PAST INDIFFERENCE OF GOVERNMENT. 331 



obtain and to collate an almost infinite number of details 

 never before brought within the public reach. They say : 



Perhaps the most extraordinary feature of our governmental policy 

 touching the vast internal trade of the nation is the apparent indif 

 ference and neglect with which it has been treated. While detailed 

 information has been obtained by the Government, under customs 

 and revenue laws, in relation to commerce with foreign countries, 

 no means have been provided for collecting accurate statistics con 

 cerning the vastly more important interests of internal commerce. 

 No officer of the Government has ever been charged with the duty 

 of collecting information on this subject, and the legislator who 

 desires to inform himself concerning the nature, extent, value, or 

 necessities of our immense internal trade, or of its relations to foreign 

 commerce, must patiently grope his way through the statistics fur 

 nished by boards of trade, chambers of commerce, and transporta 

 tion companies. Even the census reports, which purport to contain 

 an inventory of the property and business pursuits of the people, 

 and which in some matters descend to the minutest details, are 

 silent with regard to the billions of dollars represented by railways 

 and other instruments of internal transportation, and to the much 

 greater values of commodities annually moved by them. 



&quot;We have no means of measuring accurately the magnitude of this 

 trade, but its colossal proportions may be inferred from two or three 

 known facts. The value of commodities moved by the railroads in 

 1872 is estimated at over $10,000,000,000, and their gross receipts 

 reached the emormous sum of $473,241,055. The commerce of the 

 cities of the Ohio river alone has been carefully estimated at over 

 $1,600,000,000 per annum. The value of pur internal commerce is 

 many times greater than our trade with all foreign nations, and the 

 amount annually paid for transportation is more than double the 

 entire revenues of the Government. 



Concisely stated, the defects and abuses alleged against the exist 

 ing systems of transportation are : insufficient facilities, unfair dis 

 criminations, and extortionate charges. With reference to the mat 

 ter of facilities, it is believed that the improvements of natural water 

 ways and the construction of additional channels of water com 

 munication have been wholly inadequate to the growing demands of 

 trade; and by reason of this neglect on the part of the Government, 

 the commerce of the country has been compelled to accept the more 

 expensive methods afforded by railroads; and that railway companies, 

 having thus secured a substantial monopoly of the business of -trans 

 portation, have failed to recognize their responsibilities to the public, 

 or to meet the just demands of the rapidly increasing commerce be 

 tween the interior and the seaboard. 



Discriminating and extortionate charges, however, constitute the 

 chief grounds of complaint. The principal causes which are sup 

 posed to produce such charges, and which have aggravated and in 

 tensified the public discontent, may be summarized as follows: 



1. &quot; Stock-watering/ a well known process by which the capital 

 stock of a company is largely increased for purely speculative pur 

 poses, without any corresponding expenditure on the part of its re 

 cipients. 



