The San Francisco call., 1898-03-13
CINCHED AND SIDETRaCKED.

\ \ shipped from Southern California during the first week in March $50 standard of oranges of 336 boxes each against 383 for the same period last year and 23I for the first week of March, 1896. The total shipments for the season have been 5824 cars, against 3845 last year to March 7, and 3363 to March 7, 1896. There are now 6ooo boxes of foreign oranges afoat against 5000 boxes March 7, 1897.
 Upon the showing of these figures the season should be one of unusual prosperity in the orange producing counties There should have been larger profits than in the past for the average orchardist and the aggregate of the community should have been vastly increased The prevailing tone of the people should be of contentment and spirit of sanguine hopeulness should be everywhere ap- parent.
 Unfortunately it is not so The increase in the crop seems to have served no other purpose than to augment the income of the railways which the oranges are to market The competition between the Southern Pacific and the Santa Fe which in the past has been of so much benefit to Southern Cali forna, has given way to kind of traffic agree ment between them and the rates charged the ship pers of oranges high that scarcely any profit remains to the producer after their payment.
 The situation in the south has its counterpart in this city The Southern Pacific Company not only holds up the cost of shipping California products East but 1t maintains exorbtant rates for passenger travel and freight from the East to this city Thus while we ought to have received something like a business boom from the Alaskan rush we have gained but comparatively small increase The trade has been largely carried northern ports and San Fran cisco has had to make her fight for Alaskan business not only against her natural competitors but against the opposition of the road that should have worked energetically her side
 With the southern counties cinched and San Fran cisco sdetracked California has good and just cause to complain of the in which her great railway lines are conducted It if the man. agers of these roads doing everything they can to reard the of the State and more to grasp few cents of undue to-day than to build up trade that would bring them in dollars in the place of cents in the future.
 There can be no question Of the folly of the tao tics practiced by the monopoly It would pay the transcontinental roads to build up California and promote every industry of its people Such course would lead to the rapid settlement of the State an increase of population, expansion of industry and larger of business for the roads them selves. Some spirit of perversity however, has dominated the minds of the monopoly managers and they follow the policy of cinch and sdetrack with as much keenness if they animated by feeling of hostility to the people rather than desire to do business
 It is bad situation, and one whose problems are hard to solve The advance of the Valley Road how ever. gives promise that the solution will come in time. The competition of that road has already broken the monopoly cinch in the San Joaquin and 1t may eventually do so for the whole State in the traffic across the continent