594 'THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Commission, and is so effectually disposed of by their report that it 

 seems scarcely necessary to dwell upon it further. But it reappears 

 in the evidence of some of the witnesses before this committee, and 

 it may therefore be desirable to state shortly why it is imprac- 

 ticable : 



" ' (a.) It would prevent railway companies from lowering their 

 fares and rates, so as to compete with traffic by sea, by canal, or by 

 a shorter or otherwise cheaper railway, and would thus deprive the 

 public of the benefit of competition, and the company of a legitimate 

 source of profit. 



" * {b.) It would prevent railway companies from making perfectly 

 fair arrangements for carrying at a lower rate than usual goods brought 

 in larger and constant quantities, or for carrying for long distances at 

 a lower rate than for short distances. 



" * (c.) It would compel a company to carry for the same rate over 

 a line which has been very expensive in construction, or which, from 

 gradients or otherwise, is very expensive in working, at the same rate 

 at which it carries over less expensive lines. 



" ' In short, to impose equal mileage on the companies would be to 

 deprive the public of the benefit of much of the competition which 

 now exists, or has existed, to raise the charges on the public in many 

 cases where the companies now find it to their interest to lower them, 

 and to perpetuate monopolies in carriage, trade, and manufacture, in 

 favor of those rates and places which are nearest or least expensive, 

 "vv^here the varying charges of the companies now create competition. 

 And it will be found that the supporters of equal mileage, when 

 pressed, really mean, not that the rates they pay themselves are too 

 high, but that the rates that others pay are too low. Pressed by these 

 difiiculties the proposers of equal mileage have admitted that there 

 must be numerous exceptions, e. g., where there is sea competition (i. e., 

 at about three fifths of the railway-stations of the United Kingdom), 

 where low rates for long distances will bring a profit, or where the 

 article carried at low rates is a necessary, such as coal. It is scarcely 

 necessary to observe that exceptions such as these, while .inadequate 

 to meet all the various cases, destroy the value of equal mileage as a 

 principle, or the possibility of applying it as a general rule.' " * 



Tariffs of rates have, however, been established without discrimi- 

 nation, but their workings have shown that they were established with 

 as little discretion as discernment. An illustration of such a case is 

 afforded by the experience of Germany, the history of which is given 

 in the testimony before the committee on fares and rates of the Par- 

 liament of Great Britain above referred to. The Government, in con- 

 formity with its military spirit, which admits of only unquestioning 

 obedience to arbitrary orders, enforced on the railways a uniform and 

 unvarying system of charges. Uaving fixed the tariffs in its own 

 * Report to the Ilouse of Commons, Julj, 1882, p. ix. 



