Special import rates have been much more attacked; but when the principle is fairly carried out, they are no less defensible than export rates. Most of the objections to them come, it will be found, from persons who believe that they have a vested interest in certain produce and trades; often they are assailed by the very persons who are the defenders of reduced export rates. The majority of special import rates naturally arise out of sea competition. The existence of the import rates for fresh meat and provisions from Liverpool and Bristol to London, which have been especially condemned, is due, not, as is assumed, to the arbitrary action of companies, but to the demands and necessities of traders. Those who are interested in the trade of Liverpool, the great seat of the American trade, and in the steamers sailing between America and Liverpool, desire to compete with the direct sea communication with London, or with other ports near to it. In like manner the shipping companies and others who are interested in the trade of Southampton claim special rates and facilities in favour of that port. Naturally they wish that a part of the traffic should go _viâ_ Southampton; and a compliance with their wish benefits the public. Special import rates are not charged on foreign goods merely because they are foreign; the chief, though not the only, explanation of their existence, is the desire of steamboat companies and merchants that a part of the goods consumed in other places may be carried through the port in which they are interested, instead of the goods being all sent through ports nearer to or direct to the ultimate destination. The railways have, in fact, complied with urgent local demands.