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country, wherever that protection is not afforded by unrestricted competition. But I object to two features of the report of the conference committee, because I regard those features as intended to strike down and deprive the people of the protection created by healthy competition and as calculated to raise and not to diminish the burden which the railroads already have placed upon the commerce of the country. If this legislation be defeated, the gentlemen are responsible who will not do all the good which this bill contemplates except upon condition that they also may be permitted to do what seems to some of us unmistakably and clearly evil.

It was said the other day by the Senator from Tennessee [Mr. HARRIS] that the Senate might take it for granted that if this conference report were recommitted or rejected nothing could be accomplished. Well, I do not see upon what the Senator from Tennessee'based that statement. I suppose it is not proper to speak of the proceedings of the House of Representatives. But I may say that I have read in a publication upon our table that there is a body somewhere which considered this bill, nearly one-half of which preferred the original Senate bill without these amendments. There was only 24 majority for the present proposition. In other words, there was a majority of only 24 for the changes in legislation which were proposed by the majority of that assembly, and I am informed on very high authority indeed that a very considerable number of those 24 have already changed their mind. Now, does anybody believe, if the question were stated to the members of that assembly whether they would accomplish everything that the original Senate bill proposed to accomplish, or nothing, that they would insist on a demand to have these objectionable clauses retained? No, Mr. President; the question is not between this conference report or nothing. The question is between the bill as it was framed and adopted by the Senate and passed by a majority, including all, I think, but four members of this body, and inserting, against the original opinion of the Senate, of clauses which some of the great interests of the country feel will be fatal to their prosperity and to their very existence.

There are four great objects which this bill accomplishes which I heartily favor. It extends the common law--which does not exist in our national jurisprudence without affirmative legislation, as the Supreme Court has decided-to interstate commerce. It establishes the great principle of reasonableness-to be enforced by law, by judges and juries, and other tribunals that may be created, as the rule to prevail everywhere between the carrier and the customer.

Second. It establishes a commission, a constant supervisory national authority, which has worked so favorably wherever the experiment has been tried in the States.

Third. It requires publicity. It lets in the daylight on every transaction between the carrier and the customer.

Fourth. It prohibits unjust discrimination, whether that discrimination be between persons or between places or between transporting lines.

Mr. President, the opposition to this report does not come from railroad managers principally or originally. I have received many letters and many communications on this subject, and of these all but two have come from persons not interested in railroads, and one of these was from the receiver of a bankrupt railroad, who is heartily in favor of this report. It comes from men who are alarmed lest under its operation the rates at which they are now able to do large and profitable

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branches of business must be raised, and must be raised to the ruin of that business.

Now, what have we been aiming at in our public policy in this country? We withstood the whole railroad clamor of this country two years ago in order to improve our rivers and harbors, that competition with the water-ways might enable our Western farmers to send their grain to Europe.

The Western farmer in this new business, which, within the past fifteen years, this railroad policy at which this deadly blow is now aimed, has created, has become a merchant, whose competitors are on the Ganges and the Bosphorus. The problem of our statesmen to-day is to maintain the Western farmer in comfort, in honor, and in wealth by a business in which he is to underbid the naked Oriental, fed on rice and living on 3 cents a day; in which he is to underbid a producer, the subject of the power which is to be his principal customer-a power which is pouring out its wealth by the hundred and the thousand million in order to compete with our through transportation of wheat and corn and pork to the English market. What is to happen under the policy which has grown up within the last twenty years?

We have got at this moment the best and cheapest railroad service on the face of the earth, with all its inconveniences, with all its imperfections. Suppose that with $7,500,000,000-I think that is the capital invested in railroads-it is quite likely that in a free country, especially one peopled by the English race, whose constitutional privilege and whose constant delight is grumbling, we may hear complaints of wrongs and injustice; but we have got, as the statistics show, at this moment the best, cheapest, most reliable, most convenient railroad service on the face of the globe.

The result has been a balance of trade continually in our favor for the past ten years, a thing never known in the history of this Government before, and I think never known in the history of any government for so long a period of time together before-a thing which the writers on economy declare to be impossible in the nature of things to be maintained by any one country for any large period of time; and yet this balance of trade by the very business which you are now striking at by this conference report has been maintained in our favor during all these years.

I wish, among many objections to this report, to occupy my time in pressing upon the attention of the Senate one, and one only. It is to a provision which, while it will affect railroads, strikes a fatal blow at the commerce of the great State and the great city that honor me with their confidence, and whom I represent in this Chamber. It injures, In my opinion, all parts of the country.

The exports of Boston have gone up from $10,000,000 in 1859 to $61,000,000 in 1885. It was $72,000,000 in 1881, the apparent reduction being chiefly due to the decline of prices, and not to the diminution of quantity. The imports, which, of course, the exports largely createfor the ships that carry out sixty or seventy million of products from Boston Harbor to Europe will not come back empty-were $53,000,000 in 1885. It is the second port in the country in its foreign commerce. It exceeds New Orleans by $39,000,000; Philadelphia by $48,000.000; Baltimore by $69,000,000, in the total of imports and exports. In tonnage it is also the second port, having 1,152,415 tons burden entering from foreign ports, 975,495 clearing to foreign ports in 1885.

If you will look at the character of these exports it will be seen that they are very largely the products of sections of the country consid

erably more remote from Boston than from other important exporting cities, especially New York, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New Orleans, to say nothing of Montreal.

Among the exports of Boston for the year ending June 30, 1885,

were:

Wheat flour and wheat...

Indian corn and corn meal.

Cattle...

Raw cotton, gathered from North Texas, and Alabama, and Georgia, some of the sea island cotton, from South Carolina, goes that way to European markets).

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Value. $13,558, 070 2,465,566 5,399, 260

7,749.090 2,821, 327 663,496 11, 446 5,002,947 1,067, 706 669, 217 3,761, 264 327,629 370, 067 1,027, 064 78,792

44, 972, 941

There are $45,000,000 taken to Boston to be exported, nearly all of which is the product of regions more remote from Boston than from either of its three principal rivals on the eastern seaboard, and carried to Boston also largely in competition with the great trunk line of Canada. Upon these exports, as I have said, depends so much of the import trade as is due to the fact that the exporting vessels must have a return cargo, and which would otherwise go to other ports.

Upon this export trade depend great lines of steamships, which dispatched 498 steamers, two in every three days, to foreign ports in 1884-195 to Canada, 303 to Europe.

The men who have created and built up this business, the whole of it the product of about fifteen or twenty years at the outside, object to two provisions of this report.

One they say will destroy the cheapness of transport on which this commerce depends; the other, the pooling clause, will destroy the steadiness of the business by putting it out of the power of the railroads to prevent the railroad wars, and that constant fluctuation which is the destruction of all trade. Now as to the first they agree in the interpretation of this bill with the Senator from Mississippi. They understand, as he does and as the Senator from Tennessee does, and as the conferees on the part of the House do, that this bill provides that where the only distinction between the two places is that there is competition pressing upon the one and not upon the other, that does not constitute dissimilar circumstances and conditions within the meaning of the bill.

It is true my honored friend from Mississippi paid a high compliment to the business men of the country who manage this vast business interest, chosen mainly for their capacity and their trustworthiness by the owners of this $7,500,000,000. He thinks that by "tricks and maneuvers" they will undoubtedly nullify this bill. He does not think anything will come of it except a raising of the rates as the result.

Mr. GEORGE. Temporarily, I said.

Mr. HOAR. Now, Mr. President, I wish to call the attention of the Senate for five minutes or so, simply to see who makes the objection.

As I have said, it does not come from the railroad man, who wants to put up rates. It comes from the customer of the railroad, who wants to put them down, and who can not get on unless they are kept down, at least, to present prices. Here is the resolution of the United Transportation Committee of the various business associations in the city of Boston held January 3, 1887.

RESOLUTION OF UNITED TRANSPORTATION COMMITTEE.

At a meeting of the members of the transportation committee of the various business associations in the city of Boston, held January 3, 1887, the following resolution was passed:

Resolved, That in the opinion of the United Transportation Committee of Boston the bill known as the "Interstate-commerce bill," as reported by the conference committee, would seriously affect the business interests of Boston.

Voted, That the chairman of the United Transportation Committee be delegated to go to Washington to represent the committee and endeavor to secure such amendment of the bill as will protect the business interests of Boston. Business associations represented in committee:

New England Shoe & Leather Association, Boston Wholesale Grocers' Association, Boston Furniture Exchange, Boston Oil Trade Association, Boston Chamber of Commerce, Boston Merchants' Association

An association said to represent $350,000,000 capital, and of whom there is not a man, I suppose, whose interests are not in conflict with those of the railroads in this matter of transportation

-Boston Fruit & Produce Exchange, Boston Paper Trade Association, Drysalters' Club of New England, Earthenware & Glassware Association of Boston, Paint & Oil Club of New England.

Mr. President, when my honorable friend from Illinois, with all his ability, comes to the conclusion that he wants to diminish the railroad rates in this country, is not some little respect, after all, due to the opinions of men representing such interests as that, when they say that a certain measure will not only not reduce those rates to them, but it will raise them to a point which will prevent their business being able to live?

Here comes from another part of the country a similar remonstrance— from the Peoria Board of Trade of Illinois. It was read by the Senator from New York [Mr. EVARTS] yesterday, and I ask to put it in my remarks without reading it again.

SECRETARY'S OFFICE, PEORIA BOARD OF TRADE, Peoria, Ill., January 1, 1887. DEAR SIR: Your careful attention is requested to the inclosed resolutions recently passed by the directors of the Peoria Board of Trade.

While there is so much in the interstate-commerce bill that meets our approval, and while we fully appreciate the imperative necessity of reform in the conduct of the transportation business, still we feel that section 4 is so uncertain in its application that we are called upon to protest against it. If omitted from the bill enough of reform will yet remain to do vast good; and if, after investigation, the commission to be appointed find that the long-and-short-haul principle can be so applied as to work no injury, this feature can then be added by some future Congress.

Will you not aid us in our endeavor to secure what is of acknowledged benefit and avoid what is doubtful and unessential at the present time.

Respectfully yours,

W. H. BARTLETT, President.

PEORIA, ILL., December 30, 1886.

At a meeting of the directors of the Peoria Board of Trad, held this date, the following preamble and resolutions were unanimously adopted:

Whereas after mature and careful consideration of section 4, known as the "long-and-short-haul" clause of the interstate-commerce bill, now before Congress, it is the opinion of this board that the passage of the bill with the section mentioned will unsettle all business interests throughout the West; will depreciate the value of all farming lands west of the Middle States; will work directly in the interests of lake ports, lake transportation lines, Canadian roads, and the Eastern farmer: Therefore,

Be it resolved, That in the opinion of this board such radical and experimental legislation as contemplated by the section mentioned is not only uncalled for at the present time, but threatens widespread disaster to the most vital interests of the Western States.

Resolved, That the discretionary power given the commission to discriminate in the application of the long-and-short-haul" clause as between different localities will at the best afford only uncertain and long-delayed relief, and will be apt to add merely another element of uncertainty to the transportation problem:

And be it further resolved, That a copy of these resolutions be sent to the Senators and Representatives of this State, and that our Representative, Hon. N. E. WORTHINGTON, be requested to do all in his power to have the "long-and-shorthaul" clause eliminated from the bill before its passage.

W. H. BARTLETT, Presid n'.
SAMUEL WILKINSON, Secretary.

Here are the resolutions passed by the Boston Chamber of Commerce, by a nearly unanimous vote, on the report of its committee:

Hon. GEORGE F. HOAR:

BOSTON, January 12, 1887.

The following resolutions were passed by the Boston Chamber of Commerce to-day by a nearly unanimous vote:

Whereas the act reported by the conference committee known as the interstate-commerce bill is now pending before Congress for final action; and Whereas in the opinion of the Chamber of Commerce of Boston said act, if it become a law, will be detrimental to the business interests of Boston and New England: Therefore,

Be it resolved, That the rigid enforcement of sections 2 and 4 would, in the opinion of this association, so increase the rates on the "long haul" from the West to the seaboard that agricultural products could only be grown in the far West for home consumption, except those States bordering on the Great Lakes or having connection with the Grand Trunk or Canadian Pacific Railways, thereby tending to develop the business of the port of Montreal and the two above-named foreign corporations at the expense of our American seaboard ports and transportation companies.

Resolved. That the foreign steamship lines that have been established and continued upon the foundation of equality of inland rates with New York, would by the operations of the provisions of this bill suffer to such an extent as would lead to their withdrawal to other ports, and that such a result would be most disastrous to the business interests of Boston, placing our importers and shippers at great disadvantage as compared with other ports, and most seriously affecting the growth and prosperity of our city.

Resolved, That we respectfully urge our Senators and Representatives in Congress to use their influence in defeating this measure in its present form, and to endeavor to secure such amendments of the bill as will establish a permanant commission, whose business it would be, under suitable regulations, to supervise, in the interests of the public, all common carriers doing an interstate business. Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions be sent to the Senators and Representatives in Congress from Massachusetts.

H. B. GOODWIN,

President.

The Senator from Maine [Mr. FRYE] informs me that that was unanimonsly adopted by a viva voce vote.

Now, let us see what is the opinion of our friends in Canada in the present condition of things as to the working of the proposed law. I ask the Secretary to read here a dispatch from Halifax, Nova Scotia, dated December 3.

The Chief Clerk read as follows:

[Special to Boston Post, December 4, 1886.]

WANT LOWER RATES-SHREWD YANKEE MERCHANTS GET AHEAD OF THEIR CANADIAN BROTHERS.

HALIFAX, N. S., December 3. The dealers in breadstuffs here are making overtures to Saint John (N. B.) traders to protest against the action of the Grand Trunk and Canadian Pacific Railroads for increasing the freights on flour. Last August pressure was brought to bear on the minister of railways and a rebate freight of 10 cents allowed on every barrel. Two thousand barrels were reshipped to outports for the reason that the Michigan Central Railroad took Canadian flour in bond to Boston for 33 cents Merchants then shipped it to outports on the Southern shore of Nova Scotia and Cape Breton in schooners at a cost of 8 or 9 cents,

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