150 AGRICULTURAL ORGANISATION 



how, by means of combination for the sending of large, in 

 place of a series of small, consignments, material savings 

 might be effected on the basis of existing railway rates, apart 

 from any question of appealing to the railway companies 

 for further concessions. 



SAVINGS ON RAIL TRANSPORT. 



Many examples of the economies possible in these 

 directions came under notice. 



Reference has already been made, on pp. 143-4, to the 

 meeting of the Newport (Salop) and District Agricultural 

 Co-operative Trading Society on February gth, 1905, at 

 which the present general manager of the London and North 

 Western Railway was one of the speakers. In addition to 

 the matters mentioned as having been touched by him on 

 this occasion, Mr. Ree further stated, on the subject of 

 railway rates for agricultural produce, that a table which 

 had been prepared by his company, giving details as to the 

 traffic in the Newport district and the actual rates paid 

 per consignment by the farmers, showed that, under the 

 conditions then existing, over 80 per cent, of the consign- 

 ments were carried at the higher rates on the company's 

 rate books, and only 20 per cent, at the lower. By means of 

 combination, in order that consignments could be sent in 

 large quantities coming within the range of these lower 

 rates, the small farmers who were members of that society 

 could save something like 19 per cent, on their payments 

 for rail transport. 



In the issue of Co-operation for October, 1910, reference 

 was made to the fact that the 90 members of an agricultural 

 co-operative society had been found to be sending each 

 his own particular lot of produce to one and the same 

 market. Such individual consignments generally averaged 

 about half a ton, the charge for which, at the rate of 95. 2d. 

 per ton, was 45. jd. There was, however, a special rate of 

 6s. 3^. per ton for consignments of not less than 4 tons, and 

 it was shown that if eight growers each put his half-ton lot 



