The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1891-06-19

Il
with a mystery supposed to be beyond
! the ordinary comprehension. As an
illustration the author quotes the rate
i of seven and one.half cents per hundred
} weight on -four from Minneapolis to
Chicago, four hundred and ten miles by
, the shortest line, which gives an average
} of only about three mills par ton per
, mile, less than half the average cost of
, transportation as fixed by traffic officials.
] Mr.. Stickney in considering competitive
tariffs says:
J Il is freely charged in railway circles,
and presumably it is true, that the Gus
tom of paying rebates to individual
! shippers 70 which the Interstate COM
merce law at first seemed to put an end,
has again come into vogue and if any
one wishes to fully understand the
chaos Of rates, let him imagine at each
J important town numerous merchants
and manufacturers having special secret
rates, each believing be has the lowest,
and all but one, probably, fooled in
that respect.
/ According to Mr.. Stickney's reason
ing, discrimination is the great evil in
railway management that needs correc-
ton, and the object and purpose of the
called "granger legislation" is not to
destroy the value of railway property,
but to protect methods of railway man
agement, and it is consequently stated
that during the whole course of so.
called granger legislation, no legislature
has established by law nor has any
railroad commission promulgated a
schedule of rates GLOW as to materially
reduce the revenues of the companies
had the companies adopted the sched-
ules and enforced them as whole.
i The last annual report of the Wa
bash Company, says Mr.. Stickney,
shows the average rate per ton per mile
collected on that system during the
year to be only six mills. The lowest
schedule of rates which has yet been
made by any commission in the West
ern States is that now in force in Iowa.
| The lowest rate in this lowest schedule
is the soft coal rate, and the lowest rate
for the longest haul on soft coal is five
nils per ton per mile; and it is certain
that if the Wabash company had ap.
piled the Iowa schedule as a-whole to
its entire business, its average rate
instead i.of being only six mills would
have been about ten. That there were,
in Mr.. Stickney's opinion, conditions
growing out of competition between
the companies themselves which pre-
vented the Wabash company from col
Letting more than six mills is asuredly
not the fault Of the law, the legislature,
: the commissioners or the public. For
more than twenty years, says Mr..
Stickney, the arrangements of Western
} railways have been engaged in rate
wars, and this has been the true cause
of the destruction of revenues, instead
of "granger laws or estate commits
sioner.' The s'granger laws" have
. served the purpose of a bloody shirt to
conceal incompetency in railway man.
agemens for twenty years at least. Mr..
Stickney quotes freely from the report
OF the senate committee made in March,
1885, to sustain his position on the
, question Of discrimination and dwells
upon that part in which it is said:
Its effect has been to build up the
strong at the expense of the weak, to
] give the large dealer an advantage over
the small trader, to make capital count
for more than individual credit and
enterprise, to concentrate business at
great commercial centers, to necessitate
combinations and aggregations of cap.
ital to foster monopoly, to encourage
the growth and extend the influence Of
cooperative powers, and to throw the
!, control of the commerce of the country
more and more into the hands of the few.
Mr.. Strickney, however, is not con-
tent with pointing out the defects in the
present railway system, but goes further
and suggests remedy which he thinks
is in the establishment of both max-
imum and minimum rates by the gov
. eminent, and the strict enforcement
thereof. He proposes to put the knife
into the very heart of the disease. He
would divide the country into districts
and have standard rates for such dis
tricts fixed by commission, with PEN
alties following the charging of high.
er or lower rate. He thinks also that
the exact geographical distance between