to the social
value, makes personally less than ten per cent. Suppose, in
fact, to make the thing still clearer, that the railroad should
raise its price to twenty- five centimes, the rate by the old
method remaining at eighteen; it would lose immediately all its
consignments; shippers, consignees, everybody would return to the
stage-wagon, if necessary. The locomotive would be abandoned; a
social advantage of four hundred per cent. would be sacrificed to
a private loss of thirty-three per cent.
The reason of this is easily seen. The advantage which results
from the rapidity of the railroad is wholly social, and each
individual participates in it only in a very slight degree (do
not forget that we are speaking now only of the transportation of
merchandise); while the loss falls directly and personally on the
consumer. A special profit of four hundred per cent. in a
society composed of say a million of men represents four
ten-thousandths for each individual; while a loss to the consumer
of thirty-three per cent.
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