Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1882-12-07

tIOnS IN Charges to be AbOliShed-The
State Competent to Deal with the Matter.
Tho Farmers board of trade was little
late in coming together yesterday morn
ing, it being 1890 when President Loring
called to order. The roll call was respond
ed to by John Byers, Lorenzo Hoyt, z. B.
Page, Jas. McBroom, ole Peterson, Thomas
Purcell, E. Evanson, ]. T. Price, Secretary
| Giles and President Hoyt.
Immediately upon organizing, Mr.. Nc
Broom waited upon Gen. Baker, state rail-
road commissioner, and invited him to
meet with the board for conference. Gen.
Baker soon responded, and then followed
| quite lengthy interchange of views, cov-
ering items of complaints by the farmers
! against railroad corporations as to dis
crlmlnatlon, excessive charges, etc., more
rigid state regulation Of such corporations,
| reform in the management of elevators,
grading of wheat and other matters of
the same character. Nearly all the mem
bers took hand in propounding queries
to Gen. Baker, but President Loring was
the chief inquisitor, who commenced by
saying that the Farmers board of trade
propose to make to the coming legislature
certain recommendations of legislation
needed for the benefit of the agriculturists
| of the state, especially as to the matter of
railroad discrimination, excursion charges,
! wheat grading, and other such matters, in
which they are deeply interested,
md
| involved.
Gen. Baker-It gives me pleasure to
! meet the board and to cooperate with it,
also, as far as can, but at present I can
only say that am working industriously
in my Office, gathering facts and compiling
statistics covering the points mentioned
| and in ferreting out abuses for the pur-
| pose of laying them before the legislature
in my forthcoming report.
Loring-And do you find any such
abuses?
Baker, must say that I do,
but, as said above, have
| not yet gathered all the data essen
tial to fair understanding of the matter,
| nor have fully matured the nature and
extent of the remedy to be employed, and
it would be manifestly unjust to the cor
porations as we'll as myself, to go into de-
tails at this time. 1 shall be governed en-
tirely by facts as find them, and the rec
concentrations shall make will be such
as in my opinion will tend to do away with
the evils found to exist.
Loring-Is it not your opinion that
farmers as body, are charged excessive
freights. For instance in the northern
part of the state, which represent on this
board, there is no competition between the
two companies, they having formed pool
at all points where they come in contact,
and there is great complaint of exhorbi-
tant charges, especially for the transpor-
tation of wheat, the chief product of the
country. 1t is the easiest handled of all
freights, and yet the Northern Pacific tar
if on bushel of wheat from Moorhead
and points this side to Du-
luth or Minneapolis is Is cents,
or $50 car, (which estimat-
ing a train ito consist of only Is
cars, would give the company $1,000,
equal to sixth of the farmers product for
hauling it to market. We claim that the
railroad company can as well afford to haul
the grain in the territory in question to
the markets named for cents bushel, as
the farmer can produce it for 81. Such
being the case, the company is getting 10
cents profit above fair compensa-
tion on every bushel hauled, equiv
alent to So for every acre of land producing
twenty bushels. It will thus be seen that
the company after having the lands given
them from which this production is main
ly received, is actually receiving from those
who purchased the land from them cash
annual rental of So per acre. Last year
when wheat commanded $1.3O in the local
markets, this charge of Is cents was not
seriously felt by the farmers, but now that
only 96 cents is being paid the
imposition of the charge becomes
very burdensome upon every importer,
especially the smaller ones, and they arc
seriously looking for a remedy.
In response Gen. Baker said there was
no question as to the necessity for, some
legislation in the premises, but reiterated
MS IOrLuor 6GdCeIneuG GnaC ne could not
yet 60 into details, and ended by pro-
pounding the query, as to whether the
board was prepared to favor fixed maxi
mum and minimum rate.
Mr.. Loring did not think tho board was
prepared to answer that question now.
The board felt satisfied that legislation
could be framed which would protect the
rights of the producing class, and at the
same time do no injustice to tho corpora
hons, and what it now wanted was to find
out the best means to accomplish that re-
suit.
At this point Mr.. Page asked Gen.
Baker what he thought of tho claim
set up by certain railroads, as to the rights
! Of such corporations to certain contiguous
territory, upon which other corporations
must not encfoach.
Gen. Baker replied that from the rail-
road standpoint the claim is all right, but
the public cannot and never will consent
to it's being accepted as true principle.
The fact is, that this is the real rub of
the present war, the matter of the per
centage Of business to be given different
roads at certain points, being only an ex-
| cuse. This claim raises another very inn