DEMURRAGE INFORMATION FOR FARMERS. 
11 
adoption of uniform technical terms. In some instances correspond- 
ence with a commission has developed the fact that the secretary at 
least did not have an adequate understanding of the subject of demur- 
rage or of how the commission interpreted certain rules. Too many 
of them have promulgated regulations which, if not making directly 
for car inefficiency, at least do nothing to promote car efficiency. All 
of them serve as an index to the abuses from which shippers have suf- 
fered at the hands of carriers, as is evidenced from the incorporation 
in them of many provisions having little or nothing to do with 
demurrage. 
Among such provisions are " reciprocal demurrage," storage regu- 
lations for less than cai load shipments, limiting time of shipments in 
transit, methods of ordering cars, penalties for failure to receive cars 
promptly from a connecting line, giving preference in movement to 
shipments of live stock and perishable, making permissible a charge 
for the empty haul of a car ordered and not used, prescribing method 
of notice of arrival for shipper's order shipments, requiring carriers 
to notify consignor of refusal of shipment by consignee and making 
consignor liable for storage and demurrage charges after such refusal, 
providing that cars will not be placed or forwarded for shippers in 
arrears in payment of demurrage, requiring carriers to furnish grain 
doors, and other similar provisions. 
The success of intrastate codes in promoting car efficiency will 
depend a great deal on the personnel of the individual State commis- 
sion and on whether or not it can initiate complaints or can act only 
on complaints filed with it. The force of commendable provisions 
in State codes differing from the interstate code are entirely lost in 
dealing with cars containing, or ordered for, interstate shipments. 
Consequently the success of such provisions in increasing car efficiency 
will depend directly upon what proportion of the business in the State 
is purely intrastate. This will vary from a very high percentage in 
large States like California and Texas to a very low figure in small 
States like Delaware and Rhode Island. The proportions will depend 
to some extent upon the size of the State and its population, but to 
a greater extent upon what proportion of the State's products are 
marketed and consumed within the State. 
There are no statistics available showing for the different States 
what proportion of the total tonnage handled by the roads of each 
State is purely intrastate business. Nor are there any figures avail- 
able showing by States, what percentage of the total tonnage, either 
intrastate or interstate, consists of agricultural products. It may be 
of interest, however, to note that for the fiscal year ending June 30, 
1912, agricultural products amounted to 5.65 per cent of the total 
tonnage handled by the roads in the East, 8.20 per cent of the total 
