Page:The Economic Journal Volume 1.djvu/526

504 services, there is an undue preference if a higher charge is made to some customers than to others.

Economically regarded, this seems to me to be a mistake; carried out logically, it would be destructive of many industries; and, as applied by the courts, it has done harm. A excellent rule when the circumstances of production are the same, when the value of the service is the same to all, it has no applicability to circumstances in which they are diverse. Two fishing ports are each 100 miles from London, the one with a good harbour, a safe beach, the take of fish large and constant; the other without any of these advantages. If the cost of conveying to market be the same, the one port will flourish, the other will be ruined. On a strict application of the law of undue preference, perhaps the rates to the more prosperous town would be lowest, the traffic being larger and continuous. Another illustration may be given.

Leeds is situated thus with respect to three ports on the east coast:—



If the rates from Leeds to all these ports be alike, there will be in a sense undue preference. Follow the goods to their destination—Havre, Hamburg, or India. To the purchaser at Calcutta, it is of no consequence by what port they are shipped. If the rates are the same, the goods are shipped indifferently by any of these ports, according as freights are procurable. A reduction of the rates between Leeds and any of these ports will not probably affect the purchaser in Bombay or the shipowners. The sole effect will be to direct, to the inconvenience of the shippers, most of the traffic to one port. In the United States the same question has often arisen. The Trunk lines from Chicago and other western points gave for Liverpool, Glasgow, &c., through rates for grain, flour, lard, &c. The Interstate Commissioners required the companies to publish