The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1902-06-13

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| railways never realized the service to be
rendered to the country by railways.
the Christian religion and the common
! schools no other single work enters into
| the welfare and happiness of the people
of the whole country. to the same extent
made it possible to occupy the enormous
stretches through the interior of our
| country and people them with cities,
towns and villages
While the railways have to answer for
| many mistakes or judgment or OF in
| tent, on the whole the result has been to
| create the most effective, useful and, by
| Tar, the cheapest system of land trans
portation in the world. In England the
average amount paid by the shipper for
| moving ton OF freight one hundred
| miles is S235; in France S2.10; in Aus
tria, Si.9O; in Germany, where most of
| the railways are owned and operated by
| the government, $1.S4; in Russia. also
| government ownership, where the ship
ments are carried under conditions more
similar to our own than in any other
! country as respects long haul, $1.70; in
the United States the average cost is
- cents or or less than 40 per cent OF the
| while every article used by the railroads,
including labor, costs more in this coun
try than it costs in Europe, with the ex
| ceptlon of coal and right of way. Wages
! in the United States are, as a rule, more
than twice as high, and this high cost in
|
ing. Take, for instance, the material in
an ordinary box car the cost of which
has increased in the past three years
manufactured articles are sold through
out the country are always able to base
your selling price on the cost of produc-
| ton, and When your raw material and
labor increases the cost, your prices are
advanced. but notwiths landing the
| enormous advance in wages, in material
| OF every kind, the rates OF transpOrta ton
| in the United States have gone steadily
| down from year to year until they are
by comparison so much lower than those
of any other country that there is no
| comparison between them.
If these results have been accomplished
under all the changing conditions of fl
nancial prosperity and adversely in the
past thirty years, have we not, as ma
ton, reason to rejoice in what has been
accomplished rather than to seek to de-
have brought about these results?
When We consider what has ben ac
complished by the railway companies in
the past thirty years, the singularly low
rate OF transportation which prevails, the
average cost being not to exceed one
third Of what it was thirty years ago, the
! fifty or more to three, the increase by
thousands of through routes and rates,
the Improvement of facilities for trans
| portation in roadway, equipment and ter
minals, has not the country abundant
reason to congratulate itself on what has
been accomplished? And l will say fur
by the railway companies in their efforts
to serve. the public and help themselves
rather than by y, any Iegislatiye or other
try are subject to the interstate com
merce law. 1t is said that carriers do
not observe the law; that rates are un-
To remedy the evils growing, as is
claimed out of the violation of the law
government ownership is suggested by
some, and an increase of the power of
the interstate commerce commission by
| others.
Government ownership means the con-
| troll and operation of railways by govern
ment officials. A mere statement of the
| proposition arouses in the mind of al
most every thoughtful man the fear
struction of the government itself.
Price of Transportation.
| If the earnings which the railways are
| entitled to receive were to be derived
solely from traffic beginning and ending
price of transportation would necessarily
be much higher than it is. The interest
of the public served by the railways is
interstate and interna tional traffic over
| the lines. Take, for instance, the lines of
| the Great Northern and Northern Pacific
river to Puget Sound. All the interstate
/ traffic they can obtain from the great
freight producing area south of Lake Su-
perior and east of Chicago must come to
them across the lakes, which are closed
to navigation one-half of each year. or
around the south end of Lake Michigan
| by way of Chicago To increase the vol
ume of traffic. and thus be able to reduce
rates, these two companies must secure
a share of the interstate traffic from the
territory named and must also be able TO
| reach territory furnishing market for the
| freight produced along their lines and re-
turn freight to be transported over their
| the Pacific coast terminals
If the stock of the railway is held as an
| investment by those interested in the
territory served by the lines. in increas-
ing the volume of traffic and in reducing
rates, the territory will be built up and
rates will be lowered
If the question of the ownership of
stock was left to the public served by
the lines of the railways of the country
would it not be for the interest of the
public to have such ownership placed in
the hands of those who had acquired it
| as an investment and whose interest is
directly connected with the building up
served by them?
Railway Competition.
There has been during the past year a
| great deal of public discussion about rail-
| way competition and a large amount of
volunteer literature has been written on
| the subject. 1t is always a safe basis to
| assume that no business will continue for
! any length of time if the result of it's
/ transactions is a loss, and this is equally
true of your business and that of the
| railways. No individual, community or
nation can afford to build up its COM
merce on the foundation that railways
will destroy each other for the general
benefit. This has been done in some
! cases in the past and the roads which
have followed this course have gone
through the portal of bankruptcy into
! the hands of rival owners, and, in some
| cases. into the hands of owners whose
| greater interest is in other directions,
and whose object in obtaining them has
| been more to restrict the growth of the
| country than to increase it.
Competition in railway rates is either
/ active or inactive. All railway rates are
! the subject of conference between the
lines interested, followed by an agree
ment as to rates, and the conditions of
the business of the country demands that
this course must always be followed. All
rates are by law made public, and what
| ever rate is adopted by one road must be
/ adopted by the others. they will lose
/ their share of the traffic. In this there
| is no active competition. When cornpeti-
| tion is active, tariffs are disregarded and
| private rates are made to large shippers
| and rebates paid amounting, as has been
| published, to enormous sums in the
/ yearly aggregate. To prevent this active
| competition, both the federal government
and the several states have enacted laws
/ which have been a dead letter on the
| statute books until public opinion has de-
| manded that the various commissions
| take some action under the law. The re-
| cent activity of the interstate commerce
| commission has resulted, l believe, to a
| large extent in correcting this abuse and
| If thew follow if I'm with tho DOwer CON