124 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 



of the advisory commissions is no greater than the force of pubHc opinion and 

 pulilic opinion 'is Hkely to be inactive, except during seasons when the transpor- 

 tation- question is a main issue in the press or in poUtics, or some very special griev- 

 ance looms large in the public eye. 



IV. 



It is a common notion that in Great Britain the railways are effectually con- 

 trolled by the Board of Commissioners created in 1873, and vested with the powers 

 of jurisdiction exercised by the Court of Common Pleas under the old law (Act 

 of 1854). Mr. Stickney, in his new book on State Control of Trade and Com- 

 merce, declares that this Act is " amply sufficienl to redress any substantial injuries 

 done by common carriers to the public," and that in the field of private employ- 

 ments the growth of the law " has been from a condition of minute and annoying 

 restriction to one of complete freedom," while in the case of public carriers it " has 

 been from a condition of comparative freedom to one of complete and adequate 

 supervision and control." This conclusion will not bear investigation. It was the 

 judgment that I had reached from a study of the American books dealing with the 

 railway question, but even a perfunctory and inadequate study of the question on 

 the ground made it plain that the laws regulating common carriers are not as well 

 enforced in Great Britain as in the United States. The great British railway cor- 

 porations have enormous political and commercial power. There are now 140 rail- 

 way directors in the Imperial Parhament. The British railways support the Par- 

 liamentary bar^ they control influential organs of financial opinion, they keep a 

 strong hand upon the course of legislation, and they discriminate against the do- 

 mestic in favor of the foreign shipper to a degree that is intolerable. It seems to 

 be the fact that grain and other food products are carried from Calcutta or from 

 New York" to London for rates much lower than are charged on similar home 

 products from mid-England into the metropolis. The British agriculturist suffers 

 almost as seriously from railway discrimination as from hereditary landlordism, 

 and German and Belgian and American competition with British manufacturers 

 is greatly aggravated and materially promoted by the secret discriminations and 

 lower rates made for foreign competitors with British industries. 



V. 



There is combination to maintain domestic rates and open or secret competi- 

 tion for the carriage of foreign goods. This, in fact, seems to be a feature of railway 

 administration the world over. The policy of the railway m-anagers everj'where 

 is to enforce the maximum rate on home traffic, and to compete for foreign ship- 

 ments at any rate that may be necessary to secure the business. The subsidized 

 railways of Canada carry American goods at rates so much lower than the charges 

 exacted upon native products that in many cases the discrimination more than 

 offsets the advantages of the Canadian tariff. No doubt the result of this policy 

 is to increase the bulk earnings of the Canadian roads, and, it may be argued, en- 

 ables the companies to reduce the average of transportation charges. But the 

 inevitable tendency is to build up foreign rather than Canadian ports and foreign 

 rather than home industries, and to unduly burden local traffic in the interest of 

 through business. As between Germany or Belgium and Great Britain the effect is 

 peculiarly and particularly objectionable. The German and Belgian railroads are 

 owned and operated by the State. There are, therefore, no secret rates or discrim- 

 inations on the German and Belgian roads, and the embargo which British railways 

 put upon British trade is unknown within Germany and Belgium, and the British 

 manufacturer enjoys no such advantages in the German or Belgian market as the 

 German or Belgian manufacturer and trader enjoy in the market of Great Britain. 



