The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1901-04-04
CLASSIFIED RATES.
PRESIDENT OF NEW YORK Asso-
CITATION TESTIFIEs.
POWER OF THE RAILROADS.
THE COMMISSION CANNOT GOVERN
CLASSIFICATION.

Railroads Exercise Power That
Amounts to Arbitrary Taxation
Said Mr.. Langley, and Merchants
Have No Representation in the
Rate Making-Desisned to Build Up
Southern JObbing Centers, He
Thinks, but the Discrimination
Detrimental 10 the south.
Washington, April 81. NJ. Langley,
representing the Merchants Association
of New York, to-day testified before the
Industrial Commission that it was utterly
useless for the Interstate Commerce
Commission to attempt to govern freight
classification rates. The railroads, Mr..
Langley stated. exercise power that
amounts to arbitrary taxation and in the
making of these classifcations, which
really amount to rate making, the mer-
chants have no representation. The
change, he said, in the territory south of
the Ohio and East of the Mississippi,
amounted to an advance of about two
thirds in 200 items of classification and a
complaint he had made was dismissed by
wholesale nature of the advance. He cited
large number Of instances Of alleged
discrimination between carload and less
than carload rates, which he claimed to
be unjustifiable. There were two classes of
discrimination, he said, arbitrary change
latter being the difference between rates
on carload lots and on fractions thereof.
Southern Merchants Favored
The merchants contend that in the lat
ter the roads are not governed by the
cost of handling. The merchants in the
Southern States, he contended, can dis
tribute in their respective states goods
on the old freight basis while a merchant
outside is subjected to the advanced
classification. This failure to recognize
the general classification rates on inter
state business is with view, he said, to
building up the jobbing interests of the
particular state. The witness said there
are three classes of rates in the South
ern territory that are higher than the
highest rates in the trunk line territory
This higher tariff for the South NAV be
due partly, he said, to lack of as good
railroad facilities in the South as else
where and also to the light return traf-
~ AiOHl tllO oOuIH. Inc witness regard
ed the discrimination as of a sectional
nature and detrimental to the
South. He commended that the
roads were afraid to make direct new
rates but that they accomplished the
same end by shifting items of freight
from one class to another; lin other
words" he said, "by manipulation for the
benefit of certain interests" The protest
OF the merchants is not primarily that the
rates are advanced but that the advances
are made unequally and add burdens TO
the small dealers.
Mr.. Langley referred to the system OF
inspection of freight at stations and
transfer points by inspectors employed by
the railroads and railroad associations
ana charged that rates are often cut by
the inspectors looking the other way in
inspecting freights of the larger and more
powerful shippers. This right to open
freight consignments, the witness SAID.
was assumed by the roads and the mer-
chants did not object. Objection he
stated, would not inure to their interests