The Birmingham age-herald., 1922-11-15
HOOVER WILL URGE RECONSTRUCT|ONOF RAIL RATE SYSTEM
Commerce Secretary Will Bring Needed Readjust- ments to Attention of
 Congress
By Associated Press

Washington, November 14.--Need for reconstruction of the railroad rate structure of the country--in some cases with upward readjuss- ments-will be brought to the at tention of the Congress by Secretary Hoover. 1t Is understood. in his forth coming annual report Some relief both to the railways and to the farmers, in the secretary's View, may be obtained through such reorgan- ization.
 Mir. Hoover's report, according to drafts already completed, is planned to present comprehensive discussion of the national transportation prob lem covering car shortage. re8ula- ton. weakness in the transportation act, rates and labor regulation.
 Losses through short transporta- ton. MT. Hoover finds. are q tax oil the community, stifling production, introducing speculation and disturb ing price levels. Despite the lack of equipment. he maintains, Amer ican railroad management Is the most efficient in the world in so far as it is not limited by uncontrollable circumstances.
 Regulation Necessary
 Regulation is necessary. he con- tends, but constructive development of this organization to secure public protection and to assure adequate service are vital and not necessarily incompatible.
 "Nationalixation would be so- cial and economic disaster" drafts of the report say. Free operation would reconstruct the vicious prac- tices of 30 years ago. The present transportation act possesses maay constructive features and some weakness It was the result of compromises in many particulars and these very compromises are some of it's weakest points
 Failure of the carriers to earn the amounts provided under the act. MT. Hoover asserts. disproves the eur rent fiction" that earnings ara provision whereby earnings above $ per cent would be turned over to the government to be loaned to rai.- roads, would not seem to extend to those "anaemic carriers who are un- able to give the government as- surance of repayment through their own inability to produce earnings. Consolidation, however, he suggests, might solve the problem.
 Rates Are Vivid Question Rates. according to the report. are vivid question in the transporta- tion situation, a heavy burden on agriculture in an era of wide dispar- ity between the farmers income and that of industry. while at the same time railway earnings are not large enough to assure railway expansion. Some classes and areas of traffic are carried" the report declares, lat actual loss, others are carried at lower rates than the relative value Of the commodities warrant; and 8 series of scientific upward readjust- ments should be made in some cases in order to give the railways and the shippers of primary commodities and agricultural produce some relief" Wage control and strike prevention l phases of the act are considered un- 1 satisfactory by MT. Hoover on the I ground that failure of the local ad- i justment boards for direct contact [ between employers and employees has 1 thrust all labor disputes upon the railroad labor board. resulting in l practically government fixing of all wages and conditions of labor. Action Imperative
 ] There can be no question" the l report says, that action in some di- l rection Is imperative if industry and < commerce are not to be further 1 strangled by a shortage in transpor- i, tation. Whatever may have been the l sins of railway finance in the last : generation we are not only suffer l ing from them. but we have main i tained an attitude of bitterness Tn i cur public relationship to our rail- ways, for which we pay thrice over in prevention of their proper develop i ment. We must have Increased trans- 1 portaion if we are to maintain our l growing productivity We must i therefore find way out of the cycle 1 of systematic starvation of large part of our mileage and the denuda- l tion of our railway managers of their