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bol (61909D-yen1013A adı dtiv, nojtarinayos, lulag 115 2. Chassifigation of Rates, Maximum sales, and

Terminal Charges.

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It

remembered ́that,'" in "1883-84, Mr. Chamberlain proposed to recognize the legulity of terminal charges, and to use this concession as a means of compelling the railway Companies to make a new and fair classification of rates. But as at that time the decision of the railway Companies had been adverse to the legality of terminals, the Bill was stoutly opposed, and was dropped.

In 1885 the Companies themselves brought forward Bills containing the new classification and clauses as to terminals. But they were received with universal disapproval, and went no further.

Since that time a very important decision has been given in the Courts affirming the legality of terminal charges, and the Attorney-General tells me that there is no doubt of the decision being upheld. This seriously affects the contention of the traders, and makes legislation in some respects more difficult, because we no longer have a bribe to offer to the railway Companies to induce them to agree to other changes. But that these charges should be fixed upon a fair and equitable basis is of the greatest and most urgent importance. The railway Companies have failed in it. The Board of Trade cannot do it. There remains then only the Railway Commission, and I propose that the railway Companies shall, either collectively or individually, within the next twelve months, propose classifica- tions of rates, that the Railway Commissioners shall hear and determine objections, and that the scale as arranged by them shall be embodied in a provisional scheme to be laid upon the table of both Houses of Parliament.

3. Undue Preference.

The mode of dealing with the preferential rates charged by railway Companies raises questions of immense difficulty, commercial as well as legal. So great are they, that the Royal Commission on Agriculture and the majority of the Committee on Railway Rates did not see their way to make any proposal with reference to it.

Upon this point I will only say that a very

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