Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-03-18
BURLINGTON AND NORTHERN DEAL.
Will 1t Destroy the Healthy Competition
That Has Heretofore Existed?

Will It Destroy the Healthy Competition
That Has Heretofore Existed?
Editorially speaking of the absorption
of the Burlington and Northern road by
the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy the
St. Paul Dispatch says:
1.-THE transfer of the majority of the
stock of the Chicago, Burlington and
Northern railway company to the Chi
cago, Burlington and Quincy system is
an event of great. public interest which
seems to be universally regarded as
equivalent to the cessation of all rate
wars among the Chicago-St. Paul car
Tiers.
The transfer I'm deniably goes to sus-
tain some of the hardest things that have
been said of the Burlington and Northern
management; but that that transfer will
be followed by all the results anticipated,
or that the function exercised by this
road in the carrying commerce OF st.
Paul has been altogether bad, is an as
sumption wholly unwarranted by the
facts. The grasp which the Chicago
roads held so long and so relentlessly on
the commercial progress and welfare of
these cities was not loosened so long ago
as to be forgotten by any intelligent per-
son. 1t requires no great stretch of
memory to recall the days when higher
freight rates prevailed between st. Paul
and Chicago than prevailed between
Chicago and the Atlantic sesboard with
the sum of the locals as the through rate.
That this policy of oppression is not in
operation to-day is q fact which in no
small measure is due to the Burlington
and Northern management, however it
is thought proper now to characterize
that management.
Whatever be the effect of the absorp-
ton of the Burlington and Northern, the
Chicago roads have conditions TO caIcu-
late on now in the composition of their
tariffs which were not in existence at the
time that they worked their sweet will on
the commerce of st. Paul and the north
west. They have the $500 and the
Canadian Pacific still to deal with; and
even should they succeed, in conjunction
with their eastern connections, in apply
ing the congressional brake to those
roads, or even should they bring those
roads into line in establishing rates which
will be satisfactory to the Chicago board
of trade, there is still an obstacle in their
path which thus far at least their best
efforts have been unable to remove.
From time to time the news dispatches
keep our readers informed of the anxiety
with which the Chicago and the Eastern
trunk lines are regarding the attitude of
the Great Northern system. Invitations
galore appear TO have been addressed to
Mr.. James J. Hill, the president of that
system, to confer with his Chicago and
Eastern brethren with view to estab-
fishing uniform tariffs, which may re-
move the other great unsettling agency
of transportation-that of thelake route.
Thus far the invitations and appeals
have apparently been unavailable, and
they have been unavailable so far as the
public know, because that gentleman
and the interest which he repres ents in
sist that it will be time enough to discuss
such matters when the same rates are
agreed upon between the head of Lake
Superior aud the sea coast as prevail be-
tween the foot of Lake Michigan and the
sea coast. Until that principle is waived
it is quite as well for the Chicago inter
ests to restrain their exubertant joy over
the disappearance of the Burlington and
Northern.
Rate wars are an unmitigated evil.
They have worked rare havoc with the
balance sheets of railroad carriers. So
far as the Burlington and Northern
management has been promotIve of
them, its conduct hiss been reprehen-
sfb1e. But the cessation of rate wars
ought not TO involve the cessation of
healthful competition. This is the end
to which most of our Chicago carriers
are now looking forward as the certain
result of the withdrawal of the Burling-
ton and Northern. We think their hope,