The Daily state journal. [volume] (Alexandria, Va.) 1868-1874, 1873-05-09
FRIDAY EvEN'G, MAY 8. 1873.
The Cheap transportation Problem
and the Virginia Water Line.

Inc proDlem winch lmperauvely de-
mands solution at this time, is that of
cheap transportation between the eastern
seaboard on the Atlantic and the great
grain producing regions of the West. 1t
not only seriously engrosses the attention
of commercial men in the East, but west
ern farmers are moving with a degree of
determination that shows them to be most
desperately in earnest in seeking solution
Of this imperative problem. 1t appears
that grain at its present price will not bear
the cost of transportation to the Atlantic
seaboard; and the unprofitableness
of the production is indicated by
the statement that in many
parts of the West corn is largely con-
sumed as an article of fuel. Loud COM
plants are made against the railroads for
their seeming inattention to the interests Of
the grain producers, and farmers are every
where organizing in the hope of success
fully fighting monopoly by thorough and
radical reform in the business of transport
tation. On the other hand, whether it be
true or not, the railroad companies main
tain that they cannot pro6tably do their
business at any less rates, while they pre-
tend to find some excuse for their present
high. charges in the unhappy operations of
the tariff, the anomalous condition of the
currency, or the abnormal and inactive
movements in foreign trade.
We shall not stop to inquire as to the
fallacy of these excuses, since it is almost
ludicrous in the face of the weekly reports
of our foreign trade, showing an excess of
mportations of from one to two hundred
millions per annum, to attribute want Of
demand for our surplus breadstuffs as a
reason for not moving them to our sea-
board markets F.; especially when England
would suffer an absolute famine we've she
to stop her importation of grains for any sim
gle three months in the year. The simple
fact is, or mould be without the operations
of rings Or speculative combinations, that
the price of the grain crop is determined, in
the first place, by the seaboard markets,
and then again by the price of gold as
affecting the rates of foreign exchange.
But there have been no such fluctuations
in respect to these as to have turned the
current of depression seriously against the
grain producers as class, whether in the
middle or western states.
But the railroads urge still further in
excuse for their shortcomings, that they
have not the adequate means of moving
the large surplus crops to the seaboard
markets, or to such points of water.car-
rage as can more cheaply transport them
to these markets. To this it may be an
swered that railroads have multiplied more
rapidly, not only in construction of new
lines, but in facilities for transporting
freights, than have the grain-growing pop
ulations of the West or of any other Sec
ton of the country. The whole
trouble lies in the want of cheaper sys-
tenn of inland transportation, for safely
moving grain in bulk, than the people of
the West have heretofore found available,
except for few months in the year, when
the means of transportation on the upper
lakes and by the Erie canal exceeded the
pressure of grain upon the seaboard
markets. The true solution to the whole
problem is, that cheap transportation when
reduced to its simplest form, as in contin-
uons water-carriage, is demonstrably no
other form of the question than that of
adequate means Of transportation. AS
insufficiency Of means gives high freights,
so unlimited means, and that which does
not have to insure against dangerous risks
as on the upper lakes, gives the lowest pos
sible freights.
The most eminent authority on the rela-
tive cost Of transporting produce by differ
ent modes OF carriage may be summed up
as follows: The radii within which corn
and wheat can be moved to market on
common wagon roads, is q distance of
about two hundred and fifty miles for
wheat and one hundred and twenty-five
for corn. :. By railroads, reducing their
rates to one and a quarter cent per ton
per mile, these radi may be increased, re-
spectively, to sixteen hundred miles for
corn and thirty-two hundred for wheat ;
while, by canal and river navigation, these
same fadii may be extended to distances
more than three times as great as by rail, il
we are to credit the figures Of Mr.. Mac
Alpine, Of New York, who gives the rela-
tive cost Of transportation by the Erie ca
nal enlargement and railroads average
cost as four to fifteen; that is, where il
costs four dollars by canal, it costs fifteen
by rail.
Now the cost of transportation to the
producer of raw material, or any agricul-
tural product, is just so much to be de-
Quoted from his profit, so that when the
cost of transportation rises to the exact
cost of production there is no profit what.
ever and this, as we understand it, is the
precise condition of things which has stirred
the farmers Of the West to organize into
oranges, and otherwise move in favor oil
cheap transportation. The most sensible,
iar-seeing, and sagacious action in this
behalf showed itself in the recent action oil
the farmers of Iowa, through memorial OF
the legislature of that state, setting forth