such reasonable prices as would not otherwise be possible. “To move is practically to produce,” at least it often is so. The consumer desires that commodities and materials should be conveyed from places where they are produced cheaply or are abundant, to places where they are more in demand; that coal, for instance, should go to districts where there is ore without fuel available for smelting; that timber, or excellent building stone, should be conveyed to great cities; and that the small value of many raw materials, rendering it impossible for them to bear more than the lowest rate of carriage, should not prevent their being conveyed. This demand, also, the railway companies have satisfied by charging rates not always exactly varying with the distance. Writing of the marvellous effects of railways, the late Mr. Newmarch, in his edition of “Tooke’s History of Prices,” says: “Among their greatest achievements are the opening up of new fields of supply, and the deepening of old channels of consumption. They have brought into profitable use mines, forests, quarries, arable and grazing districts, fisheries, harbours, and rivers, previously inaccessible. The produce arising from these various and numerous sources is so much additional wealth placed at the command of the community.”[28] Had equal mileage rates been universally enforced many of those new sources of supply would still be useless; the articles would not bear the cost of transport. [28] Vol. 5, p. 376. At any given time in a particular market there is a certain price which an article such as milk, wheat, or iron will fetch. Assuming that price to be 30s., the cost of production 20s., the rate of conveyance 3d. a mile, A, B, C, D, to be four places, each 10 miles distant from each other on the same railway, and each capable of producing an “output” of 500 tons. The article can be economically conveyed no further than (10 x 12) / 3 = 40 miles, that is from D. In such circumstances consumers will have an available supply of 2,000 tons. Producers at A, 10 miles distant, will pay for transport 2s. 6d.; those at B, 5s., and so on. Those at A, B, and C, 10, 20, 30 miles distant, will possess a considerable advantage over producers at D, the place 40 miles distant. This superiority would be retained by those who have long leases; but in course of time, by the action of competition, rents would rise, and the advantage would tend to pass to the owners of the land at A, B and C. What would be the result, if a railway company, desirous of enlarging its traffic, established lower rates (say 2d. a mile) to E and F, places on the same line, also 10 miles apart, and equally capable of producing an “output” of 500 tons? The particular article might now be conveyed from F, 60 miles distant. The consumer would benefit; his available supply would now be 3,000 tons. In practice this might be an understatement of the gain to him, for the result