OCEAN TRANSPORTATION 201 



The value of good roads to the farmer is manifest in many 

 ways. For instance, travelers along the famous pike in Indiana 

 known as the Michigan Road years ago noted the spirit of pride 

 farmers along this road took in the upkeep of their farmsteads. 

 The fences were woven wire, in contrast with the rail fences just 

 off the pike; the barns were painted, and usually had the farmer's 

 name or his farm name in big letters on the roof; the houses and 

 lawns showed that the esthetic sense of the farmer and farmer's 

 wife appreciated beauty. Farm life had become more dignified. The 

 social value of good roads in annihilating isolation is easy to com- 

 prehend, but difficult to measure. Many serious efforts have been 

 made to measure the economic value of good roads as a factor 

 in raising land values. The Federal Office of Good Roads and 

 Rural Engineering made surveys in eight counties in five States 

 for a period covering six years, 1910 to 1915 inclusive. The study 

 revealed the interesting fact that following the improvement in 

 the highways, the selling price of the adjoining land amounted to 

 from one to three times the cost of the improvements. These 

 studies were conducted in the following States: Virginia, New 

 York, Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida. In Franklin county, 

 New York, the figures seem to indicate that the change from earth, 

 sandy and loam roads to bituminous macadam was followed by 

 increases averaging $12.50 per acre, or about 30.7 per cent. The 

 economic value of good roads includes other factors than increased 

 land values, such as lessened wear and tear on vehicles, harness 

 and teams, increase in size of load hauled, and decrease in time 

 consumed in hauling. 



Ocean Transportation. At the opening of the World War in 

 1914 ocean transportation afforded a good example of the economic 

 theory of competition. In other fields of transportation govern- 

 ments had gradually come to set aside the competitive system as 

 a regulator of rates and services. 



A Royal Commission in Great Britain appointed in 1909, and 

 the Committee on the Merchant Marine and Fisheries of the 

 United States House of Representatives, under House Resolution 

 587, passed in June, 1912, both investigated the workings of com- 

 petition in ocean shipping, and both reached the same conclusion. 

 Competition has destroyed competition. A summary of the facts 

 found by the United States investigators is as follows: 



First that the evils arising from former unrestricted competi- 

 tion in ocean carriage have driven the steamship companies to 

 form understandings, conferences, combinations, "rings." 



