Another proposal of a somewhat similar character is, that the Railway Commissioners, or some other special tribunal, should fix the rates. Were a Court for the control of rates established with the consent of all concerned, there would remain the question on what principle are the rates to be framed? Are they to be according to equal mileage, or, if not, in what other manner? What better mode can be suggested than the past practice, which, as has been shewn, has been beneficial to the community? Nor is it easy to understand how any Court could fix all the incalculable number of rates, and hear and determine all the practical questions certain to arise. Even if a trifling proportion of the rates were fixed in this manner, and the task in those cases were performed, with reference to all the many circumstances now governing rates, complications and difficulties must arise, and the Court would be placed in a position of great, if not insurmountable, difficulty. So many anomalies must be authorised that it would be impracticable for the Court to decide consistently with precedents. In all probability the control would either become nominal, or the whole system would have to be recast. Nor must the serious loss of time by the staff of railways in attending to such inquiries, and the consequent diminution of the efficiency of their work in the actual regulation and conduct of railway traffic be lost sight of. The costliness of inquiries before such a Court is a secondary, but not an unimportant, matter. In the hope of obtaining reduced rates, or of compelling a company to raise the rates of a competitor in trade, or to raise the rates to and from competing ports, some traders and merchants, separately or combined, might risk the expense of applications to such a Court.[92] But the general interest could not be promoted by the creation of any such arbitrary and anomalous Court. [92] In the case of the application of the North Wales Colliery proprietors to the Railway Commissioners against the Great Western Railway Company, on the ground that they charged coal from South Wales to Birkenhead, 159 miles, at the rate of ·454d. per ton per mile, as against ·893d. per ton per mile for their coal for 28 miles, the expense incurred by the Great Western Company, exclusive of the time occupied by their own staff, was £1,433; and the time which was taken up in preparing for, and in attending, the hearing was very serious.