Question. Take your own road as one of the leading railroads, what dividends do you pay ? Answer. We lease the road from Georgia, and pay them $300,000 a year rental, or $25,000 a month. Question. How much is that rental interest on the whole investment of the State? Answer. I am not able to tell you. I do not know that any one can tell what the whole investment was. It was done under political auministrations, and was a little more extravagantly done, no doubt, than it would have been by a prudent company. But I suppose that, taking the actual investment, it is probably from 5 to 6 per cent. upon what the State gave for the road. But that is rather a guess, for I do not know what the actual expenditure was, although I had control of it for eight years nearly, under a political administration. I never was able to look through and determine what my predecessors had spent upon it exactly. Question. The company now running the road is associated merely for the purpose of running it. Does your company own the equipment ? Answer. Yes, sir. We leased from the State of Georgia the road with all its equipments and the exclusive use of it for twenty years, paying them $300,000 per annum as a rental. Question. Do you supply the additional equipment as it is needed? Answer. Yes, sir; we have to supply everything. We have given a bond in $8,000,000 to return the road and its equipment in as good condition as we received it from the State, and pay $25,000 per annum rental. We have now had the road under that lease three years day after to-morrow; and we have not divided a dollar of dividends among the lessees. We found it in bad condition, and we have not been able from what we have made over the rental yet to put the road in as good condition as it ought to be. Question. You are adding to the equipment, I suppose, and putting your profits into that? Answer. Yes, sir. This year we have lost money pretty heavily, since April, on account of the panic. Question. You stated awhile ago that cotton was local freight? Question. Please state how cotton is transported from Atlanta, and where the market is. Answer. The markets of the world are open to Atlanta; but most of the cotton goes from here by way of the coast. For instance, it goes on the Central Road from here to Savannah, and it goes on the Georgia Road from here to Augusta, and thence to Charleston. Some of it goes the coast line from there; from here by way of Atlanta and Richmond Air-Line Road, lately opened, and a small portion of it goes West from here over our line. The most that we get comes by way of Dalton, and thence through East Tennessee. A small portion of it goes by way of Chattanooga and Nashville, going to the interior towns, as I heard Mr. Walker state, of New England. But that is a very small trade. That does not belong to the Green Line. This is only a local station of the Green Line, so to speak. I saw some very extravagant statements this morning in the paper attributed to Colonel Frobel, which doubtless do him injustice, in relation to our local freight, and I desire that our agent bring them in in order that they may be corrected. I could not correct them from memory. The local tariff of the Western and Atlantic Railroad Company, to take effect November 16, 1873, was here put in evidence by Governor Brown, and reads as follows: Local tariff, Western and Atlantic Railroad Company, to take effect November 16, 1873, and superseding that of March 7, 1871, and all local specials. Local tariff, Western and Atlantic Railroad Company, to take effect November 16, 1873, and superseding that of March 7, 1871, and all local specials-Cont'd. Pig, scrap iron, ores, sand, stone, brick, lumber, laths, shingles, bark, slate, marble, coal, coke, and lime, must be loaded by shipper and unloaded by consignee at destination, Stoves, hoop, sheet, and galvanized iron, will only be carried at the lower rates when shipped at owner's risk of breakage, or of damage by wet, and coal-oil only at the lower-class Glass, glass-ware, furniture, carriages, wooden-ware, liquids of all kinds, and other articles noted in classification "owner's risk," when taken at the rate indicated, are carried at Furniture, agricultural implements, and machinery, in car-loads, will be transported at the rates indicated only when the carriers are released from loss or damage arising from This corporation reserves the right to change any of the above rates, classes, or conditions, at their pleasure. By Mr. SHERMAN: Question. Are you able now, from your experience of three years, to give us the possibilities of carrying freight on the Chattanooga and Atlanta Road per ton per mile-I mean the net cost of carrying the freight per ton per mile exclusive of interest, including, however, the rental you pay. Answer. Do you mean the rate per ton that we can simply carry without making any profit-the actual cost of carrying? Question. Yes, sir; including the actual rental that you pay. Take into consideration the cost of fuel, labor, &c., at what rate per ton per mile, taking the through and local freight, and altogether can you carry from Atlanta to Chattanooga northward and southward freight? Answer. I could not tell you that without taking considerable time to make a calculation. We have no statistical table that shows it, and when you embrace all our through and all our local rates and put them together, to say what the whole of it can be carried at, and simply pay expenses and rental, I would not be able to do it. I can mention some articles, however. For instance, in the transportation of coal during the last summer, we carried it at a cent and a quarter per ton per mile. We are now carrying coal over the road for Port Royal, with a view to opening a coaling station there, at a cent per ton per mile; but I doubt whether it pays expenses. In fact, I do not think it does. Question. Where do you get the coal on your line of road? Answer. It is obtained at different points. There has been a great deal shipped into Georgia from East Tennessee from a place called Coal Creek and the mines about it. It is thirty miles from Knoxville, and toward the Cumberland Mountain. It is brought down the East Tennessee road to Dalton, and goes from there into Atlanta and is distributed in Georgia. Then the largest coal interest which has been operated is the Suwanee mines, on the Cumberland Mountains, on the Nashville and Chattanooga Road. The station is Cowan's station, beyond the Cumberland Mountain. There is a mine in the corner of this State which I am interested in. We ship down to the Nashville and Chattanooga Road twenty miles beyond Chattanooga. Then there are two smaller mines being worked. These are the points from which the coal is mainly brought into Georgia. There is a little anthracite brought from Pennsylvania, I believe. But that is very limited. It might be proper that I should state in reference to coal, when I said that we were transporting at a cent a ton a mile across to the coast, that that is a through rate. Our local winter rates are higher than either I have mentioned, for the reason that we are very much crowded in winter when there is anything of a business doing, for our freights are compressed in the main into four or five months; and the balance is a very dull time. During that period the coal is burdensome to us, and if shippers require it brought during that time we charge a higher rate than in the summer. Question. How does the pay of your employés compare with the pay of employés on northern roads? Answer. I do not know that I can give you the comparison. I do not know what they charge there. We pay our best engineers $4 a day; we pay our machinists, who are good ones, about $3.50 a day now in the shop. Our mechanics get a little less than that. However, at this time, on account of our low freight, we have not been working on full time. We pay a freight conductor, say, $80 a month, and a passengerconductor from $85 to $100. Night-conductors receive $100 a month. Question. What do you pay for common labor? Auswer. During the summer season we have paid for track-hands, in keeping up the repairs of the track, $1.25 per day; and we are now, in the winter, only paying $1 a day. The days are short, and they cannot be of very much service. We pay $1.25 for what is called train-hands or brakesmen. By Mr. NORWOOD: Question. Do these laborers find themselves? Answer. Yes, sir. We had a system of meal-tickets which we found them in till lately, but have been obliged to cut them off and raise their wages a little without meal-tickets. The statement I have just made is upon the present basis, without meals. By Mr. WEST : Question. What did you pay them when you gave them meal tickets? Answer. We have never given meal-tickets to the track-hands. They always find themselves. Those connected with the running of the trains receive a little less than they do now. For instance, a freightconductor received $75 a month then, with meals, and he now receives 880 without meals. Question. How about the train-hand, who gets now $1.25 a day? Answer. He received a dollar a day with his meals. We have only made that change within about a month past, and that under a financial pressure which compelled us to reduce expenses to enable us to pay the rental. By Mr. DAVIS: Question. What are your working expenses; the percentage? Answer. I cannot tell that exactly at this moment, without having the report with me. It is some 68 or 69 per cent., I think. I will say 68 to 70 per cent. I cannot be accurate to a fraction, speaking from recollection. By Mr. SHERMAN : Question. That does not include the rental? Answer. No, sir; that is actual working expense. In that of course I include all expenses. Many of the railroad reports are made up of ordinary and extraordinary expenses; and there is a good deal of humbug about it, as you are aware. By the CHAIRMAN: Question. In settling for use of the cars, I understood Mr. Walker to say that your former car-mileage allowed had been 14 cents per mile, and that it is now 2 cents. Suppose your road, which is one hundred and thirty-eight miles long, sends a car throughout the entire length of the Green Line, from Saint Louis to Savannah, you are allowed now 2 cents a mile for the use of that car over all the balance of the roads, except your own? Answer. That car gets mileage everywhere she runs, and so do all the cars over our own road, as well as over any others, for the reason that she does not belong to our road exclusively. She draws her mileage. So does the Iron Mountain Road car, and every other. Question. Do you not regard that as more profitable than the business done on your own road? Answer. Much more profitable. If we could put in our cars and run them all the time we would like it, and make more profit; but one |