Highways and Highway TransportationChatburn, George R.
History
Highways and Highway Transportation
Chatburn, George R.
Roads; Transportation
To make a workable contract of this sort there would first have to
be an agreement as to the corporation capital upon which earning
percentages are to be based. If this could be made equal to the real
investment it would be absolutely just to both the public and the
corporation. However, the so-called unearned increment would in some
cases have to be considered. Publicity in accounting, capitalization,
bonded indebtedness and earnings, and the feeling engendered that the
public is in a sense a co-partner with the corporation would add to
more harmonious relations between the two.
Similar contracts might be arranged between bus lines and the city,
or between bus lines and the state where rural roads are used, and
between railroad and other transportation corporations and the Federal
Government for interstate lines.
Objection may be raised to this plan on the ground that it violates
usury laws. Nearly every state in the Union provides by law for a
maximum rate of interest. Laws of this kind have existed almost since
the beginning of history and are so imbedded in the minds of the people
that they believe 6 or 7 per cent is all a public service corporation
should be allowed to make on its investment, when as a matter of fact
all sorts of private businesses are making profits many times that
amount without hindrance by law or public sentiment. People who risk
money in adventures which are in general for the good of the public
should be allowed returns fully as high as those suggested, even though
they do go beyond the customary 7 percent. Whatever the right figures
are careful accounting and publicity will have a tendency to establish,
and once established they ought to be as stable and permanent as life
insurance rates and thus encourage the investment of funds in such
enterprises.
=Legitimate Fields of Transportation Agencies.=--Agreeing, then,
that the present systems of transportation should not be put out of
business by less efficient ones, what seems to be the most feasible
interrelations that will allow all of them to live and let live?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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