100 TRANSPORTATION 



Such action for the reasonable definition of trade areas and routes 

 as has been outlined is feasible enough for industrial monopolies and 

 for those carriers who by agreement or by consolidation make them- 

 selves monopolies, but the remedy is not open to the general com- 

 petitive or consuming public. Merchants of Denver, Colorado, 

 cannot conclude a treaty with competing cities for the mutual deter- 

 mination of one another's territory. Nor would it be desirable to 

 have it so. Competition is the life of trade and the salvation of the 

 public, so long as it is reasonable. The only possible geographical 

 delimitation of each other's activities is, and must always be, through 

 the adjustment of freight rates. This function has heretofore been 

 performed by more or less beneficent autocracies the carriers 

 themselves. That so important a public function, however, affecting 

 the origin, development, and continued prosperity of great com- 

 mercial and industrial centers should remain in purely private hands 

 without power of revision by representatives of the public, is con- 

 trary to the tendency of the time, and cannot long persist. This 

 does not mean that the task to be assumed by the state is an easy 

 one, nor, perhaps, that it would be more satisfactorily performed 

 in its larger aspects by the government than by private persons. 

 What the situation demands, however, is not so much an imme- 

 diately equitable adjustment of rights as a guarantee that the pro- 

 blem shall be worked out at least free from the bias of private interest. 

 Whether more or less satisfactorily performed than at present, 

 satisfaction must be afforded to the public that the decision is free 

 from the bias of private interest. 



Territorial Division 



All of these influences which we have adduced as making for a 

 wider and more general dispersion of manufactures will, of course, 

 never affect the great and unchanging influences which have placed 

 many of our staple industries where we now see them. The several 

 states of the Union will never probably roll their own steel rails or 

 make their own cotton cloth. Early fruit will still grow in Cali- 

 fornia and Florida better than anywhere else. Spruce trees for 

 paper, and grain for the distillation of liquor will still grow where 

 Nature bids. But, on the other hand, in the vast complex of manu- 

 factures, it can scarcely be doubted that a great many industries 

 having no special situs foreordained will follow the population which 

 they serve. And neglecting export to foreign countries, the business 

 of transportation will in just that proportion be changed from long 

 carriage for both raw and finished products to and from a specialized 

 center, to a long or perhaps even a short haul for the raw material, 

 and a distinctly short haul for the finished commodity. The only 



