Lovelock tribune. (Lovelock, Nev.) 1898-1912, 1910-07-21
The Railroad Tariff Decision Meets
With Favorable Comment from All
'Disinterested' Sources

As indicative of what has been &C.
complished by the efforts of the Ne.
vada State Railroad commission in
their advocacy of a reduction of
freight rates for Nevada, before the
Interstate Commerce Commission,
the Railroad Age Gazette has the
following to say:
"The proposed reductions in class
rates from Chicago and the Mississ.
ippi and the Missouri rivers to Spo-
kane, Utah common points and other
places similarly situated are from 8 to
20 per cent, and even greater cuts in
commodity rates to lntermountain
points are proposed. Reductions of
20 per cent are also proposed in the
so called "distributlve'' rates east
ward from Seattle, San Francisco and
other Pacific coast points. For some
of the foregoing reductions no date
is fixed and no order is now made.
"rhe roads are required to furnish
an accurate account for the months
of July, August and September, or for
such representative months as may be
determined on by the commission af-
ter conference with them, showing the
differences between the earnings in
traffic actually moved under present
rates and what the earnings would
have been had the proposed rates
been in effect.
When the commission has this data
it will make its final orders. By far
the most drastic reductions proposed
and these reductions are ordered to
be made effective in October-are
those in the rates of the Southern
Pacific from Sacramento, Calf, to
Reno, Nevada, which are cut approx
mately 80 I-3 per cent, and IN the
rates from the east to Nevada, which
are cut SO per cent. The latter re-
ductions also will be felt mainly by
the Southern Pacific.
The commission found that the
rates from Sacramento to Reno are
tine highest IN the United States, and
that the rates from the east to Nevada
are the highest for long hallls in the
United States.
No one is surprised that the CON-
mission decided on substantial reduc-
tions in the rates to the western in.
termountain territory, and particu-
larly in those from both the east and
the west to Nevada. All these rates
were made when both transportation
and industrial conditions in the Sec
ton affected were widely different
from what they are now. In conse.
quence of these changes of conditions
many of the rates had become plainly
too high.
The only question was as to how
great reductions would be required.
Whether those ordered and those the
commission has indicated it probably
willorder or too drastic-and they
drastic, indeed-can be be best de-
termined by the three months record
which the commission directs to be
kept. Even if the reductions finally
ordered are substantially less than
those now proposed, the earnings of
the railways are sure to be materially
curtailed. But this curtailment of
earnings is apt to be temporary. For
irrigation, the growth Of mining de-
velopment and the influx of popula-
ton are causing rapid increase in
traffic in the west which will in a
comparatively few years repair the
breach made in railway earnings, if it
is not too large.
On the whole, the opinions in
these cases should, it would seem, in
spire optimism rather than pessimism