In January of this year, 1896, this road, extending over more than a thousand miles of territory, inaugurated an agricultural parcels post, with the following uniform rates, regardless of distance : Packages under 20 pounds, 8 cents; 20 to 25 pounds, 10 cents; 25 to 30 pounds, 12 cents; and so on up to 60 pounds, for which the charge is one shilling or 25 cents, the charges to be prepaid and the products to be packed in boxes of a certain shape furnished by the railroad at the following prices: 20-pound size, for 3 cents; 35pound, for 6 cents, and 60-pounds for 10 cents.

The object in furnishing the boxes is twofold: first to have the products in shape convenient for handling and packing in the cars, and, second, to put an end to the handling of returned "empties." And the Great Eastern Railway proposes not only to carry these packages at these rates between any two of its non-competitive stations, and on passenger trains, but it will also, and without further charge, deliver such packages at the consignee's domicile, although this will involve a haul by wagon, from its terminals, of anywhere from one to eight miles.

That this movement of the English railways (for the other roads are following the lead of the Great Eastern) will check the demand for Government ownership of the railways, I doubt; but, in any case, it shows what English railway managers believe to be possible in the way of reducing rates, and in the way of public service, and more than

this, it is a great advance towards the adoption of a uniform standard rate, regardless of distance, within the whole English railway system; it is one more acknowledgment of the axiomatic truth that the postal principle is the natural law for the determination of railway rates. (By the way, almost the last word that comes to us from England is the following query from the Colliery Guardian: 66 Shall British iron and steel and other heavy industries be sacrificed on the altar of railway monopoly?")

Evidently the actual cost of the transportation of persons and of property by railway is a very small item. It is not easy however to realize that the cost of a long through trip and of a short way journey is practically the same, and yet the longest journey in a railway system may cost less than the shortest.

In the first place, the through locomotive hauls a much heavier train than the way locomotive, and the through car generally carries a larger load. Albert J. Fink makes the average load of the through freight car three times that of the way car. Through trains have been run, in some instances from Chicago to New York over the high-grade Pennsylvania road, with forty and forty-five full loaded cars of thirty tons each, that is to say with net loads of 1200 and 1350 tons, and we have seen that, in 1895, trains of sixty cars of thirty tons each, 1800 tons in all, were hauled from Buffalo to New York over the New York Central. The

average number of cars in the Consolidated freight train of Connecticut, in 1895, was but 21.48, of which 5.51 cars ran empty and the rest carried on an average less than nine tons and only 143.28 tons in all. The through train also runs much faster than the way train. Instead of spending time and fuel in stops, the through locomotive occupies itself with making miles between its distant terminals. Some of our through freights make over 300 miles, and we have one or two passenger trains that make 1000 miles a day. It is doubtful if the way freight makes 75 miles a day, and even the way passenger train will probably average less than 100 miles. The way train must make three or four trips in order to do the amount of business performed by the through train in one trip.

But the average passenger trip and the average haul of freight will always be short. If railway transportation were altogether free, even then the world would not go flying, neither would any part of the world be flooded with the products of any other. Under the best of circumstances, the average trip of the railway traveller of the United States will be hardly more than 25 or 30 miles. The masses of mankind must always labor for their bread; they can seldom spend time to go more than an hour's journey from their homes. Their places of labor and of trade, their schools and their pleasure resorts, must always be near at hand. The great bulk of the freight busi

ness too must always consist in the exchange of products between neighbors. The special purpose, indeed, for which railroads are built is the development of local traffic. "The through business," says Mr. Fink, "is but a mere incident of a road. The main stay of a road is or ought to be local traffic. The local traffic of the Pennsylvania (one of the greatest of the through lines) from 1881 to 1885 was ten times its through traffic, and of the two the local traffic continues to increase much the more rapidly." From the report of the Interstate Commerce Commission of 1893, it appears that of 531,183,988 passenger trips taken on the railroads of this country in 1892, only 153,741 extended across the continent-less than one in 3500.

Less than 1,000,000 tons of freight passed between Pacfiic Coast points and points on or east of the Missouri River, in the year January, 1891, to February, 1892, while the total freight handled by the railroads in the year ending June 30, 1891, was 676,608,385 tons. As a mere incident of railway business then, the through traffic ought to have very little influence in determining our general railway policy. Granting, however, to through railway traffic its greatest possible importance, even then the tax levied for any particular class of service should be no greater for the longest haul in a railway system than for the shortest, for the cost in each case is practically the same.

The question arises, if the preceding statements

be true, how happens it that our private railway managers do not adopt the policy suggested? How happens it that railway managers never voluntarily reduce rates? The answer to this question is given in the rather cynical language of the editor of the Railway Gazette, in his issue of June 5, 1896. Commenting upon the refusal of the managers of the Joint Traffic Association to approve certain proposed excursions from Cleveland to Niagara Falls, he says: "We surmise that one reason for the action of the managers is the feeling that the roads can make just as much money at a little higher rate," and the result is a hundred per cent. higher rate for 1896 than for 1895. In the same line, note the statement of the Fournal of Commerce of New York of March 16, 1896, that one of the direct results of the Presidents' Joint Traffic Association which now rules traffic affairs with an iron hand, is to be the abandonment of two cent mileage tickets.

Writing in 1892, Van Oss says that the transportation taxes levied by the Southern Pacific Railroad on the people of California were then so great that California grapes could not compete east of the Mississippi with those brought all the way from Spain, while oranges and other fruits were less marketable than they would be at lower rates. Nearly all fruit was dried or canned and shipped round the Horn to New York, whence it was sent by rail to inland points, the journey of 15,000 miles being frequently cheaper than the one of 2400.