The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1906-10-01
INTERSTATE COMMERCE
MATTERS

MATTERS.
Numerous applicants for relief at the
hands of the Interstate Commerce
Commission are sure to be disappoint-
| ed during the next six or eight
months. The commissioners are fully
aware Of this prospect. They are COM
paratiVely well along with their work.
| Only about eighty cases We're left over
from the old commission. There is
really little to do but take I'D the
problems that arise out of the new
railroad rate law.
But preliminary matters are requir-
ing so much of the commissions time
that none of its members yet under
take to suggest the date when it will
be conducting Investigations into COM
plants of shippers and issuing orders
| to fix rates. 1t may be a year or more
before any decision of Importance in
rate fixing is made. The commission
will probably be quite as deliberate as
a high court and will not speed its
final word on rate controversies more
than courts are accustomed to do IN
important suits.
The commission is already adopting
plans for it's work, much like the
courts. The work is being systematic
ed. The commissioners expect to have
consultation. and regular days for
hearings. Heretofore the commission
ers have pursued go-as-you-plea
policy. Each commissioner has been
very much law unto himself and the
public business has suffered by absen-
teeism and lack of understanding
when pending matters were to be TAX
en- up and disposed of. The work was
done spasmodically. It is proposed
now to have a concentration and CO.
ordination of efforts and likewise to
give less time to callers who want to
talk about cases The representations
of various interested parties VIII be
confined to written papers and to the
formal hearings, all of which 1t IS
hoped to make public.
! The commission is now entering upon
vast amount of work, quite outside
the rate law, which will consume much
of its time for the next three or four
months. Most of this is work that
Congress directed should be done-the
continued investigation of the connec-
ton between the railroads and the
operation of coal mines and oil fields;
an inquiry into the management OF
grain elevators; and an investigation
of automatic safety devices on rail-
roads. The rate law provision that
Ta1lrOaQS SnOutQ not OWh cod1 JANUS
and oil fields after May l. 1908, seems
to forestaH any recommendation the
commission may make under the Till
man-Gillespie resolution, but it is pro-
ceeding to investigate none the less
and hundreds of subpoenas are being
prepared for witnesses in Kansas and
Colorado. Over six thousand circular
letters have been sent out from the
commission within the last two weeks
asking for information about the va
rioIls inquiries the commission now has
in hand. The investigation of automa-
tic devices would be made almost world
wide in scope under the language of
the resolution of Congress. and a re-
port is required by the time Congress
convenes next December.
No steps have yet been taken to-
wards sending men into the field to
forward investigation of complaints
against railroads. Probably none will
be sent for several months. Every
available clerk the commission now
has or is authorized to employ under
the rate law will be needed on other
work. Congress directed that a com
pilation of national. state, and local
commercial bodies be made; also
similar publication of agricultural
bodies. That involves communication
with nearly every postmaster in the
country and means a large tax upon
the commissions clerical force.
Unless the unexpected happens, there
will be no final test of the rate law
in the courts for two or three years.
The railroads are showing little dis
position to resist the orders of the
commission. so far as it has discretion
to issue orders, such as in the fling
of tariffs It will hardly decide COM
plants of unreasonable rates several
of which are now pending, before next
spring, probably no important cases
requiring long investigation, before
next autumn.
ERNEST G. WALKER.