Clarke courier. [volume] (Berryville, Va.) 1869-1997, 1905-08-02

showing the increase of railroad
freight rates between 1897 and
1905, and also giving the average
wholesale price for the thinge that
YOU and | eat or wear in these
same years.
That table set me 10 thinking
how little we common people know
OF this rate making business, CON
corning which there has been such
"A hellabaloo for the past year or SO.
The more ! studied it the more it
strikes me that to a fellow who is
paying market bills every day it is
good deal of Il tempest in a teapot.
Ot course that cuts out the ques-
ton OF the principle involved en-
tirely. This is another story. But
find for instance. that while the
price of wheat had increased about
90 per cent, corn 100 per cent and
oats 90 per cent, that the actual
cost OF transportation of both
wheat and corn had been reduced.
not much, but enough so that the
broker handling a lot of it, would
add quite bit to his income. He
gets a rake off, but we people who
eat 1t, have to pay practically dou-
bic FOR the same stuff that we had
to IN 1897. Take the cost of a
barrel of flour for instance. In 90
the railroads charged % centSSto
haul II 1000 miles now they
charge 30 cents. In ~ the average
price of 4 barrel of flour at whole
sale was $3.50 today it is 500.
That don't line up exactly with the
claim that the increase in cost Ia
the consumer Is due entirely Ia
freight rates. II strikes me that
there Is Niger in the wood pile
somewhere, and that the broker
and middle man knows Just where
to locate him. know my loaf of
bread and breakfast rolls cost me
just as much now rs they did in
%, and my wife says the loaf of
bread Is smaller than it was then.
/ don't come from Boston. but
| ] like baked beans. In 90 they
cost the dealer through whom
buy them 90 cents bushel. They
cost him $40 bushel now and
the freight rate on these beans
from some place out West where
they are raised. is just the sam,
now aS il was then. As consumer
| can not see how | can get any
the worst of il because of these
freight rates, but know | am get.
ting 100 per cent the worst of it OF
the price of my beans. Perhaps
the farmer gets the menetit, per
haps it is the middIeman, and my
grocer tells me there is about ,,
per cent profit ON the bean bust
ness. But he certainly can't charg,
that increase in price up agains
freight rates in face of these Ofiicia
statistics.
| have looked over this Who'll,
list of commodities in every day
use in every family in the country
and | can't find where there ha.
been any such increase in freigh
rates as would warrant the raising
of the price of these commoditie
to the consumer by cent a pOunC
on anything or 4 cent a yard ol
any wearing apparel. Yet Their
has been such a constant increas
in the price of these things tina
the average price of commoditie
has advanced in this period O
eight years 30 $40 per cent.
Apropos of this very matter to
days newspaper tells me that Their
has been a cut Of - cents a hun
dred pounds on the freight rate
on sugar and coffee from Ne,
Orleans to upper Missouri Rive
points. Now if the argument tina
reduction in freight rates is fo
the benefit Of the consumer is true
the Western people ought to b
getting sugar and coffee cheape
than ever. As matter of fact th
price of neither of these cOmmod
ties was reduced; you and | are n
better off for the cut, and ever
dollar of that cut was saved to tn
sugar and coffee trusts respectively
Mr.. CaStIeman'S Hard Luck.
Mr.. +. n. Castleman has bee
a.. II