A Lesson To Railroad

Railroad presidente and railroad stockholders have had many inteiesting "objeci teeeons" sinco 1893. Tttity aro nat quite so ready now to say taiat the tariff lias nothing to do wiih the railroad business. They thought it liad not, though, in 1892. Hun tlicy wère expecttag to order more emgines and moi-o ireight cars ao ae to be ablé to supply the demand of snippers of farm stuff as soon aa they begon to rush their producís íorward in tlie effort to capture the markets of the world. Xliat breach in the wall oï Protection was to let farmers get their Btuïf out oí the country, and the railroads were ready to baul it to the seaboard so that it might lose no time in getting out and, incidentally paying ireight bilis. There is, everywhere, a signiiicant silence nou' as to how the inarkels nero captured. Let us tiy and ïatli0111 the mystery. Here is a table showing the total receipts oL graln at Atlantic seaboard towns iroin '92 to '95 : FOBEIGN GOLD MOVEMENT AT NEW YORK. Excess of Yenr. Exp.irts. Imports. KxporUs. 1886-. . $J9.:262 S38 $.(i,n",(io7 f78,144,601 IS.. lUl21,875 l,Vl,VM 81,uu,;tól Tolals. Í2U1.U.,73 í.(i,T3S.0t)l, Slöl,o-I4,sö2 A drop oï 123,000,000 busliels withlm a couple of years must have eidesidetracked niany a íreisht car and rueted many an engine. Xo wonder that 'JG,000 railroad hands were laid Oif in 1894. The tariff muy liave nolhing to do wlth the railroad ■business diroctly, but it is mighty signi.icant that an average of IÜ4.400,000 bushels of grain were hauled to Atlantic seaboard during the two years of Protection, 1892 and 1893, while the average was only 157,000,000 during the two yea: of democratie admiiiistration. And this does not show the smaller quamtlty hauled to our home market points in 1894 and 1895 owing to the lighter consumptiioin. Nor does it take any account of a couple of million barrels less ilour hauled to Atlantic seaboard becauee reciptocity had been a fraud and was abolisïied. Honestly, now, Messrs. Railroad Presidents and Stockholders, don't you think it would be a pretty good move to build up that wall of protection agaia and to have a íew more reciprocity treaties, instead of letting our foreign trade transactions result for the benefit of the foreigners and against ourselves?