The Birmingham age-herald., 1905-12-25
COURTS SHOW VALUE OF
 CONSERVATISM OF RATES

Boston, December 2i-(Special)-Prof. Hugo R. Meyer of the University of Chi cago addressed the Commercial club of Boston last night on the subject of gov ernment made railroad rates Professor Meyer contrasted the conservative rulings of the federal courts in the past in de- cisions affecting railway rates and prac- tices with the decisions of the interstate commerce commission, decisions, he said, which had not the courts exerted wise restraining influence on this body, would have entirely disrupted the fabric of na- tional commerce. Professor Meyer said in part:
 For eighteen years we have had in force the act to regulate commerce, which forbds not all discrimination, but only undue and unjust discrimination. Under that statute the federal courts have sus- tained every great American railway rate practice brought before them for adjudica- tion and the characteristic feature of those practices is discrimination. intelli- gent and honest, made for the purpose of meeting the needs of trade and indus try.
 ne IeueTdl tOuIlS nave CoilSti ucu tiS act to regulate commerce. and have weighed the evidence in cases brought before them under that act. in accordance with the assumption that commerce in it's largest sense. must be deemed to be one of the most important subjects of legis- lation; and an intention to promote and facilitate it. and not to hamper or de- stroy 1t. is naturally attributed to Con gress. The very terms of the statute, that charges must be reasonable, that dis crimnation must not be unjust and that preference or advantage to any par ticular person, firm, corporation Or local ity must not be undue of Unreasonable, necessarily imply that strict uniformity is not to be enforced, but that all cir cumstances and conditions which reason- able men would regard as affecting the welfare of the carrying companies, and Of the producers, shippers and consumers, should be considered by a tribunal ap- pointed to carry into effect and enforce the provisions of the act Q62 |. s. 21S). The mere circumstances that there is, in given case a preference or an advan- tage does not of itself show that such preference or advantage is undue or un- reasonable within the meaning of the act (Id.. 22O). When tested and weighed by that statesman-like principle, our hetero- geneous mass of railway rates turns out
 
 reasonable rates. That is the meaning of the fact that our federal courts have re- versed the interstate commerce commis- sion in thirty-two out of thirty-five eases in which the federal courts have passed upon the lawfulness of the orders in which the interstate commerce commission had condemned existing rates
 "Diametrically opposed to the states manllke spirit in which the federal courts have construed the act to regulate com merce and have weighed the evidence in suits brought under that act have been the principles by which the interstate commerce commission has sought to con true that act and weighed the evidence,
 Of one of the orders made by the com mission, under the influence of those the ories, the supreme court has said The general orders made by the com mission, instead of being regulation cal culated to promote and enforce the ex- pressed provisions of the act. are them selves laws of wide import. destroying some branches of commerce that nave long existed. and undertaking to change the laws and customs of transportation Tn the promotion of what is supposed 10 be public policy O12 U. s. 2S4)
 .'The statement of the supreme court that the commissions orders mad been laws of wide import, destroying some branches of commerce that have long ex- isted' brings home to us the tremendous significance of the fact that the prescrib- ing of A railway rate is legislative func- tion That the body endowed with the power to fix a railway rate to be substi- tuted for the rate that has been found unlawful, is in fact, deputy congress free to make and unmake the public policy as well as the law of the land. The fact that such a deputy congress is called an interstate commerce momission and that 1t passes for an administrative body does not abate one title its power.
 That no government. and no govern