New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1854-12-26
RAILROAD POLICY.

We have always been favorable TO RAILROADS,
their builders and stockholders. We believe the
latter are public benefactors, and we always re-
ioice to besr that their public spirit and enter
prise are well rewarded. II We could this day
lift all their stocks TO par, and guarantee them
dividend. of four per cent. every six months we
SHOULD do it with great pleasure.
And yet we are not convinced that the sureH
way to the financial prosperity they Justly seek
lies through the proposed advance OF passenger
fares Let us consider this point:
To the feurers for an advance, all things are
es,y. A certain road received, we will say
$40 900 per mile, for carrying passengers and
freight during 1854. I.pad out $500 per mile
for running expenses, $1,000 per mile for inter
est on loans, 81 900 per mile for new depots, ad-
ditiopsl turn outs, slde-tracks, &c, and the odd
$500 per mile in reduction Of its floating debt;
leaving Just nothing over TO divide among its
stockholders.
Now" Gays fgurer, the whole matter is
"plain. Our rates are too low. Increase our
charges for Freight fifteen and for Passage
twenty. five per cent, and we shall have tcetre
"these outgoes and leave eight per ceat. for our
..long suffering stockholders.
No, it WON'T and We II show you why:
Say the average charge for passage is now two
cents per mile; add twenty-five per cent. and
YOU make it two and half cents: surely nobody
will object TO that.
Yes, they will, and this is how: An old far ner
f. Al -a;- nj tvis IN
visit, with his family, relative also living ten
miles off the line, AMI sixty miles in the direction
the road runs. He can take the family in his
wagon and drive the distance easily in a day and
half; or he can run down to the nearest station,
take the cars for sixty miles, and ride thence by
st.pe or wagon to his destination. The difference
between the fare at two and at two and half
cents PEI mile may determine whether it is ad-
yissble that he should go by railroad or by his
own CONVEYANCE. Ten miles distance from the
road may or may not be the precise point at
which this difference becomes operative; it is not
mate rial whether il be FIVE, ten or fifteen. Suffice
it that there manifest is tract on each side OF
the road and not very narrow one, whence
passengers would be attracted at two cents per
mile who would be repelled az Two ana haii.
And this is but one of many cases in which an
Increase of fare would operate 10 repel patronage.
TIE year now closing has been disastrous one
for busin.ss generally. The crops have been
short and this has diminished freights; the people
are poor and this tends to decrease travel The
Railroads will not have received so much by
twenty per cent. during the last quarter of 1884
Is they would have done had the harvest
been bountful and business prosperous. We
think the Railroads will make blunder if they
permanently increase their charges because Of
this temporary depression. Let them cut off the
dead-heads and thus swell their receipts; let
them retrench all useless expenses and thus
diminish needless outgoes; and let them conf
Gently anticipate that their receipts at the old
prices will be ten per cent more in 55and twenty
per cent more in '56 than they have been in "a.
1t is by this steady increase of their business and
receipts, founded on a constant increase of Popu-
latiop and of Production on either side Of their
several tracks, that their fortunes are to be re-
trieved. Weappeal confidently to time for proof
that these views are correct.