THE PROBLEMS OF TRANSPORTATION 105 



per hundred pounds for 14 tons for every 10 tons actually shipped. 

 Here is a real rate 40 per cent higher than it appears from the tariff. 



Or, again to be specific : raising the minimum car-load weight of 

 caustic soda or lye from 20,000 pounds, where it used to be in Official 

 territory, to 24,000 and 30,000 pounds respectively, regardless of the 

 difficulty of filling so large a car with these products, amounts prac- 

 tically to increasing the rates by 50 per cent without changing a type 

 in the tariff sheets. And so, in a thousand little ways, abolishing 

 privileges in demurrage, in switching charges formerly gratuitous, by 

 stiffness in allowances for insurance, etc., the situation may be 

 changed. This is what has happened a number of times during the 

 last four years since January of 1900. The rates have universally 

 been raised and together with these increases a multitude of other 

 changes of the kind mentioned have all accentuated the same result. 



The problem which we would raise is not as to the exact extent of 

 this rise in transportation charges, but rather as to its significance 

 in a well-ordered scheme of things economic. The old evil in this 

 field was inequality between individuals. To combat that injustice 

 was one of the main objects of the Act to Regulate Commerce in 1887. 

 This inequality, particularly with the law as fortified by the Elkins 

 Amendment, has now been more nearly obviated than ever before. 

 The present problem is not of inequality, but of the general level of 

 rates absolutely considered in its relation to prices as a whole. In 

 other words, are carriers justified in expecting a sympathetic rise of 

 rates in accordance with a general advance of commodity prices all 

 along the line? We have for thirty years become used to a move- 

 ment of railroad rates entirely independent of the course of prices, 

 efficiency in operation being correlated with a reduced cost to the 

 public. Are we to witness henceforth a reversal of this phenomenon, 

 characterized, let us say, by a sliding scale of transportation charges 

 following the upward and downward trend of prices of things in 

 general ? 



The problem must, however, be simplified somewhat further. All 

 expenses of operation have greatly increased as a direct result of 

 rises in wages and the cost of supplies. To be recouped for this 

 final outlay, owners are of course entitled, although they have never 

 heretofore been able to take advantage of any upward turn in cost 

 of operation of this kind since the Civil War. And in so far as it is 

 necessary to repay this added expense, no one will contest their 

 justification for the raising of prices of their own product, --trans- 

 portation. But the carriers have not alone been content to stop at 

 this point. They seem to have based their claims for increased 

 returns upon the necessity of continuing a high level of earnings and 

 dividends reached at an early part of the period of prosperity. Many 

 of them have in fact through consolidation capitalized the abnormal 



