(Freight Transport)

　 　 Stagnancy in the demand for the domestic transports deemed by the economic recession, disrupting effects on the transport by labor dispute acts, floods and heavy snowfalls, and the fare increases have combined in fiscal 1974 to bring a dramatic reduction of tons of freight hauled by National Railways to 157.71 million tons, down 10.1% and the ton-kilometers to 51,583 million ton-kilometers, down 10.1% from the previous fiscal year as in (Table 1-(1)-3).
　 　 Itemwise, rice and fertilizer levelled off from the preceding year, but all others went down in transport volume as in (Table 1-(1)-4).
　 　 Most steeply down among them were automobiles, cement, gravel, timber, steel, paper, and pulp strongly affected by the reduction of the investment in the public sector.
　 　 The container transport, whose volume had shown a steady growth over years, was also struck by the economic recession, falling by 7.4% from the previous fiscal year to 12.81 million tons. Though freight liners dropped by 6.7% to 6.86% million tons in the same trend with general containers, the combination transport of freightliners with truckers rose 3.1% in volume from the previous fiscal year and increased its share in the total freighs handled by freightliners to 36.6%, rolling further on the upward trend from Past years.
　 　 Transport volume of railway freights by private railways showed a general trend of decline except some increases in small baggage freights.