The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-02-22
flew, ar. worth attention. said The


 views are worth attention. Said The Post:
 .sThe railroads are not managed justly as between man and man or locality and locality. They give th,s shipper e secret rebate and refuse II to another. Differentials are estap- lished affecting this city or that port not on grounds of public intersss which can be publicly stated, but TOT concealed and often suspicious motives Here are, indeed, great abuses 10 pc corrected, if possible; but is 1t necessa- ", or desirable, to make the long Jump which the President does, and demand for a federal commission the power over ratesT He urges It Wi.n the object of putting the pig shipper and the little shipper on an equal footing:' to do away wlth re- bates, however disguised, and to aDoi- , ish discrimination of all kinds. But 1t is at least a fair question whether the government has not already In It's hands the needed weapons, and wheth- CT vigorous use of them should not be made before appealing for others. Certain it is, that if existing statutes could be stringently enforced, and ap- piled with as much severity as the Supreme Court has just shown In the case of the beef trust, the inJustices of which the President properly com plains would be cured.
 'TIe asks for an instrument to strike down secret rebates. But they are outlawed by the act of February 4, 1887. Section of the Interstate Com merce act describes them in detail and declares them all unlawful. Appro- priate penalties are prescribed further on. The President is incensed at the 'preferences' and 'discriminations' which the railroads make in favor of persons or localities they are all de- clared illegal in the act of 1887. And the so-called Elkfns bill, approved February 19, 1903. strengthens the original law in important respects-de- fining the offense more precisely, mak- ing the collection of evidence easier and judicial process swifter and surer. Why not, we repeat. exhaust the power of these existing laws before resorting to measures which may not be necessary, and which certainly would entail a train of consequences of which 1t is impossible to foresee the end? One reason offered is the laws delay. It takes so long to get these cases into courts But the pro- posed remedy itself would surely be tied up in the courts for three years or so. It involves the gravest constitu- | tional questions, and they would have to be threshed out in the courts before a single step could be taken"
 If existing laws are sufficient to rem edy the redress the evils of rebates and discriminating differentials. and this seems to be the case. there should be no need of further legislation, de- spite the fever of popular demand on the subject. But there is another phase of the question. which is of vital i'm portance to the people of the Missis- sippi Valley, and particularly to the Southern States.
 The Picayune has given considerable attention to the active and most inter estlng competition between the rail- roads hauling eastward from the grain | fields of the West to Atlantic ports, and those carrying southward from those centers to Gulf ports. This compari- | son has gone to the extent of being called a grain rate war between the l eastward and southward railroads. and
 so signally has the advantage been with the southward roads and the Gulf ports that bitter complaints have been
 made in New York of the consequent diversion of trade.
 It should be remembered that all the
 railroads of the country are virtually
 controlled by Wall Street interests, and | these are being loudly voiced in pro-
 tests and demands that the railroads shall not be used to divert export grain i from New York. Yesterday in New
 York City a meeting of persons inter-
 ested in the Eastern grain trade was held at the New York Produce Ex- change. when resolutions were adopted,
 among which were the following:
 That, whereas, interests vital to the existence of the grain business in the
 Middle Western markets and the Att