ights. This practice
is also modified by charging _what the traffic will bear_, and, on the
whole, a combination of the two ideas gives the most reasonable and the
fairest method of basing charges. Thus, a car filled with fine, crated
furniture, which is light and bulky, can afford a higher rate than one
filled with scrap-iron. Cars filled with grain, lumber, coal, or ore are
made up in train-loads, and form a part of the daily haul; they can
afford to be taken at a lower rate than the stuffs of which only an
occasional car-load is hauled. In order to adjust this problem it is
customary to divide freights into six general classes.

[Illustration: THE PROBLEM OF FREIGHT RATES]

In handling through freights the problems are many, and, if two or more
roads have the same terminal points, a great deal of friction of
necessity results. The longest roads must either make their through
rates lower than local rates between distant points, or lose much of
their through business. They cannot afford to do the latter and the
statutory laws may forbid the former. As a result the laws most likely
are evaded, or else openly disobeyed.[20]

The difficulties in adjusting the matter of the long and the short
haul, as has been shown, have caused the formation of pools and various
other traffic associations, the object of which has been to prevent
rate-wars. To this extent they resulted in positive good, for a
rate-war in the end is apt to be as hurtful to the community as to the
railway company. The attempt to settle such questions has also resulted
in a great deal of legislation. Some of this has been wise and good; but
not a little has been hurtful both to the railroads and to the
community. The general result is seen in the great combination of
competing lines and, more recently, of competing systems.

=Passenger Service.=--Passenger traffic is more easily managed than the
movement of freight. For the greater part the rates are fixed by law. On
a few eastern roads local rates are two cents per mile; in the main,
however, a three-cent rate prevails, except that in sparsely peopled
regions the rates are four and five cents per mile. On many roads
1,000-mile books are sold at the rate of twenty dollars; on some the
rate is twenty-five dollars per book.

Long-distance rates involving passage over several roads are somewhat
less than the local rates. These rates are determined by joint
passenger-tariff associations. Each individual road