CONFERENCE ON FRUIT GROWING. 



57 



immense power which it places in their hands, some official (as suggested 

 by the Departmental Committee) or a Department should be charged with 

 the duty of watching over their proceedings and reporting to Parliament 

 thereon. 



The " Conciliation Clause " of the Act of 1888 has been referred to as 

 having furnished a means whereby a certain proportion of complaints 

 made under the clause were satisfactorily settled. Agricultural complain- 

 ants are, however, at a disadvantage in discussing such matters with the 

 expert representatives of the railway companies, and it is very desirable 

 that the Department specially charged with the care of their interests 

 should be empowered, if necessary, to assist them to formulate and present 

 their complaints. 



However much may be effected by negotiation, it is certain that some 

 questions must remain for determination by the Railway Commissioners, 

 but no fruit grower could afford the luxury of a contest before that tribunal, 

 and the proper course of action would appear to be to empower the Board 

 of Agriculture and Fisheries, as the Board of Agriculture in Ireland has 

 been empowered, to act as prosecutors on behalf of agriculturists in that 

 Court. 



Finally, no individual should be subjected to injustice by reason of 

 the powers possessed by railway companies. Their present maximum 

 powers were shown by the proceedings of 1893 to be too high to afford 

 any protection to traders. There should be a right of appeal against any 

 rate deemed to be unreasonable, instead of an appeal only where a rate 

 has been increased, or where it is unduly preferential. 



One thing I strongly object to in the report of the Departmental 

 Committee is where it is said that it is desirable that railway companies 

 should provide special waggons for the carriage of our goods. I strongly 

 protest against any such statement. It is the very thing railway companies 

 want. If they can only get you to ask for something which they will give 

 you, you are in their hands for ever. You will not be able to get the rates 

 reduced if they provide such waggons. We want no accommodation or 

 consideration in any way for our business other than cheap and quick 

 transit. If we get quick transit the fruit won't be in the waggons long 

 enough to come to any danger, and in the ordinary goods waggons I have 

 never known fruit, except there has been extraordinary delay, to be damaged 

 through transit, where boxes are used, and where the waggons are ventilated 

 at both ends. This is only a matter of one or two pounds per waggon. 

 The other thing I wish to specially refer to is why we should not have 

 cheaper rates all round for British-grown fruit. We want no special 

 station accommodation. We load up our fruit at country stations where 

 we unload manure waggons, and mainly with our own hands. The fruit 

 has to be loaded in one or two hours, the trains collect the fruit at a few 

 stations, and so are only run in about a couple of hqurs before they set 

 out. There is no station accommodation required other than the ordinary 

 siding, and no shed or grain warehouse is needed. 



I have looked out a few items for comparison. The bulk of common fruit 

 is carried in Class 2. We have to begin the fight over again, and we should 

 be able to get the bulk of common fruit carried in Class 1. If you take 

 grain and flour, the rate for flour, over a distance of 144 miles in two- 



