Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 28.djvu/515

Rh switched off at various points and consigned to various parties. The Commissioners of Railroads of Massachusetts, in considering a complaint which was made on this ground of discrimination, not only justify the principle of quantity in reducing rates, but affirm that any other rule would be unjust. "One fact exists," they say, in reviewing a case, "which furnishes strong ground for criticism on the rates which are the subject of complaint. The Boston and Albany does not establish a lower rate for cargoes or large quantities than those fixed for car-loads. . . . The other great roads of the State do have one rate for car-loads and another and lower rate for cargoes, or for some large amount, generally fixed at one hundred tons. The principle on which this difference rests is founded on common sense, and is well recognized in railroad law; and it is recognized by the managers of the Boston and Albany Railroad in some other branches of traffic. Wholesale transactions furnish a reasonable ground for a reduction of rates; and, as the car-load rates of the Boston and Albany must be held as against that company to be reasonable as car-load rates, it follows that as cargo rates they are unreasonable." This opinion is affirmed by the same company in their report for the year following, when in referring to the first case they say, "The meaning of the opinion was, that it was reasonable to fix a lower rate for large quantities than for single car-loads." The principle here applied to cargoes and carloads is generally applied to car-loads as compared to smaller quantities, and as the "car-load rate," though lower than the rate for smaller quantities, has been generally approved, it amounts also to an approval of the principle of lower rates for larger quantities.

The difference in rates on the same thing justified in the difference in quantity is generally charged by those shipping in small quantities to be a discrimination against them as individuals, and so as unjust. But we find a denial of this in the fact that the rule affects more frequently things which are shipped in large quantities than persons who ship large quantities of the same thing. Grain, provisions, and coal usually form the largest items of tonnage and have the lowest rates, and it is in favor of these things that the greatest discriminations are made. To deny the fairness of the principle would require not only that the various quantities should all take the same rate, but that things themselves should take the rates charged on other similar things which are shipped in smaller quantity. This is a result which some newspapers and politicians imagine would be beneficial; for instance, I read in a daily payer that it is an "outrage" that wheat is carried from the interior to San Francisco at a lower rate than castor-beans. But it is a result which, in the opinion of the Railroad Commissioners of Massachusetts, "would work mischief in some sections, would divert business from the State, paralyze industry, drive away capital, and injure our great interest—labor."