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Show li LOWER WES 1 . ; EFFECT OF WATERWAY COMPETITION COMPETI-TION ON THE RAILWAY8 OF THE COUNTRY. . S rT DIRECT AND INDIRECT SAVING Conservative Estimate la That In a 1 Single Year It Would Ee More Than Enough to Ditchargft the Entire National Na-tional Debt. It was stated in a previous article that waterways produce both direct and Indirect saving? ln the cost of transportation and also exert what may be called a creative effect. As an instance of the direct savins it W09 shown that the 100,000,000 tons of freight handled on the great lakes in lt07 were, carried for $30,000,000 less than It would have cost by mil. If the opinion of the United States army engineers Is correct and this opinion trf based upon results actually achieved on the rivers of Europe we have a number of rivers on which, when properly Improved, freight can bo carried for less than on the lake and many rivers on which H cab be carried for much leos than by rail. If, thereforo, the plan advocated by the National Rivera and Harbors congress should be carried out which includes the Improvement of all our rivers to such extent as shall be found advisable, after expert examination the direct saving In cost, of transportation transporta-tion would be vastly Increased. It would probably be Increased tenfold, but if It were only doubled the direct sarlne in a single year would be more than enough to pay off the national I debt. But tbls Is not the end of the benefits bene-fits which the general Improvement of our waterways would bring:, it is only the beginning Reside the direct saving: sav-ing: them Is an indirect Earing which results from the effect of waterways on railway freight rates, for rates are always lower on railroads which meet water competition than on those which do not.' The amount of tnls saving sav-ing is not everywhere the same, owing to difference In conditions, but we can get a good general idea of It from I a study of some sample Instances. Freight Rates Affected. FTclght rates from New York to Salt Lake or Spokane are much higher high-er tan to San Fmnclsco or Seattle, although the distance Is much less, because be-cause goods can be carried to the Pacific Pa-cific coast 'by water, around Cape Horn, whtle there is no waterway of zuy kind to the Inland cities nnmd. It is not the ocean alone that affects railroad rates. Compare the rates on first class merchandise to river towns and inland towDa situated about 250 miles from St Louis. Towns on the upper Mississippi get a rate of 33 cents a hundred, inland towns pay 63 cents; towns on the Ohio pay 41 cents, inland towns In the same region pay 67. A still more striking Instance, and one showing the direct result of waterway wa-terway improvement. Is to be found on the Columbia river. Beforo tho looks at the cascades were built freight rates on nails, and that class of goods, from Portland to The Dalles were $6 40 per ton. As soon as the locks were finished and tho steamboats steam-boats could get through, the railroad rate dropped to two dollars per ton less than one third what it was before. That Ve difference was due to the river Improvement Is shown by the fact that rates were not reduced beyond be-yond the point to which the steam boa'.s could run. For Instance, the rate on salt in car load lots was $1 GO per ton to The Dalles, and $10.20 per ton to Umatilla $1.50 per ton for the 88 miles with water competition and JS 70 per ton for the next 100 miles without. These rates have since been reduced as the Improvement has proceeded, pro-ceeded, and when tho work is Qnluhed and boats can run far up the Columbia Colum-bia river and to lv?wiefon anil other point in Idaho on Its principal tributary, tribu-tary, the Snake river, the people ln all that region will benefit not only by the direct saving on goods carried by water, but also by the Indirect saving sav-ing through the reduced rate ou goods carried by rail. Exactly ulmllaj results re-sults would follow the radical Improvement Im-provement of rivers all over the United States Indirect Saving Large. There Is. however, no pos6ibln way of fbriding out just how much this in-direct in-direct saving would be. Rates on some freight would be reduced greatly, on some freight 6llgluly, on ionie, perhaps, per-haps, not at all. liut we can get some idea of the amount of freight which might be Influenced in the fiscal year ending June 2u, 1907, tho total amount of freight handled by the rallrouds of the United States was 1.706.:t36.f.ft tons. Som0 of this was haulwd a short distance, some a long distance, and some was handled by more than one road, but i' was equal to 238.M1, 390.103 tons hauled one mile. If the comprehensive Improvement Improve-ment of our waterways should make an average reduction of one mill per lon-nillc the difference ln the rates on salt given above Is 70 times as much, or Bevcn cents per ton mile it would make a saving of over $236,600,-000 $236,600,-000 on the value of business handled in the Qscal year. At first glance. It looks as If that would mean disaster to the railways, but that is the exact opposite of the truth. Strange cs It may Beem, the surest and speediest way to enlarge the business and Increatio the profits of the railways of the United States Is to Improve the waterways of the United Slates. |