The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-04-01
aurNous POLICY.

RUINOUs POLICY.
 In one of his latest speeches the one at Andaiusia. MT. Conner induiged In the following extraordinary line of talk--it can't be dignified by calling 1t argument. Referring to a recent edi- tor.ar in The Advertiser. he said:
 They say that the railroads or Ala bama in their intra-State business don't earn as much as they pay out; that they pay out a long way more money than they earn. Of course they don't because they don't try to make 1t intra-State. They try to make you buy possible They try to make you ship yonr cotton as far from Alabama, as they can. and they try to make you buy your goods as far from Alabama as they can. I say, that's destructive, and if The Advertiser and such as tt will stand by us we will develop busi1 ness within this state. All this is tom foolery about what they are making on intra State Shipments. They are try ing to make it as little as possible.
 For man who proposes to regulate the transportation business of the coun- try. and to be Governor of a great State Mir. Conner is the most illogical, if not ridiculous. person now on the public stage. He was, and perhaps is yet, a merchant. It has been one of his boasts that he was very successful as merchant. and yet it is fac. that merchandise carried to places of busi- ness in this State is delivered at much lower rate of freight than it was ten years ago. This applies to intra as we'll as interstate shipments. He no doubt bought everything he sold either in the markets outside the State or from persons who bought in distant markets. Why was this so? Anyone who keeps up with current events knows that it was because shoes, hats, clothing and the thousand other things sold in the stores in this State are not manufactured in this State. It ;s not the fault of the railroads that this is the case and no one knows this better than Mir. Conner.
 Millions of dollars worth of corn. oats, meat and other things which can be produced in this State arc annually brought here from outside points, and Mir. Conner knows that the railroads could not help this being so. Yet he is unfair enough to say that the desire of the railroads is to prevent the building up of business inside the State that would increase the volume of local freight.
 There is rate on manufactured cot ton from Alabama mills to outside mar kets, which enables MT. Conner to sell the output of his cotton factories in ern and other States Does this look like the railroads want to break down local enterprises? If MT. Corners pol icy was carried into effect and local and interstate rates put on the same basis, mill owners in Alabama would never sell yard of their products fifty miles from the mills, and there would be no market outside the State for cotton and other products.
 The men who manufacture iron and steel in this State are able virtually to fix the price of those articles for the State and are aided in every way pos sible by the railroads. They fix freight rates on a basis which enables Alabama iron to compete with that of any other part of the world. but If MT. Corners ideas were to prevail every one of those establishments would have to shut down in ninety days. because they could not get their stun to market. Interstate rates must, in the nature of things. and by the memorable laws of trade, be lower than short distance local rates. Alabama farmers who buy corn and other produce which is raised in other States get 1t at a rate by inter- state arrangements, which would not be possible if everything was based on the local idea.
 Mir. Conner has set out to be a common scold, and nothing will please him short of the Governors chair, which he wants to reach by course of mislead- ing talks and the result of which, if followed to legitimate conclusions would make every pound of stuff brought into Alabama cost more than at present and force cotton, iron and all other mills to depend alone upon Alabama for a market.