RAILWAY RATES. T HE gist of the evidence taken by the
Select Committee on Railway Rates has been set out with great clear- ness in the Times. Whatever may be the result of the inquiry either in the Committee or in Parliament, there can be no question as to the importance of the issue raised. The Railway Companies are virtually the only long- distance carriers for inland traffic. A merchant has ordinarily to pay the rates they choose to ask him for the conveyance of his goods, or to keep the goods at home. In theory, perhaps, the interest of the Companies is identical with that of the owners of the goods. The more goods there are to carry, the larger will be the receipts of those who carry them ; and the lower the rates charged for carrying them, the more goods there will be to carry. But as in so many other cases of apparent identity, there is really a very appre- ciable difference. The amount of goods to be carried depends on many other things besides the rates charged by the Companies, and the latter may fairly argue that, so long as their rates are not prohibitive, traders who have goods to send to market will rather send them and make a small profit, than keep them at home and make a loss. At all events, Parliament was of this opinion when it inserted in the Special Acts of the several Railway Companies a tariff of the maximum rates which it is lawful for them to charge for carriage. It cannot be said, indeed, that the Legislature has borne at all hardly upon the Companies in regard to this provision. They are allowed to charge what they think reasonable for anything they may do for the goods beyond merely carrying them from one station to another, and as it is often convenient for traders that the Company's servants should collect and load the goods before starting, and unload and deliver them on arrival, it has, in many cases, become as
much the business of the Companies to render these additional services as to carry the goods. Until 1868 there seems to have been no means of compelling Railway Companies to dis- tinguish between these extra or terminal charges and the rates of carriage, so that if any complaint was made of the total amount, the Company had only to say that all in excess of the maximum rate was charged for additional services. In 1868, the Companies were compelled to render an account of particulars, if it was demanded ; and in 1873 the Railway Commissioners were empowered to determine disputes as to extra services, and to say what is a reasonable sum for a Company to demand in return for them, It was now supposed that traders had indirectly been provided with an easy method of getting overcharges for carriage set right. When the Commissioners had settled what it was reasonable for a Company to charge for loading and unloading, or for collection and delivery, the balance of the total demand must be for carriage ; and if this balance exceeded the maxi- mum rate, the trader had an Act of Parliament under which to proceed before the Commissioners. It is only in the present month, however, that a case involving an alleged excess over the maximum rate has been decided, and the gist of the deci- sion is that the making of a charge in excess of the maximum rate is not " withholding a facility," in the sense of the statute which the Railway Commissioners have to administer. Considering how little use was made of the Act when it was supposed to be applicable, traders can hardly be said to be much worse off now than they were before this judgment was given. Two opposite reasons are assigned for the fact that, though the Railway Commission dates from 1873, its power to deal
with excessive rates has not been tested till 1881, The Railway Companies say that their charges are not in excess of the maximum rate, and consequently, that traders have had no motive for raising the question. The traders, or some of them, say that the Companies are so strong, that it is not safe for private persons to go to law with them. Even if the deci- sion is in favour of the complainant, he has to bear all that an angry manager can inflict upon him by way of future annoy- ance. It is probable that both these explanations have an element of truth in them. Corporations can be quite as revengeful as individuals ; indeed, we are inclined to think that men will often do things for .a Company which they might have scruples in doing for an individual employer. They have a sense that they are acting in the public interest, which blinds them to the real meanness of their conduct. Conse- quently, when it is said that traders would ordinarily be afraid of going to law with a Railway Company, even if they were sure of their case, it is very likely to be true. On the other hand, many of the witnesses examined by the Select Com- mittee who have been foremost in complaining of the rates charged by the Railway Companies have not alleged that these rates are in excess of those allowed by Act of Parlia- ment. Their evidence points to inequality of charges, rather than to positive excess, as the thing they object to. The Mayors of two towns in which great hostility seems to be felt towards the Railway Companies—Liverpool and Blackburn— appeared before the Committee, but both of them complained not that the communities they represented were charged more than the Acts of Parliament permitted, but that they were charged more than other places served by the same Companies, or that more was asked for carrying the goods in which they specially dealt, than for carrying some other kind of goods. The Liverpool people say that more is charged for carrying goods from Liverpool to certain inland centres than for carry- ing goods from Barrow or Fleetwood to these same centres. The Bradford people say that Manchester is unduly favoured in the way of rates, and also that goods intended for ex- portation pay less than goods intended for the home market. Blackburn, again, is indignant that the carriage of cotton should be more costly than the carriage of coal. In short, in all three cases, it is their neighbours' good- fortune rather than their own sufferings that moves their wrath.
As regards the grievance alleged by the Mayor of Liverpool, it is difficult to see how it can be touched by legislation. A Railway Company can be forbidden to charge more than a certain sum for carrying goods, and this sum may be fixed as low as only to leave the Company that minimum profit with- out which it would not answer their purpose to carry goods at all. But supposing this done, how can the Company be prevented from carrying goods in particular cases at a rate -which does not bring in this minimum profit ? A money- lender might conceivably be forbidden to charge more than three per cent. interest, but it would be a singular instance of paternal government for Parliament to enact that he should never, however much he might be minded to do so, lend money at two per cent. Where a Railway Company is an owner of docks or steamers, it has an obvious motive for carrying goods lying or to lie in those docks, or landed from or to be put on board of those steamers, at lower rates than those which it charges for carrying goods to and from other docks and other steamers. In the one case, it is putting money into its own pocket ; in the other case, it is putting money into some one else's pocket. The only remedy for this state of things would be an Act of Parliament forbidding Railway Companies to own docks or steamers. This would serve the town of Liverpool extremely well, but how would it serve the towns of Barrow and Fleetwood 1 Naturally, the interests of these latter towns seem of no importance in the eyes of the people of Liverpool ; but the Legislature would have to consider whether the country does not gain more by having new ports created, than it loses by an existing port's being placed at some disadvantage by the side of them. Upon the two other complaints brought against the Railway Companies, the answer is very well given by the writer in the Timm Manchester is more favoured than Bradford, because Manchester gives more employment to the Companies ; and in carriage, as in everything else, a largo order can be executed more cheaply than a small order. So, again, in the matter of the lower rates charged on goods in- tended for exportation. It is often a matter of choice with the producer of these goods whether he sends them to one port or another, and a more distant port cannot hope to com- pete with a nearer one, unless identical rates are charged for the longer and the shorter journeys. The distinction between the rates for carrying cotton and the rates for carrying coal has its origin in the fact that the liability incurred by the carriers is very much greater in the case of cotton than in the case of coal. That the Committee will be able to make some useful suggestions we do not doubt, but they will probably point either to a revision of the present maximum rates, or to the creation of some surer method of bringing the Companies to book when they go beyond them,
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