264 AGRICULTURAL DEPRESSION 



offer for hay had to be refused because the lowest rate 

 to Wickham Market was ^i per ton. 



Mr Dewar, a successful Scotch settler in Norfolk, 

 points out that it would be a great advantage to be able 

 to sell off straw and bring back town manure at low 

 rates. If the rate for town manure in his district was 

 reduced from its present amount (7s 6d) to 3s 6d, a large 

 quantity would be taken. 



Farmers in Lincolnshire were compelled to send 

 cattle by road at is a head into Leicestershire because 

 the rate was 3s to 4s. 



From Forfarshire to Worcestershire a bull cost £6 15s 

 (while it would only cost £\ 4s to bring one all the way 

 from Canada), and a loose box for sporting dogs only 

 cost ^^5. 



In Lancashire, the rates on manure brought from towns 

 were so high as to prevent its free use. The railway 

 charges quoted were double or three times the price of 

 the manure. 



The prohibitive character of some rates was intensified 

 where there was no competing route. Districts which 

 most need cheap access to markets were placed at a 

 great disadvantage as compared with coast towns. 



Mr Pringle reports a general feeling in the South Mid- 

 lands that the railways were using their powers unduly 

 to extort from farmers rates excessive in themselves, and 

 wholly disproportioned between long and short distances. 

 The rates on corn from Cardiff to Birmingham, no 

 miles, are 8s 4d a ton, while from Cambridge, the same 

 distance, the rate is 12s 6d ; and from Isham, sixty miles, 

 the rate is 8s 4d, the same as from Cardiff. 



The rates on beasts and sheep, which were raised 

 twenty-two years ago, were raised in 1 892 very largely 

 by the new truck rate. Thus, before 1872, the rate per 

 beast from Welton to London was 3s 9d, was raised 

 then to 4s 9d and in 1892 to 7s i|d. " Now we have to 

 run by truck rate, and if we have an odd three after 

 filling our waggon we have to pay extra. Load the 

 waggons ever so tightly, it costs us is over the old rate 

 per bullock." 



