As a study of financial economy the comparison is worth making, for evidence of the over-development of an industry or a financial interest, rightly considered, may prevent suicidal development. The chart given on the next page makes the comparison easy. The actual increase in each instance is reduced to percentages, and the several chart-lines measure the progress. The increase of population is estimated on the basis of 62,000,000 persons in 1888. (So far as the lesson conveyed by the chart is concerned, the estimate might as well have been 60,000,000, the variation in the location of the line would be trifling.)
It appears, then, that railway mileage has increased nearly two hundred per cent. and that the rate of increase of freight traffic (as measured by ton-miles[38]) has been enormously larger, considering the history of the thirteen trunk lines as indicative of the whole. It further appears that the freight traffic of the West has developed much more rapidly than that of the East, during the last eight years.
Ratios of Increase.
Construction and Maintenance.—The tabulated statistics of these subjects are not of special interest, as the annual variation of cost is slight. In both these elements the wage-question is so large a factor that a comparative level is maintained from year to year. The available figures touching these subjects are few. The first table on the opposite page gives the average cost of construction per mile of the total mileage of the country; and the cost of maintenance per mile as reported by the New York, Lake Erie & Western Road. The second table furnishes interesting details of the cost of maintenance.
Construction and Maintenance for Ten Years.
| Years. | Cost of construction per mile. | Cost of maintenance per mile. |
| 1879 | $57,730 | $1,671 |
| 1880 | 58,624 | 1,371 |
| 1881 | 60,645 | 1,448 |
| 1882 | 61,303 | 1,335 |
| 1883 | 61,800 | 1,533 |
| 1884 | 61,400 | 1,281 |
| 1885 | 61,400 | 1,082 |
| 1886 | 61,098 | 1,496 |
| 1887 | 58,603 | 1,533 |
| 1888 | 60,732 | 1,226 |
Comparative Statement of Maintenance of Way of the Illinois Central Road for Ten Years.
[Table—Part 1 of 2]