New-York tribune., 1918-02-11
AS a War Measure

AS a War Measure
This extravagant nation has no more
prodigious form of waste than its waste
of transportation. Roughly speaking, in
normal times about one dollar in ten of the
nations income is spent on hauling goods
and people.
The total of the freight carried passes
belief. This year it will reach, if it does
not exceed, four hundred billion ton-miles.
That is, ten tons of food and coal hauled
an average of four hundred miles for
every man, woman and child in the coun-
try. The rates are so low, and the freight
adds so little, usually, to the selling price
that raw products are often carried half
across the country, Or clear across, and
then back as manufactured goods. The
result is freight movement by rail that
probably exceeds that of all Europe and it
may be of all the rest of the world
Now more than quarter of all the coal
mined goes to effect this vast haulage of
goods. And we need coal. And, on the
other hand, coal and coke probably supply
40 per cent Of the total of ton-miles
carried
1t is easy to see what saving of 10 or
10 per cent of needless transportation
would mean. 1t would save samething like
fifty or sixty billion ton-miles of haulagc.
1t would cut down the coal waste by per-
haps thirty or forty million tons. 1t
would save a hundred million dollars or
more in coal; it would reduce the freight
bill which the nation pays by possibly
three hundred millions more. And the
Peabody coal committee, which worked cut
the proposed "zone system" of coal dis
tribution, such as England now has, esti-
mates that the saving in needless coal
haulage might be even greater than this,
or more than 20 per, cent.
Probably in no other line of great na-
tional expenditure could such an enormous
and harmless saving be made. And con-
slider the effect. 1t would end the coal
famine and go far toward ending rne
freight tie-up of the Eastern railroads. It
IS estimated that at least SO per cent of the
freight jam in the East (and there is no
other) is jam of coal cars.
There is one swift and sure method to
attain this end. It cannot be done hy
government edict, or a mandate from Mr..
McAdoo. But it could be achieved simply
by penalizing the waste That is, by rails
ing the freight rate. That rate is roughly
one-half, relatively, what it was three
years ago. In that time the average of all
prices has risen nearly 100 per cent as
every housewife knows. Food, cotton
goods, shoes, clothing, nearly everything
has almost doubled. The buying power of
the dollar is down to below 60 cents, and
is steadily falling
But the freight rate remains nearly un-
changed. The average per ton-mile hauled
has varied little in ten years. And it has
always been the lowest in the world, If
we paid out 10 per cent of our incomes for
freight before the war, it is not much over
. per cent now. If rates were now doubled
1t would mean no greater burden than it
was before the fateful year of 1914.
The railroads need money; the govern
ment needs money. No form of taxation
yet devised could reach all the people of
the country more surely than a tax on
freight. Of the increased revenue the
government could take any share desired,
and leave the railroads the rest. And in
the saving to the nation in wasted haul
ing around and wasted coal could hardly
fail to be of farreaching effect.
Solely war measure, and solely fo,-
the duration of the war, we commend the
plan to the consideration of the Congres-
sional committee now formulating the
railway bill.