The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-01-04

manufacturing industry of the South may be said to date from 1880. Prior to that time cotton goods were carried from Southern points at first-class rates-the rate from Atlanta to New York being $1.45 per hundred pounds. and other rates from South to North in proportion. In 1880 the Southern roads began carrying cotton goods at fifth class rates, slashing the charge from Atlanta to New York to 60 cents per 100 pounds in one cut. That rate is now 55 cents and rates from other low. Representative Lowering of Mas sachusetts, member of the House committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, directed attention to these rates on Southern cotton goods last winter when the Esch- h-Townsend bill was under consideration, pointing out that the rates from Atlanta to Boston lanta and that Southern cotton goods were being sold In Boston in competi- ton with the products of the New Eng land mills. This is made possible by the facJ that the all-rail rate from At lanta to Boston is 5S cents a hundred pounds. while from Boston to Atlanta It IS a6 cents, and the rail-and-water cents, against a rate from Boston to Atlanta of "A cents.
 Substantially similar comparative rate adjustments could be cited show ing that the railways in the Southern States have not confined their efforts by any means to the development of the cotton manufacturing industry. Rates have been made by which the iron and steel products of the South. lumber products, furniture, Southern minerals, and the products of Southern fields, gardens and orchards have been placed in competitive markets on at least as favorable terms as similar pro- ducts from other parts of the country.
 The practical question that is now raised is as to whether Southern pro- ducers could hope to have conditions improve under any system of govern mental rate making. Unless a govern duty of fixing rates Is to deliberately favor certain localities in the United States for partisan political reasons, 1t will have to fix rates by some uniform that could be adopted would be one of equal charges per ton per mile. Such a commission could not consider the needs of special localities as can be timate increase in It's revenues as a re- suit of the development of traffic to and from such localities. A govern mental commission could not make rates from Southern points to compet- itive markets any lower than they would be made from other producing points equally distant from such mar kets. For instance, if a case should be presented 10 the commission inVolV- ing the relative adjustment of rates on cotton goods from Atlanta to Boston and from Boston to Atlanta under a system of making rates on a distance basis the charges in the opposite direc- tions would have 10 he made equal and Southern cotton mills would lose the advantage that has been secured to them under the present system by the efforts of the Southern railways to give advantages to their section of the coun- try whenever 1t can possibly be done. These considerations are leading thoughtful Southern men in Congress and fin Southern business communities N1sr ,N~lr. rates by a political commission in Washington, a majority of the mem bers Of which would have no personal interest in the South, might not be more injurious to the agricultural and industrial interests of their section than to the railways.