Weekly Arizona journal-miner., 1906-02-14
SOME OF THE INTRICAC1Es
 or MAKING FREIGHT RATES.

tho railroad rate on goods; and Prcsi- dent Roosevelt E proposal io ,akr the power of fixing rates away from inc railway companies and give it to the Interstate Commerce commission ar some similar railway body. whether ar not the proposal bc enacted into lcgis- lation by congress. is provoking n very informing and Illuminating dis. cussion and will bring forward the railroad rate as standing moot subject until remedy be found for the exist. ing abuses and expressions through the rates.
 Manufacturers. iobbers and railroad men understand very clearly the abso. lu'e dependence of the business of n particular locality n the freight rates. hut the body of the public has not learned to regard the rate as n fac tor of prosperity and hard times equal in importance with the tariff and gold standard. Yet the railway rate deter. mines whether manufacturing can be conducted in particular town and whether the farmer of a particular sec. ton can market his produce at a pro. fit. It is the railway rate. for instance, that prevents the St. Louis jobber from competing with the san Francisco job. her for the trade of Carson City, for it C., sb,,, f,nn1S St Louis to Carson City than it does to ship them from St. Louis right through Carson City to San Francisco. This seems to he n hardship on the St. Louis jobber. and the Middle West manufacturer. but it is explained by the railroads plausibly enough by the fact that there is water competition for the trade of san Francisco and none for the trade of Carson City. In order to carry goods to San Francisco at all. the railroads must give a rate low enough to meet or nearly meet the rates for transporting goods by water from eastern and southern ports to San Fran. cisco. Seattle enjoys a similar con. trol of the trade of Spokane and for the game reason. There is water com. petition at Seattle and none at the in. land city.
 Railroads are compelled frequently by competition and by the necessity of certain situations to carry goods at less than the actual cost of transport. ation. James J. Hill. for instance. to l cite a we'll known case. found that his road. while taking much freight west. ward, was hauling back empty cars at dead loss. Washington and Oregon had nothing to ship eastward. With keen discernment, therefore, Hill made an easthound rate for lumber so low that it enabled the lumbermen of the Pacific Northwest to compete in the east with eastern lumbcrmen. On a calculation of the actual cost of nov. ing the lumber. Hill's road ostensibly lost money, but he had his tracks and roadbed on his hands. and as the cars must be hauled back whether empty or loaded. the business that he got from the lumbermen was really profitable. At the same time snd by this means Hill built up the territory tapped by his road. and thus laid the foundation , for a prosperous and permanent flu. | tufe.
 Another cause of inequality and oc- essional injustice in freight rates is the classification of freight. It may cost 6 railroad no more to transport ton of brick than it does to transport ton of readymade clothing. from Chi. cngo to San Francisco, but the rate :or the clothing (the illustration is chosen without reference to any exist. ing schedule) is several times as high as the rate for brick. The reason of the discrimination is that no bricks at all would he shipped if the rate were not very low, whereas clothing can stand a high rate and still be market. cd. Yet the classification of freight is necessity of business.
 Still another determinant of freight rates is the exigency of territorial de. fense. The Boston & Maine and the
 Hartford and New Haven roads are compelled to protect the New Eng land manufacturers, whose goods they carry, from the competition of west ern and southern factories. The New England roads, therefore, must enable shoe manufacturer at Lynn. for in. stance. to sell his product as cheaply in Pennsylvania as n competitor at Pitts. burg or Chicago could sell them there. If competition could close the New England factories. the New England railroads would soon go into insolvency.
 These considerations barely suggest