half of the whole amount available for the home supply- 

 is carried by railway to the internal markets of the United 

 Kingdom. 



If I have made these figures at all intelligible to you, 

 you will at once see the extreme importance of the ques- 

 tion of fish transit by railway. Of course the railways 

 charge various rates for the carriage of fish. I believe I 

 am right in saying that in some cases as much as from 

 ;^9 to ;^ lo a ton is charged for the carriage of fish to 

 Billingsgate from the north of Scotland, while if you come 

 nearer to our own coasts, probably about ;^ 2 los. a ton on 

 an average is charged for the carriage of fish to Billingsgate. 

 A railway rate of ^ lO a ton is equivalent to a charge of 

 very nearly id. on each pound of fish which reaches our 

 markets ; a railway rate of ^2 los. a. ton would be equivalent 

 to a charge of about one farthing a pound. Of course we 

 are all interested in the provision of cheap fish. We are 

 many of us in the habit of complaining that fish is dear, 

 but I think that most of us have, perhaps, omitted to 

 recollect that from one farthing to a penny on every pound 

 of fish goes into the pockets of the railway companies of 

 this country. If this charge be legitimate, and not ex- 

 cessive, of course nothing further need be said about the 

 matter ; the railways, on the contrary, are discharging an 

 admittedly useful function in distributing this large quan- 

 tity of food to the consumers, which could not by any 

 possibility reach the market without their intervention. 

 But there is a general feeling amongst many people that 

 these rates are not moderate, and that they could not 

 be charged if the railway companies were exposed to 

 anything like healthy competition. I see that in the 

 current number of the 'Nineteenth Century' Mr. PlimsoU 

 has contrasted incidentally the rates charged by railway 



