=Avoiding Waste.=--Such methods of cheapening and bettering railroad transportation together with a lowering of rates generally to a point that the traffic can bear, and the adoption of managerial methods that will lessen avoidable wastes, which the railroad unions estimate at one billion dollars per year,[165] may eventuate in a rehabilitation and stabilization of the railway industry. The taking over by motor trucks of short-haul freight and passenger traffic, even though it cause the discontinuation of unprofitable branch lines may prove to roads but a pruning which will be beneficial and inure to the growth of the main trunk and remaining healthy branches. William H. Manse, a member of the Congressional Joint Commission of Agricultural Inquiry,[166] has called attention to another economic waste. He states that “city freight houses were established when team hauling was the only hauling.” These now are the cause of much congestion because of the delivery there of tremendous amounts of less-than-carload freight. The loading and unloading tracks being limited much of the freight must pass through the depot necessitating double handling. Again, in the large cities a considerable percentage of land in the business section, stated to be from 25 to 30 in Chicago, is occupied by the railroads for tracks, road and station purposes. This land is worth from $10 to $50 a square foot, and if freight cars stand upon it intermittently for the receipt and discharge of l.c.l. freight, it is not earning continuously but, on the other hand, it is spending every minute in interest, taxes and maintenance. With demountable containers, which are described in Chapter VII, and the motor truck, and with concerted action of the railroads, much of this high-value land could be given over to other business and cheaper land farther out purchased for trackage. Enough has been said to intimate a firm belief that the railways as purveyors of secondary transportation will persist. On economic grounds if for no other reason, for no cheaper method of transportation, except by water, has been devised; and secondary transportation over canals and rivers ought, for the good of the country, to be revived. There is a large class of freight that could with proper management travel at a slow rate of speed without any detriment or inconvenience whatsoever to the public.