The record-union., 1893-02-06
A DISASTROUS DOCTRINE.

The San Francisco Cu1, with persist
ency worthy of better cause, still insists
that California railroads which are also
trancontinental lines shall be treated as if
they ended in their eastward push at the
State line. On Friday last it declared that
ii makes no difference whatever that the
stretches between the State line and
points east of the Rocky Mountains are
unremunerative; California should not
carry them; if the sections they traverse
do not furnish traffic enough to maintain
them it is something the railroad opera
tors must suffer; and so on.
1t does not call for an abundance of
brain to comprehend the fallacy of this
argument. 1t is at right angles to every
commercial law concerning common car
riers; it flies in the face of simplest rea-
soning; it is pettifogging plea, and one
that carried into practice would be pub
lie disaster.
If the principle contended for by the
CaI-ifit can be dignifed by such a title
lis good for anything, it is worthy to be
carried out to the full of its doctrine,
whereby the railroad territory within
State boundaries, for purposes of freight
and fare rates, should be divided into
zones, those with dense populations and
large traffic, and those sparsely settled,
not developed and contributing, but the
minimum of traffic. Within each zone
the charges should be fixed with reference
to the zone boundaries only, and wholly
irrespective of the reaching out of the
roads into new sections in one case. or
their traversing thickly settled and de-
veloped sections in the other.
There is no better established law in
railroad science than this, and only the
ignorant and the malicious will have the
effrontery to challenge it: A railroad
traversing settled section, one contrib
uting traffic, and traversing also desert
and non-contributing section, over which,
because of physical conditions not charge
able to the road, goods from a more dis
tant section must be transported to the
first described territory to meet its de-
mand for supplies, must be considered in
all things in unity.
To illustrate. 1t is an immutable law
of transportation that from the whole
distance between two points exchanging
products over line of transportation
the distance over an intermediate bridge
no matter what its length, cannot be
eliminated in fixing the charge for car
riage. Neither can the cost of construc.
ton, of maintenance or of operation Of
the line over the non-contributing bridge
be cast; out of account in determining the
charge for carriage over it between the
two points between which the bridge
lies. The non-traffic producing sections
represent the bridge.
This is true not only of railroads, but
of all other modes and lines of transpor.
tation, and has been from the earliesI
camel trains crossing oriental deserts
down to the mud-wagon train between
pioneer markets and depots of supple.
and the mines of California, or the stage
coaches overland, or the pony express
or any and ali other agencies of carriag,
of goods or human beings. But it i:
more Significantly true of railroading be
tween traffic-yielding sections over dis
tricts which originate no freight.
The doctrine of the Call would as eff
fectually cut OF communication by raj
between this coast and the Missouri Rive
section as if the intermediate space wer
occupied by a hostile force which haC
torn up the rails and burned the ties.
To repeat the statement-the doctrin
of the Call would, legitimately carried
out and logically and uniformly applied
compel lines operated in districts such al
, those Immediately contiguous to Sacra
mento, San Francisco, Stockton. Lo
Angeles and Oakland, to operate witt
reference onlyto the revenue those sec
tions produce, and without reference t,
the relation of the carrier lines in theil
longer reaches into sparsely settled sec
tions.
of course, such practice would put