DIFFERENTIAL RATING AND MR. SAMUEL VAILE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVI, Issue 9539, 4 December 1889, Page 3

DIFFERENTIAL RATING AND MR. SAMUEL VAILE.

TO THK EDITOR. Sir, —In my letter I endeavoured to prove tlmfc "differential rating," [as ib is called, arose from competition. First there was the close-cutting competition between the canals and the railways, and then between the different lines. With a slight alteration, Sir. Vaile's illustration of the grocer would do. A grocer sells a single pound of sugar at 2£d per pound, but the customer taking 50 pounds can get ib at 2d. This is differential rating, and what wo consider fair and just. I instanced a case of ii collector for a canal company in Britain who altered rates and gave rebates, bub secured the carriage of goods for his employers, and must have been worth much money to them. From the memorandum in reply to the Railway Commissioners it seems the Government have legalised difrential rates, and so they ought, or stand up for their officials whenever they wereattacked by some wooden-headed member of the Suppose a bush contractor in the North has a lot of timber he wishes to send to Auckland. He comes to the manager of the railway and says I can raft them for so much, but it is risky, and I shall probably lose some of the logs, what v ill you take them for? The manager names a figure, somewhat lower than the rafting would cost, and secures the timber. Or take a fanner in the South, with, say, 500 sacks of wheat. He can ship them for so much, but then there will be insurance, wharfage, and other dues. He prefers the railway, and the manager takes the whole at such a differential rate as they both consider fair. —lam, etc., J. L. Sinclair.