object of this meeting should be to ascertain if there is any ground for that and act accordingly, and if there is no ground for it these commissioners should not do anything in fixing the rates. If there is any cause for that complaint, and if good cause cannot be shown there cannot be any reduction. I know the rate from Devils Lake and Neche. I have had that thrown at me a hundred times since I have occupied my present position that we have to pay three or four cents more a bushel for wheat from Devils Lake than from Neche. If we can find out by this meeting that there are no grounds for any change we can go home and explain that and show them the reason, and that would settle it, but if we can't, they won't listen to any excuse.

Mr. Hannaford: There is no question been asked the Northern Pacific where I have not explained it to them. Why the rates. from Fargo to Minneapolis are higher than Wahpeton there is a reason that any reasonable business man should meet today, is a good one, the one he applies to his own business.

Mr. Kleinogel: How much larger percentege would you figure the reasonable rate for the same distance from Fargo that you would say from St. Paul; how much larger per cent for twentyfive miles should you have for shipping goods out of Fargo and Grand Forks than out of St. Paul?

Mr. Hannaford: I can't answer that on the percentage basis. I will say the tariffs that exist from Fargo and from St. Paul were made after the most careful study of it and by the commissioners and railroad men and people connected with it. We thought it was as fair as could be; we have got to get a certain percentage out of the people of North Dakota.

Mr. Kleinogel: How much more business does the Milwaukee road do out of Winona than the Northern Pacific out of Fargo? Mr. Hannaford: I have not the remotest idea. I was only in Winona once, and then I went to a base ball match.

Mr. Kleinogel: You would not know what the increase of per centage would be out of Fargo or what they should be out of Winona on the Milwaukee?

Mr. Newman: In distributing out of Winona they have to go fifty or sixty miles west to a distributing point and they carry that rate right into that station. In distributing the Northwestern has to make an exceedingly low rate.

Mr. Wiley: The complaint has come to the business men of the state and the farmers think there should be a re-adjustment of

rates. The business of the state increases year by year and as that business increases they can give us lower rates. We have not had a re-adjustment of the rates on grain out of the state for several years and that business has increased very largely. The business can't increase unless the farmers are prosperous. The farmers, with the low price of wheat, find they can't live and pay the rates they have been paying and for that reason they think there should be a re-adjustment along that line. The only complaints that have come to the Business Men's Union is that there should be a re-classification of goods. For instance, cotton goods that we pay, the same rates on from St. Paul that we do on silks, where from eastern points the rates are different on that class of goods. Then this question has always been suggested: Why can't we get carload rates on a car load of goods. When a mixed lot of merchandise from St. Paul, and the merchants frequently buy more, but they must pay local freight on everything even though they have more than a carload of goods and we wonder why that is so.

Mr. Newman: We go on the same principle that you do, that you practically buy from the jobbers of the state.

Mr. Hannaford: You say that the railroad companies' business has increased. The Northern Pacific company did in 1892 the biggest business it has ever done, and never since that has it come anywhere near making the same figure.

Mr. Wiley: The crops have not been very good for the last four or five years.

Mr. Newman: Mr. Wiley; Let me explain one thing on cotton. goods; here the freight comes as first class the same as any other class of dry goods because there are many articles in dry goods, but the reason the reduction to third class on the eastern lines is the competition of the mills of New England had to go south to get the raw cotton and ship it to their mills and then west in competition with the southern states shipping direct. That is simply a competition on the commodity being manufactured in two different sections of the country and that is the reason the eastern roads charge third class and the western first class. I think we can show you the classification that we carry freight much lower than the eastern lines and on commodities, I think from forty to fifty of them, grown largely in our country.

Mr. Hannaford: Is it not that the high tariff is on dry goods, if you please to put it, that we should have to put it on dry goods;

it is very good in figuring in the difference in the cost of a calico gown and a silk dress.

Mr. Wiley: Take ticking, for instance; you can make almost a cent a yard in the difference in the rates on that.

Mr. Hannaford: I stated the difference between first and third class from St. Paul to Grand Forks is a difference between 59 cents and 90 cents, or 31 cents, on the hundred pounds, and on cotton goods would scatter out pretty thick to the yard.

Mr. Wiley: The ticking would weigh almost one pound to the yard; it runs from six to fifteen ounces, and in sheeting and ticking it makes quite a little difference, so when we can't come in competition along those lines with points further east. They can sell the goods at prices that we pay for them to make the same money on them.

Mr. Hannaford: They have got to pay the same rates from St. Paul you do. In making your profit, in taxing up your profit you make it on the very same rate you do on your other goods.

Mr. Wiley: We usually add the freight and make the profit on the cost of the goods.

Mr. Hannaford: You get out a little further wost where the rates are a little higher you make the profit of 15 to 20 per cent. Mr. Wiley: We used to do that, but those times are gone. Mr. Hannaford: That is competition among yourselves.

Mr. Kleinogel: Why is it the rates from St. Paul on first class is 57 cents and the same distance out of Fargo and out of Grand Forks the first class rate is 63 cents; fourth class rate for the same distance out of Grand Forks is 32 cents and out of St. Paul is 27 cents; that is a difference of 5 cents a hundred? In the fifth class there is a difference of 10 cents a hundred; the rate from St. Paul for the same distance is 21 cents and the same distance in North Dakota is 31 cents.

Mr. Newman: That is not figured on the distance at all. We will take this case down in your own territory. From Fargo to Casselton is a short distance. The Great Northern applies its distance tariff to a station ten miles north of Casselton and ten miles south, for it has got to come around the triangle to reach it, for the farmers will go from their own station to Casselton the distance to do business, and we make the rate to get the business.

Mr. Lycan: Is not the rate out of St. Paul based on the mileage?

A. No.

Mr. Lycan: How do they then determine what the rates will apply at these points?

Mr. Newman: Circumstances which from time to time probably govern those rates to meet their rates, the same as the Omaha and Milwaukee.

Mr. Lycan: Suppose the Great Northern people should build a branch from Fargo west, they would have to have a basis to work on?

Mr. Newman: The distance tariff is applied jointly in your Grand Forks and Fargo distributing rates and not based on the distance tariff, but it is based on a compromise with your business men and the railroad men. The fourth class in is but little different except as he paid such cost of double handling them, so the comparison of those tariffs won't show anything at all.

Mr. Hannaford: It won't show that any more than to apply the same rule of custom. You don't get the same percentage of profit on all goods, you know. You started out to do that, so we started to make a distance tariff on everything and the conditions and circumstances brought forward from it changed some features of it.

Mr. Lycan: You may change the feature but not any other tariff.

Mr. Hannaford: No; if we did the tariff would stand relatively as it did on the start, and that won't suit. We would have to change every rate on the road of 4,500 miles of road, which we don't see how we can do.

Mr. Kleinogel: These two points I speak of, Nelson, on the Fergus Falls division of the Great Northern road, and Crystal, on the Northern division of the Great Northern road, are neither one, as I understand it, competitive points; they are both strictly local points.

Mr. Newman: There is only one point on the Great Northern where stations are four miles apart, one on one side of the river and the other one the other side of the river, equal distance from St. Paul, yet there is a difference of from two to five cents in rates. One division of the road the rates are made by state rates and the other the distance tariff.

You get as much as you can and for as little as possible. When the shorter lines come in you have to meet those rates, there ain't any question about that. Just as I explained to you a little while ago, in regard to the rates at or near Casselton, the farmers in that

section of the country put their grain in a wagon and take it to Casselton and the result is that Casselton gets the business.

Mr. Kleinogel: Fergus Falls is 180 miles from St. Paul and Churchs Ferry is 186 miles from Fargo. Your fourth class rate from St. Paul to Fergus Falls is 33 cents and from Fargo to Churchs Ferry is 38 cents. The fifth class rate from St. Paul to Fergus Falls is 26 cents and from Fargo to Churchs Ferry is 26 cents.

Mr. Hannaford: Have you any fifth class rates in carload lots? Mr. Kleinogel: I think there would be if the rates were such as we could ship. If the rates were the same practically we could bring the bulk to Fargo and reload carloads for many points, which we can't do at the present time with a discrimination of 10 cents a hundred. The same thing applies to Grand Forks. They would be glad to ship out and reload carloads from Fargo and Grand Forks if they could do it.

Mr. Lycan: If today we want to ship west of here on the Great Northern we have to ship them direct. We ship certain number of carloads. We ship oatmeal to Devils Lake. We ship from Des Moines, Iowa, to Devils Lake.

Mr. Newman: So the people of Chicago, they would have to make shipments direct in carload lots."

Mr. Lycan: St. Paul jobbers don't have to do that.

Mr. Newman: After the charges for loading and unloading were paid they might as well in the first place ship to the party. Mr. Hannaford: St. Paul jobbers had to ship in carload lots from Pittsburg through.

Mr. Newman: Still, when St. Paul has got the expenses of storage paid and the expenses of reloading into cars it would shut that out all over the United States.

Mr. Lycan: That is not a fact, because they do it. They remodel the specifications of the car and reship it.

Mr. Newman: On what class of goods?

A. Syrups and oatmeal.

Mr. Hannaford: That is where they bring a car of tomatoes from one place and a car of peaches from another and when in St. Paul they take out a few peaches and load in the tomatoes and reship as canned goods and make it fourth or fifth class goods. That is carrying it to the extreme to allow a merchant who wants a carload of freight of ten tons to bring everything and put it in a car and send it that way,

Mr. Lycan: You are getting outside of the classification.