New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1888-11-30
COM BINATION AND COMPETITION.

The thanks giving Of railroad stockholders
would have been peculiarly fervent if they had
been fully convinced that the latest of many
efforts to curb ruinous competition by mutual
compact would prove success. There is no
occasion to raise the question whether result
by SO many desired is probable. Most people
have been convinced by unhappy experience
that agreements of this nature are more easily
made than observed, and that under the opera
tion of the Interstate Commerce law the diff
culties have been much increased. Cynical
people also note that there are still some rail
roads under speculative management, and that
such companies are prone to agree when stocks
have been bought, and to break agreements
when stocks have been sold.
More fruitful than prophecy may perhaps be
found an endeavor to clear up the relations of
the public to the contemplated compact In a
large section Of the country, where it was
thought essential to the public welfare to pro-
hibit railway pools, the proposed agreement
will be regarded with distrust. if not mmedi
ately condemned as that most horrible Of
monsters, a trust. On the other hand. some
practical railroad managers ask whether strong
and solvent lines can afford to expose them
selves to the risk and sacrifices involved by
kind of union with lines which cannot pay
expenses.
If people would not persist in looking at the
railroad question with eyes carefully shut they
would notice first of all the enormous cost
which competition compels burdened people
to bear. Railroads create business for them
selves it is said. and so IN a certain sense they
do, yet the whole number of people in the
country, working according to their several
gifts, do not produce an additional bushel or
ton or pound because new railroad has been
built. Neither do they eat more food nor wear
more clothes. The "new business in one To-
caty or on one line is exceedingly apt to be
business taken from another l'cality or an older
line. Whatever new railroads are required to
accommodate the new inhabitants Of the coun
try have their new business provided from
wear to year. Any others have to get it away
from some older line.
When there is one butchers shop in vii
lage, with about business enough to pay de-
cent rental to keep up decent delivery wagon
with a good horse and careful driver, and to
return living profit, things go well. Pres
emily another starts paying a second rent,
d
other driver, and now all the expenses of two
establishments have to come out Of the same
community. If one breaks somebody loses in
bad debts. If both survive the customers get
poorer service, pay higher prices or ecl worse
meat.
If two railroads are fighting for a traffic
which would support but one the public in
some way pays the expenses Of both. The man
who " does not see how' may find fault with
his own eyesight. 1t is not possible to keep
two sets of men to run one set of errands with
out loss somewhere. The roads being built,
presently recognize the fact that they must by
agreement tax the public far enough to live, or
must get as much or more out of the public by
bad service and bad debts. But the perpetual
danger to the railroads is that agreement in
vites construction Of other new lines and more
competition.
Combinations, pools and trusts do not live
long in this country, as rule. unless they
earn their living. They can earn it only by
serving the public better on the whole than it
can get served by competition. The instant
they fail so to serve the public some new COM
petitor is sure to appear, and before long the
pool or trust that cannot earn its living goes
down. But the dear people have an abiding
conviction. that what is perfectly obvious can
not be true, and so they 60 on fighting against
combinations, which lessen expenses, and for
more competition, which inevitably increases
expenses.