CHAPTER XIV THE RATE SYSTEM OF THE CENTRAL PACIFIC City and Country in California For more than forty years the Southern Pacific interests sought with varying success to modify the intensity of water competition by agreement with or by purchase of competing lines. During all this period the existence of alternative water routes was probably the principal influence determining the relative adjustment of rates between different towns upon the Pacific Coast. In deciding upon the rates which they should charge, the Southern Pacific interests had other factors to consider, however, besides the presence of water competition—factors which can be understood only after a careful study of local conditions in the Far West. The state of California is characteristically a country of great distances, occupied by a relatively sparse and unequally distributed population. Its industry is primarily agricultural and mining. Although some manufactures have developed since 1870, such as foundries, woolen and sugar mills, glass, paper, cordage, powder, tobacco, tin, and hardware manufacturing concerns, yet even today the absence of adequate supplies of good coal, the smallness of the local market, and the distance from the great centers of population in the East hold manufactures within narrow limits. As explained in the previous chapter, the state is best fitted to produce and export products of the soil, and raw materials such as grain, fruit, wool, hides, and later wines, lumber, and oil. To this list should also be added salmon. In such an economy, the cities of California play the part of distributing agencies rather than that of centers of industry. Such was the first function of Stockton, Sacramento, Los Angeles, and indeed of San Francisco itself, and the work of distribution still remains these cities’ principal means of support. Originally the chief profit of the northern towns came from supplying the mining population of the Sierras with supplies brought by sea from Europe or from the Atlantic Coast of the United States. The nature of California imports has somewhat changed since the early days; a larger commerce with the Orient and with the west coast of South America has developed, and a large part of the freight handled on the Pacific Coast now comes in by rail. This has multiplied the number of distributing points, and has to some degree built up the interior of the state. The character of the cities has not, however, changed and they remain as before—trading and consuming rather than producing centers. Conflict of Interest