THE DECLINE IN RAILWAY CHARGES. 



189 



traffic, are not available for the years prior to 1882, but reductions 

 since that time are shown to have been extensive. 



It should not, however, be understood that the amount paid 

 per capita for freight transportation by rail has decreased in the 

 proportion shown by these figures. The most obvious result of 

 declining rates is an extension of the utility of transportation 

 facilities, as is amply shown by the statistics of freight movement. 

 During 1882 the total railway freight service was equal to only 

 39,302,209,249 ton-miles, or about seven hundred and fifty-two tons 

 carried one mile per capita, and the decline in the average charge 

 per ton-mile from 1*236 cent in that year to 0'878 cent in 1893 was 

 accompanied by an increase in the volume of traffic of nearly 

 two hundred and fifty per cent, and in the amount of transporta- 

 tion per capita to almost twice that of 1 882. The increase in ton- 

 nage movement in proportion to population was about eighty- 

 seven per cent, and in the aggregate sum received therefor by the 

 railways only thirty-seven per cent. 



It will not be sufficent to abandon the investigation of changes 

 in the charges for moving freight at this stage, nor to remain sat- 

 isfied with mere general averages of those charges. The more 

 minute inquiry which deals with actual rates upon specific com- 

 modities of commercial importance affords quite as interesting 

 and it is confidently believed equally important and significant 

 results. The rate from Chicago to New York on grain and flour, 



which are nearly always classed together for rate-making pur- 

 poses, is indisputably the most important single rate that could 

 be selected. It derives its prominence not alone from the fact 

 that it applies to the most important agricultural and food 

 products, when shipped from the greatest grain market in the 

 world to its principal port of export, but also because it is the 

 basis of all charges on grain and flour shipped from the western 

 regions of surplus production to the Eastern States. Any modi- 

 fication of this rate, therefore, effects a corresponding change in 

 the transportation charge on nearly every bushel of grain and 



