Ry. Co., a case approved in Bunch v. G.-W. Ry. Co., which disapproved of the reasoning, but not the decision, in Bergheim v. G.-E. RN. Co. The last-mentioned case decided that, as a general rule, railway com. panies are not liable for a passenger's luggage taken his carriage unless the loss or injury was caused by their own negligence. According to Tally's case a passenger travelling from Cheltenham to Reading left his carriage, containing his portmanteau, at Swindon Station, in order to obtain some refreshment. When he was about to rejoin the train he found it on the point of starting, and so was bound to get into another carriage. Whilst he had been refreshing himself the train had been shunted. On arriving at Reading he recovered the portmanteau from his original carriage, but found that some of its contents were missing. He made a claim against the company, but the Court decided against him, for the jury who tried the action had found that while he had been guilty of negligence himself the company had done nothing negligent.