Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1886-01-11

PooeehScis y stiHiiiSS- average mines TdN- |
LED by each passenger, cost per mile, ETC.
ouTHERN AND CENTRAL PACIFIC REDUC-
TIoSs.
There is also a series of tabulated state
nents, showing recent changes and reduc-
ions of through and local passenger fares
~ the Southern Pacific Railway. The LIST
If January, 1883, the company consum-
mated arrangements with its connecting
ines from the Missouri river to attract and
acihtate European immigration TO this
,oast by the very low charge of $50 per
passenger. The table shows the proportion
md rate per mile received by the company
before and after the reduction.
Another exhibit shows that since Janu-
cry, 1884, the through rates to Portland,
Oregon, have been greatly reduced, and
that the extension since that date of track
and train service to Delta has increased the
pro rata of the Southern Pacific. Lower
rate limited tickets are sold also at Stock
ton, Sacramento aad Marysville Within
this year also thirdelass or emigrant rates,
via Ogden, Kansas City and other Missouri
river points, have been reduced from $50
10 S47 80, of which the proportions of the
Southern Pacific Company west of its
Eastern terminus, taking Kansas City as
an example, are shown on the tables
State and Nevada, and reductions to pleas
ure resorts. The best reduction was made
in October last, when the company COM
menced carrying emigrants on its express
trains from San Francisco to Los Angeles
for SO reduction of 49,
FREIGHT COMPARISONS.
There are also tables showing elaborate
comparisons of charges for the same classes
of freight, by careful equations of distance
and weight, on the Chicago and Northwest
ern, Chicago, Milwaukee and ST. Paul,
Union Pacific, Missouri Pacific, 81. Louis
and San Francisco, Texas Pacific, Atchi-
son, Topeka and Santa Fe, and Central
Pacific and Southern Pacific Railroads
They show that the freight rates prevailing
in the Southern Pacific and leased lines,
when closely compared with those of seven
leading roads west of Chicago and the Mis-
souri, river, and also with the freight tariff
adopted and finally rescinded-after a
years consideration, two decisions and one
rehearing by the Kansas Commission-are
comparatively low, and may be "set down
as the accustomed reward for such sery-
ice"
Another exhibit generalizes the reports
submitted to the Commission of twenty
five roads 1t is stated thap the reports
show the companies TO be in good financial
and physical condition, and that they par
ticipated to some extent in the prosperity
OF the State during the past year. They
shared in the depression caused by the
short crop in 1885.
SHAM SCHEDULE.
The report stigmatizes the schedule pre-
sented by Commissioner Foote, based upon
the original investigation of Commissioner
C1rpppter into tho grain and ~ bo,. cop,
modify rates from interior points to tide
water, May, 1884, as a sham. This sched-
uie consisted of three trial sheets, repre-
senting the plan OF examination. So much
OF II as related to grain rates was a faith
fully copy at second hand of that prepared
under Mr.. Carpenters direction, with some
additional comparisons on the same plan
of rates on wool and live stock OF every
four columns of figures which it contained
only two could have any place on a sched-
ule, of which it never had the semblance,
and into which it could not be converted BY
copying. As one of many methods for
studying and comparing rates, it is pre-
cisely the same as the one from which it
was copied, and without the slightest credit
to any one, is relatively good or bad for
that purpose. But as a pretended schedule
1t was never more or less than a transparent
sham.
DISTANCE TARIFF TESTED.
The report as a result of the observations
and experience of the Commissioners adj
heres to the first principles and factors of
railroad service. They are in different de-
grees and combinations the established cri-
terions of its mere cost to the carrier and OF
its real value to the shipper. And tariff
OF freights based on any one of them to the
exclusion of all the others is not only n
perversion of the one adopted. but a STUPID
fraud upon the whole of them. If upon
distance alone 1t ignores the crucial test of
earnings and expenses by the train mile as
the unit of railroad service, whether at q
loss or a profit, and the ton mile as the unit
OF public use, measured by distance and
quality, ii takes no account of the difference
TO railroad company whether its cars are
loaded both ways or are empty in one
direction. 1t takes no notice of the further
fact that there are general expenses and
fixed charges having no relation TO the dis
lance OF movement, and which would be
more properly charged to the ton of freight
as unit of quantity than to the ton mile
as the unit of quantity and distance.
Again, it sets gradients and the law of gray
itation at defiance But as the force re-
quired for moving loaded train one mile
over gradual ascent of only twenty feet,
is about the same for moving it two miles
on level track; and for moving 172 tons
tons OF freight one mile over the maximum
gradient of 1l6 feet, is nearly equivalent 10
Lost tons the same distance over level
track, it follows that
A TAPE-LINE TARIFF
Is false measure of compensation. For
one more illustration we might take the
reduced charges established by railroad
company at and between terminal points
for purposes of competition, as authorized
by the Constitution (Article MI, Section
20). To carry such charges by arbitrary
reductions to non-competing points, over a
whole road, or system of long and short
roads, would be to convert the constitu-
tional privilege into an unjust penalty,
and to eliminate even the element of
distance by cut rate as the only
remaining factor of AN ideal sched-
ule that should never get beyond the
trial sheets by which its absurdity is shown.
Such a tariff would defeat itself by the
reductio ad absndum The result of such
absurdities and the opinions of commits
sions. jurists and statesmen concerning
them, and the citations from other Com
missions, relative to uniform and compet-
tive rates, are quoted deliberately in the
report, and more particularly the recent de-
ciSipil vi JuuSS beiJiy III llle eA parte case
of Richard X oehler, receiver of the Oregon
and California Railway. The way in which
this celebrated Judge slashes the nonsense
out of the stale platitudes of partisan petit
foggers is both
REFRESHING AND INSTRUCTIVE.
His distinction between competition and
discrimination. and his imperative CON-
mand to the receiver to make the non
competitive short haul pay reasonable COM
pensation, even though it should be more
than the restricted charge for longer haul
in the same direction. but subject to COM
petition, is commended, as laying down the
true principle. In his decision he told the
receiver that if the short-haul shipper paws
only reasonable compensation, it is none
of his business Tor words to that
effect what the railroad does to
compete with water craft, or what a
shipper, having a choice between them.
pays for competitive service As the only
difference between the Constitutions OF
Oregon and California turns upon vested
rights and the authority of the State to
control railroads at all. it does not touch
the instructions of the Judge as the Judi
ciai manager of a railroad. The Court held
that the State had right to prevent a rail
road from discriminating between persons
and places, for the sake of putting one up
or another down, or any other reason than
the real exigencies of its business.
RAILROADS WEST OF THE MISSOURI AND MIS-