Connecticut western news., 1921-11-03
RATE OF RETURN EARNED BY RAILROADS OF THE UNITED
 STATES ON THEIR PROP

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 It will thus he noted that during the years when other industries were mak- ing very large profits, when the prices of farm products and the wages of la Dor were soaring to unheard-Of heights, the earnings upon railroad investment in the United States were held within very narrow limits and that they have during the past four years progress sively declined.
 Roads Handicapped More Than Other
 Business
 ?. The railroads are responsible to the public for providing adequate transportation. Their charges are linn ited by public authority, and they are in very large respects (notably for la. bOr) compelled to spend money on basis fixed by public authority. The margin within which they are permit ted to earn a return upon their invest ment or to offer inducements to attract new capital for extensions and better ments is extremely limited However much the railroads might desire, there IOIS, lO ISduNC lIlCiI Cilal SCS lii lllliCo of depression 1t will be perceived that the limitations surrounding their ac- ton do not permit them to give effect to broad and elastic policies which might very properly govern other lines of business not thus restricted.
 It has been urged upon the railroads that a reduction in rates will stimu- late traffic and that increased traffic will protect the carriers from the loss incident to a reduction in rates The railroad homogeneous cannot disguise from themselves that this suggestion Is merely coniectural and that an adverse result of the experiment would be dis astrous not only to the railroads, but to the public, whose supreme need Is adequate transportation. Consequently the railroad arrangements cannot feel justified in placing these instrumentali- ties. so essential to the public welfare, at the hazard of such an experiment based solely upon such a conjecture.
 Farmers Especially Need Lower Rates
 It Is evident, however, that cA.sti:iss transportation charges bear in many cases a disproportionate relationship to the prices at which commodities can be sold in the market and that existing labor and other costs of transportation thus imposed upon industry and agriculture generally a burden greater than they should bear. This Is especially true of agriculture. The railroad arrangements are feeling sensitive to and sympathetic with the distressing situation and de- sire to do everything to assist in reliev- ing it that is compatible with their duty to furnish the transportation which the public must have.
 At the moment railroads in many cases are paying 4oc. an hour for unskilled labor when similar labor Is working along side the railroads and can easily be ob tained by them at 200. an hour. The railroads of the country paid in 1920 total of considerably over $500 900. coo to unskilled labor alone. However desirable 1t may be to pay this or that schedule of wages, it is obvious that 1t cannot be paid out of railroad earnings unless the industries which use the railroads are capable of meeting such charges.
 The railroads, and through them the people generally are also hampered in of working rules and conditions now in force as a heritage from the period of Federal control and upheld by the Rail road Labor Board. These conditions are expensive, unecOnomic and unnecessary from the point of view of railroad opera tiOn and extremely burdensome upon the public which pays the bill. This sched- ule of wages and of working conditions prevents the railroads from dealing equttably with their labor costs in ac cordance with rapidly changing conditions and the great variety of local cOnsdera tiOns which ought to control wages in different parts of the country. The rail- roads are seeking to have these rules and working conditions abrogated.
 The railroads will seek q reduction in wages now proposed by first requc sting the sanction of the Railroad Labor Board. The railroads will proceed with all possi- ble dispatch, and as soon as the Railroad Labor Board shall have given it's assent ion nf reduction in rates will be put into effect.