New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1885-05-24
TIE RAILRO1D PROBLEM.

The Committee on Interstate Commerce,
during its session in this city, has heard much
evidence of no value whatever, but 1t has also
listened to some statements that deserved seri-
GUS consideration. When Mr.. Poor testified
that dividends ought not to be declared on
watered stock, and that there was no longer any
danger that roads would be built unless really
needed the committee might have taken
sound and refreshing sleep without losing any
thing. Several gentlemen representing com
mercial interests or bodies, who favored some
measure of governmental interference or CON
troll, because the present management of rail-
roads did not seem to be perfectly adapted to
the interests or convenience of some shippers,
did not seem to have investigated the difficult
question in all its aspects. But when trained
railroad managers of long experience and ac-
knowledged ability like Commissioner Fink
and Mr. George X. Blanchard, advocate any
action by the Government their testimony de-
serves the most careful examination. Mr.. Fink.
for instance, would have RAILROADS. compelled
by law to work Under published tariff rates, and
to abide by agreements made between them
selves He says rightly that law against dis
elimination means rothing, for nobody knows
what discrimination is, and the common law is
ample to prevent any provabe injustice. But
he thinks pooling organizations should be
powered to fix rates, after submitting them Tor
suggestion to representatives of the public, and
the roads should then be obliged to abide by
those rates
This arrangement would undoubtedly help
the owners of railways whether it would help
the public is another question. Mr.. Fink testl-
fies that competition is the surest safeguard
against extortiOn, and the very evil from which
the railroads want to be defended by law is un-
restricted competition. The tendency of Mr.
Fink's plan would be to stop competition as far
as possible, and past experience shows that the
pooling arrangements, tested by experience
| thus far. have not promoted extortiOnate rates.
| but, on the contrary, have permitted, and per-
haps it should be said have rendered feasible, a
remarkable reduction in the charges for trans
portation. But this has been, at least in part,
| because competition has only been changed in
| character but not abolished or essentially
checked in the long run. Instead of cOmpeti-
tion between the roads within pool, we have
| had competition between the pooling roads as
| a body and other roads, or between the pooling
roads and the outside capitalists who haze
sought by building new roads to get part of the
profits secured through pooling. The new kind
of competition has proved more difficult to re-
strain, and more disastrous to owners of railway
property, than the old competition which the
pools arrested.
Hence Mr. Blanchard goes further he would
| have a National Commission, to which all plans
| for new roads should be submitted, and its APP
proyal should be necessary before a charter
could be obtained. The tendency OF this ar.
rangement would be to give monopoly to rail-
roads already built and TO secure to them the
vast increase of traffic which the growth of the
| country will involve. If it be said that the
| Commission would grant authority to build new
roads whenever there should be real public
need of them, it is to be answered that the
| Commission would be far more easily controlled
by corrupt or politically powerful corporations
than any State Legislature, and the country has
seen more than one State virtually bound and
harnessed by great corporations for years, and
controlled immensely to its own detriment.
The no-system which we now have, is not
| free from faults. But it may be doubted
whether it involves greater evils than would
spring from any OF the systems proposed in its
| stead.