224 TRANSPORT QUESTIONS 



rates, and what does, or may, then happen is this : 

 Under Section 33, Sub-section 6, of the Railway and 

 Canal Traffic Act, 1888, a railway company which pro- 

 poses to increase a rate ' shall give, by publication in 

 such manner as the Board of Trade may prescribe, at 

 least fourteen days' notice of such intended increase, 

 stating in such notice the date on which the altered 

 rate or charge is to take effect '; while under the Rail- 

 way and Canal Traffic Act, 1894, it is provided that the 

 Railway and Canal Commissioners shall have jurisdic- 

 tion to prevent any increase at all, unless they are 

 satisfied by the railway company that the increase of 

 rate is reasonable. Accepting, for the sake of argu- 

 ment, the certainly impracticable theory that there 

 should be a sliding scale for railway rates based on 

 market prices, the companies are free agents only as 

 regards reductions. Hence they must be especially 

 careful in the changes they make, however willing they 

 might be to grant concessions intended to be ' tem- 

 porary ' only ; and hence, also, it happens that an 

 enactment intended to protect the trader may actually 

 operate to his disadvantage. 



2. The question of ' owner's risk ' is, undoubtedly, 

 regarded by many of the growers and traders as a 

 serious grievance, and one hears far more about this 

 matter than one does concerning the amount of the 

 rates themselves. Here, again, it is impossible not to 

 sympathize with the trader who has lost his market, or 

 suffered other disadvantage, from one cause or another, 

 and finds he can get no redress. But the question is 

 one on which there is something to be said on both sides. 

 The position was thus summed up by Mr. Hennell in 

 the evidence he gave on behalf of the Clearing House 

 Committee before the Departmental Committee on 

 Fruit Industry : ' They [the traders] get a lower rate 



