The Rake-Off on the Scales

Mount Vernon, May 4.

To the Editor: In the article appearing in your paper relative to the recently passed bill, the tenor is that the shingle and lumber manufacturers alone will suffer the expense of having said lumber and shingles weighed. It is not so that the railroads are authorized to add this cost to the freight charges, which really means that the manufacturers will have to pay the additional cost. If the enrolled bill is referred to, it will be seen that the railroads pay unconditionally.

It is also stated in the article that the bill will not benefit either the "shippers" or manufacturers. I admit that it will not benefit the "shippers," as that was one of the prime objects of the bill, but it will benefit the manufacturers. I have been engaged in the manufacture of shingles on Puget Sound for the last three years, and know that shingles have been shipped time and time again through "shippers" when the underweights on a car would amount from $5 to $25, and the shippers invariably claim and hold this. In fact, the manufacturer seldom knows anything of it, for he never sees the returns, and the railroads have never furnished him with weights. Generally in the returns he gets from the "shipper" he is charged from $5 to $20 per car overweights, and whether or not he has been defrauded by the railroads or "shippers," he has never had a chance to know, and never will until this law goes into effect.

I do not see the name of a single shingle manufacturer alluded to in the article, but simply the railroad men and "shippers," who are so kind as to speak for the manufacturers. Of course, the "shippers" are opposed to the law, as it forces them to give just returns, and does away with the "rake-offs" they have been growing rich on, while the mills have been struggling for an existence.

SHINGLE MANUFACTURER.