The chief question is, What rates will at once yield a fair return on the capital of railways and best accommodate and develop the trade of the country? The early Acts provided that they should be fixed according to mileage. This, as we have seen, was altered by s. 90 of the Railway Clauses Act 1845. Are railway companies no longer to carry out the provision of that Act, and continue to charge rates “so as to accommodate them to the circumstances of the traffic?” That principle has guided them for forty years, and certainly ought not to be altered without good cause and full consideration. Instead of merely inveighing against the present mode of fixing rates as unscientific, those who are dissatisfied should explicitly state what mode they would substitute, and make clear by full explanation that it would be at once fair to the companies, and not injurious to the trade of the country. To charge according to actual cost of conveyance, or on a strictly mileage basis, has been shown to be impracticable and impolitic. What other modes can be suggested? If the mode of fixing rates adopted in France, Holland, Belgium and Germany--systems which differ from each other--are suited to those countries they would be inapplicable here. In practice they have to be modified. In Holland, for instance, the theory is mileage rates, but the greater portion of the traffic conveyed by railways is, in fact, carried on under special contracts wholly inconsistent with the principle upon which the railway rate system is nominally based, which, if imitated in this country, would afford continuous occupation for the Railway Commissioners. The main complaint against the English companies is that they so charge differential rates as to encourage foreign competition. The effect of these rates is apt to be overestimated or misunderstood. The benefits which the manufacturers derive from the low export rates--based upon exactly the same principle--are entirely ignored. It may be a matter of doubt whether it has been prudent on the part of railway companies to consent to some of the import rates complained of. Indeed, this doubt may be entertained, even if there is no substantial grievance, and it may be desirable that Parliament or the Board of Trade should institute an inquiry into the subject, which affects not only the interests of railway companies, agriculturists, and manufacturers, but also those of consumers, steamboat proprietors, merchants, and sea-ports.