ITMES OF INTEREST August 3, 1907 Issue

ITEMS OF INTEREST

Charges made by inventors, that the railway safety appliance companies have been purchasing all of the important inventions and suppressing many of them, are to be investigated. The Interstate Commerce Commission has been receiving complaints against the Eastern Railway Association, a name under which the railway safety appliance companies have formed an agreement for the alleged purpose of controlling the business of the country. It has been asserted that the Pullman Company has been a ready purchaser of every sleeping car device, and is the owner of thousands of patents which have never been used. By this scheme it has been able to keep the railroads out of the sleeping car business and hold a tight grip upon this traffic without making any improvements. The manufacturers, it is alleged, are not seeking to place the best and latest improvements upon the market, but are turning out appliances which will come within the law.

New interstate passenger rates between all points in Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and North and South Dakota became effective last week. This reduces all interstate passenger rates to the basis of two cents a mile, except in Wisconsin and the Dakotas, where the rates are based on two and one-half cents a mile. The law recently passed in Wisconsin, making the rate two cents a mile, will become effective Aug. 15, and rates to points in that State will then be further reduced.

The value of merchandise brought into the United States from foreign countries during the year ending June 30, 1907, was $1,434,000,000, an increase of more than $200,000,000 over the preceding year and more than double the total for the fiscal years 1898 or 1899.

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