34-O History of Inland Transport 



With regard to a uniform classification, the Commissioners 

 recommended the adoption, with certain slight changes, of the 

 existing Clearing House classification. 



There is no need to record here, in detail, the exhaustive 

 nature of the inquiries, protests, rejoinders, discussions and 

 controversies to which the preparation of the new schedules 

 led. Suffice it to say that these and the revised classification 

 were eventually embodied in a series of Railway Rates and 

 Charges Orders Confirmation Acts which, as applying to the 

 different companies, either individually or in groups, were 

 passed in the Sessions of 1891 and 1892, and came into opera- 

 tion on January i, 1893. Under these Acts the scales of 

 charges are divided into six parts, viz. : (i) goods and minerals, 

 (2) animals, (3) carriages, (4) exceptional, (5) perishable com- 

 modities by passenger train, and (6) small parcels by mer- 

 chandise train. Each rate is made up of two parts convey- 

 ance and terminals. The conveyance scales for all companies 

 are as near alike as circumstances will allow, and the maximum 

 terminals (station terminal at each end and service terminals 

 in respect to loading, unloading, covering and uncovering) 

 are common to all the Confirmation Acts. 



Sir Henry Oakley, who was at this time acting as secretary 

 of the Railway Companies' Association, declared concerning 

 the new conditions thus brought about in regard to the bases 

 of railway rates and charges that " practically they amounted 

 to a revolution." The maximum powers were reduced almost 

 universally ; the classifications of the companies' own Acts 

 were abolished, and a new and uniform one substituted ; 

 various new scales were introduced ; the obligation was now 

 for the first time thrown upon the companies of carrying 

 perishables by passenger train ; and a new system of calcu- 

 lating rates was established. " It was not," said Sir Henry, 

 " so much per mile for any distance beyond six miles, as it 

 was in the original Acts, but for the first twenty miles a certain 

 rate, for the next thirty miles a certain less rate, and for the 

 next fifty miles a still further reduction, the effect being 

 that, by that mode of calculating, the longer the distance the 

 goods were carried the less the average rate per mile that was 

 to be charged." 



Within a very short time, however, of the new rates coming 

 into force, there were louder and more vehement protests 



