Arizona republican., 1891-06-24
TRANSPORTATION AND FREIGHT.
Against the Farmer. Fruit Grower and
 Produce Dealer.

Against the Farmer. Fruit Grower and
 Produce Dealer.
 The general policy of transportation companies seems to be directed against the interests of producers and con sumers. Shippers best able to pay and commodities that can best bear high freight tariffs are the very ones to get cheapest freights The rural producer, whose small amount of produce should give him his living and also feed the mechsuic in the city, is entirely cut off from shipping his truck by high freight tariffs on short hauls for small lots. This is the case to greater or less ex- tent all over the country, but ruinously so on this coast. It is neither justice nor equity; it is the very worst policy for the whole community that transport ation companies could, possibly pursue. It blocks every avenue of domestic trade, and not only impoverishes the producer, but adds 50 to 100 per cent. in many cases to the cost of the neces- saries and luxuries of life to the toilers in the cities. Let us look at one item.
 
 rates on a certain heavy freight East last fall. The rates given were cent pound by the carload; for less than carload $495 per 100 pounds Such charges on small lots as compared with large shipments gives the large shipper nearly 800 per cent advantage over the small shipper.
 Local freight charges are very much higher in proportion as between large and small lots, and are, in fact, prohibitory and outrageous. These charges should be capitalized, if not in measure re- versed. Low freights on small lots for short hauls would be great blessing to the whole people. It is not rare thing on this coast to see producers haul many tons of produce by teams for fifty to seventy-fve miles, past half dozen railroad stations, to reach water navi gation; and the carriers by water will load and unload it at their own cost and carry it 800 miles for one-fourth what the railroad would have charged for the first fifty miles, and the shipper would have placed the produce in the car him self and the consignee, have unloaded it with no expense to the railroad. All the heavy and costly labor the railroad would be called upon to do would be the making out of a way bill. We know it costs money to build railroads and to keep them up and to run trains. It also costs money to run empty cars back and forth. It costs money to keep lot of train hands at big wages, with scarcely enough exercise to give them an appetite. The ruling policy of rail- roads at present is in the direct line of having empty cars to haul, and is evi- dently against their own interests and the interests of everyone in the country. ! If they would do local hauling for one fourth the present charges, they would make as much or more money and bene- | fit the whole people. This would soon increase local hauling ten to twenty fold. Local freights for short haul should in equity be somewhat higher per ton per mile than through freights. 1 But railroads should pursue the policy of doing everything they can to build up their tributary territory; it is their resource, and, taken as a whole, where their money comes from. In robbing that territory they simply rob them selves. The teamster who deliberately works or starves his team to death, the labor of that team being his only source of living. is fool, all will admit; and the railroad that robs and cripples the country and people that supports it by excessive tariffs is doing what the teamster above described does. Tray elers are charged $l for thirty-m ride and D cents for sixteen mile ride. One could walk and make good wages. | The railroad would make more money by carrying the people for 50 and % cents these respective distances; for there would be ten times the present travel with not five per cent. more cost i to the railroad. In every case where railroad has adopted such local policy, it has paid.
 There is more profit in carrying 100 people one mile on cable car for cents ! than one person in an omnibus one mile for 50 cents. The same policy in the country would bring its reward to the carrier and the whole people just as surely. It were folly to carry these arguments further; the facts are self evident; and if the railroads of this coast continue to rob themselves and the whole people by excessive charges, and especially excessive local charges, the strong arm of the law should step in and teach them business sense and policy.
 Irrigation in India.
 Rahylon the preat was A child of irri- |