| Summary: | Grain Men Fight R. R. Rate Shift: Object To Cut From Midwest Points To South—Northwest Hit. Grain Men Fight R. R. Rate Shift. Object To Cut From Midwest Points To South—Northwest Hit. PORTLAND, Ore., Dec. 30. (AP)— The grain trade of the Pacific northwest offered a united front today against proposed railroad rate changes in the south Atlantic states. Millers, farmers, manufacturers, shippers, water carriers, Oregon and Washington state departments of agriculture and the Portland, Seattle and Tacoma port and dock commissions voted to set up a program to counteract the suggested increases. R. D. Lytle, secretary of the North Pacific Millers' association, said the changes would lower freight costs from Ohio and Mississippi river gateways from 2 to 12 1/2 cents a 100 pounds to interior points, provide a fourth sectional rate of 30 cents from these gateways to Atlantic and Gulf coast ports and increase rates from Atlantic and Gulf ports 2 to 16 1/2 cents a 100 pounds to the interior. The program approved by the meeting did not attack the reductions from the Ohio and Mississippi gateways but asked the interstate commerce commission that these be made available in the opposite direction, thus giving Pacific northwest grain shippers the same opportunity to serve interior points as the midwest, spokesmen contended. Lytle said the 30-cent fourth sectional rate was intended to give Ohio and Mississippi shippers a parity with the rate of northwest shippers through the Panama canal. Actually, he asserted, this would provide the Ohio-Mississippi group with a lower rate because wharfage and handling charges increase the costs of the northwest shipper about 8 cents.
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