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 than one company can carry. The Normanton Conference, which was originally established to control the rates for a certain district of which Normanton, where its meetings were formerly held, was a convenient centre, has gradually so much extended its scope that it is now composed of representatives of nearly every company of any importance in England, and governs almost the whole of the competitive rates which are not dealt with by the English and Scotch Conference. The cross-channel rates between England and Ireland are controlled by an "English and Irish Traffic Rates Conference," and, besides these three, there are some minor Conferences which have been established in connection with the traffic of particular districts, but have not the importance of those which have been already alluded to.

In addition to the system of agreeing the rates between competing points, there is another plan which railway companies sometimes adopt, in order to avoid the losses arising from competition, which is known as "Percentage Division of Traffic," and which is carried out in the following manner. Supposing that there is a certain traffic to be conveyed between two towns or districts, and that there are two or more railway companies, each having a route of its own by which it is enabled to compete for the traffic. An agreement is come to that the receipts derived from the whole of the traffic, carried by all routes, shall be thrown into a common fund, and that each company shall be entitled to a certain percentage of the whole—say, for example, 50 per cent, to the company having the best route, 30 per cent, to the second, and 20 per cent, to the third. The percentages are usually adjusted on the basis of