evised
classification of goods and a revised Schedule of Maximum Rates, and
submit them to the Board of Trade, who, after considering objections
lodged against them, were to agree (if they could) with the companies
upon a classification and schedule for adoption; and if they failed, to
determine a classification and schedule themselves. Public sittings at
Westminster, Edinburgh and Dublin, occupying 85 days, took place, but no
agreement was reached; and in their Report to Parliament the Board of
Trade embodied a Revised Classification and a standard Schedule of
Maximum Rates for general adoption. The Schedule included Terminals. In
accordance with the Act, it then became necessary for this Revised
Classification and Schedule to be confirmed by Parliament. Against them
petitions were lodged by both railways and traders, and the whole matter
was referred to a Joint Committee of both Houses. This Committee sat in
1891 from April till July; but it was not until January, 1893, that all
was completed and the Revised Classification and the new rates brought
into force. Little time was afforded to the companies for their part of
the work. The whole system of rates was changed. New rates had to be
calculated on the new scale; thousands of rate books had to be compiled,
and millions of rates altered and revised. It was a colossal task;
impossible of fulfilment in the time allowed. The application of the new
Schedule forcibly reduced many rates, inflicting much loss upon the
companies, and because the companies advanced other rates (within the
limits of the new maximum powers of course) to meet this loss, or to meet
it to some extent, a storm of abuse arose and swept across the land. A
trader from Berwick-on-Tweed, more frank than most, wrote the following
"characteristic" letter as it was called at the time:--

"What we want is to have our fish carried at _half_ present rates. We
don't care a --- whether it pays the railways or not. Railways ought to
be made to carry for the good of the country, or they should be taken
over by the Government. That is what all Traders want and mean to try to
get."

Perhaps they would not be happy if they got it! In his clear, and most
interesting book _Railways and Their Rates_, my friend Edwin A. Pratt
says this letter was quoted in the Report which the Board of Trade made
to Parliament after their 85 days' Inquiry. The railway companies
announced that the new rates were in no se