Page:Challenge of Facts and Other Essays.djvu/198

Rh portation seem to have been multiplied in excess of the demand. The railroad monopoly is in the position of any monopoly which has overproduced its market. Pooling would be the mode of applying combination and restriction of production to this business; that pooling would suit the condition of things just at this moment, and would be a corrective for the evils which just now command public attention, is very probable. But the country is undoubtedly destined to enter on a new period of expanding a hitherto unknown prosperity, and what would be the effects of pooling on a strong and rising market under great demand for transportation? If a law is passed it becomes a rigid and unavoidable constraint. It is not, however, my purpose to argue that pooling is a good thing or a bad thing; the arguments upon that point are so strong upon either side that a case is made out for neither. Under such circumstances, to legislate is to decide, and to commit the interests at stake to a decision which is immature and is founded on nothing but the notion that something must be done. Competition has borne not only upon the rates but also upon the quality of cars and stations, upon speed and punctuality, upon parlor car and other conveniences. What would be the effect of strict pooling upon these?

The second point which seems now to occupy attention is the effect of railroads upon natural distances; it is assumed that it must be wrong that railroads should make a place which is near further off than one which is remote. It is a matter of familiar experience that railroads do invert relations of distance and make places which are two hundred miles off economically nearer than places one hundred miles off; and in doing this they also invert the interests of a great many people. It is a rash and mischievous undertaking to try to offset