The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1898-05-25
policy they anticipate when the cost Is
! to be paid we very much doubt.
No Cause for SURPRISE.

No Cause for Surprise.
The Minneapolis Times is surprised"
at some statistics Of railway traffic
given by Mr.. Depew in an address to
the Buffalo chamber Of commerce.
They are not discoveries by Mr.. De-
pew, and they have been public prop
erty too long to have occasioned sur
prise in any editorial room. We sus-
pect that behind this affected astonish-
ment Of our contemporary turks that
railwayphobia which has led 1t into so
many similar predicaments. When ma
lions send only their surplus by rail or
sea to other markets, leaving the whole
business of distribution Of the articles
of domestic consumption to internal
lines to transport, it should not be mat
ter of surprise, even in the absence of
statistics, that 80 per cent of all the
products transported are carried by
rail.
Nor is the statement new one that
the cost of rail transport in this coun-
try averages but s mills per ton mile,
as against % mills in England, 20 in
France, 26 in Germany and Is in Italy.
These figures have been repeatedly
Times is surprised" at them, Mr.. De-
pew will doubtless be reciprocally sur
prised at the criticism of the Times,
that our average ignores our short
hauls or local rates, and refers only to
long hauls of over 100 miles. ALL the
averages are based on all hauls, long
and short, the total number of tons, the
total number of miles hauled and the
receipts for freight being the factors
by which the average is arrived at. 1t
follows that the average rates in the
foreign countries named include short
as well as long haulS, and that on each
their charges are proportionally high
er than with us.
The larger object always attracts the
eye to the exclusion of the vital smaller
one. The railways, huge and powerful
corporations, are engaged in precisely
the same work that the eXpressman is
who hauls your trunk to the station or
delivers barrel of flour ait your home.
After the railways have done their
work of carrying products thousands
of miles in the larger processes of dis
tribution, the smaller distributors begin
their work Of carriage from the shop,
the store, the baker and butcher to the
homes The railway will carry a ton
one mile for eight-tenths Of cent, but
the drayman who takes it over the last
mile Of the haul would deem himself
! robbed if paid half a dollar. The rail-
ways will carry a barrel of flour from
Minneapolis to Boston for half what an
expressman would charge to carry it
~
the editor of the Times. But nowhere
do we hear complaint of what is all
! that remains that is really serious in
! this question of distribution, the cost of
| final delivery.
No more accurate or painstaking in
vestigator lives than is Edward Atkin-
son. There is no detail so minute as
to escape him. His computations DEM
onstrate that the cost of delivering
bread from Boston bakeries to Boston
kitchens exceeds the cost of raising the
wheat from which the bread was made.
milling it, and transporting it from the
field to Boston. The same statement is
approximately true of meats. The mid
dleman's profits are greater than those
OF the producer and carrier. The re-
taller must have at least twice the
profit that the manufacturer has If
the maker of cotton prints can distrib-
ute per cent among his share
holders he is happy, but the man who
coles out the prints to consumers gets
several times that percentage. The
manufacturer Of farm implements re-
CARDS his business as very prosperous
If 1t yields a per cent dividend but the
Jobber to whom he sells his machines
will turn away in scorn unless he can
get 30 and off. The protests made
against the taxation Of proprietary
medicines bring out the fact that the
retail druggist must have his 100 per
cent OF profit. But these conditions
are too minute to attract attention.
and, possibly, there is not the amount
Of politics in them that there is in a.
charge upon the rapacious RAILWAYS
that are sucking out the substance of
our people, and so on