Chapter XI

SPECIAL RATE PROBLEMS: THE SOUTHERN BASING POINT
SYSTEM; TRANSCONTINENTAL RATES; PORT
DIFFERENTIALS, ETC.

Contrast between the basing point and trunk line
systems, 380.--Natural causes in southern
territory, 381.--Economic dependence, 381.--Wide-spread
water competition, 382.--High level of rates, 382.--The
basing point system described, 383.--Its economic
defences, 384.--Early trade centres, 384.--Water
competition once more, 385.--Three types of
basing point, 387.--Purely artificial ones
exemplified, 388.--Different practice among
railroads, 390.--Attempts at reform, 391.--Western
_v._ eastern cities, 391.--Effect of recent industrial
revival, 392.--The Texas group system, 393.--An outcome
of commercial rivalry, 394.--Local competition of trade
centres, 395.--Possibly artificial and unstable, 395.--The
transcontinental rate system, 395.--High level of
charges, 396.--Water competition, 396.--Carload
ratings and graded charges, 398.--Competition
of jobbing centres, 398.--Canadian
differentials, 400.--"Milling-in-transit" and similar
practices, 401.--"Floating Cotton," 402.--"Substitution of
tonnage," 403.--Seaboard differentials, 403.--Historically
considered, 403.--The latest decision, 403.--Import and
export rates, 404-409.

CHAPTER XII

THE MOVEMENT OF RATES SINCE 1870; RATE WARS

Contrast before and after 1900, 411.--Revenue per
ton mile data, 412.--Their advantages and
defects, 414.--Nature of the traffic, 416.--Low-grade
traffic increasing, 416.--Growing diversification of
tonnage, 418.--Present conditions illustrated, 419.--Length
of the haul, 421.--The proportion of local and through
business, 422.--Effect of volume of traffic, 424.--Proper
use of revenue per ton mile, 425.--Index of actual
rates, 426.--Its advantages and defects, 427.--Difficulty
of following rate changes since 1900, 427.--Passenger
fares, 429.--Freight rates and price movements, 430.

Improvement in observance of tariffs, 431.--Conditions
in the eighties, 432.--The depression of
1893-1897, 433.--Resumption of prosperity in
1898, 436.--The rate wars of 1903-1906, 438.--Threatened
disturbances in 1909-1911, 439.

CHAPTER XIII

THE ACT TO REGULATE COMMERCE OF 1887

Its general significance, 441.--Economic causes, 442.--Growth
of interstate traffic, 442.--Earlier Federal
laws, 443.--Not lower rates, but end of discriminations
sought, 443.--Rebates and favoritism, 445.--Monopoly
by means of pooling distrusted, 446.--Speculation
and fraud, 447.--Local discrimination, 448.--General
unsettlement from rapid growth, 449.--Congressional history
of the law, 450.--Its constitutionality, 451.--Summary
of its provisions, 452.--Its tentative
character, 453.--Radical departure as to rebating, 454.