Knowledge that Transforms

Among the few valid arguments which the protectionists occasionally exploit against the adoption of free international trade there is one to which attention at this time may be directed with especial profit.It is this: granted, as it must be, that it is better for all classes of producers in a country to specialize in the production of those commodities or goods for which their resources and their talents particularly qualify them in comparison with other countries, there must be inevitable loss and

The control and operation of the railroads of the United States by the federal government for the period of the war, and possibly longer, raises many interesting questions as to the principles that will in the future be adopted in the settlement of rate controversies between different cities and districts and in the general readjustment of rate structures that have grown up under competitive railroading. The questions of social policy involved in the development of a national rate structure are of great complexity and of great delicacy from a political point of view. One may almost say that if the government retains permanent control of the railroads the way in which it handles the problem of rate readjustments will largely determine the popular attitude toward the whole experiment. Among the many rate structures that have developed in the United States under the regime of private railroading none has been so much discussed in recent years as the transcontinentalrate structure. It may prove useful at this time, therefore, to present in brief compass the essential features of this interoceanrate system as it exists today. By transcontinental rates are meant rates between the territory east of the Rocky Mountains and the territory covered by the Transcontinental Freight Bureau, which extends from the Pacific east to Noria, New Mexico, 25 miles west of El Paso; Promontory Point, Utah, 25 miles west of Ogden; and Athol, Idaho, 40 miles east of Spokane. Thus these rates apply to the haul across the Rocky Mountains and the Great Basin. This territory is sparsely settled, has little local traffic, and expensive operating conditions, owing to steep grades, costly roadbed, heavy upkeep, and high fuel cost. Rates are therefore naturally high. The New York-Chicago first-class rate is 90.6 cents per ioo pounds for a basic distance of 920 miles (actual distance via the Pennsylvania lines 9og miles); the Chicago-New Orleans rate is i io cents for a distance of 920 miles; while the