Arizona republican., 1909-03-23


 complaint of ten years ago and the hearing granted seven years ago, which, he said, had resulted in a barren and almost forgotten victory for the compliments. The present complaints, in a general way, he said, involved the following: That the rates from Arizona points were generally 1 inherently and unreasonably exces- sive; that the rates to Arizona points Were discriminatory; that the rates on Arizona products to consuming points were discriminatory; that the rates on certain classes of goods were discriminatory; that the number of commodity rates wass small; that the so-called water rate was made an in strument in the discrimination com plained of and that the waer rate was not applicable to many of the articles, the rate on which to interior points had been based on such water rate.
 ! Mir. Jones' Testimony. 1 The first witness was F. A. Jones. traffic manager of the Maricopa Com mercial club and secretary of the Arizona Commercial association He said that he had been in the railroad business for twenty years. about six teen of which had been spent in Ari- j zona and California.
 As general freight agent or the s F., r. X P, he sad he had had friendly differences with his asso- ciates as to the rates to Arizona, be- 1 lieving that they were too high as compared with California points, his position being based on his knowl- edge of conditions here and as the representative of d local line and the people of Arizona.
 The negotiations leading up 10 the present action, he said, had been be- gun aDout fourteen months ago, though previous to that time indi- vidual shippers had been in negotia- tion with the railroad companies to secure some of the advantages asked for now These shippers, or the most of them, had afterward joined the Commercial club, and their complaints had been merged into those formulat ed by the club.
 The first petition to the railroads for a revision of rates had been made in February, 1908, and a conference was held in Phoenix in May of that year. It was attended by Messrs. Chambers and Luce, the traffic rep resentatives respectively of the Santa Fe and the Southern Pacific. Local representatives of those roads were present, but they took no part in the conference. The conference, NIT. Jones said, covered in a modified way all the matters now complained of. The railroad representatives, he said, acknowledged that the rates on prod ucts were excessive and an agree ment was made for their reduction and for the establishment of certain commodity rates This agreement had been partially complied with by the Santa Fe, but had been largely ignored by the Southern Pacific. The Phoenix Rate.
 Mir Jones explained that rates from the east to Phoenix were made up in two ways: either the rate to Los Angeles, plus the rate back, or the rate to Fl Paso, plus the local rate to Phoenix. He added that the rate to Phoenix. In some cases, he said, the Phoenix rate was higher than this, but as was explained, this was the result of clerical errorsy He add ed that the rate to Phoenix was high CT than to any point on the main line Of the Southern Pacific.
 Being questioned as to individual instances and the effect of the higher rate, he spoke of pigirOn, and gave the rates to New Orleans, Fl Paso and Phoenix, the Phoenix rate being urohfbitiVe of the use of it, so that the two foundries here used none but were compelled to rely solely upon scrap iron, thus turning out an in- ferior product, and which was neces- sarily a limited product.
 MT. Jones was questioned by MT Costigan concerning the inconsistency of the class rates from New York, Pittsburg and Cincinnati, the rate from the last named point being high or in many cases than that from Pittsburg. and the rates from Pitts burg being lower than those from New York. He said there was a less relative decrease in the rates on class to class F. from St. Louis toI Phoenix than to Fl PasO. and less to Phoenix than to any other point in the United States.
 He said, however, that the class rates would not be very important if Arizona were more favored in com moditv rates There were altogether about five thousand commodity rates, .alI of which Los Angeles enjoyed, while Phoenix had been given only