As the purchase of raw material tends toward the prosperity of the region where it is produced, as the operation of a factory tends to the increase of population, to appreciation in the value of real estate and the augmentation of business at the place of its location, so also does the growth of a wholesale business or of a retail business aid in the development of its surroundings. Producers, manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers naturally all desire to extend their sales, to reach further markets in competition with their rivals, and are supported in this desire by the communities to whose welfare they contribute. Any difference in freight rates that gives a producer of raw material, a manufacturer, a wholesale distributer, or a retail merchant an advantage over a competitor of another locality is therefore promptly made the subject of complaint. The pressure brought upon the railroads by such competing producers, manufacturers and dealers has been a very important factor in the development of certain arrangements of freight rates, which we shall term the Regional Rate Structures, each of which has grown out of the various characteristics of a traffic region and has become adapted to those characteristics. Other arrangements of freight rates which have grown out of the needs entailed by the production and marketing of certain of the principal articles entering into commerce we shall designate as the Commodity Rate Structures. (End of Chapter VI.) THE FREIGHT RATE PRIMER Adapted from the Illustrated Pamphlet, So Entitled. Issued by the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad Company. THE A. B. C. OF THE MATTER. "There has been much wild talk as to the extent of the over-capitalization of our railroads. The census reports on the commercial value of the railroads of the country, together with the reports made to the Interstate Commerce Commission by the railroads on their cost of construction, tend to show that, as a whole, the railroad property of the country is worth as much as the securities representing it, and that, in the consensus of opinion of investors, the total value of stock and bonds is greater than their total face value, notwithstanding the 'water' that has been injected in particular places. The huge value of terminals, the immense expenditures in recent years in double-tracking and improving grades, roadbeds and structures, have brought the total investments to a point where the opinion that the real value is greater than the face value is probably true." (From President Roosevelt's Decoration-Day address at Indianapolis, May 30, 1907.) THE X. Y. Z. OF THE SITUATION.