The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-01-18

tention of merchants and manufac- | turers that they were suffering as well as the railroads, that rates should not be increased at a time of i depression. The only course left was to starve the maintenance, to cut down expenditures on track and | equipment. This meant not only di-
 unfinished purchase of materials and ployees that could ill be spared; and | the first to go are always the hum
 bier laborers whose wage at the best
 affords little more than bare subsist- l ence.
 l The passing of the depression has been marked by further elevation in
 the prices of materials and further increases in wages that are reflected
 in the net earnings, which, in the case of many a railroad, are becom-
 If the railroads can not reduce their | expenses, they must perforce in-
 crease their receipts, and this they are striving to do through advances | in rates. No one contests the fact | that men whose duties are so severe
 and responsibilities so heavy as are
 those of the railway employees should | be we'll paid; but that which is not
 taken in cannot be paid out.
 In recent years but little has been
 prices were due to high rates of freight. It has been abundantly ] demonstrated that the ratio of the transportation charge in the price which the consumer pays for commo- dities is so small that with the ex- ception of the heavier and coarser l commodities 1t is hardly a factor in 1 making those prices higher or lower. In one very important respect the 1 expenses incurred by the railroads freight have enormously increased. Particularly in the larger cities where real estate has vastly enhanced in
 value. requirement of additional | land for yards and terminals has be-
 the payment of high prices. The level of wages, and the antiquated l methods used by shippers in deliver ing and receiving freight have made the cost of it's handling at the prin- to the revenue derived from trans portation. It was long ago estimat- | ed that the cost of handling freight l at the Philadelphia terminals absorb 1 ed the revenue received for transpor- tation over seventy miles. The ter York now absorb over half the reve- | nue received for the haul of many kinds of merchandise between those cities. In the countries of Europe a dition to the transportation charge. This custom has but limited app1i-
 cation in the United States. It
 would. be only just to the railroads were it extended.
 As the railroads in the United canoes, through sparsely settled re- gions, track and equipment were the 1 first considerations. Passenger sta- | tions for many years were but rude | ies these have been and are being replaced by commodious structures of high architectural merit AL though they add but little to the vol- ume of travel or to the passenger
 revenue, their maintenance requires a vastly increased expenditure. Cars are more substantial and more com fortable. Express trains are equip- ped with dining cars that entail a large deficit to nearly every company engaged in their operation. The lo-
 comotives or cars of to-day cost 50 | and 50 per cent. more than those in use dozen years ago.
 Through the use of larger cars and | more powerful locomotives the rail- roads have been able to effect econ omies in operation that for many years in great measure enumerated the handicap eftailed by the dimin- ishing purchasing power of their re- ceipts. That on the most advanc-
 reached in the way of such econo-
 mics, is the opinion of railway man agers. Cars and locomotives can- not be made higher or longer or wid- CT. If they are not to carry traffic at diminishing return, such railroads ments that will require the expendi- ture of vast amounts of capital. To bring the less advanced railroads to an equivalent standard will mean the expenditure upon them of vast
 amounts of capital.
 {1r>., l- 70 this country that can sell new capi- tai issues to their own stock and se- curity holders. Although the coun- try is teeming with prosperity the
 railroads are being obliged to seek new capital in foreign lands where they have to pay a heavy discount. Would it not be as it ought to be if when a railroad company is demon
 stratedly in need of new capital for indispensable extensions and i'm provements, that such capital should be readily furnished by the people of the region which it serves? That
 this is not now the condition is be- cause those people receive far great
 CT returns from money invested in
 other channels. and because through a peculiar mental obliquity they have
 come to regard the railroads as in-
 struments of oppression to be yftu-
 perated instead of an integral and es-
 sential factor in the national life to be encouraged and sustained.
 Although the capitalization of the
 railroads of the United States is low
 CT per mile than that of any other
 country of civilization that capitaliza- ton is the subject of general dis
 trust. Cases of manipulation that
 in the last dozen years have been
 SO few that they can be counted up-
 on the fingers of one hand are cited
 as typical and made the basis of uni--
 versaI condemnation. It is a fact
 susceptible of demonstration that
 many, probably a majority of the
 railroads of the country could not be-
 replaced from the present capitaliza-
 tion. The fact that stocks and se-
 curities of esta blished railroads are
 the mainstay of many of the educa-
 tional and other public institutions;
 that they form large portions of the
 reserves of the great life insurance
 companies. and that new issues only
 of merit are approved and accepted
 by the great investment bankers, is
 lost sight of.
 Tn any discussion of the transpor-
 tation status of this country all oth-
 CT considerations must pale before
 the admitted necessity for an extcn- sion of the transportation facilities that will require the expenditure of hundreds of millions of dollars every
 ecuted with vigor, there will not only arrive a time when the country will be face to face, as it was in 1901-02, and 1905-06, with .sthreatened breakdown of its transportation agen- cies. but when there will actually be a breakdown. This can only be avoid- ed hv the heavy expenditllre of new