for or in dealing with merchandise as carriers thereof before or after conveyance.

(3) The standard service terminals are the charges which the company may make for the following services rendered to or for a trader-loading, unloading, covering, and uncovering merchandise. The charges are deemed to include the provision by the company of labour, machinery, plant, stores and sheets.

(4) A terminal station is a station or place upon the railway at which a consignment is loaded or unloaded before or after conveyance. The following are not terminal stations :

(a) any station or junction at which merchandise in respect of which any terminal is charged, has been exchanged with, handed over to, or received from another railway company;

(b) a junction between the railway and a siding let by or not belonging to the company;

(c) (in respect of merchandise passing to or from such a siding) any station with which such siding may be connected;

(d) any dock or shipping place, the charges for the use of which are regulated by Act of Parliament. (5) A siding includes branch railways not belonging to a railway company.

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(6) The term " company means a railway company with respect to which a schedule of standard charges is in operation.

(7) The term "trader" includes any person sending or receiving or desiring to send or receive merchandise by railway.

CHAPTER III.

THE APPOINTED DAY.

THE appointed day, so often referred to in the Act, is the day fixed by the Tribunal, under the provisions of s. 31, as the day on which the whole of the new charges for the carriage of merchandise and passengers by railway come into force.

The day appointed is the 1st January, 1928.

On that day the whole system of railway charges will undergo what it is hoped will be a peaceful revolution. The Railways Act, 1921, under which the changes will take place and by which the new system will be governed, has been described as the "Traders' Charter." Whether or not such an enthusiastic description is justified, the trader will undoubtedly find that considerable improvements have been effected in many directions, and that he is thenceforth in possession of rights which he has never had before.

The principal changes which begin to operate on the appointed day, and which are dealt with at greater length in subsequent chapters, are briefly summarized in the present chapter so that the trader may quickly appreciate their scope; but, in order that he may be able to reap the full benefit of its provisions, he is recommended to study the Act closely on his own behalf.

Although not strictly germane to the subjects with which this book deals, it may be of interest to notice in passing one or two of the alterations affecting the public at large which indicate how far-reaching are the changes for which the Act is responsible. Heretofore all silks, manufactured or unmanufactured, and whether wrought up with other materials or not, could not be claimed for in case of the loss of passengers' luggage unless their

nature and value had been previously declared and an increased charge paid. This provision of the old Carriers' Act of 1830 often operated very harshly in modern times, when silk has so largely taken the place of wool in ladies' clothing. Silk, having been removed from the Carriers Act list, will not after the appointed day be so penalized.

Another welcome relief is that the £10 limit of the railway companies' responsibility for articles lost from luggage which had not been declared, and for which an increased charge had not been paid, will, on the appointed day, be raised to £25.

It is not generally known that where an article is deposited in a railway company's cloakroom and is lost, the company are under no liability where the value of the article or its contents exceeds £5, unless its value is declared and an increased charge is paid. This condition has latterly operated very much in favour of the railway companies in the case of lost deposited luggage, which almost invariably exceeds £5 in value, and for which passengers usually omit to declare a greater value. It is worth noting that while the Carriers Act limits have been increased, this limit of £5 remains the same.

PRINCIPAL CHANGES TAKING EFFECT ON THE

APPOINTED DAY.

As the last increase in railway rates prior to the appointed day, made by the railway companies under the provisions of s. 60 of the Act, raised the rates previously in operation roughly to the level of the new standard charges, it is not likely that any serious disturbance will take place as far as the actual quantum of the rates is concerned. If the apparent effects of the introduction of the new rates prove to be slight, it should not be forgotten that radical changes have, nevertheless,

taken place, and that the whole scheme of railway charges has been placed on a new basis. The old system under which the charging powers of the railway companies were limited by statutory maxima is swept away. The post-war percentage increases and the temporary expedient of the flat rate additions are also discontinued, and in their place is introduced a completely new system of standard and exceptional charges.

The standard charges which come into force on the appointed day, and may be regarded as corresponding to the old class rates, are not maximum charges but actual charges which must be made without variation, either upward or downward, except by way of exceptional rates.

The new exceptional charges must, generally speaking, be between 5 per cent. and 40 per cent. below the standard charges, and are by this means regulated as to their general level.

Actually the railway companies will still have wide discretionary powers in regard to the granting of exceptional rates. The economic must continue to be, as it always has been, the dominant factor in determining the quantum of railway charges, and it is possible that far greater use of these powers will have to be made than the Legislature hoped would be necessary; for this reason traders are advised to give special attention to those sections of the Act which govern exceptional rates (see pp. 94-106, post).

It has not, of course, been possible to make a clean sweep of the old exceptional rates in the same way in which the old class rates have been abolished, and provision has been made for the continuance of certain of these rates with or without adjustment. The provisions of the Act relating to this matter are of the utmost importance to all traders who are interested in exceptional rates, and pp. 95-97, post, should be carefully studied in this connection.

The new rates, both standard and exceptional, will be based upon a new classification of merchandise, which entirely supersedes the old classification hitherto in use. The new classification, which represents a complete and very thorough revision of the classification of goods for carriage by railway, consists of 21 classes in place of the eight classes of the old classification. The purpose of the new classes is to create a greater range of standard or "class" rates, and, consequently, to reduce the number of exceptional rates by rendering as many of them as possible inoperative.

New terms and conditions of carriage, new packing, addressing and other regulations, which will completely supersede those in use before the appointed day, will also come into force on that date. The attempt has been made in settling these terms and conditions, etc., to provide for every contingency likely to arise in connection with the carriage of merchandise by railway, and there is no doubt that they constitute a very considerable advance as compared with those which they replace.

Important changes also take effect on the appointed day in regard to through rates, circuitous routes, owner's risk rates, collection and delivery charges, miscellaneous services and other matters.

In order to bring charges levied under the terms of agreements entered into between traders and railway companies into line with all other charges over which the Tribunal has jurisdiction, they have been included by the provisions of the Act within the wide limits of the expression "exceptional rates," and are subject, therefore, to similar treatment.

As from the appointed day all agreements and statutory provisions as far as they regulate or fix charges for or in connection with the carriage of merchandise by railway, are repealed, and the charges they refer to