I

T is a plain fact that tariff revision, the need of which is considered sufficiently urgent to justify an extraordinary session of Congress, is of vastly less importance than the improvement of the waterways of the country-a matter which was denied consideration by the last Congress and has no guarantee of consideration by the next.

Transportation affects commerce and industry far more fundamentally, vitally, and continuously than does the tariff. Some things the tariff does not touch at all-every tariff law puts a greater or less number of articles upon the free list. But the free list on a schedule of transportation rates is shorter than the famous chapter on snakes in Iceland.

Congress has the power, if it should so elect, to abolish the tariff entirely and admit all imports free-but no decree could make transportation free. In com

mon speech we say that supplies for sufferers from some great disaster are transported free, just as we say the sun rises. Relief supplies may be carried free of charge, but not free of cost. What really happens when such supplies are carried "free" is that some railway or steamboat company donates the cost of their transportation-for cost, in connection with transportation, is as inevitable as is the natural law of gravitation in the physical world.

Tariff dues are paid but once, but transportation taxes industry and commerce, not once, but many times, adding to the cost at every stage from the initial production of raw material until the finished article is placed in the hands of the ultimate consumer.

In the United States there is no tariff on exports or on inter-State commerce, but transportation lays a tax on both which is

equivalent, as to some articles, to a prohibitory duty.

The tariff affects some people and some things part of the time; transportation affects everybody and everything, everywhere and all the time.

Transportation is the essential factor in both industry and commerce, for unless transportation is available, production in excess of the most elementary personal needs is useless, and commerce is impossible. But the cost of transportation, although in the United States it is neither levied by governmental authority nor collected by governmental agency, is nevertheless a tax, which must be paid either by the producer or the consumer, or, as is most commonly the case, divided between the two. It is, therefore, to the interest of both producer and consumer that this transportation tax be kept as low as possible. And since every man, woman, and child is either a producer or a consumer, or both, this question of cost of transportation sustains a direct and vital relation to the prosperity of every individual citizen-and to the progress of communities, states, and nations, all of which are organized aggregations of individuals. This brings us naturally to a consideration

of the cost of transportation by various methods.

The experts of the Agricultural Department estimate the cost of transporting a ton of freight a distance of one mile by horse and wagon on the average road in the United States at twenty-five cents. In England, where the roads are much better than most of those in this country, and where much attention has been given to the development of what the English call a steam lorry and we would call a steam truck, it is said that goods can be carried for five cents per ton-mile.

According to Poor's Manual, the average price received by all the railways of the United States for the calendar year 1907 was 7 and 82-100 mills per ton mile, but a group of railways can be selected on which the average would be about five mills.

On the Erie Canal in recent years the ton-mile rate has been about three mills, while on certain canals in Europe, which are deeper and on which electric or other mechanical systems of haulage are used, the rate is two mills.

The official records kept at "The Soo" show that the average rate on the freight carried into and out of Lake Superior in 1907 was 8-10ths of one mill per ton mile,

while the rate on coal from Buffalo to Duluth-Superior was only 1-3 of one mill; and the Pittsburgh Coal Exchange is authority for the statement that great quantities of coal have been carried from that city to New Orleans at the same rate. These are microscopic figures, and the non-technical reader will more readily grasp their meaning if they are translated into terms with which he is more familiar.

Suppose we have a ton of freight to ship and a dollar with which to pay for its shipment-how far will the dollar carry the ton by these different rates of transportation? By horse and wagon, 4 miles; by English steam truck, 20 miles; by rail, at the average rate for United States railways in 1907, 127 1-2 miles; at the rate on the group of selected railways, 200 miles; on the Erie Canal, 333 miles; on the European canals, 500 miles; by lake, at the average rate through the "Soo"

Canal in 1907, 1,250 miles; while at the rate at which coal has been carried both on the Great Lakes and on the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, the ton of freight can be shipped 30 miles for a cent, 300 miles for a dime, 3,000 miles for a dollar.

The differences in the rates of transportation by different methods seem to be sufficiently great to be worthy of serious consideration. But there is more in this matter than has yet been made apparent. Taking any point as a center-each reader can imagine his own town to be the central point-over how great a territory will a dollar carry a ton by these different methods of transportation? By horse and wagon, over a circle 8 miles in diameter; by English steam truck the diameter of the circle is 40 miles; by average United States railway it is 255 miles; by the selected railways, 400 miles; by Erie Canal, 666 miles; by certain European