Railway Rates and Charges 337 



The original classification of goods for transport was of the 

 most primitive kind. In the canal companies Acts the 

 authorised tolls and charges were generally specified in respect 

 to only about a dozen different articles. The early railway 

 Acts followed the canal precedent in so far that each of them 

 contained a classification of the goods expected to go by rail, 

 the main difference being that the list given in the railway 

 Acts generally comprised from forty to sixty articles, divided 

 into five or six groups. 



As the railways extended, and began to deal with the great 

 bulk of the commerce of the country, these original lists were 

 found to be hopelessly crude and inadequate, and one of the 

 duties undertaken by the Railway Clearing House, first set 

 up in 1847 and incorporated by an Act of 1850, was the pre- 

 paration of what became known as the Clearing House 

 classification a work required in the interests equally of the 

 railways and of the traders. At the outset the Clearing House 

 classification comprised about 300 articles. By 1852 the 

 number had increased to 700, and in 1864 it had further 

 expanded to 1300. 



The Royal Commission of 1865 recommended that the new 

 and improved classification thus compiled and put into 

 operation by the companies themselves should be the basis 

 of the classification imposed by the special railway Acts. The 

 Committee pointed out that the rates authorised by Parliament 

 were no longer necessarily an indication of the charges actually 

 made in practice since these charges depended, not on the 

 classifications in the companies' Acts, but on the Clearing House 

 classification, by reason of which they were often lower than 

 the statutory maxima. The Committee regarded the classifi- 

 cation of the private Acts as defective and inharmonious, 

 and they advised that the Clearing House classification should 

 be enacted by some general Act which might be adopted in 

 the private Acts by reference. The Joint Select Committee 

 of 1872 also advised the adoption of a uniform classification ; 

 but it was not until the passing of the Railway and Canal 

 Traffic Act of 1888 that the recommendation was carried out. 

 This Act of 1888 was, in part, the outcome of reasonable 

 dissatisfaction among the traders. 



In the absence, from the outset, of any real and effective 

 system for the organisation of railways in accordance with 



