PROHIBITIVE AND UNEQUAL RATES 263 



J 



replies that without " passenger service " the milk traffic 

 would not extend beyond thirty miles from London. 



In Ayrshire, dairy farmers are paying as much as one- 

 third of their rent for carriage of milk alone.^ Mr Cooke, 

 a Cheshire farmer, complains that the rate on milk is 

 13 per cent, and on skim milk 33 per cent, of its value. 



In Leicestershire, the railways have substantially gone 

 back to the 1892 rates, but would have raised them 50 

 per cent, but for the agitation. 



Mr Adams, a Berkshire farmer, says the produce of 

 one cow out of seven has to go to pay the Great Western 

 Railway. And " farmers have to agree not to hold the 

 company responsible for milk spilled, or not delivered," 

 and have now to pay on "empties" which formerly 

 came back free.^ 



Mr Reynolds says the milk trade is crippled by these 

 conditions. 



Mr Carrington Smith shows that rates have been 

 indirectly increased by 6| per cent., by charging on the 

 imperial instead of the barn gallon. 



Mr Spencer: "The milk rate from Wootton Bassett 

 to Paddington has been increased by id to i|d per 

 gallon. On the amount sent from that station alone 

 this would mean an increased cost per annum of 

 ;i^3i9 7s 8d falling on the senders." 



On such figures as these, it may well be considered 

 whether such an increase in the gross revenue of a 

 company, from one out of many rural stations, does not 

 greatly exceed any increase in cost of services which can 

 be alleged as a reason, and whether this is not an 

 instance of an attempt to recoup the company, out of a 

 traffic specially at the mercy of railways, for reductions 

 enforced on other classes of traffic. 



Many complaints are made that railway rates are in 

 some cases " practically prohibitive," and destructive 

 of traffic: 



In Norfolk, farmers say they are debarred from selling 

 hay and roots by heavy rates to good markets. An 



' Speir, Ayrshire, p. 36. 

 * Rew, Norfolk, p. 71- 



