116 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



form. It would add stability to the rates, so that a man could calculate 

 his business a few months in advance and not have to figure whether a 

 rate would be there then or not. It would do a great deal to relieve the 

 car stringency that occurs every fall, because men could get out their 

 stuff in advance. There are people that will freeze to death this winter 

 because the railroads cannot get them coal; and why can't the railroads 

 get them coal? Because they don't order their coal until the tempera- 

 ture is 40 degrees below zero, and it takes longer for the coal to get there 

 than it does for them to freeze to death. That is all there is about it. 

 Now, why don't they order their coal earlier? Because for years the 

 rate on coal from the Lakes through this country and to the Missouri 

 river during the summer have been so high that no merchant, no coal 

 dealer, would ship. Because why? He knew that when the time came 

 and the stress came, the railroads would reduce the rates, and if he 

 shipped in at a high price, why, he would be left. 



Now, then, if we can get this system adopted, we will have the 

 same rates in the spring that we have in the fall, and the same in the 

 fall that we have in the winter, and get it in shape so that when the 

 coal merchants know that, why, they will buy in the spring, when it is 

 cheap. Take the anthracite coal — it advances 10 cents every month. 

 Well, 10 cents a month on the cost of a ton of coal is 2 per cent a 

 month. Well, there is not any coal merchant here, or at the Missouri 

 river, but would like to earn 2 per cent on his money instead of keeping 

 it in the bank until fall, if he knows that when fall comes the rate 

 won't be cut down out from under him, so that his competitor will really 

 get his stuff cheaper than he does. 



The Chairman : The joint session will now be dissolved. 



