Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1889-05-27
THE WEEKLY Union
UNFAIR COMPETITION.

4AS San rIduCiScO CUu quotes the New
York Times and the Boston Herald as say,
ing that if the American transcontinenta
roads suffer by the competition of thu
Canadian road, the shippers are the gamers
The journal last named protests that any
interference with this competition will
affect Boston commercial interests badly
What sort of a view is this to take of a
national question? OF course the unequal
competition benefits a few, but the ques.
ton to consider is how does it affect the
whole country? The answer is, uniform
by those who have examined into the
question, "disastrously" Neither Boston
nor New York can afford to have the trans
continental roads deprecated or ruined
Those commercial centers are intimately
concerned in their maintenance, and in the
upholding of their earning capacity. But
more than all others, the intermediate
commercial interests are interested. If by
reason of the competition of the British
road the through business Of the Pacific
roads is to be stripped from them, they
must be maintained, if at ALL upon
the charges laid upon those shippers
who cannot avail of the Canadian COM
petition. But this is not all; the COM
petition is not fair one. 1t flies
In the face of all commercial law and
custom. The Canadian road is not an
equal competitor because it is an untaxed
road in the first place and received its
material duty free, and is in the second
place backed, supported, and its every
Interest zealously promoted by one of the
strongest nations of the earth, to which it
pays no tribute, and which has subsidized
it with a iberality unprecedented in his
tory, and which subsidy it is not called
upon to repay nor so much as meet the
interest upon. To say that in the face of
such competitor the American roads
must take care of themselves" is simply
TO throw up our hands in front of the
British Government and bid it come on
and do the business of this country with
out let, hindrance or tax. 1t is not yet
three years since this munifcently en-
dowed, tax-free, duty-free, Government
supported road bid for the carrying trade
OF the Orient as against the American
roads, but such inroads have already been
made that no special prescience is needed
to forsee the early date when we will have
lost the trade entirely. American pride
If nothing else, should be concerned. and
if that fails American self-interest must
come to the rescue. The local traffic of
the American roads must never be saddled
with the cost Of the through traffic-such
an idea is absurd, the American sense of
common justice forbids it, but that calam-
lty will befall the local shippers on the
American roads if the unequal competi-
ton of the Canadian Pacific is fostered by
cur own Government, as at present. The
Cal puts the question only mildly, when it
Gays:
1t is q serious thing to the nation at large that
an important branch of traffic should pass into
the hands OF foreigners. When traffic once gets
INTO certain grooves it is hard to pry it out of
them. II the wool shipments from this coast TO
Boston begin TO take the Canadian line as a
natural channel, while the movement OF tea
eastward and of domestics westward take the
same course it viii be difficult hereafter to re-
store them TO the American lines. We presume
it is not necessary to demonstrate TO our Eastern
contemporaries that ii is not TO the public adj
vantage that the interchange OF commodities
between the East and West should be conducted
through foreign country, or that the tea of
Japan should 90 TO market via Canada or that
domestics made in New England should go to
China through the Dominion. We have porrs
and lines of our own which are ample for the
conduct OF this business without travelling into
foreign ports.
The East is probably not aware of the inroads
which the Canadian Pacific has already made
on our commerce. In 1855 the American
lines only carried 10 6S7, sos pounds of tea east
OF % per cent. while in the same year, 1885, the
Canadian Pacific carried 1882 ll pounds of
tea, as against 800 1862 pounds in isS7-an in
crease of 81 per cent So with the west-bouud
traffic. During the year ending June 30, 1888,
the Canadian Pacific carried sos 600 pounds OF
20 China but in the six months ending De-
cember 81. 1855, the amount carried over that
line was a,35l Cos pounds, and IN the single
month of January, 1889, 400 600 pounds. 1t is
reconed that 50 per cent. of the total exports OF
cotton goods from the United States to China
will go over the foreign line this year.
The competition of the Canadian Pacific for bus
iness is thus not an ordinary competition which
sound policy might foster in the interests of
shipper aud consumer 1t is a rivalry between
four or five American companies on the one side
and ON the other Government with Great Brit
ain a lie hack