of inquiry, Chambers of Commerce and other persons professing to represent trades refused to avail themselves of the opportunity, and prevented the investigation taking place. English railway companies need not dread a thorough examination of their working, or a comparison with any foreign system. They need be apprehensive only of a vague uninstructed notion that “something must be done;” of legislation adopted, if not in a panic, in a time of greatly depressed trade; of crude one-sided proposals made on behalf of a part of the interests concerned by persons who have not sufficiently examined and considered all the consequences of their schemes; and of the application of a standard of perfection supposed to exist somewhere, but in truth nowhere realized. [1] Mr. Forwood. Debate on second reading of Railway and Canal Traffic Bill, 6th May, 1886. Hansard, vol. cccv. 446. The continued depression of trade, the necessary efforts to reduce the cost of production, jealousy of foreign competition, misapprehensions fostered by agitation, as to the commercial effects of “special,” “import,” and “transit” rates, have given birth to vague, ill-considered proposals, some of which would be certain to injure the cause which their authors have most at heart. One point is at the outset very clear--the inconsistent nature of many of the charges made against railway companies. Within the last twenty years such complaints have been the subject of three elaborate inquiries before Royal Commissions or Parliamentary Committees[2]. Before all of them were submitted proposals completely at variance with each other. With equal emphasis railways are now asked to satisfy contradictory demands; and to a large extent the multifarious charges made against them answer or cancel each other. Many traders demand the very opposite of what is a necessity to others, and of what consumers, naturally anxious to enlarge the field of supply, earnestly desire. Some of the former complain, for example, in language which seems borrowed from mediæval times, that their “geographical” or “natural advantages” are diminished. Other traders blame railway companies for not sufficiently effacing natural disadvantages, and not offering inducements for the development of trade in new districts. Exporters want favourable terms; importers do the same; and another class protests against concessions either in favour of exports or imports. It is a remarkable fact that many of the proposals which were most in fashion a few years ago have now been abandoned, and that in Parliament and the Press we now hear chiefly of schemes totally different from those which were formerly supported. Equal mileage rates were once strongly advocated; and, probably owing to the great success of the Penny Post and to the experiences of the advantages of one uniform rate for all distances, there was a belief in some minds that, with certain modifications, the same principle might be applied to rates for goods.