In France only small charges varying from 20 cents. per ton for goods in full truck loads, to 35 cents. per ton for goods in less quantities, are made for the use of stations, though there are various charges for loading and unloading, booking, advice of arrival, and other services. Either, therefore, the traffic for short distances is carried at a loss, or no adequate return to cover the use of station and conveyance is obtained--a course, which, assuming the outlay upon a railway is entitled to a fair return, is opposed to sound commercial principles.[46] [46] NOTE.--The terminals authorised and charged in these countries will be found fully set out in a tabular form in the Appendix III. SECTION XII. THE CONSTRUCTION OF RAILWAYS IN ENGLAND AND ON THE CONTINENT. Sometimes it is asserted, although it is more often taken for granted, that all railway rates on the Continent are more favourable to traders than English rates. Upon this assumption is based the contention that the reduction of the latter may fairly be demanded. Whenever such statements have been carefully examined--_e.g._ in the inquiry before the Joint Committee of 1872--they have been proved to be erroneous. Nevertheless, they are still constantly repeated. More than once it has been publicly stated that in Germany, Holland, Belgium, &c., “rates are fixed on a scientific basis, and an intelligible principle,” while in this country they are “haphazard and estimates.” Seldom is there any attempt to make good such assertions and criticisms. The report made by Sir Bernhard Samuelson to the President of the Association of the Chambers of Commerce of the United Kingdom on the “Railway Goods Tariffs of Germany, Belgium, and Holland, compared with those of this country” is an exception, and on that account is specially important. That report endeavours to prove by figures that rates in this country are excessive. It has been cited--though, probably, such was not the intention of the author--as if it were an indictment of English railways; and the purport of it is to show that English rates ought to be reduced, and that, unlike the rates on the Continent they are fixed on no proper basis. Now, even if the difference between English and Continental rates were as great as Sir B. Samuelson describes, no inference unfavourable to English railways could be fairly drawn. No comparison could be useful which did not take into account the fact that railways in Great Britain have been constructed with private capital subscribed and expended on the faith of definite powers conferred on the companies by Parliament. Sir Bernhard Samuelson, however, passes lightly over the dissimilarities which mar his comparison; the widely different circumstances under which foreign lines were constructed; their much smaller original cost per mile, and the fact that most of the lines to which he refers were either constructed or assisted by the State,