Such being the general character of this comprehensive trunk line system, the relation of it to the tariffs described heretofore is not difficult to demonstrate. Each separate railway having developed a well-ordered rate schedule, they have all met and agreed upon a unified scheme; which as far as possible harmonizes all conflicting interests. The gradation of rates rising with increasing distance from New York on each separate road, is adjusted to the corresponding gradation of rates of its neighbors on either side. The result is a series of rate zones, lying more or less concentrically about the terminal point. These zones are highly irregular in width and area, but possess one feature in common. Each remoter zone is one stage higher in rates than its predecessor. This relationship is indicated by the cross section diagram herewith. This cross section, of course, differs from the diagrams heretofore shown. It is purely geographical, being taken, not along one single railway but as the crow flies—straight across the whole trunk line territory. But in order to appreciate the significance of this elaborate scheme, one should imagine a whole series of such progressively rising rates, radiating out along the different lines of railway. Connecting the corresponding levels or stages upon each one with those of its neighbors, the concentric zones are immediately outlined. The advantage of such a broad scheme is that it generalizes the single line tariff; taking into view every place, no matter how small and irrespective of its location whether upon a through line or merely a local transverse one. Every town, no matter how insignificant, is assigned a place in a logically evolved plan. Such would seem to be the ideal of rate construction, toward which all traffic managers should strive.

The foregoing description of the development of a mileage tariff is applicable to only a part of the traffic. A very large volume of tonnage,—said to be not less than seventy-five per cent. in America, sixty-three per cent. in Prussia and fifty per cent. in the United Kingdom,—moves under special rates made in quite another way in response to the exigencies of commercial competition. The making of these freight rates in practice is an extremely complicated matter. No single road is independent of rates made by its rivals—rates applicable not only to competing commodities and markets, but also as affected by apparently the most remote and disconnected contingencies. Thus railway rates, as has well been said, are not a set of independent threads; they form a fabric. They are so interwoven everywhere that if one thread be shortened, it will cause a kink in the fabric that may run almost anywhere. In order to understand this it will be necessary to describe somewhat in detail the nature of competition as applied to transportation; and then to show by a few concrete illustrations, the various factors which actively enter into the determination of specific rates. Laymen and legislators do not sufficiently appreciate the extremely delicate nature of the work. Much discussion relative to railway competition seems to be based upon the assumption that it consists in the main of the competition of railway lines more or less parallel or else operating under substantially like conditions. As a matter of fact competition in transportation is to a large degree far more complex.

Railway competition is of three entirely distinct sorts. These may be denominated, respectively, competition of routes, competition in facilities and competition of markets.[76] The first of these, competition of routes, as the name suggests, is limited to the activities of the carriers alone. It occurs whenever two railways are exposed to identical commercial conditions both at the point of origin and of destination. The rivalry is direct and physical. The only competition possible is that concerning the route by which traffic may move between those two points. Such competition is most likely to arise between more or less parallel lines, as for instance between the various trunk roads from New York to Chicago. The classic instances in our history are of the rate wars due to the West Shore and the Nickel Plate, which were built for the express purpose of engendering competition with the then existing lines,—the New York Central and the Lake Shore, respectively. The same sort of simple competition prevails, of course, between a railway and a parallel canal or other waterway, as, for instance, between the Erie canal and the trunk lines, or the Illinois Central and the Mississippi river. Such simple competition as this, where confined to railways alone, almost inevitably leads to one of two results: the roads may remain independent, preventing ruinous rate wars by pooling; or else, as a result of long continued cut-throat competition, the bankrupt road may be bought up and merged with the solvent one. This was the fate of the old New York and New England railway, finally purchased by the New Haven system; of the West Shore and Nickel Plate lines; and of the Kansas Pacific, unloaded on the Union Pacific by Jay Gould. The nature of railway competition is indeed such that no other result than consolidation or pooling can ensue. Weyl is right in his observation that,—"Strictly speaking, permanent competition can exist, not between railroads struggling for the same traffic; but solely between those railroads which have no territory in common."

This first form of competition of routes or, as it has been called, of alternative routes, often obtains where conditions of competition are more obscure than in these simple instances above named. In the rivalry for the imported plate glass or crockery traffic between the trunk lines and the Gulf roads, the competition is none the less of routes between Liverpool and Chicago, although the water carriage by way of New Orleans or Galveston is so much more roundabout. Freight actually moves from Boston to Chicago by a line 1786 miles long, via Asheville, N. C., while the direct distance is only 1004 miles.[77] From St. Louis to Meridian, Miss., is 512 miles by direct rail line; yet traffic may move over 2000 miles going to New York and then around.[78] The map on p. 271, showing the various rail and water lines concerned in traffic between New York and the little town of Troy, Ala., shows how widespread are the ramifications of competition of this sort. Manifold instances of such roundabout carriage have been elsewhere described in full.[79] They differ from the competition of parallel routes, however, in the important regard that absorption of the long lines by the short ones becomes both physically and financially impossible. Whenever a large area like the Pacific slope is devoid of manufactures, and wherever the source of supplies is sufficiently concentrated, as, for instance, in the manufacture of agricultural implements which are almost exclusively made in or about Chicago, we still have to do with a clear case of competition of routes, although a great number of carriers may participate in the business. When molasses or rice are only to be had from New Orleans, the centre of such business, the carriers to all tributary consuming points compete for the routing of it over their own respective lines. These carriers may operate either by land or sea or by a combination of both; and they may transport commodities by the most roundabout ways.[80] The determinant feature, however, distinguishing this class of competition is neither the mode or carriage nor its length; but is found in the fact that the commercial conditions at both ends of the line, points of origin and destination, are identical for each participant in the business. Direct competition of routes, therefore, has to do with pure transportation,—the creation of place values,—and this being the case, the relative cost of service is always a factor of moment.

Competition of facilities, the second of the three phases of railway competition above mentioned, deals, as its name implies, not at all with the rates charged but with the facilities or conveniences afforded. Such competition is confined solely to rivalry for business at the established rates. Immediately on the appearance of any departure from these conditions the question becomes one of competition of either of the other two sorts. An instance of competition of facilities would be the introduction of reclining chairs or of a superior service in passenger business. When the Rock Island system offered such facilities without an extra charge, it became necessary at once for others to meet this competition in the same way that they would meet a reduction of rates. Any reduction in time of transit for freight business between two given points without extra charge, would in the same manner give rise to competition of facilities. Such facilities, however, as might have a distinct money value, as, for instance, free storage, cartage, demurrage or milling-in-transit, any one of which practically amounts to giving value without charge, are, of course, equivalent to a reduction of the rate; and do not belong in this class of considerations at all. Only those conveniences or facilities, which, while attempting to secure business may not be compounded for money, should be classified in this group. It should also be observed that competition of facilities may as readily arise between parts of the same railway system or under pooling agreements to maintain rates, as between distinct and independent companies.[81] And such competition between parent and child often arises. Thus, for instance, business was as actively solicited as ever by the Pennsylvania and the Baltimore & Ohio in competition during the several years of financial control of one by the other prior to 1907. The New Haven railway may compete with its own water lines around Cape Cod or on Long Island Sound. But in all of these instances the cardinal feature to note is that the competition is always at the established rate. For New England, although the New Haven system and the Boston and Maine do not compete on rates at their points of contact, there is constant rivalry in respect of facilities or service. The same thing is undoubtedly true of the Atchison and the Southern Pacific in the carriage of California fruits. Although operated under pooling agreements, yet they were competitors in the matter of the service offered. Each sought an enlarged volume of tonnage, but not by cutting the agreed rate.

The third form of competition in transportation is dependent upon the competition of markets; and is not in reality direct competition between carriers at all. This is the most difficult of all forms to understand.[82] It is certainly in many cases more than a "euphemism for railway policy."[83] Yet although indirect and often obscure, it is of fundamental and conclusive importance in the determination of freight rates. Commercial competition deals not with a mere choice of routes, but with alternative markets. The carriers act, not independently and of their own volition, but only as agents or representatives for their constituents, the shippers. They may become tools or weapons in the hands of merchants or manufacturers who are the real contestants. It is largely in this sense that it is so often alleged, and rightfully, that railway traffic managers oftentimes do not make rates at all. Their energies are bent to the analysis of those circumstances by which their rates are made for them.

The production or preparation of commodities for final consumption falls naturally into two distinct parts; the creation of form value, succeeded by the conferring of place value. Transportation is concerned alone with the latter process. Of these two operations, the latter, the creation of place values, is by far the more elastic and adaptable process. The grower, the miner or the manufacturer has his first costs more or less rigidly fixed by natural or human conditions; such as the fertility of the soil, the grade of ore, the prevailing scale of wages, and so on. His proximity to the status of a marginal producer depends upon his relative position in these respects. With the carrier, matters are more contingent. Including within its reach, as it does, many grades of producers and consumers, each more or less rigidly held bound by his own circumstances and conditions, as above said, the carrier is able to exercise a wide range of choice in fixing that margin of value created which it reserves for itself. And at all times, by reason of the factors set forth elsewhere, primarily its subjection to the law of increasing returns, this intermediate share of the carrier tends to adjust or accommodate itself to the end that it may discover or produce a wider margin between values in the hands of producer and consumer, respectively. This may be best accomplished by a progressive widening of its field of activities, that is to say, by an enlargement of its physical reach and scope. It is always striving to lower the cost of production made by the marginal producer. Its motto must ever be, to get more business, if not right at home by search for it abroad—and this always with the chance that the greater the distance between the producer and the consumer, the greater the possible margin of place value remaining as its individual share.

This ever-present incentive to widen the market carries with it a direct consequence. A market is a commercial area characterized by a prevalent equality of prices. Phenomenal development in this respect is characteristic of the United States. For many commodities the market is coextensive with the national domain. It is the chosen function of transportation agents, by rail and water, to ensure this result; to preserve an equality of prices, despite the variety of producing and consuming conditions. The railway is the agent by which the market is thus widened and rivalries are thus equalized. In railway parlance this is what is known as "keeping everyone in business." The following quotation from the Senate Committee Hearings of 1905 adequately describes the process: "I am interested in the erection of a mill that has just been completed, and sometime since I was figuring on the question of a smokestack. I wanted to have that stack built out of brick that is burned in New Jersey, and that is several hundred miles away. It is a long way to ship freight from New Jersey to North Carolina. A quotation was made me by the stack builder, whose office is in New York, and I remarked to him, 'That price is prohibitive; I cannot pay that price for that stack.' He said, 'That is the best I can do; but if you will tell me what you can afford to pay for that stack, in competition with home-burned brick, I will see what I can do with the railway people.' He said, 'All right; I will take it up with the railway people.' His quotation included the delivery of the brick and the erection of the stack at my plant. It would require something like about fifty carloads of brick to build that stack. Within a week he had his price revised, and gave me a satisfactory quotation and took my contract for the stack. Of course he had to get a special rate from the railway people, because there is no regular tariff on brick from New Jersey to North Carolina." In this instance the railways actually created this new business by so adjusting the margin between the minimum cost of making brick in New York and in North Carolina, as to make it possible for the traffic to move. The special rate here mentioned, however, should be carefully distinguished from a secret rebate offered to one contractor as against another in the same place. This commodity rate, while special to meet a particular contingency, was open to any other shipper similarly circumstanced. The student cannot too carefully discriminate between these two sorts of special rates. They are constantly confused in the public mind. The effect of these open commodity rates, is not to create difference of opportunity between individuals, but to generalize economic conditions and equalize prices throughout wide areas.

The most satisfactory way to describe commercial competition as applied to carriers is by concrete illustrations. There are two distinct varieties or degrees of it, which may be denominated primary and secondary. These might as properly, perhaps, be called simple and complex, or direct and indirect. Of these, the first concerns those cases wherein a commodity undergoes no physical transformation between producer and consumer. Shipments are usually direct. Only one rate is involved. Shall St. Louis and the South, for example, be supplied with salt from the Kansas or Michigan fields?[84] This is a case of pure transportation,—the creation of place value, alone. The Aroostook farmers of Maine compete in prices with the potato growers of Michigan in the New York market. Each district is usually represented by a railway, dependent upon the prosperity of its particular constituency. Competition of markets is usually more keen where a number of carriers are concerned, each representing its own clients; but it may conceivably arise as between several markets served by the same company, especially with the growth of great railway systems. The Southern Pacific must insure a rate from California on oranges to eastern markets, as compared with the rates over the southern roads from Florida, sufficiently low to warrant the venture of capital in the industry.[85] Marble from the quarries of Vermont and North Carolina, and paving blocks from the Lithonia district in Georgia and from Wisconsin or South Dakota, must meet in Chicago on even terms. Such competition, although simple and direct, recognizes no national bounds. Copper from Montana must be laid down in Liverpool at rates to permit of meeting the price on Chili bars from South America. Our entire grain and cotton crops must be transported at rates which will enable them to hold their own in European markets. The California raisin has, in this manner, had to make its way into Eastern markets in the United States against the pressure of importations from Spain, as described in another place.[86] The cotton mills in New England and in the South must have their output carried to China under conditions which will enable them to meet the price made by the British manufacturer. This last instance, however, introduces us to the second form of competition; inasmuch as a double transportation is involved first from the fields to the mill, and thereafter from the mill to the consumer.

Secondary or indirect forms of commercial competition in transportation, concerning, as has been said, not one but two distinct carriages of entirely different goods, needs to be in turn subdivided still further. The products of agriculture and mines afford the best instances. The lumber business is peculiarly suggestive in this connection, owing to the fact that in the United States a vast treeless area in the Middle West is surrounded with forest tracts available for development. The market again in this case is limited only by our national frontier. Omaha is supplied with yellow pine and cypress from Louisiana after a 1,200-mile haul; Oregon fir brought 1,800 miles in each instance for fifty cents per hundred pounds; and with Michigan hemlock and pine transported less than 500 miles for eleven and a half cents. These various sorts of lumber are all more or less competitive. And in each case the final cost of laying down the product in Omaha is determined; first, by the rate from the stump to the mill, and then, as sawed lumber, thence on to destination. The Eau Claire, Wisconsin, lumber case[87] before the Interstate Commerce Commission, fully describes the intricacies of adjustment needed to hold a number of such producers on a parity. In this instance Eau Claire, "next the stump," as an important lumbering centre was shown to be declining in importance relatively to Mississippi river towns, which received their logs by raft down stream. A differential of a few cents was threatening the welfare of a considerable population. The Wichita, Kansas, cases are suggestive in a similar way.[88] Sugar is laid down at this market from every point of the compass. From Hawaii it is shipped in the raw state to San Francisco, and then brought East, like the Oregon lumber, cheaply, as a back-load to counter-balance westbound shipments of grain and manufactures. From New Orleans refineries comes the Louisiana product, and from the Atlantic sea ports the Cuban sugar; but in each case the carriage is broken at an intermediate point, at which manufacture or jobbing ensues. A large class of operations analogous to this, known as "milling in transit" and "floating cotton," elsewhere described in detail, involve the same complexity and interrelation of rates.[89] The point to carry forward is that commercial competition demands that in every case not single rates but the sums of all the connecting rates for each competing person or region shall be properly adjusted. If this be not done, some one will be excluded from the market and "put out of business."

By this time in our ascending scale of complexities, it will be observed that manufacture now begins to outweigh mere transportation in importance. With low-grade products, like salt or sugar, the increment of value due to transportation is relatively high as compared with manufacturing costs. As the grade of product rises, however, the differences in value and in form between the raw and the finished product, render the problem of location of the manufacture more difficult as affected by the relative adjustment of rates of transportation for the two. According to the data of the Federal Bureau of Corporations, the cost of refining crude petroleum, worth three to four cents a gallon at the wells in Pennsylvania, should not exceed one-half cent a gallon. This sum would barely pay for the first hundred miles of its carriage by rail, as ordinarily shipped. The market is, of course, extraordinarily extensive; hence the persistent flagrancy of the practices of secret rebating by the Standard Oil Co.[90] To obtain such special favors in transportation outweighed in importance the incentive to introduce economies in production. In this industry, where little waste occurs in manufacture, the refineries may well be located at the consumers' door. The manufacture of furniture for the Pacific states, on the other hand, must be located "next the stump," in North Carolina or New England. The long carriage must be applied, not to the bulky lumber but to the finished product. The freight rate on lumber from Oregon to Pittsburg is just about equal to the value of the logs at the mill. Obviously, the large proportion of waste or common lumber will not bear a high addition to its cost by carriage to any distance. In the manufacture of fur hats a shrinkage of weight occurs of one-half between the fur scraps and the finished product. In such a case it is imperative, either that the factory be near the source of supply or that the rate on the two distinct commodities be nicely adjusted. The decision of the United States Steel Corporation to build a large plant at Duluth for supplying the northwestern market is the outcome of such considerations. The main point is that the adjustment of a number of rates may determine, not only the general welfare of the industry but even its specific geographical location with reference to the raw material on the one side and the market on the other.

The jobbing or wholesale business of the United States exemplifies the most highly involved and complex details of commercial competition.[91] In this field it appears most clearly that, as is so often alleged, railway traffic managers hold the welfare of entire communities, as it were, in the palms of their hands. In all the cases heretofore cited, great natural forces outweighed the purely personal and human ones. Soil, climate and mineral resources more or less completely determined the final outcome of commercial competition. But the distributive business of a country is more largely artificial. It is more subject to human control, and may be influenced by personal considerations. Shall the economically dependent southern planter be supplied with manufactures of all sorts,—from harnesses to tin dippers—from mid-western cities like Cincinnati and Chicago or from eastern centres, such as New York and Baltimore? This is the underlying economic issue raised in the notable Cincinnati Freight Bureau Case in 1894; in the course of whose determination the Supreme Court of the United States raised the more immediate and pressing question of the authority of the Interstate Commerce Commission to regulate rates at all. In the dust raised by the controversy over this purely legal question, the basic economic dispute was lost to view.[92] Shall the people of the Pacific slope be supplied with hardware and analogous products from their own large cities which buy at wholesale from the East, break bulk at San Francisco or Seattle and ship out to smaller towns in less than carload lots; or shall the distribution take place at the hands of jobbing houses located several thousand miles away at Chicago or St. Louis? This is the economic dispute raised in the St. Louis Business Men's League case.[93] The very existence of San Francisco as a commercial centre may depend upon it. For the primary and secondary operations of commerce are often complementary. At the large cities, concentration of raw staples moving inward naturally entails back loads outward at low rates for manufactured goods distributed by jobbers. Or, taking the smaller places, the farmer will of necessity buy his cotton cloth, sugar and coal in the town to which he drives by wagon to deliver his cotton, corn or wheat.[94]

The entire puzzling class of cases dealing with the southern basing point system are primarily concerned with such issues as these.[95] Three distinct classes of cases arise. There is, first, the competition between cities of equal size, be they large or small, such as Memphis, Tenn., and Little Rock, Ark.; Danville, Va., and Lynchburg; or Cleveland, and Cincinnati, Ohio: secondly, the rivalries between large cities and what may be called secondary local centres in the same part of the country,—such as Seattle, Wash., v. Spokane; Chicago v. Burlington or Dubuque, Iowa; or Atlanta, Ga., v. Macon: and thirdly, the intense rivalries between the great first-class cities, like New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago, and the rest of the field, big and little.[96] The mail order houses, the express business and the parcels post intervene at this point. But in all of these issues, series of no less than three separate transportation costs have to be totalized and kept more or less on a parity. The intricacy is increased by reason of the fact that shipments must be made, first at wholesale to the jobbers, and thereafter usually in less-than-carload lots to retailers. If the carload rate be relatively too low, with reference to the rate on small lots, the jobbers near the market will be upbuilt and the jobbers at a distance cannot compete. If the opposite relation obtains, the jobber in a distant great city will be able to ship out small orders cheaper than the local dealer can obtain them by carload and, breaking bulk, peddle them from his own town. So narrow is the margin of profit on staple goods that a difference of a fraction of a cent per pound may exclude a dealer from the field entirely. This question of carload ratings is, however, treated elsewhere; impinging, as it does upon matters of freight classifications.[97]

The rivalries of jobbers and middlemen in different cities are inevitably borne into the offices of traffic managers. Were all railways equally interested in all cities alike, the matter need not go further, engendering railway rivalries. But such is seldom the case. Hardly a road can be named, whose interests are not more or less identified with some particular city. Commercial rivalry thus at once leads to railway competition. Four or five railways, like the Chicago and Northwestern, radiate out to the west from Chicago, and have no interest in St. Louis. Almost as many, like the Missouri Pacific, go out from St. Louis without entering Chicago. Others, like the old Union Pacific and, formerly, the Atchison system, only come to the Missouri river, and consequently wish to upbuild their eastern termini, Omaha or Kansas City. Only a few, like the Illinois Central, reach them all. Such a road is usually called upon to act as a mediator in all disputes. "It is a continual struggle between the line from Kansas City to St. Louis with no interest in Chicago, and the line from Kansas City to Chicago with no interest in St. Louis," as one witness before the Industrial Commission phrases it. Compromise is the only outcome. And in this manner an involved structure of differentials is built up, oftentimes top heavy and always susceptible of collapse on the defection of any party to the agreement. When a truce was patched up between the trunk lines and the Gulf roads after the sugar rate war of 1905, it is said to have taken twenty experts three entire days merely to "line up" rates on a parity between the competing jobbing centres.

The simplest compromise in any dispute over rates between competing centres is the concession of absolute equality or, as it is called, of flat rates between all points irrespective of distance. This shifts the burden from the carriers and places competition entirely upon the shoulders of the merchants. Oddly enough, also, this result of equal rates regardless of distance between various competing centres, especially when they are secondary distributing or concentrating points rather than original sources of traffic, may sometimes evolve naturally out of commercial conditions imposed by tariffs built up upon the basis of distance. The accompanying theoretical diagram, based upon actual traffic conditions prevalent in Missouri river territory, serves to illustrate the way in which, under certain circumstances, such equalization of rates may take place. Two groups of cities are here represented as though lying respectively along two river valleys north of their separation at a point G. Let us call them the Mississippi and the Missouri for purposes of identification. The starting point is equality of rates from such a distant point as New York (O) to all places along the Mississippi from A to G. Such equality properly arises in theory from the substantially equal distance from New York. In practice also, under the trunk line rate system,[98] such equality prevails, inasmuch as the rates from New York to such a series of Mississippi river crossings is fixed at 125 per cent. of the rate from New York to Chicago. By a similar course of reasoning, namely, the approximately equal distance from New York (O), rates from that place to a second series of points along the Missouri river should be and are in effect made equal. From these two facts it logically follows that the balances of the rates from all points on the Mississippi river out along an extension of their lines from New York toward the west should also be equal. This is obviously in conformity with the mathematical principle that equals subtracted from equals leave equal balances. Thus the rates B X, D Y and F Z are compelled to equality. From this relationship in turn follows still another. All rates from any point on the inner series of towns to any point whatsoever on the outer western series of places along the Missouri river must remain equal regardless of distance. For each line from New York to A, B, C, D, etc., wishes, of course, to participate in business not only on the direct extension of its own line, but to as many other points as possible.[99] Without some agreement, however, it would normally enjoy traffic only on the direct extension of its own line. The point Y would most naturally be reached by way of C, D or E, over the shortest routes. Competitors on either side would similarly enjoy an advantage in more direct lines from New York to the places immediately beyond them. Thus for business from New York to Z, the more direct lines through E, F or G would obviously have an advantage over lines which passed around through A, B, C or D. An almost irresistible incentive to cut-throat competition would exist. The only way the lines east of the inner circle can peaceably partition business to the outermost western points is by an agreement to make all rates between the inner and outer circles the same. In this manner the rates from A to Z or from G to X are reduced to an equality with the rates offered by the shortest route between the two rivers, which, in this case, is E Z. The rate for this shortest line then becomes the basic one, upon which all the others depend.

The foregoing economic reasoning underlies the actual tariff system prevailing in what is known as Missouri river territory.[100] Two great streams separating at St. Louis form the eastern and western boundaries of Missouri and Iowa. All along the two edges of these states are located important river cities, each of which has more or less direct communication with every other crossing on the other river, over a complicated system of interlaced lines. There are no physical barriers, the country being plain and open. The starting point and basis of the whole scheme is the shortest direct distance between the two nearest points, namely Hannibal on the Mississippi, and St. Joseph and Kansas City on the Missouri. The situation is shown by the map herewith. At these points the two rivers are approximately two hundred miles apart. For this distance the base rate of sixty cents per hundred pounds, first class, is fixed by common agreement. Were local business only to be considered, and were the railways not competing, the rate between other points on the two rivers at greater distances apart, such as for instance, Burlington on the Mississippi and Omaha on the Missouri, might be determined on a relative distance basis, as in trunk line territory. But the commercial fact is that a large proportion of the business between all these points consists of long-distance traffic from the eastern seaboard which may cross the Mississippi at any one of these gateways between Dubuque and St. Louis on its way to the cities on the Missouri river. All of these through long-distance shipments must, of course, enjoy the same competitive rate to the ultimate western destination on the Missouri river. And, inasmuch as the rate from the east to the Mississippi crossings is everywhere the same, namely 125 per cent. of the New York-Chicago rate, it follows that the balance of the rate from these points on to the Missouri river across Iowa and Missouri, irrespective of distance, must likewise be the same. In other words, the rates between all these Mississippi and Missouri river points must be equalized, irrespective of the length of the intervening route, whether it be two hundred miles by the shortest direct line from Hannibal to Kansas City across Missouri, three hundred and fifty miles from Burlington to Omaha across Iowa, or even seven hundred miles by the roundabout line of the Illinois Central skirting both states. In brief, every railway which touches both rivers, however circuitous its route, is compelled to quote the same rate from every point on the Mississippi river to every other point on the Missouri. This rate must be the one fixed, as already described, for the shortest direct line, namely sixty cents per hundred pounds first class. Furthermore, in precisely the same way that these rates to Missouri river points from the eastern seaboard are built up and equalized, the rates from Chicago to the same Missouri river points must be kept even. The rate through from any one of the long chain of Mississippi gateways must be the same irrespective of distance. This figure, by common agreement, has for many years been twenty cents per hundred pounds higher than the rate across Illinois to the Mississippi river gateways from Chicago alone. The dominant note of this whole tariff is equalization of rates between all points in competition with one another over all possible routes. Freight thus moves freely in every direction and all markets are held on an absolute parity.[101] It is one of the most remarkable features of American commercial organization, this practical elimination of the element of distance from interstate trade over wide areas.

The possible evil lurking in too widespread an acceptance of the principle of the flat rate is clearly apparent in the reasoning of the Eau Claire, Wisconsin, lumber case.[102] This town complained of the disability under which it labored in shipping lumber to Missouri river points by comparison with other places round about. It appeared in the evidence that as early as 1884, under arbitration, all the rates from competing centres had been adjusted on the basis of differentials; and that, as interpreted by the carriers, the purpose of these differentials was to even up the differences between competing towns; to the end that all manufacturers should be put upon an equality in the consuming territory. But this necessarily involved the practice of penalizing or nullifying in a way the advantages of location. "If Eau Claire could produce lumber cheaper than Winona or La Crosse, then the latter points were to have a lower rate in order to enable them to compete." This practice the Interstate Commerce Commission condemned at that time; and it has consistently adhered to the precedent then laid down. Obviously, any other general course of action would be analogous to hobbling the fleetest horse in a race to bring him down to the rate of progress of the slowest laggard. The principle of the handicap applied within moderate limits makes for an exciting athletic contest; but if it be overdone, it eliminates all interest from the contest whatever. The race becomes one, not of skill or endurance in running, but of securing a sufficiently liberal handicap. Competition to be of advantage in the way of progress must always have in view the survival of the fittest and the elimination of the unfit.

The vast extent of the United States, the necessity of transporting commodities great distances at low cost and the progressiveness of railway managers, has led to an extraordinary development of the phase of rate making above-mentioned. The principle of the flat rate, based upon the theory that distance is a quite subordinate, if not indeed entirely negligible, element in the construction of freight tariffs under circumstances of competition, was fully accepted twenty-five years ago.[103] J. C. Stubbs, traffic manager of the Harriman lines, speaking of transcontinental business in 1898, clearly expressed it as "the traditional policy of the American lines as between themselves to recognize and to practise equality of rates as the only reasonable and just rule ... regardless of the characteristics of their respective lines, whether equal in length or widely different." It is the theory upon which the southern basing-point system is founded; and it is the common practice in making rates into and out of New England—being in fact vital to the continued prosperity of this out-of-the-way territory.[104] President Tuttle, of the Boston & Maine, has most ably supported this principle of equality of rates irrespective of distance. "It is the duty of transportation agents," he says, "to so adjust their freight tariffs that, regardless of distance, producers and consumers in every part of this country shall, to the fullest extent possible, have equal access to the markets of all parts of this country and of the world, a result wholly impossible of attainment if freight rates must be constructed upon the scientific principle of tons and miles." This is the principle of the blanket rate attacked in the famous Milk Producers' Protective Association case in 1897;[105] and it is the practice which has been so fully discussed of late, as generally applied to lumber rates from the various forest regions of the United States into the treeless tract of the Middle West. The principle, while applied thus generally in the construction of tariffs, is of far greater applicability in the making of special or commodity rates. Wool rates afford one of the best examples. Under such rates the bulk of the tonnage of American railways is at present moved. The essential principle of such special rates, constituting exceptions to the classified tariffs, is that of the flat rate; namely, a rate fixed in accordance with what the traffic will bear, without regard to the element of cost, that is to say, of distance. But a noticeable trend away from the flat rate is evident in recent decisions of the Interstate Commerce Commission; especially in the Intermountain case,[106] revision of the wool and cattle rates,[107] and the general disposition to lessen special tariffs all along the line.

The intricacy of freight rate adjustment in response to the subtleties of commercial competition depends only in small measure upon the absolute freight rate imposed. The main problem is really that of relativity. But this does not mean mere relativity as between directly competing commodities or places. A strict relativity based upon commercial conditions must often obtain as well between the rates on raw materials and their own finished products; between all the various by-products in an industry; and, of course, always as between goods capable of substitution one for another. A few illustrations will serve to make these details clear.

The matter of properly correlating the freight rate on raw materials and the finished products made from them, is more far-reaching than it seems. The location and development of manufacturing depends upon it. The country may be broadly divided into agricultural and manufacturing sections. The first of these is ambitious to develop its resources; not only to feed, but to clothe itself and make other provision for its needs. No sooner does it seek to develop local manufacturing than it finds itself exposed to competition from the older established manufacturers at a distance. Sometimes, even, these remote manufacturers draw their supplies of raw material from its own fields and forests. These supplies are then shipped long distances as raw material; manufactured and thereafter returned to sell in competition with the local product. The local market in relatively undeveloped areas is probably insufficient to provide support for manufactures on a profitable scale. It is essential to dispose of the surplus product over a wider area. Thus there arise two classes of manufacturers: one "next the stump," manufacturing at the source of the raw material and desiring to ship the finished product; the other, remote perhaps from supplies of raw material, but favored by long experience, by abundant supplies of capital and of skilled labor and by other advantages.[108] Neither class of shippers can prosper without overflowing into the domain of the other. The outcome of this competition depends in part upon the policy of the carriers. If the rate on the raw material be relatively low, the remote manufacturer is aided. Cotton mills and shoe factories in New England prosper in competition with establishments in the South or the Middle West. If, on the other hand, the rate on raw materials be inordinately high, while at the same time low on outward-bound shipment of manufactures from the seat of the raw materials, the tendency is in favor of the upbuilding of manufactures, not near the historic centres of population and consumption, but near the sources of natural wealth, which are the potential homes of manufacturing.

The long-standing controversy over relative rates on wheat and flour for export affords an interesting illustration of the difficulties of properly correlating charges of this sort.[109] Originally the rates on wheat and flour—the raw material and the manufactured product—were the same. In 1890 the railways leading to the Gulf ports began to discriminate by giving lower rates on wheat, but the trunk lines until 1899 held to the original equality between the two. Finally, however, the struggle between the trunk lines and the Gulf roads for business forced the former to lower their rates on wheat, leaving the flour rates—not subject to Gulf competition—undisturbed. At times the rate on wheat for export was as much as nine cents per hundred pounds lower than the rate on flour. Thus the rate on wheat for export from the Mississippi river to the seaboard was frequently twelve cents, while the rate on wheat from the same points to Chicago added to the rate on flour there manufactured and sent on in barrels or bags to New York, was twenty-two cents—a clear discrimination against the domestic manufacturer in this instance of ten cents per hundred pounds. For his American-made flour, sent abroad in competition with flour made in Liverpool from American wheat, would evidently cost that much more at delivery. In other words, wheat could be transported to England and there ground much cheaper than it could be ground here and then shipped. This bore with particular severity upon small millers, partly because their costs of manufacture were relatively high, and also because any limitation of export business forced the large millers to bid more keenly for local domestic trade. Inasmuch as a fair margin of profit to the American manufacturer would not exceed two cents per hundredweight, it is apparent that this discrimination operated severely against the American miller. Minneapolis fortunately was unaffected by this discrimination, much of its exports going out by Canadian lines to the Lakes. The carriers defended this difference in rates on the ground of water competition by the Lakes or combined rail and water routes, which were alone open to wheat, and which thereby unduly lowered the rate on that commodity; and also on the basis of the lower cost of service in moving the raw material as compared with the finished product. It is apparent that issue was really raised in such a case between the interests of the farmer and of the manufacturer. The United States, producing a surplus of wheat the price of which is made on the Liverpool market in competition with the world, is compelled to find an outlet for this product. It is obvious that any reduction of the freight rate—the prices in Liverpool remaining fixed—would inure to the benefit of the farmer, who would thereby receive a higher price for his product. Viewed in this way the railways by discriminating in favor of the rate on wheat were helping the farmers. But, at the same time, by moving this wheat more cheaply than flour the railways were encouraging the location of flour milling abroad and rendering it impossible to manufacture flour for export at a profit in the cities of the Middle West. In these export cases it does not appear clearly why the rate on flour for export might not have been reduced somewhat. The Interstate Commerce Commission finally rendered a decision to the effect that the existing difference in rates constituted an undue preference in favor of the foreign manufacturer, adding at the same time that these discriminations seemed to be due primarily not to a desire of the railways to aid the American farmer in disposing of this surplus wheat, but to the bitterness of competition between the Gulf and trunk line railways.[110] They decided that any discrimination greater than two cents per hundred pounds in favor of wheat for export as against flour was unreasonable. This difference was permitted, however, on account of the greater cost of handling the manufactured product. It is significant of the then state of the law that the railways paid no attention to this order, and, although conditions improved somewhat, there is still great complaint.

The relative rates on wheat and flour, even when for domestic consumption, illustrate the same difficulty of commercial competition—the necessity of adjusting the rate on raw materials to that on the finished product.[111] The rate on wheat from Wichita, Kan., for example, to California is fifty-five cents per hundred pounds, while the rate on flour between the same points is sixty-five cents. Is this difference in rates economically justifiable? California wheat is soft, so that flour produced from it is much improved by the admixture of hard wheat, such as may be obtained in Kansas. California, formerly a large wheat exporting state, has of late years relied to a considerable degree upon the Middle West for part of its supplies. Kansas flour sells for seventy-five cents a barrel more than California wheat flour. Shall this Kansas wheat, to be consumed in California, be ground in Wichita or in California? Here is material for controversy, not between one particular railway and another, but in reality between the millers in Kansas and the millers in California. It is quite analogous to the issue raised over export wheat and flour between the miller in Chicago and his rival in Liverpool. In this instance, if milled in Kansas, the railways enjoy the carriage of flour; while, if ground in California, the railways carry the commodity in the form of wheat. Owing to certain practical conditions, such as the percentage of waste and relative differences in labor costs, the Kansas miller appears to enjoy a certain advantage over his far western competitors. At this point the interest of particular railway companies appears. The Rock Island, if the milling industry in Kansas develops, obtains the haul not only of the flour but also of the fuel and of supplies for the communities engaged in the business. On the other hand the Southern Pacific is more largely interested in the local development of manufactures in California. The Rock Island by maintaining a lower rate on flour than on wheat, would tend to hold its clients in the field. The Southern Pacific, on the other hand, by securing the reduced rate on the wheat from Kansas would materially advance the welfare of its constituents. Thus the rivalries of the competing localities immediately become the direct and immediate concern of rival railways.

Cases precisely analogous in principle to those concerning the relativity of rates on grain and grain products have troubled the carriers for years in respect to the rates upon cattle and packing house products.[112] A low rate on cattle as compared with beef favors Chicago today as against Missouri river points, the latter being nearer the cattle ranges; just as a generation ago it enabled cattle to be brought to New York and Boston to be there slaughtered and sold on the spot. The history of this controversy throws much light upon the difficulties of rate making in practice. Originally the railways encouraged cattle raising by a rate which was only about one-third of the rate charged for beef. Slaughtering was carried on in the East adjacent to the great markets. To this policy the western packers objected strenuously. They demanded a relatively low rate on their finished product in order to enable them to bid against the local eastern slaughter houses. The stockmen, on the other hand, naturally desired a continuance of the low rate on cattle, as it perpetuated competition between eastern and western buyers. The controversy between the stock raisers and the packers was thus shifted onto the shoulders of the traffic managers of the railways. The dispute culminated in 1883 when the Trunk Line Association appointed a special committee to consider what the proper adjustment should be.

This committee in turn referred the matter to Commissioner Albert Fink, "Seeking a relativity of rates so as to make the charges for transportation, including the expenses incident to the transportation of dressed beef, the same per pound as the charges per pound of dressed beef transported to the East in the shape of live stock." A difficult task this, considering the variety of by-products emerging into value year by year. Cattle rates had been for some time fifty-two per cent., and then later sixty per cent. of the dressed beef rates. This was relatively higher for cattle than had been charged during the seventies. But the western packers demanded that the relativity in favor of the finished product be still further advanced until cattle rates should equal seventy-five per cent. of the rates on beef. This would effectually discourage the shipment of cattle to eastern centres, and would tend to upbuild Kansas City and Chicago at their expense. In 1884, the matter being still in dispute, was referred to Hon. T. M. Cooley, afterward chairman of the Interstate Commerce Commission. He decided that a fair compromise would be forty cents on cattle from Chicago to New York with coincident rates of seventy cents on beef. This would make the cattle rate about fifty-seven per cent. of the beef rate. It was a victory for the stockmen as against the western packers, who at once raised a great outcry.

It would have been difficult to predict the final outcome had not an entirely new factor appeared, which transformed the conduct of the beef packing industry.[113] Specially constructed stock cars owned by private companies began to be built. These favored the perpetuation of competition between eastern and western packers. To checkmate this, the western packers had already embarked in 1879 upon the ownership of privately owned refrigerator cars for the carriage of their finished products. The custom was adopted by the railways of paying for the use of these cars by making an allowance of so much a mile as a deduction from the established tariffs. This at once opened the way to secret rebates of all sorts. The refrigerator traffic in these private cars was large in volume, very regular and highly concentrated as to source. A large tonnage could be diverted at any time to that road which could best show its appreciation of the favor. The Grand Trunk, for instance, in 1887 swept the board, monopolizing this entire business for a brief time, obtaining it by secret and discriminating rates. The railways, jointly, sought to free themselves from the domination of the large packers; but the phenomenal growth of their business, both domestic and export, rendered them too powerful to resist. According to expert data, during nine months to May 1, 1889, three shippers alone received from one line of road $72,945 for the use of their cars. This about equalled the initial cost of eighty new cars. For the fiscal year 1895, $8,744,000 was paid by the railways of the United States for the use of these cars—about $4,000,000 of this being in the form of rental. At this rate, profits of from twenty-five to fifty per cent. upon the investment accrued to the great packers. These virtual rebates, of course, drove all competitors from the field. The story of the gradual extension of this system of private cars to include fruit and produce business belongs in another place. Suffice it to say that the bondage was broken only by the passage of the Hepburn Act of 1906. The growth of these private refrigerator car lines caused the disappearance of live stock shipments. Packing and slaughtering on a large scale at the seaboard, either for domestic consumption or export, was doomed. Meantime, however, the controversy over the relative rates on beef and cattle continued just as if anything really depended upon it. The issue was again submitted to the commissioner of the Trunk Line Association in 1887. In the following year a select committee of the United States Senate was appointed at the urgent request of the cattle raisers. Testimony before this committee showed in detail how eastern packers were striving to build up establishments near the points of consumption, but were driven out of the business by the relatively high costs of shipping cattle, as compared with the rates at which dressed beef could be actually delivered from Chicago and Missouri river points. This entire history, aside from its significance as a study of personal discrimination, illustrates the effect of a relatively increasing differential rate, partly open and partly secret, against the raw material of an industry as compared with the finished product. The result, at all events, has been to concentrate the packing industry in the Middle West. Nor is the controversy closed even yet.[114] But this time it is a question, not between the seaboard and Chicago, but between Chicago and Missouri river points, or those still nearer the southwestern ranges. Fort Worth and Oklahoma City now become complainants against the Missouri river points.[115] Always and everywhere the manufacture seeks to develop at or near the source of the raw material. Whenever this tendency does not appear in an industry it is pertinent to inquire how far the relative adjustment of rates is responsible for the phenomenon.

Complexities in rate adjustment often arise from the fact that in the manufacture of many commodities the marketing of by-products is of increasing importance. The rate on the whole series of related commodities must be taken into account at once. Thus in lumbering, a large amount of waste or very low-grade lumber is necessarily produced. This common lumber cannot bear long transportation; it must be utilized locally, if at all. On the other hand, the choicest specialties will command a price even in remote markets. A monopoly price is enjoyed in such a case. The Pacific coast lumbermen can market their long timbers anywhere in the United States; but the demand for the common lumber, restricted to a sparsely populated region, tends to be exceeded by the supply.[116] The real competition between the southern, the Michigan, the Wisconsin and the Pacific coast manufacturers thus narrows down to the sale of the medium-grade product. And the cost of production of this is, of course, in part dependent upon the profit made upon the other two sorts, each of which in its own field appears to be a monopoly. A wide market and a good price for medium-grade lumber may so lessen the cost of the cheapest by-products that they in turn may be so reduced in price as to widen their reach to the consumer. Each rate reacts upon the others. The situation can be successfully controlled only by adjusting them all at once.

Not only are rates competitive as between raw materials and the finished product made from them, but the circle of competition immediately widens to include all commodities capable of substitution one for another.[117] Coal rates, of course, are partly determined by rates on cordwood, and vice versa. During the great coal strike in Pennsylvania in 1903, soft coal rates and hard coal rates were sadly disturbed. Such substitutions are always likely to occur. But the conditions are not always so simple as this. An instance in point is given by a witness before the Senate (Elkins) Committee on Interstate Commerce in 1905.[118] This shows how a reduction in the rate for transportation of corn from Kansas to Texas brought about a corresponding reduction in the rate on flour from Minneapolis to Chicago. There was a large crop of corn in Kansas; and the Chicago lines anticipated brisk business in the carriage of this product. The traffic managers of lines from Kansas to Texas, however, discovered a large demand for corn in Texas at a price higher than then prevailed in Kansas. Any rate less than the difference in prices between the two districts would cause shipments of corn to flow from Kansas to Texas, just as inevitably as water flows down hill. This rate would needs be low; but the corn could be loaded on empty southbound cars which had been used to haul cotton out of Texas to the north. This, of course, entailed a diversion of corn from the Chicago railways, which promptly reduced rates in order to hold their traffic. For years the rates upon wheat and corn had been fixed in a definite relation to one another, based upon commercial experience. Any reduction of the corn rate compelled a reduction of the wheat rate. A fall in the wheat rate brought about a drop in the rate on flour. These reductions in corn started in southern Kansas; but parallel lines in northern Kansas were compelled to follow suit. Grain in the territory between the two roads could be hauled by wagon either north or south corresponding to a fraction of a cent per bushel difference in the price. Thus the reduction in rates spread from one line to another all over Kansas, throughout Nebraska up into Dakota and finally to Minnesota. It not only affected the corn rate everywhere but it caused a reduction in the rate on flour from Minneapolis to Chicago. The reliance of Texas for a portion of its corn supply upon the surplus product of Kansas sometimes leads to odd results. This commodity is sometimes shipped as corn meal and sometimes transported as corn to be afterwards ground in Texas. The Texas millers at one time demanded a relative reduction of the rate on grain as compared with corn meal, and the railway commission of that state upheld them in that demand. For ten years down to 1905 the differential in favor of the raw product had been three cents a hundred pounds. Then the railways, in connection with a general advance of rates, increased the charge on corn meal until it amounted to about nine cents per hundred pounds more than the rate on corn. One cent a hundred pounds being a good profit in grinding corn meal, this change shut the Kansas millers out of Texas business. Application was made to the Interstate Commerce Commission for relief. It then appeared on investigation that the carriers had made use of the Texas millers in order to prevent a general reduction of both grain rates and rates on grain products. The Texas millers on general principles had favored both these reductions. What happened is best described in the evidence before the Senate Committee on Interstate Commerce of 1905. "The railways went to the millers of Texas and they said to them, 'Is there anything you want here?' 'Why,' said the [Texan] millers, 'yes; we would like to have that differential between corn and corn meal increased; we think you ought to put the rate on corn meal up.' The railway said, 'All right; you just stay away from that meeting down at Austin so that there will not be any excuse for the Texas commission, and if it undertakes to reduce these rates we will raise this differential; we will raise the rate on corn meal to the rate on flour.' The millers kept away from Austin—they kept their part of the bargain—and they stayed away, and the Texas commission was left without any support for their proposition to reduce the corn rates, and the railway kept their part of the bargain and lifted up the rate on corn meal so that the differential was from nine to seven and one-half cents, and that put the Kansas mills out of business."

Apparently insignificant details often determine the outcome of commercial competition. Thus in the milling business, where the margin of profit in the manufacture of flour may not be over three cents per barrel, an infinitesimal change in the freight rate may mean success or failure to long-established industries. And the conditions vary indefinitely. Thus, as between flour milling in Duluth and Buffalo, Duluth can buy its wheat from the farmer direct during the entire winter, but must ship its product mainly during the period of open water navigation on the lakes. The reverse is true with the Buffalo miller who can ship out his flour during the entire season, but who must accumulate his whole stock of wheat before navigation closes. And then Minneapolis as a milling centre has to be taken into account. Eighty per cent. of the spring wheat grown in the United States is in territory from which the freight rates to Minneapolis and Duluth are the same. But the basic rate to the East and Europe, fixing the all-rail rates, is the combined lake and rail. By this route Duluth is one hundred and fifty miles nearer the market than is Minneapolis, and consequently enjoys a lower rate on its flour shipped out. A three-cornered competitive problem exists, in which any change at one point entirely upsets the commercial equilibrium.

The obligation on the part of a railway to protect its constituency, not only in respect of particular rates, but in general conditions as well, introduces still further complications. The freight business of New England, for example, consists, first, of the carriage of raw materials and supplies inwards; and, secondly, thereafter of the transportation of the finished product out to the consuming markets. Narrowly considered, it may seem expedient to crowd the rate on coal as high as the value of service probably will permit; but viewed in a large way, it may prove to be a far better business policy to maintain the rate on coal, cotton, and other staple supplies so low, that the growth of population and production may in the long run yield far greater returns on the high-grade manufactures which the territory produces. Turning to the southern field, where the economic conditions are reversed, it may be the better policy to hold down the rate on raw cotton in order thereby to stimulate this great basic industry and thereby enhance the demand for the merchandise and foodstuffs which depend upon general prosperity. A free hand afforded for the suitable adjustment of such apparently independent services may contribute far more to the general welfare than an insistence upon a petty and near-sighted policy of extorting from each individual service all the rate it can possibly endure. American railway managers are gradually but surely coming to take a more liberal view of these great possibilities and to consider the economic development of their territories, not narrowly, but in a generous way.