New-York tribune., 1870-01-31
DISCUSSION ON RAILROADS.

The first annual report Of the Board Of Rail
road Commissioners of Massachusetts, has Just
| been laid before the Legislature OF that State.
/ II makes q document of some 1A pages, and
contains good deal which is of more than
local interest. large proportion OF It's con-
| tepts is of course, devoted to the discussion OF
ouestions peculiarly relating ito Massachusetts,,
but it contains also the germs of first at
tempt to reduce disconnected railways to
regular system, subordinated to a central feeder.
In this respect it is deserving of general con-
sidcration. The Commissioners lay out their
work on a broad SCALE They evidently be-
lieve in the existence of middle ground in
regard to railroad management to be found
| somewhere between the control of railroads by
| irresponsible private corporations, on the one
side, and their ownership by the State On the
other "a ground which may best be described
as one of strict public supervision and corpor-
ate responsibility.
Every student of railroad problems now rec
ognizes the fact that the laws of competition
do not apply to them. In the first place, COM
bination always will, as it always has rendered
effective competition impossible. IL railroad
competition ever could exist between two
points, it would now exist between this city and
Chicago. What, however, are the factsf
Within the last year the tariff of rates between
the two cities has ranged from 81 to nearly
| $40 per tun. Such fluctuations are fairly rum
| GUS; and yet they seem to be inevitable, as
laws of competition and combination alternate.
| This is the case between terminal points.
Meanwhile competition applies, and can apply,
only to one point out of twenty very few towns
| have or can have, more than single line OF
railway All local business is thus taxed
heavily to meet the loss incurred through ruin
Gus competition on through business.
Again, paladoxical as it may sound, compc-
ttion is absolutely Incompatible with the
cheapest form of freight transportation. Every
railroad man knows perfectly well that the
cost, per tun, of transportation decreases ex-
actly as the number Of tuns received increases
A road which moves five million tuns year can
can do so at less than half the cost per tun of a
similar road which moves but one million There
is no such thing rs exceeding the possible capa-
city of a road for moving freight as long as
additional tracks can be laid down. 1t accord
ingly follows as logical consequence that,
under proper public regulation, that commu-
nifty will enjoy the cheapest transportation
which permits between given points least
competition. The report of the Commissioners
must, in this respect, furnish particularly un-
pleasant reading to the good people of Massa-
chusctts. 1t is very distinctly implied that, SO
far as business with the West Is concerned,
the millions of money which that State has
expended in the HoOsac Mountain, and on the
Boston, Hartford and Erie Road, are worse
than thrown away. Attention is called to the
| fact that, while the Pennsy lvona Railroad does
! nearly four times the business of the Boston
and Albany, at about half the cost per tun,
the completion of the lines the State is now
constructing will again divide the small busi
ness of the latter road, and inevitably in
crease the cost of doing it. The State,
by the way, now proposes to improve matters
by constructing, with the public money, yet
another line, to be called the Massachusetts
| Central, yet further to subdivide business and
| increase rates.
| The Commissioners are thus brought to a
conclusion Numerically opposed to the whole
railroad policy of Massachusetts as developed
MP to this time. They inject the issue very
fairly, and propose to abandon the traditional
policy" and start afresh. A great deal is
said in the report about the industrial reyolu-
ton which has of late taken place in Massa-
| chusetts, which is all very true, but which is
only of local interest. and tends rather to OBJ
scure than to elucidate the great principles
which plainly underlie the discussion. In fact,
the Commissioners, for some reason or other,
seem always to avoid buntly stating their own
inevitable conclusions; they touch the nail,
but never drive it home. Meanwhile the con-
cusions to which they bring others are of the
utmost Importance. They fairly, at last
and it is something new in this country
| propose to inaugurate for Massachusetts,
connected and complete railroad system.
| They declare that no such system now exists,
but, in its place, are to be found only num-
| Der of disconnected rOads-mOre or less well or
| i'll managed-which condition of affairs they
criticise most severely, Their remarks in this
respect are of very general application, for
they are no less true of New York, of Illinois,
and of Ohio, than of Massachusetts. They pro-
pose to remedy this difficulty in very simple
manner. They call upon tho railroad cOmpa-
nies of the State, individually, to assume along
| their several lines the whole freighting, in
cuding the express business, and then propose
to the Legislature that all the corporations be
authorized to form themselves into a general
association for doing all of that business of
every description which has to pass over more
| than one road in the State
| The change here suggested Is certainly a
sweeping one and tolerably startling. The
whole theory of competition is at once aban-
doned, and the principle of regulated combina-
tion introduced in its place. The irresponsible
| ity of numerous corporations is avoided by
creating a responsible corporation within cor
poration Neither, it must be added are gen.