The Ocala evening star. [volume] (Ocala, Fla.) 1895-1943, 1914-06-08

and locomotives, the cost OF rights
of way, the classification OF traffic,
and the general customs, habits and
methods of the people engaged in
manufacturing, commercial and ag-
ricultural pursuits, that the COMPARE
son between privately owened rail-
ways in this country and publicly
owned railways in Europe are o.
small value; but Germany. with
publicly owned railways, and Great
Britain with private ownership. fur
nish an excellent demonstration OF
the comparative value of the two
systems.
The total capitalization of the rail-
ways in Germany is s109 600 mile,
as compared withs265, 600 mile in
Great Britain. The actual average
passenger rate paid a mile is ninety
five hundredths of one cent in Ger
many and one and a half cents in
Great Britain. The average freight
rate ton-mile is 1.41 cents in Ger
many under public ownership and
2.33 cents in Great Britain under
private ownership.
Mr.. Anthony Van Wagenen's book
on Government Ownership OF Rail-
roads says: cit costs S5.72 to trans
port ton of hardware from Birming-
ham to London, while the cost for
the same class Of goods over the
same distance IN Germany is about
1925. Cotton goods from Manches-
ter to London cost sS.76 ton; in
Germany over the, same distance, the
cost is from s4.S6 to $3.50. Gener-
al machinery from Leeds to Hull
costs $500 a ton; in Germany, over
precisely the same distance, S1.09."
Referring to other conditions, the
same authority says: 1T may be
said that these are not important
differences; but what is important is
that the German railroads must car
ry these goods over two hundred
miles for about S1.22 a ton, where
as in England it costs from twice to
four or five times that to carry it.
one hundred miles
Wholesale Plumber
No people less abundantly endow-
ed with natural resources than ours
could ever have withstood the enor-
nous waste, plumber and larceny in
volved in the methods employed in fl
nancing the railways of the United
States. If this reads like the empha-
sis of reinstatement, let it be boldly
declared that statistical and court
records prove more against private
ownership of the railroads of this
country than any mere list of nouns
and adjec+ives can imply or set down.
An empire of 247,093 square
miles-oyer 15S, 100000 acres-of
the public lands of the United States
has been given to the railroads to
aid in their construction and MAIN
tenance. This is a domain more
than equal to the German Empire in
extent. In the words of Secretary
Lane, who furnished the figures late
ly as January, 1914, to the Congress
Of the United States: These land
grants equal in area a territory as
large as the combined areas of the
New England states and New York,
New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Mary
land, Virginia and West Virginia"
And Secretary Lane continued: How
much other public aid has been CIV
en- to private railroad building, in
the form of cash bounties or subsid-
les or guaranteed interest and prin-
cipal on bond issue, cannot even be
approNimated with any degree of GER
tainty."
In this connection Douglas county,
Kansas, my home county, with twen-
ty-five thousand population, has con-
tributed more than half a million
dollars in bonds and cash to aid the
construction of railways in that
county. Missouri contributed thirty
eight million dollars and received six
millions from the railroads. making
the net loss to state thirty-two mil
lions.