We have already had occasion to throw a side light on English railroad methods in describing the way in which Italian rebaters use the elasticity of the English railway system to get fictitious damages. I had to go to Italy to find the true character of the English railway conscience. The railway men in England won’t tell. And nobody else, who will tell, knows. Yet the English traffic man, though willing to pay fake damage claims on proper occasions, is innocent of “flying tariffs,” terminal railway abuses, systematic underbilling, classification jugglery, and other preferential paraphernalia that belong to an up-to-date railway system over here. The last case of personal discrimination in rates that caused any stir was tried about 6 years ago and the preference was so small that one of our trust magnates, used to looking at large concessions, would not have been able to find it without a microscope. Nevertheless a considerable number of complaints (more than a hundred a year on the average) came before the Board of Trade and the Railway Commissioners under the traffic acts of 1888 and 1894. The Secretary of the Board of Trade tells me that these complaints relate chiefly to “high rates, poor facilities, and discriminations.” About half the complaints charge excessive rates which amount in most cases, on the face of the complaint, to discrimination between places or commodities. A large number of complaints concern higher charges for short hauls than for longer hauls on the same line, and another large group allege disproportionate charges or higher rates for shorter distances as compared with the rates on other lines. A fourth group, containing about 25 percent of all the cases, includes complaints of delay, overcharges, refusal of facilities or privileges accorded others, personal preferences in rates, etc. For example the London and Northwestern charged the complainant 12 cents a ton up to 20 miles for hauling coal, while charging the complainant’s competitors only 9 cents. Preferential treatment was alleged in the rates given to rival shipping companies for the conveyance of goods from Hull to places in Yorkshire. A coal shipper complained that the Midland Railway had for many years made a practice of allowing a rebate of 6 cents a ton to large dealers, and that in the lists of rates furnished the complainant no mention was made of this rebate or allowance, though other rebates were mentioned. The Midland replied that the system had been in operation since 1889, when the company gave notice as required by law, in the public rate-books, that they would allow a rebate to traders whose annual tonnage exceeded 25,000 tons.