New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1882-03-18

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rights or interests, unless the well-disposed
members of society should unite to set up
some power competent to punish offences
against the public welfare. So the railroads
unite to suppress and punish unrcgulatcd and
| reckless warfare upon each other. In order to
| do 40, each surrcnders some part OF its power
to make rates from competing points. And
vet as Mr.. Vanderbilt shows, even in extreme
necessity the railroads could not be brought
to take such steps until after long and ruin
ous struggle.
The great fact to which these remarks call
attention, and which deserves more thought
than it has yet received is that the constant
and almost irresistible tendency of free COM
petition is to reckless and suicidal excess. The
greatest of all difficulties in railroad manage
ment is, not to resist a public demand for
cheap transportation, but to prevent the less
successful roads from running the business OF
all the roads. This is not theory; costly ex-
pericnce has proved it to be fact Left to
itself, without restraint by government, the
railroad system gravitateS almost lrresstlbly
toward bankruptcy. No combination yet formed
has been able to intcrpOse more than tenn
porary interruption of that tendency.
1t is important to understand the reason of
this fact. Given two roads between certain
points, in which equal capital has been III
vested; one or the other will get the larger
share of traffic. The more prosperous road is
able to increase and extend its facilities while
the weaker becomes less able to hold its
own. "To him that hath shall be given;
nowhere else does the principle of the Survival
IF thn InVp force. BpIhHnS
the weaker bOrrOws money to improve its ia
cilities But that only adds to its burdens.
and brings the end nearer. Presently the
attempt to earn interest upon the entire CAPT
tai is abandoned then the road comes into
market to take traffic at anything more than
the bare cost of hauling. Finally, for one or
both, a smash comes, and period of reorgan-
ization upon a lower basis as to capital and
then the strife begins again. For the great
underlying fact is that in this case the fittest
and the least tit must both survive, as carry
ing machines. though the whole or part Of the
capital invested i'll one or the other road may
he crushed out.
If the roads agree for their mutual protcc-
ton, either the business is enough for both
or it is not. If it is not, there is no human
power that can make the agreement last long.
If it is, then year or two OF growth will
make the traffic clearly too much for both, and
monopoly exists. AT once new capital comes
forward to build a new road, and to get part
of the unusual profits If legislation does not
prevent, there will soon be three roads to
struggle for the traffic that was too much for
two and then the old question comes, (Which
shall 20 into bankruptcy iirstl'
This powerful tendency toward an excessive,
and, to the capital invested, a suicidal, com
petition, pushes rates lower year by year,
faster than any Legislature or Congress would
dare to change them. AS Mr.. Vanderbilt says
the latest war has taught the companies chow
cheaply the work of transportation can be
DONE" Each successive period of conflict
teaches that same lesson anew, and pushes
still lower the maximum rates above which no
combination ever attempts to 60 But that
lesson the railroads would never learn if they
were subject to governmental control. There
is not single State in the Union where effective
legislation, professedly for the public interest,
has checked competition, in which an average
rate as low as one cent per ton per mile can
be found on any road. But a lower rate is
found on not few roads where no such re-
strant exists The only visible effect of lcgiS-
latiOn is to compel the railroads to unite
against the public. If left to themselves, they
spend their energies against each other, and
only unite for time after long struggle, in
which the rates charged for transportation
have again been permanently reduced as to
the maximum. while the minimum rates have
been pushed lower than ever.