The record-union., 1891-10-22
THROUGH POINTS.

A commercial journal, published in San
Francisco, and in the interest of the mer-
chants and shippers ofthat city, discussing
the loss Of trade to the metropolis, says:
Stiil great deal OF trade remained away.
ana appears 10 have been taken away perma-
nently. san Francisco moumed. but Sacra-
mento, Los Angeles and smaller rivals were
content
The great bulk of the commerce carried
TO the Pacific Coast comes by rail. San
Francisco is on the very western verge of
the continent. The rail routes run
through the country for which San Fran
cisco aspires to be the distributing center.
The problem is to carry merchandise from
Eastern centers to San Francisco at a rate
SO low that the city by the sea will be en-
abled to become the distributing point
back over the very routes once traversed
by the traffic and into the territory
through which the traffic has been car
ried. This is San Francisco's problem.
Our commercial contemporary declares
that the through rates TO Marysville. Sacra-
mento, Stockton, Los Angeles, etc., are
distributing the commerce of the coast to
the disadvantage of San Francisco. There
fore it declares that the metropolis
mourned, but Sacramento, Los Angeles
and smaller rivals were content.
1t has been one of the chief sources of
conflict between transportation agencies
and San Frapcieco +I,o+ II, =, g.. - ~
not carry through to the Bay City, ignor-
ing all interior points, at rates sufficiently
low to leave an economic margin for re-
distribution to the territory through
which the freight has once been carriedA
Our contemporary calls Sacramento. Los
Angeles and other towns 'the smaller
rivals of San Francisco" and declares
that with the existing arrangement thev
were content. When the Traffic Associa
tion was formed the whole State was in
vited to participate; and yet it was de-
clared on the floor of the convention that
San Francisco ought to keep control. San
Francisco does not care a straw for anv
Traffic Association that will not make
that city the distributing center for the
coast. 1t is to recover a trade lost with
Southern California and Arizona. and
lost with interior places, which find
Marysyille, Sacramento, Stockton and
San Jose as convenient bases of supply
as San Francisco-it is to recover this
trade, we say, that San Francisco's chief
efforts are put forth. Unless it can re-
cover 1t, it will gain nothing. kAny traffic
arrangement made at San Francisco re-
ducing freight rates to that city will make
a corresponding reduction to Sacramento.
Stockton, San Jose, Portland. Tacoma.
Seattle, Los Angeles and San Diego.
Relatively, when the scale goes down.
the commercial territory of San Fran
cisco will remain as circumscribed as be-
fore, and the cause of discomfort will not
have passed away.
We took the liberty of pointing out the
fact that San Francisco's advice to the
transportation companies would be to
give San Francisco the same advantage
by rail it now possesses by sea. The over
land railroads become the competitors of
the ocean, and while the commerce en-
tered and departed at the port of San
Francisco, it was naturally the supreme
point of distribution of this coast-the
natural commercial basis of all the COM
merce generated by the products of an
area 900 miles square. If it could to-day
restore the ocean traffic as it existed be-
fore the railroads were constructed it
would gladly do so. If it were impos-
sible for railroads to bring freight over
land, but only to distribute back from
San Francisco, that city would be con-
tent.
We have no fault to find with the for
nation of a Traffic Association in San
Francisco of San Francisco merchants
no fault to find with combinations in any
direction having mutuality of interest,
but what we have right to demand for
Sacramento and for the interior, which
we specially represent, is that whatever
concession is made to San Francisco
shall be shared by this city, that its posi-
ton as through point, or the equiva-
lent of ocean communication shall be
maintained, that if reductions of the
rates of transportation are secured, they
shall inure to the commerce of Sacra-
mento the same as TO San Francisco: and
we reassert our former position that a
Traffic Association for Sacramento is
quite one thing, and to play second fiddle
to Traffic Association formed in San
Francisco is quite another, and that all
roads San Francisco will point out lead
ee concentration Of the commerce of