Railway men and publicists of Norway and Sweden tell me that there is no discrimination. It would not be permitted. There are no provisions against it in the law. Nothing of the kind has ever been known.
A high official of the Japanese Government, whom I met in this country a few months ago, said in answer to a question in which I stated some of our discrimination methods, large and small: “The government fixes maximum and minimum rates, and the companies are free between these limits, except that the Minister keeps control sufficient to compel fair rates if the companies should try to discriminate or otherwise make unjust rates. We have had nothing like the Beef Trust or Standard Oil discriminations you describe, nor any personal favoritism in rate-making, but the government means to prevent the possibility.”
The railways of New Zealand are not troubled with complaints of discrimination, nor those of New South Wales or Queensland or Victoria. And in these boiling and bubbling republics, if there were the slightest suspicion of a reason for attacking the Government management on this ground, it would be done by the political opponents of the administrations. South Australia has had one case of alleged favoritism. The complaint was that the Railway Commissioner gave a reduced rate on carload lots of certain goods to certain points, to meet water competition. A shipper, desiring to send his goods at low rates in the opposite direction, asked the Commission to give him a reduction equal to that accorded on the traffic above mentioned. The Commissioner said he would give the same reductions if the shipments were made in carload lots. The complaining shipper could not do this, as his trade was not sufficient. The matter was brought before Parliament, and Parliament sustained the Commissioner. The Parliament of each of these republics acts as the people’s board of directors of all public works, calling the managers to account; and any member, from the remotest rural district, can ask the Ministry and the railway management any question he chooses, and compel full disclosure of the facts. Secrecy is practically impossible.
The Government railways of Natal and Central South Africa are equally free from secret concessions and favoritisms of every kind. In talking with the manager of the Central South African Government railway, I explained the nature of the favors granted to the big shippers in the United States, using the Beef Trust, Salt Trust, Oil Trust, Fuel Company, etc., as illustrations, and said: “Suppose a big concern tried to get special rates or concessions of some kind on your railroads, and made a secret agreement with the railway management?”
“They couldn’t do it.”
“Why not? Human nature is the same in South Africa as in America. Suppose they made some traffic man a partner in their profits or brought pressure enough on him in some way to get a concession?”
“It wouldn’t be possible.”
“Well, why? Suppose it were possible, what would happen?”
“The Government auditors would find it out, and the manager would lose his position.”
“Couldn’t he cover up the thing?”