The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1910-09-08

oo nQt stand for all the rules of la
 Dor unRns- No man can defend them
 all. Labor will best advance it's own cause and advance the country by
 maklng a broad, unqualified an nouncement that all it's rules shall | be just, and that if any rule is un- 1 just it shall be repealed, and if if cannot be agreed upon, the question
 or it's Justice shall be submitted to ar | o1trat1on- There is no hope except | in absolute justice.
 CONNECTICUT AFFAIRS. As Connecticut is fitted to lead in l these national reforms, so / it is in
 state affairs With the highest des- tiny and unrivalled situation, a hun dred miles of sea-coast, with break water the whole length with manly eIectorate and a proud history, it is cir Of degradation by false sys- tenn of representative government, blght1ng to manhood, to patriotism
 and to self fgovernment. The Demo
 cratic party can take no middle ground on this question When two
 chore hands in the town of Union
 entire faculty of Yale College, there
 Is entrenched wrong. What Is the moral value of the most perfect bal lot law with fundamental injustice in representation? From this there fol-
 lows confused and unjust taxation, relentless grip upon the state Of the pupIlc service corporations, servants
 only in name, contemptuous of the l State, it's creator, its people, and it's 1 welfare.
 A high official of the Consolidated
 RaIiroad has recently appealed to the
 public with the question whether there IS 8 prejudice against railroads, or the organization or it's plant, and
 d4tI1,2fes dapr42res the the detnand for. a Public abuses to be corrected, and demands definite statement of the evils to
 be remedfed, if any such exist. He is
 entitled to this, and beg to say in
 your name that there is no prejudice against his corporations as such or against his corporation because it is a railroad, or against the investors, put there are evils, and on the invi- tation extended beg to name a few.
 The Consolidated Railroad, control ling S71 miles of railroads in this State, about the wholey pays no local taxes and pays to the State less than S1, ,7OO,0 900 in taxes. No valuation of it's property within the State could put it lower than $20O GOO OOO.i It should not pay more than the hunbIest cotta ger in the towns along it's routes, nearly all of whom pay about two per cent
 Should 1t be assessed at this rate on it's unquestioned valuation, it would pay s4. 100000 in taxes a year; what it escapes falls cruelty upon the house holder. It should pay as the house less
 It charges a cent and 42 hundredths a ton mile for freight, nearly twice the average for ton mile among all the railroads of the United States It charges the freight rate to Boston from the West, and to New York from E the East or for a mileage of 50 to 100 miles which it does not haul at all When the water freight routes are frozen up in winter, it charges more than in summer, and it charges another than from either past the other to Boston or New York It's Pullman rates are excessive. On a mileage book it charges six cents for a five cent fare, when the distance is a mile and a half; it charges the pub lie for it's bell-punch system for cash paid conductors, and the lost excess fare slips more than pays for the whole system It charges the public for making change, and if the fare is 84 cents 55 cents is exacted. It uses for $3.87 a ton, for which the house. holder has to pay $6.50 a ton. It pays slight attention to movements of large bodies of daily travellers. get ting them to their destination much before or a little after the most con venient time: and the two hundred State are. ludicrous in their connec- tions with their own trains. Pay ments to the railroad are very easy and in numerous convenient places, payment due from the railroad calls for rearns of paper in correspondence and six months of time
 It has no high officer for complaints with power to remedy them, who is conveniently accessible to the pub lie. It has raised it's rates when it should have lowered them and would have gained both in gross earnings and net earnings by lowering them. It has the antiquated notion that high rates mean large receipts and low rates low receipts; but there never has been an important and we'll considered case of a reduction in rates that did not pay. When the elevated roads charged ten cents, the stockholders were aghast at a New York statute proposing to lower the rate to five cents, but when within a year later the road voluntarily lowered it's rate to five cents, it's gross receipts and net receipts for the first year were larger Such was the argument in the lowering of the postal rate. Every proposed reduction was resisted by the department and it's experts, and found lucrative when forced upon them.
 cheaper today than ever before in it's history and it raises rates. Its vol une of traffic is steadily growing year by year, and it raises rates.
 but it's wages last. year were not ex- travagant, an average of $2.22 a day for the entire line, including the gen eral officers. It is not certain that with the recent moderate raise they are even yet at the most efficient point that is most remunerative to the hearty cooperation of the labor staff and just return to the rail road, for there are few of its en- p1oyees that cannot save the railroad fifty cents a day if they have a mind to.
 The Consolidated Railroad informed the public that up in Litchfeld Coun- ty a few surveyors were going through the farms as though working on a railroad layout. A high official took the public into his confidence and, said that powerful rival railroad system was about to be in competi- tion against the Consolidated rail road. A compIacent Legislature re- peaIed the General Railroad law, which in earlier times had been a contest in which the people were finally succeeded only after bitter