Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1886-10-11

snail nave ana ENJOY oeIofe long as
easily as the mails. They gave con-
gress the common and exclusive reg
ulation of commerce among the
states. They prohibited discrim ma
tions in favor of the people or parts
of one state against another, and
they gave the citizens of the differ
ent states national courts for the trial
and decision of their controversies.
This unity and community of so
many interests demand quick, easy
and cheap means of transportation,
at fair and equal rates, between one
part of the country and another. To
build railways and canals requires
great aggregations of capital, and
great concentration and co-ordina-
ton of management and these have
seemed to involve an amount of pow
er which has too often been pervert-
ed from its legitimate uses as an in
strument of public creation for the
equal public good, to dominating
and capricious control of the trade
and intercourse of the people, as
well as frequently an organized, we'll
equipped and potent interference
with political affairs and with legis-
lation.
have now only to speak of these
great concerns and their management
in relation to questions of fair trans
portation. 1t is generally admitted
by The managers of these lines of
communication, that great evils now
exist, sometimes arising from person
al or other favOritism or the reverse,
by which one customer, or one vii.
lage or city, is ruined or greatly in
jured, and another advanced, and by
which even the companies themselves
are frequently involved in "war of
rates." destructive to their own prop
erty, and so 1uctuating the prices of
transportation that producers and
shippers cannot calculate with any
certainty in respect of their opera
tions.
And still another and most impor-
tant way the state of things have
mentioned lnjuriouslY affects our
farmers. manufacturers and mer-
chants, This is done by charging
too high rates for short transporta-
ton, and too low rates for long dis
tances. 1t frequently happens, as
everybody knows, that it costs the
farmers and manufacturers of Ohio,
for instance, as much or more to
transport their products 500 miles to
market as it does the farmers and
manufacturers of Texas or Oregon to
send their products to the same mar
ket over distances three or four times
as great,-and we know of like in
stances all over the country. Leav-
ing out of consideration the compar-
atively trifing matter of loading and
unloading, and other terminal charges,
the actual expense of railway trans
portation of the same kind of goods
over the same or similar lines, de-
pends almost entirely on the distance
run. The railway companies have a
right TO live and make fair profits
from their business. If they do this
1t follows that of their income the
shippers for short distances have
paid rates unreasonably low. The
farmers of Vermont, for instance,
where the price of land and wages are
high, are by these methods compelled
to contribute part of their hard
earned gains to the farmers of some
distant part of the country, where
land and wages are low, to help them
make their products worth as much
as if they had been grown or raised
within 800 miles of Boston or New
York. This cannot be justice. Near
ness and distance from the place of
sale or consumption are just as natu-
raj and Interchangeable relation as are
those of soil, climate, skill Or thrift.
As well might the farmer, who with
good land and thorough and industri-
Gus cultivation has raised a good
crop, be required to give part of it
to his neighbor, who, with poorer
land, Incidence, and infinite weeds,
has raised only half as much, And,
this of course, applies as we'll TO all
sorts of things produced as to those
of the farm.
Evils of this kind, which seem to
be increasing, need the most earnest
and candid consideration of the peo-
pie, and the enactment of such wise
laws of restraint and regulation as
shall be just, and in the long run re-
ally beneficial to the carriers of the
country, while they provide for the
speedy and effectral redress of these
and other grievances, and produce
that equality and steadiness in the
management of trade and transporta-
ton which shall be found to be alike
for the benefit of carriers, shippers
and the people of every part of the
country.
There Is another topic that belongs
to the general subject to which / have
called your attention, but the time
which l can occupy will admit only
of brief reference to it. | allude
to the disposition of the surplus pro-
ductions of our country in foreign
markets. The oceans which bound
the whole length of both the eastern
and western borders of the Republic
are free highways, from which there