ven product of steel in the same
time and with less cost of material than it took ten men ten years ago
to accomplish. A ton of steel can now be made with 5,000 pounds of coal,
while it required twice that quantity in 1868. When it is considered
that rails and tires made of steel last three times as long as those
made of iron, permit greater speed, carry a much larger weight, and
require less repairs, the importance to the railroad interests of the
improvements made in the manufacture of steel can hardly be
overestimated. Similar reductions have been made in the car and machine
shops. An average train to-day probably costs no more than one-half as
much as it did twenty years ago. Mr. Wells, in the work just mentioned,
says:

"In 1870-'71 one of the leading railroads of the
Northwestern United States built 126 miles, which, with some
tunneling, was bonded for about $40,000 per mile. The same
road could now (1889) be constructed, with the payment of
higher wages to laborers of all classes, for about $20,000
per mile."

A great saving has also been made in the consumption of coal. Under
favorable circumstances a loaded freight car can now be propelled a mile
with one pound of coal. A similar economy of fuel has, through the
improvement of their engines, been effected in ocean steamers. The
invention of the compound engine has reduced the expense of running
about one-half, while it has doubled the room left for the cargo. The
statement has recently been made that a piece of coal half as large as a
walnut, when burned in the compound engine of a modern steamboat, drives
a ton of food and its proportion of the ship one mile on its way to a
foreign port.

Furthermore, the invention of the air-brake has materially reduced the
number of train men formerly necessary to safely manage a train, just as
the introduction of steam-hoisting and other machines, both upon docks
and vessels, has greatly decreased the number of men employed upon the
mercantile marine.

There is certainly much similarity between the railroad and the
steamboat as agencies of transportation. Whatever fuel and labor-saving
causes operate on one must necessarily operate upon the other. When we,
therefore, find that the ocean rates are only from one-third to
one-fourth of what they were thirty years ago, we are justly surprised
to see railroad rates maintained as high as they are. Operating expenses
have been greatly redu