TRANSPORT QUESTIONS 143 



The consideration thus arose whether the farmers could not 

 do something more to aggregate their supplies, and so secure 

 these advantages. There were the further questions of 

 markets and middlemen. A railway company could not 

 take on its own account a course that might interfere with 

 these interests, and thereby prejudice its own ; but if any 

 outside persons or agency would only take action with regard 

 to these matters, the Great Western Company, with its 

 large staff of servants, would be able to afford very valuable 

 assistance ; and he could assure them that the directors 

 of the company would willingly discuss at any time any 

 proposals put forward for dealing with these problems. 

 Lord Jersey, who was among those taking part in the dis- 

 cussion, remarked that " a railway company might offer 

 the greatest advantages, but these would not be of much 

 use unless the producer did something to help himself." 



The company followed up this gathering by sending 

 officers into the principal agricultural districts served by the 

 Great Western system in order both to enquire closely into 

 the particular directions in which the agriculturists thought 

 that further co-operation would be of value and to bring 

 prominently to their notice the fact that, by adopting 

 combination instead of acting independently, they might 

 frequently obtain the advantage of rates for grouped 

 consignments lower than those they were actually paying. 



The London and North Western Railway Company did 

 not hold a formal conference in London, as the companies 

 already mentioned had done, but it sent, in this same year 

 (1896), representatives to interview personally something 

 like 1,000 farmers having farms contiguous to their railway 

 and to explain to them how, by combining and sending 

 their commodities in bulk, they could already obtain the 

 lower rates they desired. Commenting on this fact at a 

 meeting of the Newport (Salop) and District Agricultural 

 Trading Society on February 9th, 1905 — presided over by 

 the Duke of Sutherland, and attended, also, by the Secretary 

 of the A. O. S. — Mr. Frank Ree, then the chief goods 

 manager and now general manager of the London and North 



