DISCRIMINATION IN RAILWAY RATES. 591 



average rate of cost of the entire traffic, they are never knowingly less 

 than the cost of carriage of the particular traffic. 



These several causes requiring discrimination between places, viz., 

 parallel roads or water-routes, competition of markets, and the efforts 

 of the railroad to increase its profit by increasing its traffic at lower 

 rates, are, in the popular mind, considered without distinction ; the 

 discrimination is as to through or local ti'affic. This distinction is in 

 accord with the usual result, for through points are, in nearly all cases, 

 the places where the most active competition of all kinds is in force. 

 The usual termini of railroads are large cities ; these again are usually 

 on water-courses, and are usually also the chief markets reached by 

 the road. But such is not always the case, and, when it is not, the 

 rates will be found to be modified in accordance with the number of 

 these forms of competition there in force, and the greater or less 

 strength with which they exist. 



This general classification of the traffic into through and local 

 suggests a further reason w'hy the competitive rates might fairly be 

 expected to be lower than the local. Through points — the termini of 

 the road — afford the longest haul, and traffic carried a long distance 

 is, like that carried in large quantities, at a lower rate of cost per 

 mile than that carried shorter distances. The traffic between terminal 

 stations is usually much greater than that between any other two sta- 

 tions ; cars are therefore loaded to their full capacity. The load at 

 the end of the long haul is discharged, and with a delay of perhaps a 

 day may be loaded again and returned. The local traffic is in small 

 quantities, the car is but partly loaded, or if fully loaded the delay in 

 unloading is as great as though it went through to the terminal sta- 

 tion. The way-station, in the large majority of cases, affords no re- 

 turn load, so that the haul to some station where the car is needed, 

 as well as the delay caused thereby, must be added to the expense. 

 Add to these differences the difference in the volume of the traffic, and 

 it wdll be readily seen that the cost per mile on through can not be but 

 a fraction of what it is on local traffic. 



Although the constant play of these competitive forces results in 

 reducing through rates to a very low point, it deserves to be noticed 

 that in local rates there is as well a constant though less rapid tendency 

 to reduction. Wherever no more active forces of competition are in 

 operation, the effort on the part of the railroad to develop the produc- 

 tion and resources of the country by stimulating rates, and so increas- 

 ing the profits and the value of the property of the company, is a 

 cause w^hich works constantly toward reductions. This fact is illus- 

 trated by the Railroad Commissioners of Iowa, who, in their report 

 for 1881, occupy forty-six pages with tables and statements showing 

 the reductions in rates in that State, and in which they particularly 

 call attention to the fact that " the reduction is not confined to the 

 through traffic ; it applies, in a somewhat smaller ratio, it is true, to 



