208 TRANSPORT QUESTIONS 



hardly be possible to make up here the very consider- 

 able quantities that are handled there, even if it were 

 thought desirable to keep back the home produce so that 

 substantial consignments could be gathered together, 

 instead of sending to market in smaller and more fre- 

 quent lots. 



In the next place, it does not follow that so large 

 a proportion of the British produce would go to one 

 great centre London, Manchester, or Glasgow for 

 distribution, as is necessarily the case with the imported 

 produce. In the United Kingdom, as I have already 

 shown, the tendency is more and more to consign home- 

 grown produce direct from the point of production to 

 the town where the commodity will be consumed. The 

 Southern and Western counties may still consign 

 mainly to London, and, as I have also said, large 

 quantities will more especially be received there by 

 road from places within the fifteen or twenty mile 

 radius, so that here transport by rail is not resorted 

 to at all. But Midland, Eastern, and Northern centres 

 prefer, mainly, to be their own distributors, instead of 

 leaving that part of the business to be done entirely 

 by London. 



This point was well brought out by Mr. O. R. H. 

 Bury, General Manager of the Great Northern Railway 

 Company, in the evidence he gave before the Depart- 

 mental Committee on the carriage of agricultural 

 produce. Replying to a complaint made by Mr. Dennis 

 that he could not get any lower rates for very large 

 quantities of potatoes, Mr. Bury said : 



Mr. Dennis has a large potato traffic from Kirton Station ; but 

 I find that, although he sent, during the year 1904, 1,993 waggons 

 of traffic, containing 6,657 tons an average of 3 tons 6 cwts. 3 qrs. 

 on a waggon he consigned to 250 different stations. Obviously, 

 there is no advantage in that. If he is to come and talk about his 

 very big loads, they must go to the same place. 



