Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-05-08
RAIL WAYS IN PRUSSIA
Prof. Meyer Tells of the Gov
ernment's Experience.
EXCEPTION RATESMADE
VAIN EFFORTS TO PUT ALL SHIP
PERS ON AN EQUALITY.
Difficulties Involved in Solving the
Problem Of the Public Regulation
of Railway Rates.

|
Prof. Hugo r. Meyer of the University
| of Chicago, who was invited to testify by
| the Senate committee interstate COM
| MERGE on the subject of railroad rates,
| has appeared before the committee at the
Capitol. Professor Meyer, who is as
s1stant In the department of economics of
| the university, has made a study of rail-
road economics in the United States. Can
| ada Europe and Australasia having spent
twelve and half years In the preparation
| OF book on the question of railroad own
ership and management, which is shortly to
appear. Mr.. Meyer in his statement today
dealt chiefly with the railroad conditions in
| Prussia and Germany, In which countries
| the railways are owned by the govern
| ment. In explaining the conditions which
ied up to government ownership, and those
which have resulted from this ACQUIRE
| ment. Mr. Meyer said in part:
| one of the principal reasons that led
| the Prusslan diet in 1879 to accept the
| governments proposal to enter upon the
pohcy OF acquiring by purchase or by lease
| the private railways situated in Prussian
| territory was the public dissatisfied
| with the determinations in rates which
| railways made in favor of what are called
| competitive points 1t was generally be-
lieved that the public ownership and man
| agement of railways, supplemented by the
| uniform classification and the common
scheme of charges adopted two years be
| fore by all the German railways would
! find way out of the evil as it was re-
| garded of local discrimination
Cheap Excursion Tickets.
| Another of the troubles which constant
| ly confronted the railway department arose
from the custom of issuing laborers' re-
| turn passenger tickets al reduced rates
| The landed aristocracy of eastern Prussia
| objected to the issue of these cheap round
| trip tickets on the ground that the annual
| excursions to Prussia of wage-earners TAX
ing advantage of the continued employ
ment offered during a short period had
| raised the wages of farm labor. Accord
| ingly the Prussian government has recent
| ly announced to the diet that the railway
department would make no new arrange
| ments for the issue of laborers' return pas
| senger tickets for distance exceeding
| thirty-tWo miles.
| Another source of much trouble was the
subject of rates and local interests In re-
| spect to the industries dependent on iron
| ores. The Ruhr district is the greatest
coal mining and iron and steel producing
| region of continental Europe while some
200 miles to the northeast the extern
sve iron deposits of Luxembourg and
| the Saar district, which furnish precisely
| the ore needed to supplement- the INSULT
| Gent supply obtainable from the Ruhr
4
eminent has been unwilling to make rates
which would permit the shipment of any
! but selected from the Saar to the
| Ruhr and in consequence the Ruhr iron
| interests have been forced to have in
| creasng recourse to the importation of
iron ores from Spain and Sweden.
| Exception Rates.
1.-The Prussian government, upon assum-
ing the control of private railways, found
| many special and secret rates in force.
| Care was taken In abolishing these rates
! to avoid sudden and violent dislocations in
| the established course of business. The
| government has, however, found 1t neces-
| Sary to make what known as eXcep-
! ton tariffs to meet the needs of trade and
| industry, and in the eleven years ended
| with 1856 fully one-half the traffic
! Prussian railways was carried at exception
| rates, and since 1897 the proportion has
| risen to 60 per cent.
| "One of the leading objects of Prussias
| naturalization of the railways was the
! desire to abolish minimize railway dis
| ordinations. This should result. accord
| ing to the diets understanding of cause
! and effect. in decentralizing trade and in
dustry, well put large and small ship
| pers on a footing of equality. To right the
| matter there was the immediate object of
doing away with certain railway rate
| making practices. and there the ulti-
| mate object of attaining thereby certain
| social, economical results. The evidence
|
| ceeded on the whole on the first, but has
| failed completely in the second.
A Three-Fold Problem.
The problem of public regulation of rail-
way rates is threefold. 1t involves, first,
| the question of personal determinations by
| means of secret departures from the pub
! lished rates: second, the question of the
| reasonableness of rates per Sc, and last the
question of the relative reasonableness of
rates.
LAS to personal discrimination, it is
! clear that to have the federal government,
| or its agent, the interstate commerce COM
| mission. exercise the power to make rail-
! way rates would in way prevent secret
rebates. Railways would find it more
difficult to depart secretly from rates made
| by the government than they have found
1t to depart secretly from rates made by
themselves.
The second problem that of the rea-
| sonableness of rates per Sc, has all but
| disappeared in the United States, as the
| interstate commerce commission itself adj
| mits. The evil of personal discrimination
| by meanes of secret rebates calls for such
| regulations contained in the So
called Elkins law and not for the exercise
| by the government of the power to make
| rates.
when we turn, then. to the question of
| whether the government should exercise
| the power to prescribe railway rates for
| the purpose of guaranteeing their relative
| reasonabeneS between rival producing
and distributing centers to common mar
| kcts and to rival markets we find the an
| swer of all experience is that their eff
| fective effort to regulate railway rates in
| general will arrest the decline of rates by
! producing a deadlock of conflicting sec
| tional interests, will prevent railways from
| developing a volume of traffic sufficiently
| large to justify the maintenance or build
ing of railways of the highest attainable
| efficiency, will check the development of
| the resources of the country and will de-
"a izn no nIi finC of 1trNr 'l.a
| answer to any statement that no one of
| these evil results has appeared from the
| regulation of railway rates by state COM
| missions, well by federals commits
| sions. lies in the fact that the Constitution
| of the United States and the Supreme
| Court have thus far protected US from