Page:The Economic Journal Volume 1.djvu/525

Rh within small bulk or weight concera great value may on that system of making them be absurdly low; low when compared to the value of the articles, and perhaps not less so when the comparison was with the value of the service in transporting them.' So say the Interstate Commerce Commissioners n their first report; and they proceed to sketch the outlines of a system based, as all reasonable systems of classification must be, not on the cost of carriage, but on what t s supposed the lartcular commodity will bear.

And yet we have seen courts of law more and more nclned to carry out a theory of rates which every economst and every competent nquirer reject as untenable. For all forms of personal favouritsm or discrimination by public carriers there s no excuse; n all cvilsed countries, so far as I know, a railway company may-not legally grant better terms to one trader than to another smlarly stuated; for example, give a rebate to one and � deny t to another, charge to A and B alike a collection and delivery rate, and perform for B n effect only the same services as f t were a station to station rate. There may be unfair preference of A to the dsadvantage of B, even f they do not consign precisely the same articles, and probably English law does not take sucent cognsance of ths form of undue preference. Subject to this criticism, dscrimnatons 'under smlar circumstances' are forbidden under the Railway Clauses Act, 1845, and the Traffic Act, 1854. Does the phrase refer only to the cost to the company of the services ? Does t refer also to the value or utility of the services to the consgnor ? May we look at the demand for the service performed, the position and crcumstances of the customer ? May A and B be sad to be similarly circumstanced, though they trade n dfferent towns ? After much fluctuations of opinions the courts have here, and as far as I can gather in the United States also, come to the conclusion that n determining the question of undue pre- ference only the cost to the railway company of the services s to be considered. ' I take it that when a railway company receives goods to be carried over the same line under circumstances involving thin same cost and the same risk to themselves, and in respect to these goods renders the same Cited with approval in the third report, p. 355.