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Updated: May 10, 2025
I ask this legislation not only in the interest of the public but in the interest of the honest railroad man and the honest shipper alike, for it is they who are chiefly jeoparded by the practices of their dishonest competitors. This legislation should be enacted in a spirit as remote as possible from hysteria and rancor.
In my own case, each Treasury agent declared the other "could not" do the things which had been done. In consequence of the inharmony of the "regulations," the most careful shipper would frequently find his goods under seizure, from which they could generally be released on payment of liberal fees and fines.
The colonial producer, the British merchant and shipper were certainly harassed, and trade was dislocated; but, as Mollien observed, commerce soon adapted itself to altered conditions; and merchants never parted with their wares without getting hard cash or resorting to the primitive method of barter.
Those who complain of the management of the railways allege that established rates are not maintained; that rebates and similar devices are habitually resorted to; that these preferences are usually in favor of the large shipper; that they drive out of business the smaller competitor; that while many rates are too low, many others are excessive; and that gross preferences are made, affecting both localities and commodities.
It is unfortunate that our present laws should forbid all combinations, instead of sharply discriminating between those combinations which do good and those combinations which do evil. Often railroads would like to combine for the purpose of preventing a big shipper from maintaining improper advantages at the expense of small shippers and of the general public.
It is necessary that the transportation of troops and of war materials, of food and of fuel, and of everything that is necessary for the full mobilization of the energies and resources of the country, should be first considered, but it is clearly in the public interest also that the ordinary activities and the normal industrial and commercial life of the country should be interfered with and dislocated as little as possible, and the public may rest assured that the interest and convenience of the private shipper will be as carefully served and safeguarded as it is possible to serve and safeguard it in the present extraordinary circumstances.
He had been for years a successful breeder and shipper of live-stock, in which vocation he had become well-to-do. On his farm he was forceful and efficient, treading his fields like an admiral his quarter-deck. About town he was given to talking horses and cattle with the groups which frequented the stables and blacksmith-shops, and sometimes grew a little noisy and boisterous with them.
All that the shipper had to do was to wait while the companies underbid each other, each in turn cutting off a slice from the margin of profit that would result from the carrying of the traffic until, not infrequently and in some notorious cases, not only was that margin entirely whittled away but the traffic was finally carried at a figure which meant a heavy loss to the carrier.
"Yes, we don't handle property in the thousands every day in the week." "But the company is responsible only up to fifty dollars, when they don't pay excess." "That doesn't satisfy the shipper if there is any loss. I feel we ought to be extra careful until we get a new office with proper safeguards, and that expensive outfit staying here all night worries me. Up hoist!"
For salt provisions, there is a considerable demand in China, among the European shipping that visit its ports: they must, however, be cheaper in Sydney than they were in my time, to answer the purpose of even a remittance. If these prices will remunerate the Sydney shipper, he may try his luck as soon as he likes; but he must not send an inferior article: if he does, he will sink his capital.
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