The daily Nome industrial worker., 1917-01-11
PRIVATE 01VEER RsHlP.

The general explanation Of the high price Of coal throughout the east is explained by dealers as due to a shortage, which in turn is due to the fact that there is ear short- age and the means of transportation are not forthcoming. Moreover the fact is to be pointed out that many mills and factories and manufactur ing plants throughout the country have had to shorten their operating time on account of this shortage, this is especially true of the south,
 Some mines unquestionably have not been able to operate at full ca pacity because a car shortage pre- vented them filling orders, and this condition in the coal industry has applied with some degree of accura- cy to the entire system of distribu- tion in agricultural and manufactur- ing products.
 This is due of course to the traGe stimulus which the war has created and the resulting rush of products to the various ports for eXportation. the filling of foreign orders taxed the carrying capacity of the rail- roads to beyond tie normal limits, and in consequence the railroads could not handle the traffic with sue cess and with any sort of sulficiency.
 Without undUlg emphasizing this reason for increased cost of living, il may ag well he admitted that the higher prices are due in a consider able way to the inability of the rail- roads to take care of supplying the demands
 It is worth while recalling in this connection the condition that pre- vailed just before the war. Then ears were idle to an extraordinary extent. Siding carried silent on the tricks innumerable strings of emp ties and the railroads used this as a cogent argument for increasing the rates
 The reason why the present indus trial spurt is not met promptly by the railroads with a sufficiency of rolling stock is because they allege that if they now order enough roll ing stock to meet the emergency, they will have only longer and more improbable strings of empties upon their tracks later on. They will be investing money in vehicles which will afterwards be unused, because beyond the normal traffic demands of the railways. They cannot afford to do that.
 It is thus seen that in exact juXta- position with the public require ments, the railroads have to place the more important requirements of dividends and as usual the public re- quirements suffer. Yet it is the only reasonable thing for the rail. ways to do. They are public carriers, it is true, but they are corporations primarily as public carriers for the one sole purpose of making money at the work. They are in control of the means whereby the distribution of the social necessaries and luXuries is maintained, and because they pri- yately own that the1r ownership en- ables them to extract certain profits from the undertaking.
 If the public, so much in evidence just now in labor troubles permit private individuals to extract pro- fit from performing public functions; justify the extraction of that profit by legal and conventional authority; admit that in the fulfilment of that public function not the performance thereof but the making of profit therein shall be the first considera- tion of these private owners, the public has neither justification for complaint at high rates or at an in- adequate supply of cars.
 But if the needs of society are in adequately performed because of that private ownership, if private owner ship in making it's money fails to function as well as an industrially cooperative system of distribution would do, and the necessity of plac- ing dividends above the social well fare is properly and rightfully eli minated. it should serve at least to