Railroads: Rates and Regulations

by William Zebina Ripley

The dispute between dealers in the older and newer commercial centres came to a head in the so-called New York Board of Trade and Transportation case of 1888, elsewhere discussed. Yet notwithstanding this protest of jobbers and manufacturers in eastern trade centres, who insisted that they should be permitted to compete on even terms with provincial jobbers by making their shipments direct from New York or Boston in small lots as cheaply as the local jobber could buy them by the carload, the number of separate carload ratings steadily augmented year after year. By 1893 more than half of the articles enumerated in the Official Classification were allowed a lower rate for large shipments. Present conditions are set forth by the statistics in the preceding paragraph. From these it appears that in trunk line territory nearly three-fourths of the commodities now enjoy carload ratings; while in the South, on the other hand, only about one-fifth of them make such distinction between carload and less-than-carload lots.[328] One reason is evident; namely, that throughout a large part of the South few jobbers command a business of sufficient magnitude to make use of carload shipments. It is but recently, to take a specific illustration, that business has developed in volume sufficient to permit of the shipment of fly paper in carload lots. Until such time no distinction between large and small shipments could well be made.

Conditions in the West, according to these figures, are intermediate between those in the East and the South. On the other hand, transcontinental business, as carried on in competition with ocean steamers, is almost entirely confined to shipment by the carload. The Transcontinental Classification is unique, therefore, in offering but very few opportunities for shipment by package, except under specially onerous conditions.

The spread, in other words, between the two sorts of carriage operates most unfavorably by contrast upon the intermountain centres. Denver, for example, under the Western Classification enjoys no carload rates, while competitors at San Francisco have a large number.[329]

A much more elaborate code of rules and regulations having reference to local practices and conditions is the third accompaniment of the growth of trade.[330] Prior to 1887, and again before the recent revival of interest in uniform classification, conditions had become intolerable in this regard. All sorts of details, covering relatively unimportant differences in conditions of carriage, bill of lading contracts, marking and packing, led to constant confusion and annoyance, especially in cases of shipment from one classification territory to another. An eastern shipper of iron bolts, having in mind that a gunny sack is equivalent to a box or barrel in the East, orders a small shipment in a bag to a far western point. He finds that bolts in bags under the rules of the Western Classification, are specially enumerated only for carload lots, and that he must pay a rate one class higher for such shipment than if contained in a barrel, box or keg. This difference in classification may more than absorb his profit. Recent evidence before the Interstate Commerce Commission,[331] contained a striking illustration of such local diversity in rules and descriptions as applied to furniture.

"Western class: 'Bank, store, saloon and office furniture, consisting of arm rails, back bar mirrors, bottle cases, chairs, counter-fittings, desk, foot rails, metal brackets for arm and foot rails, refrigerators, tables and work boards. Note—Door, window and bar screens, partitions, prescription cases, patent medicine cases, show cases, wall-cases, wainscoting, office railing and wooden mantels may be shipped with bank, store, saloon or office furniture in mixed carloads at third-class, minimum weight 12,000 lbs.

"There is no such provision as this in the Official Classification. On the contrary, a shipment of that kind can only be made by figuring out the less-than-carload rate on each article, many of which take first, double first and even three times first ratings.

"For example, mirrors over five feet in length are classified double first class in the official classification, while show cases, set up, take three times first. The natural result of this difference in classification has been to shut out competition of eastern dealers in these articles entirely in Western Classification territory."

Only in a customs tariff of the United States would one expect to find any such complexity as is discoverable in railway documents of this sort.

The mere interpretation of such classification rules is often difficult; especially with reference to the mode of packing. Suppose a tariff provides a certain rate on stamped metal ware in boxes, barrels or crates and, furthermore, fixes the charge fifty per cent, higher for shipment in bales, bags or bundles. If the consignment is encased in corrugated straw-board, which of the two rates applies? The difference in rates being so great, it becomes quite an item on a shipment of fifteen carloads from Buffalo to the Pacific coast.[332] Or it may be a question as to whether a crate for Colorado cantaloupes is actually of such dimensions as to come in under a specially favorable commodity rate.[333]