130 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 



of short duration, and the settlement that will shortly be reached will probably 

 be followed by a more rigid enforcement of the maximum charges for passenger 

 traffic all over the Grand Trunk and Canadian Pacific systems. As to freight rates, 

 there is an inflexible combination between the two great Canadian roads. One 

 road will not give a reduced rate to a community or to a class of shippers except 

 through consultation and agreement with its competitor. If ever secret discrimina- 

 tions are made they are probably granted to some great trading corporation or 

 some great business house whose shipments are of very material consequence to 

 the railway, and just as there is secret surrender to these powerful concerns the 

 position of the ordinary shipper is prejudiced and business monopoly established. 

 Live stock is carried from Chicago to Montreal for as low rates as are charged 

 from points in western Ontario to the commercial capital. Grain is carried from 

 Winnipeg to Fort William, 500 miles, for 17 1-2 cents per hundred, and from Fort 

 William to Montreal^ 1,500 miles, for 20 cents per hundred. On the main line of 

 the Canadian Pacific the passenger rate between stations is five cents a mile all 

 through British Columbia, while the through rate from older Canada to Vancouver 

 is less than half a cent a mile. On freight shipped to Kamloops, Ashcroft and 

 other points along the main line of the road in the interior of British Columbia 

 the charge is the same as if the goods were shipped through to Vancouver and 

 brought back two, three or four hundred miles to the point of destination. It has 

 been established that a carload of self-binders is carried from Toronto' to Australia 

 lor less than the through charge to the Northwest. A veduction of rates from 

 Edmonton and points on the Calgary and Edmonton road gave new life to the 

 Alberta district, and made all the difference between comparative comfort and a 

 bare, hard living to hundreds of western settlers, and probably increased the traffic 

 earnings of the railway. Great for adversity or for prosperity are the powers of 

 railway corporations. 



XV. 



At the Union Station every day we have eloquent evidence of the waste of so- 

 called competition. At the same hour each morning and night two great express 

 trains start for the east, both perhaps hailf loaded, each carrying passengers at 

 the same rate, making about the same time, and traversing very much the same 

 territory. How much better it would be if wie had one well-equipped, well-bal- 

 lasted, fast express service, and a well-ordered system of branch roads. What a 

 waste of railway mileage we shall have on hand if we ever take over the private 

 railways, and how important it is that we should not repeat the blunders of Ontario 

 and Quebec in western Canada. • But if we deny the people competition we must 

 give efficient regulation, and even with satisfactory regulation we should keep 

 always in view the probable final acquisition of the railways by the State^ and 

 strive so to distribute our new roads that the State shall not be required to take 

 over thousands of miles of unnecessary and unproductive railways. It is esti- 

 mated that in the United States there are 37,000 railway stations, that not more 

 than eight per cent, of these are junction points, and therefore at nine-tenths of the 

 shipping points of the country the shippers and buyers of goods must always be 

 dependent on the facilities and rates offered by a single line of railway. In Great 

 Britain there are about 6,000 railway stations and about 1,500 junction points. In 

 Canada the ratio of possible competing points to the number of stations is cer- 

 tainly much less than in the United Kingdom, and probably lower even than in 

 the United States. Our country, at least our developed country, is of unhappy 

 geographical formation, and transportation over such enormous distances is very 

 costly, and to create another through road to compete with the Grand Trunk and 

 Canadian Pacific for Canadian traffic would be very like the enactment of a statute 

 to impose a tax of 20 or 25 per cent, on all interprovincial trade. However effec- 

 tive we may be able to make a law for the regulation of common carriers, it is at 



