the transportation of the fifty through passengers on the train. And this business of taxing way traffic is ordinarily so profitable that, according to the highest railway authority, it is rather worse than money thrown away for any average road to spend money in shortening its line. The only class of road that can afford to shorten its lines is that on which there is a great through business and very little way traffic. A large non-competitive business alone may entirely neutralize the pecuniary value to the company of saving distance.'

Bearing in mind these facts, it is almost amusing to recall the lament of Mr. Depew over the decay of the small towns and the ruin of the small dealers in the districts through which the railroads run, and the concentration of business in the hands of a few great dealers at those terminals. The real wonder is that, under the present condition of things, any kind of business in which transportation plays an important part continues to be done anywhere except at the terminals, and that any business can exist except it be in the hands of a trust big enough to meet the railway king on equal terms.

Verily, if these be the results of determining transportation taxes according to distance, then there can be no doubt as to the soundness of the conclusion" that as a matter of purely public policy -that is to say, if the interests of the railways were identical with the interests of the community as a

1 A. M. Wellington's Economic Theory of Railway Location, PP. 234-236.

whole, railway rates would be the same for all distances.'

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But this mileage system of railway rates is not only opposed to the public interest; it is equally opposed to the real interests of those who have built the railroads, and it is also opposed to common sense and to right reason. 'For, since the real service rendered is the transportation of persons and property from one terminus to another, the precise length of track should have no more effect upon the price paid than the precise amount of curvature, or the rise and fall, and much less than the rate of the ruling grades; all should be considered or none should be.

"Not one single item of railway expenditure, large or small, not even fuel or wear and tear of wheels, varies in direct ratio to distance, or in anything like direct ratio, and more than one half of them are not a whit affected thereby. Grades, curvatures, cost of construction, terminal expenses, volume of traffic, whether the cars return full or empty, all these have much more to do with the cost of service than the mere distance transported.'

It is estimated that it costs thirty per cent. more to haul a train over a continuous II"-30' curve, one mile long, than over a mile of tangent. The same engine will not haul half as heavy a load on a twenty-six feet grade as on a level; on a fifty-two feet grade, about a fourth as much; on an eighty

1 Wellington, p. 197.

Wellington.

feet grade, about one fifth, and on a grade of one hundred and five feet, a light American engine will hardly draw an eighth of its level load, and the heaviest engine hardly one sixth. The mere stopping and starting of a train running thirty miles an hour, wastes power enough to haul it two miles, and the cost of the stop of the average train is estimated at about forty cents. In extreme casessuch as the Manhattan Elevated Road of New York, where there are stations nearly every three eighths of a mile, three fourths of the coal consumed and one fourth of the time occupied, is due to stops. It is said that even on express trains one fourth of the time between termini is thus lost. The New York Limited loses fifty-five minutes in its eight regular stops between New York and Chicago, and Wellington says that, including slowing up through towns and yards, stops at crossings, etc., it loses not less than three hours out of twentyfour. With most fast trains the loss of time due to these causes would be twice as much.

Even the cost of the road itself is not proportioned to distance. A single mile of tunnel, or through a crowded city, often costs more than a score of miles in the open country. Some roads, moreover, have more miles of siding at stations than of main track between. Thus the New York Central and Lake Shore Roads, in 1893, had 1090 miles of siding, 962 of main line; the Erie, 557 miles of siding, 460 of main line, etc. The cost of the terminals at New York is estimated at $35,000,

ooo-enough to build 1000 miles of main line at $35,000 a mile and yet these terminals are said to be smaller in extent and less expensive per head than at most important cities, and very much smaller than at some of them. The annual terminal expenses at New York are estimated at $10,000,000, and to meet them there is a fixed terminal charge of four or five cents per 100 pounds, or from 20 to 25 per cent, of the entire charge from Chicago to New York. Twenty-eight per cent. of the locomotives in service in the State of New York are switching engines, and it is estimated that over one fifth of the motive power of the entire railway service is expended in switching, and this independent of the switching of regular trains in transit.

Thus, with every step of our investigations, the absurdity of the idea that distance is an important factor in the cost of railway traffic becomes more and more apparent. It is a very small factor even in the cost of the movement of railway trains. What folly to pretend that railway managers have any right to use it as a means for subjecting the movements of persons and of property on the railways to their wills. Were railway charters granted in order to enable the public to receive the utmost possible benefit from this greatest of all inventions, or was it intended that railway fares and freight rates should always be measured out according to the cost of conveyance by human burden-bearers and by ox-teams, or even by stage-coach?

The essential facts to be considered in the railway business are as follows:-When once a railroad is built, trains must run and it makes very little difference in the cost of the business whether the cars go full or empty, or whether a locomotive runs alone or with a long and heavily laden train behind it ; neither does it make a measurable difference in the cost, whether a part of the train-load is left at one station or at another. Are the rates so high that only a royal personage can purchase a ticket! Then that single individual must bear the entire expense of the train that carries him. On the other hand, are the rates so low that a hundred persons can avail themselves of the opportunity to travel, then each traveller will be obliged to pay but a hundredth part of the cost of the train, and that cost will be increased only by the interest and wear and tear of one additional car during the trip. The expense of moving the train will be practically the same in either case, and it will hardly make a whit difference whether one passenger or all the passengers leave the train, at the first station at which it stops, or go through to the end of the journey. When once a train has started from Boston to San Francisco, there is not a man living can tell the difference, in the cost of running that train, whether a passenger gets off at the first station out of Boston, or goes through to the Golden Gate. At every station some passengers will leave the train, others will take their places. One traveller, in a thousand perhaps, will