THE COMMITTEE AND ACT OF 1 894 27 I 



1893, the companies set aside this understanding, and 

 generally imposed the full maximum rates, making 

 enormous increases in many instances. This course was 

 emphatically condemned by the Select Committee, who 

 also, in dealing with the modified claim of the companies 

 to an increase limited to 5 per cent, over the rates current 

 in 1892, reported that " It was not the intention of Parlia- 

 ment, that the companies should raise their non-competi- 

 tive actual rates, even by 5 per cent, all round, for the 

 purpose of recouping themselves for the reductions of 

 other rates, which Parliament has pronounced to be 

 unjust and unreasonable." 



Evidence given before the Committee showed that, 

 even with the revision limiting the increases in most 

 cases to 5 per cent, the result on the Great Western 

 line was that the Company were raising the rates on 

 some traders by ^^94,000 a year, in order to recoup itself 

 for reductions to other traders to the amount of ;!f 80,000 

 a year, and thus making a net gain of ;^i4,ooo a year on 

 the previous total amount of receipts. 



The general effect, therefore, of the Act of 1888, and 

 the subsequent proceedings of the Board of Trade and 

 Parliament in pursuance of that Act, had been, while 

 giving to traders certain advantages in the simplification 

 and systematising of rates, to enable the companies to 

 increase their rates, and to give those increased rates a 

 legal validity which they had not under previous legisla- 

 tion. In the opinion of the Committee, the effect of 

 section 24, sub-section 20, of the Act of 1888, to wit: 

 " That the rates and charges mentioned in a provisional 

 order to be framed in accordance with the Act and con- 

 firmed by Parliament shall, from and after this Act 

 comes into operation, be the rates and charges which 

 the railway companies shall be entitled to charge and 

 make," whether it was fully contemplated by the Board 

 of Trade-and Parliament, during the passing of this Act, 

 or not, was to clear up any doubts as to the meaning of 

 the Act of 1845, 3.nd to make it certain that no rate 

 thenceforward could be questioned at law if within the 

 maximum allowed by the Provisional Orders of 1891 



