The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1911-08-30
The Express Business.

The Express Business.
The officials Of the Southern
Express Company have shown
some concern at the proposed in.
vestigation into their business
which is to be made by the State
railroad commission of South
Carolina. If the investigation is
intended to be a really searching
inquiry into the methods of the
express business and particular
ly or the system Of charges EN-.
ployed by the company, there is;
undoubtedly. reason enough for
concern on the part OF the Off
Gals. A strict rate regulation and
service requirement of the ex.
press companies such as is made
of the railroads would revolution.
ize the express business, which
is conducted according to nc
known law except the law of the
greatest profit obtainable from an
ignorant and complacent public.
There has never been any sort OF
regulation Of the express bust
ness by the various commissions
which have brought the railroads
into some degree of order and re,
sponsibility to the people, al.
though the express companies
are supposed, in a general way,
to be subject to the jurisdiction
of the transportation commits
sions. It is a very hard thing,
doubtless, to get at the inner
working of the express business,
whose whole constitution is
wrongly based. The express ser.
vice should be part Of the rail.
roads business, as it is IN Europe.
There is 10 more reason for the
railroads to farm out the express
service privilegethan there would
be for them to farm out the pas.
senger business of their lines.
One of the big trunk lines oper.
ating between the Ohio river and
the East has announced plans for
taking over a branch of the bus
mess now carried on by express
companies, and it is to be hoped
that this is the beginning of a
movement toward the abolition
Of these private express compan.
les altogether. If the inveftiga.
ton which is to be made of the
Southern Express Company by
the South Carolina railroad com,
mission contributes to this end,
it will have been a great public
benefit.
The Cleveland Plain Dealer
sgys there is a growing convic,
ton that the express companies.
by ''long continued exactions'
have forfeited their right to
public sympathy; that they per.
form a service which might be
better performed by the railroads
and could be performed by them
more chaply, and every influence
the public can bring to bear
should be exerted toward com.
pelling the railroads to assume
this service, which properly be-
longs in their sphere. It is, in
deed, quite possible that the rail.
roads could be compelled to give
an express service upon demand
of a shipper, without interposi,
ton of the express company.
"That the express evil is inexcus-
able," says the Richmond Times
Dispatch, lis shown by the fact
that no differential justification
of the existence of an express
company has ever been made. y
The conviction that the express
business has no place outside the
functions of the railroads them.
selves. where it can be properly
regulated and held to accounta-
bility, is spreading wildly, and
that conviction is bound to find
expression on. before very long,
in definite movement to compel
the absorption of the express
service by the railroads.-Char.
lesion Post.