From time to time references were made to the great desirability of having rates cut for such things as fertiliser, and particularly commodities that went to make up the costs of the man on the land. The basis of that was generally the statement that as New Zealand was a primary producing country the more prosperous the primary producers could be made, the better it was going to be. Admitting the fact that New Zealand depended for its prosperity on the primary producers, it was difficult to quarrel with that statement. The railway administration as such had been impressed with the great desirability of continuing that line of action if it was at all possible, and that had created some hesitancy in the minds of the administration in the matter of making any general increase on those low-rate commodities; but then occurred again the question of doing something to prevent an increase in the deficit. He believed that inasmuch as any particular man or concern set up the charges of some other form of transport as his or its standard as against the Railways, then that man or concern could not complain if the Railways in their turn insisted that that standard should operate uniformly in respect of the whole of the transport business of that man or concern.—Mr. H. H. Sterling.