OCR Text |
Show FREIGHT RATES- Whilo eastern railroad bwa been advancing the rate of iYci.nht on goods coming west, tho Central Pacific Company Com-pany have been maturing a change which has now gone into effect, and will, wo believe, be cqual'y benefieial to the lino and to the Territory. Long experience has proved that the lower tho rate at which any general business can be conducted, without actual loss, the increase of transactions will make the aggregate profits ultimately larger than they would have bcn with a smaller business at a higher rate. The Tironosiiion of a ponny postago in England was met by tho asseveration on all hands that it would ruin the postal department of tho country; yet that particular department becamo a great financial success as a result of the reduced postago. The Central Pacific Company have made an important reduction in their freight rates on goods between San Francisco Francis-co and Ogden, not so much in a reduction of the class rates, as in a reclassification of goods, by which many articles formerly carried and charged as second and third class have been reduced to third and fourth; while a special c'ass has been designated, oovering a number of articles, which are now carried between the points named at the unusually low rate of ninety-fivo cents per hundred pounds. But the most important reduction is in the matter of ore and base bullion, which from and after to-day will be carried from Ogden to San Francisco at ten dollars a ton, or a hundred dollars dol-lars a ear load. When the excitement was created more than a year ago by the increased freight rate adopted uni formly by the two Pacific railroad companies, the lowest figure which miners, mi no owners, and bullion and oro shippers talked of did not reach a smaller freight rate than the C P. R. It. now voluntarily names. This reduction, if continued, will en-ablo en-ablo many mines to be worked which a rate fifty per cent, higher would render ren-der comparatively valueless undor ex isting circumstances. And we look for an impetus being received by such mines from this action of tho railroad oompany, and a largo increase to the traffio of the line, as a result of the re- duction of tho freight taiiff. |