The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-05-28
BIG DEPARTMENT STORE
LEGALIZATION OF POOLS
MIR. BLANCHARD GIVES REASONS
WHY 1T SHOULD BE DONE,
And in Support of His Position cites
Experience of Europeans in Deal
ing with the Problem.

To the Editor of the indianapolis Journal:
English public railway policy was best
stated by the royal commission of 1867
which inquired into the charges rates and
tolls of British railways thus: I'VE are of
the opinion that a sound principle to act on
in the matter of working and traffic agree
ments between railway companies is &c
allow any companies to enter into then
without reference to any tribunal, upon tht
sole condition that the particulars should
be made public in the locality and that
they should be terminabe by either party
at the expiration of limited periods. If any
such agreement contained anything con-
trary to the rights of the public the Court
of Common Pleas should have power of
setting it aside at the instance of the Board
of Trade"
Railway Rates, English and Foreign"
by j. Grierson manager of the Great West
ern Railway Nondon, 1850, said: Agree
ments for the division of traffic. or for
pooling, as they are termed in the United
States and Canada, are not unknown in
this country. Some have been sanctioned
by Parliament, others have been made be-
tween companies without any express par
liamentary authority, and have been car
ried out. Mr.. Gladstone made in 1851, an
award apportioning for five years the re-
ceipts for traffic carried between London.
York, Leeds, Sheffield, etc, between the
Great Northern and London & Northwest
ern and Midland Railways. In 1857 he made
a further award determining, for four
teen years, the proportions in which
the proceeds from passenger and goods
traffic between the same and other places
were to be divided between those compa-
MES and the Manchester Company"
THE Working and Management of an
English Railway" QS9D, by George Find
lay, manager of the London 81 Northwest
ern Company, said: There is another plan
which railways sometimes adopt which is
known as percentage division of traffic -
and which is carried out in the following
manner:
"Supposing that there is a certain traffic
to be conveyed between two towns or dis
trictS, and that there are two or more rail-
way companies, each having a route of it's
own by which it is enabled to compete for
the traffic. An agreement is come to and
the receipts derived from the whole of the
traffic carried by all routes shall be thrown
into a common fund and that each COM
pany shall be entitled to a certain per-
centage of the whole. The percentages are
usually adjusted on the basis of past actual
carvings"
THE Railways and Traders by w. M.
AcWorth (London 1891, said: Companies
have combined and do combine every day,
but for all that they have competed, do
compete. and, as far as We can see at pres
emit are likely to continue to compete to
the end of the chapter. Will any Lanca-
shire trader go into the witness box and de-
clare that the Lancashire & Yorkshire and
the Northwestern never make any attempt
to get hold of each others traffic? And
yet all the world knows that from time
whereof the memory of man runneth not
to the contrary these two companies have
agreed to divide the traffic at competitive
points
FIGHT THE HARDEST.
He further said: 1.-The much discussed
continental agreement between the South
Eastern and the Chatham & Dover which
settles the proportions in which the two
companies are to share the receipts for all
traffic to the continent passing over their
lines is solemnly scheduled to an act of
Parliament and has been judcally con-
sidered by every court in the country up to
and including the House of Lords. Yet is
it not a matter of common knowledge that
the South Eastern and the Chatham each
fight their hardest to divert the stream of
traffic from the rival line?
prominent case of Hare VS.. l.. & n
w. Railway Company grew out OF the fact
that independent conterminous routes
agreed TO divide the profits of the whole
traffic in certain fiXed proportions calcu-
lated on the experience of past course of
traffic 1t was held that such an agree
ment being bona fide, was not ultra wires. -
Wood. on Railroad Nondon, 1880, said of
this case: "a shareholder applied though
after several years of acquiescence, for an
Injunction to restrain the companies from
carrying out the agreement. The applica-
ton was refused. The vice chancellor con-
sidered not only that on principle such an
arrangement was legal, there being moth
ing perjudicial to either the shareholders
or the public, but also that he was con-
Guided by the judgment Of Lord Cottenham,
of the Court of the Queens Bench, in the
Shrewsbury case.
The same authority said generally: I'm
England II is held that pooling contracts
or arrangements between competing roads,
by which they agree TO divide their joint
earnings upon certain classes of business,
or even their entire earnings, are legal and
valid, where il does not appear that the
interests of the shareholders or the public
are prejudiced thereby"
The "Mogul Steamship Company Q4im-
iteD VS.. McGregor Cow & Co. ct AL .
grew out of a contract limiting the num-
Der of ships TO be run in a certain service.