sideration by those who now make the numerous laws, rates, rules, and regulations affecting the railroads. There should be enough margin of profit in the business so that at all times and places there will be this “readiness to serve.” The third difference is that manufacturers have some control over their prices. In times of a great demand for any article they can and do increase their unit prices, and in poor times they are at liberty to reduce them to encourage trade, with no fear that later on they will be forbidden by the Government to advance them. They can meet competition and take on extra business without cutting their entire scale of prices. In the railroad business an excessive demand not only brings no increase in the unit price, but legislatures and commissions, which have practically taken charge of the management of the railroads (except the responsibility of their finances), more and more take the view that an increasing demand justifies lower prices, thus reversing the old-fashioned law of supply and demand.
The so-called railroad question has been
