The age-herald., 1901-08-14

Here Is shown remarkable downward
 movement in rates. Railroad consolida-
 tion was going on at an increasing rate during all these years. but 1t has not affected the downward tendency of rates.
 In the year 1900 despite the fact that 1t
 was the most prosperous year ever known
 with extremely high prices, which result cd in some increase in freight rates, the average rate per ton per mile was far lower than it had ever been In the his tory of the country, with the exception
 of the preceding year The reason for such reduction is that the competition
 which influences rates Is worldwide and
 unavoidable. Economic conditions are
 such that every part of the world com
 petes with every other part. Railroads
 purely from self-interest are bound con- stantly so to adjust their rates as to
 meet the innumerable competitive condi-
 tions which exist In the markets of the
 world so as to get the products along
 their respective lines to the markets of the world so as to compete with similar
 products from other sections of the coun-
 try and probably from other countries.
 This is not mere theory. It is simply the explanation of the fact that although railroads have combined more and more rates have steadily tended downward.
 These considerations are. no doubt, true to a greater extent with respect to
 through or long distance rates than with
 respect to short distances and purely
 local rates although even the latter are
 subject to such influences. Certainly there
 has been no increase in even the most
 strictly local or so-called non-competitive
 rates The pamphlet in question points out with much elaboration that 1t is really the consumer who pays the rate, and there fore he gets the benefit of a low rate or has the disadvantages of high rate
 It consequently results that the humDlest citizen at the smallest station on any railroad in Alabama gets the full benefit to the extent that he buys anything of the very low long distance rates which now prevail. because the fact that those
 rates are low affects the price which he has to nav for the things which he buys. And likewise so far as the producer
 nays the rate on what he sells ne gets tha benefit of the low long distance rates on which his products have to move to their ultimate market.
 The pamphlet in question declares that the traffic manager may decree "hether an industry shall prosper or wither away, whether town shall flourish or die of the dry rot If the trafc manager has so vast A power is it wise to intrust such power to a public tribunal which may be swayed by local influences and whose action in discriminating against one local ity in favor of another is beyond any power to review. It is certainly not to the interest of a railroad company to cause industries to wither away or towns to die of the dry rot, and Alabama Is perhaps the last place where instances of such foolhardiness in railroad man agement could be discovered. It Is the terest of the trafc manager when ap- pointed by the railroad company to en- courage to the greatest possible extent the traffic along his line by making rates which will develop that traffic instead of destroying it. If he for any reason so adjust rates as unjustly to discriminate for or against any locality or person, such discrimination can be readily estab- nshed and speedily punished and stopped. This is more than can be said of any unjust discrimination which might re-