The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-08-31

in fixed charges the estimated income oompares with last years actual figures as follows:
 Gross Earnings-1s12, s56,3s2,So0; 1911. s53,993,741; increase, $2,3Ss0b9.
 Expense and Taxes-1912. s41,63,2oo; |1911, s4O,417,912; increase, s1,2S5'2ss.
 Total-1912, $14,729e00. 1911, s13.- 575,S29; increase, $1,153,771.
 Other Income-1912, S2,1O0,0O0; lSll, s2,020,OS2; increase, $79,91S.
 Total Ipcome-1912, s16,S29,600; 1911. G5.595.911; increase, s1,233,eSs.
 Charges, Etc.-1912. $7,20o,00o; 1911, s7,O40,57s; increase, s159,422.
 Balance-1s12. s9,62e,6 500; 1911, ss,- 555,333; increase, s1,0S4,267.
 Per Cent on Stock-1s12. 16.o4 per cent: 1911, 1426 per cent; increase, IFS per cent.
 "As per cent dividends on s60,000,- 900 call for only $4,200,Oo0 Louisville has been able to appropriate all or any part of s5,0O0 900 out of the past years earnings to improvements. For the fourth consecutive year the company has been able to spend out of earnings or to hold as working capital more than a dollar for every dollar paid in dividends. Last years charges to oper- ating expense for maintenance of way were reduced to $300,000 but this was offset. at least in its financial bearing, by an increase of half a million in up keep of equipment. This year was prosperous one for all the southeast ern roads, but prosperity brought along it's usual penalty, in this case an in- crease of nearly s1.000,000 in cost of conducting transportation.
 With It's stock selling close to 160 and earning more than twice it's dividend requirements, with only s6o,00o,0Oo stock and $137, 100000 bonds outstanding, there is every reason why Louisville should issue stock instead of bonds to finance the double-tracking and other expansion of facilities which the roads territory is demanding more urgently every year. The term of the Atlantic Coast Lines collateral indenture under which $30, ,0000 600 Louisville stock Is pledged, offer an ob- stacle to stock financing, but directors of the Louisville have broadly intimated that they will find a way around that difficulty when the time comes. They are now proposing to sell forty million more of stock, or an increase from s6o,- o00,0O0 to s100. .00o,00o
 Wonderful Prosperity
 'I commend the reading of this finan- cial statement to every man in Alabama did management and success of his road We commend him and congratulate him, but we call the inferior judges, and his masters attention to the fact that in this four years of prosperity. the last two were the most prosperous, and that they were worked out under the state rates, freight and passenger. And it must be recollected that this earning of an average of 151a per cent year is on their entire stock of $60,000,000 more than l half of which Is pure water; in other l words 32 per cent per annum on the &C., 1 tual value. The earnings constantly fn- creased under the state rates, and yet masters and judge alike found that they were confiscated and destroyed.
 A Trace of Truth
 "Mr Milton Smith states that his av- | craze rate of freight as charged in Ala bama is lower than 1t Is in Georgia. This 1 las trace of truth, but 1t is misleading. | In the Birmingham district the Louisville and Nashville does 15 per cent of it's business and hauis more tonnage in the Birmingham district than in several states combined. This tonnage is largely 1 sand, limerock, iron ore, coal. iron and l steel and all the rates are it's own mak- ] ing and they are profitable to 1t or it would not make them. There has never been any coercion. But what has the price at which the Louisville and Nash vile road hauls sand, limerock, ore and | coal to the Birmingham furnaces got to | dc with the charges it makes to the far mers and manufacturers, the consumers land producers of Alabama? What bear ing has the freight service as rendered | the big furnace companies of north Ala | bama got to do with the rates on cotton Land cotton seed meal, fertilizer, lumber, i,agricutural implements, etc, to the But Ter county farmers at Greenville? And vhy should Alabama be a party to an 1 overcharge to it's two and quarter mil lion farmers. producers and consumers lby any public corporation, because some 1 satisfactory service has been rendered some other line of industry In the state
 ..The no commodities of common pro l duction. consumption and use had nc reference or relevance to this vast ton lrage of low class freight that Mir. Smith has lugged in for the purpose of reduc- ing the average freight charge in Ala bama It is reflection on his common honesty and your common sense, and am surprised that whoever is writing Itlese pieces for his signature should pre- ent such impositions on the straight truth to be published by him. In The Age-Herald July 14, MT. Smitt
 gives testimony in favor of the Georgia