RAIL WA Y CONS OLID A TION 



583 



two systems having so few items of resemblance as the California com- 

 pany and the Eastern lines. Yet, if such comparisons are made, with 

 the aim only of discovering the truth, and both systems are placed 

 upon terms as nearly equal as circumstances will admit, there will ap- 

 pear as a result no contrast between the lines where there is the most 

 complete competition and those which are popularly supposed to be 

 controlled only by their own will. 



The rates charged by the Pacific coast roads are, on the average, 

 considerably higher than those of the great trunk-lines on the older 

 and more thickly populated side of the continent. This statement 

 presents a natural condition, for the circumstances are necessarily so 

 different in regard to the volume of traffic that almost as great a dif- 

 ference is necessary in rates. The necessity of the difference compels 

 the acknowledgment of its justice. It is obvious that, where a stated 

 traffic will pay the expenses of operating the road and a fair rate of 

 interest on the property, half of the amount of traffic must pay nearly 

 twice the rates in order to produce the same result. Yet, if the popu- 

 lar belief is echoed by the press of California, the rates charged by the 

 Central Pacific system are considered unreasonably high, because they 

 are higher than the charges of the Eastern trunk-lines. The inequality 

 and injustice of this basis of comparison are demonstrated by its appli- 

 cation. 



The lowest average rate in the United States has been reached upon 

 those lines running between New York and Philadelphia and the West. 

 The charges by these lines average less than one cent upon each ton of 

 freight hauled one mile. Poor's " Manual " for 1881 (pp. 41-47) gives 

 tables of the rates and cost of service of the New York Central, the Erie, 

 the Pennsylvania, and the Pittsburg, Fort Wayne and Chicago Rail- 

 roads, from which I have made the following comparative statement : 



Comparative Statement of Freight Earnings, Expenses, and Traffic for the 



Year 1880. 



1 Report of the Central Pacific Railroad to the State Board of Railroad Commissioners, 

 California, 1880 (unpublished). 



2 " Central Pacific Railroad Annual Report," 1881, p. 14. 



3 Poor's "Manual," 1881, p. 800. 



