Suppose a Bill were before Parliament for the construction of a railway, and a clause requiring that the mileage rates should cover the cost of terminal accommodation were inserted, and the promoters accepted the Bill with such a restriction. The construction of a station at the terminus of the railway in a large town is very costly, and it would be to the interest of the company to make the station outside the town where land and works would be cheap. They would thus save capital upon which they would obtain no return, and, at the same time, they would be entitled to charge the public the full cost of cartage, whatever the amount might be. The Great Western Company, for instance, might have constructed their terminus at Wormwood Scrubs--from which place the cost of cartage to the City would probably be 7s. 6d. per ton, which the public would have to pay. With the view of affording better accommodation and of reducing the expense of cartage, they have erected a station under Smithfield Market, at a cost, in interest on outlay, maintenance, and other terminal expenses of an average of 3s. 8d. per ton. According to the opponents of terminal charges the Great Western Company are only entitled to be paid a mileage rate proportional to the distance from Wormwood Scrubs to Smithfield, that is, as for seven miles, to cover the use of the railway and the station. To take other illustrations, could it be supposed that the London and North Western Railway Company would have spent several millions of capital in providing expensive station accommodation in the immediate vicinity of the Docks in Liverpool, instead of receiving and delivering the traffic at Edge Hill, or that companies would have constructed vast stations in London, Manchester, Leeds, and many other important places, unless the cost was to be covered by payments in addition to the mileage rates? So inequitable and opposed to the real interests of traders is this contention that it is difficult to understand how it could ever be put forward. One of the allegations before the Railway Rates Committee in 1881-2, was, that the companies carried some traffic at too low rates, and, to compensate themselves, imposed higher rates than otherwise would be necessary on other traffic. Now, if railway companies were not allowed to charge for terminal accommodation and services, one effect would be that in consequence of the cost of the construction and the expenses of stations, short distance traffic would be actually carried at a loss. In recent years terminal charges have been recognised in every Act for the construction of new railways, by the introduction of a clause of which the following is a copy:-- “No station shall be considered a terminal station in regard to any goods conveyed on the Railway, unless such goods have been received thereat direct from the consignor, or are directed to be delivered thereat to the consignee.”