So serious are the difficulties in the way of ascertaining the facts as to cost of transport, so varied are the circumstances in this country, that it is not surprising that in every instance in which the principle has been brought before a Parliamentary Committee or Royal Commission it has met with the condemnation expressed by the Select Committee of 1872--“it is impracticable.”[5] [5] For attempts to calculate cost of service, see A. Fink on “_Cost of Railway Transportation_,” New York (1882); Hadley on “_Railway Transportation_,” p. 261; _Sax’s Die Eisenbahnen_ 1.60 and 2.361; _Lardner’s Railway Economy_; and the Italian Parliamentary Inquiry (_Atti della Commissione d’Inchiesta sull’ Esercizio delle Ferrovie Italiane_) part II., vol. II., 962. If the use of each wagon were charged for, according to its capacity, the cost of conveyance per truck could, no doubt, be approximately known. Whether such a system is the best for railway companies need not be here considered; certain it is that it is extremely undesirable in the interest of the trader. According to it, he must pay for a five or a ten ton wagon, whether he filled it or not, and whether the merchandise which he sent was silk, bales of cotton, or fruit. The system of charging so much a wagon instead of so much a ton--_wagenraum tarif_, as it is called--is, to a considerable extent, in force in Germany and Holland. In both these countries, however, it has been found incompatible with the necessities of commerce to abide strictly by this principle. One curious result would be brought about by charging per wagon--there would be a return to practices some forty years ago given up in England as needlessly costly and unsuitable to business. Every customer of a railway does not want a whole truck. He wishes to send ten cwt. of bales or a cask weighing one hundredweight; he could not send his goods if he had to pay for a full truck. To provide for the wants of the great mass of traders and the ordinary requirements of business, intermediaries between the railway companies have sprung up in Germany and Holland. Indeed, the great bulk of the traffic in the latter country is carried by carriers or forwarding agents in full wagon loads. The company is practically only a toll taker. The forwarding agents charge the consignor or consignee of the goods sums over and above the tolls or rates paid to the companies. So far as a large part of the public is concerned, the rates of the companies are, in those countries, mere paper rates. Not being able to take a full wagon, small traders must pay what the forwarding agents demand, or make special terms with them. This is very much the state of things which existed in England before 1844, when the companies were, as a rule, merely owners of the road, locomotives, &c., and when they left to private persons the business of carriers. Those who can recall that time, or who reflect what the results of