Wichita eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1883-1888, 1885-11-06
WHOLESALE AND RETAIL

> Wichita within the last year has ncarl,
doubled the extent of her wholesale business
: and bids fair 10 continue right along II
S steps towards being the center of supplies
: for the large territory Of southwestern HAN
sas, the Indian Nation and contingent terri
: tory. Already her merchants have agents
. on the road soliciting and competing with
eastern cities in supplying the country mer-
chant in most of tho merchandise which
they handle. Ii seems destined to be the
: depot of supplies for very large scope OF
growing territory in the southwest, and the
supremacy which she now assumes will I'M
doubleday continue. The queen city of the
Arkansas Valley now insures that she will
be the queen city OF the future.
The present railroad tariff rates which al
lows large quantities of goods to be import
ed in car loads at a low price from
the large commercial certers of the nation
enables the iobbers and wholesale dealers
of this city to furnish job lots of meichan-
disc cheaper than either st. Louis or Chica-
90 can, because there is a discrimination
between car loads of unbroken freight and
broken lots as usually shipped by jobbers of
those cities. Retailers will say with truth
that they can purchase from Wichita whole
sale dealers certain articles of merchandise
cheaper than they can have them layed
down here by St. Louis or Chicago jobbers,
( for the reason that stock coming in in car
| loads has heavy advantage in tariff rates
above broken car loads or job lots from the
east. So noticeable has this become to the
eastern jobbers that st. Louis, Chicago and
Milwaukee are making strenuous efforts to
haye the railroad tariff rearranged so as to
retain the jobbine trade that is SO
fast slipping from them to western
cities having pretense Of doing
iobbing and wholesale supply business.
Already the boards of trade of those cities
have passed resolutions and petitioned rail-
road tariff managers of the west, TO rear
range the freight rates so rs TO discriminate
in favor of their own trade, and against that
Of the western cities, by raising the tariff on
car loads and lessening it on broken car
loads or job lots. immediately on their
action in this direction, the cities of the
west aspiring to prominence as order and
jobbing centers took alarm a. the blow
aimed at them and set about to counteract
the move, the board of trade, of this city,
met, and at full meeting of that body, the
following resolutions were unanimously !
adopted;
"Resolved, That it is the sense Of this |
meeting that any revision of the present car /
load rate system tending to discrimination |
in favor OF smaller shipments than car load /
rates. would be detrimental TO the interest |
of all western jobbers, and to the building |
up of distributing points in the interior, and |
would result in the Capitalization of trade 4
at remote eastern markets, TO the detriment /
Of western retailers as well as jobbers."
Boards of trade of Topeka, St. Joseph,
Kansas City, Fl. Scott, and other cities west
have built up fourishing trades in this line,
under the existing rstes passed reso-
buttons of Ike import against any
change in the existing rates
tending to discriminate against them TO the
advantage OF remote eastern cities.
At first glance it may look a trivial
matter, but, when we consider that cities Of
the size of Wichita depend to great ex-
tend on either their manufactures or their
commercial relations as iobbers with the
country, Of which they are the center, and
the depot of supplies, it becomes of vital
importance that they be allowed to import
by Wholesale under the same terms that
eastern cities transport their unbrcken
freight
Wichita appears right now 10 be building
up n jobbing trade that is eventually to
knock the socks out of ali competitors, and
Kansas City in particular, and it stands the
board Of trade in hand TO watch with an
argus eye any encroachments on her inter-