Show IN RAILROAD CIRCLE West Bound Rate Cutting Hurts the Colorado Shippers THEIR STRONG PROTEST THE REPUBLICAN SAYS SALT LAKE MERCHANTS ARE GOING EAST The Saltair Privileges Were All Awarded Yesterday TIle Hot Springs Line Near Ccntevvllle I A Swell Party in tIe City OtUcr Railway News I In an article published in the He px lloan of May 4 concerning freight rates it was said that the reductions in rates then being made would hurt certain Colorado merchants and ship pens There is now no doubt of the matter as evidenced from complaints I made by local jobbers Every cent of reduction on goods shipped from the east to Colorado provided the reduc I tion is only a temporary one handicaps resident merchants just that much and today they will institute a movement which if it will not save them from further fur-ther shrinkage in their wares will at least shake the wrinkles out of Utali merchants All westbound commodity rates are to be abolished during the life of the war This means that Salt Lake merchants will be unable to invade the territory of Colorado jobbers and manufacturers as they are now seeking to do through a system of billing in transit As an instance in-stance of how this is worked take a hypothetical case Stoves take a rate of say 70 cents Chicago to Salt Lake through billing Yesterday morning the Western Freight association cut local rates between Chicago and the Missouri Mis-souri river onehalf reducing the rate 28 cents SALT LAKE WAS AWAKE From Denver westward a commodity rate exists which takes stoves outf their proper class in the tariff and gives them a special rate Thus then stoves could be shipped to Denver from Chicago Chi-cago for 42 cents and then on to destination nation at the low commodity rates Salt Lake merchants were quick to sieze advantage of this condition of things and arranged to stop their goods east of Salt Lake at the selling point instead of doing as they had to do in order to set the value of the through rate ship them through and then send them back Denver merchants mer-chants saw their western territory slipping slip-ping away from them and a halt was called Chairman Flynn of the Colorado Utah Freight association iwas busily engaged yesterday checking up the tariffs tar-iffs and today will make his report to the general managers of lines within his association As conditions now stand the ColoradoUtah commodty tariffs will all be abolished today and Salt Lake jobbers will pay about 20 percent per-cent higher rates on their goods west from Denver than they have been paying pay-ing In this way the Colorado shipper I ship-per will be able to hold his own in part against the favored eastern shipper and things will equalize better One Denver jobber stated yesterday that owing to the freight reductions his stock had shrunk in value something like 30000 Competitors buying for immediate I im-mediate shipment can now save from 20 to 75 cents per 100 pounds compared with what this particular jobber paid On the other hand dry goods houses and other merchants who have been carrying stocks to suit the times down to bedrock are taking advantage of low rates and ordering in their late summer goods An effort made yesterday yester-day by one jorot > er to contract at present pres-ent rates forfuture shipments was refused re-fused by a through line No freight man war will guarantee the life of the warRAILROADS RAILROADS CANT STAND IT Traffic Commissioner Janes is of the opinion that it will be a short and a merry one His view of the matter is that the cut of the Western Freight association as-sociation as reported in the dispatches published yesterday morning is so deep that it will bring the general managers to their senses in a hurry Said he in this connection To cut a rate 5 or 10 cents means a continued fight as i will not ruin any road but to slash rates right in two and not only that but all of them means a positive loss and no board of directors would allow a general mana ger to let such things go on In any event the rates cannot go up within ten days as the law requires that much notice before a rate can be raised From the notices received by Missouri Pacific telegraph yesterday the statement state-ment contained inthe Associated Press dispatches that rates had been cut right in two did not indicate the real extent of the movement From the Mississippi river to Omaha and Kansas City firstclass was cut to 15 cents from 55 cents secondclass to 10 cents from 40 thirdclass to 10 cents from 32 and fourthclass from 28 cents to 10 Fifthclass merchandise which is bal b-al odds the bulk of the freight went from 25 cents to 7 ½ Dry goods are thirdclass General Agent Tripp gives notice that these rates go into effect notce May 12Denver Republican I |