The daily Nome industrial worker., 1916-03-23

The probability that rates would be increased on steamship lines to Alaska has been looming large be- fore the public for some months. and now it has practically material ized.
 These are fortunate days for the ship owners. Tonnage is so scarce and cargo so freely offers on ali lines of traffic that the supply of ships is not equal to the demand Rates have therefore gone soaring and prosperity is a very real thing for tho ship owner.
 It might have been reasonably eX- pected that in consequence of this condition Alaska rates would also have gone up. No more on this route than on any other gre the shipping lines operated for pleasure or for the health of the owners. They ar0 in the business for dividends, the larger the better. Rates however
  the Alaska trade. In the first place it is so situated that foreign compe- tition is to all intents and purposes eliminated. The patriotic desire to zee tho trade under the American flag always is directed into very practical channels and coined into dollars and cents for the benefit or the proprietary classes. Incidentally it may be remarked that modern pa triotism consists in one class sup pressing its interests for the beneNA and profit of anottcr class-at least to lGrgo extent.
 Moreover the tonnage III tho Al aska trade has been restricted to certain grade of steamer which hau retired from active service on other waters and spent it's respectable old age storm.ly enough where it had no business to be out and about.
 But the freight offered was stric- ly restricted Limited to the de- mands of a relatively small popula' tion, it did not open Q field to any great amount of tonnage and TOT that reason many firms did not think it worth while going after 1t.
 Tn consequence those that dld were inspired with the very reason able ideal that precedent has estab- lished for monopoly, of charging aA the traffic would bear aad when tho' didn't it was because now end then ono caught glimr 52 l< "9 ar' parent >lt.u,sm bGt which s.d q ma torial enough bass in tho common encugh desire to ayo'G N,lLnG the .,oos1 that laid tho golden eggs. But they tied the bird up and when they fattoncd it uhcy did so that later they might enjcy whon tho days of golden eggs were past, pate de foie eras for their cultured plutocratic palateC
 Ire Industrial Worker has time and time again referred to the trans portation problems of Alaska Anu this papor has insisted that those transportation problems are to b. solved not by interior railroads but by exterior ocean shipping.
 It does not matter if the govern ment does build railroad to the Yukon watershed, that railroad Will not be able to reduce rates to any serious degree, because of the fact that those rates will depend stll! upon the rates charged from the ocean terminals in Alaska to the ocean terminals in the States.
 No railroad provides such 9 con venient means of reaching directly the interior as the great river that pierces into the vory heart of the Territory: the Yukon. River steam CTS can ply upon those rivers much more cheaply than could any raii- road trains carry freight across the Alaska divide into the interior. But were not in the hands of mono poly would have it's advantages limited by the control of its term,- nals by ocean going steamers.
 Very much of the railroad enter prise that we see, hear and read about is pork barrel stuff pure and simple, and will not open and de: ,yelop the country until transporta- tion to the outside is made an ad- junct of any government system or transportation.