quently their complaints result in a correction of the evil complained of without any investigation or order; for in minor matters, at least, the public and the railroad managements are not so far apart in their conception of what is right as is generally supposed, and the suggestion of the Board that complaint has been made, which for the first time directs superintendents' attention to the existence of the grievance, is promptly followed by its correction. It has been the policy of the Board to adjust all that was possible without formal hearings, and these have seldom been required except in cases where the law expressly provides for them, and a record of the finding is necessary. We have been afforded by the railroad officials every facility for conducting our investigations, and in every instance they have readily complied with our orders. A transcript of the records of the clerk, showing the finding in each case that has been formally determined, accompanies this report.

SPECIAL RATES.

Because many people buy railroad tickets where one pays a freight bill, the public measures the liberality of any railroad management more by its passenger rates and train service than by its freight tariff and accommodations, but the material prosperity of this State is much more dependent upon the facilities for shipping merchandise, and the charges for doing it, than upon what helps to make journeying cheap and easy. Every cut in fares is not a gain to the community. All our railroad lines except the Grand Trunk have their southern terminals in Massachusetts. All New Hampshire roads lead to Boston, and the growing tendency of the time is to make them channels through which much of the business that formerly engaged our men and money, and which legitimately belongs here, is poured into another commonwealth. To such an extent is this true that the cream of the retail

trade in many important lines goes from New Hampshire to Boston, carrying with it the profits of dealers, and leaving behind unemployed merchants and capital, without profiting purchasers in a pecuniary way.

There were sold in the year 1886 at Manchester 20,068 single-trip tickets to Boston, and at Concord 10,754, a total of 30,822 in these two cities, which do not embrace a sixth of the population of the State. As this does not include mileage and season tickets, which are generally used by business men and all who travel regularly or much, and as neither of these cities is a place from which many summer visitors go to Boston, it is not unreasonable to assume that nearly this number of trips were made by persons who went to that city to trade. These people put more than $100,000 into the railroad treasuries, left probably $20,000 with Boston landlords, and $500,000 or more with Boston merchants, all of which was at the expense of Manchester and Concord. The "half fare," which intensifies this condition, is not an unmixed benefit. It is popular, and swells the receipts of the roads, but it does not protect home enterprise. But a reduction of a dollar in a freight bill is always the saving of a dollar to the State. It leaves the farmer a dollar more for his potatoes, hay, or beef. It gives the manufacturer a dollar more for his product. It cheapens a dollar the coal and groceries bought with the mechanic's wages It is not a matter of vital importance that the people of New Hampshire should travel as much or more than they do, but the existence and prosperity of most of our industries depend upon freight rates and facilities. We can scarcely hope to retain what we have, much less to secure new ones, without a freight service which will largely discount the distance that divides us from the seacoast and commercial centers. Our water-powers are not the important factors they once were. Nearly one fourth of the motive power used in New Hampshire manufac

tories is steam, and this ratio is steadily increasing, while some of the best water-privileges remain unoccupied. The location of a manufactory is now determined more by the cost of getting supplies to it, and goods from it, than by the water-power offered it; and in every manufacturing village, coal for heating, the cost of which depends largely upon freight, is the necessary auxiliary of the water-wheel. Hon. Edward Atkinson, the most eminent authority in this country upon the subject, says of the value of water-power:

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"The larger and more costly of the water-powers which have been developed in New England and the Middle States during the last forty years, with a view to the sale of water-power and land connected therewith, have proved to possess no market value whatever. The writer, having been connected as an officer with several of these companies, may be considered a good witness. The waterpower of Lowell was the first one of the large powers developed upon New England rivers. The great profits of the company were made, first, in its machine-shop, in building machinery for the factories constructed in Lowell by substantially the same persons who owned the water-power; second, by charging these factories a very much higher rate per mill-power than would now be thought of or has since been attempted. The factories then constructed, with a few built since, have bought out the water-power company, and now own the power in connection with the factories. Nearly every one, if not every one, has been obliged to add a very large auxiliary steam-engine. Such is also the case on almost all the other streams, not so much because there has been a change in the rain-fall, but because the draining of the meadows and the cutting off the wood have rendered all the rivers of New England much more variable than they used to be. The corporation which owns the water-power at Manchester has been a very successful one, but the greater part of its profits has been made in its factories, and its land and waterpowers, taken as a separate investment, have never paid six per cent at simple interest upon their cost.

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The great water-powers at Holyoke, at Lewiston, at Indian Orchard, on the Chicopee River, on the Mohawk River, on the Kennebec at Augusta, were all sold to pay their debts, with a dead loss of the original capital.

"The writer happens to have been connected as the financial mana

ger with the water-power company on the Kennebec River in Maine, after it had been sold out; with the Cohoes Water-power Company, on the Mohawk River, before it was sold; with the Lewiston Waterpower Company at the time it was sold; and with the Indian Orchard Water-power Company subsequently to the sale, each possessing land and water-power for sale, and during the long period of his connection with these companies there never was a single application made by any person for the purchase or lease of a spoonful of water, except on the part of companies which were themselves promoted by the owners of the water-power for the purpose of attempting to develop the land connected therewith. It would, perhaps, be worth while to look into the present condition of the water-power at Augusta, Ga., and at Columbia, S. C.

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It may be said that water-power has never paid for its development on a large scale, and there is now less incentive to develop it, since steam power has become so cheap, than at the time when these enterprises were begun. If the factories which now exist at several of these places were now to be built, it is very certain that they would not be placed where they are, but at some intermediate point between the great commercial cities, where they could be operated by steam, reached at less expense for freight, and more readily supervised by the managers.

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It is not denied that water-power upon the small streams, where dams and canals can be built at moderate expense, is an extremely valuable adjunct to the factories placed thereby, and that water is essential, aside from power, in the manufacture of woolen goods and of paper; but it may nevertheless be said that water-power, developed for the purpose of its power only, is to-day practically without salable value in any degree approaching the cost of dams, canals, etc., if the expense be anything more than the excavation of a canal in easy ground, and the developing of very simple and inexpensive works connected therewith."

One of the leading manufacturers of the State has expressed the opinion that no water-power sixty miles from the sea-board is worth taking the gift of, for the manufacture of any kind of material brought from outside the State, the freight charges on raw material, other supplies, and product for that distance being more than enough to balance any advantage which water-power has over steam with coal at tide-water prices. This may be

doubted, but it will not be contended by any one that the value of an inland water-power is such that it can, in these days of sharp competition and close margins, be profitably utilized without cheap and prompt railroad service, or that high freights are not prohibitory of the many manufactures in which motive power is but a small item in the expense account.

Again, the natural attractions of our State as a summer resort can only be made to contribute as they should to our material progress by the erection of large and costly hotels and boarding-houses, and these are scarcely to be had unless owners, while erecting them and establishing a reputation for them, receive substantial encouragement from the railroads in the way of concessions on freight bills.

The logical conclusion from this is that the province of a New Hampshire railroad is creative as well as executive, and that its discriminations, if any, should be in freights in favor of those who establish the enterprises to which it must look for support. But it is otherwise written in our statutes. Chapter 163, sections 2 and 5, of the General Laws provides:

"SECT. 2. The rates shall be the same for all persons and for like descriptions of freight between the same points; such prices shall not be raised until after thirty days' notice posted as aforesaid. All persons shall have reasonable and equal terms, facilities, and accommodations for the transportation of themselves, their agents and servants, and of any merchandise and other property, upon any railroad owned or operated in this State, and for the use of the depot and other buildings and grounds of such corporation, and, at any point of intersection of two railroads, reasonable and equal terms and facilities of interchange."

"SECT. 5. Season tickets, by the quarter or other specified time, may be sold at reduced rates; and special rates may be established for passengers to attend agricultural fairs, public meetings, and parties of pleasure, and for military and other organized companies."

In this prohibition of discriminations, the exceptions,