RAILROAD PROBLEM IN THE UNITED STATES. 299 



climate, Avhich in northern latitudes may wholly suspend traffic at times 

 or make train service in an extraordinary degree both expensive and 

 hazardous ; the enormous cost of bridges and tunnels, and the termi- 

 nal facilities of great cities all fairly weigh as causes for varying as- 

 sessments of tariff. Surely such considerations as these must set aside 

 any attempt at the solution of railroad difficulties by the arbitrary rule 

 of a uniform rate uniform only in name, for genuine uniformity of 

 charge can only be worked out by a broad view of the whole business 

 of railroading in its full extent and detail, a view which it would be 

 folly to expect a State Assembly or a State Board to take. 



The trunk-lines connecting the West with the Atlantic have a Joint 

 Executive Commission at New York, for the establishment and main- 

 tenance of rates. Though suffering from the merely voluntary nature 

 of its constitution, and without the power of legally enforcing its 

 agreements, the commission gets along pretty well, mainly through 

 the esteem in which are held the character and ability of its chief 

 commissioner, Mr. Fink. He gives a clear explanation of how co-opera- 

 tion, federation, or what is commonly called " pooling," may solve the 

 problem of fixing rates and making railroads keep to them. Pooling 

 may be explained, to readers unfamiliar with the term, as the gathering 

 into a common fund of all the receipts of a group of railroads (or 

 other corporations), for division according to a prearranged scale of 

 apportionment. Mr. Fink points out that in peace or war the propor- 

 tions of freight carried by the different through lines remain sub- 

 stantially invariable. He dwells on the powerful motives acting with- 

 in the railroad business itself to prevent exorbitant charges. Traffic 

 would not grow unless fairly treated, and the efforts of railroad man- 

 agers have plainly been to reduce rates whenever possible to do so. 

 The pool of which Mr. Fink is chief commissioner has gradually re- 

 duced its charges until they have fallen below those of the Erie Canal. 

 The Southwestern pool has constantly reduced its tariff, seeing in that 

 policy the best means for increasing its business and the net profits of 

 its roads. Water competition has a far-reaching effect in railroad 

 tariff, as an illustration will show : A reduction in rates between 

 Chicago and New York, to meet lake and canal tariffs, creates reduc- 

 tions at Louisville, Nashville, and Savannah, for these cities have also 

 their competing routes to New York. All rail routes from Chicago 

 to so interior a point as Atlanta must conform to the total rate made 

 up of the charges from Chicago to New York, from New York to 

 Savannah by sea, and from Savannah to Atlanta by rail. Mr. Fink 

 shows that competition within the pool is powerful to prevent exces- 

 sive charges thus the roads running from Indianapolis eastward 

 must meet Chicago competition, otherwise shippers would send their 

 freights to Chicago to go East, and the Indianapolis roads would re- 

 main idle. The bitterest complaint against railroads, that of discrimi- 

 nations in favor of individuals and special firms, finds its removal in 



