The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1906-04-30
Congress Hears Of the Ad-
vantage to New Jersey
From Improvements Pro-
posed
RATES AND WATERWAYS
TONNAGE FIGURES FROM RE-
PORTS OF CHIEF OF ENGI-
NEERs FOR THE PAST FIF-
TEEN YEARS.

TEEN YEARS.
WASHINGTON, April 30. 1906
Passaic's appeal for river Improvement
presents remarkable and startling Illus
tration of how the failure of the Gov
ernment to establish liberal, system
attic and scientific method of developing
waterways lends aid to the railroad mo-
nopoly in keeping up excessive and dis
eliminating freight rates.
According to estimates of the War De-
partment it would cost little over $780,
600 to dredge an eight-foot channel in
the Passaic River from the Greenwood
Railroad bridge at North Newark to
Passaic.
The cost of this improvement would
be more than saved by the reduced
freight rates on COAL building materials
anu luHluel III one yedI.
One does not have to go out of New
ark to verify the truth of this staemen,
and to have it clearly and finally dem
onstrated how, on the absence of sane
and rigid Government control of the rail-
roads, the only salvation of any commu-
nit -.
in water transportation. Just how much
the people pay in tariffs and tributes to
the railroad and other monopolies will
never be fully reali ed until the water
way possibilities of the country are fully
developed and the railroad earnings re-
duced by Government control to fair
revenue on the actual investments. The
present Congressional policy of dribbling
out river and harbor appropriations for
political purposes, with the effect of pre-
venting intelligent development of a
general plan, plays into the hands of the
railroads continually. 1t is one with the
idea of creating a ship subsidy instead
of reducing the tariff on steel.
Just how water competition keeps
down the freight rates is shown by the
recent joint freight tariff on cement in
carload lots issued by the Lehigh and
New England Railroad, which controls
the cement freight rates throughout a
large part of the East. Here are wo in
teresting items from this tariff sheet:
From Lehigh and New England sta
tions to Newark, ninety cents a ton
From Lehigh and New England sta
tons to Montclair. $140 ton
The explanation of this difference oc-
ours in footnote to the Newark tariff,
as follows:
ITO meet short line or water competi-
ton, and not to apply to intermediate
points,
IrNall the miles of Senate oratory and
evasion on the rate question, the evil
of present rate discrimination has not
been more clearly exhibited than in this
instance.
The AIontclair rate applies to all the
towns and cities near Newark. For haul
ing carload of cement over the Lack
awanna from Buttville, the Lehigh and
New England junction, to Orange or
South Orange, for instance, the rats
would be ninety cents. For haul six
or eight miles longer Newark the rate
of fifty cents less. OF course, it's a good
thing for Newark, Illustrating the inn
portance and value Of water competition.
l illustrates just as forcibly, though, the
discrimination against and injustice to
the intermediary points. 1t is character
istic of the present railroad rate policy
Of call the traffic will bear"
The Morris Canal runs through the
heart Of the Warren County cement dis
trict. Under Stateownership and wise
management there is no reason why it
should not be as potent in reducing all