298 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



to long delays at way-stations, causes justifying low rates on full cars 

 in active motion on long, unbroken journeys. 



Another form of allowable discrimination Mr. Fink holds to arise 

 where a new industry awaits development, and offers all it can afford 

 to pay a rate somewhat under the tariff. He gives as an example a 

 case where staves from a Western point were to be sent to England, to 

 compete there with staves from Norway : he holds it to have been 

 good railway policy to create freight by carrying it at a reduced fig- 

 ure, if it gave promise of increased business in the future, with a pros- 

 pect of building up a new industry for the country. 



The Anti-Monopoly League of New York, an association formed to 

 expose railroad abuses, and to endeavor to have them corrected by po- 

 litical agitation and legislative enactment, has widely circulated as the 

 policy of the Erie and New York Central Railroads a statement signed 

 by their presidents, wherein they declare it their principle to charge 

 all an article will bear, and at the same time stimulate its production 

 (they probably meant, not interfere with its production). On the 

 Central Pacific Railroad the value of a shipment of ore or merchan- 

 dise affects the cost of its carriage, and at first view the fact certainly 

 has an arbitrary look. The explanation of the somewhat carelessly 

 stated principle is this : Ores of various values are offered to the 

 Central Pacific road, let us say; the least valuable can- not afford to pay 

 tariff rates, although it can pay the cost of transportation and a small 

 percentage of return to the capital of the line. The manager decides 

 that a little profit is better than none, and accepts the ore of small 

 value at a reduced rate. The same principle of classification makes, 

 dry-goods pay a higher rate than coals, just as letters cost more for 

 postage than books and parcels ; its adoption develops the utmost 

 quantity of railroad business, cheapening the average charge, and ad- 

 justing the burden of expense to the various capabilities of the differ- 

 ent elements of traffic. Railroad managers, on the same general prin- 

 ciple, find it pays to develop suburban passenger and excursion business 

 on terms much below the charges for single tickets. 



Against the proposal of General Reagan and others to make a uni- 

 form rate for every mile of railroad in the country, it is very properly 

 urged that tariffs must vary from many considerations : the indirect- 

 ness of one road competing with a shorter one obliging it to charge a 

 lower rate per mile, or do no business ; the determination of freight in 

 a single direction, as of lumber from the Wisconsin forests, which re- 

 quires the hauling of empty cars northwestward ; the comparatively 

 small business of some lines such as those common in the West, which 

 serve as mere gatherers-up for the trunk-lines and feeders of them ; 

 the cost of fuel, three times as much in some parts of the country as 

 in others, and, at the cheapest, a main element of railroad expense ; 

 difficulties of grade, which may make a single mile more costly in main- 

 tenance and operation than ten miles of level track ; contingencies of 



