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justice, and calm determination to use legal and legislative methods to 
remedy the abuse, with occasional outbursts of threatened violence 
as a dernier resort. The demand is universal, both for legislation to 
secure justice in the case, and. national laws to prevent undue and 
prohibitory discriminations between rates of local and through freights. 
Double-track freight-railroads to the sea-board, either owned or directly 
controlled by the Government, are demanded by many, to be run in the 
interest of the people, and not for excessive profit and extortion. Water- 
routes for cheap transportation are also desired. 
The farmers appear to be thoroughly aroused, and they have the 
power, rightly used, of enforcing their demands. It is important for 
their own good and the welfare of the country that they stand firmly 
for all that is right and submit to nothing that is wrong. 
While it is true that the cost of freight is a burden, and that the in- 
justice of railway extortion should be remedied wherever it exists, it 
does not follow that the “hard times” of which the western farmer 
complains are due exclusively to excessive railway freights, or that any 
reduction of freights would insure high prices and satisfying profits. 
The main causes of low prices are overproduction of certain staples, ° 
lack of variety in agricultural production, want of home markets, and 
the need of a withdrawal of western labor from the farm to the workshop 
and manufactory. This is the view of our most intelligent correspondents, 
and a truth which must enforce itself upon the belief and practice of 
the West, or low prices will be lower and hard times harder, even if 
railways should carry at cost, and all local and national taxation should 
be remitted. The following extracts, a few selected from hundreds, 
embody most of the various suggestions presented on the subject: 
Kent, R. I—I know that the most active and intelligent minds among the people, 
whether producers or consumers, are agreed that, before any permanent good can 
result to the farming interest, we must have several lines of communication (trans- 
portation) opened with the far interior of the country, to be built and controlled en- 
tirely by the Government, with the rates of transportation fixed so permanently, and 
at such prices, as will insure to producers at the West entire exemption from the un- 
certainties which always attend private corporations. When the Government gives 
us these things it will have done for the farmers something equivalent to what they 
have been doing for the industries of the miners, the workshops, and the mills, ever 
since the Government was organized. The produce and grain exchanges of our com- 
mercial cities, in combination with the great lines of transportation, now fix for us the 
_ price of nearly every pound of flour, corn, and meat that goes upon our tables. 
Wythe, Va.—On account of what is called a discrimination between way and through 
freights, it costs as much to market cattle, sheep, hogs, or grain, from here to Balti- 
more as it does from Memphis, which is three times as far. 
Frederick, Va.—It costs as much to send a bushel of wheat, corn, etc., to market as 
-it does a farmer who lives five hundred miles west of us. 
Freestone, Tex.—Cheap freights will almost entirely revolutionize farming in this 
State, as it now costs nearly as much expense to ship all kinds of esculents, grain, 
etc., as it does to produce them, thus depriving planters of a ready market. 
Lake, Ind.—Co-operation or combination of farmers, if managed judiciously, may, 
to some extent, influence legislation in regard to rates of freights for transportation, 
but the thing of most immediate importance is more railroads, and double tracks, be- 
tween Chicago and the eastern sea-board. The whole West has for years been filling 
up with railroads and producers to an almost limitless extent, while for the last twelve 
or fifteen years hardly one single facility for transportation has been added between 
Chicago and the East. More facilities and competition is,what is most wanted. 
Richland, Iil—I would suggest as a remedy, a full execution of the laws of the 
State. The State has made wholesome laws in regard to common carriers, and 
appointed three commissioners to attend to overcharges on freight. When a com- 
plaint is made to any one or all of these commissioners, the reply usually received is a 
copy of the law in regard to railroads, and the matter ends there, unless the shipper 
enters a suit against the railroad company, when he is taken through a full course of 
law, and, although he beats the railroad company in the suit, his loss by attorney’s 
fees, of time, etc., amounts to more than what he gains: the result deters many from 
a suit, and the railroad company keeps on charging as high rates as ever. As ar 
