The Evening Star TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 1875.

Evening Star, Issue 3924, 21 September 1875, Page 2

The Evening Star TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 1875.

Ihe repeated complaints of the lightermen respecting the dues to which they are subjected, is one of the best tests to Which the successful working of our railways could be subjected. They complain that the railway is conveying certain classes of goods or a certain class of merchandise at so low a rate that they cannot compote with it. It is a very difficult matter to convince men whose profits are interfered with, that in the development of society they* must expect to have to contend with arrangements resulting from advancing knowledge, and that however profitable tho employment in which they are engaged was when first they devoted their time to if;, a more economical application of motive power may lessen, if not altogether annihilate the demand for their services. ; At first sight it seems very hard that ■ any of our friends and acquaintances .; should have their incomes reduced by j competition. It is by no means pleasant to have a nice little monopoly, enjoyed for some twenty years or so, broken into by some one whose capital and appliances have enabled him to sell at half th« price that has hitherto

been charged. Drapers, grocers, and tradesmen of all classes have often been annoyed by some adventurous beginner in the same trade opening shop next door to them. In a general way, it is said, both flourish the better for their close neighborhood; that, as a general rule, may be doubted. But of this there is no doubt, that the public are gainers by the check thus given to monopoly prices. Only in this respect, however, does the analogy hold good in regard to the competition between the lighters and the railway. The lighter owners at present are placed in a position more nearly analogous to the handloom weavers whose vocation was superseded by the power loom. They deserved and obtained sympathy ; but there was no help for their having to change their employment or work at reduced wages. But what was the result] The cost of production was lessened, men who once could only afford to have one coat a year indulged in two, and men to whom previously a new coat waß a luxury they could not afford, were enabled to clothe themselves like their more fortunate neighbors. Although the price was less, the demand increased so much that a far larger number of persons were engaged in the manufacture at better wages. The few suffered —the many were great gainers. A still more striking analogy is afforded m the results of the railway system ot Europe and America. The luxury of travelling through transit being cheap has been enjoyed by tens of millions, who could never have stirred from home had the only means of conveyance beon. the stage coach or the stage waggon. Both those modes of locomotion are practi cally annihilated, yet there is a greater demand than ever before for horses and drivers. So far as goods are concerned, canal proprietors expected to have their boats idle and to lose their revenues; but the result has proved that, the ability to maintain a larger population on the same space through increased demand for labor owing to cheapening production by mechanical means, has given remunerative employment to oanal traffic as. well as railroads. Though the shoe pinches very hard on board our lighters at the moment, when the railway system is in full operation there will be room enough for the foot. Owners of lighters are just now desiring to counteract the very means of increasing demand for carriage, by seeking to keep up prices, or by receiving a share of profits in the shape of a subsidy from the public ; for such would be the practical result of a remission of rates. The public, for general benefit, have invested heavily in two classes of social machinery—a railway and harbor improvement. The railway, to fulfil its intention, requires harbor facilities, and these given tend to make the railway investment payable. Now, although the railway is managed by the Government, and the harbor by a Board, they are not therefore competing establishments, but form each a part of the public machinery intended to develop to the utmost the trading facilities of the Port. On this cheapening, the very success of the investments depend, for by that process alone can trade be increased. Yet immediately on the arrangements beginning to produce the intended effect, those whose profits are diminished through employes bygone appliances, ask the trustees of one department of the public trust to help to diminish the profit of the other department by giving them a bonus to enable them to compete with its carrying trade. We have no wish to prevent the owners of lighters from receiving every consideration they are entitled to. We should even advocate a very liberal interpretation of their claims, if they have good grounds for them ; but if the Harbor Board increases the trading facilities of the Port, the lighter-owners will share in them, and reap equal if not superior benefit from them to any other class of carriers. They must see, however, that it is scarcely consistent for the Harbor Board to undo that which is done by the railway. There is no profit in taking money out of one pocket and putting it into another. The time spent in so doing is so much loss. Such a process is best described uw a house divided against itself. Harbor paying compensation for railway competition is " public v. public " : a syste. m of protection by which the few ga vin at the cost of the many. New Zea land will never prosper by such a s of doing and undoing.