IS PRIVATE OWNERSHIP HOPELESS? I4I

are agreed to act in harmony with each other, to withdraw two-
shillings* worth of facilities ; and the traders may make up their
minds that this is what must inevitably happen if the Railway
Companies are confronted with lower rates simultaneously with
a rapid rise of working expenses. Assume that your tribunal
can fix a reasonable rate, what is the use of it unless it can
schedule to its judgment a minute specification of the quality
of service to be given in return for the rate ?. The railways
can bring down troops of expert witnesses. How can the
tribunal refuse to hear them, when every student of railway
economics knows that the reasonableness of each particular
rate depends not merely on its own individual circumstances,
but on a comparison with all the other rates and a consideration
of the Company's entire business ? But for a farmer or shop-
keeper y with the assistance y possibly y of the local attorney ^ to under-
take to fight trained railway experts with a lifetimes experience
and with every fact and figure at their finger^ end, is only to court
defeat:'^

The fear of suffering in the way indicated by Mr. Acworth is
a most potent factor in the present problem. Thus the Secre-
tary of the Notts and Midland Merchants and Traders Asso-
ciation wrote to the Committee of 1881 that — " Your memorial-
ists have received from the members of this Association many
complaints with regard to the inequalities of railway rates very
materially affecting their financial interests, but the members
individually do not desire to appear prominently before your
Committee lest they should suffer owing to any adverse views
that the Railway Companies might take with regard to their
complaints." ^

Before the same Committee Sir Alfred Hickman gave evi-
dence upon the monstrous case of the Chatterley Colliery Com-
pany. Thinking they were illegally overcharged by the North
Staffordshire Railway Company, they took them before the
Railway Commission, proved their case, and secured an order
confining the railway within the legal maximum. Thereupon
the Railway Company flatly declined to carry the traffic of the
Chatterley Company. They were again taken before the Com-
mission, and at once ordered to resume the traffic, subject to a
penalty of ;^5o a day for refusal. 