St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1895-08-27
YEAR OF RAILRoADING.

The advance sheets of Poor's Man
ual of the railways for 1895 give sum-
maries of information relative to
that great branch of our industries
Some Of this has been given and
commented on in the report Of the
interstate commission, but there is
much more in this later compilation.
AS one glances over the tables sum-
marizing the growth Of the railway
interests. and reflects that it is prac-
tically all the creation of the last
half Of the century, one is enabled
ITO grasp with firmer sense the ire
mendous activities of the nation.
Not only the activities spent in build
ing this great network Of transporta-
ton lines, but the energies whose
products the roads carry and dis
tribute. To learn that in the fiscal
year 1894 the roads carried $50, 24S,0 07
passengers and moved SIS, 129,747 tons
VI 10 W SCI Sol1tC SOllSCpliOAi
of the activity Of the people and the
extent of their productiveness.
Withal the year was not a prosper
Gus one; for, while the roads earned
$419,016,719, their operating ex-
penses and fixed charges ex-
ceeded the net available reve-
nue. by s1O,46S,234. But in this
the companies have only shared the
depression that diminished incomes
all over the world during that dis
tressful year, both corporate and in
dividual; and the decrease in the net
earnings for the year of n.53 per
cent was no greater, and perhaps
not as great, as the average among
business men. The aggregate loss
of gross earnings, however, reached
the enormous total of $142,313,2 75.
The comparison between 1880 and
1894 shows an increase in capitaliZa-
age increase Of Ill per cent. Dur
ing all these years, however, the av-
erage traffic rate has been steadily
falling from 1.236 cents per ton per
mile in 1882 to .S51 cents in 1894.
What this decrease means to the
consumers Of the things carried is
apparent when it is stated that, had
the same freight rates prevailed in
1894 that obtained in 1882, the freight
earnings would have been nearly
S20o,400,000 more than they were; a
sum nearly equal to per cent on
the present funded debt of the COM
panies. With, too, the increase of
capitalization and the decrease in
rates, there has come a decrease in
dividends, which, in 1882, averaged
2.91 per cent, and 1.64 per cent in
1894. But this is an average of all.
When one comes to look over the
table in which the roads are divided
into eight groups, he sees that the
fortune of railway shareholders is
not an enviabIe one. In the aggre-
gate, SLIT, 1863, 667 invested in shares
were productive of dividends, while
s., 29S, 265, 403 made no returns to their
owners. Otherwise stated, 1902 per
cent Of the investments earned div
idends, while 64.9S per cent earned
nothing.
The manual proceeds to account
for this unproductiveness of so large
q proportion of railway investments,
1t is due to unwise extensions; re-
pressive legislation regarding rates,
competition Of rival lines; the re-
strictive features of the interstate
commerce law,and the labor question
with its tendency to demand higher
wages. It is singular that there
Should have been omitted from this
summary Of causes the reasons gath.
cred and Stated a year ago by the
German minister of railways, mis-