Daily Los Angeles herald., 1879-03-23
A Remedy for the Hard Times.
A New Wharf at South Santa Monica.


EDITOR HERALD:-Tbe project
now ON foot for erecting a wharf
and warehouse at South Santa
Monica should meet with the sub
stantial encouragement of every
man In Los Angeles county. The
rates now charged on grain and
produce by the Southern Pacific
Railroad Company are SO exorbi-
tant as to leave no margin for the
farmer; in fact be cannot pay them
and raise grain unless at loss.
The railway freight on grain fro m
Los Angeles to San Francisco is
$3.50 per ton, or 273 cents per sack
of 100 lbs. If you add to this 12A
cents for sacks and 10 cents for
threshing, and the farmer sells his
barley in San Francisco at 10 cent?,
the present price, he has but 20
cents left to pay him for his seed
and his labor in plowing, sowing
and reaplng his crop, TO say moth
ing of the interest on the capital
invested in his land. The writer of
this has neighbor, one of our
leading farmers-the owner of 8 1000
acres of fine farming land-who al
legged as his reason for not sowing
any grain last Winter that the cost
of getting grain to market was so
high that 1t could only be grown at
loss. He had plenty of teams and
farming implements, but he natu-
rally preferred allowing them to
remain idle to working them at q
loss.
Responsible vessel owners offer to
contract to take grain from the new
wharf to San Francisco for from ST.
to $l.5O per ton. 1t is a fact not
generally known that the owners
of the fleet Of vessels that bring
lumber from Puget Sound and other
ports to Los Angeles have to buy
ballast at San Pedro for the return
trip. They now offer the new wharf
company to carry, without charge,
to San Francisco, Puget Sound,
Humboldt Bay, or upper ports, as
much grain as they need for ballast,
At Puget Sound and other upper
coast ports there is always a good
market for such quantities of grain
as would be carried in this way.
The rates offered by vessel owners
to San Francisco amount to from 5
to u cents per sack, as against 274
cents now charged by the Railway
Company, a saving to the farmer OF
enough money to pay for his
threshing and buy his sacks. But
it is not only in his grain that the
farmer would save money. .Lum.
ber at the new wharf would be SIS
per thousand cheaper than at pres
ent, and So. 60 per thousand cheaper
at Los Angeles. Flour, sugar, and
all other of the farmers supplies
would be correspondinglY cheaper.
The teaming Of lumber and mer-
ohandise from the new wharf to
Los Angeles would afford work for
a vast force Of men and teams now
out of employment. The farmer
living near the city would take
his load of grain to Santa Mon
lea and return with load of
lumber or merchandise. Team.
sters offer to carry lum Der from the
wharf to Los Angeles for $3 per
thousand. The present cost from
the vessel to Los Angeles, via Will
mington, is $500 per thousand.
The saving to the county in one
year would be enough to build half
a dozen wharves. If any man will
take the trouble to estimate how
much the saving would amount to
at the rate of from $4 to 81 SO per
ton on every ton of grain or pro-
duce going out of the county In
each year, and every ton of mer.
chandise coming into the county,
and $a per thousand for every thou.
sand feet of lumber, he will be as.
tonished to learn the enormous tax
now paid by US toward the support
of the magnates of the Southern
Pacific Railroad Company. The
pathway of the ocean is free, no re-
pairs are necessary, no Board of
Directors or army of officials 10 re.
quired to manage and run it, and
any community that has the ocean
lying between it and the market
for its produce, and instead of util-
izing 1t, will supinely submit to be
impoverished by the exorbitant
charges of wealthy and grasping
railroad company deserves to suffer
as we are now suffering. The
wagon road from here to Santa
Monica is all the way over a hard,
level road, good at all seasons of the
year. The distance is shorter than
to Old San Pedro by about ten
miles.
1t is proposed to have the new
company composed of the farmers
who are most deeply interested in
the project, and SO organized that
the wharf can never be sold to any
railway or other monopoly. tits to
be farmers wharf, owned aud con-
trolled by farmers, and run in their
interest and in the interest of the
entire community. 1t Is intended
that grain shall be free from wharf
charges, and only sufficient tariff
be put on lumber and merchandise
to keep the wharf in good order and
provide for repairs. The gentle-
men in charge of the subscription
lists for the western part of the
county are Ivar A. Weld, John
Young and D. Freeman, and they
are meeting with encouragement
from every one. And this is as it
should be. Every man who raises
sack of grain or consumes sack
of flour or barrel of sugar, or uses
a foot of lumber is interested in this
scheme exactly in proportion to the
amount he raises or consumes
Owing to the scarcity of money,
(and how this has been brought
about / think / have shown,) the
farmers intend to do nearly all the
work themselves, only employing
skilled labor to do such work as
they are not competent to perform
Evarv man ia exDacted To sIlhseribe