ABSTRACT
The 1920s and 1930s were times of rapid container development in Britain and elsewhere in Europe. Despite differing national commercial and political factors, the competition for freight business between rail and road was a significant and constant driver of innovation across the Continent. At various junctures governments prepared for and waged war, attempted to allay public unrest and provide jobs for the unemployed, and regulated what were, publicly and in some political circles, seen as monopolistic, greedy and manipulative railway companies. It may be, as the UK's railways claimed, that governments handed the road haulage industry an unfair advantage early in its life. However, the container was a part of a raft of commercial initiatives which, in the later part of the era under discussion, in the UK at least, included railway-owned country lorry services that gave the railways a chance to redress the balance.
