THE SPECIFIC DEMAND OF THE TRANSPORTATION REFORMER.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE NATION:

SIR: You demand that the movement for cheap transportation reform should be more specific. So far as concerns the recent convention in New York, this stricture is entirely just. That gathering was manifestly engineered by men who had no conception of the real issue at stake. The series of resolutions adopted dealt wholly in vague generalities, as if the attempt was to say a good deal without saying anything. But the movement in Illinois is not open to that censure.

The cheap transportation movement got fairly under headway in advance of the election for delegates to the convention which framed the present. constitution of the State (1870). The general attention of the country was not attracted, nor was there any marked demonstration among oar people; but care was taken to elect delegates who would faithfully represent popular sentiment on this subject. The result was the assertion in our organic law of the doctrine that the Legislature has a right to "pass laws to correct abases and prevent unjust discrimination and extortion in the rates of freight and passenger tariffs on the different railroads in this State." According to the principle laid down in the Dartmouth College decision, this doctrine conflicts with the Constitution of the United States, for the charters of our railroads give the holders of them unlimited authority in the matter of transportation charges. The validity of the clause quoted is a point on which oar lawyers and jurists disagree. On the second of next June the first contested judicial election under the new constitution will occur. Besides a large number of circuit judges, there will be elected at that time two members of the Supreme Court. The fall bench consists of seven justices, the senior in point of service being chief justice. The distinctive issue raised in this election is, Shall the railroad feature of the State constitution be recognized as valid, and the laws enacted in accordance therewith be enforced, or shall it and they be set aside on the ground of conflict with the Federal Constitution as interpreted in the Dartmouth College case?  In one of the Supreme Court districts there is practically no conflict; the candidate who is sure of election was a member   [384]    of the Constitutional Convention, and sustained the railroad article; and the only other candidate in the field is unequivocally pledged to its support. In the other district the contest is intensely hot. One candidate, Judge Craig, is avowedly friendly to the plan of transportation, reform set forth in the constitution, while his opponent, Chief Justice Lawrence, refuses to commit himself, but has the ardent support of the enemies of reform. He rendered an official opinion last winter upon the railway question as presented by legislation as it then stood, taking care not to commit himself upon the question of the validity of the State constitution. Such being the facts as regards the judicial campaign in Illinois, it is certain that, whatever else may be said of it, it is specific. 

Turning from the pending judicial election to the transportation laws of Illinois, we find definiteness.  Whether the legislation is judicious and effective or not, is not the question under discussion in this connection.

The first Legislature which met after the present constitution had been adopted passed one law regulating passenger tariffs, another regulating freight tariffs. The latter was killed by the Supreme Court, and it is expected that a decision invalidating the former will be rendered shortly. The recent Legislature virtually assumed as much by passing a law applying equally to freight and passenger business.

The new law will go into effect July 1. It is based primarily upon the idea that discrimination for or against any shipper or shipping point is unjust. It requires an inflexible schedule of charges for all periods of the year, every patron, and every station, except that the issuance of commutation tickets to passengers is authorized. The railroads centering in Chicago announce that they will obey this feature of the new law. If they do, the feasibility of the plan will he demonstrated one way or the other. Hitherto it has been customary to reduce charges from competing points below actual cost, and make up the loss by exorbitant rated from non-competing points. This is surely a very definite change.

The new railway law of Illinois has one other feature. It is quite as pronounced as the first, and still more revolutionary. It provides that every railroad company in the State shall haul cars offered it at reasonable and impartial rates. The railroad and warehouse commissioners of Illinois are required by law to make out a schedule of rates for car hauling, as well as fur the transportation of passengers and ordinary freight consignments. That Board has until January l5, 1874, in which to make out the schedule. The railroads have not yet announced their programme on this point, but it is certain that with this car principle recognized and appreciated competition would spring up in the transportation business along every railroad line, and the cheap‑freight problem world be in a fair way to solve itself. Mr. Adams is half right in holding that competition is the true solvent for the transportation problem, only competition cannot be secured by building new lines of railroads, but by establishing a basis for competition on the same line. If the railroads of the country depended in whole or in part upon the profits of transporting cars rather than miscellaneous freight, they would encourage competition and be enriched by it. Whether this plan is feasible or not, it is surely worth while to test the experiment.

Permit me to say in conclusion that this railroad question deeply stirs the popular heart at the West, however it may be at the East. Demagogues are trying to pervert it, as a matter of course, but the movement will push on in spite of the politicians, gaining definiteness and momentum all the time.

Chicago May 24,1873.                      F.G.

[We think the contest over the judges is what does most to give the movement a wild or visionary appearance in the eyes of people at the East. The question whether the State constitution shall or shall not be overruled by the United States Constitution as interpreted by the United States Supreme Court, which our correspondent says is "the distinctive issue" raised in the pending canvass, is in reality a magniloquent form of the question whether the State of Illinois shall through her judges overthrow the Government of the United States. Moreover, it is difficult to get outsiders to believe that the people of Illinois are in earnest in proposing to submit the legal rights of property of individuals under charters and deeds to be discussed on the stump and determined by a popular vote in the election of judges. The Western railroads are thus far private property, the result of capital invested under certain guarantees, one of which was that all controversies affecting it should be decided by independent courts, acting without fear or favor. Nobody would invest money in a State is which the nature and extent of his property were liable to be made an issue at every election. When any body of American farmers tell to they are going to adopt this plan in order to secure their rights, we prefer in compliment to tehir [sic] intelligence and honesty to believe that they are indulging in empty buncombe, and that they know it. If any such doctrines as are now broached in Illinois about the duty of judges should be adopted by any political party at the West, Western men may rely on it money will become scarcer in that region than they have ever seen it, and that they will be troubled with no new railroads, or any other new thing requiring capital, for a long time to come. Even the wild talk that has been indulged in has already had its effect on the money markets. Of the proposition to make all railroads, with their present accommodation as regards tracks, stations, etc., haul all cars that may be offered them " at reasonable rates," we shall only say of it that it strikes us as childish, but perhaps we are mistaken. As regards uniform rates of freight, some evidence was taken on this point before a Government Commission in England in 1866, apropos of a proposal to have the Government purchase the railroads and manage them on this plan, which was very interesting. The evidence showed that one great feature, and a very valuable one, of the management of the English lines by the companies, was what was called its "elasticity " -- that is to say, the rates were adapted to the peculiar needs of manufacturers and producers along the road. Men who forwarded great quantities of freight to London from a distance were accommodated at low rates, partly because of the small proportional amount of handling required by their goods, and partly because they could not otherwise carry on business at all, as a uniform rate would give a monopoly of the market to those nearest London and near the sea. In this way an enormous amount of industry is kept alive in all parts of the country, which under a uniform-rate system would perish. Railroad managers or business men can be trusted to make these discriminations under the guidance of their own interest, but the Government could not.  -ED. NATION.]