For the sake of simplicity in the argument on this great point, we will first look at what the facts are through recent illustrations gathered by other parties for a wholly different purpose, and then give in detail the economical grounds for these patent and universal facts. Take for example, from Poor's Railroad Manual for 1889 a table showing in a graphic way the steady reduction in freight charges per ton per mile from 1865 to 1888 of seven representative Eastern trunk railroad lines, namely, the Pennsylvania, Fort Wayne and Chicago, New York Central, Michigan Central, Lake Shore, Boston and Albany, and Lake Erie and Western; and of six leading Western roads, namely, the Illinois Central, St. Paul, Burlington and Quincy, Chicago and Northwestern, Rock Island, and Chicago and Alton. The following are the figures:-- RATE CHARGES PER TON PER MILE (IN CENTS). +------+----------+----------++------+----------+----------+ | Year.| Eastern. | Western. || Year.| Eastern. | Western. | +------+----------+----------++------+----------+----------+ | 1865 | 2.900 | 3.642 || 1877 | .971 | 1.664 | | 1866 | 2.503 | 3.459 || 1878 | .898 | 1.476 | | 1867 | 2.305 | 3.175 || 1879 | .764 | 1.279 | | 1868 | 2.132 | 3.151 || 1880 | .869 | 1.389 | | 1869 | 1.860 | 3.026 || 1881 | .763 | 1.405 | | 1870 | 1.593 | 2.423 || 1882 | .756 | 1.364 | | 1871 | 1.478 | 2.509 || 1883 | .829 | 1.310 | | 1872 | 1.504 | 2.324 || 1884 | .740 | 1.220 | | 1873 | 1.476 | 2.188 || 1885 | .636 | 1.158 | | 1874 | 1.332 | 2.160 || 1886 | .711 | 1.111 | | 1875 | 1.161 | 1.979 || 1887 | .718 | 1.014 | | 1876 | .985 | 1.877 || 1888 | .609 | .934 | +------+----------+----------++------+----------+----------+ This reduction of rates in the case of the group of Eastern roads has amounted to 79 _per centum_, and in the Western group to 73 _per centum_, in the twenty-four years. Not less remarkable than the extent of this decline in freight charges per mile is its uniformity. Both groups show a wonderful steadiness in the progress of rate reductions. Starting at quite different points as to territorial development, they have yet travelled at a nearly equal pace in the same direction. This shows the operation of causes at once steady and universal. Statistics can never of themselves yield us _causes_; but they guide the way to them; at any rate, they prevent any radical misinterpretation of them. The great and overshadowing cause here of the cheaper freights per ton, as everywhere else of cheaper rates at the junction of efforts by capitalists and laborers, is of course the perpetual and augmenting and ever-gratuitous assistance of natural forces at every point.