not reach the consumer; if the quantity usually purchased be small, this is almost a certainty. There are, says Mr. Albert Fink, 'two classes of people who are the special beneficiaries of railroad wars and dissensions—the producers and the middlemen. As a rule, whatever reduction is made in the transportation charges goes to increase the profits of these two classes.' [1] 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? 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. He would be glad if Cheshire meat were carried at the same or cheaper rates. 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. 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.[2] Railway companies, on the other hand, desire to obtain
- ↑ Argument before the Committee on Commerce of the United States House of Representatives.
- ↑ I state the position of reasonable traders. The following letter by a trader expresses a common opinion:—
'Berwick:—"What we want is to have our fish carried at half present rates. We don't care a whether it pays the railway or not, railways ought to be made to carry for the good of the country, or they should be taken over by the Government. This is what all traders want, and mean to try and get."'
