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Preferential Rates.

For instance, they might take such rates as the preferential rates which were given for locally manufactured commodities. The reason for such rates were generally the belief that the railways were helping to establish local industry and giving employment to people, and consequently it was worth while to give those rates. From that viewpoint, those rates “paid” or presumably they would not be there. There was a direct pecuniary advantage from the sum received which was reflected in the railway revenue account, and there was that indirect advantage not capable of mathematical statement, but which was the basis of the justification of the preferential rate, and was, by the making and continuance of the rate, postulated to exist. That was a rate he placed in the category of those where there was a direct financial return reflected in the railway accounts, and an indirect return not in the railway accounts.