The morning call., 1891-11-26
oRcHARDIsTs AND THE RAILROAD.

In recently published pamphlet on
lemon culture, e. ". Garcelon, the veteran
citrus-fruit grower Of Riverside, states a
transportation problem. Calling attention
to the fact that the main considerations
after fruit has been brought to a state of
perfection, is TO get it to the market in good
condition, he says: Railroad companies
charge the same price for landing a box of
fruit spoiled by their careless handling as
for good box; thus, if twenty boxes of
lemons are sent to Chicago they will cost
the sender 81 so box, even though half of
them spoil in transit. In almost all branches
of business a responsibility is obligatory
upon those who do the business, and if
loss comes from lack of proper facilities to
do that business, common justice demands
that the loss be made good. In the matter
of sending fruit, however, the shipper not
only loses his fruit, but has to pay freight
to the party through whose neglect the
fruit comes to grief. Not until the raj road
either chooses, or is compelled by law to
make good what is lost by its poor trans
portatiOn facilities. or even to lose the
freight on goods spoiled in transit, can Mr..
Garcelon see any hope of the shipper OBJ
tanning redress, and he favors a law that
| will encourage enough competition to give
| US better ventilated cars. and prevent rail-
road consolidation where the public suf-
| fers from monopoly.
In considering the difficulties so rapidly
| multiplying between shippers and trans
portation companies. on this Coast. one
| wonders equally at the apathy of the one
and the shOrt-sightednesS of the other 1t
| is estimated that about three-fifths of what
| should be the profit of the frut-grower is
| expended to get his goods to market, yet,
| were our California frut-growers to CON-
| bine, they could command the capital re-
| quisite 10 establish railroad communication
between their nearest shipping points and
| the Eastern markets, at rates that would
| enable them greatly to increase that mar
ket by SO lowering the price of their prod
ucts that millions would buy where hun
| dreds now are able to. while at the same
time they would realize largely of the
profits that now 60 to increase the accumu-
lated wealth of a few munopolists.
| On the other hand wonder is excited by
| the blindness of those mcn0polists them
selves. who, by their own extortions, have
surely Killed the goose that laid their
golden eggs Such blindness can only be
| explained by the fact that corporations are
without corporate brains, as well as without
corporate souls, and capital, combined for
certain to lose sight of the fact that there
is a limit to the extent TO which extortion
may be carried. 1t is the tendency of
monopoly to consider itself invineible.
| The time has passed when the overland
railway combination could pose as bene-
| factor to this Coast. 1t never was a bene-
factor. in fact. but has always been great
leech, waxing fat off tho necessities of the
people upon whom it preyed. With the
various waterways subsidized by the rail-
road, with even the Canadian route bound
by capitalistic combines to keep up rates, the
California orchardists. grain-growers and
merchants are practically cut off from the
! country's best markets, and reduced to
| make terms for transportation of their
| goods that virtually preclude adequate
profit from the results of their labors
In view Of all these conditions it is diff
cult, we say. to understand the apathy of
the interior shippers toward the plans of the
Traffic Association. Undoubtedly the in
terror press is largely responsible for the