The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1902-12-30
BUSINESS MEN SHOULD ACT.

6U01N ESD III EN- SdUULU All.
The business men in every town and
city in the State should cooperate with
the Winston Salem Chamber OF Commerce
to devise means to prevent the discrimi-
nation in freight rates against North
Carolina towns. In letter to the edi
tor of this paper, Mr.. J. w. Hanes, presi-
dent of the Chamber of Commerce, says:
las you are probably aware, the va
rious roads have what they call basing
points. Freights to these points are de-
livered at a very low rate. Beyond these
points, it goes as local freight. North
Carolina has a circle of basing points
almost entirely around it, but not a sin
gle one in the State. For instance, goods
may be shipped to Roanoke or Lynch
burg at very low rate from the North
or West. From these points to Raleigh
you pay purely local rate. In other
words Lynchburg jobbers can bring their
freights to Lynchburg in bulk, there
break and ship in single packages to with
in five miles of your place for less freight
than your jobbers can deliver at the
same place. This is only one of the
many determinations that, will be brought
before the meeting"
The increase in freight rates upon inter-
State business has been much greater
than is generally supposed. Almost daily
we are told that rates have not been
increased, except upon few articles, but
Hon. Charles A. Prouty, Interstate Com
merce Commissioner, who has given the
subject careful investigation, shows how
great is the increase. in an address de-
livered at the Economic Association at
Philadelphia on Saturday: We quote:
"As these combinations have proceeded
the public has been repeatedly assured
that there was no danger of any advance
in freight rates. Rates have been ad-
vanced and are still advancing. In the
winter of 1899 the rate on grain from the
Mississippi river to New York fell to II
cents per LOO pounds; today it is 20 IL
cents. The cost of transporting grain and
grain products from Chicago to the At
lantic seaboard by rail this past summer
has been from to cents per 100 pounds,
from 10 to 25 per cent greater than it
was the summer preceding. Within the
month all grain rates in every direction
from the fields to the seaboard have been
advanced another cents per 90 pounds.
stI, he 1oc t6rno fhn Hipo-
ton of anthracite coal roads has in
creased the cost of domestic sizes to the
consumer from 81 to So per ton. In SYM
pathy, the common stock of the Reading
road alone advanced in market value
from July, 1898, to July, 1902, $45,000,0 900,
about 800 per cent.
THE practical significance of those APP
parently slight advances is not appre-
GATED The Interstate Commerce Com
mission has recently concluded an in
vestigation into a general advance in
rates ON hay, and decided that such ad-
vance was unjustifable No attention
has been or will be paid to that decision,
since there is no way in which it can be
enforced, but the testimony in that case
shows that this advance in rates costs
the consumer and producer of hay in the
territory to which it applies from two
TO three millions of dollars annually.
There are now pending before the COM
mission for investigation complaints
which demand reductions probably
amounting in the aggregate to fifteen mil
lions of dollars annually, equivalent upon
a per cent basis to almost four hum
dred millions of dollars in capitalization.
1.-The railroad is the greatest and the
most dangerous of all monopolies. II the
anthracite coal combine advances the
price of that commodity to the consumer
81 per ton it levies upon the poverty OF
this country, which uses that coal, tax
Of fifty millions Of dollars annually IN
favor of the wealth which engineered
and profits by that combine"
In view of the determinations against
North Carolina towns and cities as point
ed out by Mr.. Hanes, and the increase of
freight rates, as shown by Mr.. Prouty,
it is to the interest of all the business
men of this State to act promptly and do
all in their power to remedy this heavy
tax upon business.