20 BULLETIN 191, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGEICULTUEE. 



The manager of the bureau, m a statement issued February 14, 

 1914, comparing results in California with results in the territory of 

 the Intermountain Demurrage Bureau, where the same roads oper- 

 ate, distinctly disclaims this and insists that to the rate alone are 

 due the results of greater car efficiency. 



CONCLUSION. 



If, in times of acute car shortage, the shipper who needs cars and 

 is unable to get them could actually see all the other car users at all 

 the other stations in his immediate section who are taking from two 

 to seven days to load and unload cars, when it could and should be 

 done in as many hours, no doubt there would be a speedy reformation 

 among car users and a radical revision of some of the demurrage 

 regulations now in effect. If his vision could be enlarged so as to 

 take in the entire country the effect would be magical. Most, if not 

 an, of the difficulties experienced in connection with car supply and 

 car detention and the demurrage remedies proposed to alleviate the 

 evils of car shortage have arisen from a lack of breadth of vision on 

 the part of shippers, railroad officials, and legislators. 



No car user has any moral right to detain a car one moment longer 

 than is necessary to load or to unload it. Unfortunately the propor- 

 tion of shippers who take this vi^w of the situation, when they them- 

 selves are the detainers, is very small. Every shipper holds this view 

 when it is some one else that is detaining the car. Car users who 

 detain cars through carelessness, indifference, or ignorance of the 

 meaning of "car shortage" and "congested terminals" are few. The 

 people responsible for car detention are that vast body of highly 

 intelligent business men who find it more profitable to use cars for 

 storage purposes than to provide other storage facihties. Other rea- 

 sons for car detention by this class of shippers are comparatively 

 insignificant. 



It is not good business to use for storage, space which costs 50 cents 

 per cubic foot to construct, when better storage space can be had for 

 one-third that cost or less, and especially when the higher priced 

 space can earn so much more as a freight car than as mere storage. 

 Storage space does not need costly trucks, steel underframes, auto- 

 matic couplers, and air-brake equipment. Shippers must reahze that, 

 from one point of view, they and not the railroads are the owners of 

 the cars of the country. So long as they insist on using them as 

 storage warehouses they must be prepared to pay the cost without 

 complaint. Moral suasion has so far failed to induce them to con- 

 struct their own storage warehouses when they could get apparently 

 cheaper storage in freight cars. The next step in remedying car 

 shortage should be to hmit more closely the free time allowed and 



