The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-04-07


 expedite the business and not the rail- roads be put under the heavy burden.
 It Is up to the Railroad Commission. however, not only to determine who should bear this extra burden. tffe rail- roads or the coal people. but that body will also have to decide if the statute on the subject of demurrage would per- init of placing bunkerage coal In the export class, even if disposed to en- force the ten days free time. The Commission, at the conclusion of the hearing yesterday. which began at ? o'clock and lasted until after 5 o'clock, announced that 1t would reserve its decision.t
 I. s. B. Thompson, assistant to the President of the Southern Railway. made the first statement to the Com mission. He told of the intention of his line to resist making the free time order perpetual He would insist. he said. on the Commission, a creature of the Legislature. adhering to the law. He believed the law was specific In the requirement. that export coal alone should be allowed ten days free time. He could not see how. under any defi- nit.on, coal for bunkerage purposes could be put in the export class. He believed the law intended that 1t should 80 in the domestic class.
 Other ports on tks Atlantic seaboard were cited by MT. Thompson as being instances where there was an allow ance of only forty-eight hours of free time on bunkerage. He named Charles ton. Brunswick, Savannah and other ports. He also said these ports are only allowed four days on domestic coal and that he had been advised that in those ports no distinction is made between domestic and bunker coal. For fhAqa ALA m h,Avy ha Alabama Commission would go on rec ord as making distinction and grant ing as much as ten days free time.
 Attorney Foster arose at this june ture and said that the Louisville and Nashville would acquiesce in the order He did not want the order to be con strued, however, as discrimination against the handlers of domestic coal .n the State.
 ". M. Johnson. Secretary of the Gil- liard-Johnson Coal Company of Mobile, was the first witness to be called by Counsel Fitts. Mir. Johnson described the methods of unloading the coal from the railroad cars in Mobile and load ing 1t onto the vessels. He spoke with reference to bunker coal.
 The methods of handling export coal in Mobile. from the cars to the ves- seis. are the same as handling bunk craze coal. according to the testimony of MT. Johnson. He had. been in the business for fourteen years and he had never yet found where there was any difference to the railroads or any other party between export and. bunk CT coal. Both came into Mobile over the hoist and from the cars were dropped into the barges in the water underneath and on the barges borne to the shipboard.
 To all intents and purposes. in the matter of allowing free time, Mir. Joh n- son expressed the opinion that bunker coal should be allowed the ten days free time just as the export coal The same reasons that called for ten days for export coal apply to the bunker handlers. The bunker dealers make their contracts with vessel charterers and agree to deliver to the ships when they arrive at port. The vessels con- of the vessels are just as uncertain about their arrival as if they came for export coal.
 Mfr. Johnson estimates the annual buisness in coal in Mobile to be about 300, 900 tons. This includes export. bunkerage and domestic coal. He ex- pressed the belief that the bunker dealers handle fully ninety per cent of this amount. He declared that during the short period that the bunker coal dealers operated under the three-day rule they had chance to see that the life of the business would be crushed unless ten days free time were al- lowed.
 Questioned by Counsel Fitts. Mir.