In the Railway and Canal Traffic Bill (1886) was also embodied a proposal to the effect that any person who was of opinion that a company was charging an unfair or unreasonable rate might make a complaint to the Board of Trade, who were to be entitled to call on the company for an explanation and to appoint one of their officers, or a competent person, to communicate with the company and the complainant, and to endeavour to settle the difference amicably between the parties. The Board of Trade were from time to time to submit to Parliament reports of the complaints so made, the results of their proceedings, and such observations as they should think fit. The effect of this provision would have been startling. Even where a rate was within a company’s powers--although undue preference was not alleged--at the instance of a trader desirous of obtaining a reduced rate which had been refused by a company and believing that either his own circumstances or those of other traders entitled him to communicate with the Board of Trade, the railway company would be called upon to prove to the Board of Trade that the claim of the trader ought not to be granted. It would be, in effect, litigation made easy and cheap, whether the complaint was good or bad. The President, Vice-President, Secretary, or Assistant-Secretary of the Board of Trade could not spare the time necessary to master the numerous difficult questions and details as to the rates.[97] Notwithstanding the great ability with which that department is conducted, these officials could not deal with such questions in the same way or within the same time as the traders and the representatives of the companies are able. The companies would probably be burthened with correspondence and discussions on matters already fully gone into in negotiation. The discussion would be necessarily carried on through subordinates or nominees of the Board of Trade, who, it is not presumptuous to say, would be neither interested in, nor specially trained to deal with, such questions. Suppose that the representatives of the Board of Trade and the railway companies disagreed as to the necessity or reasonableness of a reduction in rates, the former would have no authority to compel the companies to comply with their views. Would not the result probably be a cry that Parliamentary powers should be conferred on the Board of Trade to enforce their conclusions? Such a policy would in the end place the railway companies of the country, whose capital has entirely been raised by private enterprise, in a worse position than the railway companies in Holland where the State has done so much for them, or in France, where it has guaranteed the dividends.