The daily morning journal and courier., 1905-05-04
HILL SOUNDS A WARNING
TELLS INTERSTATE COMMERCE
 COMMITTEE TO GO SLOW.
President of Great Northern Railroad Advises Them Not to Cripple Business of the Country-Says Before They Could Reach the Railroads There Would be a Great Many Corpses About the Country.

Could Heacn the nahrooAs
 Would be a Great Many Corpses About the Country. Washington, May S.-Robert Mather' of the Rock Island railway system again was before the senate committee on interstate commerce to-day, No changes, he said, were necessary in the present law, except the restriction of the scope and power of the interstate commerce commission. It had too many duties and not sufficient time to per-
 form it's legitimate functions. Courts could determine reasonable rates, but he would not go so far as some at torneys and say that courts and that the law could prescibe that such rate should be the future rate.
 James J. Hill, president of the Great
 Northern railway, followed MT. Mather. | He said there was only one safe basis
 on which a low rate could be made, and that was the low cost of producing the transportation. The value of the
 service is determined by the density of | the traffic, and that makes the rate. Rates vary with conditions. In making
 rates on his road, he said. they had to | take into consideration what the coun- try produces. The railroad was charged | with the prosperity of every man who | lived on the road if that man worked. Y I Determinations were necessary, de-
 clared MT. Hill. When his road was
 built he went to Washington state and found that it's greatest product was l lumber. There was a rate of ninety cents l per hundred on lumber to the eastern | market. Lumber dealers said they 1 could ship at sixtyfive cents. He knew | that they could not do it and he made
 a rate of forty cents and was shipping < large quantities of lumber. This was a i discrimination against lumber on the eastern end of the road, but in ten years
 there would be no lumber produced in l that section. It was because the cars I going out with merchandise brought l loads back that these low rates were made. Besides the merchandise for the
 Pacific coast, the road handled freight for the Orient. Large quantities of ] flour at one time were hauled from the I Twin Cities to the Orient, but the inter-
 state commerce commission stopped l it. 5t 4 This statement produced a fire of questions from the members Of the committee, and in reply MT. Hill ex. l plained that the company was compelled to file it's through rates with the com
 mission This rate being made public was cut by the rival steamship lines which were not compelled to make their rates public. His company under the
 law could not change it's rates for sev-
 en or eight days, and meanwhile the other lines took the cargoes. If the ships of the company did not carry a
 pound of freight it would make no diff ference with the dividends.
 I Speaking of the great tonnage of the
 railroads Mir. HUH warned the commit. ! tee to be careful and not cripple the
 business of the country, 'tnot for our fselves," he said, because before you I got down to us there would be a greai
 many corpses about the country"
 I He spoke of the congestion of freight
 at eastern ports, and said business wac
 going to the gulf, although shipping
 rates to Eurobe from the gulf were much higher. Roads east of Chicago
 would have to raise their rates in Or l der to get means to build more exten T sive terminals ,| MT. Hill said that while congress was legislating for the safety appliances flor employees it might provide greater safety for the public. He attributed ninety per cent. of the accidsnts to non. q observance of rules. He told of a ship [ ment Of locomotives from Philadelphia to Yokohama by his company at a rate equal to what another company charg. ed for transporting locomotives 50l miles. This is a case" he remarked TOT the intersate commerce commission 10 take up and investigate They would ma somebody was charging too much
 commenting on the statement of Mir. HlI that in twenty years there had i, been a reduction of rates from two
 cents to seventy-six ,hundredths cents
 per ton per mile, Chairman EIkins ask
 ed what would happen regarding rates
 in the next twenty years.
 Give the roads fair treatment" re- lplled MT. Hill, "and in twenty years I
 think the rate would come down to one-
 half a cent ton per mile.'
 MT. Hill said the ability of the rail-
 roads to raise money for increasing
 their equipment and for building addi- tional lines would be destroyed by talk ing away from them the power to make f rates. He criticised the terminal charges enforced below the Harlem x river ill New York, saying they were , greater than the rate from Buffalo to
 Harlem, and suggested that the inter- state commerce commission might irl- vestigate these terminal charges. Why don't the commissioners take
 up that matter?" asked Chairman FL kins.
 They are too busy" replied MT. Hill trying to get power to fix railroad
 rates"
 MT. Elkins asked what ought to be idone to meet the rates and rebates of the Canadian lines.
 "We are willing to work them out among ourselves" replied MT. Hill. Before we are through with them they - will cease cutting rates.''
 He said that some years ago the l Transcontinental association paid the s Canadian Pacific road $500,000 year to = get out of a certain business on which f the road was cutting rates from Neu