John Macdonell

“ The problem which Parliament imposed upon the Board of Trade and the Duke of Richmond's Committee, is, in truth, incapable of exact solution. It is difficult, as every inquiry before the Railway Commissioners with respect to undue preference shows, to calculate the present, to say nothing of the future, cost of the conveyance of traffic. Human foresight cannot foretell twelve months ahead, far less for all time, what will be a fair remunerative charge for conveyance of merchandise in all the changing conditions off railway traffic. ”

“ In the many controversies about the defects of railway management here is a proneness to forget its merits. Foreigners do not; they admire and envy its elasticity, efficiency, celerity, and the ease with which it has adapted itself to the requirements of modern industry. The peril of the hour appears to be that from exaggerated solicitude about giving certain traders larger profits we may by excessive interference impair these virtues. ”

“ What seems true of both taxes or rates is that a small reduction, such as would not in the most favourable circumstances affect, except to a small extent, the price of the quantity or amount purchased by the average consumer, does not in ordinary circumstances affect it at all. The producer or middleman is benefited; the consumer rarely. Is it to be supposed that if the price of conveying fish from Great Grimshy to London were reduced by 3s. a ton the householder would buy a couple of soles any cheaper? ”

“ To contend, as some of the witnesses called by the railways did in the recent inquiry, that the effect of maximum rates is in all circumstances absolutely nil is an exaggeration. In districts in which no competition exists, a company may choose to earn its revenue by carrying a small quantity at a high rate; before the Railway Commissioners have been proved instances of charges in excess of maximum rates. ”

“ The consumer is indeed interested in rates being so low that they enable goods to be carried rapidly great distances; the very rates, by the way, to which traders near the chief centres of consumption take exception. He does not join in the outcry against the London and North-Western Railway and Great Western Companies for carrying American meat from Liverpool or Birkenhead to London for 25s. a ton, while the charge for shorter distances is greater. ”

“ That such rates are of the nature of undue preference may be a grievance to certain producers; to the consumer it is a matter of indifference. For his own goods the trader wishes low rates; but if he lives nearer the market or the port of shipment than his competitors he will insist upon a mileage rate or an approximation thereto. If he be charged for conveyance 50 miles as much as others are charged for 100 miles he will complain that he is deprived of 'the advantages of natural position;' he will ask that his rates be lowered or those of his rivals raised. ”

“ The consignor of goods does not know what he will be asked to pay; he does not know what he ought to pay; there is the uncertain element of terminal charges, and, perhaps, of special services; and the actual rate, though well under the maximum, may be illegal as being an undue preference or unreasonable. ”

“ Assuming that he gave the customer the whole benefit of the reduction, 10 shillings a ton, when reduced to the price in yards, represents, as Mr. Acworth observes, ' an amount too fractional to be represented in English currency.'
There is the same difficulty in determining the ultimate incidence of cost of transport as in ascertaining the incidence of taxation on commodities. A priori speculations on the subject are apt to be fruitless and delusive. A minute study of the economic conditions at the time when a tax is levied or the rate is charged is necessary. ”

“ If the cost of conveying to market be the same, the one port will flourish, the other will be ruined. On a strict application of the law of undue preference, perhaps the rates to the more prosperous town would be lowest, the traffic being larger and continuous. ”

“ Railway companies, on the other hand, desire to obtain the largest amount of net profit from their traffic, and this they may attain in two ways either by carrying a large amount at low rates, or a small amount at high rates, and with diminished traffic expenses. ”

“ If it be true, as the fish traders assure us, probably with perfect accuracy, that the fisherman does not get as large a share of the price as the railway company's charges amount to, there must be left a sum of £46 per ton to be shared amongst the various middlemen. ”

“ Interference as heretofore with discriminations between persons really in the same circumstances; none when the value and utility of the services are different, even if the cost of performing them be the same. ”

“ Horrocks thus describes a scheme of classification: ' Each article of the 4,000 and more received at the Clearing House classification should be subjected to a severe and careful scientific examination, as to its specific gravity, &c., in order to as- certain the maximum weight of that article which an ordinary rail- way truck would carry. In the next place, the value of the article should be ascertained, together with the liability to damage from wet, breakage, delay, theft, or any other cause. ”

“ Abolition of maximum rates and statutory classifications as useless. They give the customer an appearance of protection which they do not afford; they require periodical revision if they are not to be unjust and far removed from the actual rates. ”

“ Courtenay Boyle, and before the Joint Committee—with the discussions which preceded the passing of the McKinley Tariff Act, as reported in The Congressional Globe and other official records, one must be struck with the similarity; the same pushing of the interests of particular trades and localities, the same higgling for better terms by particular classes of manufacturers, each interest with advocates fully heard, each interest not so represented in danger of being lost sight of, the community of consumers most of all neglected. ”

“ Everywhere it became a maxim of railway management to vary the rates according to the circumstances of the traffic, to charge what, according to the common and much misunderstood saying,' it will bear.' That abuses came in its train, that some districts were unduly favoured, is true. A point apt to be slurred over, by reason of the question being usually regarded almost exclu- sively from the view of the companies or their customers, is that this change, diminishing the effect of distance, reducing if not aunJhilating geographical advantage, is of priceless value to consumers. ”

“ The Court had not the temerity to fix the price of a large number of commodities; it established a sliding scale; 'where a quarter of barley is sold for two shillings, then four quarts of ale should be sold for a penny, &c.' The order of a manor court that the best ale should be sold at threepence a gallon within a particular district, seems to me more rational than the proposal that 'basic slag, ground, packed, blooms, billets, or ingots, bog ore for gas purifying; bricks, clay, common and finer ”

“ A excellent rule when the circumstances of production are the same, when the value of the service is the same to all, it has no applicability to circumstances in which they are diverse. Two fishing ports are each 100 miles from London, the one with a good harbour, a safe beach, the take of fish large and constant ”

“ The rent of corn land lying a few miles from the point of consumption is reduced to the same level as that of land four thousand miles off. Geographical advantages are almost annihilated by modern shipping freights, to the profit of all except the producers near the markets; and similar advantages are produced by differential rates. ”

“ The elements of cost are changing from month to month; whether the wagons go the return journey full or empty makes a material difference. In the inquiry at Westminster there was much discussion whether, as suggested by the Company, £1 16s. 8d. a ton, or, as suggested by the traders, £1 was a fair maximum for sugar; whether silk waste should be put in Class 3 or Class 5, whether plush, made of a silk waste surface and a cotton weft or back, should be treated as cotton or silk ”

“ Any one with much experience as an arbitrator or otherwise in estimating the value of business assets will tell you that the profits on particular contracts or with particular customers vary from zero to 50 per cent. ”

“ A is a town the centre (the Absatzort) of several concentric circles or zones, segments of which are shown thus:—
First hypothesis: a supplied with food, building materials, &c., from the adjacent zones; a road a b c d connecting segments of such zones with a. In these circumstances the cultivation within a b b′ will be intensive, that within the outer zones more and more extensive; within a b b′ will be produced perishable articles, such as milk, and articles of great weight or bulk. ”

“ If that cannot be, he is content to see exceptionally low rates to London without asking questions about undue preference. The dwellers in great cities desire exceptionally low rates for articles of food or other necessaries of life. ”

“ And yet we have seen courts of law more and more nclned to carry out a theory of rates which every economst and every competent nquirer reject as untenable. For all forms of personal favouritsm or discrimination by public carriers there s no excuse; n all cvilsed countries, so far as I know, a railway company may-not legally grant better terms to one trader than to another smlarly stuated ”