Workmen's advocate., 1890-06-07
THE STOCK ARGUMENT.


 have been reduced 90 per cent In com t mentng upon this fact a monopoIistic | organ, the St. Paul Pioneer Press, exalts ( the benefits of competition, to which ( 'the producer and the consumer are supposed to be indebted for this won derful" cheapening of rates. We quote;
 "While it may not admit of math ematiCal demonstration, we do not think that it is in the least doubtful that the people of this country have gained more by reductions of freight rates and are now enjoying cheaper and better rail- way service than could have been pos sible if the railways of the nation had been from the beginning under govern ment control. This phenomenon is not particular to the Lake Shore system, The same thing is true of and corre- spending statement can be made by, any of the great trunk lines which have been in operation during the period mentioned The agitator says that rall- road competition Is failure; but competition has given us freight rates which few other countries can equal, taking into account the volume of busl' ness and the distances traversed, and 1t | has also saved to the people practically | all of the profit from improvements in | railroad appliances and economies in railway management.
 This is the regular stock argument of monopoly in every form; but, as the
 Pioneer Press naively confesses, Git does
 not admit of mathematical demonstra-
 straion,' for the simple reason that all
 the mathematics are on the other side.
 By looking over the report we find
 that in 1873 the number of tons carried
 on the road in question was 5,00O000 as
 against l0,O00,000 in 1889; and that,
 while the gross earnings remained
 substantially the same (Sl9,0 ,O00), the
 net earnings or profits increased from
 $5,667 000 to 6639, 000-or about one
 million dollars, which is the exact amount of the reduction in "operating expenses"
 Now, how were those operating ex;
 penses reduced? In the first place, by means of railroad mprovements-such
 us steel rails, better engines, etc., paid [, for out of the gross earnings of the road:
 secondly by the greater efficiency or in' ', tensity of the labor employed, few more q men being now required to handle l0000,000 tons than were needed to handle 5,0000 900 tons in 1873; thirdly by constant reduction of the wages of r that labor. Is there anything in all this that the advocates of competition may a rightly claim in its favor, whether it bt the public benefits resulting from inven
 tion and skill or the public evils result .o ing from the increased intensity and re ,e uuced wages ol laDoF
 V Again, in all these years the Lak' II Shore road, according to its own state
 ment of met earnings" has eXtortet '. annually from the public an averag
 sum of more than six millions of dollar ;, over and above the actual cost of trans
 portation; making in the aggregate ,,. much larger sum than the total cost c 70 the road. Therefore, if the governmen ,r had been the owner of it, it coul Ia already, in 1873, have reduced the freigf o rates one.third, while the present rate o, would still be one-third lower than whi no they now are.
 o,, Of course, government of the peopl of by the people, for the people, might n' , have behaved like the administration ,ft a monopoly, by monopolists, for mol to opolists. While availing itself of ever ala scientific improvent to a greater extel ,,o and with more promptitude than co ,o poraton of stockholders hungry for ill ho mediate dividends, it might not ha' ,, unduly increased the intensity of lab ,or nor heartlessly reduced its wages. But u
 freight charges could at any rate be .ot low as they are, even if the present Il ite earnings of the road, amounting
 paarlv caypn millions Of dollars wp