i8o 



Railway Charges in Italy. 



[JUNE, 



The cultivation of fruits, flowers, and vegetables forms an 

 important branch of agriculture in the Southern Departments 



farm crops. Recently, however, there has been some decline 

 in the exportation of table fruits to Great Britain, Germany, 

 and Belgium, and attention is drawn in a Report* by M. Foex, 

 Inspector-General of Agriculture, presented to the Societe 

 Nationale d'Encouragement a l'Agriculture, to the influence on 

 this trade of the favourable rates accorded by the Italian railways 

 to the export of fruit and vegetables from that country. The 

 facilities thus enjoyed, and also the advantages granted to this 

 traffic by the German, French, and Belgian railways, place, it 

 is contended, French exporters and producers in an inferior 

 position to their Italian rivals. 



• The position of Italy in the export trade is due, M. Foex 

 states, not so much to circumstances favourable to production 

 or to any superiority in the products as to the organisation 

 and cheap rates for transport by railway. Perhaps the most 

 important point is the system of accelerated goods traffic, 

 which is nearly as fast as the express service. At the same 

 time the charges are materially reduced for waggon loads of 

 not less than 4 ^tons, with further reductions for additional 

 tonnage up to the capacity of the truck. The company also 

 allow a discount according to the number of waggons used 

 by the same consignee annually : thus for a minimum of fifty 

 waggons a discount of 4 per cent, is given, while for 1,000 

 waggons as much as 9 per cent, is allowed. Special rates are 

 also made for contracts for the use of 1,500 waggons annually. 

 The necessity for sending consignments of not less than 4 tons,, 

 which might be difficult in some cases, as for example early 

 vegetables, is got over by the fact that a waggon carrying goods 

 of the same class is allowed to load at three stations, provided 

 the full tonnage is paid for at the starting place. The tariff is 

 applied to food products generally (fruits, fresh vegetables, milk,, 

 cattle, eggs, cheese, meat, fish, &c), and the simplicity of this 



Railway Charges 

 in Italy. 



of France, and its development has to 

 some extent enabled growers to escape 

 the depression which has affected other 



* Appendix to the Report on the French Budget of 1905. 



