Year: 1873

| Valley Railroad paid ten per cent III CASH WI
twenty-one millions Of stock, and interest OF
| ten millions of debt. The Ncw-Jersey Centr','
lessee of the Schuylllill and Susquehanna hoau'
| made its ten per cent undoubtedly 1housn
do not remember whether 1872 was one VI 'n'
years selected by the management ior Wv
distribution Of profits. The aDoVe "'o '"'
compapies which have formed the ooinoii,"-
tion. Their main business last year was Vno
Same rs il is now-the mining, transportation,
and selling of coal. If they made no money
last wear. why did they declare ten and twenty
nor cont dividends 7 Moreover, where did the
money come from to pay these dividends


So far as the Reading Railroad is concerned,
and this is the mightiest of these monsters,
the reader will find by consulting page 81 OF
its annual report of the business OF the year
1872, the authoritative statement " that an
additional charge of but one-twentieth part
I" of a cent per ton per mile on the tonnage
transported would produce sum exceeding
"two per cent upon the entire capital stock
"of the Company" The Company carried in
1872 over six million tons of coal, and its coal
tonnage for eight months of the current year,
commencing on the first of December last IS
slightly in excess of that Of 1872. Coal
constitutes three-ffths of its tonnage, and
the average distance the coal is carried is less
than one hundred miles. Hence, according to
the Company's own showing. an addition Of
ten cents ton to its receipts from the car
rage of coal would add two per cent to its
dividend fund. But it is now getting one
hundred and forty cents more for It's coal at
Port Richmond than it could have obtained





wear ago, aud about two-tbirds OF all the coal
it carries is sold by itself. 1t owns two-thlrdS
of the mines in the region it traverses, and,
by its monopoly of the transportation, it
as good as owns the rest. Further
more, the Managers of the Company
in this report (the combination not having
been formed at the time it was written), esti-
mate on good grounds that the consumption
of anthracite in 1873 might be expected to run
tlTee million tons ahead Of that OF 1872, and
that "it will be difficult to produce this year
"any quantity so greatly in excess Of the de-
"mand as to depress the market to any con-
"siderable degree.n Acting on this calcua-
ton they had actually added to their equip
ment one thousand eight-wheeled coal cars,
so as to be in position to transport 1SOOOO
to 100000 tons of coal per week during the
season of 1873.


Let us now see what has become of this
Anticipated increase in the consumption of
coal. The combination has killed it, The
manufacturers and consumers have been sold
out. The j." activity of the iron trade" on
witch tie stockholders are congratulated, has
been checked. Only eighteen weeks of the
shipping season remain, and the gain in pro:
dIction for all the anthracite regions is only
one hundred and fifty thousand tons. The
total tonnage of the Reading Road for the
last week reported is just three-fourths
of the capacity of the road. Mines
are everywhere closing, ostensibly for repairs
but coal is still rising! The miners, seeing
how the game is played, and being deprived
of a portion of their work, are contemplating
a>strike. The combination have shown their
power to sell coal dear when it ought to be
cheap but viii they sell it cheap when the
corner on the public is at last complete and
coal famine is impcndingf When the miners
actually strike for a share in the booty will
the mouopolies stop their monthly additions of
ten cents a ton to the wholesale price 2 We
are told that the public have no other re-
source but 20 submit to the eStortiOn. We
fear it is but too true that the pirates have
possession of the ship. But let them be
marked as pirates and no longer looked upon
as lawful traders.