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DISCRIMINATIONS RESULTING FROM ALLOWANCES. That discriminations grow out of these contributions by the public carriers to certain of the lumber interests in Arkansas, Missouri, Texas, and Louisiana is apparent upon the face of the record. The allowances paid range from a minimum of three-quarters of a cent to 6 cents per 100 pounds. In the competition of carriers for the traffic allowances as high as 7 cents per 100 pounds have been paid out of a 14-cent rate, where the haul of the tap line was a matter of feet and yards while the haul of the carrier itself approximated 400 miles. The amount of the allowance seems not to be governed definitely by the extent or character of the service said to be performed by the tap line, but to result to some extent from the bargain made between the carrier and the lumber company. In one case a tap line, operating 6 miles of main line, receives allowances of 3 and 4 cents per 100 pounds, while a few miles away another tap line, operating 12 miles, receives but 1 to 2-1/2 cents per 100 pounds, depending upon destination; in each case the public carrier performs all the service between the mill and its own tracks. It did not appear that the controlling lumber companies, the real beneficiaries of the allowance, knew of the discrimination between them until the facts were developed on the hearing. Other instances appear of record where incorporated tap lines are receiving allowances that are less or greater than the allowances paid to other incorporated tap lines performing a service that is substantially similar in extent and character and under like conditions. A number of witnesses for tap lines expressed surprise at the hearing upon learning of the larger allowances paid to other tap lines. The three principal trunk lines whose tracks extend through the territory in question are the Kansas City Southern, the Iron Mountain, and the Rock Island. As illustrating the extent of the discrimination arising out of the payment of allowances to some tap lines and the failure to make allowances to others, it is well here to state that of 27 tap-line connections of the Kansas City Southern it makes allowances to 15, while 12 receive no allowances. The Iron Mountain has junctions with 90 tap lines, to 63 of which allowances are made; the other 27 have no allowances. The Rock Island is reached by 43 tap lines. Of this number it makes allowances to 33, leaving 10 without allowances. This was the condition existing at the time of the hearing.
This difference in the treatment by carriers of lumber companies owning incorporated tap lines is one form of discrimination, growing out of tap-line allowances. But there are also other forms. There is the discrimination involved in the payment of allowances to one lumber company through its incorporated tap line, while the same public carrier in the same territory refuses to make any allowance to another lumber company using a tap line that has not been incorporated, but where all the other conditions, as well as the extent of the service, the mileage, motive power, cost of operation, etc., are substantially similar. An instance of this kind is before us upon formal complaint in Docket No. 3878. This proceeding was brought by the Davis Brothers Lumber Company against the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railway Company and other carriers. The complainant company was included in our general investigation and the conditions under which it conducts its lumbering operations are shown of record and are explained upon its complaint. It appears that its plant and yearly output are much more extensive than those of many other lumber companies that are receiving allowances. It has 16 miles of tap line and 5 miles of logging spurs.
It operates 4 locomotives and uses 40 logging cars. It has a small amount of traffic for outsiders, a claim that can not be advanced by many of the incorporated tap lines that are receiving allowances. In its complaint it points out that all the lumber companies in this territory have long used logging roads to haul logs from their adjacent forests to their mills, and that these facilities have, until recent years, been regarded as mere adjuncts to their plants; that the Rock Island, on the pretense that tap lines become common carriers when incorporated, is making allowances to the competitors of the complainant, ranging from 2 to 3 cents per 100 pounds and even higher, while refusing such aid to the complainant which uses and always has used a logging road of the same kind, for the same purpose, and which it has operated at the same proportionate expense. A striking allegation in the complaint is that the Rock Island has offered to pay the complain-ant similar allowances if it would go through the form of incorporating its logging road as a common carrier, a device which the complainant regards as a mere evasion of the act, and to which it therefore has declined to resort. It is a device, however, which the record shows has been adopted by many lumber companies in this territory at the express suggestion of trunk lines which desired their traffic and advised the incorporation of their tap lines as a basis for legalizing allowances.
The tap lines that are not incorporated are operated in precisely the same way and for precisely the same purposes, so far as the proprietary lumber companies are concerned, as are the incorporated tap lines. Nevertheless the lumber companies that have not incorporated their tap lines must not only bear the entire burden of the cost of their operation but must share with the general shipping public the burden cast upon the rates by the large amounts paid by the trunk lines to lumber companies having incorporated tap lines. The aggregate figures are not available in this proceeding, but from a careful check of the information found on the record it has been estimated that the allowances paid through their incorporated tap lines to these lumber companies in Louisiana, Arkansas, and Texas amount to not less than a million and a half dollars annually. Were the facts accurately known it is said that a complete check would disclose an aggregate of from two million to three mil-lion dollars annually. Indeed, the assistant attorney-general of Louisiana, using figures prepared by the railroad commission of that state and relating to that state only, said on the argument:
The tap lines incorporated and operated as common carriers haul an annual tonnage of 4,061,876 tons of lumber. Assuming the average allowance paid the tap lines in Louisiana as 3 cents per 100 pounds, it may safely be estimated that the tap lines received $2,437,125 as divisions from their interstate freight rates with trunk lines. |
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