PROBLEMS OF TRANSPORTATION 



BY WILLIAM ZEBINA RIPLEY 



[William Zebina Ripley, Ph.D., Professor of Economics, Harvard University. 

 b. Medford, Massachusetts, 1867. B.B. Massachusetts Institute of Tech- 

 nology, 1890; Fellow, Columbia University, 1891-93; A.M. 1892; Ph.D. 

 1893. Instmctor in Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1894; 

 Assistant Professor, 1896; Professor, 1900; Professor of Economics, Harvard 

 University, 1902; Expert, United States Industrial Commission, 1900-01. 

 Member of the American Economic Association (vice-president, 1899-1900); 

 American Statistical Association; Honorary Corresponding Member, Societe 

 d'Anthropologie, Paris; Societa di Antropologia, Rome, etc. Author of 

 Financial History of Virginia; The Races of Europe; Report on Transportation, 

 United States Industrial Commission; Trusts, Pools, and Corporations, etc.] 



A GROWING problem in transportation is the determination of 

 trade areas, or spheres of influence, to borrow a phrase of interna- 

 tional law. This is another way of stating that the problem turns 

 upon the importance of distance in any scheme of rate-making. 

 Geographical location is a factor in commercial competition. Most 

 of the cases before the Interstate Commerce Commission concerning 

 the Long and Short Haul Clause raise this issue; wherever within, 

 or even outside, a given territory, lie a number of cities competing 

 for business. Take the Southern States for example. What are the 

 conditions at present as determined by the adjustment of freight 

 rates; that is, by an arrangement patched up between competing 

 carriers, each striving for all the traffic it can hold, irrespective of 

 any abstract rights of competitors or of the community at large? 

 Literally speaking, railway competition does not probably exist in 

 the Southern States to-day; so far has consolidation proceeded. But 

 inasmuch as the system of freight rates in force is an unchanged 

 hold-over from a competitive period, our statement holds good. 

 Large distributing-centers in the East are in the field seeking business. 

 Western cities are also actively bidding for trade, while indigenous 

 centers of primary importance like Atlanta, New Orleans, Nashville, 

 and Memphis are actively seeking to wrest the business of distribu- 

 tion from their older rivals. 



This contest for trade may even descend into competition between 

 smaller local centers either struggling against one another or against 

 the larger cities. To be concrete, it may be a case of Atlanta against 

 New York and Chicago, respectively; or of Denver as between San 

 Francisco and the Middle West. Or the struggle may turn upon 

 the rights of a secondary center, such as Montgomery, Alabama, 

 lying between Atlanta and New Orleans. Columbus, Ohio, lying 

 between Cleveland and Cincinnati, is similarly situated. What 



