Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1883-08-31
RAIL AND RIVER.
The Railroad Recie,c.


Henry V. Poor's Railroad Manual all
illustrates how easy is literary place to the
man who meets a public demand. To
present in one volume record of the
financial condition, the traffic and the Off
cial stats of all the railroads in the coun-
try was to do a work of obvious utility, and
when this is issued annually with the most
recent changes and additions, all done
with painstaking regard for accuracy,
Poor's Manual becomes the indispensable
dictionary for American railroading, as
assuredly as Webster's dictionary became
the standard in photography. Mr.. Poor,
moreover, precedes his statistics at indi-
vidual roads with an introduction present
ing en- abstract of the progress
of the country for the previous
year. He thus covers the ground fully IN
an important department of statistics,
where no official bureau undertakes
to collect information. A private citizen.
he is our only national railroad commits
sioner.
The Republican has already noted the
main features of Mr.. Poor's last report.
There was built last year 1851 miles of
railroad, being the largest extension ever
made in one year, bringing the total up to
213,329 miles of railroad in the United
States. No other country in the world ap-
proaches this vast mileage, and probably
altogether they do not exceed it. 1t would
go round the world four and one half
times. The nominal capital and debt
would pay the national debt four or five
times-and the years earnings for 1882,
which are not a matter of initiation and
stock watering, amount to S770,000,O00, or
half the national debt. Two-sevenths of
this amount was for passengers, five
seventies for freight. The average
gross earnings per mile was
$7,I86 in 1882; in New England it was
$4,000, but il old England the railroads in
1879 earned an average of SIG, 500 per mile.
The nearest approach to this i'll America is
probably IN Massachusetts, where IN 1882
the railroads earned an average Of $12,5
per mile. Thus the earning capacity OF
railroads rises with density of population
and high degree of popular intelligence.
1.-THE weakness of the American railroad
system is the constantly widening gap be-
tween nominal capitalization and real
cost. It IS both a financial and moral
weakness. 1t was financial weakness in
the long period of depression, when hun
dreds OF millions of so-called stock was
foreciosed out of possession, and is always
moral weakness from the fact
that a fictitious capital is not en-
titled to that reasonable" return which
the common law allows the common car
rier. Mr.. Poor shows that the last $4,000
miles of railroad in this country, the pro-
duct OF the last three years, has been &C.
companied by an expansion of capital and
debt amounting to $2,O23, 000,0 900, or $780,
600 mile, whereas the actual cost was not
over $4,000 mile.- At $4,000, a net
earning of $1,000 will pay per cent.
on the cost, but at $70,Oo0 it takes a net
earning of $4,000 to pay 6 per cent. on
the cost. Now there has been marked
decline in both gross and net earnings per
mile of American roads since 1880, partly
because of the unproductive new mileage
probably, and partly because of the con-
slant decline in rates. Mr.. Poor's figures
therefore seem to furnish an explanation
of the present lack of confidence in rail
road stocks. 'Of course" says Mr.. Poor,
such an enormous increase of liabilities
over actual cash outlay is greatly to be re-
GREETED, and is we'll calculated to create
distrust of ali securities, good and bad.
In most of the states the general railroad
laws forbid the issue of share capital,
unless its full equivalent is paid; but these
are avoided by contracts by which certain
amount of stock and bonds are issued in
full payment for a given number of
miles"
Mr.. Poor discovers that The average pas
senger service il New England is equal to
sixteen rides for every inhabitant; in the
middle states, not i.cIuding the New York
L roads, to ten rides for every lnhabitant,
while IN the south not every inhabitant got
even enc ride; il the west and southwest
there are four times and On the Pacific
coast seven times as many trips as inhab-
itants. The average freight rate of the
whole country IS l.2 cents per ton per
miIe-that is, y cents per ten tons per
mile. But this is much higher than the
average rate for most of the traffic of the
great east ard west trunk lines The mar
velous cheapness of this traffic from the
great productive basin to the sea-board is
the substantial and satisfactory achieve
ment of the American railroad system
the grandest vindication of the American
policy of domestic free trade and the
leaving of commerce to the individual mi
tiative, necessitating the new word,
thought, and performance enterprise.