Chapter V: RATE MAKING IN PRACTICE (Continued) (2)

Of course in order that any change of rates should be reflected in prices, all carriers must of necessity agree upon the matter. The price is made by the least expensive source of supply. So that any carrier refusing to raise rates, might aid in the continuance of an already established price. Under conditions of transportation prevalent in the United States twenty years ago, the likelihood of an increased freight rate becoming a tax upon the community, was lessened by the probability that either by means of secret rebates, or by special and perhaps open commodity rates, some roads might choose to protect their clients against enhancement of prices. Markets were local--not reached by great systems operating from remote sources of supply. The policy of the northern transcontinental lines in making lumber rates from Oregon to the Middle West, might be quite independent of any policy in force on the southern hard pine carrying roads. But under present day conditions, the entire area of the United States is one great market. Hence, with rebates eliminated and with practical monopoly established through actual consolidation, control or harmony of policy, the carriers have the consumers much more completely at their mercy. Only two safeguards for the public interest remain. One is government regulation, or at all events supervision, of charges. The other is "enlightened self-interest"--which in transportation matters means a full appreciation of the possibilities and limitations in the application of the value of service principle to the determination of rates.

Considerations of cost of service afford protection, not only against unreasonably high rates, but also against unduly low charges. The evil in such cases is not only that the carriers operate at a loss, but that inequality and discrimination are inevitable concomitants of too low rates. No railway conceivably, of course, will charge unremunerative rates for a long time. But it sometimes happens that managements may be led to the adoption of policies of temporary expediency, not compatible with the long-time welfare of stockholders. During the presidency of Charles Francis Adams on the Northern Pacific in 1890 an unaccountable and unnatural diversion of traffic from this road to the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe suddenly occurred.[150] A large volume of freight from the East to Oregon was diverted to the roundabout route _via_ Southern California. On investigation it appeared that the English banking house of Baring Brothers, having become involved in unfortunate Argentine speculation, and being obliged to force a market for its investments in Atchison securities, demanded an immediate showing of large gross earnings regardless of the net profits. Orders to get traffic at any price went forth. A market was made for Atchison stock; although it was powerless to prevent the firm's final bankruptcy. In such a case the only safeguard against unreasonably depressed rates by the Atchison road, which, of course, immediately compelled corresponding reductions by the natural routes to the Northwest, should have been consideration of the actual cost of moving traffic by so long and roundabout a route. And yet this consideration was entirely ignored. Another illustration of the same danger occurred in April, 1903.[151] A gang of western speculators unobtrusively acquired control of the Louisville & Nashville road, by taking advantage of the issue by that company of a large amount of new stock. This they did by the use of borrowed money. They had no intention, even had they been sufficiently well financed to do so, of permanently controlling the road as an investment. They bought the stock merely in order to resell it at a higher figure. They threatened the railway world with a general disturbance of rate conditions throughout the South. Their plan was to cut rates and steal traffic from other roads in order to make a large show of gross earnings; and to unload their stock holdings on the market thus made, before the public learned the truth. This was prevented only by repurchase of their stock at very high prices. In such a case, what guidance would the principle of charging what the traffic would bear, afford? Cost of service must be invoked in order to determine the reasonableness of the low rates in force.

In any industry where rates are made under conditions of monopoly rather than of free competition, it is imperative that cost of service be constantly held in view. Under conditions of free competition it is bound to obtrude itself automatically; but under monopoly it must oftentimes be forcibly invoked. The shipper whose manufacturing plant has once been located in a certain place is no longer free to accept or reject a certain rate. He can afford neither to move nor to abandon his works. In order to continue in business he must meet the prices made by competitors. This price may be made elsewhere under more favored circumstances. To a manufacturer an increase of freight rates instead of curtailing output, may lead to attempts to lessen the costs of production per unit by an enlarged output sold at cut prices. Under such conditions an enhanced freight rate is a positive deduction from profits without any gain to the consumer. It is impossible to trace any safeguard against extortion in the operations of a value of service law under such circumstances. An instance in point is afforded by a complaint of the Detroit Chemical works in 1908.[152] This company imported iron pyrites through Baltimore from Spain; that being the source of the bulk of the material used here in the manufacture of sulphuric acid. The Detroit Company sold its product throughout the West in competition with companies at St. Louis, Chicago and Buffalo. The companies at Chicago and St. Louis enjoyed low import rates by way of the Gulf ports. The Buffalo concern used to be favored by a low rate said to be due to canal competition on shipments from New York. Since 1903, however, the rate on pyrites from Baltimore to Detroit had been steadily increasing, from $1.56 to $2.72 per long ton. Even this latter rate by itself does not seem absolutely excessive, yielding a revenue of less than four mills per ton mile. But here again, it was not the absolute but the relative rate upon which the continued welfare of the industrial concern depended. The question had to be decided, not on the basis of cost, but from the point of view of the value of the service to the user. The carriers after this petition was filed voluntarily reduced the rate fifty-one cents per ton in January, 1908. The relative rate as compared with that to other competitive points was thus more equitably adjusted. The Interstate Commerce Commission on a review of the evidence held that this increase to $2.72 was unreasonable and unjust so long as it had been in effect; and awarded reparation to the amount of fifty-one cents per ton on all shipments made during its continuance.

It is indisputable that the great dynamic force in railway operation inheres in the value of service idea. The traffic manager who is always considering how much it will cost to handle business, will seldom adventure into new territory. The United States, as a rapidly growing country, is consequently the field in which charging what the traffic will bear, has been most ardently upheld as the only practicable basis for rate making. A few detailed illustrations will serve to show the results of its application in practice. Not infrequently does it happen that rates are different over the same line for shipments between two given points in opposite directions. Where this is due to a preponderance of traffic in one direction, and a consequent movement of "empties" which invite a back loading at very low rates, the difference of charges according to direction may actually be due to differences in the cost of carriage.[153] An empty train, which must be returned from New York to Chicago for another loading of grain, or to Georgia or Oregon for shipments of lumber, if loaded with merchandise, can be moved with no allowance for dead weight of cars or locomotives; inasmuch as the train must move in any event, whether loaded or empty. But even where this defence of difference in the cost of service fails, the practice may be entirely proper from every point of view. By increasing the total tonnage a special rate may ultimately contribute to lower charges all along the line. Raisin culture began in California in 1876. Prior to that time the Spanish product had supplied the American market. The first thing to do was to find a market for the California raisins in the East. They would not bear the freight rate which had previously been charged for Spanish raisins moving over the transcontinental lines westward. A very low rate was all that the new traffic would bear. During the year 1876 therefore 70,000 lbs. of California raisins were carried east at one and three-fourths cents per 100 lbs., while simultaneously 1,000,000 lbs. of Spanish raisins were carried west over the same lines at a rate of three cents. No such difference in the cost of service in opposite directions existed, although a preponderance of empties moving eastward undoubtedly cheapened the service from California. The aim of the commodity rate was to upbuild a new industry. How far this succeeded appears from the fact that in 1891, no Spanish raisins were carried west at all; while the eastbound shipments amounted to 37,600,000 lbs.[154] The preceding illustration leads us then to this further conclusion. The cost of service principle might most conceivably be applied to a railway in a purely static state. But, dynamically considered, as involving the growth and development of business, it fails utterly by itself to meet the necessities of the case.

At times it is inevitable that cost of service and value of service considerations come flatly into opposition. Usually, as in the California raisin case or in the grant of low rates on Oregon lumber east bound about 1893, they reinforce one another; that is to say, the lower rate given to build up business obtains on a service given at lower cost. But it sometimes happens that shipments of the same commodities over a line in opposite directions may occur and that the lower rate applies to the (presumably) more costly service. In 1906 a manufacturer in Menasha, Wis., complained to the Interstate Commerce Commission[155] that his rates on woodenware to the Pacific slope were ten cents per 100 lbs. higher than were rates on the same goods between the same points east bound, _notwithstanding_ the fact that the empty car mileage west bound was then three times as great as in the contrary direction. The movement of empties west bound would certainly seem to justify as low if not lower rates on the basis of comparative cost of operation, supposing that there was coincidence in time. Only one satisfactory explanation for this apparent anomaly suggests itself; viz., that this low eastbound rate was given to build up a new industry in the West. In other words, the cost of service, a dependable guide for a road in a static condition, failed of effect upon a line possessed of great dynamic possibilities. Occasionally opposition of principles like this may occur in questions of classification. It may temporarily be worth while, in order to build up a new industry, to accord a lower rating to a commodity actually more valuable or more expensive to handle than others. Here again the dynamic force in the value of service principle out-weighs all other considerations of relative cost of service.

The value of service principle in general fails, not only in the determination of absolutely reasonable rates, but it is inadequate also to the solution of perhaps the more difficult problem of relative rates. This question of relativity is twofold; first as between different places, and secondly as between different commodities. These are, in other words, the problems respectively of distance tariffs and of classification. The manner in which distance tariffs evolve, has already been discussed, and it is evident that the cost of service principle is of fundamental importance, even though it be tempered by considerations of commercial expediency, that is to say, by the necessity of at all times under stress of competition, charging only what the traffic will bear. But while the value of service principle--charging according to demand in other words--applies at the competitive points, the other principle of relative cost should be the fundamental one in fixing upon the scale of local non-competitive rates.

The second phase of the problem of relativity arises in connection with classification.[156] How shall goods be graded in respect of their freight charges for identical services in carriage? Besides illustrating the interplay of the two fundamental principles, this topic serves also to clear up another possible confusion of terms. Proportioning transportation charges to the value of the service must always be clearly distinguished from basing them upon the mere value of the goods. Nothing is more certain than that no direct causal relation between freight rates and the intrinsic value of commodities is traceable. On wire the freight rate between two given points may be about one-fourth of the commercial value; on sheet iron one-third; on lumber somewhat more, and on hay two-fifths; while on cattle and hogs the freight rate may range as low as one-tenth to one-eighth of their commercial value. On coal, on the other hand, the freight rate often more than equals the price of the coal at the mine, and on very low grade commodities like bricks, the transportation charges may equal two or even three times the worth of the goods.[157] For each locality or even direction, these percentages will change. Positive reasons for these varying relationships are discernible in local trade conditions. While in general cheap goods are rated lower; if for any reason--bulkiness or risk--they cost relatively more to transport, they may very properly be advanced in grade. Normally, raw products move at lower rates than finished products--for instance, wheat and flour or cattle and beef. This is in accord with charging what the traffic will bear in relation to value. But in the making of export rates, it may be to the interest of the carrier to reverse this order, actually according to the finished product the lower rate, thereby encouraging the development of manufactures at home rather than abroad.[158] Classification committees and regulative commissions are thus compelled to waver between the two opposing considerations of cost and value. One cannot avoid the conclusion, however, that, contrary to the usual rule, in this field of classification undue weight is often accorded by railway managers to that small element of total cost of service arising from risks of damage in transit--insurance cost, in other words--to the neglect of the financially more important consideration of what the traffic will bear. This emphasis upon the cost side of the account by classification committees, oddly enough is peculiarly characteristic of ratings in the higher class commodities. Among low grade goods, like grain, lumber or coal, the risk of damage is small, so that insurance cost becomes almost negligible. The insistent consideration among these low grade commodities is much more apt to be that of relative demand; arising from the necessity of close and constant adjustment to the behests of trade. Special or commodity rates, based directly upon what the traffic will bear, rather than upon the element of cost, are likely to prevail in these cases. But the very large revenue which could be obtained from increasing the rates upon the higher grade of goods seems not to be fully appreciated.

A valuable instance of the play of opposing considerations of cost and value of service in the classification of freight rates is afforded by the complaint in 1908 of the pulp paper makers in Wisconsin, already cited in another connection.[159] It appeared that for similar service over the same roads, the rates per carload on saw logs for lumber were only about one-half those charged for carriage of logs to be ground into paper pulp. Judged on the basis of commercial value, hemlock and spruce bolts, too short and often otherwise unfit for lumber, were worth much less than saw logs; and yet they paid double the freight rates. This was not because the pulp wood was less desirable as traffic. In many ways it was more so. The haul was twice as long as for saw logs. The paper mills brought relatively more supplementary tonnage in the form of coal, food stuffs and supplies for workmen and their families. Fully as much of the finished product to be reshipped to consumers resulted. While smaller in volume, the pulp wood business was far more permanent. It was growing rapidly while the lumber business was declining. Moreover, the actual cost of service in hauling pulp wood was fully as low as for lumber logs. Carloads were much heavier, and were more regular in movement. In practice they involved no milling-in-transit obligation, that is to say, no obligation to re-ship the finished paper out over the same road; while all the saw log rates carried this obligation--a matter of some moment to the railways. And finally the value of the service to shippers of pulp wood was less than to mere lumbermen; in other words, the paper makers were operating under closer margins of profit; their plants were more costly, and depreciated more rapidly. The defence of the carriers in this case was not that the rates on pulp wood were too high in themselves, but that the rate on saw logs was perhaps unduly low--the latter having been crowded down to a minimum figure by competition in the early days of the business by the lumber raftsmen who floated the saw logs downstream from the forest to the saw mills. But of equal importance probably in perpetuating the higher rates on pulp logs, was the assumption that while the value of the bolts themselves was perhaps even less than that of saw logs, the value of the resultant product, paper, was much greater than that of lumber. But the Wisconsin Railroad Commission, in entire harmony with the principle repeatedly laid down by the Federal commission, held that the carriers must be guided by real distinctions of cost from a transportation standpoint and not by gradations of value. If the goods were bulky, awkward, or risky to handle, perhaps requiring special appliances or equipment, relatively high classification was permissible. But if they were substantially similar for purposes of carriage, no gradation in rates based upon differences in the ultimate uses to which the commodity might be put would be upheld. Such was the reasoning of the Interstate Commerce Commission in a decision, holding that fire, building and paving brick must be accorded equal rates, regardless of their differing values.[160] That the element of value is, however, not negligible is brought out in a later Federal case,[161] wherein it was recommended that cheap china, to be given away as premiums in the tea trade, be rated nearer ordinary crockery or earthenware, even though shipped in the same manner as high grade china ware. Under the official classification, chinaware is rated first class if in boxes, and second class in casks. Earthenware or crockery is carried at twenty per cent, less than third class, in small packages (L. C. L.). On the basis of mere cost of service, it would seem as if boxes of chinaware should have a lower rating than casks. Boxes stow better than casks, with less risk of breakage. But the commercial practice being to ship the finer grades of chinaware in boxes, such shipments are graded higher because the traffic will usually bear a higher rate. Thus considerations of cost of service yield to those of value. The Interstate Commerce Commission, however, noting the exceptional circumstances under which the tea company distributed its cheap chinaware, recommended a revision of the classification to meet the needs of the case; in other words ordering a greater emphasis upon the elements of the value of the service, even at the expense of relative cost of operation.

Our final conclusion, then, must be this: That both principles are of equal importance; and that both must be continually invoked as a check upon each other. The tendency to the elevation of cost of service to a position of priority--rather characteristic of regulative bodies and of legislators--is no less erroneous than the marked disposition of railway managers to insist upon the universal applicability of the principle of charging what the traffic will bear. Neither will stand the test of reasonableness alone. Whether the one or the other should take precedence can only be determined by a careful study of the circumstance and conditions in each case; and in practice, the instances where either principle becomes of binding effect to the entire exclusion of the other, are extremely rare.

FOOTNOTES:

[119] 13 I.C.C. Rep., 319. The general investigation of wool rates is another admirable instance. 23 _Idem_, 151.

[120] Wisconsin Railroad Commission, 1908. _Cf._ p. 181, _infra_.

[121] The diverse interests to be reconciled must also include the lumbering centres once "next the stump," but now placed at a relative disadvantage. The Eau Claire lumber case [reprinted in Railway Problems, pp. 203-233] should be read in this connection.

[122] The remarkable rise of the sash, door and blind industry in the South, as prejudiced by comparison with Chicago under an outworn schedule of rates, is given in 23 I.C.C. Rep., 110.

[123] On the parity cases, consult Hammond, Railway Rate Theories, etc., 1911, pp. 120 and 149.

[124] 14 I.C.C. Rep., 1-74 and Ann. Rep. I.C.C., 1911, p. 46. The later judicial history will be found at p. 543, _infra_.

[125] P. 489, _infra_.

[126] Rates must not vary with profits. 13 I.C.C. Rep., 429; and consistently held ever since.

[127] Arbitration of Cotton Rates, etc., Nov. 15 and 16, 1900; pamphlet arguments of Southern v. Illinois Central Railways. Wool rates are the same. 23 I. C. C. Rep., 151.

[128] This was the gist of the complaint in the Cincinnati Freight Bureau case; pp. 248, 392 and 588, _infra_.

[129] Chapters XI and XIX, _infra_.

[130] Now covered by law since 1910. Pp. 512 and 571, _infra_.

[131] Pp. 324 and _infra_.

[132] Senate Committee on the Transportation Interests of the United States and Canada, 1890, p. 362.

[133] 9 Int. Com. Rep., 318; in our Railway Problems, chap. XVII.

[134] Hammond, Railway Rate Theories, etc., 1911, p. 82, cites cases.

[135] Chapter VIII, _infra_.

[136] 5 Int. Com. Rep., 264; in our Railway Problems, chap. VIII.

[137] _Cf._ p. 255 _et seq., infra_.

[138] A carload of bamboo steamer chairs from San Francisco to New York for $9.40 in the course of a rate war, would seem to be rather below bed-rock. 21 I. C. C. Rep., 349.

[139] _Quarterly Journal of Economics_, V, 1891, pp. 438-65; reprinted in Railway Problems, chap. V.

[140] _Cf._ Int. Com. Reports, 1903, p. 436.

[141] The Hepburn Committee testimony in 1879, p. 2893, is eloquent upon this aspect of the question.

[142] 1st Annual Report, I.C.C., 1888. _Cf._ Strombeck, Freight Classification, pp. 35-60.

[143] C., N. O. & T. P. case, testimony, vol. II, pp. 332-333.

[144] _Cf._ The Freight Rate Primer, bearing no authors or publishers name, but largely compiled from addresses by President W. C. Brown of the New York Central & Hudson River. Similar arguments and computations occur in the testimony before the Senate (Elkins) Committee of 1905, pp. 1162 and 2276.

[145] Now who will say that it is unreasonable to charge 7-1/2 cts. to carry a suit of clothes from Chicago to New York.... Railways could charge three or four times the cost of transportation for a pair of drawers and the rates would still be reasonable.... But all the first-class rates are of that nature.--Albert Fink, testimony, C., N. O. & T. P. case, p. 290.

[146] Senate (Elkins) Committee, 1905, p. 1162.

[147] In _re_ Proposed Advances in Freight Rates, I.C.C., April 1, 1903.

[148] An interesting illustration of such determination of separable or extra cost was the computation by which the movement expenses of a train load of 50 cars of grain, 80,000 lbs. to the car, from Buffalo to New York were fixed at $520. I. C. C. Reports, 1903, p. 397. Or again in the estimation of the costs of operation in the express service from New Orleans to Kansas City in the banana trade. I. C. C. Rep., No. 1235, 1908. The able Wisconsin Railroad Commission has carefully studied a number of such cases, notable in its Two-Cent Fare decision of 1906.

[149] _Cf._ Tunell, Railway Mail Service, Chicago, 1901.

[150] Personal correspondence.

[151] Details in vol. II.

[152] 13 I.C.C. Rep., 357.

[153] 5 I.C.C. Rep., 299.

[154] On raisins compared with citrus fruits: 22 I.C.C. Rep., 1.

[155] Interstate Commerce Commission, No. 797.

[156] More in detail in chap. IX.

[157] Senate (Elkins) Committee, 1905, testimony of Mr. Bird, Traffic Manager of the St. Paul road. This is best measured, of course, by revenue per ton mile, chap. XII, _infra_.

[158] Flour _v._ wheat, p. 135, _supra_.

[159] P. 148, _supra_.

[160] More in detail at p. 318, _infra_. Also Hammond, Rate Theories of the I. C. C., 1911, p. 32.

[161] U. P. Tea Co.; I.C.C. Rep., No. 1569, 1908.