BAIL WAY CONSOLIDATION-. 5 8i 



England. In commenting upon the favorable result of railway con- 

 solidation in Great Britain, the chief of the Bureau of Statistics, in 

 his report upon the "Internal Commerce of the United States for 

 1881 " (page 35), says : " A similar result has followed railroad con- 

 solidations in the United States. It has heretofore been shown that 

 the average of all the rates charged on fifteen leading railroads of the 

 country, including those of the great East and West trunk-lines, and 

 the principal railroads west of the Alleghany Mountains, engaged in 

 traffic betAveen the Western and Northwestern States and the Atlantic 

 sea-board, has decreased 39*45 per cent since 1870, this reduction in 

 railroad freight charges having been more than three times as great 

 as the average reduction during the same period in the prices of 

 twenty-two of the leading articles of commerce." 



This refers to those great trunk-lines against which there is the 

 most frequent charge of monopoly, and upon which, singularly enough, 

 there are the lowest average rates charged by any railroad on the earth. 



Yet the objection to using these lines as an illustration of low rates 

 voluntarily made by the companies with the object of increasing their 

 traffic may be made with some appearance of fairness, as they are 

 largely employed in moving the enormous products of the Western 

 States to the sea-board, and the rates upon this portion of their traffic 

 are controlled by the Great Lakes and the Erie Canal, and in part also, 

 perhaps, by competition with one another. We may find an illustra- 

 tion, to which no objection of this kind can be raised, in the great 

 California corporation. 



The Central Pacific Railroad Company owns, or controls, with a 

 few exceptions, all the railroads in California, and the western termini 

 of three transcontinental lines. In an address to the people, by the 

 National Anti-Monopoly League (page 15), the condition of railroad 

 competition is stated here as follows : " Monopoly is growing in all 

 the States. It has completely subjugated only one. In California it 

 has ripened its fruit. There, Monopoly is king. There, a few men 

 control steam-transportation. They have annihilated competition." 

 This language has certainly the merit of being vigorous, and is well 

 calculated to influence its hearers by its sound. " Subjugated," " king," 

 and " monopoly," are words which in themselves excite a feeling of 

 rebellion in the breast of a freeman ; but, like many other sounding 

 things, they are empty. This great system of roads, having crossed 

 the trackless wastes and pierced the mountain-ranges, has brought a 

 thriving population to thousands of square miles of land which there- 

 tofore were uninhabitable and without benefit to humanity. Since the 

 first mile of track was operated by the owners of this company, the 

 surplus earnings have been reinvested in extending its lines, and so 

 increasing its benefits to the community. 



Now let us see the effect of this absence of competition by other 

 roads. Let us see if, as the consolidations and extensions have pro- 



