The New York herald., 1921-06-13
Rail Wages and Rates.

"A
railroad labor agitators and shared
by some pretty Indifferent railroad
managers, is that so long as traffic
rates are uniform on all the carriers
they may go as high as Gilderoy's
kite with no fear Of the usual COM
petitiye consequences. But the
TRANSPORTATION tax is subject to every
economic law that governs other In
dustrial fields.
Sweeping reductions are announced
in transcontinental freight rates on
fruit and vegetables from Pacific
coast points to Eastern markets, be-
cause the business has been tending
to go away from the rail to the
water carriers through the Panama
Canal. Similarly steel rates from the
Middle West are cut to Pacific coast
ports on shipments for Far East ex-
port because the business has been
moving out by way OF the Atlantic
ports.
1t does not take traffic rate ex-
pert one throb of his brain engine
to realize that when two choices arc
open the freight that is worth haul
ing will always take the one that is
the cheaper for the shipper. The
truth that is clear regarding
water rates is just as clear regard
ing the business that will come OFF
the rails and pile into motor trucks
when the change means a saving OF
freight bills. Right now there is
freight moving in volume by motor
truck from Pennsylvania all the way
through New Jersey and New York
to New England because that haul
age is both quicker and cheaper on
some classifications than by rail.
But even when the boat cannot
capture the business from the train
because the route to market is all on
dry land and the motor truck cannot
filch it because there are no good
roads or the distance is too long
there is still another competitive law
which limits the carriers ability to
fix an excessive rate and still get
revenue out Of 1t. This is the mar
ket value of the commodity that the
carrier is designed to haul, wants to
haul and needs to haul to earn
living.
Either southern California toma-
toes and Texas onions must come
into the New York and Chicago mar
kets at price consumers will pay
for them or they must rot in the
fields where they are grown. Either
New York clothing must get to con-
sumers in the Pacific Northwest on
market terms equal to those that
clothes made in San Francisco offer
or the San Francisco style and quail
ity will suffice the overstrained purse
of Portland or Seattle buyers.
Of New York within couple of hun
dred miles of City Hall Park have
quit travelling to Manhattan Island
market prize of the world-because
it costs too much to get here. Men
and women who must earn their
daily bread somehow, somewhere.
would quit travelling from Harlem
to Wall street If it cost too much to
get there.
The transportation tax which the
railroad traffic rates mark for the
American public to pay is hundreds
of millions of dollars too high. 1t
must come down because the rail-
roads cannot collect it anyhow when
1t is so high as to kill railroad traffic.
1t must come down because American
industry cannot resume activity
when 1t cannot go to market.
And the only way the transporta-
tion rates can come down to the
level where they will not crush the
life out of national business, which
always ought to flow freely and fully
from one part of the country to the
other, is for the operating costs of
the carriers to come down. This is
why the United States Railroad La.
Dor Boards wage reductions are
about to go into effect, because the
wage bills of the American transpor-
tation system had been running about
four billions of dollars a year. And
! four billions OF dollars a year is as
much as this country ought to pay
and can pay for all the railroad
operating costs put together. 1t is
why, If the July 1 wage reductions
are not enough to permit lower traffic
rates wherever they are required for
the interest of the country as well
as for the safety of the roads. there
must be more reductions.
Is Housing Relief in Sight?