Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1882-09-09
MR.. poYLE,s IMPROVED
TRANSPORTATION

the Board of Railroad Commissioners At
that time he was satisfied that cost of SER
vice could not be made the standard of
freight charges, and he said SO very en-
phatically in his report. Now he is equally
convinced that cost of service ought to be
made the basis of freight charges, though
his arguments in support of this position
are singuiarly sophistical and insincere. 1t
would be q hopeless task to follow Mr..
Doyle and refute every one,of his misstate-
ments, deceptive implications, instances of
false logic, snd general crooked reasoning /;
but we will endeavor to do justice to the
most fragrant of his ofenses against truth
and candor. In the first place he seeks to
make point by saying that the classifica-
ton of freight on different railroads, is diff
ferent. Now this is unavoidable, the
reason being that the conditions of trans
portation are never the same on any two
roads. Volume of particular kinds of
freight, distance carried, values in termi.
nal markets, are all different on different
roads, and therefore the fact that classifi.
cation varies has no significance. In the
second place Mr.. Doyle lays down as an
axiom proposition which is not true. He
says, and italicizes the assertion : Rail-
roads are public highways just as much
as turnpike roads are." Now this is not
the fact. There is no analogy between
railroads and turnpikes. Further on Mr..
Doyle speaks of railroad franchise as be-
ing identical with toll.road franchise, and
this is nonsense. Railroads are not in
fact public highways in the sense that
turnpike roads are. They are not open to
any one to use. They can in fact only be
used by the corporations that own them.
Mr. Doyle says that "the whole public
are entitled to transit over them on
"equal and impartial terms" AS fact
the whole public have transit over them on
equal and impartial terms, but passenger
traffic Is one thing and goods traffic is
another.
The fimsiest and least respectable argu.
ment made by the ex.Rsilroad Commits.
sioner is that in which he tries to reduce
the existing rule of freight charges to
absurdity by showing that the drayman,
the telegraph operator, ETC., would have
the same right to base their charges upon
whao the customer would pay. In fact
there Is no analogy between the cases.
The business Of transportation by rail is
one which is intimately combined with the
maintenance of the orooperity of whole
States and sections. A grea.. railroad,
covering many hundreds of miles of terri
tory, has TO minister to the needs of
widely separated communities. The wider
its scope the more is it necessitated to
carry cheap products grown far from the
markets, at very low rates. Thus in
this State the Southern Pacific has carried
wheat nearly 200miles practically for moth
ing. It has done this because ii it had
refused TO do it considerable section
would perforee have been abandoned by
the settlers, and all the prospective business
obtainable from the development of that
part of the State would have been lost.
But the Southern Pacific could not have
carried this wheat for nothing if it had not
been able to recoup itself OF more costly
freight. Had it been forced down to arbi.
trary rates on Mr. Doyle's plan, it must
have refused TO carry the Southern wheat
at all, and let that section go to ruin. No
other business is affected by any such con-
siderations as these, and therefore attempts
to introduce the drayman and the telegraph
operator, etc., are simply disingenuous and
evasive.
The basis upon which the classification
of freight now rests is not, as Mr.. Doyle
asserts, false one. It is his argument
which is false and feeble. As TO his dis-
covery that the existing system amounts
to the imposition of an ad vaIorem tax
upon the merchandise transported, it is
only necessary to inquire, what if it does +?
You may call any charge a tax, if you
please, but it does not affect its legitimacy
or its equity. Mr.. Doyle admits perforce
that railroads are entitled to levy tolls, and
he is lawyer enough to know that toll is
tax. Again, since he is also compelled to
admit that railroads are entitled to charge
insurance on all goods transported,
there is practically nothing left for him to
claim, for between the admitted right to
charge toll and the admitted right to
charge insurance, the right to levy an
dd ualoren tax Issues quite naturally and
inevitably, and if MIR. Doyle fails to
perceive this he has far less penetration
than we had supposed. But he falls into
a very serious error when he tries to define
the limit of railroad charges, and asserts
that "as common carriers they are
"entitled to reasonable compensation,
based on the necessary cost of the
Service rendered" They are entitled to
reasonable compensation for the service
rendered, not for the "cost of the service
rendered" There is here vital dis
tinction, and we are surprised that Mr..
Doyle should have sought to evade it. The
necessary cost of the service rendered, in.
terpreted as he interprets it, has never
been made the basis of compensation, and
never can be. The service rendered can
only be ascertained by reference 60 the
value of the goods transported, and there
fore what the goods will bear is neces.
sary factor in the charge. This Mr.. Doyle
could recognize when he was Railroad
Commissioner, and it is remarkable that he
should have SO completely repudiated his
convictions of that period.
He pnxy tails m tbopol ~ ,r,ro d. -