Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1881-08-13

could be adduced than the present mad
war of rates in the East, OF course it is
foregone conclusion that the public will
have to pay all the expenses of this war.
and as large proportion of these expenses
is sheer waste of capital, it follows that
the public will be plundered to pay for the
qualification of the enmities of the man.
ayers. Nothing can be palmer than the
fact that consolidation must put stop to
this kind of cut-throat competition, and
experience has fully shown that in all
other respects the competition OF the
Eastern roads is a sham and delusion.
They never compete to the extent of in.
juring themselves, or it they do they never
foot the bills. 1t is the old familiar story
of opposition steamers and stages, with
which the people of California have had
ample experience.
Whoever has studied the tendencies of
railroad development in the United States
is aware that the whole system is being
rapidly brought under the consolidation
principle. This is because consolidation is
more economical, safer, better in all ways,
for both the railroads and the public, than
the sham competition which it is destined
to supersede. Mr.. Tevis has not, as. the
Chronicle ignorantly and foolishly init
mates, "set up the fiction that competi-
" ton is against the public interest" He
has simply stated truth already fully
recognized by all well. Uniformed business
men, and one which was, as matter of
course, perfectly familiar to his audience
at Niagara Falls. If our contemporary has
not learned this fact about competition, it is
because it is behind the age but the fact
is not a new one, nor did Mr.. Tevis invent
it. 1t will be found running through all
the Massachusetts railroad reports for the
past ten years. It will be found occupy
ing prominent place in all the discussions
upon railroad progress which have taken
place during the same period. 1t will be
found set forth at length in half score of
English Parliamentary blue.books. In fact
il is a piece of information accepted as a
truism by all who have taken the trouble
to acquaiut themselves with the progress
of transportation.
This science has proceeded much farther
in England than here, and in England con-
solidation long since became the most
Influential tendency of railroad manage
ment. All the crude and superficial OBJ
jections to it which the Chronicle is now
advancing were examined, discussed, and
overthrown by actual experiment, in that
country, fifteen or twenty years ago. The
failure of competition was recognized be-
fore that time, and to-day there are very
few business men in the United States who
do not thoroughly comprehend that Mr.
Tevis only spoke a commonplace truth
when he said that consolidation had been
much better for California than competi.
ton. In short, the Chronicles attack
upon Mr.. Tevis has only resulted in ex.
posing its own stupidity and malevolence,
and its ignorance of facts which have long
been common property. There can be no
question whatever that Mr.. Tevis told the
exact truth about the railroad situation in
this State, and in doing SO he merely main.
tanned the high standard of accuracy and
carefulness which distinguishes his address
from beginning to end.