The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1904-07-03

has been a notable improvement in
stock products and an addition to the
wealth of the country that cannot be
estimated in dollars.
Later on the steady appropriation
of the public domain called at
tention to the vast tracts of arid
land lying unproductive and for
bidding, an actual menace to ag-
r1culture by their unfavorable eff
feet upon climate. Mr.. Hill was one of
the first to take up with intelligence
and enthusiasm the subject of irriga-
ton. His railroad contributed large
sums of money to have an expert study
made of the irrigation problem to con-
duct a campaign of education on it's
Importance among the people, and to
arouse and enlist public sentiment in
favor of irrigation projects on a larger
scale. 1t is today one of the move
ments nearest to his heart, and it is
destined to add hundreds of mil
lions of : acres to the tillable
area, millions to the population
and thousands of millions to the
wealth producing capacity of the
country between the Mississippi and
the Pacific coast. This, too, is a part
of his theory and practice Of railroad
ing; because every such contribution
to the aggregate product of the COM
munity writes itself into railroad earn
ings and enhances the value of the
transportation system.
But at once the greatest and the
simplest of the laws that he has laid
down and followed, that which came as
the most striking
novelty to those who THE LAW OF
had for a generation THE LOW
conceived of rail- FREIGHT RATE
reading as the proc
ess of screwing out of the business
all that the traffic will bear, is the rule
of the low freight rate, This will rise
to a place of commanding Importance
when the larger field of transcontinen-
tai and international commerce is
touched upon. But it has had it's be-
ginnings and its systematic appIica-
ton in the more limited field of local
transit. 1t is but the translation into
practical terms of the proposition that
the successful conduct of transporta-
ton system means an intelligent part
nerShip with the people. Rates must
be made such as will maintain prop
erty as a business institution and pay
it's charges. But as fast as the volume
of business increases and profits grow,
these are to be divided with the public
in order that it may prosper and pro-
duce more abundantly. 1t brings into
operation what may be called the law
of the increasing return. For each re-
mission of charges leaves more wealth
in the community, which is applied to
productive purposes. Thus there is an
other access to business, another swell
in the volume of traffic carried and an
other reduction made possible at a later
date
Spread over a series of years, the
fruits of this policy may be seen in the
immense material development of the
territory served by the lines under, the
control of Mr.. Hill. The average
freight rate per ton per mile to the
producing shipper has been reduced
from cents per mile to mills. In the
meantime the aggregate valuation of
the farms in the six states traversed
by the Great Northern lines has in
creased to a billion and a half of dol
lars, their grain product has risen to
500,000,000 bushels, and their live stock,
worth nearly half billion more, is
scattered upon a thousand hills. Other
sections of the county are prosperous;
but it would be impossible to find any
where the ratio of increase has been as
rapid and as steady, and where the
growth still continues. Very !, re-
Gently a large reduction of rates was
made voluntarily to producers served
by the Great Northern, and this policy
of sharing the beneffs of growth with
the people is kept steadily in view.
Not. all the immense resource of the
Northwest, and not All the industry
and enterprise of its people have been
more conducive to prosperity than this
system by which they have been made
partakers in the benefits of expansion,
and country and railroad have grown
rich and great by the stimulus of mu-
tual advantage.
Since 1898, when the Great Northern
reached tidewater at the Pacific, the