166 THE FARMER AS A BUSINESS MAN. 



absence of snow and floods, equality, or lack of it, of traffic in 

 each direction, and volume of business. Assuming, however, 

 eighty-three one-hundredths of a cent as the average cost per 

 ton j:ier mile upon that road, there may be some who would 

 think that the production of a revenue would mean simply the 

 addition to the average cost of whatever is necessary to pay 

 the desired income upon the capital, and making that rate 

 apply to all freight carried. 



The result of sucli an attempt, however, would be the 

 immediate disappearance of a large part of the traffic, which 

 could not bear the average rate. Railroads can not be run 

 upon this principle. Any attempt to apply it would so raise 

 the price of such commodities as coal, lumber, cement, pig- 

 iron, and the like, where transported by rail, as to make their 

 delivery impossible to many communities now obtaining them 

 cheaply. It would prevent the working of numberless mines of 

 low-grade gold, lead, copper, and silver ore, whose output is now 

 carried to smelters at any rates which will pay any profit at 

 all, above actual cost of train service. No railroad, whether 

 owned by a private corporation or the state, ever was or ever 

 can be run upon such a principle, if it is proposed to 

 adequately serve the public, while producing any income upon 

 the capitalization. The method always adopted is to classify 

 the commodities, and charge the highest rates upon those 

 which are able to pay the most — that is, those having the 

 highest value for the same weight or space. A car-load of silk 

 might perhaps easily pay from San Francisco to New York a 

 rate of $5.00 per one hundred pounds, which is about three and 

 one-third cents per ton per mile, while California fruit-growers, 

 who now pay $1.25 per one hundred pounds, or about eighty- 

 five one-hundredths of a cent per ton per mile, find it very 

 difficult to deliver their product at such rates as will enable 

 it to be sold at a profit. It is not intended to discuss or even 

 explain further the principles of rate making, but simply to 

 show that freight rates must be fixed according to " what the 

 traffic can bear." By this it is not meant that railroads should 

 be permitted to seize all the profit arising from the movement 

 of commodities, but only to assess the necessary revenue 

 largely upon the basis of that profit. 



