The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1883-12-13
LOOKING AHEAD.

UtaQ mas more Clan passing III
terest in tie tripartite railroad agree
ment announced from New YOr
on Tuesday. The arrangement
between the Union Pacific, Chicago
Rock-Island & Pacific and Chicago
Milwaukee & st. Paul and is to con
tinue in operation twenty>fv
years. The details Of the agreemen
are unknown here, nor ale they o
interest to the general public. 1t il
enough for the community to know
that pooling arrangement has beer
entered into. which promises to re-
suit in a lively rate warfare. and g
consequent reduction of prices. Fol
some time past the s'Iowa Pool,
comprising the six or eight roads
lunning out of Chicago or having
connections with those roads, has
controlled all trans-Missouri bus
mess, the charges being fixed and
the division of the spoils agreed
upon in the pool. The pool
will go out of existence on
January 1st, when the tr pal tite
agreement noted above will 60 into
operation. This latter is evidently
a compact having for its object the
control of Rocky Mountain and
Pacific Coast business. 1t is OBJ.
served that such progressive and
powerful roads as the Northwestern
and the Chicago, Burlington &
Quincy have been left out of the
compact. which circumstance in
itself must be regarded by these
roads as an invitation to War-an
invitation that will certainly be acS
cepted.
The people of Utah are but little
interested in the impending con-
test. so far as rates On their own
freight and passengers are con-
cerned. We are not likely to again
suffer any such extortion as that to
which we have been subjected.
There is a reasonably fair promise
that in future the railroads
will deal somewhat justly
by this Territory. But there
is believed to be more involved in
the breaking Of the Iowa pool, and
the new arrangement than a rate
war in the east. The -oads 10 the
tripartite agreement may carry their
contest to this point, but here they
are likely to be blocked. 1t is well
known that the Union Pacific and
Central Pacific are not friends and
never have been On the contrary
they are enemies to the extent that
neither would favor the other if it
were convenient or possible to avoid
it. The Central PaciGc's sympathy
is all with the D. & r. G.. and its
eastern connections-the B. s. O.,
and the A. T. & S. F. The tripartite
agreement is a direct attack upon
these roads, which the Central will
find it convenient to protect in such
a manner as to leave the Union Paci-
fc up here in the mountains without
a favorable connection with San
Francisco, nine hundred miles dis
tant. While there are four trans
continental railroads, there is prac-
tically but one into San Francisco,
the G. p. and S. P. being under the
same management, and the Atlantic
81 Pacific amounting only to a
branch or feeder of the South
ern Pacific. The Union Pacific's
Oregon Short Line now approachs
ing the Pacific, cannot be made to
help the tripartite combination in a |
war with the Central Pacific. The |
latter is master of the situation, and |
besides having its own two lines to |
protect, is in perfect and active |
sympathy with the competitive
roads outside the tripartite agree |
ment. The way the matter pre- |
sents itself to us is that the |
Union Pacific and associate roads,
in order to succeed in the war that
they have invited, must have an
independent line to San Francisco
or some point in the vicinity Of that
CITY, and that line must start from
Salt Lake. The people of Utah
will anxiously await the cessation
of the Iowa pool, and the going
into effect of the twenty five year
agreement that has just been
signed. Shortly thereafter we may
look for some activity in railroad
building hereabouts, and it is not
among the improbabilities that the
Salt Lake & Western will reach out
for the Tactic 6. aI S----,y @ay. (