Salt Lake Tribune | 1918-11-21 | Page 2 | Increase Made in Express Rate

INCREASE IDE IN EXPRESS RITE Advance Made Necessary by High Wages, Secretary Secre-tary McAdoo Says. WASHINGTON, Nov. 20. General increases in-creases in express rates were announced today by Director General McAdoo of the railroad administration. West of the Mississippi and south of the Ohio and Potomac rivers the merchandise mer-chandise rate will be Increased about 10 to 12 cents a hundred pounds over the present scale and increase in food rates will bo proportionately 75 per cent. The Increases, It was announced, are due lo increases In wages and become effective January 1. For the remainder of the country the new rates on merchandise will be about sixteen and seventeen cents a hundred poundB more than at present. The increase in-crease on food rates will be about 75 per cent as much. The new order, errpctlvo January 1, will raise about $24,Ou0,0O0 additional revenue, half of which the American Hallway Hall-way 10.x press company, before It was taken over entirely by tho government, had planned to distribute among employes In higher wages. The wage question is now before the railroad ad ministration's board of wages and working conditions. The reason for making tho rate Increase In-crease greater in eastern territory. It is stated, was that hauls there are shorter and cfty delivery and terminal service, necessarily expensive, is proportionately higher. The increases stll! may be reviewed re-viewed by tho interstate commerce commission. com-mission. Specifically, the express rate order provides pro-vides that rates in the east, or rates on shipments originating In the east, be advanced ad-vanced sixteen or seventeen cents on ; first and second class shipments, and that elsewhere this increase lie approximately twelve cents. Local differentials would make the exact advances vary somewhat about these averages. Merchandise rates to Canada are raised fifteen Omits per 100 pounds and commodity commo-dity rates, with many exceptions, are lo be raised ten cents per Ko pounds. Milk and cream rates, interstate and intrastate, intra-state, are to bo advanced 2,"i por cent above the rates in effect last July 1. Garden products and other food articles shipped extensively by express lo cities will lake the new rates of the classes in which they fall. Intrastaie scales and classifications are abolished.