But this is not to deprive these laws of practical importance. They represent essential criteria of sound policy in the sphere of social reorganization no less than in ordinary business. In our days a curious obsession has led many people to disparage these criteria, as though they were the sordid prejudices of a stupid tradesman. Because it has been found a matter of obvious practical convenience to maintain the roads out of taxation or of rates, and to dispense with charges for their use, it is suggested that the same principle should be applied to the railways. Or, more commonly, because it has been found convenient to make the same charge for the carrying of letters between Land's End and John o' Groats as between Hampstead and Highgate, it is suggested that _this_ principle should be applied to railway rates and fares. It may be well, therefore, to point out that the justification of uniform postal charges rests upon the facts: (1) that the costs of collection, sorting, etc., are so large a part of the costs of carrying a letter, that the real cost between John o' Groats and Land's End does not differ from that between Hampstead and Highgate by as much as might at first sight appear, (2) that the charges in any case are very small; so that (3) the avoidance of the small degree of taxes and bounties which the present system implies is not worth the book-keeping expenses which differential charges would involve. It should be obvious that these considerations apply to the railways with a greatly diminished force. They might possibly justify what is known as the "zone" system of charges, i.e. uniform rates within certain narrow areas. But the notion of uniform rates throughout Great Britain conjures up a vision of trains taking coal from South Wales to Scotland, and others taking coal from Scotland to South Wales, in accordance with the slightest preferences of the consumers, and without regard to the extra real cost involved, on a scale to which the "wastes of competition" afford no parallel. It would in fact achieve the essential folly of "sending coals to Newcastle." These considerations, however, are not what interest the advocates of the postal principle. They seem to recommend the obliteration or the confusion of the relations between price and cost as a superior ideal. It is important to be clear what exactly this ideal involves.